 |
March
9 - 15,
2000: Archive
Wednesday
- March 15th
|
Tech-Review has posted their results
from overclocking an FC-PGA Pentium III Coppermine 550E. They were
able to get it to 750MHz, but Quake III would freeze on them. This
is surprising, because with a GeForce and the Slot-1 550E I'm able to go
up to 770MHz (140MHz FSB) without any problems.
|
|
While I was over at the Firing
Squad's place, I noticed that they've also posted a Quake III Video
card shootout.
If Quake III is you're thing, and you want to know which card will give
you the highest frame rates and best image quality, head over and check
it out.
|
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has
posted part
2 of their Game Developers Conference 2000 coverage. In this
part they take a look at 3dfx's VSA-100 chip and NVIDIA's role in the
X-Box. They've also posted a short blurb on Unreal Tournament on
the PSX2. You can also check out Sharky
Extreme's GDC 2000 coverage here.
|
|
3dgn has conducted an interview
with a representative from Intel regarding the upcoming Williamette CPU.
Here is a bit from it:
Q8-- How will
Willamette be different form previous cores?
A: It has a 20 stage pipeline instead of the Pentium(R) III
processor's 12 stage pipeline. It has something new called an
instruction trace cache, be able to transfer data at 400MHz over the
Front Side Bus, and supports a new set of 144 instructions we have
dubbed SSE2
|
|
HardwareCentral has written
up an article
discussing Intel's recently released Pentium III 1GHz CPU. They
take a look at it's performance and some information on the architecture
(which is really nothing new).
|
|
G3D has posted a review
of Senfu's Overclocking DIY House. This is basically a replacement
for a case which exposes everything to the open air for maximum
cooling. I don't really like the idea, but you might.
|
Tuesday
- March 14th
|
HardOCP has posted a review
of Global WIN's new VOS32. This cooler is amazing, it's absolutely
huge and fits on the P2/P3 and Athlon!
|
|
S3/Diamond has released a new driver for
Savage4 based boards. Not sure what's new, but you can grab it by
clicking on the link below:
|
|
Digital Clips has posted a review
of Samsung's Yepp Portable MP3 player. Not a bad player, has some
nice features actually, but it's only got 32MB built-in.
|
|
Anand Tech has pumped out three
new excellent reviews/articles. Here they are:
|
|
Tom's Hardware Guide has
posted a good article
which examines both Intel's and AMD's 1GHz CPU's and compares them
extensively on different chipset platforms and with a few different
applications.
|
|
Hot Hardware has posted a review
of Shuttle's SD-561 56X CD-ROM drive. Head over and see what they
thought of it.
|
|
Extreme Hardware has posted a review
of Microsoft's Natural Keyboard Pro and the Internet Keyboard Pro. I
personally use the Internet Keyboard Pro and love it!
|
|
It's getting close to release time folks, so get ready for the onslaught
of previews/interviews. GameFan is
the first to post their Voodoo4/5 preview.
Here is a bit from the demo they saw:
The first game up was the flight simulator Falcon 4.0, and
for an opener, I thought it was quite stellar. My buddy Bubba (I swear
that was his name) started the game up, switched to an armed craft and
fired up the level. He could toggle the anti-aliasing effect of the
Voodoo 5 on and off with a key combination, and it was like hitting
"night" and then "day"; jagged textures such as
mountains and forests cleaned up beautifully with the anti-aliasing
turned on. Next, he switched camera angles to the wing of our craft,
where I immediately saw the jagged mess of missiles and weaponry. With
the delicate tap of two buttons the anti-alias feature turned that
pixelated crap into extremely distinguishable objects. It was amazing!
I was really impressed; it made a real and dramatic difference to the
graphic quality of the game.
Check out Part Two (freshly posted) of their preview right here.
|
|
James over at CNewz sent us a
notice of a bunch of new products announcements from various companies.
You may be interested in some of them:
|
|
Gotta hand it to Dan for coming up
with the most original reviews. Today, he has reviewed
the Portasol Pro Piezo PP-1K soldering iron. Want to modify your
Athlon to a higher clock multiplier or enable SMP support on your old
Slot-1 Celerons? Then head over and check it out.
|
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has
already started posting coverage of this year's Game Developers
Conference. This first company they cover
is ATI and it looks like they got a sneak peak at the Rage6.
|
|
From high end CRT, we now go to high end LCD. Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of Sony's CPD-L181 18" LCD Flat Panel monitor. You don't want
to see the price of this thing!
|
|
The Tech Zone has posted a review
of this fabulous monitor. Check out this bit:
I tell ya, once you sit in front of the Sony Multiscan CPD-G500
monitor for a few hours, there is no going back to lesser monitors.
The Multiscan G500 defines how a high end monitor should be made. Make
no mistakes about it, the Sony G500 is one of the best if not the best
monitor you can buy. And it has a price tag to match. This monitor is
not cheap. You can get whole systems with monitor for the cost of the
G500.
|
|
TweakTown has posted a review
of the JustCooler HSF heatsink w/3 fans for the Pentium II. They
tried to push a PII 266 to it's limit with this bad boy. You can
also check out their brand new review
of the Card Cooler as well.
|
|
3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!Drive I & II. Head over to
find out what the differences are.
|
|
The Tech Report has posted a review
of Matrox's Millennium G400 32MB card. The card is aging quite a bit
now, but still a decent choice.
|
|
Hexus has posted a review
of the Ratpadz mouse pad. They seemed to love it.
|
|
3DHardware has posted a review
of Gallant Computer's OdysseySound4 Four Point Surround Speaker/Sound
card combo. These speakers have a sort of 60's car fender look
with a touch of modernism.
|
Monday
- March 13th
|
Here are a few new utilities to play with during those times of utter
boredom (like when you've overclocked you're CPU by 300MHz and can't
figure out what to do now):
|
|
got apex? has posted a review
of AbilityPC's Athlon Maximizer GFD overclocking device. The price
is amongst the cheapest I've seen, so head over and see if it's any
good.
|
|
The Tech Zone has posted an article
which takes you through their water cooling project. It's quite an
interesting setup.
|
|
What a coincident. To complement that ERAZOR X2 review nicely, HardwareCentral
has posted a comparison
between the ERAZOR X and X2 to see just how much performance difference
there is.
|
|
3D-Unlimited has posted their review
of ELSA's ERAZOR X2 GeForce DDR card. You can also check out our
review here.
|
|
Fast-MHz has posted a review
of heck of a sweet digital camera from Nikon, the Coolpix 950. The
price is way out of my reach, but if you're into photography, it may be
worthwhile to check it out.
|
|
Dan over at Dan's Data has gone on
an Athlon overclocking
adventure. He purchased an Athlon 500, a FreeSpeed Pro overclocking
card and a top-of-the line ALPHA P7125 heatsink. What did he get
out of all it? only 650MHz which needed a voltage increase to be
stable. It goes to show you that you can get a bad Athlon.
|
Sunday
- March 12th
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has put
together a great preview
of Microsoft's X-Box. I wish they wouldn't hype these things a
year before they're due to be released because now I'm all excited and
anxious to see it in action!
|
|
Anand Tech has posted a review
of Best Data's Cabo 64MB MP3 Portable player. They pointed out
some things which I agree with and others which I don't agree with, but
I think it deserves more than a 4/10.
|
|
nV News has posted a Detonator
driver report, in which they take a look at the new 5.08 beta
drivers and it's new features and compare it performance-wise to the
officially released 3.68 drivers. Thresh's
Firing Squad has also posted part
#2 of their Detonator 5.08 article. They have more benchmarks
then I care to analyze, but if you like numbers, head over and check it
out. They've also thrown in TNT2 Ultra scores with the 5.08
drivers and the 3.68 drivers.
|
|
TweakTown has posted a short and
concise preview
of what is known about Microsoft's X-Box. They have a nice little
table comparing it's features to those of the Playstation 2.
The only difference is that the Playstation 2 is out now (in some
places) while the X-Box won't be available for a year at least.
|
|
The Tech Zone has posted a review
of MidiLand's S4/7100 5.1 channel speaker set. This looks like one
of the best 5.1 channel speakers sets you can get for your computer, and
the price isn't too far out of reach.
|
|
iXBT Hardware has put together a
great preview
of Intel's upcoming Williamette processor. This one is going to have a
completely new architecture, here is a bit from the article:
Willamette is expected to be the first radical reconstruction of P6
architecture. During the last five years since the launching of
Pentium Pro there has hardly happened anything more significant than
that. Just imagine: asymmetric core with the units working at
different frequencies, a considerably improved superscalar mechanism
of instructions execution, a new cache tracking the instructions
order, enhanced multimedia units and floating point units, an enormous
instructions set for all possible and impossible purposes, absolutely
new 100MHz bus transferring four data packs per clock, which makes
400MHz end-frequency, a 20-stage instructions hyper-pipeline, etc…
Is it enough?
|
Friday
- March 10th
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has also
posted a preview
of ATI's Rage Mobility 128 chip. As you may know, 3D on notebook
computers is not quite where Desktop PC's are at in terms of image
quality and speed, actually they aren't even close. ATI hopes to
change this, here is a bit from the article:
Feature wise, the ATI Mobility series does hold an advantage with
the video outputs and DVD support. DVD support in laptops is much more
important than in desktops because of the influence on battery life.
Thanks to an integrated dual CRT controller, the Mobility 128 also has
a Dual-Display feature that is similar to Matrox's Dual-Head option.
The Mobility 128 can output two completely different displays at the
same time.
|
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has
posted a roundup
of all the popular high-end mouse pads I can think of. They've
included Ratpadz, Everglide, 3M and Logitech in this comparison.
|
|
Sharky Extreme has posted
their review
of Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro GeForce DDR card. We've seen
a lot of them already, but if you're itching for another opinion, head
over and check it out.
|
|
Frosty Tech has posted a great article
on how to wire your house up for an ethernet network. You'll want
to check this article out if you want to learn how to run a nice clean
line throughout the house.
|
|
GamePC has posted a review
of Seagate's Cheetah 18LP Ultra160/m SCSI Hard Drive. The only
other drive that this one falls behind, is the Quantum Atlas 10K II.
|
|
Tweak Town has posted a review
of 3DCool.com's Super Duper Slot Fan. These fans pump quite a bit
of air, and are great for cooling your video card and your case in
general.
|
|
Dan's Data has posted a review
of Everglide's Wrist Rest Plus gel wrist pad which fits all Everglide
mouse pads that have that funny shaped curve on the bottom.
|
|
Hardware-One has gotten back
into the swing of things and has posted a review
of Acer's Travelmate 340T sub-notebook computer.
|
|
got apex? has posted a review
of Antec's KS188 Full Tower Case. Cooling options look decent, the
actual style of the case isn't too bad either. Give it a once over
if you need a big case.
|
|
The good people over at CoolerGuys.com
have notified us that they now have the new ALPHA
PEP66 and FC-PAL35T FC-PGA Coppermine heatsinks available for
purchase. These are hands down the best FC-PGA Coppermine
heatsinks you can get. They are also the first to provide a choice
on which fans you would like with your ALPHA heatsinks. Finally,
they also have a the new Global
WIN V0S32 Athlon coolers, these things are massive! Head over
and check them out for the best selection at very good prices!
|
|
There is a ton of information floating around about Microsoft's recently
announced X-Box Console system. Over at their official
site, you can check out the specs (even though it's a year and a
half away) and the official
press release. Also, an article
over at Yahoo has some interesting information, check it out:
The system will also use an Nvidia Corp. (NasdaqNM:NVDA
- news) graphics
processor, a third generation chip called the NV25 that is not yet on
the market. Microsoft said its graphics will be more than three times
as fast as the highly praised graphics on the new Sony Playstation2 .
The X-Box also will include 64 megabytes of memory, an eight
gigabyte hard disk drive, a DVD (digital video disk) player and a 100
megabit Ethernet controller card for fast Internet access when
broadband services like DSL are available at home.
|
|
SystemLogic has posted a review
of the Northwind
GFD Rev 2 Athlon overclocking card. I don't see any mention of
what's new in this revision, but I'm assuming it's a smaller more
cleaner PCB, with other small modifications.
|
|
Electric.com has notified us that
Entech has released a new version of Powerstrip.
Here is the info and a link to download:
The
PowerStrip has been updated to 2.65, to keep in sync with the Windows
2000 drivers that have been released to date. AGP configuration can
now be changed in real-time using visual controls on the Diagnostic
page, the multi-monitor support has been updated, and custom refresh
rates have been reworked to better stick in OpenGL and D3D.
|
|
Overclockin.com has posted a review
of the PowerChips PowerCharger GFD Athlon overclocking device.
Still no L2 cache adjustment capability, I wonder if it's even possible.
|
|
3DHardware has posted a review
of the CuSpacer. What exactly is this thing? Check it out:
Due to the new shape of the Coppermine E's it is almost impossible
to place a big heatsink (like the Alpha 6035) onto it. So the only way
to do it is to have a support between the PCB and the heatsink. That
is what the CuSpacer basically is. Made out of copper, this shim is
designed to fit perfectly between the heatsink and your Coppermine E.
For this it must be perfectly sanded down and leveled off with grit
paper to come to the exact height of the Coppermine. These shims are
only needed with the Coppermine E's and they also fit some Athlons (if
you crack the case open for better cooling).
|
Thursday
- March 9th
|
Hardware-One has posted a review
of MSI's MS-6309 VIA Apollo Pro 133A based Slot-1 ATX motherboard.
Looks to be pretty much the same as every other 133A board: good
stability, but slightly slower than the BX.
|
|
GamePC has posted a review
of Klipsch's ProMedia v2-400 THX Certified 5-piece speaker set.
This set is the most powerful computer speaker system you can get
(Watts/Channel). It also has perhaps the best sound reproduction
of any computer speaker system as well. Of course, with all this,
comes a pretty hefty price tag.
|
|
Ars Technica has written up a
wonderful article
on SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data streams). They cover 3
processors that integrate SIMD and one from Sun which is not out yet
(hence the 1/2). Here is the intro:
What do Sony's Playstation2 and Motorola's MPC7400 (a.k.a. the G4)
have in common? Besides the incredible hype behind both products
and their legions of crazed fans, there's one acronym that unites them
all--an acronym that sums up the secret to their stellar performance:
SIMD. Single Instruction stream, Multiple Data streams (SIMD)
computing first entered the personal computing world in the form of
Intel's neglected addition to the x86 instruction set, MMX. Even
though MMX was panned by the press and was slow to be adopted, SIMD
computing was here to stay on the personal computing landscape.
And it's a good thing too, because SIMD is a technology whose time has
definitely come, and it's just about ubiquitous on the desktop: MMX,
SSE, 3DNow!, AltiVec, etc. are all acronyms for SIMD instruction sets.
In this article, we're going to look at what SIMD is, what it offers,
and how it's integrated in three-and-a-half of today's hottest
processors. Three and a half? The half is Sun's upcoming MAJC
architecture, which isn't actually out yet. We've included
it here because its approach to SIMD is quite different from the other
three, so it provides a nice contrast.
|
|
iXBT Hardware has posted a preview
of ATI's Rage6, the Charisma Engine and the Pixel Tapestry
Architecture. The features look great on paper, let's see how long
it takes them to release this card.
|
|
HardwareCentral has posted
a review
of Soyo's PW-9801 mini notebook computer. They seemed to really
like this notebook, especially because of it's low price.
|
|
The Tech Zone has posted an article
from a person who wanted to make their case different. They added
a whole bunch of interesting modifications, which you may want to read
about if you're into cooling/organizing or just like to work with your
hands.
|
Hardware
Pros Home Page
|
