Tech News
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VIA PT880 Reference PREview @ ViperLair
Published: Friday, December 5, 2003 | By: Dennis"Pictured above is the reference engineering sample our VIA rep left with us. The board we have is a late revision, and has already been shipped to manufacturers. Although the board is "ready", there's likely a new revision on the way, which may explain why we still don't see any retail boards based on the PT880."
I would expect to see these boards on the market here pretty soon based on the evidence sent to me by Soltek. For those that don't know the two boards pictured in the NinjaForum (Ninjalane Message Forum) are the new dual channel solutions from Soltek. -
arctic-cooling VGA Silencer Review @ ModSynergy
Published: Friday, December 5, 2003 | By: Dennis"The arctic-cooling VGA Silencer is a big video card cooler that is designed to fit ATI Radeon graphics cards based on the PRO series. That would be the 9500 (Pro, AIW), 9700 (Pro, AIW) and 9800 (Pro, AIW) as of current. Nvidia cards that are supported are the lonely Nvidia GeForce 3 TI."
Yep the cooler is huge but nothing any larger than what you'd find on the FX5900 Ultra. The cooler appears to be all Alu with no provisions for ram cooling. -
The Ins and Outs of Taking Photos @ Dans Data
Published: Friday, December 5, 2003 | By: DennisWhen it comes to taking photos there are two approaches that I've seen over the years.
1). Buy an expensive camera and every accessory you can find, then just tell everyone that are a professional. (Not ideal, but it happens all to often)
2). Buy a very good camera, spend a few bux and take some classes to learn how the camera works and what makes a good photo. (Best combo for anyone)
Of course there are combinations of the two like the rich kid that brings a $1000 camera to photo class and has no idea how to load the film. (I've actually seen this happen in my college days; sadly the expensive camera only got him a C.)
Either way you decide to go this quote from Dan's article really sums everything up.
"As I've written on previous occasions, the secret to great photography is very large amounts of bad photography."
So so true.
Give the article a read, it's full of good stuff. -
ABIT KV8-MAX3 Review @ Hexus
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: DennisI'm thinking that may gamers will want to get one of these boards eventually though it might be a good idea to wait a couple of months to allow the technology to mature and prices to stabilize.
"Benchmarks are usually carried out with 2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2 modules run at 2-6-2-2 latencies and at DDR400 speeds. Due to the test Zalman 7000Cu blocking the first DIMM slot, both modules were entered into the two available slots, namely 2 and 3. Here's where the fun started."
It would seem that slots 2 and 3 do not support DDR400 when used together even though slots 1 and 2 will. Strange how that works out but also might explain why many K8T800 boards only have 2 memory slots. -
ABIT AI7 Review @ NordicHardware
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: Dennis"One of the big news on the ABIT AI7 is the uGuru circuit. This is an extra circuit on the mainboard which through Windows software handles a number of functions that are supposed to make the enthusiasts life easier."
The uGuru features are quite unique with most of the features being onboard hardware monitoring though with the OC-guru you can dial an overclock from inside windows. -
NL: Review Block - Yadda Ed.
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: DennisMore reviews without comments.
- Thermalright ALX-800 Review @ TwistedMods
- Round CCFL @ CyberCPU
- Intel Pentium 4C Vs. AMD Barton @ RojakPot
- ByteCC ME-350U2 Review @ PC Abusers (Our Review Here)
- Active Cool AC4G Review @ Elite Bastards
I even included 'those' guys. -
Kingston HyperX 4000 Review @ GruntvillE
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: DennisI've been trying to get Kingston to send Ninjalane a few HyperX review samples, I'm still waiting for a reply.
In the meantime check out this review at GruntvillE.
"In the last year Kingston has decided to attack the enthusiast market (that has long been dominated by the likes of Corsair, Mushkin, and Geil) with their HyperX line of high speed RAM. Today we are taking a look at the Kingston KHX4000K2/512, better known as HyperX PC4000 512mb Dual Channel Kit which consists of a matched pair of 256mb 184-pin 500mhz DIMM sticks."
Ahhhhh! We are under attack, run for your lives!!
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ABIT IC7-Max3 Review @ OCIA
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: Dennis"We also have here ABIT’s new Secure IDE system. This is on the fly encryption for an IDE hard drive. Rumor has it that the next version of this board will have SATA Secure IDE instead. I have not had a chance to use the Secure IDE system, mostly because I would have to reformat and reinstall Windows again, but it is a nice feature that I plan to make use of very soon."
SecureIDE is a pretty cool feature and is basically a hardware data encryption chip that sits between the onboard controller and your HDD. The only thing that bothers me is, what happens if someone steals your HDD and the SecureIDE card? or worse yet just the SecureIDE card?. -
NL: Review Block - sans comments
Published: Thursday, December 4, 2003 | By: DennisReviews from the net, quick and dirty.
- PC Toys SimpleMax 101 Review @ BigBruin
- Maxtop CSX-147KBF Mid Tower Case @ A True Review
- Athenatech A100SC Review @ Tweaknews
Brought to you by... -
PNY Verto FX 5700 Ultra Review @ Modfathers
Published: Wednesday, December 3, 2003 | By: Dennis"Now I hear you thinking to yourself what the hell has that got to do with a graphics card and the reason is that the beginning quote was for a bike called the Honda CBR600RR. Now all you need to know is that below 130mph this bike could do everything that the 1000cc plus bikes could do, and more. With that in mind as bikes we will return to, I shall start the review."
Nice analogy, the author comes back and says that the FX5700 is the CBR600RR of the video card world. Not sure I would agree but then again I'm a Kawasaki guy.
