Tech News
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Albatron GeForce FX5200 Ultra Review @ Legit Reviews
Published: Wednesday, August 6, 2003 | By: Dennis"Albatron uses 128mb of Hynix memory on this card that is rated at 700 mhz. Albatron has the memory clocked at 650 mhz from the factory. The FX5200 Ultra core is typically ran at 325 mhz, but we found that when you just take the card out of the box and plug it in, it is only running at the FX 5200 (non-Ultra) core speed of 250 mhz. This is because you have to "activate" the higher core speed via the software that the card comes with."
It is good to see that some video card mfgs actually put good components on their products. Though don't be fooled, the FX 5200 is still a fairly slow card. -
JBL Creature 2.1 Speaker Review @ Hardwarezoom
Published: Wednesday, August 6, 2003 | By: DennisThese speakers are always the center of attention at the local CompUSA but thus far I have yet to see anyone actually want to buy them. [:p) Despite the apparent lack of sales the speaker set does indeed look pretty dang sweet.
"At first look, this subwoofer has everything that a subwoofer shouldnt be. It is small, it doesn't have large air-volume, and it is neither rectangular or square in shape! How on earth can this be a subwoofer?
Alright, but this is indeed a subwoofer and kudos to JBL for thinking out of the box for once. As mention earlier, its design is like an alien mothership with all the "exhaust" at its back "
And yes speaker enclosure design theory does suggest that you can have an enclosures that are not square and still expect it to work. Actually, they work better if the box isn't square but non-square boxes cost more to build. -
Soyo P4 i875P Dragon2 Review @ Tweaknews
Published: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | By: Dennis"The Dragon 2 is built on Soyo's Arctic Silver PCB which is a far stretch from the boring green substrate of a couple years ago. Although I personally like the silver, I found that the looks were diminished quite a bit by Soyo's choice of PCI and DDR slot colors. Even black would have been an improvement."
I don't completely agree but then again I don't have a platinum dragon board in front of me either.
I'm looking to change that though the outcome has yet to be confirmed. -
Asylum GeForce FX 5900 Ultra Review @ nV News
Published: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | By: Dennis"I see no point in nitpicking and staring at static screenshots of a game that I play at 100+ frames per second! I'm not making these statements to defend anyone. I just want you to know where I stand on all of this before we get into the review since it's all a pretty hot topic lately."
This is actually a really good review, nicely written and even covers things like image quality and game play. The thing it doesn't cover is comparisons against other mainstream or slightly off the beaten path video cards. -
FIC Radeon 9600 Pro @ Gamers Depot
Published: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | By: DennisWhen looking at a video card to buy it is always important to not only look at generic performance numbers but to also look at the card from a hardware standpoint. BGA memory chips run faster and cooler than TSOP chips and lower ns memory has a higher "theoretical" degree of overclockability.
"Overall this card is quite capable of delivering decent performance at a price that’s hard to beat. There’s no question that any gamer on a budget should consider this over many cards in its price rang – thanks in part to FIC’s handy overclocking tool which makes getting extra performance a snap. "
Of course there is always the factor of price and getting the most bang for your buck is pretty important as well.
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Explorer Technology FX5200 Review @ Techware Labs
Published: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | By: Dennis"This card comes stripped of anything that might add cost without sufficient returns. Hence, the GPU is made with the more mature (read: outdated?) 0.15u process and has about half the number of transistors of its higher-end brethen. The memory is 3ns, which will make for very poor overclocking potential, though it is rated at a higher clock level (380 MHz) than would be expected."
This card is the cheap of the cheap but does pump out some decent framerates provided you turn of the “eyecandy” Though I wouldn’t consider putting this card in any of my gaming boxes. -
Review Block - Link S7yl3
Published: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | By: DennisThe block of links has become quite popular with other review sites as an easy way to get affiliate and non-affiliate news posted. Here at Ninjalane the Review Block is pretty rare unless there is just too much news to fill the current days allocation.
- A+GPB P4ATX450 Watt Rainbow PSU Review @ Ohls-Place
- The New AMD FX Strategy @ Rojak Pot
- Ergodiver MousePad Review @ Comp-Shop
- Blue UV Reactive Acrylic Case Review @ PimpRig
Of course today’s news brought to you by... -
NVIDIA Announces Acquisition of MediaQ
Published: Monday, August 4, 2003 | By: Dennis"SANTA CLARA, CA—AUGUST 4TH, 2003—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MediaQ, Inc., the leading provider of graphics and multimedia technology for wireless mobile devices.
Under the terms of the agreement, NVIDIA will acquire privately-held MediaQ for $70 million in total consideration, which NVIDIA expects to pay predominantly in cash. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of NVIDIA's fiscal year 2004, has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is subject to the satisfaction of regulatory requirements and other customary closing conditions. "
Next, Doom3 on the PocketPC. -
Albatron FX5200U Review @ HardwareZone
Published: Monday, August 4, 2003 | By: Dennis"The RAM parts affixed on the Albatron FX5200U had enough headroom to perhaps wring out a few more percent in performance. After a while of trial and error, we managed to overclock the RAM from the default 650MHz DDR, to whopping 740MHz DDR (which is well over-spec) reliably. We didn’t get very lucky with the graphics core as we managed to raise its default 325MHz core clock to only 340MHz."
The card has a blue PCB, fancy ramsinks and didn't do to bad in the overclocking department either. The only drawback is some fairly low framerates across the board, for the most part typical of 5200 and other "budget" cards. -
Enermax UC-A3FATR2 Multifunction Panel Review @ Mikhailtech
Published: Monday, August 4, 2003 | By: DennisEnermax has been pretty busy with this whole multifunction panel thing, maybe I'm old fashioned but just give me a set of rotary dials and I'll be happy.
"When it comes to viewing above and below the horizon something interesting happens. Moving above the horizon it quickly becomes difficult to view the readout on the screen and once an angle of approximately 30 degrees has been reached it's not possible to read the screen. When moving downward from the horizon the LCD stay visible for far longer than going up or to either side and is visible through 60 degrees. While this is great if the unit is mounted in your case at a level above your eye-level, it's very frustrating if it's mounted below you. "
