Tech News
-
Building a 300W Fan Controller from an ATX PSU @ Madshrimps
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008 | By: WillThis is a long Memorial Weekend for most of us. So remember our fallin soldiers. Then go out, and create something. The crazy shrimps have decided to make a serious wind tunnel of fans. Read and discover how to make your rig into a hovercraft.
"What do you if you have more than 20x high speed fans in your PC and want to control them through an easy front-end? Build your own fan controller of course! In this tutorial we show you how to convert that old 300W ATX PSU into the most powerful rheobus you have seen."
Okay, maybe not a hovercraft, but it is still a massive amount of fans.
-
OCZ Technology Vendetta 2 CPU Cooler @ BigBruin
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 | By: WillFirst time, it was OCZ helping the weak overclockers take back systems heat with Vendetta. Now OCZ has taken it personal with Vendetta 2. Heat may run, but it can't hide.
"The original Vendetta cooler performs well and is still a great option for those with limited space, but the cooling performance and low noise operation of the Vendetta 2 are really impressive. By taking the original design and scaling it up to accept a 120mm fan, OCZ Technology has created an enthusiast grade cooler that isn't so large and heavy that it might cause installation issues."
Vendetta 2 will take no prisoners this time around. Coming to a computer near you this summer.
-
XPSP2 vs XPSP3 Performance Comparison @ DragonSteelMods
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 | By: WillGeeks gather around, and check out the answer to one of our marvels. They mystery of the egg before the chicken, XPSP2 or XPSP3 which is faster. Lets see if we get what our minds really want to know.
"So for my own purposes I decided to run a bunch of tests to see if there was any real differences, after all Benchmark and testing software is designed to pick up very small imperceptible differences in things that we normally wouldn't notice. We wouldn't notice a few nanoseconds or milliseconds most likely but the software will as that's what it's for, to measure things like that. So I ran SiSoft Sandra, Cinebench, 3dmark06, SuperPi Mod 1.5 and TmpgeNC before and after the upgrade to SP3, I decided instead of just keeping it all to myself, why not share the results, and well there is a difference between SP2 and SP3 and it's a mixed bag of results really, in some cases SP2 is better and in others SP3 is, but there is obviously something going on, something changed and I'm not sure if it was for the better..."
I'm voting chicken first, chicken first!
-
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe @ InsideHW
Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008 | By: WillI will have to admit that Asus does do a good naming scheme for there motherboard lines. Like this board in the review with a name ending in Mempipe pretty much sums it all up there.
" Asus M3N-HT Deluxe Mempipe is one of the first motherboards
based on new nForce 780A chipset and it should be adequate competitor to
great AMD 780G chipset and to arriving 790GX.
Asus offers, as many times before, exceptional product with quality design
and great voltage unit. Rich bundle includes heatpipe memory cooler,
additional fan for voltage unit and many more details that come as standard
offer for Asus motherboards."Heatpipe Mania come on down and check it out.
-
Palit GeForce 9600GSO Sonic 768MB @ Techgage
Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008 | By: WillWell for us folks that has no money, but wants awesome performance I see a 9600 GSO in there future. Let's see if the crystal ball is telling the trust.
"On a budget and need the best bang for the buck? NVIDIA's new 9600 GSO might be the answer, despite not being that different from a 9600 GT. We are taking a look at Palit's Sonic version of the card, which comes pre-overclocked, doubles the memory and includes adapters for both HDMI and VGA."
Now if only the crystal ball would give the lotto numbers.
-
Next-gen NVIDIA GeForce Specifications Unveiled @ Dailytech
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | By: WillWell the summer is just starting to heat up in the video card arena. NVidia is showing it's teeth. Let's see where ATI is at.
"Later this week NVIDIA will enact an embargo on its upcoming next-generation graphics core, codenamed D10U. The launch schedule of this processor, verified by DailyTech, claims the GPU will make its debut as two separate graphics cards, currently named GeForce GTX 280 (D10U-30) and GeForce GTX 260 (D10U-20)."
This does sound like an awesome set of cards in the works.
-
Asus P5Q Deluxe P45 Motherboard with DDR2 @ HotHardware
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | By: WillI cannot wait till these new P45 motherboards hit the scene. The technology is nothing revolutionary, but the smaller 65nm processor over the 90nm is. I can already hear the forums a buzz about the overclocking from these chipsets.
"As many of you are no doubt aware, Intel is planning to officially release a new mainstream chipset in a few weeks, the P45. From a feature standpoint, the new P45 is somewhat similar to last year's P35. The P45, however, will have official support for PCI Express 2.0, with a more flexible lane configuration for multi-GPU graphics, and the chipset itself is being manufactured at 65nm as opposed to 90nm. Using the more advanced process to build the chips should result in lower power consumption and lower operating temperatures as well. The P45 will also be paired up with a new ICH10-series southbridge, which is similar to the ICH9 sans a few legacy features."
I really am diggin' the Express Gate feature of this new board from Asus. It gives you an embedded Linux OS on boot up. This feature allows you to do many things without ever needing to us Windows. This is very cool in my book.
-
Triple SLI- AMD or Intel @ t-break
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | By: WillWell here is a good article for us to read. It really get down to the dirty truth of what NVidia has been beating there drum to. CPU's are not needed as much as more GPU's.
"nVidia been on Intel\'s case by very strongly voicing their opinions on how a better GPU adds more value that a better CPU. This could be true for certain things on a low to medium end setup but for enthusiast gamers, the fastest of the fastest is the only option. We put this theory to test by putting three nVidia 9800GTX cards in Triple SLI mode and running some games on the highest-end Intel and AMD CPUs, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and Phenom X4 9850 respectively."
Well I'm not convinced yet NVidia.
-
CPU scaling in games with dual & quad core processors @ Guru3D
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | By: WillWell this looks to be a good read. I know that this is starting to be a huge question on everyones mind anymore. Is quad really better at gaming than dual?
"Each year the topic of CPU scaling comes to mind in relation to gaming. Especially when we see new processors enter the market time after time I ask myself again; how much influence do these new model processors actually have? There have been some dramatic changes over the past couple of years though as processor manufacturers have hit a hard brick wall. That wall being the incremental increase of the clock frequency, or moreover ... the lack of it. Somehow everything stops at 3200 MHz in the processor R&D segment and for years now the fastest clocked processors never have exceeded that magic number. Surely we overclock much higher and new records have been set at 4 and with LN2 sub-zero temperature cooling reaching 5 GHz, for us 'regular' consumers we stick at that 3.2 GHz frequency border."
I think this subject is still going to be debated forever.
-
Noctua NH-C12P Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
Published: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 | By: WillIt has been a little while since I have seen a new cooler from Noctua. The cooler using a 140mm fan is something I'm a big fan of. Pun intended. We are having a little discussion on the 140mm fan right in our own forums. So go check it out.
"In this review Frostytech is testing out Noctua's new NH-C12P heatsink. The NH-C12P comes bundled with Noctua's 120mm NF-P12 fan. Tower heatsinks may offer the best performance of any heatsink style, but many computer cases can't accommodate +140mm CPU cooler heights. 'Down exhaust' or 'impingment' heatsinks are so named because the fan blows downward. The overhanging portion of this heatsink has the added advantage of cooling devices adjacent to the CPU socket too. "
I do have to say that I'm still very old school, and love the idea of my heatsink having the fan blow air onto the motherboard.
