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May
1 - 8,
2000: Archive
Monday
- May 8th
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3DHardware has posted a review
of Soyo's SY-6VCA VIA Apollo Pro 133A based Slot-1 motherboard. It
looks like an awesome all-around board, and most importantly, it
received an A+ rating from them.
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BXBoards sent word that they have
the latest Abit KA7 BETA BIOS available for download. This new
revision allows for L2 cache latency adjustment. Head over to
check out all the details and too download it.
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Dan's Data has posted a VERY long review
of Senfu's water cooling kit. He covered pretty much every aspect
of the thing and even took it further to see how it worked with a
peltier.
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Eric over at Fast Graphics
has posted a review/roundup
of NVIDIA's latest and greatest, the GeForce 2 GTS. He put it up
against the following cards:
nVidia GeForce 256 DDR
nVidia GeForce 256 SDR
nVidia Quadro 64 MB SDR
Dual ATI Rage 128 Pro
Single ATI Rage 128 Pro
nVidia Riva TNT2 Ultra
nVidia Riva TNT2
3dfx Voodoo 3 3500
Matrox MGA G400 MAX
S3 Savage 4 Xtreme
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Electric.com has sent over the
latest and greatest news in the hardware industry. Some of it is
pretty juicy:
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NVIDIA has confirmed that the GeForce 2 GTS has a problem with the AMD
751 chipset and the only solution so far is to run the card in AGP 1X
mode. Riva3D has posted a short article
which has some benchmarks of the card running in both 1X and 2X mode,
the performance hit is not that big.
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Tom's Hardware Guide has
posted an article
about some of problems that exist between VIA's KX133 chipset and
Windows 2000. They explain what causes the problems and provide a
new AGP driver which may help.
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ShugaShack has put together a suite
of benchmarks using the latest 3D cards (as well as some old ones)
on various CPU's and clock speeds (P3 450, Athlon 650 and Athlon
950). This should definitely help you decide which video card you
should get.
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Thresh's Firing Squad has
conducted an interview
with RAMBUS themselves to try and sort out all the myths and questions
people have regarding RDRAM. The questions asked are right on the
money, so give it a read.
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Tech Extreme has posted a review
of 3dfx's Voodoo5 5500 AGP board. Looks to be the same results
we've seen from other reviews. I wonder if there will be any
difference in the final revision.
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HardwareCentral has posted
a very comprehensive article
on the differences between SDRAM and RDRAM. If you're planning on
upgrading or buying a new computer in the next little while, you should
definitely check it out.
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NeoSeeker has posted part
2 of their Socket MiniRoundup, in which they take a look at Alpha's
awesome PAL-6035 HSF. This is one of my favorite's for Celerons.
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You may have heard by now that AMD's upcoming Thunderbird processor will
not be available in the Slot-A format. The
Tech Report has written up an article
which explains some possibilities why this is the case.
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3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of Altec Lansing's ADA880 4.1 channel speaker system. Looks like a
decent system, but it only scored a bronze surge of approval, so there
are better systems out there.
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The Tech Zone has posted a review
of Pioneer's new 16X tray-loaded ATAPI DVD-ROM drive. This is the
fastest DVD-ROM drive you'll find on the market, if you can find it at
all.
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Trainwrecker has posted a review
of the Addtronics 6896A Mid Tower ATX case. I'm not to hip with
the styling of this case.
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Arash's Best Hardware Guide has
posted a review
of Supermicro's SC750-A ATX Full Tower Case. This is a great case
if you're building an entry-level server and need a reliable, well
designed case with good cooling options.
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3DGameGear has posted an editorial
on the war between 3dfx and NVIDIA for the high end 3D accelerator
market, head over and give it a read.
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Saturday
- May 6th
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has
published some benchmarks
using a GeForce 1 and 2 running on a Celeron II at 566MHz and
overclocked to 867MHz. Many people don't have to cash to spend on
the high end Pentium III's and Athlons, so the Celeron II is an ideal
choice. But up until now, I haven't seen any other sites benchmark
the GeForces using the new Celeron II's, so if you're planning to get
one, you should check it out.
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Sharky Extreme has posted a guide
that will tell you how to build a PC step by step. It really isn't
that tough, you should definitely check it out if you want to save some
money and customize your own system.
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Anand Tech has posted a review
of Gigabyte's GA-7VX VIA KX133 based Slot-1 motherboard. This a
pretty standard KX133 board with no special features but decent quality
and stability.
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Quantum9 has posted a review
of Guillemot's 3D Prophet GeForce 256 32MB SDRAM card. This is an
awesome card, especially now that they will be coming down in price due
the GeForce 2's, but I would suggest going for the DDR version.
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Hardware One has posted a review
of the Palm Portable Keyboard. It's a great idea, but I'd much
rather have a fully fledged laptop. A palm is just too dinky for
me.
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PCinsight has posted a review
of DFI's CB-61 i440BX based Socket-370 motherboard. Head over and see if
it has what you're looking for.
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Electric.com has posted a review
of D-Link's USB Radio. This device lets you pick up stations from
your PC and play them through your PC sound system. It also comes
with software to rip music off the radio and turn it into MP3's.
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Electric.com sent word that EPoX
has released a new BIOS update for their VIA KX133 based board, the
EP-7KXA. Here is the info and a link:
- Fixed use of the FSB adjustment options in the CMOS.
- Fixed AMD Athlon 900MHz recognition issue.
- Fixed AGP speed (2X/4X) automatic detection by reading AGP
voltage.
(Such as S3 diamond AGP card issue.)
- Updated AMD CPU L2 cache configuration table.
- Added support for PCI Latency timer option in the CMOS.
- Fixed "HCT unreported memory test" issue.
- Added 256MB AGP Aperture Size support.
- Increased IDE performance.
- Onchip MR (modem riser slot) is disabled as default value.
- Awdflash utility is updated to Ver 7.61.
.
- EPoX
EP-7KXA BIOS (194 KB)
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Friday
- May 5th
|
HotHardware has scored a
Leadtek Winfast GeForce 2 GTS card for some reviewage.
Looks like a great card! You should see the size of the heatsink
they put on it.
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3DSpotlight has posted a review
of FIC's KA11 VIA Apollo Pro 133 based motherboard. It has an onboard SB
PC128 sound chip on it, but overall there are much better solutions out
there.
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The Duke of URL has posted a review
of Antec's KS188 Full Tower ATX case. It has some issues which you
should check out if you are interested in this case.
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Entech Taiwan has released a
new version of PowerStrip. Here is the info and a link:
PowerStrip 2.65.04 has been posted as a beta release, with cleaner
Savage 2000 support and better in-game gamma hotkeys - still a
PowerStrip exclusive. On a related note, registered users who wish to
participate in beta testing PowerStrip 3.0 should let me know by
e-mail, specifying their hardware and operating system. Unlike
previous betas which have always been public, this will be a
restricted release with preference given to registered users running
multiple graphics cards.
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NVIDIA has released a new set of
Beta XFree86 4.0 drivers for their chips ranging from the TNT to the
GeForce and Quadro chips. They are now up to 0.9-2, grab them here.
I've tried them myself and they work pretty darn well (after getting
through the XFree86 4.0 installation). It's amazing to see Quake
III run as good on Linux as it does on Windows 98.
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Overclockers Australia has
posted a review
of Diamond's Homefree 10Mbps phoneline networking kit. 10Mbps is
definitely better than the old 1Mbps standard, but still nowhere near a
100Mbps network. The only advantage to using this kit, is that
your house is already wired up for it (through your phone lines), so all
you have to do is plug in the cards.
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SystemLogic has posted a review
of Global WIN's massive VOS32 and smaller FLK32 SECC coolers (Athlon and
Pentium II's). Head over and see how they performed.
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Maximum3D has posted a review
of 3dfxCool's Big-Mo-Fo Rex Socket 7/370 cooler. I believe this is
a Global WIN FEP32 mounted with a custom fan.
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Hardware One has posted a review
of Everglide's Giganta mouse pad. I wonder if this one is as tough as
the Ratpadz?
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Since they can explain it better than I can, here's the exact email
they sent me:
SystemLogic.net is planning a new column entitled "SystemLogic.net's
Weekly Rant by ________" That blank space will be
filled in by someone that they pick in a contest giveaway they
are holding. The contest allows you to submit a sample
column that you have written. The sample should be an
example of what you think the actual column should be like, and should
cover some of the past weeks important computer/technology-related
news along with your comments/rants. There should also be some
rants here and there about other computer/technology-related things.
It should be humorous, yet interesting.
The winner will be chosen by the best written column in the opinion of
SystemLogic.net. They will get a weekly spot on SystemLogic.net
for their new column as well as a choice between an Intel Celeron 500
or a Dazzle Multimedia Digital Video Creator. Click here
for more info.
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Overclockin.com has posted part
3 of their RAM Roundup. In this part, they take a look at five
brand name PC133 modules. Head over and see which one is your best
bet.
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Kyle over at HardOCP challenged the
guys at BrokenPixel to break a
Ratpadz mouse pad without using any cutting tools. This all
stemmed from a rant at BrokenPixel which stated that they were sick of
seeing mouse and gamepad reviews because there really didn't make that
much difference. Anyway, head over and see how
tough it was to break the damn thing.
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Thursday
- May 4th
|
I noticed over at Savage
News that S3 has released a new driver for Savage4 powered
boards. Here is the info and a link to grab it:
- Addresses issues with fogging effects in Diakatana.
- Addresses General Protection Faults in Kingpin.
- Addresses screen flashing in Homeworld after changing resolutions.
- Adds support for Power Management when used as a secondary display
adapter in the Windows 98 environment.
- Addresses WinBench2000 quality test failures in 32-bit color
depth.
- S3
Savage4 Driver (Win9x - v8.20.18 - 2.11 MB)
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3DHardware has posted a review
of IplayMp3's Moveman Portable MP3 player. They found it to be a
very formidable contender in the increasingly crowded market.
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G3D has posted a short article
on how to care for the various components of your Computer.
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PC Stats has posted a review
of Pine's S3 Savage4 16MB AGP video card. Obviously, this card
isn't meant to be a screamin 3D polygon pumping beast, but rather a
cheap video card that can handle many tasks as well satisfying the needs
of a light gaming.
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Tech Extreme has posted a review
of 3Com's Palm VII. If you're into these things (I'm certainly
not), head over and check it out. By the way, they too are also
having a contest and are giving away a D-Link portable MP3 player, check
out the details here.
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Sharky Extreme has also
posted a preview
of Matrox's G450 chip. The main enhancement in this chip is the
die shrink which allow for both DualHead RAMDACs to fit on one chip, and
allows for higher clock speeds.
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Sharky Extreme has updated
their weekly
CPU price list. Some minor drops at the high ends of both AMD
and Intel's line. There were a couple hikes in Intel's midrange
chips (P3 550 - 600).
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Anand Tech has posted an analysis
of AMD's 2000 CPU roadmap. It talks about the Duron, Thunderbird
and Mustang as well as their mobile CPU technology called PowerStep and
upcoming chipsets.
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HipHardware has posted a review
of Abit's KA7 VIA KX133 based Athlon motherboard. With 6 PCI
slots, 4 DIMM slots and a slew of overclocking capabilities, it looks
like a mighty fine board.
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Woah, what's going on with all the contests today? HardwareCentral
is now going to giveaway a bunch of stuff (and very good stuff too) to
randomly chosen people who join their SETI team. Read the entire
thing here.
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PCExtremes is holding a contest
as well and the price is an Abit VTX64 VIA Apollo Pro 133A based
motherboard. Check out the contest rules here.
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TechWatch has sent word that
they've asked Creative Labs a couple of questions regarding their
upcoming GeForce 2 GTS product. Here they are:
Will the 3DB GF GTS2 follow nVidia's reference design, or will
it be slightly different (such as Asus' and Elsa's GeForce 256
products)?
"Since our first cards done with nVidia, Creative had always
explored ways to reroute to optimise the card's performance. From
end-user level, physical look may look similar, but at a schematic
level, changes are definitely being made. This will apply to 3DB
GeForce2 GTS as well."
Are their plans for a 64Mb version? Or a SDRam version?
"Creative will definitely look into the requirements of our
target customers, the power gamers. Whether with the advent of new
games, an additional 32Mb onboard card will deliver the extra edge. A
SDRam version will not be able to fully tap onto the power of the
GeForce2 GTS chipset, by still having memory speed limitation."
There you have it boys and girls, and straight from the horses mouth.
So what does this mean? Who knows, but it is clear that there will not
be an SDRam (ie, reduced cost) model (atleast under the Creative
name), and it is possible that there will be a 64Mb variety, but to an
extent texture compression nulls this.
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The Tech Zone is having a contest
and the price is the modified Athlon 500 CPU used in their Project 850
system. It consists of the CPU, an Alpha HSF and a FreeSpeed Pro
GFD. Head over and find out what you need to do to win.
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The Duke of URL has posted a review
of CTX's VL590SL-1 19" CRT monitor. CTX has been known for
making really inexpensive monitors, so head over and see if it's any
good.
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3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of MidiLand's ADS-2000 Dolby Digital Decoder. If you're a big DVD
buff and you want true Dolby Digital output from your 5.1 speaker setup,
check out this decoder.
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Wednesday
- May 3rd
|
BXBoards has posted a review
of Gigabyte's GA-7VX VIA KX133 based Athlon motherboard. Looks
like a very decent board.
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iXBT Hardware has posted a review
of Intel's Celeron 566MHz which is based on the Coppermine core and has
128KB of L2 cache. Head over and see how it did on their benchmark
suite.
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Dan's Data has posted a review
of Microsoft's Intellimouse Optical mouse. Which by the name, you
can tell is fitted with their Intellieye technology. This new
version is a cross of the Explorer and the plain Intellimouse.
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Tech Extreme has posted a review
of Guillemot's Dual Analog gamepad. USB connection, 13 programmable
buttons and best of all, the choice of digital or analog mode for the
D-pad.
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Doc Hardware has posted a review
of NETGEAR's PS110 Print Server. If you want a dedicated print
server for your LAN, head over and check it out.
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CRUS has posted a review
of Guillemot's Maxi Sound Fortissimo PCI audio card. If you want
to upgrade your sound card, but don't exactly want to spend a lot of
money on it, I suggest taking a look at this one.
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NeoSeeker has posted a review/comparison
of 3DCOOL.com's Socket Freezer and Socket Sinker Socket7/370
coolers. Head over and see how they performed if you're looking
for a good cooler for your Celeron or FC-PGA P3. You can also
check out our Socket-7/370 cooler roundup here.
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Chick's Hardware has posted a review
of the Cool Master CoolDrive DCD-4002 hard drive cooler. This
cooler only has a single fan, but I really like the way the faceplate
looks compared to other hard drive coolers.
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PCExtremes has posted a review
of Everglide's Giganta mouse pad. It's big and has a great mousing
surface, what more could you want?
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Club Overclocker has posted
a review
of Micron Technologies 128MB PC133 CL2 SDRAM module. They gave the
module a perfect 10. I would without a doubt agree that this is
some very high quality RAM.
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The Tech Report has a short article
which clears up some of the specs between the GeForce 2 GTS and the
Voodoo5 5500 and 6000. Theoretical fill rates and memory bandwidth
are discussed.
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Sharky Extreme has written up
an article
about Dell's new Wireless Mobile LAN solution. With this 11Mbps
wireless LAN solution, it would be so easy to setup a quick multiplayer
game and start fragging. Yeah I know laptops aren't the greatest for
gaming, but that should change over time. Besides the cards are also
available for desktop PC's.
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SystemLogic has posted a review
of MSI's BXMaster i440BX based Slot-1 motherboard. 6 PCI slots and
a Promise ATA66 controller are the highlights of this board, not to
mention stellar overclocking capabilities.
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Duke of URL has posted a review
of 3DLabs workstation-class Oxygen GVX210. This Glint R3 based
card is strictly for graphics/3D animation creation and not for gaming.
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Tuesday
- May 2nd
|
Creative Labs has also released an
updated set of drivers for their Sound Blaster Live! card. Grab 'em
below:
Changes/Fixes in Win9x version:
- Updated version of
Surround Mixer 1.0 and AudioHQ
- 1024-voice software MIDI
synth for Sound Blaster Live! (Option to select up to 1024 software
voices)
- Improved support for
Occlusion and Obstruction effects in EAX2.0
Sound Blaster Live! Driver (Win9x - 5.6 MB)
Changes/Fixes in Win9x version:
- Updated version of
Surround Mixer 1.0 and AudioHQ
- 1024-voice software MIDI
synth for Sound Blaster Live! (Option to select up to 1024 software
voices)
- Automatic update of
EAX1.0 to EAX2.0.
Sound
Blaster Live! Driver (WinNT4 - 5.6 MB)
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Creative Labs has released a new
unified driver for their Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2
3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT2 Value (32Mb) and
3D Blaster GeForce/3D Blaster GeForce Pro for Windows 2000. Grab
it below:
Changes/Fixes:
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This has been one hot debate in the newsgroups. Thresh's
Firing Squad has attempted to shed
some light on the Voodoo5 vs. GeForce 2 FSAA issue (being as there
one of of the few privileged ones to actually have a V5 AND GF2).
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PCinsight has posted a guide
which helps you set up a home LAN. If you have more than one computer at
home, there is no reason why you shouldn't network them.
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Electric.com sent over some
interesting news, click on any of them to follow up on it:
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Overclockers Australia has
posted a review
of ASUS' K7V VIA KX133 Slot-A motherboard. Head over and see if
it's the right Athlon board for you.
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HardwareCentral has updated
their Willamette preview
with the latest available information of Intel's upcoming CPU. If you
haven't heard about Willamette, it's expected to run at incredibly high
clock rates and has the first completely new architecture since the
Pentium Pro (P6) was released.
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Tech Extreme has posted a review
of 3DCOOL.com's Tornado 1000 Mid Tower ATX case. This case is
pre-configured for some serious cooling.
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The Game Den has posted a review
of Altec Lansing's popular ACS54 5-piece speaker system. It's
popular, because it offers a decent 4 speaker solution for one of lowest
prices you can find.
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Gamers Depot has posted a review
of NVIDIA's final silicon reference GeForce 2 GTS 32MB DDR card.
Head over and see how it performs against an ASUS V6800 DDR.
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3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of VideoLogic's Sirocco Spirit 2-piece speaker system. So you
don't want a bulky surround sound system, nor a subwoofer, but you still
want great sound ... then I suggest you check out this speaker set.
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The Tech Report has put
together an article
which guides you through the steps of building a very cheap
system. The price is good, but don't expect it to give you 60+
FPS.
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3D Accelerated has posted a review
of Microsoft's Sidewinder Precision Pro Joystick. Even though its
been out for quite a while, it's still one of my favorite conventional
joysticks.
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Sorry for the lateness of updates today, I was studying for a linear algebra
final that I had to today. Too bad it didn't help much, because I
failed it miserably, luckily I think I did well enough to pass the
course though.
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Monday
- May 1st
|
iXBT Hardware has posted a review
of MSI's MS-8809 GeForce 256 32MB SDRAM card. No special features,
but performance looks good and it overclocked to a very respectable
160/190MHz core/memory speed.
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Dan's Data has posted a review
of a couple of relatively cheap 19" monitors from Samsung, the 900P
and 900SL. Head over and see how they perform, and where they
differ.
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Planet Hardware has posted a
review
of Microstar's BXMaster i440BX based Slot-1 motherboard. This
looks mighty good with 6 PCI slots and a Promise ATA-66 controller
built-in.
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Electric.com has notified us that
ATI has released a new Windows
2000 driver for their Rage 128 and Rage 128 Pro chips. This
driver is does not appear to a BETA release either. They have also
released a new BETA DVD player for Windows 2000. Grab them below:
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AwareMag has posted a review
of the CasEdge LX734A Mid Tower ATX case. The internals look very well
designed but the outer design of the case doesn't look too attractive to
me. You may think otherwise, head over and check it out.
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Here are a couple of new ELSA GLADIAC GeForce 2 GTS 32MB DDR p/reviews:
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3DHardware has posted a review
of MidiLand's S4 7100 5.1 Speaker System. If you want a good surround
sound speaker system for a decent price, you should definitely check out
this set.
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Tech Extreme has posted a short
article on the current state of the mobile market. Intel has just
released their 700MHz SpeedStep enabled processors, and Microsoft is
supposed to release a new Mobile Operating System, etc.
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MSXBox has posted an interview
with Derek Perez, the marketing dude at NVIDIA. Here is a good
question from the interview:
MSXbox: At the incredible rate processors are increasing,
doesn't it seem the X-Box's 600 mhz system released at the end of 2001
will be considered on the low-end?
DP: I belive that with 600Mhz of CPU power and our X-GPU, this
will STILL be the fast gaming console on the market.
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SystemLogic has posted a review
of 3dFXCOOL's Alpha 1HO-P3-FAN. This is essentially an Alpha P3125 sold
under 3dFXCOOL with the fan's included.
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Tweak3D has posted a guide
that tells you how to tweak your LAN on Windows 2000, this includes
broadband connections like DSL or Cable as well.
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I don't know how much this means to anyone now that the GeForce 2's are
out, but HardwareCentral
has posted a review
of Suma's PLATINUM GeForce 256 64MB DDR card. It's still nice to
see where that extra 32MB makes a difference.
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iXBT Hardware has posted a review
of ASUS' K7V VIA KX133 based Slot-A motherboard. In terms of stability
and performance this board kicks ass. It also has an AGP Pro slot and
extra USB ports. On the other hand, it only has 5 PCI slots, a
useless AMR slot, only 3 DIMM slots and limited overclocking abilities,
so you have to decide what's more important to you.
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PC Stats has posted a review
of Actiontec's Call Waiting Modem. This 56K modem will notify you
of incoming calls (if you have call waiting) and will allow you to
answer them in a 7 second period while still being on the net.
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G3D has posted a review
of EMS' 128MB of PC133 HSDRAM. If you haven't already heard of
this stuff, it really is awesome stuff, but comes with a hefty price
tag.
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