Reviews
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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Over the past 10 years or so, the Personal Computer has found its way into a majority of homes, evolving from a high-priced curiosity to an everyday necessity. As with any other market, companies have come and gone during that time period, with their bottom lines inevitably tied to the products they produced. In today's...
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When we talk about video cards, the focus is typically on the latest high-profile offerings that leave many of us in a perpetual state of hardware envy. It's a common picture, with ATI or NVIDIA releasing a new model and the other usually answering with their own killer product not long after. It's a constant dance called "competition",...
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Although desktop dual-core processors from AMD are on the horizon, engineers there are still hard at work refining their single-core processor designs. The latest revision to the Athlon 64 core, internally code named "Venice", recently made it way onto the mass market, carrying a "Rev. E" moniker. With the...
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IBM's products are the time tested gold standard when it comes to the computing needs of business professionals or corporations as a whole. "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM," many say. There is a reason for this reputation; most of it relating specifically to quality and technological features that have been incorporated cleverly...
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Over the past several years, NVIDIA has not only made a name for themselves in the Desktop Motherboard Chipset business but they have also cultivated a profitable and highly successful business unit in this area as well, commanding approximately 48% market share in the AMD Athlon 64 based market segment. With design wins at virtually...
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Memory has come a long way in the past few years. What was once a nondescript PC component, consisting of nothing more than a few black chips on a green PCB, has since evolved into a brightly colored, and lighted, crucial system component with a multitude of different heat spreader types and speed grades. Just take a look at this pair of Corsair...
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It seems that Shuttle consistently expands their line of XPC small form factor systems as new core logic chipsets are released. A quick trip to their product page reveals a current line-up of XPCs based on chipsets from Intel, NVIDIA, ATI, SiS and VIA. There are no less than six different chassis designs available as well, with each one designed...
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Last weekend, over 300 gamers descended upon the Boston suburb of Wilmington, MA with little else but 32 hours of non-stop fragging on their minds. Well, that and possibly coming home with some new gear for their PC. Just over a year ago LPANE, the LAN Party Association of New England, was formed with the hopes of pulling together...
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Lightweight notebooks have always been the weapon of choice for the professional with a need for speed and an eye for style. As new entries are brought into the market during the spring refresh, numerous companies have been scrambling to bring something that fuses aesthetics and power together in a conveniently portable package. Asus's track...
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When Intel released the i925XE chipset, it took their existing line of top-tier motherboards to the next level, by providing additional support for CPUs running on a 1066MHz bus. The current list of CPUs that run at this speed is, however, quite short. Combine this fact with the imminent release of Intel's dual-core processors and...
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A few months ago, we assessed the performance of a pair of GeForce 6800 GTs and a pair of GeForce 6800 Ultras running in SLI-mode, and were impressed by the platform's performance. We did have some concerns over driver support and the TCO of the platform, however. NVIDIA's current SLI (Scalable Link Interface) technology requires a specific...
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In July of 2004, AMD released their latest economy class processors in the form of the Sempron line. The initial release was predominantly Socket A-centric, with only one Socket 754 solution being offered. Since that day, the Socket A Sempron family has grown to incorporate 7 flavors, yet the socket 754 Sempron line only recently...
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It seems that today's mid and high-end video cards are coming with increasingly more creative cooling solutions. Lately, large, quiet fans are becoming more popular as seen with Abit's OTES, HIS's IceQ II and Sapphire's Lethal Cooling. All of these options aim to keep a video card cool under load while minimizing fan noise, and...
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Once the dominant player for chipsets compatible with AMD's Athlon, VIA has fallen out of favor lately, it seems. The company introduced its K8T890 chipset with PCI Express support way back in November of last year. Yet, we've heard very little about retail products centering on the platform until recently. The PT-series, destined for...
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With the next notebook refresh cycle right around the corner, we are taking the time to look at some of the more recently refreshed notebooks. In the meantime, there is a lot of buzz surrounding the AMD Turion platform, which we have been eagerly anticipating. The news so far (directly from a few system vendors) is that it does surprisingly...
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When it comes to making Small Form Factor PCs, we find that most manufacturers need to make compromises in order to create a viable product. Radical heat dissipation techniques typically consume much of the area in already cramped confines, motherboards are usually cut-down versions of full-sized models which, in turn, have...
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