MSI K8N Diamond Plus @ t-break
t-break :: Friday, January 20, 2006
The original Diamond board was one of the first, if not the first motherboard to utilize the Creative Sound Blaster Live audio controller onboard. Continuing with that tradition, MSI equips the Diamond Plus with an Audigy controller- again a first for a board to hit our labs. Sound quality is further enhanced with the usage of the Cooler Master Musketeer III that uses the vacuum tube technology to filter the sound. Unfortunately, the vacuum tube only provides filtering for two channels- a bummer if you’re planning on using a four, six or eight speaker system.
Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT PC4000 DDR500 Memory Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“The modules take on a different approach from XMS Pro Series where Corsair concentrated on the XMS aluminum heatsinks and integration of activity LED’s. The package consists of two 1024MB memory modules which have been implemented using 64M x 8 DDR SDRAM chips. The TwinX2048-4000PT designation of this particular package is suited to run on dual channel supported motherboards at DDR500 with a latency setting of 3-4-4-8 and voltage rating of 2.75V.”
Scythe Ninja CPU Cooler @ Viper lair
ViperLair :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“The Scythe Ninja is a solid and good performing cooler that will do the job for all CPUs. You will need to pick up a fan for anything faster than an Athlon 3200+ or P4 3.0 GHz. Those building lower powered HTPC type rigs will want to give this a look so long as your case has a clearance of at least 6 inches.”
High Watt Power Supplies Ready for 2006 @ CoolTechZone.com
CoolTechZone :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“Ever since NVIDIA’s SLI debuted, we’ve been hearing about high powered power supplies, which were supposed to have surpass the 700W+ limit in order to support the power hungry SLI setup, but as we found out, all of such news had no merit.”
Evercool STC-01
Overclockers Online :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Quote: After an interesting battle among the thermal interface gladiators, we have a verdict. Evercool has earned its place in the thermal interface market. Though not the best performer, the Sidewinder STC-01 is hardly a loser. It sports decent performance and could be a good alternative for thermal compounds bundled with coolers such as the Titan Nano Silver. In all, if there is one thing that the Evercool Sidewinder STC-01 represents, it’s value. Altogether, it is a solid product with great potential.
Compro Videomate X50 TV Tuner Card Review @ PC Modding Malaysia
PC Modding Malaysia :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Content: “Overall, the Compro VideoMate X50 is a good value card with many great features which cannot be found at other value TV tuner/capture cards. The price for Compro VideoMate X50 is around USD48 / RM180 so you might consider it if you are planning to get a Tv tuner/capture card soon.”
Beginners Guides: Converting Videotape Into Video Files
PCStats :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“As you may have noticed, the VCR is a dying technology. DVD players are now equivalent in price, and their disks have practically crowded VHS tapes right off the shelves of your neighborhood video store. Give it another three years and you may be hard pressed to find a new release on tape. So what happens when your VCR finally breaks? In this PCstats Guide, we’ll provide some simple guidelines to converting your old videotapes into video clips that you can store on your computer, or send around to friends and family. Once you have converted your old videotapes into the new digital format, you have several options open to choose from. You can store your flicks on the hard drive indefinitely, or place them on a recordable CD-R/RW for storage.”
5 Tips for Buying a Laptop
Laptop Gamers :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Considering how much the laptop has improved over the past couple years, it’s no wonder that so many people are considering buying a laptop, or have already done so. There are several things to consider when buying a laptop as there is more variety available when it comes to laptops than there is with desktop computers. This article provides 5 simple tips you should ask yourself before making your laptop investment.
picoPSU-120 12V DC-DC ATX Power Supply
Big Bruin :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Quote: The picoPSU has received a good deal of attention since it was shown off at CES just a few weeks ago. Pictures of the tiny 120W unit have been featured on numerous websites, but what about the performance? Testing revealed that the “world’s tiniest 12V DC-DC ATX power supply unit” is no weakling, and that it can provide ample power to keep a Mini-ITX system running reliably.
Reading Sales Droids
Futurelooks :: Friday, January 20, 2006
As many advantages as online computer-buying has, there are equal advantages to buying in a bricks-and-mortar store. But how to navigate the sharky waters of sleazy salespeople? Gareth Branwyn has some advice for buying your computer in “meat-space.”
CES 2006 Main Show Floor – Part II
The Tech Lounge :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“In Part II of our main CES show floor coverage we meet with Several companies and got to check out quite a few cool new products. In our meeting with Antec, we played with their entire line-up of cases for 2006. We also saw the latest from Cooler Master and SilverStone, the most recent build of Microsoft Windows Vista, some awesome new media players from COWON and SanDisk, Dell’s new 30″ Display and QUAD-SLI PC and much more.”
LGP X2 The Threat v1.4 (BETA 3)
Phoronix :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Summary: “Reaching the closed testing environment just hours ago has been the third BETA candidate for X2 – The Threat, which is presently being ported to Linux by the developers at Linux Game Publishing. This third candidate delivers many performance improvements and is the focus of our benchmarking today to see how the second and third BETA updates fair, after we had tampered with the initial build late last year.”
Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 VGA Cooler Review @ Virtual-Hideout
Virtual-Hideout :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Quote: “With an expected availability of around the end of February 2006 and a proposed MSRP of around $33 USD, I think it’s a pretty good value. I found them to be high quality units with a solid feel and very good cooling while remaining at a very respectable noise level.”
Microsoft’s CES Keynote – A High-Definition Future @ ThinkComputers.org
Think Computers :: Friday, January 20, 2006
HEXUS.reviews :: Thecus YES Box N2100
Hexus :: Friday, January 20, 2006
Thecus’ YES Box N2100 does a lot of things right. It’s robust, despite its plastic exterior; it looks good, but keep your grubby hands off; it’s easy to setup, both hardware and software; it’s easy to use, with multiple ways of getting at your data; and it’s fast enough to serve multiple users simultaneously, but a little more performance wouldn’t go amiss.
CES2006 Home Video Wrap-Up
Designtechnica :: Friday, January 20, 2006
“The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a tough show this year, with two large convention centers to cover, plus all of the manufacturers’ suites in hotels. As always, it was a tiring but exciting show. As I noted in my most recent blog (“Post Partum CES”), the two major themes of the show were 1080p displays in all screen technologies and the looming next-generation optical disk format war. Will this format war play out like Red versus Blue states, or will it be a different scenario? (In case you didn’t know, HD DVD’s packaging is red, and Blu-ray’s is blue. How quaint.)
News: 3DMark06 arrives, as does the GeForce 7300 GS
The Tech Report :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
TR has a couple of quick but noteworthy stories online today. First, FutureMark has just introduced 3DMark06, and there has been unusual related activity in Damage Labs:
Next, NVIDIA has announced a budget GeForce 7-series GPU, the GeForce 7300 GS:
Thermaltake ToughPower 550W
techPowerUp! :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
The Thermaltake ToughPower offers 550 watts to satisfy all your power needs. Two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors are available for SLI or Crossfire. On top of that you have four SATA and eight 5.25″ connector. Two independent 12V rails can supply a total of 38A. During our testing we saw impressive voltage stability and very small ripple.
Maxtill Mouse Pad Roundup @ Pro-Clockers
Pro-Clockers :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Quote: Maxtill have been producing quality mouse mats for years now. They have mats for general PC users, PC enthusiasts, gamers and any other type of PC user you can think of. They have so many different types, that as a “small” taster I was sent 8 mats. Yes that’s right EIGHT mats. So I decided to do a nice little roundup for the merry bunch. Here’s how it went.
Thermalright V-1 Ultra VGA Cooler @ ThinkComputers.org
Think Computers :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
[Phoronix] ATI v8.21.7 Display Drivers
Phoronix :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Summary: “Making a late appearance for the month is ATI’s first display drivers out in 2006, on the Windows side is the CATALYST v6.1 while GNU/Linux users are greeted by the v8.21.7. Is there anything noteworthy in this latest batch of drivers? We have executed yet another performance examination with the latest drivers, and have our findings here today.”
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 @ TechwareLabs
Techwarelabs :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
“Today, once again we take a look at one of the biggest hard drives currently out there, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB. The model is the ST3500641AS, it is a Serial ATA II drive with 16MB of cache, 7200 RPM, four 125GB platters, 8.5ms seek time, and of course, Native Command Queuing. If you are still unaware of what NCQ is exactly we will go over it briefly on the next page. Otherwise, you can skip to page three and let’s get going and take a look at this mammoth of a drive.”
Titan Robela WaterCase (TWC-A88/AS) Review @ Virtual-Hideout
Virtual-Hideout :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Quote: ” The Radiator is the largest I’ve seen on a stock water cooling case, in fact there are very few modders who have bigger. They had to put on this nice little sticker that says “Warranty void if removed”. Right, how mean can they get, now I HAVE to remove it.”
CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller Review @ The TechZone
The Tech Zone :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
News Flash – Corsair 4000PT 2GB DDR500 Dual Channel Memory Kit Review
Futurelooks :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Twins Basil! Twins! Come check out what we thought of Corsair’s XMS 4000PT matched memory pair! Is it the Cat’s Meow or is it the other end of the Cat? Let’s find out!
Ultra X-Finity 600W Power Supply w/ FlexForce Cables Review #640
3dgameman :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Ultra X-Finity 600W Power Supply w/ FlexForce Cables Review #640: “A power supply is a vital part of any computer system and that’s truer today then it ever was. With computer system’s requiring more power, a quality power supply is something you should have. The alternative is a cheap-o unit that might get the job done but will probably fail in a few months or worse, and may end up frying some/all your valuable hardware… To X-Finity and beyond!” ~3dGameMan.com
BFR Review: Samsung ML 2010 Laser Printer
Bona Fide Reviews :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Quote: “Not so long ago laser printers used to cost mega bucks to own and were aimed to be used by businesses only. They used to be massive unmovable machienes that took up a lot of space and weighed a ton. Laser printers have come a long way since then and are now smaller, lighter, and more affordable then ever. On the block today is Samsung’s ML-2010, a compact monochrome laser printer that can be found online for under $70USD.”
Screencasting: Make Your Own Tutorials!
PC Mechanic :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Dealing with end-users or simply beginners is not always a pleasant and easy experience for some techs. I personally sometimes get irritated when I have to explain for a thousandth time a simple concept I have already clarified in layman’s terms a day or two ago. While I was working in Technical Support where dealt with users all the time, one of the intricacies of helping people over the phone or via e-mail was the lack of picture–if only I could show them what I wanted, or see what was on their screen, then it would have been much easier to find the problem and solve it.
Grisoft Introduces AVG Linux
Phoronix :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
Summary: “Grisoft, the company who has been offering FREE anti-virus support to Microsoft Windows support for quite some time has extended their collection of virus protection to support GNU/Linux. Grisoft AVG Free is slated to be the first commercial=grade anti-virus product for Linux home users. The intent of their free version is strictly for private and non-commercial use. More information is available at pyroCPU.”
HEXUS.reviews :: World Exclusive – ARMARI Pantheon-FX
Hexus :: Thursday, January 19, 2006
The Armari Pantheon FX system is a decidedly niche product. It’s designed to appeal to those of you with a large wedge of cash to spend on a PC, yet don’t want to splash it on some run-of-the-mill affair. Armari has taken the step of engineering a gaming machine with some of the tastiest components available at the start of 2006 and amalgamated them into a sexy-looking small form-factor unit sourced from the folks at SilverStone. It’s clear from the choice of components that performance is of foremost concern.
