Tech News November 2003

 

Fong Kai FK-330 Case Review
Overclocker Café :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“The single screw in type motherboard standoff is outside of the range of some ATX boards. This lone screw in type standoff locks the board in place once installed. Therefore, there is no way to attach some ATX boards to prevent them from moving when you plug in your peripherals.

What this implies if your board is too short to reach this locking screw is that every time you plug in your monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. you are sliding the motherboard forward on the slots used to mount the board and you take a chance of the board falling off of the tray. This is not good to say the least.”

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TT Hardcano 8 VR Review
GideonTech :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“When you get a closer look at the PCB, you can see how simple the design is. There are 4 voltage inputs and 4 voltage outputs. For me this was a crippling design flaw. Instead of having one voltage input that takes care of the entire bay (preferably a Molex connector), they chose to put 4 separate voltage inputs on the board. While this may be marginally useful if you want to rig up some system with the ability to turn fans on and off independently or use it in conjunction with something like a DigiDoc 5, for the average consumer this just adds a nightmare of wiring issues and confusion.”

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Biostar’s Springdale small form factor system, the iDEQ 200T
Bjorn3D :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“In addition to the small size, the iDEQ offers an awesome brushed aluminum finish and construction (except for the front bezel, which is plastic). I am a huge fan of aluminum cases and their typical silver color, so this fits right in with my tastes. The chassis consists of two removable side panels and one removable top panel, a design I prefer over the use of one big removable cover, like Shuttle uses with its XPC line (the SN41G2 for example).”

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Ahanix Blu III ATX Case
PimpRig :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Despite the very generic nature of this chassis, it does have some strong suits. First, I was quite surprised and delighted to see that the case has a removable motherboard tray. This handy feature always simplifies component installation! Second, the chassis is strong, sturdy, and well finished (no sharp edges).”

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Bytecc Aluminum 3.5″ USB2.0 HDD Mobile External Enclosure Review
3dXtreme :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

” I have no reservations about awarding this product the 3dXtreme Editor’s Choice Award….”

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SiS 655FX Chipset Reference Motherboard
PCStats :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Today we have the opportunity to take a close and personal look at the newest member of the SIS chipset family for the Intel Pentium 4 processor; the SIS 655FX. There’s more to the 655FX than just a dual channel memory controller and 800 MHz FSB compatibility though, the brand new SIS 655FX and accompanying SIS 964 Southbridge each contain some very innovative technologies developed by SIS. These technologies give the SIS655FX a performance level equal to that of Intel’s very popular i865PE ‘Springdale’ chipset, and in some cases, to that of the high end i875P ‘Canterwood’ chipset. Remarkable you say? With the 655FX, SIS are introducing an interesting new technology known as ‘HyperStreaming’… but more on that in a moment. By default the SIS 655FX supports Intel Pentium 4 processors running on a 400-thru-800 MHz FSB. The chipset also packs in a dual channel PC3200 memory controller, meaning it can provide the Pentium 4 with up to 6.4GB/s of bandwidth.”

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KoolPCMods Case Plate
SystemCooling :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“The KoolPCMods Case Plate is a 1/8” thick piece of plexy that is designed to stylishly decorate those plain and ordinary case windows. But the beauty of the Case Plate is in the fact that it cannot only increase the beauty of a case with a window but even those without.”

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working with acrylic
PimpRig :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“I decided to dedicate an entire ANTEC mid, to house all the watercooling appurtenances, other than the Block and the hoses leading to it. This afforded me the opportunity to do a how-to on Building your own Reservoir and Finishing Clear Acrylic.”

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Cooler Master Centurion
ViperLair :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Cooler Master has taken their first step into the budget case market with a bold step. Their case is sleek and flashy, sure to catch the eye of many people. And for those of you who put your components into this case once, shut it up and leave it alone (except to clean the front filter every few years, this case is a good budget solution to a mid-tower.”

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Vantec NXP-301 Fan & Light Controller
The Tech Lounge :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“We’ve all seen fan controllers. Usually they control fans on four channels, and don’t do much of anything else except make the occasional buzzing sound. Today, we look at a new product from Vantec that lets you not only control several fans, but it also controls two sound-activated cold cathode lights as well. Basically, the controller has three channels for fans, and one for the lights. Sounds cool right? Let’s take a look and see.”

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Plextor PX-504UF External High-Speed DVD+R/RW CD-R/RW Drive Review
Tweaknews :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Well, as my wife said; “It’s a very nice muffler.” Certainly, the unit is sleek and stylish… however few will pay for aesthetics alone.

The advantage of being able to choose either USB or Firewire makes the drive very versatile. The included software is fairly robust, though still user-friendly. DVD Builder is a great application for parents wanting to backup family videos. And the DVD+R format is still more widely supported by DVD-ROMs and home DVD players.”

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Casetronics 2699R Mini-ITX Case Review
Virtual-Hideout :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“More and more PC users are building a Home Theater PC, or better known as HTPC. As the name implies, the rig is mainly used for DVD movie playbacks, Divx or XVid movies, MP3 jukebox and since it’s connected to a TV set, it could also be used as a PC for the living room where couch surfing usually takes place. And the Mini-ITX motherboards, the brainchild of VIA, was the perfect candidate for the applications. Being so tiny in size (17cm by 17cm), the resulting chassis that you’ll need will definitely have a small footprint and will blend in nicely with any current home entertainment system setups. There’s quite a number of Mini-ITX cases available right now in the market and one of them is the Casetronic 2699R MiniITX Case.”

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5.25″ 6 Knob Ultimate Panel
Xoxide :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“The Ultimate Panel is truely the ultimate in fan controllers. The panel has six LED lit independent knobs each controlling one fan. The panel also comes with three interchangable face plates for the most stylish appearance. Three pin connectors are used to connect the fans to the six different ports. The Ultimate Controller is definitly one of the best in the market, and great for all of your cooling needs.”

Only $18.99

Allied AL-B500E 500 Watt Power Supply
Voided Warranty :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“What I expected to pull out of the box, and what came out of the box were two different things. I was anticipating just another PSU, but I was wrong. This power supply looks awesome with its brushed aluminum casing. Looks can be deceiving. Will this unit perform as good as it looks? We will find out soon enough.”

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Abit IC7 MAX3 875P Motherboard
Overclockers New Zealand :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“The performance is certain top notch and the overclocking is also the best among the dual channel DDR motherboards. The six SATA ports with RAID functions should be enough for users with many SATA hard drives. All these benefits add up the cost of the motherboard and the price of IC7-MAX3 isn’t cheap.”

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Thermalright SLK-900U
8Balls Hardware :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Having a proper cooling solution for your overclocked lean, mean gaming machine is pretty much one of the most important aspects for the overclocker and computer enthusiast. Thermalright Inc has been one of the top aircooling solution providers for enthusiasts ever since the famous SK-6 was unleashed onto the market. Followed up by multiple variants on the same basic design, enthusiasts were greeted with the likes of the SK-7, AX-7 and the SLK-800, just to name a few. While a great many enthusiasts have switched over to watercooling for their overclocking endeavours, Thermalright Inc’s products are also considered among the best you can get if you’re sticking to air-cooling your hot silicon.”

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Icemat Black review at RipNet-UK
Ripnet-UK :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
This weekend it’s the turn of the Icemat Black to get put through its paces. Worth parting with a chunk of your hard-earned cash for? Read on to find out…

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Gizmos, Gadgets and Goodies Guide #4
TweakTown :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
“It’s time for our forth Gizmos, Gadgets and Goodies Guide where we look at new and funky products from Everglide, Antec, Memory.com, Kore Computers, ThermalTake and TekGems.”

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SteelPad 4S Review @ techniz.co.uk
Techniz.co.uk :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003

“After placing this where my old mat used to be I did find an instant difference, the size! My old mat is 3cm smaller all the way round. First impressions where that this mat works very well indeed. There were a few glitches when using my Logitech optical to start with, but once I got used to it, and after fitting the pad surfers the movement and glitches almost disappeared.”

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Albatron PX865PE Lite Pro @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
“This motherboard has a fair amount going for it, it is overclockable, fast and based on a very stable chipset, and is pretty low priced. The only downsides are the lack of dual channel memory and features as well as the misleading name.”

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Limited Edition Asus 9800XT info and pics
Hexus :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
“Looking around various on-line etailers, the Creative MuVo NX 128MB can be had for a touch under £90. We feel that’s just about an acceptable outlay for a product that excels in most areas, be it digital media player, sound recorder or storage device. The intuitive LCD display and controls are a bonus. Sure, it’s sonic skills aren’t up to the very best players and it perhaps needs a little more volume oomph to satisfy bass junkies, but we reckon it will be hard to find a much better package on this side of £100. Recommended if it fits into your needs.”

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ATI Radeon 9800 XT Visual Gaming Performance
TweakTown :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003

“Half a grand is a lot of money to spend on a graphics cards. In this article we examine visual gaming performance of ATI’s latest GPU, the Radeon 9800 XT, in Counter-Strike, NHL 2004, Max Payne 2, Midnight Club II and Halo PC to work out if it is really worth spending all those dollars.”

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Hercules 3D Prophet All-In-Wonder 9800SE
Hexus :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
I honestly can’t think of a more compelling graphics card purchase in recent times. It fits so many possible scenarios. It’ll play Half Life 2 and Doom 3 when they appear with good performance, it plays all current games titles just fine with IQ enhancing features enabled to boot. The All-In-Wonder hardware and software bundle just top it off. The price is excellent too.

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Chatlog for Fall chat with NVIDIA’s nForce team
Bjorn3D :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
After some unforseen problems and delays at the start of the chat we could hold the chat with NVIDIA’s nForce team yesterday.

The chat went on for over 1 hour and there were lots of talk about sound issues with the nForce2 as well as questions about why there is no Soundstorm in the nForce3.

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SilverStone Gamer PC Case Review @ Short-Media.com
Short-Media :: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
The SilverStone Tek Gamer PC Tower just kept revealing itself. Behind a panel was a door. Behind the door was space for a fan. The SilverStone Tek designers took many ideas from the competition and made them fit into SST-B032FW. The Gamer PC tower is solid, packed with features, stylish…and…takes some getting used to.

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ASUS Radeon 9800XT/TVD review
Hexus :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“It overclocks decently, SmartDoctor makes it quieter than almost any other card, it’s presented well, exudes quality and carries ASUS’ 3 year warranty. Factor Half Life 2 into the price too, if you’re feeling that way inclined. Shipping date for that title stops it making any real difference though.

Should you want the fastest graphics card money can buy and you’re deep of pockets, the ASUS is as good as any to relieve you of your cash.”

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Albatron PX865PE Lite Pro i848P Motherboard Review
PCStats :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Let’s be frank about this, who wouldn’t want to have the best equipment in their PC? I’m going to be buying a new car soon and I’d love to get a Porsche… but my budget doesn’t allow that. For the average consumer, most view buying a PC hardware in much the same way – they want the fastest gear, but then reality sets in. So what are the options? Well for one, a motherboard based on the newly introduced Intel i848P chipset could work. The i848P’s feature set is almost identical to that of the i865PE except for one thing, there is only one 64 bit memory controller instead of two. That means the i848P has half the bandwidth of the i865PE at any given time, and is more suitably targeted towards value conscious consumers. Other than that, the feature set of the i848P and i865PE are virtually the same; both have 8x AGP, CSA support, etc. Though i848P’s silicon is physically larger than that of the i845PE, it is the same size as the i865PE chipset.”

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Creative MuVo NX 128MB
Hexus :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“Looking around various on-line etailers, the Creative MuVo NX 128MB can be had for a touch under £90. We feel that’s just about an acceptable outlay for a product that excels in most areas, be it digital media player, sound recorder or storage device. The intuitive LCD display and controls are a bonus. Sure, it’s sonic skills aren’t up to the very best players and it perhaps needs a little more volume oomph to satisfy bass junkies, but we reckon it will be hard to find a much better package on this side of £100. Recommended if it fits into your needs.”

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Chaintech FX-71 Geforce FX5600 Ultra Videocard Review
Tweaknews :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“With not a single corner cut, the great looks and industry leading cooling technology coupled with great performance and a great software and accessory package makes the FX-71 an excellent videocard to put on your short list if you are considering a mainstream targeted videocard.”

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SilverStone Lascala SST-LC01 HTPC Case Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Tuesday, November 04, 2003

“The SilverStone Lascala SST-LC01 HTPC Case has excellent storage capabilities thanks to dual drive mounting brackets which exist on both the left and right hand sides of the case. These brackets are secured by seven mounting screws and are completely removable. The mounting brackets is of custom design with the top portion designed for installing a 5.25″ external drive. The bottom portion has been designed to house a total of six 3.5″ drives (2 x external and 4 internal). This unique design for a desktop case makes the Lascala SST-LC01 a perfect choice for a HTPC system since it can handle multiple HD or RAID array configurations.”

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