Nexus Hardware Giveaway Continues!
Nexus Hardware :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
We are giving away almost $800 worth of products to celebrate our forums opening! Here is the list of what’s left:
10 Abit T-Shirts
HWLabs Black Ice Extreme
Innovatek Graph-O-Matic Geforce 3 GPU Cooler
Alpha 8942 w/ green led fan
Innovatek Dual 120mm Fan Radiator
256mb of OCZ PC2700
Modified Visiontek Ti200
Wireless Intellimouse Explorer
Intel® Desktop Board D845PEBT2
Intel Pentium 4 2.26
MSI K7N2-L Motherboard review
Hexus :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
“I like the board, it’s just hard to recommend despite the price. For the truly budget user looking to get in on some nForce2 action it’s a decent board.”
Thermalright SLK-900 Copper Heatsink Video card review
3dgameman :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
The man with the lovely product lady is back to entice you with another review!
“The Thermalright SLK-900 Copper Heatsink is one incredible product fitting both the Socket 462 and 478. Its also is capable of having a 70mm, 80mm or 92mm fan installed on it. The all copper design and smooth solid copper base allows excellent contact between it and the CPU which equals excellent performance. Watch the Video to find out more…”
MSI CR52-A2 52x24x52x CD-RW Review
PCStats :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Say that three times fast! Just read the snip:
“In our ever unquenchable need for speed and performance, CD writers have gotten so fast that that their CD-ROM/DVD-ROM’s counterparts cannot keep up! Unless you have a True-X based CD-ROM, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do a 52x CD to CD burn on the fly. While MSI has been in producing various computer components for a very long time now, they’re still relative newbies in the optical storage market. Of course MSI has not forgotten what has made such a successful company, their CR52-A2 52x24x52 CD-RW offers value in the form of a retail price of $85 CDN ($60 US). The MSI 52x24x52 CD-RW obviously offers 52x speed write, 24x rewrite (24x media is almost impossible to find though) and 52x read which is comparable to other 52x CD-RW’s currently being marketed. The writer boasts a 2MB buffer, but with BURN-proof (Buffer Under RuN) technology, you really don’t need to worry about buffer size as much as in the past. The front bezel is snow white in colour rather then the ugly “pre beige” some other manufacturers use.”
OCZ PC2700 EL Dual Channel Memory 2x 256MB
PCStats :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Looks like we have another dual channel memory review!
“It was only a matter of time before manufacturers and their marketing departments jumped all over the “dual channel DDR” craze created by nVIDIA’s nForce2 (Athlon) and Intel’s Granite Bay/Springdale/Canterwood (P4) chipsets. In all honesty I understand why they did it, after all if you can charge more for DIMM’s “tested” to run properly together why not do it? Like everything else in life it always all comes down to money. Today we’re going to be checking out OCZ’s PC2700 EL (Enhanced Latency) memory kit which consists of two 256MB modules intended for dual channel DDR motherboards. OCZ equip this memory with black aluminum heatspreaders which are supposed to help with passive cooling, but considering that there are four DRAM’s per side I don’t think this is really all that necessary. The black aluminum heat spreader looks sleek and at least offers some static protection to the precious DRAM’s below.”
Cooler Master Black & Silver Alloy Bezels
SystemCooling :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
“Back in November, SystemCooling.com was the first to show you the then, all new, Cooler Master Silver Alloy Front Bezels. Today we’ll show you the latest addition, the new Black Alloy Bezel! Like its brother the Black Alloy Bezel is a three part affair, held securely to your CD/DVD/CDRW drives with genuine 3M double-sided sponge type tape.”
OCZ Dual Channel PC3200 EL DDR SDRAM Review
TweakTown :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Whew, what a mouthful! Pull up a chair, and read a snip:
“Dual Channel is very much a buzz word when it comes to modern computing these days; and rightfully so. Intel, SiS and nVidia all have high-performance Dual Channel chipsets on the market already with VIA not too far away in the distance. Today Cameron “Sov” Johnson takes a look at OCZ Technologies Dual Channel PC3200 EL DDR SDRAM package solution. Does it have what it takes to make it into your Dual Channel setup? Read on and decide for yourself!”
Are AMD Mobo makers getting cheap?
ViperLair :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“When my KT133 motherboard bit the dust after massive stability problems and such in only six months of use, I later acquired an ECS K7S5A motherboard utilizing the Sis735 chipset. It is actually a good motherboard in my opinion, just that ECS was trying to make this motherboard broadly compatible, when in fact it was not despite their claims that it supports anything you can put in it. AMD also found out about this, and does not recommend it but for Palomino core AMD cpus and 900-1000mhz Durons.”
PcToys Mult-Function Panel review
OCAddiction :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“Installation is a snap. The instructions are well laid out and easy to read. A 4th grader could install this unit. Hats off to pcToys for good documentation in plain, un-translated English. I found it easiest to place and attach all of the sensors first. I located the temperature sensors per the instructions. For the CPU, I attached the probe near the die on my P4 2.26b on the bottom of the heatsink. ”
TD Review: Sunbeam’s Laser LED and EL Strip
Tech-Dreams :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“The latest craze in modding the aesthetics of a computer is to beautify the look with lighting effects. Computer lighting can come in many forms, from cold cathode tubes to cool high-intensity LEDs; you can even find blinking lights on system fans these days. With modding as popular as it is now, everyone wants their cases to look sharp and attractive. I would like to thank Keven from SunBeam Technology for providing me with the opportunity to review their Laser LEDs and EL Strip. ”
The Book of Overclocking Review
GruntvillE :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“Chapter 4 is the gold mine; “How to Overclock.” This section will take a n00b OC’r and get them started down the right path. I was hoping to find tricks I wasn’t aware of but I was familiar with all of the tips in this chapter. I do think that it’s a great guide for users less experienced than myself. When you’re searching the forums and get your answer, you’re not sure it’s 100% right; after reading through this chapter I can assure you that they’ll not steer you wrong. They also give ample warnings for each style of Overclocking and a “what could happen” if you do it wrong. It’s nice to know the risks involved in the project your on.”
Redundant Power Supply Review
Voided Warranty :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“What I love the most about this power supply is that it is completely overkill. Just look at it! This thing looks pretty damn sweet! I love those three indicator LEDs. Those will let you know when one of the units goes down or loses power for some reason.”
SystemCooling looks at RatPadz
SystemCooling :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“Once upon a time a “Mouse Pad” was a mouse pad, was a mouse pad, much to the aggravation of just about everybody, but especially gamers and power-users. Then a few years ago, Kyle Bennett of [H]ard|OCP fame designed, developed and marketed the revolutionary mouse pad that became world famous as the “RATPADZ”. Gamers, power-users and anyone requiring a precise mousing surface was overjoyed!!!”
Voided Warranty lights up a hard drive
Voided Warranty :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“For this HD mod ill be using a Maxtor 5 gig hard drive, five 3mm 3000mcd 50ma green LED’s, and a Voided Warranty window applique. So find an extra drive and mod that thing, and don’t blame Voided Warranty if you kill your HD. LET THE FUN BEGIN!”
Surface 1030 fUnc Pad Mousing Surface Review
TweakTown :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“Mousing surfaces are probably the most under looked type of product when it comes to computing these days. Many companies have made a handsome living out of producing high quality mouse surfaces for computer users with the gamer in mind. One such company who has made a living out of this production is fUnc Industries with their Surface 1030 fUnc Pad which Shawn “Toxic” Baker takes a quick look at today!”
Chenming ATX-301K Case Review
Overclocker Café :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
Great looking, cool, highly functional case with an awesome price. Features and lines of cases costing twice the price. I love it. A search on the web turned up this case at under $40 with free shipping! Throw in the optional window (or your own window kit) and you have one the nicest value case I’ve ever dealt with.
I guess Chenming Case Reviews are hot today! Here’s another one!
Check it out
SubeSystemZ CF-5968 Review @ HEXUS.net
Hexus :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
The supplied heatsink is of very high quality and fixes easily to the motherboard. It is the same as a traditional heatsink but with a very low profile. Unlike the Shuttle that has its special ‘ICE’ heat pipe solution, the CF-S968 fan blows air down onto the CPU. The air is then expelled from the case via a second fan at the rear.
Antec True 550 Watt PSU @ Nexus Hardware
Nexus Hardware :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“Antec has built a reputation on high quality cases and computer power supplies. The currently discontinued Antec PP412X was praised by overclockers as “one of the best” because it had adjustable pots to help tweak rail voltages. As an overclocker and enthusiast, I am well aware of the impact of a quality power supply unit. Today I have Antec top of the line power supply to test, the True 550 watt model.”
Game Controller Roundup @ HEXUS
Hexus :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“The keyboard is also not the most ergonomic of devices and in games there are certain positions your hand has to make that aren’t really ideal. In a perfect world it would be nice to have a smaller device which can perform a range of functions without having to move your hands around much and have all the buttons easily accessible. This brings me neatly to the reasoning behind this article, to compare and evaluate 3 controllers that aim to do this from Belkin, Thrustmaster and Ferraro.”
Pinnacle PCTV Pro review @ Techniz
Techniz.co.uk :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“Well I can’t rave enough about this product. As someone who does a lot of video capturing and editing I was blown away by the quality of the pctv Pro.”
Tweakmonster Revision 3 Lightstrip Review
ViperLair :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“When it arrives, the lightstrip is packaged like a roll of tape. Unrolling it will bring the strip to a length of 2 1/2″ , which is far longer than any cold cathode I have seen. Of course, chances are you might not want the unit that long, so it is entirely possible to cut the end of the lightstrip off with a pair of scissors (you tough guys and gals can bite it off like a piece of beef jerky).”
IpKonfig reviews SpeedUpMyPC software
IpKonfig :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
Adding all sorts of hardware, such as memory and upgrades, to processors can become a very expensive journey. Overclocking has overcome much of this by allowing ‘tweakers’ to modify processors and memory modules to run faster than specified from the manufacturer. Overclocking, as we all know, adds to performance, but if you’re not the type that feels comfortable tinkering with the electronics of your computer, you may be looking for an alternative. Software is one way of gaining a little extra performance out of your machine, but I won’t lie to you-software only improves performance by manipulating/tweaking certain areas within the operating system, and seldom manipulates the computer hardware. Using such software is, however, quite easy, and helps keep fingers out of the Windows operating system registry.
Speeze CopperKing CPU Cooler Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“The 5E198B1H3R CopperKing CPU Cooler strays away from traditional heatsink fin design and features a unique series of 22 triangular folded fins. The top of each fin has a thin rectangular area removed to allow for air to be pushed down. Upon closer inspection, each fin is folded very close to each other with little to no space in some cases in-between the fins. The overall construction is quite strong and I was unable to bend any fin with reasonable force.”
Spire Socket A Cooler Matchup and Giveaway
I Am Not a Geek :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“The Spire MicroFlow I and FridgeRock Socket A heatsinks both provided respectable temperatures while cooling an AMD Athlon XP2200+ Thoroughbred processor. Although I would not recommend them for overclockers or higher powered processors, the performance offered versus the price paid is very attractive for any desktop installation.”
They are also giving away a Spire FridgeRock Socket A Cooler. Follow the link here.
Chenming ATX-301 Case Revierw @ Icrontic
Short-Media :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
Chenming cases are very popular among the modding community. Icrontic has a review of a new Chenming case. Here’s a snip:
Chenming brought us the legendary ATX-901A series PC case which is well known to PC enthusiasts. ANTEC, AMK and Thermaltake all distribute the ATX-901A series with their own unique additions but Chenming started it all. Now lessons have been learned and can Chenming do it again with the ATX-301K?
Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis Pro “Ultimate Edition” Review
TweakTown :: Wednesday, March 26, 2003
“We’ve been seeing the Radeon 9700 Pro boards for a while, but when someone comes up saying they have one called “Ultimate Edition”, it makes you ask why. Come join Mike “Darthtanion” Wright as he takes a look at the Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis Pro “Ultimate Edition” and find out for yourself if it lives up to the name. We’re looking at upgrade paths in this review so lets see if this graphics board has what it takes to earn your hard-earned dollars!”
Geil 1GB PC3200 Dual DDR Kit
PimpRig :: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
“The stats this RAM puts up makes it attractive even if it was a single stick. This kit has two 512MB PC3200 RAM sticks for a total of 1GB RAM. Timings are CAS 2 6-3-3 1T Running @ DDR400Mhz… Niiiiiice.”
Albatron GeForce 4 Ti4800SE Medusa Review
myWORLD :: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
“Now and everyday, whenever you go to computer shops and asked for a video card recommendation, surely GeForce 4 Titanium series are the most commonly recommended. Why? Because of it’s performance wise as well as its affordability…”
Albatron Geforce 4 Ti4680P Turbo Review
Monkey Review :: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
The card was manufactured utilizing a thicker 8-layer PCB, done in blue. The Medusa offers us 128MB’s of 3.3ns DDR RAM with a 250/550 MHz GPU/RAM clock. Most will quickly notice from the images that we also have a large and elegant looking copper based HSF as well as RAM sinks not only on the top of the card but also on the bottom. I like how the HSF blows air out and through the ram sinks, ensuring at least a little air will be flowing through them.
Albatron GF4 Ti4280PV review
OCAddiction :: Friday, March 14, 2003
“Albatron has chosen to use Samsung memory for this video card. Samsung has gained a pretty good reputation with their ramchips. Looking closely, the ram is rated to run at 3.6ns. A quick calculation (1000/3.6 = 278 * 2 = 556MHZ DDR) shows that the memory is capable to run at 556MHZ.”
MSI G4MX440-T8X Half Height Videocard Review
PCStats :: Friday, March 14, 2003
“”While ATi and nVIDIA battle it out for the performance crown it’s actually their mainstream/budget videocards that bring in most of the money. Win the mainstream battle and you’ll win the war as they say. To this effect, nVIDIA know that their TNT2 M64, GeForce2 MX and GeForce4 MX line of videocards have long been popular with manufacturers and OEM’s. It’s not that ATi cannot offer the same type of product, it’s just that until recently ATi has been focusing more on being a performance leader and offering competitive pricing on their flagship line of cards only. Today we’re going to be looking at yet another GeForce4 MX videocard, but what makes the MSI G4MX440-T8X special is that it is a entirely silent half height card especially suited to small form factor PC’s or Book sized PC’s.”.”
Samsung 172B 17″ LCD review
Techwarelabs :: Friday, March 14, 2003
“When LCD monitors came out they were a lot thinner than CRTs, however the horrible picture quality really deterred users from purchasing them. The Samsung 172B 17″ LCD is one of the slimmest LCD monitors on the market today, but will being thin sacrifice picture quality?”
Samsung Syncmaster 191N 19″ TFT LCD Monitor Review
Tweaknews :: Tuesday, March 11, 2003
“Now let me add this up. Improved 191N analog technology which is better than the older digital 191T, same great looks and a US$200-$300 price cut? I don’t think there is even a question that this product deserves the Tweaknews.net’s seal of approval, the “Top Rank Award”. Better and cheaper are always a good thing in my mind, wouldn’t you agree?”
MSI GNB Max-FISR (E7205) Motherboard Review @ SharkyExtreme!
Sharky Extreme :: Saturday, March 08, 2003
“The overclocking options of E7205 motherboards has been a sore spot for many, as some boards literally have few if any enhancements. The GNB Max-FISR has an excellent CPU overclocking setup, with 1 MHz FSB speeds from 133 to 200 MHz, and CPU core voltage settings from 1.475 to 1.85V. This is actually a more substantial maximum voltage level than MSI offers in their basic Pentium 4 motherboards, so it was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, the overclocking options end there, with no DDR or AGP voltage selections. The AGP side doesn’t bother us too much, and although the 266 MHz DDR limit really doesn’t warrant a lot of voltage options, we missed it when trying to jack no-name memory to the lowest timings possible.”
Albatron GeForce 4MX 480 8X AGP Review
Tweaknews :: Saturday, March 08, 2003
“Seems like all you hear about in the hardware world is the high end cards. But are these cards for the everyday gamer, nope. Do you think that most people have US$200-$400 to spend on one component, nope. People today like to have a blend of value and performance and that is where the Alabatron MX480 delivers.”
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Review
Sharky Extreme :: Saturday, March 08, 2003
“After thoroughly benchmarking the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, two basic concepts started to emerge. At standard game settings and lower resolutions, the Radeon 9800 Pro wasn’t really taxed, and the CPU and memory subsystem just couldn’t push the juice fast enough to make use of the faster clock speeds. Once we hit the higher resolutions, separation occurred, and the Radeon 9700 Pro started loosing more ground to the Radeon 9800 Pro. The final tests, involving anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, showed the Radeon 9800 Pro in its best light, as the added power came in very handy when all the graphical bells and whistles were enabled.”
Logitech Z-680 5.1 Speakers Review
GruntvillE :: Saturday, March 08, 2003
“Well I started it out with the effect on Stereo with the PCs. I found no major audible difference between the two computers but it was obvious that the nForce 2 sounded better. Man does that sax sound good on Dave Mathew’s “So Much to Say!” I was absolutely floored at the response at all frequencies. As I mentioned before the sub can rumble deep down into the 20Hz range without losing an unacceptable amount of SPL.
The imaging of this set in stereo was phenomenal! While jamming to “Money” by Pink Floyd I could almost see Dick playing percussion in the middle while David was gracefully floating his vocals in front of him with Rich tapping the keyboard off to the right. Having these speakers set up correctly is a must in Stereo as the imaging is very precise but like any high end audio speaker, the results are well worth it. Chopin made me take a deep breath and kick back and relax. It was as if I was in the hall….”
ATI 9800, 9600, and 9200 Preview
Tech-PC :: Saturday, March 08, 2003
“A few weeks ago ATI invited Tech PC to a briefing in London, part of the agenda was looking at their newest range of desktop products. To be released as the Radeon 9200, 9600 and 9800 series of cards we’re going to give you a quick outline of what to expect, prices and some comparative benchmarks. We’re not going to dive in too heavy on the technical side of things but rather try and keep it as a simple overview until we get real cards to play with.”
XFX GF4 MX440 Review
OCAddiction :: Thursday, March 06, 2003
“The MX440-8X overclocked exceptionally well. With the stock heat sink, I was able to achieve a stable core speed of 375mhz. That is an incredible 100mhz over stock speed. With a little better contact with the heat sink, the core should be able to achieve higher stable overclock. As mentioned before, the memory is rated to run at 3.3ns, allowing the memory to run at least 606mhz. I was able to push the BGA ram to at least 675mhz before artifacts started showing up. ”
Samsung SW-252B 52x24x52 CD-RW Review
PCStats :: Thursday, March 06, 2003
“While Samsung monitors are well known amongst consumers, the companies’ optical devices have only recently begun to generate notice amongst cash-strapped consumers. After all, the competition in the optical drive industry is incredibly high, and even mainboard manufacturers are entering into the fold. Enough of that, today we’re going to throw Samsung’s latest CD-RW the SW-252B into the pit and see just how it stands up to the competition. With a rating of 52x write, 24x rewrite and 52x read speed, you won’t be able to find anything faster then the SW-252B currently on the market. In terms of features, the drive has a large 8MB frame buffer as well as Buffer Under Run Free technology (all these BURN proof type technologies work on the same concept) and can support even 90min (790 MB) CD-R’s! The SW-252 also supports all the usual writing methods, DAO (Disc At Once), TAO (Track At Once), SAO (Session At Once) and Multi session Packet Writing (both variable and fixed). Unfortunately the Samsung SW-252B is not quite available to the public yet so I’m not sure how much the unit will retail for, but Samsung usually prices their products quite aggressively.”
MSI GeForce4 Ti4600-TD8X review
ViperLair :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“The performance of this card was very nice indeed. In the Quake III engine based JKII the Ti4800 remained very ‘playable’ until 1600*1200 with all settings at maximum, when it becomes borderline in playability. Serious Sam SE shows the strength of the Ti4800 (or the weakness of the Parhelia) as it reaches above 60fps both at 1024*768 with maximum settings and at 1600*1200 with high settings, unlike both the Parhelia and the MX 440.”
Sapphire 9100 Atlantis review
Riva3D :: Monday, March 03, 2003
“While everyone seems focused on the battle for the fastest card, there’s been a rather quiet little war brewing for entry-level graphics cards, and ATI is beginning to make their move with the introduction of the 9100 graphics chip, which is basically a higher clocked 9000. While this may not sound like much, in reality, it’s giving users a feature rich, low cost card with surprisingly good performance.”
Albatron TI4680 Video Card Review @ FuriousTech
Furioustech :: Sunday, March 02, 2003
“Viedo cards there are lots of choices out there. You can spend up to $400.00 for the top card out there. Today I am looking at the Albatron nVIDIA TI4680 card. You can get a sub $200.00 card that will out preform the more expensive cards. I was totally impressed, as I think you will be also. Grab your favorite beverage and take a look at this offering from Alabatron!”
