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Saturday
-
October 23rd
|
NVIDIA Reference Drivers 3.53
12:14 PM EST - Email Us |
|
In case you missed it a couple days ago, NVIDIA
has released official Detonator drivers for all their chips except
Riva128 & 128ZX based cards. Grab them below:
Also, if you want to access the
overclocking utility built into the drivers, add this key to your
Windows registry: DWORD called CoolBits with a value of 3 to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SOFTWARE>NVidia Corporation>Global>NVTweak
and reboot.
|
|
ASUS K7M Athlon Mobo Review
12:12 PM EST - Email Us |
|
GamePC
has posted a review
of ASUS's new K7M Athlon motherboard which is also based on AMD's
Irongate chipset, but does have some overclocking abilities built-in and
hopefully the same ASUS quality we've come to expect.
|
|
Powerstrip 2.53 Released
12:03 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Entechtaiwan
has released a new version of their popular Monitor/Video card
configuration utility. Here is the info on this new release and a
link to download:
PowerStrip 2.53 is now available for
download, with custom refresh rates for 3Dlabs P3/R3 chips under NT,
as well as GeForce DDR and Intel 810e support. For optimal D3D and
OpenGL hardware acceleration secondary monitors can now be easily
disabled by PowerStrip presets and associations, the in-game gamma
controls have been beefed up, and problems with 3dfx color correction
under NT have been fixed. Note that while this release supports all
graphics cards under Windows 2000, a special build specifically
compiled for W2K will be posted in a few days.
|
|
Gigabyte GA660 Plus TNT2-A Review
12:00 PM EST - Email Us |
|
TNT2 Pro, TNT2-A why can't they just come up
with one damn name and leave it at that. Anyway, Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of the only TNT2-A based card that I know of, the Gigabyte GA-660 Plus.
|
Friday -
October 22nd
|
GamePC Disruptor Athlon 600 System
4:24 PM EST - Email Us |
|
While I was over at Sharky's
place, I also noticed that they've posted a review
of GamePC's Disruptor Athlon 600MHz full system. This system is
packed full of some of the best components you could put in a system and
the price clearly reflects that too! :)
|
|
Developers on Next Gen 3D Tech
4:19 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has posted an article/interview
which asks game developers what they think of next generation 3D
technology. Specifically, they answered questions on texture
compression, Hardware T&L, etc.
|
|
Microstar MS-6167 Athlon Mobo
4:14 PM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Lost Circuits has posted a review
of MSI's MS-6167 Athlon motherboard. This was the most anticipated
Athlon motherboard on the block, mainly due to MSI's reputation.
Head over and see if it lives up the test.
|
|
NVIDIA GeForce DDR Review
4:06 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Mike over at nV
News has posted a great review
of NVIDIA's GeForce 256 DDR card. He has posted all the info on
its new features and a TON of benchmarks comparing it to a TNT2
and TNT.
|
|
New Terratec DMX Drivers
3:58 PM EST - Email Us |
|
I noticed over at 3DSoundSurge
that Terratec has released new
drivers for their Canyon3D based DMX card. Here is the info
and a link to download:
Changes since version 4.05.00.0663
|
|
Gigabyte GA-7IX Athlon Mobo
3:45 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Digital-Clips
has posted a review
of Gigabyte's GA-7IX Athlon motherboard. This motherboard (like
all others currently available) is based on AMD's Irongate 751/756
chipset. Head over and see what they thought of this board.
|
|
Altec Lansing ACS56 Speaker Set
3:42 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Rage
Underground has posted a review
of Altec Lansing's ACS56 PowerPlay Plus 4.1 Speaker set. These
speakers actually look pretty good, just be sure to try them out before
buying.
|
|
Kryotech Cool Athlon 900 Review
3:38 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Tom's
Hardware Guide has posted a review
of Kryotech's Cool Athlon 900MHz barebones system. We are inching
very near 1GHz people, this is very exciting :) 20 years down the
road, when you're kid or grandkid pulls out the 400GHz processor out of
his toy robot, you'll look back on this era and say "man those
chips sucked back then!"
|
|
Plextor PlexWriter 8/20 CD-RW
3:30 PM EST - Email Us |
|
TargetPC
has also posted a review
of Plextor's PlexWriter 8/20 CD-ReWriatable drive. This is
probably THE BEST CD-RW drive on the market today without a doubt.
If you have any doubts, head over and check out the review.
|
|
Interview w/Kryotech @TargetPC
3:24 PM EST - Email Us |
|
TargetPC
has posted a interview
they conducted with Kathy Hemby of Kryotech. Check out this
tidbit:
Target PC : Any
upcoming news for our readers ?
Kryotech : We are scheduled to release a dual Athlon KryoCooled
system in late Q1 or early Q2 2000. Each processor will run at least
1GHz.
|
|
Creative Labs DVD-RAM Kit Review
3:20 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Gamespot
has posted a review
of Creative Labs PC-DVD DVD-RAM kit. This device does not allow
you to copy DVD's, but it can be a great storage/backup medium.
|
|
ATI Rage Fury MAXX Interview
3:12 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Hot
Hardware has posted an interview
they conducted with ATI regarding their new ATI Rage Fury MAXX
card. Here is a bit from the interview:
Dave-
You have chosen to support S3TC, what were the reasons for choosing
this texture compression algorithm?
ATI-
With the Rage Fury MAXX (the "XX" stands for our Dual
ASIC technology), you get a huge 64MB local texture memory, 32MB per
rendering engine. With the use of Texture Compression, in addition to
texture memory, FURY MAXX ensures blazingly fast 3D gaming. This will
allow for high resolution textures to be used within the game
developer community and thus provide more realistic and impressive
environments.
|
|
SOYO SY-7IZB S-370 Mobo Review
3:10 PM EST - Email Us |
|
CRUS has
posted a review
of SOYO's SY-7IZB i440ZB based Socket-370 AT/ATX motherboard. Yup, for
those of you with an old AT case that you just don't want to give up,
this looks like a good upgrade choice.
|
Thursday -
October 21st
|
RISC vs. CISC: The Post-RISC Era
8:20 AM EST - Email Us |
|
Ars
Technica has written up a great article
on the RISC vs. CISC debate, particularly the fact that they've merged
together into one technology, here is the intro:
The majority of today's processors
can’t rightfully be called completely RISC or completely CISC. The
two textbook architectures have evolved towards each other to such an
extent that there’s no longer a clear distinction between their
respective approaches to increasing performance and efficiency. To be
specific, chips that implement the x86 CISC ISA have come to look a
lot like chips that implement various RISC ISA’s; the instruction
set architecture is the same, but under the hood it’s a whole
different ball game. But this hasn't been a one-way trend.
Rather, the same goes for today’s so-called RISC CPUs. They’ve
added more instructions and more complexity to the point where
they’re every bit as complex as their CISC counterparts. Thus
the "RISC vs. CISC" debate really exists only in the minds
of marketing departments and platform advocates whose purpose in
creating and perpetuating this fictitious conflict is to promote their
pet product by means of name-calling and sloganeering.
|
|
Monthly Hardware Guide Updated
8:20 AM EST - Email Us |
|
3DRage
has updated their monthly
hardware guide. They give you a list of the components they
recommend for a building a system along with all the cheapest prices.
|
|
Creative 3D Blaster TNT2 Review
8:17 AM EST - Email Us |
|
Adrian's
Rojak Pot has posted a huge 15 page review
of Creative Labs 3D Blaster Riva TNT2. Since the GeForce is
starting to show up, TNT2's will become a lot cheaper and still provide
for very good framerates in all games.
|
|
VideoLogic DigiTheatre 5.1 Review
8:09 AM EST - Email Us |
|
3DSoundSurge has posted a review
of VideoLogic's DigiTheatre 5.1 speaker system with an separate amp and
Dolby Digital decoder. Head over and see how it compares to
the DTT2500.
|
|
AVB GC-2000B+ Joystick Review
8:05 AM EST - Email Us |
|
The Tech
Zone has posted a review
of AVB's GC-2000B+ Joystick. The reviewer especially like the fact
that it fit his hand well and was very stiff in movement.
|
Wednesday
-
October 20th
|
Apollo Pro 133A & VCSDRAM Part 2
10:25 PM EST - Email Us |
|
As promised, Anand
has posted part
2 of his article on VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset and NEC's Virtual
Channel SDRAM. This part of the article is mainly focused on
performance and he compares this platform to the BX and i820
platforms. Here is a bit from the article:
As a purely gaming solution, the Apollo
Pro Plus 133A isn't what we hoped it would be. The AGP performance
tests indicate that VIA's AGP 4X implementation is around 30% slower
than Intel's AGP 4X implementation on the i820. But wait a minute,
isn't everyone always saying how big of a joke AGP is? The fact of the
matter is that AGP still isn't used intensely during today's games and
the AGP texturing benchmarks Intel supplied us with are exaggerations
of what actual gameplay would involve, simply to illustrate the
performance potential AGP 4X offers over AGP 2X.
|
|
Kryotech Cool Athlon 800 Review
5:05 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Got Apex?
has posted their review
of Kryotech's Cool Athlon 800MHz barebones system. With this much
power, you should be set for at least a couple of years as far as
processing power is concerned, too bad these things weren't a little
cheaper.
|
|
Maxtor DiamondMax 40 Hard Drive
5:02 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Storage
Review has posted a review
of Maxtor's DiamondMax 40 94098U8 41GB 5400 RPM Ultra DMA/66 drive with
a 2MB buffer. Pretty good stuff, if you need 41GB of storage and
its pretty fast too!
|
|
Coverage of CL Product Launch Event
4:53 PM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware-One has was invited to Creative
Labs Launch event for their 3D Blaster GeForce Annihilator and Sound
Blaster Live! Platinum cards. Lots of pictures and information on
these products.
|
|
GeForce 256 Overclocking Tests 9:15
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Thresh's
Firing Squad has posted an article
which takes a look at the effects of overclocking a GeForce 256 and how
far they were able to get with it. The benchmarks look quite
interesting, the DDR version pulls way ahead of the SDR version.
|
|
8X CD-R Drive Roundup 9:10
AM EST - Email Us |
|
GamePC
has posted a roundup
of three 8X CD-R drives. They've posted a bunch of benchmarks and
CPU utilization tests.
|
|
Downloadable Live!Ware 3.0 9:01
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Creative Labs
has released the web version of Live!Ware
3.0. This version has all of the core components but is
missing much of what is found on the CD. Grab it from the link
below:
|
|
AMD Eyes 1GHz With New FAB30 8:54
AM EST - Email Us |
|
ZDNet has
posted a good article
which reports how AMD is doing with its new FAB30 in Dresden,
Germany. This new FAB will be pumping out 1GHz Athlon's next year
using the 0.18 micron process along with copper interconnects.
|
|
Official NVIDIA 3.53 Drivers 8:44
AM EST - Email Us |
|
NVIDIA
has officially posted their 3.53 Reference drivers. The page says
the driver should only be used with the GeForce line of products, but
I'm pretty sure they work with other chips too. I'm going to try
them myself shortly, grab them below:
Update: These drivers work
perfectly on my TNT2.
|
|
Imation LS-120 SuperDisk Review 8:36
AM EST - Email Us |
|
SystemLogic
has posted a review
of Imation's external LS-120 SuperDisk drive. This drive uses the
parallel port like the external Zip drive, which makes it significantly
slower than the Internal version, but it's still great for carrying
around from place to place.
|
|
Intel P3 Coppermine 600EB Review 8:32
AM EST - Email Us |
|
iXBT
Hardware has posted a review
of Intel's Pentium III 600EB which uses the Coppermine core. The
Athlon 600 still beats the P3 600EB in almost every benchmark, but Intel
is catching up. Did you ever think you were going to hear that
phrase, "Intel is catching up." I like the fact that they are
the underdogs, it should make for a humbling experience for them,
hopefully.
|
|
Athlon 650 is Cheaper than P3 600! 8:20
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Bill over at CPUReview
has notified us that he has updated his K7
vs. P3 price comparison. Wow a much higher performing CPU for a
lower price, and the motherboard prices have dropped enough to make the
entire combo lower in price than P3 w/motherboard.
|
|
AMK-2X60 Pentium III Cooler 8:16
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The
Tech Zone has posted a review
of AMK's 2X60 cooler. This is essentially a huge Xeon heatsink
with a couple of very powerful fans mounted on it, head over and see how
well it performs.
|
Tuesday -
October 19th
|
VIA Apollo Pro 133A & VCSDRAM 6:17
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Anand
Tech has posted a review
of VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset and Virtual Channel SDRAM. This
article mainly examines the technology behind these two competitors to
Intel's i820 and Rambus memory respectively.
|
|
Kryotech Cool Athlon 800MHz 6:17
PM EST - Email Us |
|
AGNHardware has posted a review
of Kryotech's Cool Athlon 800MHz system. This is their typical
super-cooled system which brings the processor down to an amazing -40
degrees Celsius. I wonder if you even need all that cooling to get to
800? but then again, you could probably get over 1GHz using the
Kryotech cooling system. AGNHardware has also posted a video
review of the Athlon 700MHz CPU which you can view here: 33k
Real G2 stream or 80k
Real G2 stream.
|
|
Voodoo3 Mac OS 8.x Driver 1.0 B5 6:07
PM EST - Email Us |
|
3dfx has
released a new Voodoo3
driver for Macintosh system running OS 8.x. Grab it below:
|
|
Interview w/Brian Burke of 3dfx 8:25
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Speedy3D
has posted their interview
with 3dfx's public relations dude, Brian Burke. There is some
interesting info in the interview, but no substantial information on
anything about their next part, this is all he had to say:
Q9: Is 3dfx finally
going to offer full AGP 4x support in their next generation product?
Would it be useful?
We have not announced the
specs for next product, and I will get killed if I let the cat out of
the bag this close to Comdex. We have heard the cries of our fans.
They want 4x AGP, 32-bit support, and large texture support.
|
|
An Article on 64-bit CPU's 8:23
AM EST - Email Us |
|
SysOpt.com
has posted an article
which takes a look at the new 64-bit kids on the block, Intel's Itanium
and AMD's Sledgehammer. Although they won't be released for quite
a while, they are definitely going to make a big impact on personal
computing when they are released and software is developed for them.
|
|
5-Way Hard Drive Cooler Roundup 8:13
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The Tech
Zone has posted a roundup
of five of the best hard drive coolers. Head over and see which
one provides the most bang for your buck.
|
Monday -
October 18th
|
New NVIDIA 3.52 Reference Drivers 6:00
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Zohia
HQ has posted the latest NVIDIA
reference drivers for Windows 9X/NT4 and 2000! If you've
haven't tried them, you should definitely try them now as they have
quite a few improvements and new features. These will work with all
NVIDIA chips including the TNT, TNT2, TNT2 Ultra, TNT M64 and GeForce
256. Grab them below:
Update: Unfortunately, the
drivers have been removed off Zohia's site by NVIDIA's request.
|
|
CL PC-DVD Encore Dxr3 Drivers 5:44
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Creative
Labs has released new
drivers for their PC-DVD Encore Dxr3 kit. This release mostly
has incompatibility fixes, Grab it below:
|
|
Intel to Launch 1.1GHz CPU Next Month 5:30
PM EST - Email Us |
|
See what good competition does? I love
it! According to this
article over at the Register.
Intel is supposedly pushing for their Willamette CPU to be released 9
months ahead of schedule to surpass AMD's Athlon CPU. Here is a
bit from the article:
Intel knows in its heart that
Coppermine just can't cut it in the race against Athlon, so Chipzilla
has a little surprise up its sleeve - the next generation of IA32
processor, codenamed Willamette, could be here a staggering nine
months early.
US sources say the chip will have a paper launch at the end of
December, with product in the shops two months later, although if AMD
keeps up the pressure it could be even sooner. Presumably this two
month gap is to enable OEMs to shift bucketloads of Coppermine systems
before they're rendered unsaleable by the new super chip.
...
The entirely new 0.18 micron Willamette
was originally scheduled to arrive around Q3 2000 at 1100MHz with more
than 1MB integrated level 2 cache and Intel performance estimates say
it will score around 50 on Winstone98 and 43 on SpecInt95.
|
|
Abit BF6 Slot-1 Mobo Review 5:26
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware
Upgrade has posted a review
of Abit's new BF6 Slot-1 motherboard. This board has Abit's new
Soft-Menu III which allows FSB speeds between 83 and 200MHz in 1MHz
increments. It also has 6 PCI slots, but unfortunately no Ultra
DMA/66 controller.
|
|
ELSA Gloria II Preliminary Specs 5:23
PM EST - Email Us |
|
SystemLogic
has gotten hold of some preliminary
specs on ELSA's workstation class accelerator which I'm presuming is
based on NVIDIA's GeForce 256 (doesn't explicitly say this). It
has 64MB of SDRAM and some other nice features.
|
|
Labtec LCS-2414 3-pc Speaker Set 5:20
PM EST - Email Us |
|
3DHardware.net
has posted a review
of Labtec's LCS-2414 3-piece speaker set. Doesn't look like these
are the greatest speakers around, but they offer ok sound for the price.
|
|
SB Live! X-Gamer & MP3 Sound Cards 5:16
PM EST - Email Us |
|
While I was over at AGNHardware,
I also noticed that they've posted a review
of Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer and MP3. These are
essentially the same cards with custom software bundles.
|
|
Microsoft Natural Pro Keyboard 5:13
PM EST - Email Us |
|
AGNHardware
has posted a review
of Microsoft's Natural Pro Keyboard. Not only does this keyboard
look and feel cool, it also has a ton of extra buttons for one-touch
launching of programs and adjusting volume, etc. They gave it a
10/10!
|
|
3dfxCOOL Alpha 125 Cooler Review 5:10
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Overclockin.com
has posted a review
of 3dfxCOOL's Alpha P125 kit. This cooler is widely heralded to be
the best conventional Slot-1 cooler around.
|
|
Matrox Marvel G400-TV Review 5:00
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of Matrox's Marvel G400-TV card. This $300 card does it all,
including 2D/3D Acceleration, TV Input and Output and has a host of very
nice video/image capturing utilities and functions.
|
|
HPros Abit BE6 Slot-1 Mobo Review 9:17
AM EST - Email Us |
|
We have just posted our review
of Abit's BE6 i440BX based Slot-1 ATX motherboard. Check it out here.
|
|
Quantum Fireball KX Plus 27.3GB HD 8:53
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Tech
Review has posted a review
of Quantum's current flag-ship 7200 RPM, Ultra DMA/66 hard drive, the
27.3GV KX Plus. They've compared it to three other 7200 RPM
drives, head over and see how well it scored.
|
|
Intel i820 Vancouver Mobo Review 8:47
AM EST - Email Us |
|
3DGaming
has posted an in-depth review
of Intel's very own i820 based Vancouver motherboard. Here is a
bit on the current performance status of this chipset:
After looking at the results in both
Unreal and Quake 3, we can see that the i820 is barely keeping up with
the BX chipset. This is still rather unexpected as the i820 looks far
better on paper with bigger bus widths for system memory and AGP, and
faster bus speeds in general with redesigned streamlined architecture.
Yet, the mature BX chipset seems to pull ahead at times, if only by a
small margin. The only explanation that comes to mind are the relative
immaturity of the drivers that came with the i820. Hopefully, Intel
will be able to resolve this issue.
|
|
MS Intellimouse Explorer Review 8:37
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Gamewire
has posted their review
of Microsoft's flashy new Intellimouse Explorer w/Intellieye mouse. I
have no idea what you would do with all those buttons, but hey, more is
better, right?
|
|
Western Digital Expert 27GB Hard Drive 8:33
AM EST - Email Us |
|
3DSpotlight
has posted a review
of Western Digital's Expert 27GB 7200 RPM Ultra DMA/66 hard drive (w/2MB
cache).
|
|
BitBoys Glaze3D Preview 8:29
AM EST - Email Us |
|
While I was over at VE,
I also noticed that they've posted a preview
of the BitBoys Oy Glaze3D. The specs look great, but they haven't
even developed first silicon yet, which kind of scares me. Anyhow,
head over and check out the preview, its one of the most informative
ones I've read so far.
|
|
EMS PC133 HSDRAM Review 8:26
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Voodoo
Extreme has posted a review
of Enhanced Memory Systems PC133 HSDRAM. This RAM is widely known
to be the only RAM on the market which will reach FSB speeds in excess
of 150MHz reliably! Great stuff, but a tad expensive.
|
|
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX Review 8:24
AM EST - Email Us |
|
iXBT
Hardware has posted a review
of Matrox's Millennium G400 MAX card. As always, its a fully
packed review taking a look at every aspect including image quality and
Matrox's DualHead feature.
|
|
Guillemot 3D Prophet Review 8:17
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a review of
Guillemot's 3D Prophet GeForce 256 SDRAM card. They've posted
quite a few benchmarks comparing it to the NVIDIA reference GeForce 256
SDR and DDR as well as a TNT2 Ultra.
|
Sunday -
October 17th
|
Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme 8:01
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has posted a review
of Diamond's Stealth III S540 Xtreme card. This $99 (after $30
rebate) card is based on S3's Savage4 Xtreme chip which runs at a very
nice 160MHz core. Apparently, it has very decent OpenGL
performance and ok D3D performance.
|
|
Guillemot 3D Prophet vs. TNT2 Ultra 7:14
PM EST - Email Us |
|
Riva
Station has posted a comparison
between Guillemot's 3D Prophet GeForce 256 SDRAM card and a TNT2 Ultra
card. The 3D Prophet on a P3 500 pounds the TNT2 Ultra on an
Athlon 600!
|
|
Pre-modified Athlon 500 @650MHz 7:09
PM EST - Email Us |
|
BXBoards
has posted a review
of a pre-modified Athlon 500 running at 650MHz along with Computer
Nerd's FAK7X2B Athlon cooler. Head over too see how well the combo
performed.
|
|
ProMedia v2-400 vs. DTT2500 10:01
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Anand
Tech has posted a comparison
between's Klipsch's ProMedia v.2-400 4.1 THX speaker system and
Cambridge SoundWorks DTT2500 5.1 Dolby Digital speaker system. Head
over and check out which one came out on top.
|
|
Hardware Buyers Guide Updated 9:57
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Sharky
Extreme has updated their Hardware
Buyers Guide. They have recommendations for high, mid and
low-budget systems. They provide some great recommendations, along
with pictures and prices of everything.
|
|
Quantum Fireball KA Plus 18.2GB 9:55
AM EST - Email Us |
|
The Tech
Zone has posted a review
of Quantum's Fireball KA Plus 7200RPM Ultra DMA/66 hard drive. A very
nice hard drive indeed, its the one that I use myself.
|
|
Microsoft Intellieye Mice Review 9:53
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Hardware-One
has posted a review
of two of Microsoft's mice which use the new Intellieye optical
technology. Here is a interesting bit from the review:
With the Intellieye optical sensor, the
mice are capable of scanning surfaces at a rate of 1,500 times per
second to track movement. There are two types of digital camera
technologies used widely today; The first being the popular CCD
technology and the other uses CMOS technology. The Intellieye uses
CMOS technology akin to a tiny digital camera, taking a whopping 1,500
pictures per second on the surfaces beneath the mice. After taking the
pictures, the 18 MIPS digital signal processor will analyze these
pictures and translate the movement of the mouse to reflect the cursor
position on the monitor screen. With "image correlation
processing" techniques, the mice provide smoother and more
precise pointer movements than ever before.
|
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