PC Components, Peripherals And Gadget Reviews And News
Dig into our deep-dive product reviews and news of PC components from processors, to motherboards, graphics cards (GPUs), sound cards, and storage, along with other gadgets and peripherals that complete the computing experience. Whether you're a DIY PC enthusiast builder or just looking to read-up on what should be inside or connected to your next pre-built PC, here's where you'll find all the nuts and bolts sorted on what makes modern computer systems tick, as well some of the best user interface devices to go with them.
ATi Introduces the HDTV Wonder Bringing High Definition TV to the PC By, Jeff Bouton February 26, 2004 While we are all sitting and watching the 3D Graphics card battles rage on, in the PC TV Tuner industry, competition is a little less prominent. While a lot of enthusiasts are caught up in the hype of whose video card is faster...
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Abit's Radeon 9800 XT 256MB ATi Invades More of NVIDIA's Turf... By, Marco Chiappetta February 25, 2004 Historically, with the release of each new core logic chipset, enthusiasts the world over eagerly anticipate what Abit has in store for them. From the original BH6, to their current flagship "MAX" line of motherboards, Abit...
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Albatron's PX875 Pro Motherboard Power, Performance, and Good Looks By: Jeff Bouton February 5, 2004 Since the advent of Intel's i865 and i875 chipsets, the two have performed similarly, with a slight advantage going to the 875 and its PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology). Soon after the release of the 865 however, motherboard...
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Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Wireless Edition Performance Anywhere You Want It By, Tom Laverriere February 5, 2004 Ever since its inception, the nForce2 chipset has taken off and never looked back. It brings a lot to the table in terms of stability, performance, and most importantly affordability for the Athlon XP platform. The latest...
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ASUS DRW-0402P/D DVD±R/RW Drive Review High Capacity on a Budget By Chris Angelini January 28, 2004 It's hard to believe that the very first DVD writers were priced in the neighborhood of $16,000, especially considering the current landscape of low-cost optical hardware. There's still a market...
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The AMD Athlon 64 3400+: The Athlon 64 Gets Its First Speed Bump... By, Marco Chiappetta January 6, 2004 AMD closed out 2003 by quietly releasing the Athlon 64 3000+. The 3000+ was clocked at the same 2.0GHz as the Athlon 64 3200+, and it used the same 754 pin socket, but it featured 512K of L1 cache, only half that of the 3200+. ...
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ASUS SK8V K8T800 Motherboard Review Socket 940 Platform Featuring VIA's K8T800 Chipset By: Chris Angelini January 4, 2004 They say it takes years to establish a solid reputation and minutes to destroy it, which is why the office Christmas party requires a delicate balance of business and pleasure. Dating back to 1997, the folks...
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The Asus P4S800D-E Motherboard Pentium 4 Powered Performance With The SiS 655TX Chipset By: Dave Altavilla December 22, 2003 All year we've been waiting for a chipset manufacturer to get into the Pentium 4 chipset arena with a Dual Channel DDR capable offering that finally gave Intel something to sweat over. We've seen offerings...
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ABIT AI7 865PE Motherboard Review The i865PE board with "µGuru" By: Jeff Bouton December 18th, 2003 When it comes to overclocking an Intel based system, no processor has shown more potential than the Pentium 4-C. More specifically, Intel's Pentium 4-C at 2.4GHz has proven to have a ton of headroom, with many user's hitting...
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The AOpen DRW4410 4x DVD+R/RW Drive A drive that won't burn through your budget! By Robert Maloney December 4, 2003 If we were to step back for a second and look at the state of optical storage a couple of years ago, we were just getting used to having CD-Writers come standard in pre-built PCs. They might not have been super-fast, or...
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The AOpen Aeolus FX5600S AOpen Enters the Mainstream with Some Punch By - Tom Laverriere December 3, 2003 NVIDIA and ATi currently offer PC graphics solutions they refer to as "mainstream" products, since that is the kind of card you will find in an average (versus "enthusiast") system, where the bulk of the market volume...
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The Asus Radeon 9x00 XTs A Close-Up Look at Asus' First ATi Powered Video Cards By, Marco Chiappetta November 25, 2003 A few months ago, rumors began to circulate that alleged ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (aka Asus), a long-time provider of NVIDIA based graphics products, was poised to launch a new line of video cards based on ATi's popular Radeon...
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Albatron PX865PE Lite Pro vs. Asus P4P800S-E Budget boards take a bite out of the market by Robert Maloney November 20th, 2003 With the proliferation of 800MHz FSB processors and the wide acceptance of DDR400 memory, it's quite easy to see how Springdale and Canterwood boards have captured...
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The Albatron Gigi GeForce FX 5200 Ultra Mainstream With Muscle? By - Tom Laverriere October 28, 2003 When a new OEM emerges in PC Hardware, their products are initially gawked at from afar, as most end users are reluctant to take the plunge into uncharted waters. As soon as a few end users claim good experiences with new hardware, word...
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By Jeff Bouton October 26, 2003 So, you've read the reviews and now you're considering upgrading to an Athlon 64. From what we've seen, that's not a bad choice. As Marco showed in his introduction to the Athlon 64, AMD's much anticipated processor has shown a lot of...
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The ATi Radeon 9600 XT ATi Gives Their Mainstream Product a 100MHz Boost By Robert Maloney October 15th, 2003 Any way you slice it, it seems that NVIDIA just can't catch a break. Just when they seemed to pull out of their year-long funk following the GFFX 5800 introduction, by releasing the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, they were called to...
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asetek Vapochill Extreme Edition How can cooling be such a hot topic? Written by: Robert Maloney September 29, 2003 What a better way to end the summer season then to write a review about CPU cooling, in this case about the latest Vapochill unit from asetek, the Vapochill XE. For the uninitiated, asetek, based out of Denmark, has been...
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asetek's ChillControl Windows beta An exclusive look at asetek's latest efforts Written by: Robert Maloney October 12, 2003 A first look at asetek's Windows-based ChillControl The best just got better As we alluded to in our review on the Vapochill XE Cooling Unit review, asetek has been working on a Windows-based version of their ChillControl...
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ATi's All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro Unveiled (PT2) ATi Releases Their Best All-In-Wonder Yet By: Jeff Bouton October 6th, 2003 Hot on the heels of the latest news regarding the Radeon 9800XT, ATi have delivered on another front, finally releasing the All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro. Back in early August ATi gave us a taste of what was...
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The ATi Radeon 9800 XT 256MB ATi Turns Up The Heat In High End 3D Graphics By - Dave Altavilla September 30, 2003 When ATi released the Radeon 9800 Pro earlier this year, the Toronto, Ontario Canada design team, had been working with a strong foundation, that was built on their most successful card ever, the Radeon 9700 Pro. The...
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The Athlon 64 FX-51 Processor AMD Drops the Hammer, On Your Desktop! By, Marco Chiappetta And Dave Altavilla September 23, 2003 AMD'S HECTOR RUIZ WITH AN ATHLON 64 It has been about two years, since AMD first divulged information about their "K8" architecture, also known as the "Hammer", at the Microprocessor Forum in 2001. ...
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Abit's IC7-MAX3 The Legacy Free, OTES Cooled Canterwood Board By Dave Altavilla September 22, 2003 You definitely have to hand it to the engineers at Abit Computer. While many motherboard manufacturers are taking steps to differentiate their board from the masses, by bundling in gimmick goodies, like FrontX drive bay boxes and...
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