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.
Quantum's Atlas V Ultra160 SCSI Hard Drive SCSI One-Ups EIDE Again! 3/17/00 - By, Dave "Davo" Altavilla We've said this before and we'll say it again, your hard drive is one of the slowest parts of your computer. Or is it? Let's take a look at today's computer technology and the...
Read more...
Shuttle's SDVD-101 10X DVD-ROM Drive Is it time to dump your CD-ROM Drive? By - Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta 8 / 24 / 2000 Shuttle, along with many other companies generally recognized as motherboard manufacturers, actually has a very diverse product line. They offer everything from CD-ROM drives to Video cards and a wide variety...
Read more...
Shuttle's SD-561 56X CD-ROM Drive A Frugal and Nimble Solution 3/14/00 - By, Marco ?BigWop? Chiappetta I?ve been around PC hardware for quite a while and have used just about every ?speed? CD-ROM since my trusty ol? Creative Labs 1X. Having used all these different drives I?ve learned a couple things: 1.) The speed on the box...
Read more...
IBM's DDRS34560D - 4.5 Gig Ultra 2 SCSI LVD Drive SCSI for the masses! SCSI, use to conjure up memories of difficult set up and lots of time spent tweaking with settings in the SCSI BIOS trying to get a drive to run at peak performance. Not so with many of today's...
Read more...
Western Digital's 18Gig Ulta ATA66 Expert WD-AC418000 EIDE Drive technology took another leap forward this year with the advent of the Ultra ATA66 standard. Hot Hardware took a close look at a 5400 RPM ATA66 drive a few months back. This technology was fairly new then and it is still early on for the ATA66 standard. However, with the recent...
Read more...
Abit's BE6 Motherboard - Slot1 Intel BX w/ ATA66 EIDE Probably the most familiar name to the hard core Overclocker, Abit has been producing motherboards, that break the mold and set new standards, for many years now. I remember the first time I used an Abit board back in the early days of the Pentium. The SoftMenu setup feature made...
Read more...
Abit's KA7 - KX133 Athlon Motherboard AMD's Athlon Set Up The Abit Way! April 11, 2000 By Dave Altavilla As my late Grand Father would say, "HOLY MACKEREL" ! My Grandfather was an excitable Italian type and this "fishy phrase" would be one that he would use to indicate his amazement with something. In...
Read more...
Shuttle's AV40 VIA P4X266 DDR P4 Motherboard RAMBUS, watch your back, DDR comes to the P4 By, Dave Altavilla October 15, 2001 Here's a vocabulary word for you, "litigious". Good one isn't it? Before you get nervous that this is some sort of creative writing lesson...
Read more...
DFI's PC64 - Motherboard More i820 and RAMBUS action on the test-bench Intel's new i820 chipset is slowly being accepted and brought to market by various motherboard manufacturers. It is obvious that this has been a pains taking process for the Motherboard Vendors in the market, as release dates for many of the major players have slipped...
Read more...
DFI's CS60-EC i815EP Motherboard A little less is more... By Jeff Bouton March 22, 2001 With the technology markets taking a beating in recent months, it will become more evident who the major players are in the technology world and who isn?t. Competition will become as fierce as ever, pushing companies to increase quality and reliability,...
Read more...
The ECS P4VXAD -Vs.- The Azza P4X2-AV Battle of the VIA P4X266s! By, Marco Chiappetta November 29, 2001 Intel and VIA are entangled in a nasty legal battle, and because of this, VIA's P4X266 Pentium 4 chipset has been surrounded by much controversy. Intel is trying to stop the distribution of the P4X266 because they claim VIA is not...
Read more...
The ECS D6VAA Dual-CPU VIA Powered Motherboard Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun... By, Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta July 26, 2001 Dual-CPU systems, previously reserved for use as high-end servers, have now become affordable due to the efforts of companies like ECS, Abit, Intel and...
Read more...
The Epox 8K7A+ AMD 761 / VIA 686B Hybrid Is there a new Sheriff in Town? By, Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta August 9, 2001 If you are a hardware enthusiast and have been following the battle between AMD and Intel, you are no doubt familiar with the Athlon and DDR (Double Data Rate) memory. When the Pentium 4 was first introduced,...
Read more...
Shuttle's AK31 Ver.3.1-vs- Epox's 8KHA+ Dueling KT266A Motherboard Action! By, Jeff Bouton November 26, 2001 If you are an avid PC enthusiast or even a knowledgeable investor, then you probably know that Intel has some serious competition these days. With the latest reports of Athlon XP's "flying off the shelves" and VIA continuing...
Read more...
Flexus' Freetech Jupiter P6F99 A SIS Chip set Slot 1 Motherboard that sings sweetly! Not a lot of folks have heard of Flexus Computer Technology nor their Freetech brand name motherboards, but we at Hot Hardware are going to help change that! Incorporated in 1990, Flexus has a mission to design quality motherboards and peripherals...
Read more...
The Gigabyte GA-6CX and GA-MG400 i820 Motherboard and G400 Based Graphics Card - A package Deal The long awaited Intel i820 chipset has finally been released to the market. What is somewhat surprising is the amount of time it is taking motherboard manufacturers to get boards designed and...
Read more...
The Gigabyte GA-6CXC Motherboard The i820 With SDRAM Support By, Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta - 5/9/00 Usually when Intel releases a new motherboard chipset, there is a big rush to upgrade. Power users, OEMs and do-it-yourselfers gobble up motherboards based on the new chipset to take advantage of new features, increase...
Read more...
The AMD Duron and Gigabyte's GA-7ZM KT133 Motherboard Compact Economy and Performance By Dave "Davo" Altavilla 7/20/00 It looks as if AMD is here to stay with their X86 processor offering. Finally there is a viable and worthy opponent to the all mighty Intel. This year...
Read more...
Gigabyte's GA-8TX - i850 Pentium 4 Motherboard No frills performance By Dave Altavilla 1/10/2001 The beautiful thing about a new processor platform is that with it is born a whole new architecture and motherboard platform to go with it. Pentium 4 motherboards are flowing fairly...
Read more...
Gigabyte's GA-BX2000 Dual BIOS Slot 1 Pentium II/III Motherboard Gigabyte has long been a manufacturer of top shelf PC motherboards and have a huge network in the various reseller channels. Many small clone shops use Gigabyte's boards because of their aggressive pricing and high quality. Gigabyte has always done things...
Read more...
Gigabyte's GA-6OXM7E i815 Socket 370 Motherboard It sure looks nice...but how does it perform? By, Marco ?BigWop? Chiappetta 11 / 2 / 2000 The hardware community had been eagerly anticipating a worthy successor to the mighty 440BX chipset. When Intel released their 133MHz FSB...
Read more...
Gigabyte's GA-7VX KX-133 Based Motherboard Does the tradition live on? By, Marco ?BigWop? Chiappetta September 22, 2000 In the "Athlon Community", there was much anticipation for a chipset that would really let the performance of AMD's new flagship processor stand out. The original Iron-Gate chipset was marred...
Read more...
