Tech News
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Crappy Cooler Review @ Dan's Data
Published: Monday, March 3, 2003 | By: DennisYou might remember seeing a photo of this cooler posted in my Comdex 2002 write-ups. The concept actually sounds pretty good on paper but it would appear that things are not always built how they sound.
"As it stands, this thing's a white elephant. Don't buy one, and question the motives of anyone who gives you one as a gift." -
Epox Teams with Northgate to Expand Sales
Published: Monday, March 3, 2003 | By: Dennis"Motherboard maker Epox Computer recently announced that it has established sales cooperation with California-based distributor Northgate Innovations to expand its North American business.
Targeting the medium-range to high-end segments, Epox has put most of its focus on the clone markets in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and enjoys high brand recognition in China. The North American market, however, claims only a relatively limited portion of the board maker’s overall sales."
It is very typical for overseas motherboard mfgs. to rely very little on North American sales. In a way it shows stability and that their good products will be hard to obtain. -
Iwill P4GB Review @ Digital Daily
Published: Monday, March 3, 2003 | By: DennisFrom the looks of it this is a Granite Bay motherboard that I can be proud of. The board is clearly designed for the workstation market though as some typical iWill "quirkiness" to it. Power connectors are in strange locations, and the floppy connector is at the bottom of the board. Though on the plus side you get 6 channel audio with a digital connector, no onboard RAID or SerialATA, APG Pro!
, and a nice variety of colors including the now rare green PCB.
Not much in the way of overclocking controls but performance seems to be right on par. -
CoolerMaster Product Announcements
Published: Monday, March 3, 2003 | By: DennisCoolerMaster has announced a few new products in one of their recent newsletters.
TLF-R82 An improved transparent case fan with 4 LEDs, now brighter than ever and even comes in white.
AFP-U02 Just like the alloy front bezel that we recently reviewed, this time in black.
TTC-A18 & TTC-F10 Rounded IDE and Floppy drive cables in 18" and 10" lengths.
There is another one as well, more on that later.
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Rumor Mill Intel Product Roadmap Details
Published: Friday, February 28, 2003 | By: DennisExtremeTech is calling this info an "Exclusive" while other sites are simply calling it rumor material. Either way if the info did come from Intel and covers the next 2 years of future product development somebody will most likely be in big trouble.
Thus far ExtremeTech has posted the following information.
Secret Centrino Features:
Pinless Tejas:
Grantsdale Chipset:
"Not only do we have details about other innovations, including a new graphics core, and the "NewCard" expansion format for wireless, we've even tracked down where the codename actually comes from (think big sky country)."
I wonder what part of big sky country they are talking about.. -
Gigabyte SINXP1394 Review @ GamePC
Published: Friday, February 28, 2003 | By: DennisHere is another review of the Gigabyte SINXP1394 SiS655 enabled motherboard. I seem to remember that AOpen was first to announce a SiS655 motherboard and the first review of a SiS655 motherboard was the AOpen AX45-4D. So, knowing that why did Gigabyte beat them to market?
"So today at GamePC, we're looking at the first motherboard to hit the market based on the new SiS 655 chipset, Gigabyte's confusingly-named "SINXP1394". The board was previously sold in small quantities, and is still mentioned at Gigabyte's website under the name "GA-8SQ800 Ultra2". The board has a feature-set and design eerily reminiscent of the popular Gigabyte 8INXP, based on the Intel E7205 chipset. Can Gigabyte one-up themselves with a new top of the line Pentium 4 performance board? Let's see. "
Then again this is a online store reviewing their own products so what can you expect. -
ATI and nVidia, What is the Big Deal?
Published: Friday, February 28, 2003 | By: DennisTech Report seems to have all of the answers.
" Since ATI released the Radeon 9500 Pro, I haven't recommended a GeForce4 Ti to anyone, and not recommending GeForce4 Titaniums means that I haven't recommended graphics cards from Abit, Jetway, Albatron, Asus, Chaintech, Gainward, PNY, Compro, eVGA, MSI or XFX. It's not that those manufacturers aren't building quality cards, because in many cases they are. The problem is that each of those manufacturers' recent graphics products were, and still are tied to NVIDIA's GeForce4 line, which hasn't been competitive for months. "
Call me a fanboy but I still think nVidia can pull it off, they just need to stick to things they know and create spin offs for the things they don't. -
400Mhz Barton-core Athlon XP
Published: Thursday, February 27, 2003 | By: Dennis"Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is set to introduce a new 400MHz FSB (front-side bus), Barton-core Athlon XP processor in May to strengthen its product portfolio before it launches the long talked about K8-based Athlon 64 processors in September."
Makes you wonder if this processor line will ever die. -
Interview with Nvidia CEO
Published: Thursday, February 27, 2003 | By: Dennis"Q: What is Nvidia’s plan for the chipset business this year? Is the company thinking about entering the Intel-platform market?
A: Despite our strong product portfolio, we have still claimed only a limited share of 3-4% in the chipset sector. However, with the performance of the nForce chipsets being recognized by more and more customers, we expected to take up 50-60% of the AMD-platform market by the end of 2003.
We are not considering entering the Intel-platform market at present, as chipsets and processors are only part of the components in PCs. We believe in the future PC users will care more and more about applications, instead of whether the PC is built with Intel or AMD platforms. Also, the profit margin of chipsets is already small, so companies will not be able to gain much profit if they have to pay Intel the US$5 licensing fee. Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) is the best example."
They could always pull a VIA, so far it would appear that they have gotten away with it too. Then again VIA have been rather quiet these past few months. hummmm -
Lan Party Humor
Published: Thursday, February 27, 2003 | By: DennisIf you have ever attended a LAN party you undoubtedly have seem one of not all of the people on this list. Keep this page in mind the next time you hit the LAN party scene.
