Tech News

  • SiS655 A0-Version Chipset Info

    Published: Monday, January 6, 2003 | By: Dennis

    "Motherboards based on the dual-channel-DDR333 SiS655 chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) have recently started hitting the market. For the first batch of products, chipsets used in these boards are the A0-version SiS655, which does not support Intel’s Hyper-Threading Technology."
    It would appear that the first batch of chips do not support HyperThreading which would explain why it was missing from the AOpen announcement. (see below)

    This is kind of fun.
    "Although the A0-version SiS655 features dual-channel-DDR333 support, many companies have enhanced their motherboards to support DDR400 through overclocking."

  • AOpen Lanuches SiS655 Dual Channel DDR Motherboard

    Published: Monday, January 6, 2003 | By: Dennis

    We don't talk much about SiS enabled motherboards but every once in awhile the company throws us a surprise. AOpen has announced a Pentium 4 board based on the SiS655 chipset called the AX45-4D Max.
    "With four DDR DIMM slots, AOpen’s new motherboard can offer a maximum memory capacity of up to 4GB. Designed on the ATX form factor, AOpen’s AX45-4D Max also offers one CNR, five PCI slots, six USB 2.0 ports and two IEEE 1394 ports."
    The DigiTimes release doesn't mention anything about HyperThreading support,

  • Fortissimo III 7.1 Review @ Bjorn3d

    Published: Monday, January 6, 2003 | By: Dennis

    Hercules makes some pretty good sound cards though I would have liked to see digital in & out on the card. Though now that I think about it, how many speaker systems do you see with optical connectors?

  • Triplex GF4 Ti 4800SE Deluxe Photo @ VR-Zone

    Published: Friday, January 3, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This card is supposed to be 10% faster than the TI4600 while being AGP 8x compatible. I for one will be looking to get a NV30 instead.

    Good to see it still comes in the windowed metal briefcase.

  • E7205 Motherboard Shootout @ GamePC

    Published: Friday, January 3, 2003 | By: Dennis

    Someone over at GamePC has some bux, they actually tested the 4GB memory limit of the E7205 with 4 1GB sticks of DDR266! shock smile it is sad they didn't benchmark them that way.
    "Intel E7205 boards are indeed expensive, and don't expect them to be in the sub-$200 range for quite some time, if ever. The key thing to note though is that while the chipsets, and subsequently, the motherboards are expensive, the memory you use in any of these boards certainly is not. E7205 can use lots of cheap PC-2100 memory and still get superb performance."
    A little spendy, little spendy.

  • The Singing V-10

    Published: Friday, January 3, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This is kind of fun, an engine that sings.
    "the sound of a 10-cylinder, 750 horsepower Asiatech F1 engine warming up. After a few seconds you will notice it sounds a little strange... that's right, it's playing "when the saints go marching in" with its revs. it can do this because in F1 cars these days the accelerator is computer controlled, so they programmed the computer to have a little fun, much to the amusement of the reporters and pit crew."
    Hear it for yourself, the file is in mp3 format.

  • Albatron PX845PEV Review @ bit-tech

    Published: Friday, January 3, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This is an i845PE enabled motherboard with a host of configuration features. The thing I like about the board is that it is flashy but not gaudy.
    "A great layout together with a blue PCB is exactly what the enthuseast wants. GeForce 4 cards will fit without problem and won't block off your IDE connectors. However if you want to remove a memory module be prepared to have to remove the graphics card."
    The whole video card blocking ram clips is a typical problem due to poor usage of the bottom most slot on a motherboard. In the case of the Albatron instead of moving everything down they instead used the area for a floppy drive connector, WTF! dissapprove smile

  • Paired Memory Returns??

    Published: Thursday, January 2, 2003 | By: Dennis

    With the new dual channel DDR chipsets you begin to wonder. "Will I be limited in my ram configurations?" Back in the days of 72 and 30pin SIMMs you had to think of this and it became a real problem when upgrading. (at least for me on my limited income happy smile).

    Jack Russell rants on.
    " With the rise of dual-channel DDR designs, however, we may be re-entering an era of more restrictive RAM configurations. This is less of an issue for the NVIDIA nForce2, because the Athlon’s own bandwidth limitation make the additional bandwidth offered by a 128-bit solution generally spurious (though there are a few applications that benefit). In the case of the dual-channel DDR Pentium 4, however, the difference between single and dual channel DDR RAM performance is substantial. "
    I'm going to bet if you have the money to get a Dual Channel DDR enabled motherboard you'll also have enough green to buy the needed RAM. My suggestion is to get same size modules from the same mfg, problem solved. big grin smile

  • NV31 @ CeBit

    Published: Thursday, January 2, 2003 | By: Dennis

    Or SnoBit as the locals call it. If that is true I'd have to say Comdex is more of a Pr0nD3x due to the prevalence of pr0n peddlers, but I digress.

    The current Inquirer rumor is that Nvidia will be showing their next gen NV31 at CeBit this year.

  • HP Forces Closure Shannon Newsletter

    Published: Thursday, January 2, 2003 | By: Dennis

    "Terry Shannon, who first started the newsletter as Shannon knows DEC, which then mutated to Shannon knows Compaq and which latterly became Shannon knows HPC, said in a letter that it is virtually certain that HP's decision not to renew his site licensing deal means that he will be forced to discontinue the publication."
    To find out more check out http://www.tru64.org/