Reviews
As the old saying goes, "It's better to burn out than to fade away". This holds true when we think about AGP graphics cards. While PCI-Express has certainly gained a lot of ground, AGP is not ready to die just yet. Virtually any video card manufacturer you look at is still offering AGP based graphics solutions,...
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The Notebook Lab here at Hothardware.com is currently full of business and professional class notebooks, but don't fret, we will get to some interesting consumer class designs soon. In the meantime though, there is still plenty to keep us busy, including our latest arrival, Dell's new business powerhouse - the Latitude D810. The Dell...
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With the advent of the mini-PC, a completely new industry has been born. Well, maybe it isn't so new anymore, but what started out almost as a novelty has matured into a major craze in the enthusiast market. Today's mini-PCs come in a broad range of flavors with a wide variety of features. Sitting high atop the list of unique...
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Now that we've got some Dell, IBM, and HP notebook reviews under our belt, we are going to depart from the business oriented line of machines we've already looked at, and take some time to go over Compaq's new Presario V4000. After the acquisition by Hewlett Packard, Compaq fully devoted its Presario notebook designs towards the consumer...
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At this year's E3 show ATi was discretely showing their new multi-GPU rendering technology which until now has been held under wraps of the standard NDA embargos we've come to know and love here in the industry. Last week we were given a full briefing on the technology by the ATi team and were told sometime in the month of June, product...
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So what does a PC Geek and EIC for a Hardware Enthusiast site do on a holiday long weekend? Well, beside sipping a few umbrella decorated drinks by the sea, at night you can find this odd breed playing with the latest Tech Toys of course! This weekend I built a new high performance Workstation/Gaming Rig - something I haven't...
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In recent months, the race between the two major industry playersto bring dual-core processing to the masses has heated up. On April 4th, Intel delivered its first dual-core Pentium offering in the form of the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840. AMD was soon to follow, on May 9th, releasing its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4800+. ...
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Though clock speed is no longer a true measure of processor performance, it's hard to argue with a few hundred more MHz no matter which CPU architecture you'd consider. Regardless, it's clear the industry as a whole, as well as the world's largest chip manufacturer, Intel, has now embarked on an effort to provide more computing...
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Over the years, Asus has built a solid reputation for manufacturing high-quality products, that consistently match or surpass competing products in terms of both performance, features and quality. It is with that kind of backdrop that we present today's review of the Asus Extreme AX800XL. Based on the ATI Radeon X800 XL VPU, Asus...
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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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