Reviews
Recently, several big name memory companies have offered new "low-latency" DDR memory modules capable of running with brisk 2-2-2-5 timings at 400MHz. Based on Samsung's latest low-latency ICs, these chips have demonstrated remarkable stability, compatibility and speed as well as the potential to overclock in excess of 500MHz...
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Some of us love lusting after the finer things in life: a Mercedes-Benz SLR, Akoya pearls, Beluga caviar, and Clos du Mesnil champagne. While Intel's 925X chipset doesn't exactly fit in with those other high-end luxuries, it does happen to sit atop a long list of distinguished core logic products, offering the latest...
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ASUS is often considered one of the top manufacturers of motherboards, video cards, and other computer hardware. Along with a broad product line, the company has a strong reputation for making some of the highest-quality products available. Furthermore, ASUS is one of the few companies that offers both NVIDIA- and ATI-based graphics...
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It has been about eight weeks since Intel officially launched their i925X (Alderwood) and i915 (Grantsdale) chipsets, and their new LGA775 "pinless" Pentium 4 processors. Since the launch, we've taken a look at two i925X based motherboards from Abit and Asus (seen here), and we had tested Intel's own D925XCV motherboard in...
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Never before has there been such a level playing field when it comes to higher-end graphics cards. This year, both ATI and NVIDIA have pulled out all the stops, offering the most powerful gaming solutions ever. While we could split hairs with frame rate measurements, in the end, both companies have cards to play anything available...
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Hardcore gamers, with the large disposable incomes necessary to feed their hardware addictions, have a lot to be thankful for at the moment. Both NVIDIA, with the GeForce 6 Series of products, and ATi, with their X800 Pro and X800 XT, have extremely powerful GPUs in their arsenals that are an order of magnitude faster than the previous...
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When Shuttle augmented their marketing strategy for their Small Form Factor PC line-up not long ago, they moved from a barebones only model to a full system approach, which also required them to compete in a different arena. Full system sales require not only the components of the main PC chassis and assembly, but also the related peripherals...
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With the release of both NVIDIA's 6800 Series and ATI's X800 series, the high-end enthusiast has several excellent choices when seeking the perfect gaming card. It really is hard to go wrong either way, with each product line having the muscle to power any game you can throw at it, while offering the best image...
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Back in May '04, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition to counter the launch of ATi's Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition, and gamers the world over took notice. Just a few weeks earlier, the GeForce 6800 Ultra was unveiled, and at the time it was smoking through benchmarks like nobody's business. Then, about a month...
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Watch any episode of "This Old House", "Hometime", "The New Yankee Workshop", or any other Do-It-Yourself type program for that matter, and you're bound to hear a certain phrase repeated over and over. Carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, chefs, they all use it. This phrase has almost become a mantra for anyone who...
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While the AMD Athlon XP still remains popular, it is no longer the sought after enthusiast part it once was. This isn't because the Athlon XP is a poor performer, but rather it's because a new era of AMD processors are now in the limelight. Regardless, there are still plenty of reasons to consider a system based on the Athlon...
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With all of our recent articles concerning NVIDIA's latest round of products, it seemed as if our analysis in the graphics space was getting a bit lop-sided. Today, we're aiming to change that with a new card from Sapphire, dubbed the Sapphire Toxic X800 Pro ViVo. This card alone could make up for some of the new mid range Radeon's...
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Back in mid-June we took a look at the latest offering from Plextor, the PX-712A. This drive boasted 12X DVD+R write speeds and maintained the same level of quality we've come to expect from Plextor. For years, Plextor has been in the optical drive business and for most of that time they've been the one company all others can be...
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Today, avid computer enthusiasts have their pick of some of the best computer hardware ever made available to the public. Processors and graphics cards have truly matured in the past few years, giving the general public computing power to do just about anything. Whether you're a hardcore gamer or you want to develop your own independent...
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The battle between NVIDIA and ATi for dominance in the desktop 3D gaming video card market has been on-going for many years. With each new product they release, both companies attempt to leap-frog the other by introducing new features and increasing performance over their previous generation. The competition has gotten so fierce,...
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Corsair's XMS (Xtreme Memory Speed) memory modules have long been a favorite amongst the enthusiast community. Corsair has memory kits available in many different sizes and speeds, and all of them are regarded as some of the best modules available in their respective categories. Unfortunately, with the demise of Winbond's BH5/BH6 chips,...
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2004 is easily shaping up to be a banner year for the graphics card market as NVIDIA and ATI continue to trade blows with their high-end offerings. We've seen huge increases in performance between the current and last generation of video cards from both manufacturers, and the competition is as intense as ever. Today, there are...
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When NVIDIA updates their product line, the GPUs usually arrive in the form of a value, midstream, and high-end variety, thus catering to all budgets or tastes. Monetarily speaking, it works out for the most part with those in need of a simple upgrade able to get something on the cheap, while Uber-users can get a new card to brag to...
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A few years back, if you wanted the best of DVD playback and CD burning, you had to buy separate drives for each task. With the advent of combo drives hitting the mainstream market, however, users can now get top-notch CD and DVD performance from a single optical device. MSI's XA52P for example, reads DVD-ROM discs at 16x, writes...
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Intel's recent new platform launch of the i915 and i925X chipsets marked a major overhaul of the Pentium 4 system level architecture and brought with it a host of new features and technologies. At the processor and IO levels, the addition of DDR2 memory and the PCI Express interface significantly...
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We get to test and evaluate quite a few high-end video cards here in the HotHardware labs. Over the past few months, we've previewed numerous Radeon 9800 XTs and GeForce FX 5950 Ultras, and cards based on ATi's and NVIDIA's latest Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 GPUs have also begun to trickle in recently. Burning through our...
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In the weeks leading up to the release of the NV40, the base architecture for the new GeForce 6 series of cards, NVIDIA spoke at length about their new architecture's "scalability". At the high end, the flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition is a 16-Pipeline machine clocked at 450MHz, that can pump out an impressive 7.2GPixels/s....
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