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.
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Performance Evaluation Another speed bump served up by Intel with ease By, Dave Altavilla June 23, 2003 Once again, Intel has decided to turn up the heat on their arch rival, AMD. In a sort of digital ying-yang, the battle for Performance Desktop and Workstation Processor leadership, presses on relentlessly. Like opposite yet mutual compliments, Intel releases the 3GHz P4 with 800MHz system bus and AMD lets fly with the Athlon XP 3200+. It's almost like nature intended it to be, isn't it? As Intel and AMD duke it out, in an effort to out class the competition, the end user community enjoys yet another incremental performance enhancement. ...
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Intel's Pentium 4 3GHz With 800MHz System Bus And The i875P "Canterwood" Chipset More bandwidth and leading edge desktop technology for the P4 By, Dave Altavilla and Chris Angelini April 14, 2003 Time certainly does fly when you are clipping along at 3GHz, doesn't it? It has been a whole 5 months since Intel released their last processor speed bump. Intel actually let this one ride a little bit it seems. In early February, AMD let loose with their new "Barton" core based Athlon XP 3000+ (2.166GHz), in an effort to keep pace with Intel's brute force approach to processing. Don't misunderstand us, there certainly is nothing wrong with "brute...
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The Plextor PX-504A DVD+R/RW Drive More Space, More Speed, More Compatability By, Jeff Bouton April 15, 2003 Plextor is one of the top manufacturers of optical drives. In fact, many consider their drives to be the best available. Over the years, we've had the opportunity to review quite a few models, with virtually all of them receiving our "Editor's Choice" award. The reason for this was simple; Plextor consistently produces drives with features and performance, that either set the standard, or perfected current standards. As hard drive capacities continue to grow, the need for larger removable storage solutions has increased. Naturally,...
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The Plextor PlexWriter 48/24/48U External Hi-Speed USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive Speedy Burning On The Go Jay Gibson December 29, 2002 Since their debut in 1990, Plextor has been striving to make a name for themselves as one of the top-producing optical storage device manufactures in the market. Their introductions of generations of award-winning devices, has enabled them to generate an annual revenue of approximately $500 million per year, while providing some very stiff competition for their fellow combatants. As we're sure you would agree, Plextor is sort of the bellweather of optical drive manufacturers. The first thing we noticed after unpacking this new Plextor drive, was...
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Intel's Pentium 4 3.06GHz Processor Intel breaks 3GHz barrier and introduces Hyperthreading to the mainstream By, Dave Altavilla and Chris Angelini November 14, 2002 It was only two short months ago that we gave you our hands on experiences with Intel's last flagship processor for the PC, the 2.8GHz Pentium 4. As we neared what seemed to be an almost mythical clock speed of 3GHz, we paused to wonder for a moment, whether or not the average user could take advantage of the power of a Pentium 4 at this clock speed or the future Athlon XP3000+, for that matter. Again, that pause we had was only for a moment and we snapped back to reality with a hearty Neanderthal...
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The Plextor 48x24x48 CD-RW Drive Burning CDs Faster Than Ever Before... By, Marco Chiappetta November 12, 2002 Plextor recently released their newest flagship CD-RW drive, the PlexWriter 48/24/48A. Obviously, just by looking at the name, it's clear that this drive should offer increased reading and writing speeds over Plextor's previous top-of-line PlexWriter 40/12/40A. The maximum CD recording speed has been raised to 48X (7.2MB/s), from 40X (6MB/s) and by conforming to the new Ultra-Speed CD-RW standard, re-writing speeds have doubled from 12X (1.8MB/s) to 24X (3.6MB/s). Plextor also claims that access times have been vastly improved over their previous products. ...
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Plextor PleXCombo 8/8/24-8U Review CD-R, CD-RW, DVD and USB 2.0 By -Chris Angelini September 18th, 2002 Not long ago, CD-RW drives were considered a luxury. Then, the MP3 craze swept college dorms and came to rest in the average household. The ability to play music on demand through a computer sound system was novel, but taking that music on the road seemed far more practical. Of course, the only way to get a custom mix was to convert the music into .wav format and burn the large files onto a disc. Writable optical drives quickly became popular, simultaneously decreasing in price and increasing in speed. Suddenly, CD-RW drives could be found in enthusiast...
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The PNY Quadro 4 900XGL Professional MCAD Testing Of Nvidia's Flagship Workstation Card By -John Fiegener September 16, 2002 Its been a while since we have gotten our hands on a new Nvidia professional level video card. Last time we here at (tool.) tested the Elsa Gloria II "Quadro", we were quit impressed with the performance of that entry into the professional MCAD graphics card arena. Elsa had always been a producer of high quality gaming cards in the day. It's too bad they left that market space. Let me first give you a quick introduction to who we are here at (tool.). tool. is a Product Design and Development consultancy. We ideate, design and engineer...
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The Plextor PleXCombo 20/10/40-12A Review Covering All of the Bases With a Single Drive By, Jeff Bouton July 10, 2002 As CD-Writers have matured, so has the technology that is integrated into their design. Back when the first CD-R drives were introduced, users were routinely plagued by "buffer underruns." Initially, manufacturers began incorporating new processes, like larger on-board memory buffers, into their drives to help combat this problem, but the results were mixed. Fortunately, there were a select few manufacturers who made the "buffer underrun" problem their top priority, looking to put an end to the problem once and for all. One of...
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The Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD-RW Drive Cutting CDs as fast as you can play them 3/10/02 - By Dave Altavilla As of late, CD-R technology has been keeping pace with the type of blinding speed of technological development that exist in the PC Graphics market. One could easily draw a comparison between the product development cycle times of nVidia and Plextor, as well as a few others in the CD-R arena. It was only a few short months ago that we exposed you to the features and performance of the Plextor 24X CD-RW drive. Now, less than 6 months later, we're here to show you what Plextor's 40X CD-RW drive can do. As the branding suggests, Plextor's 40X CD-RW...
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The Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A CD-RW Drive Quick cuts and speedy reads... 4/4/01 - By Dave Altavilla You've got to love the PC and PC Peripherals Market. I don't know of any other industry that releases new products and technology with such a fevered pace, such that obsolescence is a way of life, with next generation product always waiting in the wings to perform the proverbial "leap frog" maneuver. There is one thing for certain. In this business, you skip a beat and you might as well hand in your pink slip, because the game can be over in the blink of an eye. The product we're going to look at here is indicative of the level of execution that...
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Intel's Pentium 4 2GHz. Socket 478 Processor Breaking through the 2GHz. ceiling with ease By, Dave Altavilla August 27, 2001 Alright, I'll admit it... I was a William Shatner fan. That is to say, when old Bill played the all powerful James T. Kirk, I couldn't help but admire his swagger and command of the situation. Unfortunately, times change and old Bill finds himself stooping to the level of lame Priceline.com commercials. He's merely a shell of the man he use to be. Ahh, but I can still hear the words echoing in my head, "we must have more power Scotty!" Yes sir, ol' Bill sure did know how to command attention, back in the day. Well, much...
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The Plextor PlexWriter 24/10/40A CD-RW Drive The perennial CD Burn King steps it up a notch 10/8/01 - By Dave Altavilla It seems like only yesterday we were showing you the performance and quality of Plextor's 16X Burner. However, like most PC technologies, perpetual and incremental performance enhancement, is a requirement to survive in the High Tech jungle. Plextor, world renowned for top quality high performance recordable drives, is not about to sit on its collective laurels while the competition passed by. Soon after the release of the Plextor 16X recorder, we had gotten wind that 20X drives, from the likes of Richo, Acer and Yamaha, were waiting in the wings. ...
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The Plextor PlexWriter 8/4/32 CD-RW Drive Turning and Burning CD Recordable Drives have matured greatly in the past few years and have become an extremely cost effective and viable back-up, storage and duplication solution for professional and home use. Plextor has been known for highly reliable leading edge products ranging from standard CD drives to CD-R and CD-RW drives. With a standard CD-R drive you can only write to a CD once and if there is an error during the process, you have made yourself and expensive drink "coaster". CD-RW is a fairly new type of Recordable Drive technology that allows one to Write and Re-Write information on the same CD which has...
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