Reviews
In January of this year, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA and Dell jointly unveiled an ultra high-end gaming system equipped with a pair of specialized graphics adapters that were each powered by a pair of GeForce 7800 GTX GPUs and 1GB of memory. The final configuration consisted of two "cards", four GPUs, and...
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With the advent of NVIDIA's SLI technology in 2004, gaming performance on the desktop was dramatically increased which allowed users to run games at higher resolutions with more image quality enhancements. Unfortunately for mobile users, the notebook platform was left behind with no immediate solution made available beyond...
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With the advent of Windows XP Media Center Edition, a whole new playing field was created to help advance the relationship between multimedia and the PC. Designed solely for use in OEM systems at first, Windows XP Media Center Edition helped open the door for OEMs to create PCs with an increased emphasis on all things multimedia. ...
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Market share is the name of the game in the Computing industry and AMD has been slowly chipping away at Intel's market share over the past few years, with the release of faster Desktop processor cores with significantly better performance per watt, clock-cycle and dollar. AMD's performance advantage also...
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"I wish we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time. Oh, what a beautiful view . . ." - Death Cab For Cutie Welcome Some "Special" folks at E3... Gears of War Mural Classic Gaming in Kentia Hall More Classic Gaming... And Zaxxon - Such Memories! Hello & Goodbye - The Final Day At E3, Day Three There's...
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Trends in PC hardware usually come about for a good reason. As processor and memory speeds continued to rise, many manufacturers responded by producing more elaborate air cooling apparatuses. Some of them worked well, while others offered almost no improvement at all. In either case, lowering temperatures in this...
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As ECS continues to gain respect and attention in the enthusiast motherboard market, the company is of course extending its reach into the segment it is best known for - the budget segment. While high-end and enthusiast-level boards often cost $150 or more, budget and entry-level motherboards can usually be had for $70-90. Entry-level doesn't...
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"To game is to live." - Anonymous Gamer The Day After Yesterday - Welcome To E3, Day Two The majority of yesterday was spent in the West Hall, which consists primarily of console games with the Sony and Nintendo booths overshadowing everything else in the hall. I tend not to spend as much time in this area, but thought that you might...
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"You'd do better in a volcano with a nitroglycerine towel." That's a quote from our E3 shuttle bus driver sans non-family friendly commentary. Welcome To E3 Here I am back for my 10th E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) - unfortunately, I missed out on the very first one in 1995. Hopefully, never again. E3 is many things to...
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When we look at the Small Form Factor platform's relative size and shape, it is easy to see why these systems are becoming extremely popular as dedicated living room or home theater PC's. With the gradual adoption of Media Center PC's in the home, Shuttle is now trying harder than ever to ensure that those systems are small...
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Though DDR2 has been out for sometime, and both AMD and Intel have platforms supporting DDR2, there are still a large number of people who still require DDR ram to power their computers. While many users don't care what type of ram is inside their computers, there are many who no only care about the brand of ram they use,...
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Without question, one of the hottest topics throughout the industry this year has been the advent of the discrete physics processor or "PPU" (Physics Processing Unit). Developed by a new startup company called Ageia, this new physics processor gives game developers the opportunity to create entirely new game-play characteristics...
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Right from its inception, ATI knew they had to build a solid platform if their CrossFire multi-GPU technology was to gain mass acceptance. NVIDIA already had the very popular nForce 4 SLI chipset in their repertoire, but ATI didn't have a direct competitor that also offered a pair PCI Express Graphics (PEG) slots. ...
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With most of the fuss revolving around video cards such as Nvidia's 7900 series and ATI's X1900 series these days, it's easy to overlook entry-level offerings like the GeForce 7300. That is unless you don't have a ton of coin to throw down for a high end card. As great as it is using high resolutions with anti-aliasing...
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It almost goes without saying that we'd all love to have enough disposable income to be able to afford the best-of-the-best, top-shelf, ultra-high-end, no compromise products, whether it be a 36 foot Chris Craft Corsair with 840hp of Mercruiser under its decks (in the aft section, by the way, the wet bar and mini fridge are in the...
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Asus has been more cautious compared to most motherboard makers when it comes to using Intel's mobile processors in a desktop environment. In late 2004, when the first Pentium-M desktop motherboards started hitting the market, Asus took a back seat and did not put out a product for this rapidly expanding market, whereas smaller motherboard...
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Intel's current line-up of desktop processors based on the company's aging Netburst micro-architecture may not have the allure it once did with power users, thanks in no small part to fierce competition from arch-rival AMD, but their core logic chipsets have always been held in high regard. Intel puts an...
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DDR2 memory technology has been pushing the envelope in terms of memory clock speeds and tighter latencies as of late. Many enthusiasts were pleased when clock speeds hit the 800MHz mark last year, but Super Talent has eclipsed this mark with its 1GHz 2GB kit we'll be looking at today, the T1000UX2G5. This overclocked, high performance...
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There are only a select few PC enthusiasts who like to show off their hardware more than gamers do. With all the questing, spying, and fragging going on, they still find the time to appreciate the machine that grants them such pleasure. As you know though, these days, any old box just won't do. No; something a little flashier than...
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For the last year, Abit's biggest challenge has been conquering itself. Struggling with a combination of internal financial woes, corporate investigations, and a generally un-exciting product lineup, there is no doubt that the once mighty Abit has sagged as of late. Once considered a tier one motherboard maker with a keen ear to the needs...
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**Update: Sapphire re-branded this product the Toxic Radon X1900 XTX after our review was published. Sapphire has been one of ATI's premier board partners for quite some time now. Their products tend to be very similar to those available directly from ATI themselves, but Sapphire does take additional steps to differentiate their offerings...
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Silent computing and overclocking are two topics that tend to be mutually exclusive. Typically, when you overclock something, like a graphics card for example, it needs more cooling, which in turn means higher fan speeds and more noise. Luckily though, there are some companies that disregard these notions and give us both lower...
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