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April
25 - 30,
2000: Archive
Sunday
- April 30th
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GA Hardware has posted the
first part of their report
of this year's WinHEC conference. They cover a couple of
interesting devices and the launch of ATI's RADEON 256 chip.
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I noticed over at Savage
News that AOpen has released new drivers for their Savage4 powered
boards which fix incompatibilities with VIA chipsets. Grab the
appropriate one below:
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Thresh's Firing Squad has
posted a review
of Tyan's S2380 Trinity K7 VIA KX133 based Slot-A motherboard. The
did have some memory problems and the board is very limited when it
comes to overclocking, which is quite sad.
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UK Gamer has posted a short review
of Global WIN's 802 Mid Tower ATX case. It has some really nice
features, which you should definitely check out if you open up your case
a lot.
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G256.com has posted an guide
which tells you how to "overclock" your case fan. This
is essentially increasing the voltage to increase the RPM's which of
course means more noise, but it's interesting nonetheless.
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PC STATS has posted a review
of 3DCool's Dual Overkill Slot-1 HSF. This is just a Vantec
P3D-5030 which we've seen before numerous times. I disagree with
the name 3DCool gave it and highly doubt it even comes close to the
cooling level of an Alpha P3125S. They have a CPU temperature of
39 degrees listed in the review for a P3 558MHz. With the Alpha P3125S,
my P3 825MHz stays at 30 degrees when idle and never goes above 32
degrees!! It is actually colder than my case temperature which
usually hovers around 34 degrees.
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Andre sent over this
link over at Insane Hardware
which has the specs of ASUS's upcoming 64MB GeForce 2 GTS card.
The most important item is the release date, which it says is
June. The V7700 (32MB) should be out in mid May.
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Frosty Tech has posted an article
which explains the difference between ball bearings and sleeve bearings.
Why are ball bearings quieter and why do they last longer? Head
over and find out.
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Extreme Overclocking
has posted a price
comparison of Athlon, Slot-1 and S-370 HSF's, common Fan's and HDD
coolers and thermal compound. Head over if you want to know which
online vendor has the cheapest stuff.
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G3D has posted a review
of Logitech's WingMan Gamepad Extreme. The shape of it is decent
and it has a tilt sensor like the MS Freestyle Pro gamepad.
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Saturday
- April 29th
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Ga'ash Soffer over at Voodoo
Extreme has posted his preview
of NVIDIA's GeForce 2 GTS. No benchmarks here, just a bunch of technical
info and comments.
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GamePC has posted a review
of AMD's Athlon 900 and 950MHz CPUs. Other than the extremely high
price, there is isn't anything particularly special about these CPUs.
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nVNews has posted some benchmarks
with a GeForce 2 GTS overclocked at various memory speeds. As
expected, there were huge increases in frame rates even when the core
speed remained the same. Too bad QDR RAM isn't available.
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Daily Radar has posted some benchmarks
comparing the Voodoo5 to the GeForce 2 GTS is multiple resolutions, with
FSAA on and off. Head over and see the results.
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Hardware-One has posted a review
of Benwin's BW2000 3-piece flat panel speaker set. The price is
decent, but apparently there are some issues with them sound too flat
and the set needs a better subwoofer.
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Dan's Data has posted a review
of Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. This keyboard uses uses a USB
connector and has 2 USB ports on the back of it which can come in
handy. It also has a bunch of quick launch buttons along the top
which I find quite convenient.
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SystemLogic has compiled an article
which has the press releases from all the companies that have announced
a GeForce 2 GTS card. This may help you compare them better and
determine which one has the best software bundle, etc.
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S3 has released a new Windows 2000
driver for Savage4 based cards. Grab it below:
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Kebie.com has conducted an interview
with George Alfs of Intel. Here is a bit from the interview:
A year after the debut of the original Pentium III, how does
Intel view it's impact on the marketplace, particularly the response
to the technologies it introduced, SSE and the PSN?
*** Pentium(R) III processor has had a huge impact, with demand for
the product being exceedingly strong. SSE instructions are in many
applications but are also woven into many lower level tools such as
DirectX and internet plug-in tools. Serial Number has been superceded
by newer security and asset management tools like digital
certificates. In fact we will not have PS# in our next desktop
architecture, Willamette.
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Friday
- April 28th
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Thresh's Firing Squad has
posted a review
of ELSA's new GLADIAC 32MB DDR GeForce 2 GTS card. That's right,
this is the real thing! The retail box that will be on store
shelves next week.
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Extreme Hardware has posted their
latest edition of
EH Online. In this special edition they take a look at a lot
of the controversy that has been flying back and forth in the USENET
groups. Specifically the issues about speed vs. the GeForce and
GeForce 2 and NVIDIA vs. 3dfx's FSAA methods. It's quite
interesting reading people's comments.
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Tech Extreme (formerly 3D Wars)
has posted the second
part of their article on mass storage technology. SCSI is
extremely fast, but is it necessary in all applications? Would it
be better to spend the money on other parts of the system? This is
what the article tries to answer.
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Tom's Hardware Guide has
posted an incredibly long and detailed preview/review
of NVIDIA's GeForce 2 GTS. If you want to know everything there is
to know about this chip and you're bored, head on over and check it out.
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Why is it that these cards only become a possibility for most of us when
the next generation of cards comes out? Probably because the price
becomes low enough to remain sane after buying it. Anyway, got
apex? has posted a review
of both the ASUS V6600 (SDR) and V6800 (DDR) Deluxe GeForce 256 cards.
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3DRage has posted their preview
of ATI's RADEON 256 chip. Interesting stuff, but still quite a bit
away from becoming a reality.
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Thursday
- April 27th
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Kelvin sent in this interesting link
which shows off the new ucfx Woohoo5 34500 card which utilizes 23
VSA-100 chips! If you're in the mood for a good joke, head over
and check it out .. and be sure to read all the captions :)
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While I was over at Anand's, I
noticed that they've also posted a review
of Netopia's R9100 Ethernet Router. Here is a bit from the review:
With the latest broadband craze comes a
host of competing products all after the same, or similar, market
segments. While Linksys aimed at the average home users market with
their EtherFast router, Netopia has attempted to answer a somewhat
higher calling with the R9100 Ethernet Router. The R9100 is quite a
serious small-medium business router, it has many features that the
lower end routers do not have. For example; Secure VPN, MultiNat, V.90
& ISDN backup support, 8-Port Hub. All of these add up to a very
well implemented feature set that makes the R9100 a serious contender.
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Anand Tech has posted the first
edition of their Buyers Guide. They have great suggestions for
a whole range of PC's. Their Dream PC is my personal favorite, and
I could have just one part of it, I would choose the monitor.
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Evil Avatar has done some benchmarks
with the new 5.16 beta drivers. They compare it to both 5.13 and
5.14. The one thing I have noticed with 5.16 is that FSAA in
OpenGL now works flawlessly and looks beautiful!
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PCinsight has posted a review
of DFI's CA-61 VIA Apollo Pro 133A based Socket-370 motherboard.
If you want a cheap Socket-370 board, and don't care so much about
overclocking or anything like that, this looks like a good bet.
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3D GameForce has posted a preview
of Matrox's upcoming G450 chip. Many people were expecting this to
be a gamer-targeted chip, but this does not seem to be the case.
Don't get me wrong, it will definitely play games well; faster than the
G400 for sure, but it will not be able to compete with the V5, GeForce 2
or RADEON 256. Perhaps Matrox feels the market is too crowded and they
want to concentrate on businesses.
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iXBT Hardware has posted a review
of a rather interesting portable MP3 player, the C@MP CP-UF32/64.
Not only is it a portable player, but it's also in the form of an audio
cassette so you can play the contents of it in your home stereo
systems!!
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3dfx has posted some new
drivers for their Voodoo3 3500TV card. Note: The Win9x
version is for non-US customers only, the US version will be available
Shortly:
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Wondering how all the big boys do their Quake III benchmarks? G256.com
has posted an article
which tells you exactly how to do it and what things you should keep in
mind when doing it.
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3DChipset has gotten hold of the
latest 5.16 unofficial NVIDIA beta drivers for you to play with.
They have a little note saying that they lock up with the Viper V770
when starting 3D games, so if you don't have a V770, grab it below:
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Voodoo Extreme has posted
their preview
of ATI's upcoming RADEON 256 chip. The chip looks great, but when
will it be out? Cards based on the GeForce 2 GTS are going to be
showing up in stores as soon as this friday.
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The Reverend Pulpit has
posted his preview
of 3dfx's Voodoo5 5500 64MB AGP card. Unfortunately, he has a beta
board as well, no sign of a final board yet. Anyway, head over and
see what he thought of it.
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For their launch, VIAHardware
has posted a short chipset
comparison which takes a look at the performance of boards based on
the i820 SDRAM, i820 RDRAM, VIA Apollo Pro 133A, VIA KX133 and i440BX
platforms. With a name like VIAHardware.com, they may be a bit
biased in their comments, so watch out.
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If you haven't already seen them, HardOCP,
ShugaShack
and Stomped
have all had the opportunity to visit 3dfx's booth at WinHEC 2000 and
snagged some pictures of the monstrously large Voodoo5 6000.
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PC Mechanic has posted an article
which gives you suggestions on what components you should get for a home
or business PC and which ones you should avoid.
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BXBoards has posted a comparison
of the most popular VIA KX133 based Athlon motherboards, the ASUS K7V,
Gigabyte GA-7VX, Tyan Trinity K7, AOpen AK72, EPoX 7KXA and last but not
least the Abit KA7. Want to know which board overclocks the
best? Head over to find out.
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SpeedGuide.net has posted a review
of UMAX's UGate-3000 Gateway. This is a SOHO Cable/DSL router
which you may be interested in if you have a three or more systems
networked together and want to share the net on one IP.
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Tech Extreme has posted an
interesting article
on OEM loyalty. It discusses the dirty tactics that go own the the
computer hardware industry, but it applies to all industries I'm sure.
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SystemLogic has posted a review
of Dazzle Multimedia's Digital Video Creator. Here is a bit on
what this device does:
What exactly does a video capture system do? Specifically with the
Dazzle Digital Video Creator, this hardware product allows the user to
easily connect (Especially with the USB version) the device to their
computer and start capturing audio and video from outside source such
as a VCR or a camcorder. Audio can be taken from anywhere like a
stereo system, or just the audio from the TV or movie played from a
VCR/TV. Basically anything that outputs audio or video and has outputs
or can connect to something that has outputs can be captured into a
still frame (Photograph) or a movie on the computer.
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Hardware-One has posted a review
of Iwill's new sIDE Pro66. This is the non-RAID version of their
ATA-66 controller cards and is based on the HPT366 chip which is found
on some Abit and Soyo motherboards as well.
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3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of Boston Acoustics BA4800 5-piece speaker system. Boston
Acoustics is known for quality and when you look at the price, you're
not going to find a better speaker set in the same price range.
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The Tech Zone has posted the second
part of their guide to building an 825MHz LAN gaming machine.
The machine was actually done the first time around, but they wanted to
make it run cooler and look nicer. Head over and check it out for some
interesting ideas.
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This one kinda came out of nowhere, AMD
has announced the name for their new Athlon with integrated L2 cache,
the Duron. Here is a bit from the press
release:
SUNNYVALE, CA --APRIL 27, 2000--AMD today announced it has
selected AMD Duron™ as the brand name for its new family of
processors for value conscious business and home users.
AMD Duron processors are specifically designed to provide an
optimized solution for the most demanding value conscious business and
home users, without compromising their budgets. Designed to prolong
the life of the buyer's investment by accommodating new and more
sophisticated applications, the AMD Duron processor will have the
capability and flexibility to meet the value conscious buyer's
computing needs for today and tomorrow.
....
About the AMD Duron Processor
The AMD Duron processor is derived from the AMD Athlon™
processor core and features full-speed, on-chip L2 cache memory, a
200MHz front side system bus, and enhanced 3DNow!™ technology. AMD
plans to begin shipping AMD Duron processors in June.
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PCExtremes has posted a review
of Alpha's CO-6035MFC cooler. One of the best Celeron coolers you
can buy, but it's a tad expensive.
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Arash's Best Hardware Guide has
posted a review
of Plextor's Ultraplex 40X Wide SCSI CD-ROM drive. I really doubt
SCSI CD-ROM drives are necessary these days, but if you want the lowest
CPU usage possible, head on over and check it out.
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G3D has posted a review
of Logitech's Cordless iTouch keyboard. The reviewer seemed to
like it quite a bit, despite its hefty price tag.
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Trainwrecker has posted a review
of ASUS' new CUBX i440BX based Socket-370 motherboard. This board
does have ATA-66 built-in and it looks to be better than the HPT366
found on Abit and Soyo boards.
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Wednesday
- April 26th
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Guillemot sent over a picture of
their new 3D Prophet II GTS box and card. They both look very
amazing, but pay special attention to the memory chips... they have
heatsinks on them!!
(Click for a MUCH larger image)
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HardwareCentral has posted
a review
of Promise's FastTrak66 Pro kit which comes with the FastTrak66
controller which supports RAID 0, 1 and 0 + 1, a couple of hot swap
drive caddies and two ATA-66 cables.
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Active Hardware has posted a review
of Microstar's MS-6195 K7 Pro Slot-A motherboard. This board is
still based on AMD's old Irongate (750 chipset).
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Every company that you would expect has announced their NVIDIA GeForce 2
GTS product today. Here is the current list of press releases
regarding new GeForce 2 GTS products:
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Ars Technica has posted an
excellent review
of Abit's KA7 VIA KX133 based Slot-A motherboard. This reviews
focuses on the issues that really matter when looking for a good
motherboard.
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Since the chip was officially announced today, the NDA's have been
lifted and the previews have flooded the net. Here is the current
list of previews, most of them quite good with benchmarks comparing the
card to the original GeForce DDR and the Voodoo5 5500 in some cases:
This is turning out to be one huge list!
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According to this
article over at the Register,
Intel is set to announce the USB 2.0 specs today. Here is a bit
from the article:
USB 2.0 takes the bus' data throughput up to and beyond IEEE 1394
standards. 1394 currently runs at 400Mbps - USB 2.0 will run at
480Mbps, forty times greater than USB 1.1's 12Mbps. USB 2.0 hubs will
support version 1.1 peripherals, but not vice versa.
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Hardware-One also has a
couple shots of the Creative Labs GeForce 2 GTS card and the box, head
over and check it out here.
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Hardware-One has gotten hold
of the latest BETA BIOS for the Abit KA7. Here is the info and a
link to download:
- SDRAM Bank Interleave
- Fast Write Support
- SDRAM Timing redefined to "Medium" and "Fast"
(rather than Turbo=Fast and Medium=Normal in the original setting)
- Abit KA7
BETA BIOS
Note: We have not tried this BIOS and it is unofficial,
so if you use it, it's at your own risk!
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PCExtremes has posted a review
of the original Card Cooler. This ingenious device does a great
job at cooling your video card and two adjacent cards as well.
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NeoSeeker has posted a review
of 3DCOOL's unique Laptop cooler. This is quite an interesting
device, and if you have a laptop, you know how much they heat up.
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CPUReview has updated their Athlon/Pentium
III price comparison. This useful article has the latest and
cheapest prices for all speed grades on the Pentium III and Athlon CPU's
as well as charts which show recent price drops and finally motherboard
prices for each platform.
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The Game Den has posted a review
of Monsoon's MM-700 Flat Panel speakers. These are the best flat
panel speakers I've seen so far, so if you want flat speakers, you
should take a look at these ones.
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Tuesday
- April 25th
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ActuMicro has reposted their entire
GeForce 2 GTS preview which includes 3DMark and Quake3 benchmarks
comparing it to an original GeForce DDR. This preview has a lot of
information on the new chips features as well.
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Both 3dfx and NVIDIA
have released new Linux drivers for their products. NVIDIA has
released new drivers which can be used with XFree86 4.0 and have full
OpenGL support and 3dfx has posted a driver for the Voodoo3 3500 from
the sourceforge project. Check them out below:
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BXBoards has posted a review
of Tyan's Trinity K7 VIA KX133 based Slot-A Athlon motherboard.
Looks like a decent board, but there are better ones out there, namely
the Abit KA7 and ASUS K7V.
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If three wasn't enough, here are a few more ATI RADEON 256 previews for
you to chew on:
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It seems that today's new is going to be dominated by the new 3D chips
that have been announced. Tweak3D
has posted a preview
of Matrox's new G450 chip. Head over and see what they have to say
about this chip.
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HardwareCentral has posted
an extensive preview
that covers all the new features of ATI's recently announced RADEON 256
chip. I'm very excited! Aren't' you? Check out this
bit:
Though ATI has not officially announced any specific products
utilizing the RADEON 256 chip, we were able to confirm that it will
indeed be releasing a multi-chip version using the same alternate
frame rendering technology developed for the Rage 128 MAXX. As
with the Rage 128 MAXX, the fill rate of the dual-chip RADEON 256 will
be double that of the single chip solution. One of the
limitations of the Rage 128 MAXX is that only the fill-rate increases;
the geometry processing still all being done by the CPU. The
dual-chip configuration of the Radeon will not only benefit from
double fill rate, but also double geometry processing. This means
that the Radeon will effectively have a fill-rate of 3 GigaTexels and
transform up to 60 million triangles per second!
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Dave Morrison over at Voodoo
Extreme has posted a preview
of 3dfx's Voodoo5 5500 AGP card. It has a direct screenshot
comparison between the GeForce and Voodoo5 and one thing that the V5 is
not lacking in is image quality.
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The Tech Report has send word
that Matrox has announced their new G450 chip. While it's nothing
spectacularly new, it does have a few new features and will most likely
be cheaper than it's G400 sibling because of the die shrink and
integration. Here is a bit from the press
release:
Montreal, Canada, April 25, 2000—Matrox Graphics Inc.
today announced the new 0.18-micron Matrox G450 2D, 3D and DVD
graphics chip.
The Matrox G450 AGP 2X/4X chip leverages a die shrink of the
0.25-micron Matrox G400 chip technology to integrate a digital flat
panel transmitter, TV-out encoder, second RAMDAC and 64-bit DDR memory
interface. By integrating these components directly on the chip, the
company has re-architectured its award-winning Matrox G400 graphics
technology into a full-featured accelerator that is set to standardize
DualHead Display across more markets than ever before. Matrox's
exclusive DualHead Display is a state-of-the-market technology that
provides immediate and valuable benefits by allowing users to double
their display real estate by pairing two display screens (RGB monitor,
flat panel or TV) as many as eight different ways.
Check out The Tech Report's analysis of this new announcement here.
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