4 NForce4 SLI Mobo's for your consideration

Subject: Motherboards | September 28, 2005 - 04:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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This board has everything, good looks, gobs of functionality and speed, in fact the only limitation that nV News could find was FSB overclocking.  Not because of a specific problem with the board, but because the PCI Express bus, SATA, and the link between north & south bridges all use the same clock generator.   You can't (yet) lock those frequencies in the BIOS, so you get problems with SATA and PCI Express devices if you push it too far.

"The MSI P4N Diamond has a great list

Heatpipe technology keeps evolving

Subject: Cases and Cooling | September 28, 2005 - 02:42 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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At 4.5 inches tall, the Ultra Fire Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler may not fit in every case, but it is certainly compatible with sockets, 

370, 462, 754, 939, and 940 are all supported.  PimpRig puts it and it's dual 80mm fan design to the test!  It's not quite as good as watercooling yet, so if you have your heart set on the lowest heat, look below.

"Not to call Ultra liars but I wanted to see how heavy this heatpipe really was.

Gigabyte Launches i-RAM Solid State Storage

Subject: Storage | September 28, 2005 - 02:04 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Well the technology that we first saw at Computex this past June looks like it is finally going to make it to the market.

Taipei, Taiwan September 28^th, 2005 — GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, VGA cards and other computing hardware solutions, has launched GIGABYTE i-RAM, the world's fastest storage device available to digital graphics designers and PC enthusiasts.

ATI's X800GT - Good Performance at a Good Price

Subject: Graphics Cards | September 28, 2005 - 12:55 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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If you want OK graphic performance, without breaking the bank. the 2 cards to consider would probably be the GeForce 6600GT, or the ATI X800GT.  Elite Bastards has a review of the Powercolour X800GT, that comes with a good card, and a nice software bundle, including Hitman: Contracts.

"To put it simply, the Radeon X800GT isn't any one new core, or even a cut-down version of any one old core.

Office 2003 SP3, Mice & A Contest

Subject: General Tech | September 28, 2005 - 11:50 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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It's not Patch Tuesday, but CNET is letting everyone know that Office 2003 got a bit of a facelift and a security upgrade.  If you use it, head to Office update to get it.   Even better, it looks like you won't need to dig out the old disks to do it.  Plus, Overclockers Online has a Coolermaster contest going on.

"Microsoft Office 2003 SP2 is designed to prevent "phishing" attacks and improve the han

Size Matters - Quick explanation of compression

Subject: Storage | September 28, 2005 - 11:43 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The guys at HardwareHell talk about file compresssion, and what exactly happens when you use it.  If you're curious about what you use Huffman coding for, give it a read.

"Modern compression is the technology used today by computers in order to pass data from place to place using less data then it would take to simply transfer these data as they are. Compression is quite common these days and is used transparently in many computer systems.

Even Linux gets expoited nowadays

Subject: General Tech | September 27, 2005 - 06:50 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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2 Media players running on *NIX have expolit flaws, story on CNET.

"A flaw has been discovered in RealNetworks' RealPlayer version 10.0.5.756 Gold and Helix Player 1.0.5.757 Gold running on Linux or Unix operating systems, according to a report released Tuesday by the French Security Incident Response Team, or FrSIRT."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Secur

Check out the beep codes on this case mod

Subject: Cases and Cooling | September 27, 2005 - 04:11 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Don't just build a replica of R2-D2, make him useful too!  Head on over to PimpRig to see all the pics.

"One of our forum regulars, TheGreatSatan, has completed his amazing R2-D2 project.

Memory that RAM's the message home

Subject: Cases and Cooling | September 27, 2005 - 03:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Not only is Corsair's Xpert TWINXP1024-3200XL DDR fast RAM, but it has programmable LED lights.   If you long for the days when red scrolling LED signs were everywhere, now you can get some for your PC, just like ModTheBox did.

"Included with the Xpert TWINXP1024-3200XL DDR Memory modules are two matching 10-digit alphanumeric displays. Each display consists of a small PCB with identical 34-pin connectors.

Corsair Partners With Asus For 1 GB Modules

Subject: Memory | September 27, 2005 - 12:43 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Fremont, CA / Taipei, Taiwan (September 26, 2005) — Corsair^® Memory, Inc., a worldwide leader in high performance memory and cooling products for enthusiasts and overclockers, and ASUSTek^®, the perennial leader of the motherboard industry, today announced a joint product launch targeting the AMD^® enthusiasts.

Norton 2006 coming soon to a store near you

Subject: General Tech | September 27, 2005 - 11:53 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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One of the oldest disk management and virus suites will be updating it's software within the next 2 weeks.   It's probably too soon for them to have incorporated the anti-worm and anti-fishing software they gained control of from 

WholeSecurity last week, but it's detection ablities will undoubtably be improved from 2005.

Symantec, in the next two weeks will start selling the 2006 editions of its consumer security software prod

500 Gb of ... storage

Subject: Storage | September 27, 2005 - 11:46 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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16Mb cache and 500 Gb in size, the Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 Hard Drive reviewed by Xtreme Resources is one fast drive, that you'll take a while filling up.

"The capacity of hard disk drives grows daily, along with their speed. I still remember the first hard disk drives in the systems I first saw, drives that their capacity was merely 1/10th of the RS-MMC I hold right now, which is smaller than my fingertip.

Mobo's & Processors & Chipsets, Oh My!

Subject: Motherboards | September 26, 2005 - 06:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Surprise, its the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition from Biostar.  If you love nForce, but need to go with Intel, it's no longer a problem.  The board has all you'd expect from nForce 4, with the nice simplicity of setup that BioStar tends to prefer, according to Bjorn3D.  If it's not a motherboard you want, 4 new chips were announced today, one Intel and 3 AMD.

"For years, NVIDIA fans and general enthusiasts wondered if NVIDIA would ever release an Intel chipset.

34 ATX 2.0 PSUs Compared

Subject: Systems | September 26, 2005 - 03:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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With all the PSU's to choose from, you may want to bless HEXUS for putting together 34 ATX 2.0 PSU together for a huge comparison.  See which one is right for you.

It may have been Slashdotted, so give it some time to recover.

"The vast majority of the ATX 2.0 supplies tested, and ATX 2.0 is what you should be buying these days, will comfortably power a current high-end system without any issues whatsoever.

AGP Is Not Dead & More

Subject: Graphics Cards | September 26, 2005 - 11:53 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Just because you can't afford to switch to a BTX mobo with PCIe, and all the other changes required to get to the current generation of hardware, doesn't mean that you have to suffer through HalfLife2 at 9.5 FPS.   HIS has released an mid level AGP ATI X700 ATI card, and XYZ Computing has the review.

Oh and if you have upgraded to PCIe, I think ATI might have released something today.

"This review is going to take a look at the X700 IceQ video card from HIS.

Good Value DDR2 RAM

Subject: Memory | September 26, 2005 - 11:42 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The Transcend DDR2-533 TS64MLQ64V5J DIMMs that Phoronix reviews do not claim to be the fastest or most overclockable RAM out there.  They are however, much less expensive than many of the extreme gaming RAM out there.  If you're setting up a system for someoe who doesn't game much, give the review a read.

"Transcend designs their system memory modules to be simple and aren't engrossed by heatspreaders or any unconventional features but simply remains on target for the normal PC hobbyist, ho

Watercooling Means They Can't Sneak Up On You

Subject: Cases and Cooling | September 26, 2005 - 11:33 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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ThermalTake's Bigwater SE is a 120mm Fan & Radiator, a copper waterblock, a 12V pump and a 5.25" drive bay tank.  It might not be quite as easy to install as it's predecessor, but it is cheaper, and as Tweaknews discovers it cools pretty well.

"Some time ago, Thermaltake entered this market with a complete system they called Bigwater. Recently, Thermaltake introduced their next generation successor to the Bigwater liquid cooling system.

Asetek VapoChill Micro Showdown

Subject: Cases and Cooling | September 23, 2005 - 07:31 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Whether you want ultra quiet, ultra powerful, or a compromise between those 2 extremes, one of the 3 fans reviewed by Overclockers Online will probably be exactly what you are looking for.

"As we can see in the testing numbers there is not a huge difference between the three models and because of this there is no single winner.