Tech News
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Morphing nForce4 Ultra into nForce4 SLI @ Anandtech
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 | By: DennisYou know it had to be done, the cracking of the nForce4 SLI.
"If you look closely at the pictures of the SLI and Ultra, you will see that the chipset themselves appear identical. However, a closer look at the resistors and pads surrounding the chip shows some differences. The resistors appear the same on both, but there are 3 sets of resistor pads that are closed on the SLI chipset while just two sets are closed on Ultra."
They used a DFI nForce4 Ultra and modded the chipset to full SLI capability. There’s nothing like a motherboard mod to ring in the New Year.
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BTX Form Factor Exposed @ PCStats
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 | By: Dennis"Weren't we all supposed to be using BTX by now? When this radical form-factor change for motherboards and PC cases was first proposed by Intel in 2003, its introduction was supposed to coincide with the birth of the 'Alderwood' and 'Grantsdale' chipsets we now know as the Intel 915P and 925X."
I think having the BTX out along with the other changes would have just delayed everyone from moving to the new Intel platform. -
NL: Review Block - Flash Tyme
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 | By: DennisThe Corsair Flash Voyager has become pretty popular with the hardware crowd and as you will soon see I have become a fan as well.
- Corsair Flash Voyager @ Bjorn3D
- Corsair Voyager USB Flash Drive @ VelocityReviews
To flash back to 10min ago click the link below. -
Soltek 3901A SFF Review @ Neoseeker
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 | By: Dennis"The current generation of QBics, at least aesthetically, are still identical to the previous ones. Perhaps the only real difference (read: the ONLY difference) is in the motherboard. Since the first generation, there has been practically no change in the Soltek design. While it has that industrial look about it, I would look kindly on a case redesign."
I'm just going to have to go ahead and disagree with the above statement in terms of the Qbic needing a redesign. The super clean design complements the case and actually goes with just about everything. One thing that people are quick to forget here in the Americas is that the European and Asian markets are the primary buyers of Soltek stuff and the last thing they need is a computer case that doesn't match anything in their house and/or apartment. -
Glued on Titan
Published: Monday, January 17, 2005 | By: DennisIf I said that I didn't post any news due to the Titan Lander event last week I would be lying. In fact I've been hella busy up in here playing carpenter in my new house.
Its still under construction but we're at the point now where the doors are being installed and the trim is going up. Yep its true there might finally be closure to this year-long building process.
News to follow -
XFX GeForce 6600GT PCIe Review @ VR-Zone
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2005 | By: Dennis"XFX has lost a little steam when it comes to their bundle, outfitting their GeForce 6600GT with three mediocre gaming titles that are already showing their age. In addition to their bundle, they do include two DVI to VGA adapters, and the standard RCA and S-Video cables so you can output to your television."
However what you do get is a gamer tweaked video card designed for speed, and a shiny blue PCB.
We're actually looking forward to getting one or two of these cards in the near future so stay tuned. -
EN6600GT Dual GPU from ASUS - Info @ Digit-Life
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2005 | By: DennisThese guys crack me up from time to time.
"I wonder, is it possible to install 2 x EN6600GT Dual card to get yourself a whole 4 GPUs? Perhaps, it is, because the novelty from ASUS has two 14-pin connectors, one in the place of SLI interface, so if you take a couple of cables..."
They do have a point though. The nForce4 comes with 20x lanes of PCIe. 16x go to video leaving 4x for expansion cards and onboard items. By changing the SLI daughterboard that makes SLI happen (on the ASUS board) you "could" get the second 16x PCIe slot to run in 4x mode.
The theory is there but I'm thinking 4x/2 lanes of PCIe for 2 GPUs and 16x/2 for the other 2 GPUs would be impractical and hinder performance. -
nVidia GeForce 6600 GT Anomaly @ Overclocker Cafe
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2005 | By: DennisThis is kind of nice to know.
"The final word we're getting is that this is a phenomenon specific to cards of 128mb or less. 1600 x 1200 (32bit color) requires more than 128mb of VGA memory to run at FSAA 8x. A 1280 x 1024 setting can handle this on 128mb just fine at a FSAA 8x whereas 1600 x 1200 can not. With the resolution kicked up to 1600, the FSAA was scaling back to 4x, hence the frame rate improvement. "
They seemed to make a big deal out of the issue but considering that nVidia wouldn't return their inquires its not unreasonable, I mean com'on Kyle would do it.
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Gigabyte Dual-GPU 3D1 @ Neoseeker
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2005 | By: DennisDual GPU goodness
"Gigabyte has dubbed their creation the GV-3D1, which features, among the obvious dual-GPUness, 256 MB of GDDR3, a "256-bit memory architecture", and core/memory clocks of 500/1120 MHz, respectively - a healthy bump up from the usual 1000 Mhz memory found on typical 6600GT PCIe boards."
This card doesn't have the SLI connector across the top of the card though its not completely clear if you can run dual dual cards on an SLI board or not.
My guess is no since nVidia’s configuration calls for 8x lanes of PCIe to run in SLI, my guess is that running 4x lanes per GPU would hurt performance more than it would gain. -
How do you find Secret Service Email?
Published: Thursday, January 13, 2005 | By: DennisWell... do what the underpants gnomes do...
Step One: break into t-mobile (yep the network with the super hot female spokesperson).
Step Two: ???
Step Three: profit
"The same source also offers an explanation for the secrecy surrounding the case: the Secret Service, the source says, has offered to put the hacker to work, pleading him out to a single felony, then enlisting him to catch other computer criminals in the same manner in which he himself was caught. The source says that Jacobsen, facing the prospect of prison time, is favorably considering the offer."
You have to be pretty good to get a job offer out of a felony offence, ya pretty damn good.
