Reviews
We do our best to protect our cameras, cell phones, MP3 players, and other electronics from extreme weather conditions, drops, force, and water. It makes sense to do so, given that most of these gadgets don’t stand a chance against a bucket of water, accidental drop, or extreme temperatures. Realizing that life brings its fair share of bumps,...
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Early last week, we spent a day or so with a number of representatives from Global Foundries, learning about the company's plans for a new fab that will be built in upstate New York. The name Global Foundries may be unfamiliar to many of you, but the company's origins may not. If you remember back to October 2008, AMD and the Advanced...
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While most computer enthusiasts overclock their systems to get increased performance from their components, there are a select few that push the limits of hardware to another level for the entertainment factor alone. Instead of just trying to get higher frame rates for gaming or better throughput for other types of workloads, these...
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The latest socket AM3 compatible Phenom II processors have been available for several weeks now and they had proven in our initial coverage to be excellent chips, a notable improvement over their predecessors in several respects, including overclocking and in their support for higher clocked DDR3 memory. Thanks to the Phenom...
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We have been talking about NVIDIA's Ion since late last year when news first broke of the ultra small form factor platform. At the time, NVIDIA's tiny Atom-powered prototype system wasn't even called Ion yet, but images of the miniscule motherboard that would eventually be used in the reference platform had already surfaced and the community...
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AMD is launching yet another new ATI Radeon graphics card today. And in light of the current worldwide economic conditions, along with the performance and power consumption data we'll be presenting you on the proceeding pages, we suspect it's going to be a welcomed addition to the company's already potent graphics card line-up.You see,...
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Over the course of a few months in late 2007 and early-to-mid 2008, AMD unveiled their Spider platform, consisting of AMD-built desktop processors, chipsets, and graphics cards, and refreshed said platform with faster processors and graphics cards. Fast forward to today, and AMD is doing the same thing, but this time with the newer,...
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Digital designers and video editors will tell you that one display is often not enough. With so many different tool and palette windows, a single display can get crowded very quickly, leaving little room for the primary workspace. Add some other apps to the equation, such as e-mail and Web browsers, and you can wind up with a desktop...
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High end GPUs target a niche market. In other words, companies make these cards with a specific type of user in mind. And while price is always an important consideration, it's usually not the deciding factor when it comes to introducing these flagship parts. This is especially true when you consider the consumers who are willing...
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Many positive commentaries have been written about Intel's current flagship Core i7 processors and its companion X58 Express chipset, due to the solid performance gains offered by the platform. In addition to the increased performance offered by Core i7 processors though, the X58 chipset also brings with it native...
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We recently had the chance to have a conversation with John Malley, BFG Tech's Senior Director of Marketing, regarding the company's recently released Phobos line of high-end gaming systems. We asked about the current state of the Phobos product line and its unique features and service options, and John also spoke about future possibilities...
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As of late, much of the spotlight on Asus products has focused on the company's diminutive Eee PC netbook line. With a near constant stream of new models to fit nearly any possible set of requirements, it's easy to see why the Eee brand has become Asus' most recognizable. That said, the company's mobile product offerings are definitely about...
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Let’s face it; buying a gaming machine with today’s latest components is anything but inexpensive. iBuyPower’s Gamer Paladin F970, which is designed to make the most of its powerful Core i7 processor and other high-end components, is proof of that fact. When the Gamer Paladin F970 was first released, the standard configuration initially...
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The green technology movement is obviously in full swing now. Better efficiency through technological innovation has a trickle down effect to many facets of life style, technology and the environment. Whether motivated by cost or environmental reasons the benefits of eco-minded innovation will eventually be felt by all....
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Synopsis: Intel's Core i7 processor offers a significant performance increase over previous generation Core 2 processors. In addition, like the legacy Core 2 architecture, the new Core i7 also has a bunch more headroom for wringing upside performance out of the chip, maximizing value, power and return on your investment with overclocking. ...
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NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 285 about three months ago, and in our launch article, we found it to be a very strong product. As you are no doubt aware, the GTX 285 is a replacement for the GTX 280. The GT200B GPU at the heart of the GTX 285 is nearly identical to the GTX 280's GT200 GPU. The most significant difference between the two GPUs...
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As anyone remotely in tune with the tech sector can attest, the rivalry in the PC graphics card market between AMD / ATI and NVIDIA is as intense as ever. It used to be that one of the two companies would release a new product, only to have the other release a competing offering a few weeks, or maybe a few months later. But even in these gloomy...
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This will no doubt be an exciting day for graphics card aficionados. As we've shown you here, AMD has literally just launched a brand new more powerful, single-GPU based Radeon, dubbed the Radeon HD 4890. However, arch rival NVIDIA has something on tap as well, in the form of the GeForce GTX 275. And wouldn't you know it, the GTX 275 is positioned...
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Since the launch of their latest processor architecture in the form of the Core i7 processor line, Intel has been busy slowly reorganizing their desktop CPU offerings. While the Core i7 line-up currently takes a performance leadership position, it only covers the high end of the market at this time, and a new Core i7 capable platform...
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One of the ways AMD is able to test and qualify ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs, without having to design and build numerous mobile reference cards that fit in multiple notebook form factors, is to produce fully-loaded, custom reference cards that'll fit into standard PCI Express x16 slots. The cards won't be used in any actual retail product,...
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With the wide variety of network storage device offerings hitting the market, you'd think that this was the year of the NAS (network-attached storage) device. Considering how many people need or want a central location--a "hub" of sorts--to store their media and other files, share these files with other people, and access this data remotely,...
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Placing a product in the "audiophile" category automatically opens it up for scrutiny of the highest order. The new Asus Xonar Essence STX "headphone amp card for audiophiles" is Asus' latest in a line of audio card offerings that pretty much cover the spectrum of PC audio applications. Asus now offers audio cards designed for gaming to...
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