New Info on ATI's Multi VPU Rendering

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 24, 2005 - 10:27 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Not a whole lot new here, and you never know if its going to be accurate when the products launch, but Fudo at The Inquirer is telling us about some news he heard on ATI's answer to SLI.  Apparantly it will use a method called "Super Tiling" that breaks up the screens into squares like a chess board and that each card will be connected to the monitor via the DVI port.  We'll see how this pans out.

One graphic card will act as a master while the second one will act as a slave and both card will be connected to an in

Various Video Card Reviews

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 24, 2005 - 10:06 AM | Ryan Shrout
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There are several GPU reviews that I got wind of this morning -- I'll list them all here for you to read.

• Firingsquad reviews 6 different X800 XL cards and compares them


• HardwareZone has a 5-way X700 card shootout


• PCStats takes a look at the ATI X800 XL card from Gigabyte


• The Albatron 6600 PCI Express card gets a poke and a pr

Sony PSP Launch Day

Subject: General Tech | March 24, 2005 - 09:56 AM | Ryan Shrout
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In case you didn't already know, today is the launch date of the new PSP, portable Playstation unit.  Mine should be delivered sometime this afternoon, but if you want one I suggest you head out to the stores ASAP to have a chance at one.  The guys at Engadget covered the PSP launch party in New York, where some people like Carson Daly showed up.  At the launch in Toronto, Wayne Gretzky was there, and ByteSector was on hand to cover the event. 

World of Warcraft Performance Guide

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 08:06 PM | Ryan Shrout
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If you have been playing or thinking of playing World of Warcraft, otherwise known as WoW, then you'll want to read what Anand has put together as a performance guide.  He has looked at both GPU and CPU performance in the game. 

The balance between GPU and CPU performance isn't all that matters to World of Warcraft. Memory size is also a very important factor in building a smooth running WoW box.  As with any high end gaming box, less than 512MB of memory is simply unacceptable for WoW.

Yet Another AN8 Review

Subject: Motherboards | March 23, 2005 - 07:59 PM | Ryan Shrout
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I guess Abit sent out quite a lot of these boards, eh?  Here' is yet another Fatal1ty AN8 Motherboard reviewed. 

The rundown of the Fatal1ty's performance and overclocking potential is definitely exceptional. While the board lacks great VDIMM options, the BIOS allows other great voltage ranges and many memory adjustments. I'm pretty sure that most of you are interested in the comparison against DFI's Ultra-D, and our review of that motherboard will arrive soon.

Another Abit Fatal1ty AN8 Review

Subject: Motherboards | March 23, 2005 - 07:56 PM | Ryan Shrout
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XBit labs has reviewed the Abit Fatal1ty AN8 motherboard based on the nForce4 Ultra chipset.  It's a big one at 15 pages!  You can check out my review of the board for comparison as well. 

All in all, ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 mainboard makde a very good impression.

ATI Theatre 550 Pro Review

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 07:54 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The gang at PCStats is looking at the new Powercolor branded Theatre 550 TV tuner card today. 

As you've probably guessed by now, the Powercolor Theatre 550 Pro works as a TV-tuner ought to. Its combination of great image quality and perfect frame rates made us very happy campers indeed. ATI appears to have the makings of a hit on their hands with the Theatre Pro 550 chip.

We were less thrilled with the bundled Cyberlink PowerCinema 3 software.

Coming up at PC Perspective

Subject: Editorial | March 23, 2005 - 07:51 PM | Ryan Shrout
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It has been a stressful couple of weeks for me here; both on the site and off the site.  As I mentioned before, I am building a house in Florence, KY, to which I will hopefully move sometime this summer.

Might Pressler and the 65nm Intel CPUs Be Early?

Subject: Processors | March 23, 2005 - 12:24 PM | Ryan Shrout
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In my IDF coverage, I mentioned how healthy the 65nm technology from Intel looked, but I didn't think they would be bumping up time tables, but it looks like that may happen. 

The interesting bit is that Intel is now telling people that it may pull the 65 nanometre launch forward by a few months, maybe as early as late Q3. This would mean Cedar Mill, Presler, and possibly Yonah wukk arrive much earlier than anyone thinks.

Four SLI Motherobards Compared

Subject: Motherboards | March 23, 2005 - 12:21 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Gamer's Depot has put up an article comparing four SLI motherboards today.  They look at options from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and DFI.  You can also check out my reviews by looking in our motherboard section. 

We firmly believe that the importance of SLI has been properly communicated amongst many gamers and certainly ATI — I guess it's easy to talk-down a technology you don't have out on the market eh?

Has SLI Improved Yet?

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 12:17 PM | Ryan Shrout
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HardOCP has come back to the table with an updated look at the status of SLI gaming.  Since we last heard from them on this topic, a new driver has been released that promised additional SLI support for everyone!  Did it happen?

We are still very concerned with the frequency of driver releases and bug fixes, however. As you can see in our gameplay testing, this driver has quite a few problems. Right now, there is a temperature issue bug, and a bug with Coolbits not allowing overclocking in SLI.

64-bit Computing Put to the Test

Subject: Processors | March 23, 2005 - 12:15 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Scott over at The Tech Report has taken a good, detailed look at the current state of the 64-bit world by comparing the Athlon 64 and the new Intel EM64T processors against each other in several series of benchmarks.

For PC enthusiasts and gamers, moving to 64 bits may not present as many obvious advantages in the near term, but there's also very little apparent penalty in going with Windows XP Pro x64, even if it's only to run 32-bit applications.

Big Fans, Controllers & More

Subject: Cases and Cooling | March 23, 2005 - 11:42 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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So, just how important is the choice of fan nowadays?  There used to be quite a bit of difference between the performance of fans, but now it seems that the size of the fan is your most important consideration.  Mikhailtech compares 6 80 and 92mm fans, 2 Panaflo's and 4 Delta's.  Go see who comes out on top.

"Make no mistake about it, this is the ultimate 92mm fan you can get. Rated at an astounding 126.48CFM, it also sounds like it.

Samsung TS-H552B 16X DVD-R/RW Review

Subject: Storage | March 23, 2005 - 02:31 AM | Mark McKee
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Check out this review of Samsungs TS-H552B 16X DVD-R/RW over at Verum Media.

 "As you can see from the selection above, Samsung has offered up a solid product package and software suite for the TS-H552B. This drive is quite cheap, ranging in the mid $60 range shipped. Anything offering high speed burning and a software suite at a price like that needs to be given a good look. Now that we've seen what Samsung offers with the TS-H552B, let's take a quick look some data and write times obtained in our tests.

Graphics Card Reviews

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 22, 2005 - 12:07 AM | Ryan Shrout
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I have a couple of GPU reviews here for you tonight.

First, PenStarSys has reviewed the Sapphire Radeon X800 XL.  Though he over enthusiastically points out a $299 price point, the card is still a good performer.

Next, the gang at HotHardware are looking at a pair of cards from HIS: the X850 XT and the X800 XL. 

Shuttle Brings NF4 To SFF

Subject: Systems | March 22, 2005 - 12:02 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Bringing the nForce4 chipset to the SFF market isn't a small feat, but Shuttle has managed just that with the new SN25P model of their XPC line. 

I have to admit that I've become very fond of the SN25P after playing around with it for couple weeks. It really is an amazing little system packed full of features you would never expect, not to mention far more stable than older versions of the XPC. It appears that Shuttle has finally overcome the heat issues that have plagued SFF systems.

DFI NF4 Overclocking Test

Subject: Motherboards | March 21, 2005 - 11:59 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The DFI NF4 Ultra has been getting a lot of play recently, this time in the overclocking arena. 

The DFI will run very stable at 300 x 8 using TCCD 512x2 @1T, achieving 300 x 9 with simple air-cooling credits to how well the BIOS, memory controller and the quality of this board to work in concert with each other. This board is simply splendid in reaching the best possible performance.

Asus CT-479 CPU Adaptor

Subject: Processors | March 21, 2005 - 11:57 PM | Ryan Shrout
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If you think you might want to change that old 478-pin motherboard over to a 479-pin Pentium M platform, then you may want to look at the Asus CT-479 that will do just that.  This article does little more than give you a vague look at the product, but more a more complete look is coming soon here at PCP.

The CT-479 seen above actually has a quite a bit more to it than one might expect.  Since the adapter will not allow a standard socket 478 heat sink to be used ASUS provides one with the kit.