Oct 9 - 16, 1999
Archive

Saturday - October 16th


  3DCool's Twin Turbo Cooler Review  8:23 PM EST  - Email Us
FPS3D has posted a review of 3DCool.com's Twin Turbo cooler.  This fits in a free 5 1/4" drive bay and pulls in air from outside to cool devices inside the case.  It's great for cooling a 7200+ RPM hard drive or CD-RW drive.

 

  Hardware Price Watch Updated  8:21 PM EST  - Email Us
SystemLogic has notified us to let us know that they've updated their Hardware Price Watch.  They note that Athlon and RAM prices have dropped very significantly and they've added some new motherboards to their list.

 

  Hitachi SuperScan 19" Monitor  8:12 PM EST  - Email Us
Speedy3D has posted a review of Hitachi's SuperScan CM761U 19" monitor.  This monitor has a 0.22mm dot pitch and a footprint of a 15" monitor!  Overall score, 9.5/10.

 

  AOpen AX6BC Pro Slot-1 Mobo  8:11 PM EST  - Email Us
While I was over at Overclockers.com.au, I also noticed that they posted their review of AOpen's AX6BC Pro i440BX Slot-1 ATX motherboard.  A damn fine motherboard, especially for stability.

 

  Coppermine 805MHz Benchmarks  8:09 PM EST  - Email Us
Overclockers.com.au has posted some SiSoft 99 benchmarks of an Intel Coppermine processor running at 805MHz.

 

  Logitech WingMan Gamepad Extreme  10:25 AM EST  - Email Us
AGNHardware has posted a review of Logitech's WingMan Gamepad Extreme.  They gave it a full 10/10 on their scale for performance, but weren't too pleased with the software or tech support.

 

  Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400 Speakers  10:23 AM EST  - Email Us
Anand Tech has posted a review of Klipsch's ProMedia v.2-400 5.1 THX certified PC speaker set.  Here is a bit from the review:

Well, it's October, 1999 and we now have Klipsch speakers on our desktops. These new speakers are named ProMedia v.2 - 400. It is obvious in the design and presentation of these speakers that nothing has changed at Klipsch. The build quality, and sound quality are nothing short of outstanding. This is the first PC computer speaker system that has been given THX® certification.


  Peltier Cooling Guide  10:20 AM EST  - Email Us
3DRage has posted an article which explains the dangers of Peltier coolers (condensation & risk of shorting out components) and provides details on how to properly and safely cool it for efficient operation.

 

  VIA Apollo Pro 133A Chipset Review  10:12 AM EST  - Email Us
iXBT Hardware has written a good review of VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset.  This chipset supports the 133MHz FSB, ATA-66, and AGP4X and best of all, the performance is now good enough to compete against the BX chipset.  Finally, we have a decent alternative.

 

  The Great Mouse Roundup  10:08 AM EST  - Email Us
Gamecenter has posted a roundup of four high-end mice which include:  Logitech's WingMan Gaming Mouse, Wingman Force, Microsoft's Intellimouse Explorer and regular Intellimouse, both w/Intellieye.  Head over and see which one they liked best.

Friday - October 15th


  NVIDIA 3.48 Reference Drivers!  6:45 PM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at G256.com a link to a the latest NVIDIA reference drivers.  Head over to this site to grab the latest releases for Windows NT4 and 2000, here are the Windows 9X drivers:

Keep in mind that these are early beta drivers and can cause problems with your system so use them at your own risk.

 

  Athlon Motherboard Roundup  5:53 PM EST  - Email Us
GamePC has posted a roundup of three Athlon motherboards:  the MSI-6167, the Gigabyte GA-7IX and the FIC SD11.  If you've been looking for a good head-to-head comparison of these boards, here it is!

 

  GeForce 256 DVD Playback Analysis  5:43 PM EST  - Email Us
Not many sites have said much about the GeForce 256's DVD playback capabilities, so Riva3D has updated their GeForce 256 DDR review with some very pleasant information of its DVD playback.  Click here to directly to the update. Here is a bit from the article:

If you've got a DVD drive but no hardware DVD playback, then you'll love the software playback of the GeForce. It's simply the best of any card I've ever tested. Although the TNT2 and V3 do an admirable job of software DVD playback, you do notice the occasional video glitch, dropped frame, or frame overrun (especially during scene changes). The difference is clearly palpable when running the GeForce. Absolutely zero glitches, dropped frames, overruns, etc. WinDVD detected the hardware motion compensation of the GeForce card, and all playback features of WinDVD worked perfectly.


  Athlon 650 First Impressions  5:40 PM EST  - Email Us
HardOCP has gotten their hands on a 650MHz Athlon CPU to play with, all they need now is a motherboard to use it with!  In the mean time, they examined it a little and posted some shots of the CPU.  Most notably, the Athlon comes with a large Alpha heatsink and even has thermal paste between the cache chips and the heatplate.

 

  AMD Produces 1GHz Copper Athlons  5:30 PM EST  - Email Us
Wow!  Here is a very interesting article over at the Register which states that AMD is going to begin producing its 1GHz Copper Athlon chips next week!  That means we should see these chips hitting the market in volume in Q1 2000, I can't wait!

 

  S3 & Savage2000 Interview  5:23 PM EST  - Email Us
FullOn3D has posted the interview they conducted with Nick Caddick of S3.  Lots of info on the Savage2000 chip, here is a bit from it:

Fullon3d: What about the future?

Nick: In the first half of next year we’ll have a Savage2000 plus™ a turbo-charged Savage2000 and we’ll continue to drive prices down. You can be assured that our 2000-range will be significantly cheaper than anything from 3dfx or NVIDIA. Then we have our Project-X that I can’t tell you anything about!


  New Athlon EIDE/AGP Drivers  5:15 PM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at 3DNow.net that AMD has released new EIDE and AGP miniport drivers for motherboards based on the AMD 750 chipset.  Grab them below:
  Abit BF6 and BE6-II Press Releases  8:57 AM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at Anand Tech's news page, that Abit has officially announced their BF6 (6 PCI/1 ISA and tons of FSB settings) and the BE6-II (5 PCI, ATA-66, tons of FSB settings).  Check them out here.

 

  Interact V4 Force Racing Wheel  8:49 AM EST  - Email Us
Speedy3D has posted a review of Interact's V4 Force Feedback Racing Wheel.  Head over and see what they thought of it.

 

  Transcend TS-UWH31 i810 Mobo  8:43 AM EST  - Email Us
Sharky Extreme has posted a review of Trascend's TS-UWH31 i810 based Socket-370 microATX motherboard. 

 

  NVIDIA Riva TNT2 M64 Review  8:40 AM EST  - Email Us
Anand Tech has posted a review of NVIDIA's TNT2 M64 chip comparing it to the whole series of TNT2 chips, including the TNT2, TNT2 Ultra and TNT2 Pro.  Here is a bit from the review:

Overall, it’s clear that the 64-bit memory bus of the TNT2 M64 greatly hinders performance in certain situations, such as higher resolutions and/or color depths. Even on the Celeron 300A, performance drops much more rapidly than a standard TNT2 when switching to 32-bit, especially 800x600 or 1024x768.


  Sound Blaster Live! Platinum Review  8:26 AM EST  - Email Us
3DSoundSurge has posted a very extensive review of Creative Labs new Sound Blaster Live! Platinum edition.  If you want to know every little detail of this card, check out this awesome review. 

 

  Interview w/Motherboard Manufacturers  8:20 AM EST  - Email Us
iXBT Hardware has posted an interview with representatives from some of the big motherboard manufactures including: Abit, Chaintech, Gigabyte, MSI and SOYO.  There is quite a bit of interesting information, especially about what they think about the state of the chipset/CPU industry as well as where they are headed with their products.

Thursday - October 14th


  Swiftech MC1000 Peltier Cooler  8:49 AM EST  - Email Us
Ars Technica has posted their review of Swiftech's highly regarded MC1000 Peltier cooler.  With a variety of backplates, the cooler can be fitted to all Slot-1 CPU's as well as Socket-370 CPU's on a Sloket.  They gave the cooler 4.5 out of 5 woo-hoo's.

 

  Sequential Transfer Rates Analysis  8:40 AM EST  - Email Us
Storage Review has taken a look at Sequential Transfer Rates of hard drives and examined how it affects overall drive performance. Here is a bit from the article:

These results present some interesting ramifications in the "Do I need ATA-66" debate. As stated earlier, its likely that no drives exceed ATA-33's maximum transfer rate. Even if there were drives that did, however, these results show that it would take a drive with a 90 MB/sec - 100 MB/sec transfer rate to effect the relative losses found in this experiment. In such a perspective, the performance loss one would experience from running, say, a 40 MB/sec drive on an ATA-33 drive seems trivial. Another example: the performance loss a business applications user would experience running the 28 MB/sec Barracuda ATA on a DMA mode 2 interface (16.6 MB/sec) would be trivial.


  Act Labs PC Gun System Review  8:40 AM EST  - Email Us
3DHardware has posted their review of Act Labs PC Gun System.  These things look really well built and the technology looks great, all we need now are games!

 

  Athlon 650MHz w/MSI 6167 Review  8:38 AM EST  - Email Us
Demonews has posted a review of AMD's Athlon 650MHz CPU using it on the MSI-6167 motherboard.  It's a pretty short review, but all the essentials are there.

 

  Intel Coppermine Hands On Preview  8:26 AM EST  - Email Us
Thresh's Firing Squad (like HardOCP) has also gotten their hands on a Coppermine CPU and put it through its paces.  They've posted a whole load of benchmarks even comparing the 600MHz Coppermine to an Athlon 600 and P3 600. Here is a bit about whats different from the current P3's:

The Coppermine is very similar to current Pentium III processors. Intel Senior VP, Albert Yu, General Manager of the Microprocessor Products Group has even stated that the Coppermine is basically a Katmai processor on 0.18 technology with integrated L2 cache. The new Coppermine processor will have 256Kb of L2 cache integrated on the chip running at full processor speed. Basically, L2 cache size has been halved, but the speed has been doubled. Coppermine processors will mainly operate on the 133MHz bus, but we will see a couple 100MHz FSB transition processors as Intel shifts all Pentium III to the 0.18 process. Intel will use "E" to identify Coppermine processors. P3-600EB Coppermine processors running on the 133MHz bus have an "EB" to indicate Coppermine and 133Mhz FSB. A P3-500E processor would be a Coppermine chip running on the 100MHz bus.


  Pentium III SL35D's Run At 621MHz!  8:23 AM EST  - Email Us
Hardware Central decided to act upon all the rumor's of Intel's Pentium III 450's (SL35D stepping) actually being able to run at 600MHz.  They took eight of them and seven out of the eight ran at 600MHz perfectly. Five of them achieved 621MHz stably and two of them were even able to boot into windows at 698MHz!  Check out the whole article here. So if you're looking to buy a P3, this particular 450 is looking like a very good buy.

 

  GeForce Benchmarks on Athlon 800  8:20 AM EST  - Email Us
Fastgraphics has posted a whole slew of benchmarks of the Guillemot 3D Prophet (SDRAM) running on a Pentium II 233, 400, P3 600 and an Athlon 800!  The Athlon scores are absolutely mindblowing.

 

  Gigabyte GA-660 Plus Review  8:16 AM EST  - Email Us
iXBT Hardware has posted a review of Gigabyte's new GA-660 Plus TNT2 Pro card.  This new 0.22 version of the TNT2 coupled with Gigabyte's dual heatsinks make this an extremely attractive product.  I'm surprised Gigabyte is the only company offering a TNT2 Pro product so far.

 

  NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR Guide  8:12 AM EST  - Email Us
Sharky Extreme has posted a guide to the GeForce 256 DDR card.  This guide has pretty much all the information you'll ever want on the card, especially if you're thinking of buying it.  Head over and see if its worth the $300.

 

  SOYO SY-6BA+IV Slot-1 Mobo  8:09 AM EST  - Email Us
Hot Hardware has posted their review of SOYO's new SY-6BA+IV i440BX based Slot-1 ATX motherboard.  This motherboard has the largest selection of FSB settings and it has ATA-66 support.  You won't find a more solid board than this.

 

  Vantec PC System Cooler 100  8:07 AM EST  - Email Us
The Tech Zone has posted a review of Vantec's PC System Cooler 100.  This is very similar to 3DCool's Super Slot Fan, in fact, they even compare it to a super slot fan.

Wednesday - October 13th


  Apex ATX Full Tower Case Review  6:46 PM EST  - Email Us
Ars Technica has posted a review of the Apex ATX Full Tower case (a.k.a "Super Case").  This is one extremely nicely constructed case, and it looks pretty darn good too!

 

  ActionTec Modem and Network Kit  6:28 PM EST  - Email Us
Hot Hardware has posted a review of ActionTec's 56K Call Waiting Modem and Home Phoneline Networking Kit.  This neat call waiting modem will allow you to receive all incoming calls if you have call waiting and will let you stay connected for 7 seconds while taking the other call, after 7 seconds it will drop the net connection.  Hey its better than dropping the connection right away or missing a call!

 

  Quantum Fireball KA Plus Review  9:16 AM EST  - Email Us
FPS3D has posted a rather extensive review of Quantum's Fireball KA Plus ATA-66 7200RPM hard drive. Here is a bit from the review:

If anything, buy this drive for it's stability. It has the most shock protection features of any hard drive in it's price range. Also, it can sustain perfect functionality under fire of overclocking. If you need a hard drive that will protect your valuable data, the Quantum Fireball Plus KA is for you, providing you're not annoyed by a louder than average hard drive.


  Tom's NVIDIA GeForce 256 Review  9:08 AM EST  - Email Us
Tom's Hardware Guide has posted his review of NVIDIA's GeForce 256.  He takes a look at all the features, both the SDRAM version and DDR version and a bunch of benchmarks with existing games.  At the end of the review there is a little surprise.  He tests out the GeForce with the first T&L enhanced game Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens, and examines the performance as compared to other high end 3D accelerators.

 

  I-Art3D Eye3D Stereovision Review  9:06 AM EST  - Email Us
Speedy3D has posted a review of a different pair of Stereoscopic 3D glasses, the Eye3D set. Head over and see if these are any better than the rest.

 

  Logitech Wingman Formula Force  9:02 AM EST  - Email Us
Ars Technica has posted a review of Logitech's Wingman Formula Force Steering wheel/pedal system.  Apparently, this system has the best force feedback effects you can get today.

 

  Real Coppermine 800 Benchmarks  8:57 AM EST  - Email Us
Kyle over at HardOCP has posted an exclusive article today!  He was able to test out a 700MHz Coppermine CPU for 5 hours and posted a ton of benchmarks of the CPU running at 800MHz.  The scores are looking mighty nice, I can't wait to see Athlon/Coppermine comparisons.

 

  NVIDIA TNT2 Pro Review  8:50 AM EST  - Email Us
Anand Tech has posted a review of NVIDIA's TNT2 Pro chip which is manufactured using the 0.22 micron process (same as GeForce 256) so it runs cooler and thus can be clocked higher.  It comes with a default clock speed of 143MHz.  Head over and check out Anand's detailed review.

 

  Cooling Guide Part 3: CPU Cooling  8:46 AM EST  - Email Us
3D Rage has posted the third part of their Cooling Guide which takes a look at how to efficiently cool your CPU, especially for overclocking.  They even provide a list of the best coolers, their prices and some info about them.

 

  Hoontech Soundtrack Digital XG  8:40 AM EST  - Email Us
Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a review of Hoontech's Soundtrack Digital XG audio card which is based on Yamaha's very worthy YMF744 chip.  This card is looking very nice, especially for the price! Check it out:

Today, we have a new challenger to the SB Live! and Aureal Vortex2, the Hoontech SoundTrack Digital XG. Hoontech is a Korean company famous for its high-end professional audio, and this marks their recent entry into the consumer market. Powered by Yamaha's second generation YMF744 chip, the Hoontech Digital XG offers the same famous Sensaura HRTF algorithms of the Canyon3D, but includes support for multiple audio streams and frequency/bitrate mixing. Sound good? It gets even better. Hoontech is famous for digital recording in particular, and so Hoontech's non-reference board design also offers a Digital I/O back plate with more ports than even the TerraTec DMX or Sound Blaster Live! Platinum: try AES/EBU inputs and outputs for size. But that's not the best thing about this card, it's the absurdly low price: $40 for the board only, and $60 including the digital I/O card.


  VRStandard VRJoy 3D Glasses Review  8:34 AM EST  - Email Us
SystemLogic has posted their review of VRStandard's VRJoy 3D Stereoscopic glasses.  These work similarly to the ELSA and ASUS glasses but have their own software and work a wider range of cards.  However, they do have their own set of problems which you should head over and check out if you're thinking of buying them.

 

  Maximizing G400 Performance  8:30 AM EST  - Email Us
Hardware Central has posted an article which tells you how you can speed up the performance of your Millennium G400 to maximum performance.  It's sort of a review at the same time.

 

  MS Sidewinder Dual Strike Review  8:28 AM EST  - Email Us
CRUS has posted a review of Microsoft's other new joystick, the Sidewinder Dual Strike.  This was specifically designed with first person shooters in mind, so head over and see how well it fares.

Tuesday - October 12th


  GeForce 256: To Buy Or Not To Buy  6:33 PM EST  - Email Us
Anand Tech has posted the first part of the NVIDIA GeForce 256 review.  They've posted a heck of a lot of interesting information, benchmarks and etc.  They've also taken a look at whether its a good idea to buy one now.

 

  GeForce SDR vs. DDR Benchmarks  6:30 PM EST  - Email Us
RivaZone has posted some preliminary benchmarks which directly compares the GeForce 256 SDRAM version to the DDR RAM version on the same system.

 

  Weekly CPU Prices Updated  6:26 PM EST  - Email Us
Sharky Extreme has updated their weekly CPU price list.  Again there were some pretty hefty drops on the Athlon line which is great for consumers but it makes you wonder how AMD is going to do financially.

 

  USB 2.0 Target Speed =480 Mbps  6:24 PM EST  - Email Us
Intel and other industry leaders have announced their target speed for the USB 2.0 spec and boy does it ever look nice.  Imagine 480Mpbs, that's 40 times faster than our already decent USB 1.1 spec!  Check out the press release here.

 

  Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla  8:30 AM EST  - Email Us
Voodoo Extreme has posted a review of Voyetra/Turtle Beach's Montego II Quadzilla Vortex2 based sound card.  With S/PDIF and a great bundle, its a great package.

 

  Matrox Millennium G400 MAX Review  8:26 AM EST  - Email Us
Gamers Depot has posted a review of Matrox's G400 MAX card.  This is the first full review to use the new 5.30 drivers with the TurboGL driver.  With this new driver, OpenGL performance is much improved and there is no longer any downside to this card, other than its price.

 

  CL 3D Blaster Savage4 Drivers  8:24 AM EST  - Email Us
Creative Labs has released a new driver for their 3D Blaster Savage4 card.  Here is the info and a link to download:
Supports 640X480 (256 colors) resolution and above when Non-DDC (Display Data Channel) monitor is detected.
Eliminates purple-colored edge when display is set at 1600x1200 (16bit colors) @ 85Hz refresh rate.
Provides better compatibility for games and applications such as:
  • Need for Speed 4
  • Heavy Gear II
  • Sega Rally 2
  • Dark Stone
  • Trespasser
  • 3D Studio Max 3.0
  Updated GeForce 256 DDR Review  8:20 AM EST  - Email Us
Thresh's Firing Squad has added Celeron 300A Q3Test 1.08 benchmarks to their GeForce 256 DDR review.  On a Celeron 300A, the GeForce stomps a TNT2 Ultra, but the scores between the SDR and DDR versions are pretty close indicating, that the processor is not fast enough to take advantage of the extra fill rate.

 

  Cooling Tools Contest  8:18 AM EST  - Email Us
Hardware Central is holding a contest and will be giving away a whole bunch of useful system cooling devices.

 

  BIOS Optimization Guide v4.31  8:15 AM EST  - Email Us
Adrian over at Adrian's Rojak Pot has sent word that he has updated his BIOS Optimization Guide with some new information of AGP Aperture settings.  Head over and check it out for a bunch of great BIOS tips.

 

  SwifTech MC˛ Sandwich Cooler  8:12 AM EST  - Email Us
The Tech Zone has posted a review of SwifTech MC˛ Sandwich Cooler for the Slot-1 Celeron.  Looks like a good cooler, but still doesn't compare to the VEK12.

 

  Monthly Hardware News Overview  8:08 AM EST  - Email Us
iXBT Hardware has posted their Monthly Hardware Overview.  This awesome summary briefly covers everything that happened in the industry in the last month.  Great stuff, if you haven't had the time to keep up.

Monday - October 11th


  ATI Rage Fury MAXX Preview  2:38 PM EST  - Email Us
Voodoo Extreme's Ga'ash Soffer has posted a preview of ATI's Rage Fury MAXX card.  Due out next month, this dual Rage 128 Pro 64MB card should really give the GeForce a run for its money.  Hmm, where the heck is the Savage2000??

 

  AOpen AX63 Slot-1 Mobo Review  2:35 PM EST  - Email Us
HardOCP has completed their review of AOpen's new AX63 VIA Apollo Pro 133 based Slot-1 ATX motherboard.  If only the VIA's chipset were as fast as Intel's 440BX, we would really have an attractive alternative.

 

  Another V3 3500TV Review  2:30 PM EST  - Email Us
Speedy3D has posted their review of 3dfx's Voodoo3 3500TV card.  Head over and see what they had to say about it.

 

  SOYO SY-6VBA 133 Mobo Review  12:26 PM EST  - Email Us
Sharky Extreme has posted a review of SOYO's new SY-6VBA 133 Slot-1 motherboard which is based on VIA's Apollo Pro 133 chipset.  This chipset has support for the 133MHz FSB, ATA-66 and AGP4X ... not bad at all!

 

  Lots of GeForce 256 DDR Reviews  12:13 PM EST  - Email Us
Today is the day the NDA's for NVIDIA's GeForce 256 DDR card expired, so its not surprising that a ton of sites have released reviews/previews.  Here is a list of the articles I've found so far:
  3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV Review  12:09 PM EST  - Email Us
Tweak3D has posted a review of 3dfx's current top of the line 3D accelerator, the Voodoo3 3500TV.  While it doesn't exactly compare to the GeForce 256 in speed or features, it is quite a bit cheaper and still incredibly fast.

 

  Guillemot 3D Prophet Reviews  12:04 PM EST  - Email Us
For some strange reason, a whole bunch of Guillemot 3D Prophet GeForce 256 (SDRAM) reviews were posted this morning.  Must be a coincidence, check them out below:
  NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR Preview  11:54 AM EST  - Email Us
Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a hands on preview of a NVIDIA GeForce 256 w/DDR RAM.  The benchmarks are really quite amazing, head over and check it out.

 

  UT Audio Benchmarks  11:50 AM EST  - Email Us
3D Audio Immersion has posted benchmarks of running Unreal Tournament on two different systems with a whole slew of sound cards.  If you're wondering which card(s) have the least impact on frame rate, this is a good place to check.  They have included the SB Live!, Aureal Vortex2 (old version) and the SQ2500 and a bunch of other cards too.

 

  GeForce/V3/TNT2U Benchmarks  11:44 AM EST  - Email Us
Finally here is something we wanted to see!  A pure benchmark comparison between a Voodoo3 3500, TNT2 Ultra and a GeForce 256.  Head over to see the graphs.

 

  ASUS V3400/3800 & VIA Drivers  11:36 AM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at 3DFiles.com that ASUS has released new drivers for the V3400/3800 cards along with a new tweak utility for the cards.  They've also posted a new VIA 4 in 1 chipset driver for motherboards based on VIA chipsets.  Grab them all below:
  Coppermine: A New War Is Brewin'  11:32 AM EST  - Email Us
CPUReview has written an article on the war that is brewing up between AMD and Intel with their Athlon and Coppermine CPU's respectively.  Intel is going to price their new Coppermine chips quite high and it will be interesting to see which company consumers lean towards.

 

  AMD Athlon 600MHz Review  11:29 AM EST  - Email Us
iXBT Hardware has posted a good review of AMD's Athlon 600MHz CPU.  With prices on these bad boys dropping like crazy, they are becoming mighty attractive!

 

  NeoSeeker Tech Info Search Engine  11:25 AM EST  - Email Us
Howard Ha has notified us that their NeoSeeker Tech Information Search Engine has gone live.  Here is a bit of info on this new site:

Neo Era Media, Inc. is proud to announce that NeoSeeker (http://www.neoseeker.com), a new reviews aggregator and search engine, has gone Live. NeoSeeker specializes in cataloguing and indexing both hardware and games reviews, previews, and other resources from around the net. The site currently catalogues over 900 products, with nearly 3500 total resources indexed, and more is added every day.


Sunday - October 10th

  Creative GeForce Annihilator Review  8:14 PM EST  - Email Us
Digital Clips has posted a good review of the Creative Labs GeForce 256 Annihilator card.  There are quite a few benchmarks, screen shots and other goodies.  Here is small bit that I found interesting:

However, there still is a lingering problem in my mind.  Why is the memory clocked so slow?  166 mhz does not seem to do justice to this card.  Is the lack of memory speed the bottleneck for the GeForce? If so, why did Creative not manufacture a card which would deliver to nVidia's rated specs?  We'll keep you informed as we look into this issue further.  Watch out for the second part of the review, highlighted in Italics on the review navigation panel.


  New BP6 BIOS & HPT366 Driver  8:04 PM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at Hardware-One that Abit has released a new BIOS for the BP6 and HPT366 controller, as well as some Windows 2000 drivers.  Grab them below:
  Intel IA-64 Itanium Guide  10:44 AM EST  - Email Us
Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a great article on Intel's recently named Itanium IA-64 CPU (formerly code-named Merced).  This article goes through some of the key improvements over the IA-32 architecture and provides some insight on how well it will be adapted to the consumer and business markets upon release.

 

  Powerstrip 2.52 Released  10:44 AM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at 3DFiles.com that Entechtaiwan has released a new version of Powerstrip.  Here is the info from 3DFiles and a link to download:

PowerStrip 2.52 is now available for downloading, with preliminary support for the GeForce256, improved control over the Permedia3 and Oxygen/VX1, and some other improvements all around with respect to custom CRTC timings, in-game gamma adjustment, etc. Powerstrip is a handy tweaking utility for your video card and monitor.

  Motherboard Guide Part 3  10:42 AM EST  - Email Us
Sharky Extreme has posted the third part to their motherboard guide. This portion guides you through the process of installation a new motherboard after you've purchased one.

Saturday - October 9th


  Creative Labs SB Live! Value Digital  11:11 AM EST  - Email Us
GamePC has posted a review of Creative Labs new Sound Blaster Live! Value Digital.  Here is a bit from the review:

Basically what we've got here is the exact same board that's included with the X-Gamer and MP3+, with no game bundle included. While some may enjoy a game bundle, most people prefer the lower price and want to go buy their own games or MP3's. These boards are based on an updated Sound Blaster Live! value layout, which has what appears to be a smaller EMU10K processor, and a digital output along with all the other plugs. The board actually has pins for attaching the Sound Blaster Live! standard's daughter card, which leads us to believe that the exact same board is going to be included with the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum, since you can't buy the daughter cards separately.


  Cambridge DTT2500 5.1 Speaker Set  10:41 AM EST  - Email Us
Anand Tech has posted a review of the Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theatre DTT2500 Digital 5.1 Speaker set.  This set has 5 speakers a subwoofer, and a Dolby Digital decoder & amp.  For DVD on the PC, there is currently nothing better than these.

 

  smartBridges smartNIC Review  10:41 AM EST  - Email Us
Hardware-One has posted a review of the smartBridges smartNIC external USB network adapter.  The beauty of this thing, is its tiny size and its slightly faster than a 10Mbps NIC card.

 

  MS Intellimouse Explorer Review  10:38 AM EST  - Email Us
Hardware Central has posted a review of Microsoft's Intellimouse Explorer.  This beauty of a mouse uses optical technology to take a snapshot of your desktop 1500 times per second for accuracy that was not possible with the old ball method.

 

  Matrox Millennium G400 Driver v5.30  10:33 AM EST  - Email Us
I noticed over at Betanews that Matrox has released those new drivers as they promised a couple weeks ago.  They should have some nice performance increases in OpenGL games.  Check out the release notes here.  Here is a bit of info on the TurboGL and a link to download:

The Matrox TurboGL driver provides Intel Pentium III and AMD Athlon system users with impressive performance increases over the previous driver release. Gamers can expect a 19 percent increase in Quake II™ and 31 percent increase in Quake III Arena™ from Activision/id Software; a 31 percent increase in Half-Life™ from Sierra Studios/Valve Software; and an astounding 116 percent increase in Unreal™ from GT Interactive/Epic Games. To attain such high levels of performance, the Matrox TurboGL driver makes full use of Intel’s Streaming SIMD Extensions and AMD’s 3DNow! instructions. Games, applications and systems that are not supported by the Matrox TurboGL driver will use the full ICD by default. The appropriate drivers will be used automatically, and do not require the user to manually configure any parameters.

  Matrox Millennium G400 Review  10:28 AM EST  - Email Us
3D-Unlimited (with their new site design) has posted a review of Matrox's Millennium G400 card.

 

  Leadtek Announced DDR GeForce  10:21 AM EST  - Email Us
Leadtek has sent word that they have officially announced a DDR RAM version of their GeForce 256 card, they are expecting the price to be $100 more than the non-DDR version.  Here is a bit from the press release:

By utilizing DDR memory on the already powerful WinFast GeForce256, the speed of buffering and texturing will be greatly increased, thus releasing the bottleneck between the graphics processor and the memory. In an advanced graphics subsystem, instead of using the PC's central processor, massive graphics computation takes place at the on-board GeForce256 processor and its memory buffer; freeing this bottleneck gets particularly important in order to attain higher-level graphics performance.


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