Tech News
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Soltek Announced its First ATI Radeon Video Card
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004 | By: DennisIt seems that everyone is jumping the nVidia ship
"Soltek Announced its First ATI Radeon 9600 SE/9200 SE Graphics Cards Series!
Soltek ATI Radeon 9600 SE
Soltek ATI Radeon 9200 SE
Soltek entered graphics card market from June, 2002, and its first graphics card line started from NVIDIA chipset based graphics card. Now Soltek's graphics card comes the new force, the ATI series to fulfill all customers' requirements. Soltek today announced 3 models ATI Radeon series graphics cards: the SL-9600S-PD, SL-9200S-PT, and SL-9200S-CT. These new graphics cards based on ATI GPU make Soltek graphics product line more complete and step right into the mainstream market." -
Innovatek Premium XXS Review @ BigBruin
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004 | By: DennisInnovatek made the first watercooling kit I ever bought; I was impressed by the cohesive natures of the entire kit along with the screw type hose clamps I have since started to really dislike the system, parts are expensive and are not easily interchangeable.
"The performance of the Innovatek Premium XXS Water Cooling Kit is without a doubt admirable. It substantially reduces the noise over the stock configuration, while producing temperatures on the processor and video card far lower than the stock coolers. I was equally impressed with the solid construction of each piece, and the inclusion of all the extras that made installation a snap." -
DangerDen Maze 4 Block Review @ Overclockers Club
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004 | By: DennisIt is a little known fact that water and electronics don't mix but when done properly a good watercooling system can easily drop processor and system temperatures by 12 degrees or more.
"“Water-cooling.” That's a term loved by many, yet at the same time feared just as much. I mean, afterall you would have to be crazy to stick flowing water inside of your computer that is worth at least $1,500.00+, right? To be honest, even though I'd seen the results that water-cooling produces over air-cooling, I'd really never gotten up the courage to attempt it."
Proper leak testing is a must though really the chance of a leak is fairly slim when setup properly. Be sure to check out our Demonic XTC waterblock review for more watercooling fun. -
DFI 865PE Infinity Review @ ViperLair
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004 | By: Dennis"This motherboard has a fairly good combination of good voltages and the ability to change the FSB in one MHz increments. For those who don't like taking the risk of overclocking on their own, the BIOS still offers the automatic overclocking options."
I don't seem to remember an automatic overclocking option on the DFI Infinity.
Here is our review of the DFI Infinity 865PE for comparison. -
Chaintech ZNF3-150 Zenith Review @ Bjorn3D
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004 | By: Dennis"The ZNF3-150 Zenith sports a very impressive list of features and the extensive bundle that Zenith fans have come to love. I was excited to open this package to see all the goodies included. Here is some additional information about some of the ZNF3-150's extras."
We reviewed this very board not to long ago, the board is really quite impressive and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get started with the Athlon64. The biggest drawback with the myriad of included goodies the board didn't overclock very well, at least with the nForce3 150 chipset..
Here is our review of the Chaintech ZNF3-150 Zenith for reference. -
Gigabyte GV-N595U Review @ PCStats
Published: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 | By: Dennis"The GV-N595U is a big card compared to its ATI cousins; the FX5950 Ultra is one impressive chunk of mean green metal and plastic. Out of the box, you certainly feel like you are getting your $499 USD worth of gaming muscle."
The only problem with these high-end nVidia cards is that they are made by an nVidia contractor and not by the companies that are selling them to ensure consistency. I like the theory behind this and since many companies just follow the reference design there isn’t much to complain about.
The days of high-end tweaked out cards designed for our gaming enjoyment appear to have come to an end, right? -
Fan Controller Reviews
Published: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 | By: DennisGot some pesky fans that just won't shut up?? Time to dial them down..
- Evercool SCP-A Fan Speed Controller @ TechTastic
- Enermax UC-A8FATR4 Fan Controller @ A True Review
Or you can take a more manual approach and install a switch or run them at 7v to lower their RPM. -
Demonic XTC Waterblock Review Posted
Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 | By: DennisWatercooling is going to be a hot topic this year and Demonic Water Cooling is making an excellent introduction with the Demonic XTC (Extreme Turbulence Cooling) waterblock.
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AMD Processor Roadmap Explained @ Anandtech
Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 | By: DennisI think this will reaffirm what I mentioned in the x-bit labs news post below.
"What's also worth mentioning is that the 3700+ will be the last 1MB L2 cache Athlon 64 to hit the market, every other Athlon 64 will feature a 512KB L2 cache. The smaller cache size brings us to the difference between the two Athlon 64 3400+ processors listed in the chart above; the current 2.2GHz 3400+, as you know, features a 1MB L2 cache. In the next quarter, AMD will bump the clock speed of the 3400+ to 2.4GHz and cut the cache in half in order to maintain the performance rating." -
AMD Socket 939 in Late March
Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 | By: DennisAt least according to x-bit labs.
"The new platform, as revealed earlier, will feature Socket 939 for appropriate processors with dual-channel memory controller and up to 1000MHz HyperTransport bus. Currently partners of AMD are evaluating samples of 939-pin CPUs in order to get ready to start mainboard production in mid-February 2004 and initiate shipping actual products in mid-March 2004."
I have also heard that all of the new 754pin processors will no longer have 1 meg of L2 cache. Instead they will feature a smaller and cheaper 512k L2 cache which will begin to put a little distance between the a64 and aFX processors both in price and performance.
