Tech News
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Prodigy 7.1 vs. Revolution 7.1 @ TechConnect
Published: Friday, November 21, 2003 | By: Dennis"The VIA Envy24 was designed for users who look into something more than listening to music, while the Envy24HT is the "consumer" edition of the Envy24. Both are excellent chips and do have exceptional value. In computer multimedia terms, the Envy24 cards are currently the best offerings as far as sound quality concerns us."
I've been pretty impressed with the current Audiotrak sound cards but they are rather difficult to get here in the US. M-Audio on the other hand is fairly common but appears to be geared more for the MAC side of things. -
Zippy EL-715 Review @ PC Abusers
Published: Friday, November 21, 2003 | By: DennisThis is basically the big brother to the Zippy EL-610 that we reviewed earlier this year.
"Maybe I was spoiled from the first Zippy lighted keyboard. This EL-715 would have been a major winner had it used the exact same keys and lighting as the EL-610. As it is, it is still easier to see than any non-lighted keyboard."
The major feature is how the keyboard lights up but for a full sized keyboard it is rather cumbersome to type on. -
Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-150 Review Posted
Published: Friday, November 21, 2003 | By: DennisChaintech has been known to build some very pretty and feature rich boards, in this review we look at a Zenith Series motherboard built with the nVidia nForce3 for the Athlon64.
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What should I do if the Internet goes down?
Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: DennisThis little parody guide should see you though the thick and thin of any Internet outage, though you will need Internet access to read it.
"4. Install A Game
In emergency situations, installing a single-player computer game can occupy your down-time. While it won't replace the adrenaline rush of intense networked multiplayer action provided by the Internet, a quick game of Sim City or Flight Simulator may distract you long enough for your connection to return." -
Chaintech ZNF3-150 Zenith Review @ Extreme Overclocking
Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: DennisI have had some time with this board and can honestly say, I'm a fan.
Look for more comments on this board in the next couple of days.
"The ZNF3-150 Zenith is based on NVIDIA's nForce3 chipset, which is on a single-chip architecture. This is much different from the typical North Bridge and South Bridge common to many types of motherboards. This allows for lower system latency and less power consumption. This is one of the major differences between nForce 3 and VIA's K8T800. The NVIDIA chipset also brings adds a lot of features to the ZNF3-150 as we will show you later." -
ABIT AI7 Review @ [H]ard|OCP:
Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: DennisI haven't posted many reviews from HardOCP in the past but that is no reason to think they are bad. Check out this little snip.
"In designing the AI7, it seems that ABIT took lessons from past mistakes to deliver a well planned out board layout. Everything on the board has adequate space so as to not get in the way of other components, as well as some unique implementation decisions as well."
The funny thing about this statement, There is no space between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot, The floppy connector is located under the last PCI slot towards the bottom of the board, and it looks like you will need to remove the video card to install or remove any of the memory. I wouldn't really call that "well planned" but oh well.
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Shuttle XPC SB75G2 Review @ The Tech Report
Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: DennisHere is an industry highlight, a Canterwood chipset in a SFF PC.
"On the surface, the SB75G2 looks like a pretty standard 875P implementation, but Shuttle's take on Intel's Canterwood platform has a few unique twists that I'll be highlighting as we move along. Speaking of moving along, let's get started with the pictures of the all-black SB75G2." -
Battle of the i865PE, Albatron and DFI
Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: DennisThis is a head to head feature shootout between the DFI Infinity 865PE (that we reviewed here) and the similarly equipped Albatron 865PE Pro II.
"The performance was expected and the results received from these two boards are close to that of the i875P competition. However, performance aside these are extremely good value products. The DFI 865PE Infinity in particular offers extreme value, while the performance figures were better than expected the price tag of $110 US is hard to refuse. With loads of Serial ATA, a highly tweakable BIOS and the numbers to back it up, the DFI 865PE Infinity has scored both the Legion Hardware Performance and Value awards!"
It is good to see that Albatron is still putting the floppy connector under the last PCI slot instead of moving all of the slots down and out of the way. -
Corsair TwinX1024-4000PRO Review @ Intel Forums
Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: Dennis"Much like the TwinX512-4000 kit, the TwinX1024-4000PRO consists of a matched pair of memory modules, pretested to "run at DDR500 (250 MHz) on a Canterwood-based dual-channel motherboard." The aforementioned PRO series of Corsair memory modules differ from the non-PRO modules by incorporating a redesigned heatspreader and 18 activity LED's. According to Corsair's ProSeries press release: "
I have discovered that the 3200LL ProSeries memory is no slouch either providing some very good overclocking headroom while running at the SPD programmed latency settings. (2326) More on that later. -
Pentium to AMD Heatsink Conversion
Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: DennisThis is a pretty sweet mod and a nice solution for those that may be in a pinch for a heatsink.
"It was envy at first sight! Someone (Serlv) on the forum posted a link to this beautiful Heatpipe made by Thermalright, then came the disappointment. It is "not available for AMD platforms", WTH, that's bullshyte."
