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Tuesday
-
November 30th
|
Creative Labs Annihilator PRO Review 12:27
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware-One
somehow managed to get Creative Labs
to send them a new Annihilator PRO GeForce card with 32MB of DDR RAM.
Head over and check out the review.
|
|
ASUS V6600 Deluxe GeForce Review 12:06
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Thresh's
Firing Squad has posted a review
of ASUS's AGP-V6600 Deluxe GeForce 256 card. This card still uses SDRAM,
but has a bunch of TV-Input/Output features and an output for ASUS' VR
glasses.
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Sony 420GS 19" Monitor Review 12:06
PM EST - Email Us |
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Scott's
Hardware Site has posted a good review
of Sony's 420GS 19" monitor. Sony has always been well know
for their TV's/monitors, but they are a tad too expensive for me.
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Leadtek Winfast GeForce Review 12:06
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of Leadtek's Winfast GeForce 256 SDR card. If you want TV-Out and
a decent bundle, this is a good card to check out.
|
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Intel Cape Cod i820 Mobo Review 12:02
PM EST - Email Us |
|
GamePC
has posted a review
of Intel's new Cape Cod i820 based Slot-1 ATX motherboard.
Finally, the i820 chipset has been released, but how does it
perform? Check out this bit:
It's pretty clear to us, the I820
chipset is nothing without Rambus, they're built for one another. In
any case, the CC820 is definitely not suited for gamers, or tweakers,
or serious business applications, pretty much whatever needs to be
done can be done on a BX-board with better performance. Intel's really
in a tough spot on this board. People demand a next-generation
platform, but need legacy (SDRAM) support, as opposed to completely
going to Rambus, which seems to be the next logical step computer
buyers will need to make. So they have to cut-back performance to add
an SDRAM board to the lineup, but when it doesn't perform up to par,
people will get angry. It's a tough call to make, but the fact remains
that the performance of this board doesn't live up to the hype that
the I820 has generated. If you have SDRAM, stick with BX, but if
you're buying I820, buy some Rambus with it.
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AMD Athlon 750MHz Review 11:58
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Anand
Tech has posted a review
of AMD's recently released Athlon 750MHz CPU. Head over and check
out how it compares in performance to the rest of the Athlon family and
Intel's Pentium III Coppermine.
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Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo 11:56
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Extreme
Hardware has posted a review
of Guillemot's Maxi Sound FORTISSIMO PCI audio card. This card is
a 4-speaker solution based on Yamaha's extremely capable YMF-744 chip
and comes at an excellent price!
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Abit BF6 Slot-1 Mobo Review 11:54
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware
Central has posted their review
of Abit's BF6 i440BX based Slot-1 ATX motherboard. This bad boy
has 6 PCI slots and a million FSB speeds, but no ATA-66 controller.
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Hauppage WinTV-GO Review 11:51
AM EST - Email Us |
|
CPUReview
has posted a review
of the Hauppage WinTV-GO product. This is an add-on PCI card for
your PC which allows you to watch cable TV (if you have cable), and
capture images/video. Head over and see how it compares to the
All-In-Wonder.
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A Few AGNHardware Reviews 11:48
AM EST - Email Us |
|
AGNHardware
has posted three new reviews since yesterday, check them out below:
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Monday
-
November 29th
|
Real World T&L Performance 8:54
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Fast
Graphics has posted an article
which examines the T&L performance of the GeForce 256 DDR using the
recently released Winbench 2000. The scores are compared to a TNT2
Ultra and the GeForce DDR with T&L turned off.
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Alpha P3125 Pentium III Cooler 8:50
PM EST - Email Us |
|
The Tech
Zone has posted a review
of Alpha's P3125 heatsink. This new unit is made especially for
Pentium III's and has a new copper insert for better heat
transfer. You want the best P3 cooling? This baby will give
it to you.
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Microstar MS-6163 Pro Mobo Review 8:49
PM EST - Email Us |
|
BXBoards
has posted a review
of MSI's MS-6163 Pro motherboard. A great motherboard for
overclocking, it even has chipset voltage tweaking!
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Cambridge DTT2500 Digital Review 9:21
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Glide
Underground has posted their review
of Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theatre DTT2500 Digital 5.1 speaker
system w/separate amplifier/control center/Dolby Digital decoder.
A great system, especially for watching DVD's on your computer.
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Yamaha 8424S CD-RW Drive 9:17
AM EST - Email Us |
|
CDR-Info
has posted an extensive review
of Yamaha's awesome 8X Write 4X Re-Write 24X Read CD-RW drive.
This baby can do it all and with crazy speed as well!
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AOpen 1040 Pro 10X DVD-ROM 9:15
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Singapore Hardware Zone has posted a review
of AOpen's 1040 Pro 10X Slot-loaded DVD-ROM drive. Here is a bit
from the review:
If the AOpen DVD drive looks like a
good product, it's because it is. Although the appearance of the drive
looks ordinary don't let that fool you into thinking otherwise. For
the cost and performance it is relatively good compared to some of the
other drives I have seen. Performance is better than the other drives
too. The CD-ROM performance ain't bad either for what it can do. My
only gripe is that the drive does not come with any software bundled
and that it is possibly region locked. That may be its weak selling
point. Otherwise, it is a pretty good buy as it is priced very close
to its more established competitors like Pioneer and Sony. Since there
aren't many DVD ROM drives with SPDIF output built-in, this is also a
pretty good option to consider if that is one of the feature you
require.
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Matrox Millennium G400 Tweak Guide 9:13
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Tweak3D
has posted a Matrox
G400 Tweak Guide. If you want to know how to tweak maximum
performance out of your baby G400, head over and read this article.
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ASUS V6600 GeForce Reviews 9:08
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Here are a couple of new ASUS
V6600 GeForce reviews you may want to check out. Apparently, these
are the best cards to get if you have an Athlon system, but don't take
my word for it, research it:
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Another 3D Blaster Annihilator Review 9:02
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Gamer's
Depot has also posted a review
of Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator GeForce. If you need another
opinion, then head over and check it out.
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Falcon Northwest SE V3 3500 TV 8:50
AM EST - Email Us |
|
While I was over at Sharky's,
I also noticed that they've posted a very interesting new review
of the Falcon Northwest Special Edition Voodoo3 3500 TV card. Here
is a bit from the review:
Within the Voodoo3 product structure,
Falcon's Voodoo3 3500SE might easily be categorized as a hypothetical
Voodoo3 4000. The 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 clocks in at 143 MHz, the 3000 at
166 MHz and the 3500 at 183 MHz, and the Falcon Voodoo3 3500SE's 200
MHz speed represents more of a natural product evolution, rather than
a drastic departure from the norm. The Voodoo3 chip is high-grade, the
5 ns SDRAM easily makes the cut, but I would have liked to see some
sort of active cooling like the TennMax V3 Fighter included with the
card. After asking Falcon Northwest about active cooling, I found that
a TennMax cooler is indeed offered as a $29 upgrade to the Falcon
Voodoo3 3500SE cards.
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RCA Lyra Portable MP3 Player 8:38
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of a MP3 player we've haven't seen too much about, the RCA Lyra.
Head over and see what they thought of it.
|
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Creative Annihilator GeForce Review 8:32
AM EST - Email Us |
|
3D
Spotlight has posted their review
of Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator GeForce card. They gave it an
8.9/10 rating, not too shabby at all.
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Creative Labs Video OC'ing Utility 8:25
AM EST - Email Us |
|
I noticed over at 3DFiles that Creative Labs
has released a new beta version of their overclocking utility.
Here is the info and a link to download:
This is a beta release of Creatives
graphics core and memory clock setting utility for Creative Graphics
Blaster RIVA TNT, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra,
and 3D Blaster Annihilator cards. After installation the utility is
resident on the Windows® taskbar. The utility features adjustable
limits, a 15-second reversible test countdown after changes are
applied, as well as a Safe Mode Safety Recovery and other features.
Please review the readme text and remember tech support is NOT
offered. However, Creative is very interested in receiving your
feedback. they invite you to share your observations on the Creative
Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2
Ultra, and 3D Blaster Annihilator newsgroups.
|
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AVB Pegasus Force Feedback Joystick 8:17
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Tech Zone has posted a review
of AVB Tech's Pegasus Force Feedback Joystick. Head over and see how it
performs. Oh yeah, I forgot about this, you'll need a force feedback
joystick for flight simulators, to make your home arcade complete.
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Act Labs GS Gun System Review 8:13
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware-One
has posted their review
of Act Labs GS Gun System for the PC. Want to have an arcade in your
house? Then these will get you one step closer. All you will
have to do after is get a force feedback steering wheel/pedals and maybe
a force feedback chair with some hydraulics :) Anyway, head over
and check out their awesome review.
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November Buyer's Guide 8:10
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware
Central has posted their Hardware
Buyer's Guide for November 1999. Here is what they said in the
email:
With a sea of products out there,
choices can be tough. Fortunately,
we've put together our HardwareCentral Buyer's Guide to help you on
your way--come take a look at the November Edition.
|
Saturday
-
November 27th
|
Kenwood 72X True-X CD-ROM Drive 11:33
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hot
Hardware has posted the first review
I've seen of Kenwood's new 72X True-X CD-ROM drive. I can't even imagine
why you would need a CD-ROM drive this fast, but hey why not?
|
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Transcend TS-AVD1 Slot-1 Mobo 11:30
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Anand
Tech has also posted a review
of Transcend's TS-AVD1 VIA Apollo Pro 133 Slot-1 ATX motherboard.
Look's like the guys over at Anand Tech are really liking these new VIA
Apollo Pro 133 boards because the ratings they are getting aren't bad at
all.
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FIC SD-11 Athlon Mobo Review 11:26
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Anand
Tech has posted a review
of FIC's SD-11 Athlon motherboard. This board is the first to use
an AMD 751/VIA VT82C686A chipset combo. Here is a bit from the
review:
The FIC SD-11 is a very disappointing
board for one simple reason - it is an engineering sample that was
never meant for public consumption. Furthermore, the huge PCB
increases manufacturing costs greatly, so FIC has had to cut costs in
other areas, primarily by removing four of the switching voltage
regulators from AMD's reference design. Unfortunately, this
significantly reduces stability and has become known as one of the
worst Athlon boards around the AnandTech labs. There is absolutely no
reason to buy the SD-11 right now. If you're an FIC fan, just hang on
for their SD-13, which should be a much more solid Athlon motherboard
- basically everything the SD-11 should have been.
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Iwill Slocket II: Coppermine To Slot-1 11:22
AM EST - Email Us |
|
BXBoards
has posted a review
of Iwill's Slocket II Coppermine 370 (FC-PGA chips) to Slot-1 converter
card. They've even posted a benchmark of the Coppermine running on
a BX chipset and on the i810e chipset. Also, they've been playing
around with the Coppermine 550 a bit more to see how high it could
overclock, head over and check it out on their main
page.
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New SoftFSB & WCPUID Beta 11:08
AM EST - Email Us |
|
H. Oda has released new beta versions of
SoftFSB (allows you overclock your FSB speed on the fly inside Windows)
and WCPUID (a great CPU identification program). Grab them below:
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AMD Athlon 750's on Monday 11:03
AM EST - Email Us |
|
According to this article
over at Cnet News, AMD's Athlon
750MHz CPU's officially hit the market on Monday. However, don't expect
to find them in many stores right away. They will be sold to
top-tier computer manufacturers first, and if they have good yields,
you'll see them showing up in stores about a month later.
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Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator 11:00
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Riva3D has
posted a review of Creative Labs 3D
Blaster Annihilator GeForce card. There has been mention that
Creative has put a hold on the producing the SDRAM version and is now
producing the Annhilator Pro card with DDR RAM.
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3dfx VSA-100 Preview 10:56
AM EST - Email Us |
|
iXBT
Hardware has posted a very detailed preview
of 3dfx's VSA-100 chip (Voodoo Scalable Architecture). If you're
dying to read more about this new chip (and the cards based on it), this
is a great article.
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ELSA ERAZOR X GeForce Review 10:50
AM EST - Email Us |
|
GA Source
has posted a review
of ELSA's ERAZOR X GeForce 256 card. The main difference between
this card and other GeForce cards, is that the Erazor X is not based on
NVIDIA's reference design. ELSA uses their own expertise in
high-end graphics cards to optimized the PCB layout.
|
Friday
-
November 26th
|
Abit BF6/BE6-II Beta BIOS 9:11
AM EST - Email Us |
|
BXBoards
has received a new beta BIOS for the BF6/BE6-II motherboards from
Abit. Here is the email and a link to download:
I have a good news for you ...
The attached file is the latest
BE6-II/BF6 beta bios ... This beta add one more fancy SOFTMENU III
feature , which has hugh effect when FSB > 125 MHz
I tested this new feature and found
it's really effective with my own Diamond VIPER V770 Ultra straight up
to 150 MHz FSB !!! You can try this new feature ... If you feel that
it's really useful to our customers , you can put this beta bios on
your web ...
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Logitech Force Feedback Mouse 9:11
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Extreme
Hardware has posted a review
of Logitech's Wingman Force Feedback Mouse. Interesting little
device indeed, especially if you really want to feel the vibrations of
getting shot in a FPS game :)
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Creative vs. Leadtek GeForce Cards 9:07
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Tom's
Hardware Guide has posted a comparison
between Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator and Leadtek's Winfast
GeForce 256 cards. Here is the verdict:
My decision is pretty solid here. If
you want a 'no-bullshit'-GeForce based board without any special
features besides kick butt 3D performance, go pick up the Creative
board at the cheapest price available. You can probably pick it up
easier and at $20 less than the Leadtek. However, if you aren't
decided between both boards, grab the Leadtek if you can find it. For
a slightly higher price you can pick up the added software bundle and
have video out that you might find useful in the future. Being able to
pump video through your TV to show off DVD movies or MPEG clips can be
useful and with flat panels coming around the corner, you might regret
not getting a card with the DVI connection. Stay tuned for a GeForce
round-up and a review of S3-Diamond's Viper II review next week. I
wish all our US readers a Happy Thanksgiving!
|
Thursday
-
November 25th
|
ASUS K7M Athlon Motherboard 6:53
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware-One
has posted their review
of ASUS' K7M Athlon Motherboard which is based on AMD's 751
chipset. Currently, the best one out there, so head over and check
it out if you want to get an Athlon.
|
|
Maxi Gamer Cougar Review 6:44
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Maximum
Hardware has posted a review
of Guillemot's Maxi Gamer Cougar TNT2 M64 card. Head over and see
what they thought of it. On a side note, they've also posted a review
of Everglide's Large Attack mouse pad if you want to check that out.
|
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Kryotech Cool Athlon 900 Review 8:53
AM EST - Email Us |
|
GamePC
has posted their review
of Kryotech's Cool Athlon 900MHz barebones system. This baby
includes a supercooled Athlon 700 overclocked to 900MHz and is quite
costly.
|
|
Soyo SY-6VBA-133 Mobo Review 8:49
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hot
Hardware has posted a review
of Soyo's SY-6VBA-133 Slot-1 VIA Apollo Pro 133 based ATX
motherboard. Head over and see what they thought of this Intel
Alternative.
|
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VIA/Cyrix Joshua CPU Preview 8:40
AM EST - Email Us |
|
CPU
Review has posted a preview
of VIA/Cyrix's Joshua processor. Check out this tidbit:
The large 64k L1 cache, with the
addition of the 256k of full-speed L2 cache will be able to feed the
core at a higher rate than any previously released Cyrix processor.
I was assured by the Cyrix
representative that the floating point unit is also much improved.
The "mutually exclusive"
description of the L2 cache implies that it will be possible to
configure the processor to treat the L2 cache as a slightly slower
extension of the 64k L1 cache; resulting in overall higher performance
as the core would effectively see a 320k "L1.5" cache.
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How To Rip Apart An Athlon 8:38
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Tech Zone has posted an article
which shows you how to take apart an Athlon without breaking it, so that
you can provide better cooling to it.
|
|
New Creative Labs Drivers 8:36
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Creative Labs
has released a few new
drivers in the past few days which you may be interested in.
Check them out below:
Sound Blaster PCI 512 Update/Fixes:
Sound Blaster PCI 128 Updates/Fixes:
3D Blaster Savage4 Updates/Fixes:
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|
Definitive 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Review 8:26
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Adrian's
Rojak Pot has posted his definitive 15-page review
of Creative Labs 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 card. This card can probably
be found for very cheap, and will still give you awesome gaming
performance.
|
Wednesday
- November 24th
|
New Abit BH6 BIOS Updates 5:30
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Abit
has released new BIOS updates for the BH6 motherboards, grab the
appropriate one below:
|
|
Roundup of Mobo Manufacturers 5:24
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Tom's
Hardware Guide has posted a roundup
of all the motherboard manufacturers they visited at Comdex 99.
Want to know what all these companies have planned for the future?
It's especially a good read in case you're in the market for a new
motherboard.
|
|
3dfx VSA-100 Under The Scope 5:12
PM EST - Email Us |
|
3DGN has
posted an article
which takes a look at 3dfx VSA-100 chip (what is known about it) and the
various board configurations based on it. Not too bad of an
article actually, head over if you're interested in 3dfx's new chip.
|
|
New Intel Chipset .inf Files 5:00
PM EST - Email Us |
|
I noticed over at Voodoo Extreme, that Intel
has released a new set of .inf files for Win9X (including 98 SE and
Millennium) for their various chipsets including all 440 chipsets, the
430TX and the 810, 810e, 820 and 840. They've also released new
UltraDMA drivers for Windows NT for the 440 and 8xx chipsets, grab them
below:
|
|
Aureal SQ3500 DSP Chip Info 4:55
PM EST - Email Us |
|
I noticed over at 3DSoundSurge
an interesting link
to the specs of the Motorola DSP56362 chip which is going to be used in
Aureal's upcoming SQ3500 sound card to do reverb, Dolby Digital and MP3
decoding. What's interesting is that the chip can also decode DTS
and MPEG2, but it's unlikely Aureal will use them.
|
|
Hyundai To Sell DDR DRAM To NVIDIA 4:52
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Looks like Hyundai
is going to producing and supplying DDR DRAM to NVIDIA for their DDR
GeForce cards, due out soon. Check out the press release here.
|
|
MX300 vs. SB Live! X-Gamer 4:47
PM EST - Email Us |
|
3DWars
has posted the second
part to their Diamond Monster Sound MX300 vs. Creative Labs Sound
Blaster Live! X-Gamer. In this article they focus on extra
features and even look at the MX25 add-on card for the MX300.
|
|
Abit BE6-II Slot-1 Mobo Review 8:52
AM EST - Email Us |
|
BXBoards
has posted their review
of Abit's new BE6-II Slot-1 i440BX based ATX motherboard. With 5
PCI slots, an ATA-66 controller and FSB speeds in 1MHz increments, its a
very nice board indeed. BXBoards gave it a 5/5 rating.
|
|
3dfx CEO Interview 8:46
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Thresh's
Firing Squad has posted an interview
with 3dfx's new CEO, Dr. Alex Leupp. In this interview, they
mostly ask questions about what 3dfx is going to do in the future,
especially about business practices, but here is a question you may be
interested in:
Question: Why is 3dfx still using a
0.25 micron process for VSA-100?
Michael Howse: Since Dr. Leupp
isn't completely up to date with the technology aspects of the
next-generation, I'll answer that question. We've found that staying
with 0.25 allows us to produce chips faster and with higher yields
than moving down to a smaller process. Also, with our enhanced 6-layer
metal 0.25, we're able to save roughly the same amount of die space as
we would have by going down to 0.18 micron.
|
|
Setting Up An Apache Web Server 8:30
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Chip Testers have posted a tutorial
which shows you how to setup up an Apache web server based on Red Hat
Linux 6.0. If you're interested in running your own server, head
over and check it out. By the way, they've also updated their Weekly
Hardware Price Watch, if you want to find the lowest prices on
hardware.
|
|
New ATI Rage 128 Drivers 8:24
AM EST - Email Us |
|
ATI has
released new drivers for cards based on their Rage 128 chip. Grab
them below:
|
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