Reviews
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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As one of the pioneers of the gaming notebook, it comes as no surprise to see Alienware coming to the table with yet another innovation. In 2002, the original Area-51m represented the world's first gaming-specific notebook. In typical Alienware fashion, the notebook carried a pricetag that was equally as breathtaking as its performance....
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When LCD screens were first introduced they were plagued by many problems, but they also had some advantages over CRT monitors. LCD's were lighter, thinner, and used less power. And so they caught on and the technology incrementally improved. Early generations were limited to lower resolutions, tight viewing angles, really slow response...
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Although performance has been greatly enhanced over the last few years through the use of faster spindle speeds, larger caches, and newer interfaces, hard drives still tend to be a bottleneck in a typical PC. Mechanical devices, by their very nature, require time to seek the data requested, read it, and then transfer that information back...
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This weekend Intel sponsored an event for the Global Gaming League, the TransAtlantic Showdown, that pitted some of the best gamers from North America against rivals from across the Atlantic. The TransAltantic Showdown was more than just a gaming tournament though. There were a couple of interesting twists that made the TransAtlantic Showdown...
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About three months ago, we took a look at the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, which was Intel's first Extreme Edition processor built using the company's then brand-new 65nm manufacturing process. Each of the 955XE chip's two cores hummed along at a lofty 3.46GHz, and we found its performance to...
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In 2002, AGEIA's founders broke into the gaming industry with the intention of revolutionizing the way PC games would be played. Focusing their attention on the notion of in-game physics, the ultimate goal was to bring a new level of realism to the latest and greatest titles on the horizon. In short, the company has developed the world's first...
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