Tech News March 2005

Antec NeoPower480 Review @ PCModdingMy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Saturday, March 19, 2005

“Antec has done it again with their NeoPower480 power supply. The featured Advanced Cable Management System made the NeoPower480 one of the earliest modular power supplies in the industry. Keeping quite computing in mind, the NeoPower480’s advanced temperature-response system makes it one of the least noisy hardware inside your rig. Even at full load, you will find all other fans / hardwares making more noise than the NeoPower480. Not only you have an advanced and silent power supply, the NeoPower480 also doubles as your reliable partner by keeping the voltage rails exceptionally stable.”

Check it out

Repairing Your Waterchill PC Radiator @ Raptor-Mods
raptor-mods.co.uk :: Saturday, March 19, 2005

“A lot of people buy the 80mm Waterchill type radiators for their PC water cooling set-ups and a lot of them, it would seem, make a very simple mistake when installing them. That mistake, putting the mounting screws in without the spacers and puncturing the radiator core!”

Check it out

Cooler Master Aquagate Mini Review @ Madshrimps
Madshrimps :: Saturday, March 19, 2005
“Cooler Master is introducing the Aquagate Mini in both 120mm and 80mm configurations. While water cooling CPU can be tedious at times with the associations of adding water, testing for leaks, finding the right pump location dealing with reservoir and bleeding. The new Aquagate Mini might well be the “Bic” of computer water cooling.”

Check it out

Cebit Coverage Day 4 @ techPowerUp!
techPowerUp! :: Saturday, March 19, 2005
“Welcome to our Cebit Report Day 4 with news from AOpen, Foxconn, S3 and Soltek. Also in this report you will find all R520 and ATI’s SLI info we could get.”

Check it out

Editorial: Apple Discovers 2nd Finger with 2-Button Mouse @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Saturday, March 19, 2005

“There are rumors spreading around that suggest Apple plans to reveal a two-button mouse to Macintosh users sometime soon. It’s about time Apple finally made this idea a reality and realize the importance of a two-button mouse for converting Windows users. The first problem Windows users face when switching to Macintosh is that the inherent limitations of a single-button mouse quite literally drives them insane. While numerous (excluding early Mac adopters) users have complained about this issue, Apple seemed to be holding steadfast and brutally declined to listen to anything Windows users had to say; at least that’s what many concluded from Apple’s lack of response”

Check it out

Enermax EG495P-SFMA24P 480W PSU Review @ GruntvillE
GruntvillE :: Saturday, March 19, 2005

“Well, I learned in the past few days the answers to the above questions are wrong, wrong and wrong! You see Enermax taught me a lesson of voltage stability. It is much more important than total output wattage ratings. A little glitch in the voltage output and it relates to a hiccup in your system. In turn that will result in a freeze or a crashed program. Let me assure you not all power supplies are created equal!”

Check it out

asetek WaterChill KT03A Extreme Review @ Ninjalane
Ninjalane :: Friday, March 18, 2005
“The asetek WaterChill CPU Power kit (KT03A-SL35) can be viewed in a variety of ways. The obvious and enthusiast oriented option is around overclocking. A huge radiator, 3 fans means tons of cooling and big overclocks.”

Check it out

DFI LANPARTY NF4 SLI-DR nForce4 SLI Motherboard Review @ Bjorn3D
Bjorn3D :: Friday, March 18, 2005
“DFI’s latest offerings come from the nForce4 family and were, not surprisingly, some of the most anticipated nForce4 boards to hit store shelves. Recent reviews show that DFI continues to flex its muscle in all the right ways to leave users satisfied and then some. But, it’s time for us to do our own evaluation and review of the new LANPARTY flagship board, the LANPARTY NF4 SLI-DR, one of the most feature-packed boards ever created.”

Check it out

Speeze Vulture Spin 3 Review @ HardwareHounds
HardwareHounds :: Friday, March 18, 2005
“Recently we reviewed Speezes’s Coppersnake III. A fine heatsink designed for the Pentium crowd. Today we are going to review Speeze’s VultureSpin III, the Amd equivalent. As always, first impressions count for a lot, so how the hsf looks right out of the box is important. The good news is that the VultureSpin III looks pretty impressive.”

Check it out

Portable apps for USB flash Drives @ TechTastic
TechTastic :: Friday, March 18, 2005
“Today we’ve gathered together a bunch of applications that you can use directly off your flash drive. We we’re inspired by the release of portable Firefox and portable Thunderbird which was developed by John T. Haller. Basically what he did was optimize Mozilla’s Thunderbird and Firefox to be used on a flash drive. Why would you want to do that you may ask? Well imagine if you will that you could use your applications such as your browser on any computer and still have access to your favorites/bookmarks, or your email in the case of Thunderbird.”

Check it out

Thermaltake Armor Super Tower Aluminum Chassis Review @ Techniz.co.uk
Techniz.co.uk :: Friday, March 18, 2005

“The Armor Chassis from Thermaltake is a very stylish case and available in black and silver color. Only the silver color is fully made of aluminum. The size of the Armor Chassis is a super tower case. The Armor Chassis is also design to fits Tt liquid cooling system (performance radiator with 12 cm fan) or any other specific brands of water cooling kit. The chassis is also design with the removable motherboard tray, whereas it does support the BTX with the optional BTX Upgrade Kit. Furthermore, the Armor Chassis comes with four case fans, and the top of chassis is equipped with dual USB2.0, IEEE1394 Firewire, audio & speaker ports. Beside that, the side panel is a very unique shaped of acrylic windows side panel.”

Check it out

Club 3D Radeon X800XL PCI Express @ ViperLair
ViperLair :: Friday, March 18, 2005
“Performance from the X800XL was fantastic, quite happily keeping pace with our X850XT PE in many tests, although the highest resolutions and heavy AntiAliasing/Anisotropic filtering did slow it down slightly in comparison.”

Check it out

HEXUS.review – Memory Shootout – Extremely High Performance DDR using Samsung TCCD DRAMs
Hexus :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
To sum up, if you want the coolest modules on the block and you’re feeling flush, the Corsair Xpert is in a niche of its own. Paired with Samsung’s TCCD modules, there’s a world of performance to be had from them at modest Vdimm. Otherwise, the G.Skill and OCZ both come recommended at around the £200 mark, with Corsair’s XL PRO and XL PT under that price, too.

check it out

Corsair Flash Voyager – First Water Resistant, Rugged Flash Drive @ Everything USB
Everything USB :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
”

The Flash Voyager (512MB reviewed), encased in a rubberized case, proves to be more practical than plastic or brushed titanium. First, its elastic body can absorb any shock resulted from a drop, protecting the USB connector and the NAND memory from harms. It is also immune from any scratches due to the nature of the material. Moreover, the leak-free case ensures drive is water-resistant. That only leaves the USB connector exposed when the cap is removed. Even though most flash drives would survive a submerge, but you would need to wait for them to dry first.

”

Check it out

Thermaltake Soprano VB1000BWS review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

“The mid-range case market has been expanding very fast the past several years. Since cases are not made obsolete by the development of technology, constant upgrades are not necessary, so users usually research a lot before buying a case with which they will probably for many month to even years in some situations. In order to draw the users into case upgrades, companies had to draw their interest by creating something original. So, the classic beige cases are becoming extinct and designer cases have become very popular. ThermalTake is renowned for their good looking cases that they have produced over the past few years. They are into the enthusiast market and industry since 1999, which does not make them an old company but as long as the enthusiasts market is concerned they are pretty much ancient already. They started by creating cooling solutions and lately they have expanded into cases, water cooling kits, power supply units and many other items. Their Tsunami line of cases were o­ne of the most well known cases last year and now ThermalTake is releasing the Soprano, a possible successor to the Tsunami. The Soprano is considerably cheaper, but can it be a worthy opponent like the predecessor was? ”

check it out

Zalman VF700-CU Ultra Quiet Copper VGA Cooler @ OCIA.net
OCIA :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

”

The existing heatsink on the PCI-E/AGP interface must be used. If your existing cooler integrates the GPU and PCI-E/AGP interface, you cannot use the VF700. Well, you could, but a healthy heatsink must be used on this interface, as it gets very hot.

”

Check it out

PimpRig Review // Ultra Products Titanium Finish Fans
PimpRig :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

“Here is a Silver and Blue 80mm, and as you see the finish is immaculate. The blades have a slight curve to them which reduces the noise of the air exiting from the end of the blades, which is where most of the noise generated from fans comes from. The 80mm fans are rated at 20.3 dBA which is almost silent, and when I powered them up I can attest to the fact that you can barely hear them.”

check it out

Razer Diamondback Professional Gaming Mouse Pictorial Review Rev. 1.1!
Tech ARP :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

Today, we will take a look at the Razer Diamondback professional gaming mouse with its incredible 1600 DPI resolution and 16-bits data resolution! This could be the mouse that will make you the Fragmeister!
Here are the updates:-
– Added the Preliminary Opinions section. – Added the lowest PriceGrabber price links. ”

check it out

Protection against Adware and Spyware
PCreview :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
“First, let me make my opinion clear: The installation of adware should be illegal and harshly punished. Adware has exploded because it offers big economic incentives for its sponsors. They’ll never adequately inform PC users about their software before it’s installed. This troubling aspect of adware will never be wished away.

In reality, today’s tech-illiterate legislatures will never ban adware … if they could even think of an effective legal approach to do so. We need to engage the battle on a technical level instead.”

check it out

Swiftech MCW20-A on Intel Desktop Dothan @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

”

Swiftech has been one of the most respected names for years. They have expanded from offering only blocks to complete setups. Today, we are concentrating on one piece of that system: the Northbridge cooler. In most cases, the Northbridge cooler would be an optional component. Instead of sitting on an i875, nForce3, or some other chipset, we’re going to place it on top of an Intel Pentium M processor. If this block can handle the output from a full processor, imagine the cooling it would achieve for your motherboard chipset.

”

Check it out

Editorial: DDR Development Continues On 600MHz and Up @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

”

We’ve been following the DDR industry with quite an interest ever since memory makers announced low-latency modules that were equipped with Samsung’s TCCD chips. Yes, those were exciting times for all enthusiasts. However, certain companies kept telling us that DDR is probably not going to move forward, due to the clock speed hindrance of the actual chips. They told us not to expect anything major from DDR. We were also told that the life span of DDR would be at least two years if not more, due to the immaturity and on-going development of DDR2. Some companies also mentioned that they were firmly committed and were going to continue to develop DDR in hopes of breaking new grounds. In fact, many memory makers admitted to having a few samples of DDR memory with speeds upwards of 650MHz.

”

Check it out

Ultra Products XL PC3200 Low Latency Memory
SystemCooling :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

check it out“These days it seems like every memory manufacturer is bringing out at least one PC3200 speed kit designed to run at low latencies. These kits are also able to be overclocked beyond PC4000 speeds with good timings. Today we’re going to look at one such manufacturer, Ultra Products that has just released their new low latency PC3200 ram into the market place. And they are doing it with a little twist, Ultra Products has specified speeds and timings for their PC3200 XL ram up to PC4200 speeds.”

check it out

DVB-T HDTV Tuner on a USB Stick
Everything USB :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
Hi, we just found out Taiwanese company Compro plans to squeeze a DVB-T TV tuner into a size of a large USB stick form factor. Called VideoMateTV DVB-T, the stick could easily be mistaken as a first generation USB flash drive, but it is actually a bus-powered HDTV tuner, which requires at least a 2.4Ghz for just viewing. There’s also another version that supports analog, which requires just 600Mhz for TV viewing.

check it out

Apollo nVidia gForce 6600GT AGP Video Card @ OCIA.net
OCIA :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

Some of you that have seen the nVidia control panel for other cards may notice that there is no temperature monitoring tab on the Apollo control panel. As I mentioned before, all 6600GT cores have a built-in sensor. Some card manufacturers, Apollo included, have opted not to enable temp monitoring. I assume that is to discourage overclocking.”

check it out

HEXUS.net – Intel nForce 4 SLI and Tuesday CeBIT Roundup Part 1
Hexus :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
I had a chat with NVIDIA yesterday in a meeting where they admitted slight frustration at certain pockets of press claiming that nForce4 SLI Edition for Intel Pentium 4 is a paper launch product, while also expressing bewilderment at being asked by the same hacks why it’s not called nForce5.

check it out

Thermaltake VA8000 Series “Armor” Enclosure Review
TweakTown :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
“Mike was sent one of the latest computer cases from Thermaltake recently which is part of the VA8000 series and called “Armor”. The case includes the usual features you would expect from Thermaltake in a case along with a few new items. The case is made somewhat future proof with the inclusion of a BTX upgrade kit which will come in handy when the new form factor comes in to replace the aging ATX standard.”

check it out

FireWire 1814 18-in/14-out FireWire Audio/MIDI Interface w/ ADAT Lightpipe Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

”

Professional level recording has made a huge leap in recent years, moving out of the typical multi-million dollar studio, and into basements, living rooms, and bedrooms. One of the leaders in making this move possible is M-Audio (formerly Midiman). The flagship product of the M-Audio line is the FireWire 1814, and it’s a doozy. So, let’s dig into this review.

”

Check it out

Editorial: The Future of Air-Cooling @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

“Remember the golden days when microprocessors did not require high performance coolers? The lower clock speeds and simpler architectures, at least for the most part, produced reasonable heat that could be dealt with by quiet stock coolers. Now, if we were to focus our attention on air-cooling for enthusiasts, designs for air coolers have also changed drastically over the years. Thankfully, as microprocessor clock speeds soared passed 1.00GHz to 2.00GHz and then to 3.00GHz (Intel only), cooling manufacturers such as Thermaltake, Cooler Master and Thermalright have kept up with market standards and necessary requirements. How were these changes tackled? Air coolers (heatsinks) started to gain more copper throughout their structure. We also saw heatpipes and stacked copper fin technologies being implemented into various high-end models, but soon after that everything just paused.”

check it out

Arctic Cooling Silentium T2 Case Review @ MODTHEBOX.COM
MODTHEBOX! :: Thursday, March 17, 2005

”

Arctic Cooling has taken a simplistic approach towards the overall design of the Silentium T2 by focusing a good portion of detail on the front bezel. The look is very modern and contemporary accented by an attractive silver and black colour combination. The Silentium T2 Case supports both mATX and Full ATX motherboard formats and includes a 350w Seasonic PSU.

”

Check it out

PimpRig Review // XG Vortec 500W Power Supply
PimpRig :: Thursday, March 17, 2005
“The case of the XG Vortec is nicely constructed of blue anodized aluminum. Cooling is handled by 120mm intake and 80mm blue LED exhaust fans covered by attractive grills bearing the Vortec logo. Fan speed is controlled by turning a knob on the back of the unit.”

check it out