Tech News November 2004

 

UPS Roundup @ Bjorn3d.com
Bjorn3D :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“Bonnie. Charlie. Frances. Ivan. Jeanne. Are these the names of 17th century British ships? Paris Hilton’s puppies? Guests at a swinger’s party? No, they were Atlantic hurricanes in 2004 that had a direct impact on my home state of Florida. I was fortunate in that their destructive power was primarily focused outside of my city, but my home was still directly impacted by several of the storms. In addition to high winds and heavy rain, our home’s power continually surged, dimmed, and went out completely for over 36 hours. By the time Frances blew through, I was really convinced I needed a UPS!”

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Thermaltake BigWater Review @ GruntvillE.com
GruntvillE :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“The entire waterblock is copper with a see-through acrylic cover. The copper combined with the shiny acrylic is just gorgeous. The overall design of the waterblock is well done and aesthetically pleasing. Four screws securely attach the acrylic cover to the copper base. Two barbs are centered evenly for a symmetrical look. Under the screw down caps are 5/16in prongs to attach the tubing. Between the barbs you can see the pathway for the liquid cooling. In the right hand corner you can see the small LED encased in the acrylic cover. The LED is blue to light up the entire block. This waterblock is universal; with the included clamps it is designed to fit Intel P4 socket 775, P4, AMD K8, and AMD K7.”

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OCIA.net has posted a Beginners Guide to OverClocking
OCIA :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“So what exactly is overclocking and why would anybody want to do it? Overclocking is the art of pushing your system to the limits; squeezing every last bit of power and performance out of your components. Overclocking is an enthusiast hobby. A good comparative example would be a car enthusiast. Sure, you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to own some of the fastest cars in the world, but why bother when you can take virtually any car, and make it just as fast with the right modifications for a fraction of the price?”

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Swiftech H20-120 Rev2 Athlon 64 Water Cooling Kit Review
TweakTown :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“Today we have an in-depth look at Swiftech’s newest water cooling kit by Mike. We test the H20-120 Rev2 with an AMD Athlon FX-53 processor and compare it against one of the best air coolers on the market today. Read on and let’s find out if Swiftech are offering something which really deserves our money.”

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Mushkin PC3200 L2V2 @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004
“Of course true enthusiasts will want to overclock, and the samples I have here have shown themselves to be capable of near PC4000 speeds which is quite a jump from PC3200. Timings had to be loosened to reach the higher speeds but the headroom is there. If you are a mild overclocker of P4 systems, or you run an AMD system, then this ram would be suitable for you.”

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Logisys SP6001BK 2.1 Speaker System Review
Mikhailtech :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“Coming in at under $50, this system is competitively priced with Logitech’s X-230 (32W total output) and Z-3 speakers (40W total output). 12W per satellite is pretty good for low-end speakers. Another 16W for the sub and you get a total of 40W. The advantage these speakers have over most 2.1 systems are the RCA audio plugs which let you connect them to a television set, DVD player, pretty much anything that accepts said input. Needless to say, this makes them a lot more useful.”

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Vantec NexStar 2 External 5.25 Drive Enclosure
Hi-Techreviews :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“Have you ever ran into the need to copy or burn a DVD with a computer that didn’t have a burner installed in it or perhaps you have one DVD burner and would like the option of sharing it with all of the computers in your home or office. The same thing applies to a CD drive, if you answered yes to this question then the Vantec NexStar 2 External 5.25 CD/DVD Drive Enclosure should interest you.”

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Thermaltake Circlefire Multi-Media Drive Bay Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“I know that as a consumer, I would expect much more from a product that Thermaltake advertises as a “professional multi-media kit”. It tries to do too many things, and ends up doing none of them very well. I could only find one online retailer for the Circle Fire, and at $77 CAD ($65 USD) the bang for buck coefficient is quite low, by my estimation. I’ve owned Thermaltake products in the past and been very pleased with them, but using the Circle Fire has been a little like admiring a choice ’49 Mercury hot rod, then finding a lawn-mower motor under the hood.”

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Aspire Concord 500W Aluminum PSU Review @ FastLaneHW.com
FastLaneHW :: Tuesday, November 16, 2004

“The Concord MR500W comes packaged well protected and lots of features. There is a handy hole in the side of the box to verify the color the of PSU before buying it. Two user adjustable 80mm fans keep the PSU cool. At full speed, the fans are loud, but nothing like other high performance fans on the market. The power switch is oversized and very easy to find when reaching behind the computer.”

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Traxdata Media full Presentation @ CDRinfo
CDRInfo :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“Read our review, including the results of comprehensive quality tests performed on Traxdata media by our engineers with the most popular DVD burners currently available on the market”

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E-Power Warrior PC Case @ Short-Media
Short-Media :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“It’s a PC case that comes stock with 13 LED lights. The side panel glows with a spectrum of constantly changing colors and the light show can continue in the Warrior PC case even after the computer is shut down”

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PimpRig Utility // Overclockulator 1.3.4b @ PimpRig
PimpRig :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“An updated version of the Overclockulator is now online for your downloading pleasure. This new version includes a revised interface with new clock detection features. In case you passed up the previous releases this utility includes some handy little apps including a CFM calculator, FSB/Multiplier Calc., a required PSU Wattage Calc. and more. As always this utility is available for free – NO MEMBER SIGN UP REQUIRED! :)”

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Intel Celeron D @ Phoronix
Phoronix :: Sunday, November 14, 2004

“Deleron, CellyD, Celery D, or whatever you would like to call the new Intel Celeron D processors, they undoubtedly have some enthusiasts talking over its Prescott core. In this article today, we got our hands on the new Intel Celeron D 320 that runs at 2.4GHz and utilizes the Prescott core with 90 nm process.”

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Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 Memory @ Bjorn3d
Bjorn3D :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“Many of us wondered for years why Crucial, a long time leader in the memory industry, never entered the ‘performance DDR’ segment. I just always figured they were making enough money selling to OEMs and to the average consumer who just wanted some RAM. …. That is no longer the case today. Earlier this year, Crucial introduced an enthusiast line called ‘Ballistix,’ which is obviously intended to grab gamers’ attention. The Ballistix DDR has grabbed plenty of positive attention and feedback from users and reviewers alike. Crucial sent us some DDR2 from the Ballistix family, so we’ll get to see firsthand if Crucial truly can deliver what enthusiasts want.”

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Akasa’s Eclipse 62 @ Hexus
Hexus :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“Akasa, while not the original manufacturers of the chassis, have worked with the original creators to tweak it just as they like it, engineering out any initial flaws they saw and paying close attention to the smaller details and the wider cooling performance. The width of the chassis and its modular nature afford you excellent thermal performance and ease of use. It’s stylish too, the all-black aesthetic tickling my fancy. Simple to work with and open for modification and integration of any powerful system you wish to put inside, the Eclipse 62 is a stand-out chassis and one worth your consideration.”

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Antec’s NEOPower 480 Watt reviewed @ DataFuse
DataFuse :: Sunday, November 14, 2004

“Antec has always been quite the innovative company. Thinking about their PSU’s they always seem to outperform or outdo the competition. Moves like putting 120mm fans inside their Power Supplies instead of 80mm fans or simply no fans at all, really make the difference.”

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Logisys Janus Review @ Phoronix
Phoronix :: Sunday, November 14, 2004

“A few days ago, we had looked at the ePower Warrior Gaming Case. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the article, it was known the same sort of design could be expected on competitor cases, and today we have to present the Logisys Janus gaming case.”

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DangerDen D4 Pump and HDPE Bay Reservoir Review @ GruntvillE.com
GruntvillE :: Sunday, November 14, 2004

“Anyone familiar with watercooling knows DangerDen; they’ve brought us some of the most popular products in the industry including the award winning Maze series. The first watercooling block I used was a Maze and I’ve had a couple since. They’ve always been among the best performing blocks available at any time. Today we’re going to be looking at their new reservoir and their very popular D4 pump. The reservoir is based on the popular bay reservoir style but ads a new material to the mix.”

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Cooler Master Cavalier 1 CAV-T01 @ Overclockers Online
Overclockers Online :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“There are many cases to choose from, as most of you know. The great difficulty in choosing a case however is finding one that suits your functional needs as well as your personal tastes. Cooler Master, supplier of the case we look at today, has built a reputation for making some of the sleekest and most high quality of cases.”

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Gigabyte GA-K8VT800 Pro Review @ Hexus
Hexus :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“VIA’s K8T800 Pro chipset powers the most popular Socket 754 boards on the market and when that core logic was released, it was no surprise to see the major Tier-I and Tier-II board vendors update any K8T800 designs they had, using V-Map flexibility to just drop the new ASICs in (for the most part). Gigabyte is one such vendor.

Today, we’ll be looking at one of the cheaper offerings in the broad spectrum of Socket 754 motherboards available on the market, in the form of their GA-K8VT800 Pro.”

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Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D-3 6600GT PCI-E VGA Review @ Overclockers New Zealand
Overclockers New Zealand :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D flexes its muscle over the old PCX5900 and R9800Pro, due to its advanced architecture. It is amazing to see that Nvidia managed to give a sub $400NZ card this level of performance. I feel the GF4 Ti-4200 days are back again.”

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Mentor HSMT-UD headphones @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Sunday, November 14, 2004
“I first listened to music and then watched a couple of action DVD movies with the Mentor HSMT-UD headphones and thought they sounded great. I really noticed the difference when I used them to play games. I first tried them with Battlefield 1942 and found it much easier to tell which direction I was taking fire from”

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Black Icemat 2nd Edition Mouse Pad Review @ Hard-h2o
Hard-h2o :: Sunday, November 14, 2004

“Many people almost never think about their mouse pads, believing them to be just a secondary accessory. This is not really true, though. There’ is a definite advantage to a good mouse pad, which will give you greater mouse precision, which in turn will enhance both your gaming and work experiences. Icemat is a well known brand for this task, and now they are showing us the second edition of one of their excellent products.”

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Aspire Concord 500W Aluminum PSU Review @ FastLaneHW.com
FastLaneHW :: Thursday, November 11, 2004
Description: The Concord MR500W comes packaged well protected and lots of features. There is a handy hole in the side of the box to verify the color the of PSU before buying it. Two user adjustable 80mm fans keep the PSU cool. At full speed, the fans are loud, but nothing like other high performance fans on the market. The power switch is oversized and very easy to find when reaching behind the computer.

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ePower Tech Warrior Gaming Case @ Phoronix
Phoronix :: Thursday, November 11, 2004

Summary: “Having been exposed to several different gaming chassis’ from reviewing them, and checking out others at large scale LAN parties, it was thought we had seen all of the different major styles and themes. Nevertheless, after the ePower Warrior entered our testing labs, we were awakened to the work done by ePower Technology, which was previously thought of as a power supply manufacturer.”

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AMD’s 90nm Winchester CPU @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Thursday, November 11, 2004
“After having the 3500+ Winchester for almost two weeks I am very impressed with this CPU. It incorporates all the positives of the Newcastle it replaces, with a huge drop in operating temperatures…”

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Swiftech H20-120 Rev2 Athlon 64 Water Cooling Kit Review
TweakTown :: Thursday, November 11, 2004
“Today we have an in-depth look at Swiftech’s newest water cooling kit by Mike. We test the H20-120 Rev2 with an AMD Athlon FX-53 processor and compare it against one of the best air coolers on the market today. Read on and let’s find out if Swiftech are offering something which really deserves our money.”

check it out

Vantec NexStar 2 External 5.25 Drive Enclosure reviewed @ Hi-techreviews.com
Hi-Techreviews :: Thursday, November 11, 2004
Have you ever ran into the need to copy or burn a DVD with a computer that didn’t have a burner installed in it or perhaps you have one DVD burner and would like the option of sharing it with all of the computers in your home or office. The same thing applies to a CD drive, if you answered yes to this question then the Vantec NexStar 2 External 5.25 CD/DVD Drive Enclosure should interest you.

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Corsair DDR2 running 802MHz @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Thursday, November 11, 2004
This week we have been testing some of the Intel 925XE motherboards with the new 1066FSB processors and were able to hit 802MHz on the test bench! We were using Corsair PC2-4300 memory with 4-4-4-12 timings!

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PimpRig Review // WarDrivingWorld Platinum WarDriving Kit
PimpRig :: Thursday, November 11, 2004

We have a new review up on a pretty sweet wardriving/wireless networking kit from WarDriving World dubbed the Platinum Pro Kit. Here is a snip: “Three weeks ago I purchased the Platinum WarDriving Kit 802.11g 5xSpeed/4xDist. from War Driving World a company I stumbled upon while looking for a new wireless card with an external antenna. This is the best of the best when it comes to wireless cards. If your interested in Wardriving, this is a must have!”

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