Gigabyte X48-DS5
t-break :: Tuesday, March 18, 2008
When we first heard about Intel X48 chipset, we thought it would be a DDR3 only chipset. However, many motherboard manufacturers, including Gigabyte, decided to offer a version that supports exclusively cheap DDR2 memory. Lets see what a new chipset and an old memory can do together.
Antec P190 + 1200 Case Review
Hardware Logic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
“Our first experience with the Performance One dates back to the P160W, which now stands out as an aberration in a series that took a turn towards elegant aesthetics and quiet computing. The metamorphosis began with the original P180, a chassis we felt had potential, but ultimately described as a “time sink” in terms of installation. Then came the P182, which brought with it an effective cable management scheme, but left us hot under the collar with its ho-hum cooling potential.
Cooler Master Cosmos S Case Review
Think Computers :: Monday, March 17, 2008
“Cooler Master’s Cosmos case made waves last year because of its incredibly silent design, awesome size, and excellent accoutrements. This year, Cooler Master altered the Cosmos design and released a new model: the Cosmos S. Whereas the Cosmos case was a silent beast, the Cosmos S is designed to keep things inside as cold as possible, sacrificing silence for performance. After salivating upon seeing this case in Cooler Master’s booth at CES, we had to get our hands on it. ThinkComputers blasts off to explore the unknown regions of this expansive case.”
Introduction to Overclocking Guide for Beginners
Benchmark Reviews :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Overclocking is the technique used to increase the speed of a device beyond stock. ‘Stock’ is the name given to the default specifications of a device. Once you have altered the device it is no longer considered stock unless it is returned to its initial specifications. Overclocking describes the alteration of clock speed above stock (hence the name overclocking) of any given device, usually RAM and CPUs, but also other components such as GPUs and PCI busses. When a devices clock speed is decreased from stock (or from an overclock), it is called underclocking.
Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 Review
Overclockers Club :: Monday, March 17, 2008
“After playing with the MA790FX-DS5 for a while, I was thoroughly impressed with the stability and the ease of overclocking the board has to offer. The high quality components and the layout of the board are second to none. The 790FX chipset is coming into maturity and will only get better with time. AMD users will have an excellent upgrade path if they choose to ride out the current storm with the X2 and Phenom CPUs currently lagging behind Intel’s offerings.”
Seagate Momentus 5400.4 250GB
Bjorn 3d :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Life Without Gmail?
PC Mech :: Monday, March 17, 2008
“About a month ago I did something only the few and brave do; I stopped using Gmail. Number of times I’ve been tempted to switch back since then: 0. Honestly speaking I thought I was going to go into GWS (Gmail Withdrawal Syndrome). I thought that going back to using e-mail with a client (Mozilla Thunderbird in […]”
Western Digital Caviar RE2 750GB HD
Hot Hardware :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Western Digital’s RE2 lineup is targeted at workstations and servers, which need lots of disk capacity along with top-notch RAID performance and long-life reliability. At its core, the RE2 lineup is identical to the SE16 lineup for the performance desktop, but the RE2 has a slightly different feature set, along with more robust MBTF (mean-time between failure) ratings and warranties. We test the drive standalone and in a dual-drive RAID 0 configuration. Head on over to the site and check it out…
Make your Home Network go Gigabit
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
If you have ever noticed, almost all current network cards support 10/100/1000 ethernet, but very few routers actually support the /1000. The last /1000 is actually called gigabit networking, allowing you to transfer 1 gigabit per second – which is the same as 1000 megabits per second or 125 megabytes […]
Zalman Reserator XT Hybrid Liquid Cooling System
Techgage :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Given their nature, external water-coolers have a lot of room to do things right. Zalman took full advantage of the space they had with the XT and delivered a superb external solution with excellent performance. Though slightly expensive, “you get what you pay for” rings true here.
Behind The Scenes at PCMech LIVE
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
PCMech LIVE is our new live show that we are doing via Ustream.Tv. While we are live streaming pretty much 24/7, our scheduled show time is 8 PM EST on Wednesday evenings. We’ve had a LOT of people ask how we put together the feed. I have prepared a video for you which shows how I […]
Links To Reviews for March 11-12
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Lamptron FC1 fan controller – “Looking to control fan speed easily and on-the-fly? That’s exactly what Lamptron’s FC1 fan controller promises, and at an insanely low price point to boot.” Apiotek Extreme Adaptor 24 in 1 Express Card EC-CR24 – “Anybody who has used a media reader pc card adaptor in a laptop knows how much of a […]
AMD Shangai die size disclosed; Fudzilla hints at 0MiB L3 chip
Beyond3d Processor News :: Monday, March 17, 2008
AMD displayed wafers of its 45nm Shanghai chip at CeBit, and Hans de Vries took the opportunity to create a comparison picture between Shanghai and Nehalem. Surprisingly, their die size…
China Blocks YouTube (and why you should pay attention to this)
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
For those not aware, China has a nationwide firewall in place called the Golden Shield Project that’s also known as the "Great Firewall of China" (in reference to the Great Wall of China). China can and does block things on a nationwide basis routinely. The reason for the blocking of YouTube is because of the footage […]
Give Your Business A Web Presence
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
For the most part, today, virtually all small businesses should have a website (but at the very least you should have a professional email address). Whether or not the value is direct or indirect there is indeed value in just having a web presence. If you want to get one started without any upfront cost […]
Take Benchmarks With A Grain Of Salt
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
When looking at benchmark numbers of any kind, always be wary of what a benchmark truly is: simulated relative tasks and not real world tasks. While there is value in a benchmark as it is a way to somewhat measure performance between different components, but keep in mind the tests the benchmark program runs may […]
Windows Mobile Gets Flash, PDF Viewer
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
In the ever-increasing mobile phone tech market, one thing that’s been sorely lacking is the ability to display Adobe Flash content well. At the present time most devices, including the iPhone, have little to no support for Flash. Microsoft has stepped up to the plate and licensed the Adobe Flash Player runtime for the mobile version […]
Energy Efficient Computer Components
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
If you are looking to build a new system or upgrade some existing components, you should weigh in the energy efficiency of the components you are purchasing. Not only do energy efficient components put less strain on the environment, but can really save you some cash both directly (lower power usage in your computer) and […]
Close Firefox Daily
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
The (seemingly) biggest complaint Firefox (version 2 at the time of this writing) users have is that the browser takes up enormous amounts of system memory when running. While the number and type of extensions you have installed on Firefox can influence memory usage, it is not unheard of for the browser to be consuming […]
Links To Reviews for March 13-14
PC Mechanic :: Monday, March 17, 2008
Thermaltake Max 4 Active Cooling HDD Enclosure – “Hard disk drive enclosures are cases for you to install a hard disk drive outside the computer, being a terrific way to carry a huge amount of data around, for backing up data, for storing and carrying files from home to the office and vice-verse, for storing and […]
A Modder’s Guide To Acrylic
Bit-Tech Modding :: Monday, March 17, 2008
No matter how much you love it, working with acrylic (in its many forms) can be a difficult task to the new modder. We’re here to clear up a bit of the confusion when it comes to bending, cutting, joining and enjoying one of modding’s most versatile materials.
Stopping Vista From Thrashing Hard Disks to Death
PC Stats :: Thursday, March 13, 2008
“While your PC may be doing nothing, all of a sudden you notice the hard drives are trashing around like the entire drive is being copied. Never fear, PCSTATS is here to help you stop Windows Vista from excessive hard drive usage, and show you how to free up some disk space too! In this PCSTATS Beginners Guide we will explore the reasons and culprits behind Windows Vista’s high disk usage, and explore ways to not only reduce the noise and activity, but also save and reclaim drive space Vista is using for features that you may not want.”
AeroCool EasyWatch System Controller Review
Club OC :: Thursday, March 13, 2008
AeroCool has made quite a name for them selves with system controllers like the GateWatch and the FP-01, but sometimes you don’t need all the extra bells ad whistles a full size controller has to offer. With the EasyWatch, AeroCool provides the core functions you really need in a slim 2.5 inch package.
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1800
Technic 3d :: Thursday, March 13, 2008
“The Corsair Dominator Twin3X2048 1800C7DFIN DDR3 2GB Kit arrived Technic3D. Technic3D will see as good they are with Overclocking against the OCZ 1.800 Memory Kit on Windows Vista Ultimate and the Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Mainboard. You can see 1.860 MHz with 7-7-7-20 in the following Review.”
Intel SkullTrail Super High End PC Platform Review
Madshrimps :: Thursday, March 13, 2008
“How do you define the ultimate gaming system? Is it the best price/performance system or just the system with the most power, regardless of the cost? Intel’s answer goes by the name of SkullTrail, which gives you the opportunity of using two high-end processors and two high-end video cards in one system. Today we’ll take a look at what Intel is offering in terms of performance compared to a regular high-end system.”
MegaCon 2008 Babes Gallery 
Techware Labs :: Thursday, March 13, 2008
As promised we bring you a gallery full of the babes we ran into while at the MegaCon 2008 convention in Orlando Florida. The costumes are wild, the babes are hot, and you have a front row seat. Grab your popcorn and make sure you enlarge the thumbnails to get the full experience.
Seasonic M12II 500W Power Supply Review
Hardware Canucks :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
While the M12II 500W may be a far cry wattage-wise from some of the bruisers we have been testing these last few months, it allows us to showcase a power supply that should appeal to a much broader market. This power supply is the spiritual successor to the original (and extremely popular) M12 and shares the same modular interface but as we will see later, the similarities stop there.
Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini Review
Overclockers Club :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
“The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini has a lot of things that really make it an attractive buy, but most are not what you look for in a typical hard drive. Instead of blazing speed and low CPU usage, the OneTouch offers extreme portability because of its small size, a rather large storage capacity, and the ability for it to run without an external power adapter. These features are amazing, because who dosen’t want to carry around 250Gb of storage in a device about the size of an iPod.”
Thermaltake BlacX HDD Docking Station Review 
Hardware Secrets :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
“BlacX is a USB 2.0 SATA hard disk drive enclosure for you to install your hard drive outside your computer. O.k., you’ve seen hundreds of devices like this before, but what makes this Thermaltake product really unique is the fact that it is a docking station, allowing you to install and remove hard drives with the computer turned on and without needing to open the device to install your hard drive – just insert your hard drive on the available slot on the docking station. In fact hard disk drive installation with this unit remembers the installation of cartridges in older video game consoles. Sounds interesting? Read on.”
Kingston HyperX DDR3-1625 2GB Memory Kit Review
Think Computers :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
“Kingston is one of the oldest names in the PC world, and they are the largest manufacturer of system memory purchased by third party buyers. I remember hearing of Kingston in the late 1980s, a time when most PCs only had a megabyte or two of system memory, and I used their memory in my first RAM upgrade about a decade later. Recently I reviewed the Kingston HyperX PC3-11000 2 gig kit. Kingston considers it an entry-level enthusiast DDR3 HyperX kit. Today I will be looking at the PC3-13000 HyperX 2 gig kit, which at present, is considered the “sweet spot” of DDR3 memory by some. Will the HyperX PC3-13000 impress us more than the HyperX PC3-11000 did? Read on to see.”
Thermaltake M9 Mid-Tower Case Review
OCIA :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
“Today I’ll be looking at the recently released M9 series mid-tower case. There are two versions available, the VI1000BWS with side panel window and the VI1000BNS non-windowed case, which is the one I received for review. Measuring 17″ tall by 8″ wide and almost 20″ deep, this black-only steel mid-tower offers the typical micro and standard ATX size in a compact frame.”
Vista update KB940510 detects “bad” OS
Tweak Town :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
“We were just sent some details by a reader who said that he just installed Windows Vista update KB940510, which seems to have appeared just this last week or so.
This update is a “sniffer” which detects activation exploits that bypass product activation such as Paradox OEM BIOS Emulator and TimerStop grace period stopper.”
Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC3-12800 Kit Review 
ASE Labs :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
” These modules are rated for operation at DDR3-1600 which is PC3-12800 at 1.8V. The modules have SPD values for lower speeds (DDR3-1066) at JEDEC specs to provide boards the needed initial boot to provide the RAM with the proper voltage and timings. The stock timings at DDR3-1600 are 8-8-8-24. DDR3 latencies are very high compared to DDR2 and should only get better in time. These modules are lead free which helps the environment. Nothing like being green in today’s world. I almost forgot that the command rate is 1T which means you get an extra performance boost. ”
Asus Striker II Formula nForce 780i SLI
Hot Hardware :: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
We’re writing to let everyone know that we have just posted a new article at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features, overclockability, and performance of the Asus Striker II Formula nForce 780i SLI-based motherboard for Intel processors. The Striker II Formula is a member of ASUS’ high-end Republic of Gamers, or ROG, series of motherboards. As such, the board is loaded with features and integrated peripherals that set it apart from run of the mill products. Head on over to the site and check it out…
