October 2003

October 17, 2003 8:22 PM - Evening edition

Danger Den

The CPU waterblock that comes with this kit is the Maze 4 which is the successor to the Maze 3 which was a really good block. This Maze 4 is designed to be used on socket A systems but you can change the top to work with Socket 478 setups. The block itself is made of pure copper which is the best material that can be used for cooling and the top is made of Lucite which is laser cut. The barbs on this block are chrome which look really cool especially compared to the standard brass or polypropylene ones.

Orange Chenbro Xpider

The Chenbro Xpider Case is available in a number of different colors and has a very distinctive look. This case has a screw-less design and that makes installing and removing hardware extremely easy. It also has a window in the side panel which is lockable. One feature many people will like is the fact that a 120mm fan can be installed at the back of the case to allow for excellent air circulation. Watch the Video to find out more.

Bytesized bits

October 17, 2003 3:42 PM - Afternoon Edition

Site Performance
We've had some remarks about sluggish site performance since the Netshelter ads went up. We're planning a server move at 11PM PST, so hopefully this alieviates some of the problems, but if not, drop me a line.

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Memory Roundup
OcPrices has . Good start if you're ram shopping.

OcPrices.com have just relased the definitive PC4000 roundup, with contenders from Corsair, Geil, Adata, Mushkin, Kingston and OCZ duking it out for supremecy. We are on the look out for the best performing and the best value kits out there, so who will come out on top?

9600 Review
If you can snag a on the cheap, you should, as it looks to be a nice low end card. Keep in mind that this isn't a Pro version.

Not the most impressive of bundles, but if you’re on a budget and only require the card, what more do you really need? Our photo does not show a DV-I to VGA converter since our sample came without one. I was, however, informed by Connect3D that the Radeon 9600 should include one!

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 17, 2003 4:08 AM - Friday EARLY morning News

Well guys it looks like I'm back to posting news again; my schedule has once again stabilized. You can now expect the same crappy news postings that you used to be getting from me, except now it'll only be on thursday night.

And boy do I have a lot of news for you guys tonight/this morning

Sorry for not posting earlier (ie: 100 hours) but a certain someone came into my room and insisted on beating Super Mario 3... Oh come on... how could I resist?

To kick things off...

Corsair TwinX 4000/PRO
Bjorn3D has a nice review of Corsair's dual channel module sets. You can also check out Huberts' review here at VL.

The modules in the non-Pro TWINX kit that I am covering in this review are not much different than what you are used to seeing in the XMS line. The more interesting kitin this review is definitely the ProSeries pair. This is Corsair's latest innovation to put a smile on the enthusiast's face. The ProSeries modules feature a larger and nicer heatsink and activity LEDs! Yup, that's right. Just when you thought you'd seen it all with RAM, Corsair decides to be the first company to add activity LEDs. Although not high in utility, they are very cool and just right for a case window.

Asus GeForceFX 5900 Ultra
Elric "Doc Oc" Phares takes a look at Asus's offering, the V9950. As usual, Doc does a thoughrough review. I like the box too.

This review is a bit late due to the driver fiasco that has been surrounding NVIDIA as of late, but using older drivers approved by the Industry at large we have wrapped up this review at long last. The card itself is made very well with an extensive cooling system that far surpasses the NVIDIA reference design. If you can only choose one FX 5900 card this should be the one to look at as overall it has what it takes to be an Editors Choice product.

DFI 865PE Infinity
Hexus takes a look at motherboard offering. I was pretty impressed with the LanParty I got, and DFI doesn't seem to let Hexus down all that much.

It's very fast, stable, feature rich and should be aggressively priced. If DFI can iron out one or two presentation and overclocking problems it has the potential to be one of the very best consumer-level Intel-based motherboArds. The CMOS Reloaded feature was an especially nice touch. A decent showing from DFI.

Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro
Dukgamers takes a look at the video card. I think I'd wait for an XT though.

The cooler on the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB is the same as the cooler on the 128MB version and the core speed hasn't altered as it is still clocked at 380MHz. 16 (8 on the front of the board 8 on the back) Samsung DDRII memory chips make up the 256MB of memory which is clocked at 700MHz, 20MHz faster than the 9800 Pro 128MB card but DDRII memory has a higher latency than DDR memory so any performance advantages due to the faster memory will be minimal.

GeDcube 9600Pro Extreme
A company I have yet to hear of until today, GeXube, has released a "Radeon 9600 Pro Extreme" which supposedly off their feet.

Overclocking is carried out with default cooling, e.g. stock HSF and thermal grease. The highest working speed is 486Core/742Memory. I was not able to push the card any higher without random lock ups. I was a bit surprised that I could not reach 800MHz for memory clock, as the Samsung 2.5ns ram chips are rated at that speed.

Plextor PX-708A DVD+-R/RW
I actually just purchased one of these and will be doing a review of it shortly. Until then, HardwareZoom has a released their .

As our test results shown, the PX-708A burned the entire 4.22GB image in less than eight minutes, just by using normal 4X DVD+R media. For the first time we've seen a consumer DVD writer that records disc image of this size at such speeds, it's especially amazing when you consider writing a 650MB CD four years ago probably needed longer. Plextor did not disclose the write strategy used in their 8X DVD+R recording, but our best bet is Z-CLV

We've got a bunch of different quickies for you tonight.

Fans/Case/Lighting
, , ,

Misc
, , ,

Cooling
,, , , , , , ,

October 16, 2003 12:53 PM - Afternoon Edition

PC4300
Yep, PC4300 already, and surprisingly, it's from

"With the release of Intel's 800 MHz FSB processors, and accompanying motherboards, the enthusiast market has boomed as consumers have rushed out to buy newer, faster components. For enthusiasts, the name of the game is change, and if they don't adopt new technology they could be missing out on the full potential of their existing hardware. Buffalo Technology is not as familiar a memory brand as say Corsair, or Crucial, yet the company has been quietly creating a following for itself."

9600 Pro AiW
With it's multimedia capabilities, a mainstream VPU and a decent price point, the makes good sense.

"ATI has successfully filled every possible sector with an All-in-Wonder option that is bound to please anyone with any wallet size. With great performance and a very good pricetag, the All-in-Wonder 9600pro is bound to be one of the most sought after stocking stuffers for the 2003 Christmas season."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

Ricoh MP5240A Vs AOpen DRW4410
Couple of DVD Burners go head to head over at CDR-Info.

"While the announcements for new dual-format DVD writers have whelmed our mail boxes, some traditionally hard-core manufacturers stand upon their position and keep launching either sole DVD-RW or DVD+RW drives. Their policy is completely respected, as long as they serve the general demand for quality products. In our case, Ricoh and AOpen have proven in the past that they follow the users needs with reliable and affordable products. We have in our labs the new AOpen DRW4410 and the Ricoh MP5240A-DP 4x DVD+R/+RW writers."

October 16, 2003 2:55 AM - Morning Edition

nForce2
For the 32 bit Athlons you'll want an nForce2 board. OCModshop tell us if the motherboard is worth your hard earned.

"Finally, let's move on to the audio portion of the board. On the left are the standard audio jacks for plain old 2 channel audio. The second pic is my speakers hooked up to the connector. The third picture is the sound header that comes with the motherboard installed and hooked up to the rear channels of my 4.1 system. You can't see the SPDIF connector, but it's there. The sound system supports 6.1 audio and Dolby 5.1 decoding, which is pretty sweet."

Watercooling
Watercooling is becoming more and more popular these days, and if you're interested in building your own system, you'll want to keep the in mind.

"As we opened the box we were faced with a well-protected product. Swiftech used Styrofoam sheets to protect the product from any damages during the shipping process. Just to clear everything there was a Styrofoam sheet on top of the water-block. We found the product to be in perfect condition so surely their packaging technique paid off."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:.

X-Alien Case
The Overclocker Café give the a look and tell us what they think.

"The removable motherboard tray comes out a bit differently than most. Two thumb screws on its right side allow the try to be pulled up and out via the side left side panel rather than its being slid out the rear. This set up is effective but no where near as clean or easily removable as the rear slide out type."

October 15, 2003 7:51 PM - Evening edition

MSI 865PE

Today we are looking at MSI's 865PE Neo2-FIS2R Springdale Motherboard. We will be giving it our typical tourture tests to check for performance and overclockability. One other thing I would like to point out that my interest many of you out there. According to MSI's manual for this motherboard, the Neo2-FIS2R is "Prescott-ready"!

ATI TV WonderT

The ATI TV WonderT Pro Remote Control Edition has a 125 channel TV tuner, remote control, an input adapter and a lot more. It can easily capture all types of video and has excellent TV picture quality. The TV window can be resized, has a zoom in/out feature, TV programs can be scheduled and much more. This is a feature-rich TV card that has fantastic bang for the buck. Watch the Video to find out more.

GeForceFX 5200U

Nvidia were probably kicking themselves after releasing the Ti4200. Most of the Ti4200 cores could easily hit Ti4600 speeds and above... all a video card maker had to do was include some faster RAM and, voila, instant Ti4600 at a fraction of the price! Albatron is no stranger to this tactic, as their Ti4200P Turbo will likely go down as the best overclocking Ti4200 card ever.

Bytesized bits

.:. .:. .:.

October 15, 2003 12:13 PM - Afternoon Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

9600 XTs Reviewed
Got a few of these today, and we'll update it as the day goes on.

- With the change from RV350 to RV360 an enhanced version of the 130nm LV process became available with a new "Black Diamond" insulating material with a lower capacitance than FSG and hence a lower diametric constant (k). This gives rise to the term low-k 130nm process and this facilitates even faster transistors switching, thus greater speeds.

- The Radeon 9600 XT is ATIs latest mid range offering, and is essentially a higher speed 9600 Pro. The XT tag will doubtless give a chuckle to anyone who has been into computers for more than a decade or so.

- TMSC's process enhancements have basically handed ATI a fall refresh on a plate, and combined with the new drivers, it almost feels like a totally different product to 9600 Pro. Lots of core overclocking headroom (please please put better memory modules on retail boards if ATI's partners are listening), a decent price and very competitive performance. You can't ask for more than that.

- The ATI Radeon 9600XT is currently the best mainstream card you can buy. If you already have a 9600Pro or 9500 there isn’t much of a reason to upgrade to a 9600XT. If you are using a lesser card, and looking for an upgrade that you don’t want to spend more than $200 on, then the Radeon 9600XT is the card for you.

- ATi's Radeon 9600 XT has just started shipping and we take a look at how it compares to the original Radeon 9600 Pro, the 9800 Pro and the flagship 9800 XT. Is it the world's fastest budget videocard?

- However, for those with lower end cards such as the GeForce 4 Ti4200 or one of the other lower end cards, the Radeon 9600 XT should be a serious consideration in your upgrade. Subtract the $50 price out of Half-Life 2 from the $199 price tag of the 9600 XT and it cuts the price down to $149.

Rounding things off is a , just in case you can find one being offloaded for a great price.

nForce2 Review
We're going to be looking at some Athlon 64 solutions soon, but the Athlon XP is still a viable platform... especially if you pair it up with the .

Albatron surely made a winner with the KX18D PRO II. With features like SATA , sound storm audio, AGP 8X ,6 USB 2.0 Ports, Dual BIOS, Voice Genie , and 2 IEE 1394 ports what more can you look for in a board?

SiS 655 Review
With nVidia, VIA and Intel dominating the chipset market, it's easy to forget about SiS. PC Stats review the .

It would seem as though SIS' past reputation still haunts them, but as long as the company stays true to the current path, there is no doubt they are set to take the chipset world by storm.

Cooling Stuff

.:. .:. .:.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:.

October 15, 2003 6:04 AM - Morning Edition

nForce3
It still remains to be seen if nVidia can maintain their dominance for an AMD solution, so lets check out the for the Athlon 64.

"Chaintech has continued to impress with their Zenith series. The latest ZNF3-150 is worthy of that moniker, and Chaintech includes the usual features and accessories that make it one of the top Athlon 64 boards you will find. We can only hope for multiplier support, and that the board becomes available soon. If you are in the market for an Athlon 64 motherboard that has all the bells and whistles then the Chaintech ZF3-150 Zenith fits the bill."

FX5900
Our Todd checked out this card a while back, and ClubOC also look at the

"The holiday season is almost upon us, are you ready? If you're not up with DirectX 9 then you're going to be missing out on a lot of visual extras that these upcoming releases will have to offer. MSI has been a long-time partner with nVidia, manufacturing quality video cards based upon TNT and now GeForceFX chipsets. Packed with a gob of software, and wrapped up in a very hefty card cooler, this thing promises to bring Overclocking to the AGP slot, and Overclocking is just what I intend to do."

And if thats out of your price range, the is looked at over at HardwareZone (again you can see our's here).

FX5900 #2
The card in this review is 1 of 250 Ltd Ed models from

"When Triplex started as a graphics card manufacturer, they made their name using NVIDIA GPUs. So it is but natural to expect that their current NVIDIA offerings would be of utmost quality and workmanship as well. Well, today here at OCTools, we are lucky enough to be reviewing a FX 5900 card that Triplex produced exclusively as Limited Editions. So exclusive that what we've got here is 1 of only 250 ever produced in the series. Introducing, our exclusive review of Triplex's FX 5900 offering, the Mohoch FX 5900 Limited Edition."

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:. .:.

Canterwood
A little i875P action over at PC Stats as they check out the for your Pentium 4.

"Today we're going to be testing Gigabyte's flagship Intel motherboard, the GA-8KNXP. The GA-8KNXP is based on the i875P chipset and the board has native support for Serial ATA/Serial ATA RAID, Ultra/133 RAID, IEEE 1394, CSA Intel Gigabit LAN, and 5.1 audio. For extra measure, Gigabyte use dual BIOS' on all their boards, and to improve reliability have even engineered something called DPS2 (Dual Power System) which clips into the board in a special slot adjacent to the IO panel."

And if your looking to tweak this, or any board, don't forget to check out which is now up to Interim Release 5.

Fast Storage
really must get myself some SATA RAID 0. Ben's Custom Cases puts into an Array for a nice 54761kB/s Sandra score.

"Today, I'm doing away with the PATA interface and taking a look at a pair of SATA drives from Western Digital. These are the 120GB 7200rpm SATA drives with an 8MB cache. How much has performance in the storage area improved? Is a RAID array's performance worth the price? How much wood can a woodchuck actually chuck? Most of your questions will be answered as you read on. So, without further delay, let's take a look at the drives."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 14, 2003 12:59 PM - Afternoon Edition

CIA and MIB
Looks like Will Smith wants to bring aliens to justice, keep the intergalactic peace, and if you have a Gigabyte motherboard,

"Amazingly, C.I.A. has done a better job than with manual overclocking. Benchmark results have shown that when C.I.A. is activated and accelerated by 7%, the actual performance is about 3% better than manually overclocking the CPU by 7% in BIOS. Seems that C.I.A. not only overclock the FSB but it also optimised other settings to improve the performance further."

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .: .:.

Modding
If your looking to squeeze every last bit of overclocking performance from your 9800 pro, then this guide on might be what you need.

"Today we take the ATI Radeon 9800pro graphic's card under our wing and we give it a few tweaks and modifications to push it far beyond any graphic's card currently on the market to take your PC gaming over the edge.. "

An easier way to get your PC smoking would be to

Etc.
.:. .:.

October 14, 2003 4:04 AM - Morning Edition

9800XT
Some top of the line graphics action over at AMDZone with a look at the graphics card.

"While the Radeon 9800 XT represents no dramatic change from the Radeon 9800 Pro, it is currently the fastest video card for gaming that you can buy and although at a high price of $499, a card that should last for years and be able to take on tomorrow's games. With the recent delay of Half-Life 2, this does come as a setback to ATI but regardless the game will be released and it does come with a coupon for the full version of Half-Life 2."

K8 Cooling
I daresay we shall a lot of reviews on items for the K8 line such as motherboards of varying chipsets and of course

"As we and you expected the performance from the Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 is not world shattering with its slow but quiet fan, but none-the-less the performance is still decent as our graph clearly shows. As with the Thermaltake Volcano 12 Extreme we reviewed recently this is testimony to the new heatsink design adopted by Thermaltake."

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:. .:.

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. AMD, ATI, All-In-Wonder, AOPEN, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, Babe Thread, Forums, Intel, nVidia, MSI, Shuttle, FIC, Radeon, google, Jokes, GeForce, FX, Small Form Factor, Cooling, Water Cooling, Swiftech, Vantec, Corsair.

October 13, 2003 6:42 PM - Evening edition

MSI 848P

When the Intel 875/865 chipsets were released, they became an instant success with the incorporation of an 800MHz FSB, dual 64-bit memory controllers, native serial ATA, and official support for DDR400. These features are nice, but do not come cheap. Not everyone can afford to dish out $100-$200+ just for a motherboard. MSI has come up with a solution to this problem by designing the 848P Neo-S. This mainboard sports most of the same features as the higher end 875/865 boards minus a few key things such as dual channel DDR.

Cooling and mods

.:. .:. .:. .:.

bytesized bits

.:.

October 13, 2003 2:12 PM - Afternoon Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Cooling and Mods

.:. .:. .:. .:.

October 13, 2003 8:33 AM - Morning Edition

Doh!
We're having some problems with our forum databases, so you'll probably have issues connecting today. We're on it, and we'll try to get it back up ASAP.

9600 Review
gets some coverage over at Hexus today. Looks like a nice card, with some unique features as well.

As a card that's aimed at the midrange sector, the Tyan G9600 Pro does well at 1024x768x32 with and without antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. That's exactly its target performance market, we feel. A robust, semi-powerful card, Tyan should be on to a winner here.

5600 Review
HWZ takes a look at the , which is based on the 5600 Ultra. Brook has his cooking on the test bench now, so expect a review soon from our end.

The Chaintech Apogee FX71 could probably be the most awesome looking GeForce FX 5600 ultra graphics card around. Sporting VIVO functions, good accessories, video-editing related software and some other extras, it was an almost perfect product.

AOpen Case
A high-end case from AOpen? I didn't quite believe it myself, but the gang at the Café look at the . I'll have to agree that it is a departure from past AOpen offerings.

Notice the power supply up top. This initially caught my eye because of the mesh screen instead of the normal fan grill that I am used to seeing. The reason for this became apparent on closer inspection as I realized that there is no rear exhaust fan for the PSU.

Cooling and Mods

.:. .:.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 12, 2003 8:03 PM - Evening edition

Bytesized bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 12, 2003 9:41 AM - Morning edition

Build a PC

Take the plunge with us for a step by step guide to assemble your PC from a collection of boxes and cables right through to a fully installed operating system. Along the way there will be handy hints and tweaks to a better build and more performance for the PC.

FX5900 Turbo

The Wise Fan technology cooling system did an excellent job of keeping the Albatron FX5900 Turbo cool as it maintained excellent stability throughout the testing phase.

Bytesized bits

.:. .:.

October 11, 2003 8:15 PM - Saturday Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Springdale
MyWorldHW seem to be pretty impressed by the in their review.

"Choosing a motherboard can sometimes be very hectic. With so many different companies throwing out their products for sale, users alike may find it confusing to get the board which they would really suits them well. Joining us today in our review, we will take a look at the latest Pentium 4 motherboard by Epox, 4PDA2+. The board was powered by Intel Springdale chipset or better known as i865PE and this board is a must and find out why we say so in the next pages of this review coverage!"

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

PC3200
If your looking for some good ram on the cheap then this might suffice, just don't count on it overclocking too well.

"Crucial is one of the world's largest memory module manufacturers and, to the best of my knowledge, the only complete memory module manufacturer in the United States. Crucial memory is generally associated with the average user's PC, not your hardcore PC enthusiast. Nevertheless, Micron, Crucial's parent company produces high quality, stable memory chips and being that Crucial is a Micron subsidiary, it only makes sense that Crucial RAM is currently produced with Micron memory chips."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:. AMD, ATI, All-In-Wonder, AOPEN, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, Babe Thread, Forums, Intel, nVidia, MSI, Shuttle, FIC, Radeon, google, Jokes, GeForce, FX, Small Form Factor, Cooling, Water Cooling, Swiftech, Vantec, Corsair.

October 11, 2003 12:48 AM - Late Night Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

VIA Epia
The gets some coverage over at the Tech Lounge. Nice start if you're building a TiVo.

VIA is a very well known company for their motherboards and chipsets. A while back, we took a look at the DFI Lan Party KT400a which featured VIA's KT400a chipset. While VIA hasn't always been on top of the competition, they do produce some very interesting and worth while products.

XFX Review
3dGameMan reviews the . Personally, I thought this was a strong product.

The XFX FX5600 Ultra 128MB Video Card supports dual display, video in/out and many other advanced features. This enables users to enjoy gaming and work more productively. While this product is not the fastest in the nVIDIA lineup it is very stable, overclocks and performs well.

nForce 3 Review
Look for more of these reviews in the near future. AMDZone shares their thoughts on the .

Leadtek has definitely improved their motherboard line with the K8N Pro socket 754 Athlon 64 motherboard. With the high end features of dual Ethernet with Gigabit, data encryption, and SATA RAID most enthusiasts should be quite happy.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. AMD, ATI, All-In-Wonder, AOPEN, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, Babe Thread, Forums, Intel, nVidia, MSI, Shuttle, FIC, Radeon, google, Jokes, GeForce, FX, Small Form Factor, Cooling, Water Cooling, Swiftech, Vantec, Corsair.

October 10, 2003 1:24 PM - Afternoon Edition

P4EE
Lost Circuits go Extreme on us with a look at

"How does this Goliath compare to the standard version? Keep in mind that there are no extra processing units, the performance boost comes from the tri-level cache architecture alone - if one does not mind using ancient AMD parlance for the Extreme Edition."

nForce2
Still the chipset to have for the K7 series from AMD, many boards have been designed with it, including the

"A little over three months ago we brought you a review of the Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro II motherboard. A quick look at Leadtek's motherboard lineup reveals that all of their nForce2-based motherboards share the WinFast K7NCR18x (x varies from board to board) name. The nForce2 Ultra400 Deluxe Limited is no exception. Even though Leadtek calls it something different on its website, the box even reveals that this motherboard is actually a K7NCR18D Pro II with a much better bundle than the original."

SFF PC
Ripnet take a break from the norm and check out a complete mini system, the

"The front panel of the PC features the EZ-Watcher display. This allows you to both increase and decrease the CPU frequency with the CPU tuner dial, and also has coloured displays indicating the status of your motherboard, processor, hard disk and optical drive. It does not give any detail, basically a green icon is good and..."

Cooling and Power
.:. .:.

ByteSized
.:.

October 10, 2003 9:10 AM - Morning Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Waterblock Review
Super Finish, and Super Flat is todays catchphrase with GruntVille's .

Inside this box was the new PolarFLO SF that Steve had rambled on and on about, how the finish is better then lapping and is way better then anything we have ever seen. He told me about five times that I am not to touch the base at all, so I wouldn't get fingerprints on it.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:.

October 9, 2003 9:14 PM - Evening Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

9800 Pro Review
Dukgamers review the . We looked at the AIW version not too long ago and were quite impressed.

The R350 core of the Radeon 9800 Pro is clocked at 380MHz and 8 (4 on the back on the card and 4 on the front) Samsung BGA memory chips total 128MB of onboard memory which is clocked at 680MHz, the Samsung memory chips are rated at 2.86ns(700MHz) so there should be some overclocking headroom.

Athlon 64 Review
is a 32/64-bit processor, so you should be well prepared for the apps of today and tomorrow. Personally, , it's a bit too rich for me.

There are 754 pins on the bottom of the processor and AMD has incorporated an integrated heat spreader to protect the fragile silicon core. The IHS will certainly save us from any more horror stories crushed or chipped cores.

KT600 Review
The nForce 2 is still the platform to beat, but the does offer some nice features at a competitive price.

We are going to test nforce 2 vs this kt600 to see if there is a huge difference or not. Sisoft Sandra, Pcmark2002 etc etc will be used for testing. This board seems to be great with all the accessories but is it ?

SiS Related News
Hexus has some coverage on the . Does it have what it takes to take on Intel's best?

We'll wait on retail examples' performance before passing judgment, but it does appear that there's another viable proposition for users demanding dual-channel power from Intel's latest CPUs. It's just a shame that SiS didn't go the whole way by attempting to beat the integration available on competing solutions.

If you're looking to learn more from the house of SiS, PC Stats has a .

Memory Roundup
If you're still shopping for ram, TweakTown has some advice for you with their . This is part two of their roundups.

It's time for Part 2 of our Dual Channel Memory roundup series where this time we check out new modules from Kingmax, Corsair, Geil, OCZ, Transcend and Crucial - 8 different types of modules all up over a massive 33 pages!

Cooling and Mods

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 9, 2003 1:31 PM - Afternoon Edition

K8T800
Time for a little Athlon 64 action with a look at the over at PC Stats.

"When it comes to motherboards, most manufacturers were ready to go public last year with their Athlon64 products, but due to AMD having manufacturing delays, no one could release their goods. After all how successful are you going to be at selling a motherboard when the processor's are not even available? Today we're going to be testing a K8T800 based motherboard from the minds at MSI, called the K8T Neo-FIS2R."

SFF Cube
If your looking to build your own SFF PC then perhaps the with its aluminium construction might be what you're looking for.

"EPIACENTER.com got another exclusive review. This time we take a look at the Skyhawk IMC-6271 cube. The IMC-6271 is the first full aluminium cube with an LCD display."

Speaker Cut Off Headphone Mod
A little simple modding action down under, as the OCAU crew show you

"As you can see from this configuration when the socket is switched (ie when a plug goes in the socket) the link between pins 2 and 3, and 6 and 7 are broken. Therefore the audio input signal will connect to pins 2 and 6, and the output to the 3.5mm Socket for the speakers to 3 and 7 so that when it is switched the signal is no longer being passed on through to the speakers."

17" LCD
Samsung have a great line up of LCD Panels, like the however as a gamer I'm wary of it's 25ms response time.

"LCD monitor technology has come a long way since it was first introduced, gone are the days of only being able to see the screen dead on, and washed out looking colors. Current LCD monitors like Samsung's 173T have a large available viewing angle and rich colors."

October 9, 2003 5:41 AM - Morning Edition

5900 Ultra vs 9800 Pro
XBit Labs pit the 2 top of the line models against each other

"In this article we are going to take a really close look at a stylish MSI NBOX on the top NVIDIA graphics solution and attractive PowerColor R98-C3 on one of the top-end chips from ATI. We will also undertake a couple of really exciting extreme overclocking attempts. 30% performance boost is worth a try, isn’t it?"

DVD Burner
I think it's getting close to the time when I'm going to have to invest in one of these myself. This seems to have a lot going for it.

"The GSA-4040B is one of the few drives out there that can reach the advertised speeds when reading a DVD. There are drives that fixed the read-speed at 2X while reading a DVD-Video, and some work very poorly with dual layer / CSS encrypted DVDs . Gladly, the GSA4040B has none of those problems. A dual layer encrypted DVD-Video (considered the hardest to read) can be easily read by the drive at 8X, and a single layer one can hit 12X without much difficulty : no re-reads, no pauses or halts. The reading capabilities of the GSA4040B are commendable."

Power and Cooling
.:. .:. .:.

ByteSized
.:.

October 8, 2003 8:47 PM - Evening Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Cats 3.8
In case you missed it, . Lots of fixes and improvements are present, so let us know if it hosed your box.

Both and share their thoughts on ATI's latest.

MAX3 Review
SubZeroTech reviews the best damn P4 board around, . Well, that's what we thought.

It seems that Abit has been producing the same quality boards for some time now, many trademark stable overclockers. But up until now it doesn't seem like they have produced another one of those "signature" boards for the 875 chipset series. This is where the MAX3 comes in.

Cooling and Mods

.:. .:. .:. .:.

October 8, 2003 1:39 PM - Afternoon Edition

MiniPC
The has been getting some good press lately. Do Bjorn3D agree?

"All the power and drive cables are neatly placed out of the way, cable-tied and strapped up all around the case. The IDE / FDD cables are flat ribbon cables, but they have been folded and taped with special tape so they are very small and neat, reducing clutter and helping airflow. So, basically all you need to do when you receive your case is add the CPU, RAM and drives, no routing of cables or wires is necessary. I really liked this because when it comes to case wiring / tidiness I'm a bit of a neat freak. It saved me from having to do some work! Always a good thing."

Computer Once Over

"There comes a time in every once-new computer's life when it just doesn't feel fresh anymore. You know, when it's taking 5-10 minutes to boot up into Windows, the fans are making funny squealing noises, and there's a wad of orange cat hair protruding from the rear fan grille. It's the computer equivalent of senility, your once precious box has lost its edge. Time for action."

So where to begin? Oh, and if you were to remove the gril and sharpen those fan blades I'm willing to bet you won't have a cat hair on your grill problem again. Not that I've tried this ... honest!

FX5900 Ultra
MSI's is reviewed over at Neoseeker.

"Secondly, the card is a lot heavier than it looks - it's actually heavier than the larger GeForce FX 5900 Ultra reference card! Turn it over and you see why; MSI put another heatsink with a smaller fan on the other side. This is MSI's patented Twin Flow system, and it achieves a few things. Instead of using a larger, louder fan, MSI uses a second smaller, less intrusive fan that doesn't add to the noise, and provides better cooling by directing airflow on both sides of the card."

Want a second opinion? Then check out our review of the same package.

October 8, 2003 6:01 AM - Morning Edition

PC4000
When it comes to DDR Ram, you can't get much faster than this

"A few weeks ago Corsair released a new line of memory (XMS Pro) that was aimed directly at the heart of the enthusiast and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd. The main changes are the memory activated LED's and a newly designed heatsink that looks pretty effective and has now been bonded to the memory IC's...."

FX5200
At the low end of the videocard scale we find the likes of the aimed at the budget minded gamers.

"Overall the PNY 5200 Ultra is a solid purchase for those on a budget but looking for good framerates in current, and future gaming environments. Unfortunately, we can neither overlook this model's weak overclock, nor the extremely limited PNY warranty, which prevents us from wholeheartedly recommending this card. Nevertheless, for a budget gamer, we feel that this is an adequate card, but for those seeking more 'futureproofness,' both in terms of warranty and performance, there may be better choices."

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:.

Watercooling
Over at OCTools they have the which has so far received a mixed response.

"The concern for flow restriction was never realized during testing as the unit was obviously designed by the manufacturers to work efficiently at very low flow rates. This was evidenced by the extremely impressive results that the Hydrocool200 showed us. That's the reason why the tiny Delphi waterblock still performed efficiently despite its size."

Also over at PC-Extreme they take a look the which has hints of the Maze waterblocks.

LCD
We don't usually give prominent linkage to these kind of things, but I like em. OCModShop check out the

"The unit itself is well made and quite heavy. In my book heavy equals quality. The USB cable was already attached and I expected to find it hard wired to the unit. Instead they have an actual USB port on the unit. Really nice touch in case you want to use your own longer cable or perhaps you wish to build your own separate enclosure for the LCD and require a 6 or 10 foot USB cable. Looking at the unit closely I am very impressed with the fit and finish. Matrix Orbital obviously takes pride in their product, nothing on the unit seemed cheap or poorly assembled."

MiniPC
The SFF PC market is growing rapidly, with everyone wanting a slice of the action, including as reviewed over at AMDZone.

"The IDEQ 200N is a worthy competitor to the Shuttle SN41G2. Finally another nForce 2 SFF is available as the chipset is tailor made for this application. Performance of the Biostar is good, its styling is sleek, and it is priced to compete directly with the Shuttle. Add in good overclocking features to the mix, and the Biostar IDEQ 200N is not to be ignored."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

EE + XE
So how does 4 Gigahertz sound to you? Thats 4000MHz. Hexus take the P4 EE and a Volt modded EPoX 4PDA2+, then give it a little Vapo love.

"For those looking to get the most out of a Pentium 4 processor, especially up in the giddy heights of 4GHz operation with a 3.0, 3.2 or 3.2 Extreme Edition, VapoChill XE will suit your obviously deep pockets. Again, thoroughly recommended for the well off overclocker, especially the Pentium 4 runner. 4000MHz is a lovely figure. The overclocking world awaits Asetek's Athlon 64 mounting hardware with baited breath, I'm sure they wont disappoint."

October 7, 2003 7:10 PM - Evening edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Applebred vs Thoroughbred

Recently AMD introduced its new durons. We bought one of them, the 1.6 ghz version. The most interesting part of this cpu is its core voltage, only 1.5 V. This cpu begged to be compared with an Athlon XP, dlt3c (known for reaching speeds up to 2700Mhz!). Is the new Duron an equally good overclocker.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. AMD, ATI, All-In-Wonder, AOPEN, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, Babe Thread, Forums, Intel, nVidia, MSI, Shuttle, FIC, Radeon, google, Jokes, GeForce, FX, Small Form Factor, Cooling, Water Cooling, Swiftech, Vantec, Corsair.

October 7, 2003 2:47 PM - Afternoon Edition

Athlon64 motherboards
44 of them infact, all in quick review over at PC stats. Click

"Which should come first, the Athlon64 motherboard or the Athlon64 processor? The answer depends on who you ask; ask AMD and they'll say the chip, ask motherboard manufacturers and they'll say the chip.... wait, did I get that right?"

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

Mods and Ends
.:. .:. .:.

FX5700
Yes you read that right. PC Stats have a write up on the

"Amongst the masses of nVidia Geforce FX5900's that everyone seemed to have on display there were a few closed door displays of nVidia's next core, NV36. According to one unnamed marketing rep, the NV36 core weighs in at about 5000 3DMark03's. The card should be making its way into the market in a month or so, hopefully before Comdex 2003 in November. While several companies took the time to show us their working NV36-A1 "P190" reference videocards, none that we saw were anything other than units provided by Nvidia themselves. Memory speeds are expected to be as low as 3.9ns from the outset, and while we are a little unsure of the accuracy of this last point, cards may support up to 1GB or DDR-2."

October 7, 2003 6:07 AM - Morning Edition

Athlon64
HardwareZoom go 64 bit with a look at the motherboard.

"Overclockers will be glad to see that there is a wide range of CPU voltage you can choose from. Up to 1.700V at 0.050V step. You can also increase the AGP and DIMM voltage up to +0.3V. With memory controller inside the Athlon 64 CPU itself, the front side bus is actually 'eliminated', however you can still overclock the CPU by increasing the CPU clock, which is similar to the traditional FSB. "

9800XT
A1 Electronics.net have just posted their latest Pocket Sized review of the graphics card.

"The ATI Radeon 9800 XT graphics card is the latest top of the range version from ATI which simply put is an enhanced or extended version of current models. XT standing for extension or extended."

Swifty Cooling
Swiftech have a new cooler on the market dubbed the which features a circular pin array design.

"Just when you think that CPU cooling couldn't get any better, someone comes along and blows everything else away. Swiftech, the undisputed champion in heatsink performance and quality, has just released a new ultra massive monster of a heatsink called the MCX462-V. Weighing in at 650 grams, and designed to fit a 92mm cooling fan, this is by far the most massive heatsink we've seen to date! But does ultra mass equal ultra performance?"

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:. .:. .:.

Springdale
With features such as MIB and CIA (What? No FBI?) this Gigabyte has a lot going for it.

"The 8IPE1000 Pro 2 GTR is designed for performance and the MIB gives the overall system boost to the 875P level. On the innovative side, the CIA is Gigabyte's latest invention on user friendly overclocking."

ByteSized
.:. .:. .:. .:.

9800 Pro
It may not be king of the hill any more, but the still has a lot of "oomph" to it.

"Overclocking was a real joy to do with this card. I loved to see it run beyond 9800 XT performance. We got the card up-to 450 MHZ on the core, yet it started showing very tiny artifacts so we found the threshold of the limit. It's quite amazing that a 0.15 micron process graphics core can do such a high frequency. Be backed down 18 MHz and the card was perfectly stable at 432 MHz. Memory was the same story."

October 6, 2003 8:03 PM - Evening edition

Water-Cooling

Going from the past information and reviews that I have read I did not have high hopes for the performance of this kit. This seemed strange as the block looked decent quality and looked to have a solid copper base. As you will find out from the rest of this review we were pleasantly surprised at the performance of this kit and the ease of setup.

Samsung LCD 172MP

Bjorn3D just reviewed Samsung's Swiss Army knife of a monitor, the 172MP. You can use it as a TV monitor, watch Picture-in-Picture video while you work, or use it as your game console's video display. And the speakers even sound good!

Bites and bytes

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 6, 2003 3:11 PM - Afternoon Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Crucial PC3200
Ascully reviews some . Quality modules, and cheap to boot.

Crucial are practically ignored by the enthusiast market who usually opt for Kingston or Corsair branded strips. This is Crucial's first foray into PC3200 DDR RAM. PC3200 DDR is essentially RAM that will run at 400Mhz, something today's modern processors and motherboards crave.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 6, 2003 7:56 AM - Morning Edition

Athlon 64 Related News
Hexus has rounded up the today. They've taken a look at the retail boards, so this should give you a better indication of the performance you can expect to see as a buyer.

It's far too early to say which chipset complements the Athlon 64 better. What's clear is that AMD has risen to a new performance plane with the Athlon 64. Multiplier unlocking (AMD permitting) and the ability to toggle DRAM timings are two of the features we're looking for in subsequent BIOS revisions.

9100 Platform
gets some coverage over at Beyond3D. I guess this is as close to "nForce 2-like" integration as you'll get for the P4.

As we can see the graphics for the RS300 chip has been cut back to two pixel pipelines in order to keep its complexity, thus cost, as low as possible. However, this allows the clock speeds to scale up to 300MHz, in turn regaining a small amount of the performance deficit to the 9000/9200 discrete graphics chips.

nForce 2 Review
[H] lays the smackdown on the . AOpen makes some good stuff, so how does their latest fare in the crowded AMD market?

The AK79D-400MAX is latest AOpen board based on the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. The NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset supports all AMD processors including their performance line of 400 MHz FSB processors. The chipset also support memory running in Dual Channel mode specified up to PC3200 speeds.

Cooling, Cases and Mods

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:.

October 5, 2003 9:29 PM - Evening edition

Ultra ZENITH

No doubt there are still some quirks as mentioned in our 'Dislike' section, overall we feel that the Chaintech 7NJS Ultra ZENITH is the best nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboard to attain a standard closest to perfection.

Bites and bytes

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

October 5, 2003 4:40 PM - Afternoon Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

Crucial PC3200
I'm gonna have to admit... for budget ram, this stuff kicks ass. Marc is working on his review of a couple sticks, but here is R&B's take on .

We are going to test some timings, overclocking, and benchmarking. Crucial does not recommend or does not want their memory pointed out as overclocker memory, however we are still going to try it and see what it can do for you. Stay tuned as tonite it will get hot at rbmods.

9800 Review
We got no working experience with Gigabyte video cards, but overall, this review at Hexus looks pretty solid

Give us the same model with pre-inflated clocks for both VPU and memory, a bigger, more comprehensive bundle that included a few cutting-edge games and the Tyan Tachyon G9800 PRO-M would have been an almost perfect card. As it is, it's another decent addition to the Tyan range. Solid but unspectacular.

5900 Review
The non-Ultra version of the gets some coverage over at Hardcoreware.

The 5900 compares directly with ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB in both specs and price. We test it directly against that card, along with a 9800 Pro 256, and a 9700 Pro.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

Cooling and Mods

.:. .:. .:. Asetek WaterChill KT15-L20 @ PirateSoftware .:. .:.

SiS Preview
SiS finally jumps on the Dual Channel bandwagon as myWorldHardware has a preview on the .

For our SiS, initially, SiS had never designed any dual channel memory solution for their chipset that includes our previously reviewed 648FX for Pentium 4 and 748 for AMD.AMD, ATI, All-In-Wonder, AOPEN, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, Babe Thread, Forums, Intel, nVidia, MSI, Shuttle, FIC, Radeon, google, Jokes, GeForce, FX, Small Form Factor, Cooling, Water Cooling, Swiftech, Vantec, Corsair.

October 5, 2003 10:06 AM - Morning edition

Mini-PC IDEQ-200T

Everything was there, it was as if someone took a high quality desktop machine and simply shrunk it, without removing any functionality. Quite simply put the PC was sexy, clean and what you might least expect…a formidable overclocker!

Hard Disk Roundup

Hard Disk Drives RoundupToday we are going to test 6 hard disk drives of 2.5” form-factor from Seagate, Fujitsu, Hitachi and Toshiba, which can not only be used in notebooks, but are also becoming very popular as mobile storage devices and miniature desktop.

Cases, cooling and fans

.:. .:. .:. .:.

Bites And bytes

.:. .:. .:. .:.

October 4, 2003 4:33 PM - MSI 865 NEO2 Giveaway

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

October 3, 2003 7:52 PM - Evening Edition

FX5900 Winfast vs Albatron

For now our coverage is based on the FX5900 non-ultra editions from both Leadtek and Albatron. Now why did we choose to compare these 2 cards and not any of the other already available FX5900 based cards you ask?.

FX 5600 Ultra

It is also with interest that I am reviewing a nVidia reference card, as this should let me know how the creators of this card envisaged it to be. Good or bad, this is the standard that the manufactures have to beat or accept that they have screwed up.

Cases cooling and heatsink

.:. .:.

October 3, 2003 2:38 PM - Afternoon Edition

9800 PRO Review

I could go on for hours about interlacing, Z-Buffer compression, parallel rendering pipelines, DirectX comparability, pixel shaders, etc., but I really don't think that that is what you want to read about. When you buy a video card, you simply want to be able to plug it in, install the drivers, and know that you are getting what you pay for.

9800 PRO 256MB

think the main question that we want to be answer with this review will be, "Does the extra memory really increase performance?" I know we have all heard that there really isn't that many opportunities for a graphics card to utilize all 256MB of memory it has available. Hopefully, we can help shed some light on this subject with some straightforward numbers.

3.2GHz Extreme Edition

The enthusiast with ultra-deep pockets will have a choice between two monster CPUs that go about their respective work in differing ways but tend to achieve similar results. The 3.2GHz Extreme Edition puts Intel back in the very high-end performance game. For that alone, it's a decent CPU. A niche product for a niche market, and it's sure to tempt all those who had their minds fixated on the Athlon FX-51. Competition is always a good thing for the consumer. It's positively rife here. We just hope that Intel decide to leave the Extreme Edition CPUs multiplier unlock. £650+ of your money deserves that treat.

Samsung 21" LCD

The image quality of the 213T is very good. It is a wicked combo when you have something as big and as flat the 213T for your viewing pleasure.

Registered ECC

AMD Opteron and Athlon64 FX dual memory channel CPUs require registered ECC DDR400 DIMMs. According to the latest JEDEC specs, those modules are supposed to be built using BGA components instead of the standard TSOP form factor, and consequently, as we were informed by AMD, modules built with the older TSOP components will not be qualified.

Bits and bytes

.:. .:. .:.

October 3, 2003 9:51 AM - WTF?

OCA Under New Management
Well folks, a sad day has arrived, and . I was informed about this last night, and found it very hard to believe. The gang at OCA and myself and VL senior staff go back a few years, and I really didn't see this coming. Here's a bit from their announcement.

We've got some big, well, bigger than big news for you today. OCAddiction is coming under new management effective immediately. Mack (SPeeD) and I had a tough decision to make in deciding to hand over the reigns to a new group but in the end feel that it benefits everyone.

Frankly, I can understand where Justi and Mack are coming from. Running a site is a lot of work, and readers may not realize it, but it can easily be a 2nd full-time job.

At the same time, this is a major disappointment for me, as I thought very highly of OCA, and words can't describe WHY they would let a whole other team take over, rather than handing the reigns off to one of their junkies. I have yet to speak to Mack, so I'm not going to disclose what I was told, but I've been keeping an eye on their forums since yesterday, and let me say that the mood has changed.

I wish the former management team of OCA all the best, as well as their kickass writers and news people. Not sure if I'll be frequenting OCA much anymore, but you guys always have a home at VL.

October 3, 2003 9:18 AM - Morning Edition

ATI vs nVidia
Techware labs has a little shootout going on between the . If our tests are any indication, nVidia is not going to have a good day.

Everyone knows of the battle between ATI and Nvidia for the top slot in the consumer graphics card market. Nvidia has been the Intel of the graphics world, encountering some competition but not enough to worry about for the past several years, until ATI came back onto the scene.

9600 Pro Review
gets some reviewage over at Overclockers New Zealand. Nice card, and nice OC also.

Well, Triplex has certainly surpassed PowerColor's R9600Pro Bravo Edition with its REDai Millennium Silver and becomes the fastest R9600Pro on the market, at stock setting. REDai MS also overclocks slightly better than PowerColor R9600BE, with a maximum clock of 492Core/714Memory.

Desktop Review
Though I`m sure most of us would never dream of buying pre-built, the lazy types may take interest in the , which is a desktop powered by AMD.

The Afina AS 7180AV is a unique desktop computer. Many people think, rightfully so, that it looks like a high heel shoe from the side. From the front it resembles the Sony PCV-W20 in many ways: It has an attached keyboard and all the components built into the monitor.

Cooling and Cases

.:. .:. .:.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:.

October 2, 2003 9:05 PM - Evening Edition

MSI K8T
The boards for the Athlon 64 are coming out of the woodwork. AMDZone has a look at the .

The MSI's stability proved to be excellent during testing. Overclocking features are good as well with most everything covered. MSI provides not only manual overclocking settings in the bios, but also the dynamic overclocking.

Mouse Review
CooltechZone reviews the . We're big fans of Logitech products, though a nine page review is a bit on the long side.

They have been the leading manufacturer that is revolutionizing both keyboards and mice. To enhance the performance Logitech has introduced many engines for mice and many layouts and styles for their keyboards.

Software Stuff
gets a look at Bytesector. Workstation CAD types may want to take a look at this.

The latest version of AutoDesk’s winning software has several new features that make upgrading a must for current users. Improvements in file size and manage-ment, file sharing, and in the user interface make AutoCad more efficient to use for drafting and collaboration with the various members of your project team.

For system tuners and us tech webmasters, .

October 2, 2003 2:05 PM - Afternoon Edition

TV Wonder
Extreme Overclocking got their hands on the and give us a rundown.

"Have you ever wanted to watch a late night show or catch up on news? The ATI TV Wonder VE with remote control makes watching TV possible on your computer. You can watch it now or record it for later viewing just like with a VCR. With this card you can have TV on the PC and still have a high end video card for benchmarks and game play, or be able to catch up on the news and get that paper/report done at the same time. This card will work with most video cards out of the market now."

Power
Aimed at users who believe silence is golden, the with it's intergral 120mm fan is over at R&B.

"Tonite we are having a look at a power supply from a new sponsor of ours. It's a nice 320w power supply which is supposed to be really quiet and even able to run at 26 db at normal usage. It has a 120mm fan on the bottom which probably runs alot quieter than the standard 80 mm fans. Let's see if this power supply can take the pressure."

16:9 LCD
A nice 16: LCD such as this could be good if your short on space and a movie buff.

"Widescreen is a new way of viewing life, at least your computer life. Widescreen or 16:9 started to become popular as Plasma displays entered the market. Today Shawn "Toxic" Baker, the man addicted to 16:9, takes a look at Samsung's 172W LCD monitor. Interested in viewing life at 16:9? If so, read on and discover the benefits of the new dimensions."

Light Tube
Not quite up there with CCFL's for brightness, this does have price on it's side.

"Many enthusiasts enjoy making their case/rig look its best. So many of them modify (mod) their cases to add uniqueness and personality. Today we are taking a look at one of the items that should be included in almost every case mod: a light."

October 2, 2003 6:30 AM - Morning Edition

9800XT Launch Coverage
Spode was on hand in Munich to catch the

"Next step, we were all put on board a bus and driven through what felt like a war-torn army controlled town. Several AT's were running around, blowing cars up, being shot down and one fellow was entirely on fire. About 3 minutes into this ordeal, I had the great idea of taking a few video clips using my digital camera."

With the 9800Xt making it's way to shelves soon, the likes of the will likely drop in price.

"What I want to know is, what kind of benefit do we see from the ridiculous amount of RAM on this card? The core clocks are the same, and the memory is only slightly faster. The 256MB we're testing is around $130 more than the 128MB version, so it's going to take a lot to convince me..."

8x DVD Burner
At 8x this burner is one of the fastest on the market, and I believe it was the first 8x to market. Design Technica check out the

"The Plextor PlexWriter PX-708A is currently the fastest DVD+/-RW drive on the market with its 8X DVD+R write performance. We experienced no problems burning content to any of our test media and were able to heavily multi-task while doing so. The included software suite is very robust and complete compared to other DVD writers on the market."

Cases and Cooling
.:. .:.

ByteSized
.:. .:.

October 1, 2003 9:37 PM - Evening Edition

Senfu Review
OCAddiction takes a look at a very handy setup called the , though to be honest, I am unsure of how useful this will be for most users.

As you can see in the pictures, the speaker, LED's and switches have very short leads. This can be a problem depending on the layout of the motherboard header pins. The motherboard in the picture is an MSI board and as you can see, everything is bunched up tight.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:.

October 1, 2003 3:50 PM - Afternoon Edition

More about new Radeons
Noticias3D has a writeup on the back on September 15th.

First that Radeon 9800 XT is the base or the 9800 architecture of PRO , but is optimized and with greater margin of overclock, better refrigeration and as new features for the end user offer overclock under guarantee and greater yield, coverall to resolutions where they are needed 256Mb memory.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:.

October 1, 2003 8:10 AM - Morning Edition

NEO2 Giveaway
We're going to be giving away a MSI 865 NEO2-FIS2R. If you're eyeing a Springdale for your P4, this is your chance to snag one for free.

nForce 3 Review
AMDZone checks out the first nForce 3 board on the market, the .

Shuttle has done a great job of getting the nForce 3 chipset out in Socket 754 format. We liked that Shuttle has options for almost all overclocking features in the bios. We also enjoyed the included features like 6 channel audio, dual Ethernet with Gigabit, Firewire, Serial ATA RAID, and the handy power and reset buttons.

5600 Ultra
is getting some coverage over at Hexus. This isn't really being pushed in North America, as I was told the FX5700 is being prepped.

Given a price of ~£160, this card will represent a good buy. MSI give you a nice bundle, VIVO, decent overclocking and good base performance for your money. IQ is a mid-range reality, games can finally look like they should.

You may also want to checkout , which has just been released for your nVidia/ATI tweaking pleasure.

Cooling and Case Related

.:. .:.

Bytesized Bits

.:. .:. .:.