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MSI
P7N SLI Platinum Motherboard:
Nvidia's mainstream chipset is the base on MSI's mid-ranged offering.
The price won't break the bank, but how does the performance look?
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Morning Edition:
Friday, May 9 2008
- 3:22
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DX10.1
Assassin's Creed (great game by the way) had support for DX10.1, but which has since been taken away in a later patch. Why? Tech Report find out, straight from the horses mouth.
After that article, things began to snowball, first with confirmation that Assassin's Creed did indeed ship with DX10.1 support, and then with Ubisoft's announcement about a forthcoming patch for the game. The announcement included a rather cryptic explanation of why the DX10.1 code improved performance, but strangely, it also said Ubisoft would be stripping out DX10.1 in the upcoming patch.
HD 3650
We still don't see Diamond Viper cards often in the news in my opinion. But here is one, the Diamond Viper HD 3650 1GB.
Much like other 3650 cards, you get a pretty good performer packed with features for a low price. The inclusion of native HDMI-out is a big plus for anyone running a home theater PC setup, but others are not left
out with VGA and DVI connections as well.
Case, Cooling and Power
IN-WIN B2 Stealth Bomber Mid-Tower Case @ Hardware Canucks .:. Scythe Zipang 139MM CPU Cooler Review @ OCC .:. Enermax PRO82+ 525 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
780G
Sapphire have yet to make a real impact in the motherboard market. Could the Sapphire 780G Motherboard and Hybrid CrossFire get them on the enthusiast map?
Sapphire sent us its PURE-series PI-AM2RS780G motherboard featuring the 780G chipset. This chipset is capable of handling 125W Phenom processors—something of which other 780G motherboards are incapable. On-board is a Radeon HD3200 integrated graphics solution, which may not seem overly powerful on its own, but Hybrid Crossfire promises to raise the bar.
9600GT
Any way you cut it, the 9600GT is great. Great enough for even Foxconn to market them. Check out the Foxconn 9600GT-512OC at the jump.
Sure the NVIDIA 9800 series of video cards are the current crème de la crème of gaming performance but what if you don’t have the scratch to afford such a beast? Well that’s where the NVIDIA 9600 series comes in. Foxconn sent us over their pre-overclocked 9600GT. As an overclocked
card, it should give us a bit more kick than your standard garden variety card. Let’s check it out!
HD 3850 X2
Dual GPU cards are really starting to take off now, and with the way Asus have been doing of late, it bodes well for the Asus EAH3850X2 in Neoseekers review.
The folks at Asus are never ones to shy away from a challenge -- this time around, they decided to take up the test of releasing something just a little bit different. A little something they like to call the EAH3850 X2.
DDR3
Yeah, it's expensive, but the Patriot Viper DDR3-1866 2GB Memory Kit has Viper in the name so it's gotta be good. :)
Patriot has been one of the newer companies to come on board at TweakTown to supply us with their high performance memory for testing, and so far we have been pretty impressed with their line of high performance memory. Once again they have come on board to send us their new series of DDR3 modules. Today we have Patriot’s Viper Fin DDR3 2GB dual channel memory kit.
The sticker on one side of each memory module contains info on the modules. The kit we received was rated for speeds of 1866MHz or 933MHz core speed with timings of 8-8-8-24 at a maximum voltage of 1.9v. The modules are all RoHS which means they are manufactured with lead free solder.
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Afternoon Edition:
Thursday, May 8 2008
- 16:23
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Morning Edition:
Thursday, May 8 2008
- 3:21
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Evening Edition:
Wednesday, May 7 2008
- 20:11
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Trade Magazines for Free!
We've expanded our selection of free magazines offered here via Netline and Viper Lair. Topics cover everything from computers, to marketing, and are completely free to those who qualify. No strings attached.
There are plenty of subjects to choose from, and we're pretty sure you'll find something that will interest you. In the past, eWeek, Dr. Dobb’s Journal and InfoWorld have also proven popular with VL readers. There are also dozens of magazines for less technical fields like marketing, sales, and retail.
For Canadians, there is a special section for you. There are also special links for Mexican readers and International.
Folding @ VL
If you got some spare CPU cycles, give us a hand in cracking the top 100. It's for a good cause anyways. :)
Cases, Power & Cooling
NZXT Tempest Case @ 3dGameMan .:. Noiseblocker Coolscraper 3.0 @ XSReviews .:. NESTEQ ECS7001 700W Power Supply @ TechwareLabs .:. VL System LCD Case @ Tweaknews
Bytesized Bits
SuperTalent 8GB Pico USB Drive @ BCCHardware .:. Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ RAID Enclosure @ ASE Labs .:. Hades Gaming Ares H1 Optical Gaming Mouse @ DragonSteelMods .:. Wolfking Warrior XXtreme @ Bjorn3D .:. Silverstone Treasure TS01B RFID Enclosure @ techPowerUp
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Morning Edition:
Wednesday, May 7 2008
- 3:24
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Notebook
Small and (un)wired for the internet with 3.5G is the Fujitsu LifeBook U1010 (3.5G) Notebook. It's quite a difference between 3G and 3.5G when it comes to broadband, but inthe UK at least, we still need some decent price plans to make it really attractive for mobile PC users.
The LifeBook U1010 from Fujitsu, an Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) claimed by Fujitsu to be the world’s smallest Notebook PC. Utilising a mere 5.6” WideScreen LCD and 3.5G Wireless Broadband Connectivity, we see if it’s any good.
Case and Cooling
NZXT Tempest ATX Mid Tower Enclosure @ Tweaktown .:. Thermaltake M9 Review @ OCC .:. In Win B2 Stealth Bomber Case Review @ Rbmods .:. World Premier: Xigmatek Achilles S1284 HDT CPU Cooler @ BMR .:. Xigmatek S1283 Red Scorpion @ Technic3D
Peripherals
While the Logitech diNovo came across as a little overpriced, the Logitech diNovo mini has more of a 'must have' appeal, especially for the HTPC crowd.
As the Media Center or Home Theatre PC becomes more popular in homes the need for a better way to interact with the PC on the other end becomes critical. While the standard remote control may be good for most functions, what do you do when you have the need to input information or data, or type in searches? Logitech has created the diNovo Mini which is essentially a tiny bluetooth keyboard which allows you much greater freedom with your HTPC. The diNovo Mini combines all the functionality of a touchpad, keyboard, and hotkeys all into one tiny palmtop package that even has back lighting. Check out our review of this cool accessory.
USB Flash
So what makes one USB Flash drive stick out from the others? These days price has got to be the biggest player, but the SanDisk Ducati Extreme also has good looks up it's sleeve.
SanDisk, as one of mayor flash memory manufacturers, naturally has big USB flash drive portfolio. It's very hard to stand out, when there is a huge amount of different USB flash drive models from different
manufacturers on the market. Generally speaking, you can only recognize a specific type only by its different USB casing. Design of casing is something that all manufacturers pay attention to attract more customers. On the other hand, in the eyes of final user a big plus is always bigger capacity and speed of data transfers.
DDR3
I'm glad OZC carried on with the Reaper moniker for their top end DDR3 line. Still the OCZ ReaperX HPC DDR3-1333 2GB Memory Kit is hugely expensive compared to it's older DDR2 brethren.
In a few short years, OCZ has really made its mark in the PC enthusiast world. They have branched out into power supplies, CPU coolers, thermal compound, peripherals, flash media, they even have a new phase-change cooler for those extreme overclockers that need sub-zero temps. But, OCZ's forte is still high-performance system memory. Today I will be looking at OCZ's latest offering in the ReaperX series, the ReaperX PC3-1066 (DDR3-1333) 2 gig kit. Will the DDR3 ReaperX prove to be the awesome overclocker that its DDR2 little brother is?
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Copyright
© 2001-2006 Viper Lair. All Rights Reserved.
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