Reviews
AMD's Athlon 64 X2 series Dual Core launch back in May, along with Intel's Pentium 840 launch in April, underscored an industry-wide move toward a completely new Desktop Processor architecture, one that affects virtually all facets of Personal Computing from code-base, applications and software, to the platforms and technology that support...
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Back in April of last year, NVIDIA released the GeForce 6800 Ultra and began to rebuild a reputation that had been tarnished by a couple of products that didn't quite live up to the expectations of many hard-core gamers. The GeForce 6800 Ultra, unlike the GeForce FX line of products that came before it, had more features than competing high-end...
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The ability to manipulate and access various types of video and audio media has become a big part of the computer life-style. What used to be reserved for those with money to spend on expensive devices and powerful computers, is now available to just about anyone with a PCI slot. Thanks to the interest in these kinds of devices, the market...
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When Intel released their previous line of chipsets, namely the i915 and 925X, they got a luke warm reception at best. Performance gains over of the 865/875 platform were minimal, and there weren't many upgrade options available at the time of launch. On top of that, users were faced with the unenviable task of purchasing a new CPU,...
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Over the past year, it has been interesting to see the emphasis that the big names are willing to put on the "enthusiast" crowd, in regards to notebooks. In the past, notebooks have been targeted towards businessmen and the like. These days, however, the variety is so wide that there...
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Today, we're going to take a look at the Sapphire Radeon X850 Pro PCI Express Graphics Card. The X850 Pro follows ATI's reference design closely, sporting 12-Pixel Pipelines and 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Based on the R480, the X850 Pro offers several advantages over the R423, the core...
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Over the past few months, the ATI Radeon X800XL has built up a reputation for being one of the best buys in high-end PC graphics. A single-slot card, that's got relatively low power requirements, street prices hovering around $275 (give or take a few bucks) and performance that rivals flagship...
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As the old saying goes, "It's better to burn out than to fade away". This holds true when we think about AGP graphics cards. While PCI-Express has certainly gained a lot of ground, AGP is not ready to die just yet. Virtually any video card manufacturer you look at...
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The Notebook Lab here at Hothardware.com is currently full of business and professional class notebooks, but don't fret, we will get to some interesting consumer class designs soon. In the meantime though, there is still plenty to keep us busy, including our latest arrival, Dell's new business powerhouse - the Latitude D810. The Dell...
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With the advent of the mini-PC, a completely new industry has been born. Well, maybe it isn't so new anymore, but what started out almost as a novelty has matured into a major craze in the enthusiast market. Today's mini-PCs come in a broad range of flavors with a wide variety of features. Sitting high atop the list of unique...
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Now that we've got some Dell, IBM, and HP notebook reviews under our belt, we are going to depart from the business oriented line of machines we've already looked at, and take some time to go over Compaq's new Presario V4000. After the acquisition by Hewlett Packard, Compaq fully devoted its Presario notebook designs towards the consumer...
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At this year's E3 show ATi was discretely showing their new multi-GPU rendering technology which until now has been held under wraps of the standard NDA embargos we've come to know and love here in the industry. Last week we were given a full briefing on the technology by the ATi team...
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So what does a PC Geek and EIC for a Hardware Enthusiast site do on a holiday long weekend? Well, beside sipping a few umbrella decorated drinks by the sea, at night you can find this odd breed playing with the latest Tech Toys of course! This weekend I built a new high...
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In recent months, the race between the two major industry playersto bring dual-core processing to the masses has heated up. On April 4th, Intel delivered its first dual-core Pentium offering in the form of the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840. AMD was soon to follow, on May...
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Though clock speed is no longer a true measure of processor performance, it's hard to argue with a few hundred more MHz no matter which CPU architecture you'd consider. Regardless, it's clear the industry as a whole, as well as the world's largest chip manufacturer, Intel, has now embarked on an effort to provide more computing...
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Over the years, Asus has built a solid reputation for manufacturing high-quality products, that consistently match or surpass competing products in terms of both performance, features and quality. It is with that kind of backdrop that we present today's review of the Asus Extreme AX800XL. Based on the ATI Radeon X800 XL VPU, Asus...
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In all of our experience with personal computers, we've never quite came across a device like the one which is the focus of today's review, the PistolMouse FPS by MonsterGecko. Suited primarily for first person shooters, the PistolMouse is an 800dpi optical mouse masquerading as a Glock pistol. When we first laid eyes upon its...
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Although the transition to PCI Express is in full swing, the huge installed base of AGP equipped systems is still a major market that's continually being targeted by every major video card manufacturer. As proof of this, we present you with Sapphire's new AGP Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition. This card sports nearly the exact same feature set,...
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A few short years back, the T series notebook from IBM was exactly what most of us thought of whenever someone uttered the word "notebook". Through the years, it has been the friend of many students, business men, and serious travelers, with broad market brand-name recognition. Lately, it has undergone its latest refresh,...
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Currently, if you're in the market for a video card, there are two great options that will get you premium performance without blowing your budget: the Radeon X800XL from ATi and the GeForce 6800GT from nVidia. Sure, there are more powerful cards, namely the X850XT and GF 6800 Ultra, but the price of these cards alone can sometimes...
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On March 15th, ATI announced news of their new value-class HyperMemory X300 SE series PCI Express Graphics Cards. In direct answer to NVIDIA's TurboCache product line, the HyperMemory line was targeted to offer better overall performance at a lower price point. At that time however, the cards themselves were not ready for...
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The personal computer industry is about to undergo a major metamorphosis, due in large part to the recent efforts of Intel and AMD. For the last few decades, mainstream desktop processor manufacturers have focused on increasing the performance of their CPUs by raising their clock speeds, augmenting the base architectures with specialized instruction...
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