Reviews
AMD's Athlon 64 FX-53 The FX Gets Its First Speed Bump... By, Marco Chiappetta March 18, 2004 Almost 6 months have passed since the initial release of the AMD Athlon 64. In September '03, AMD released two new desktop processors, the Athlon 64 3200+ clocked at 2.0GHz and a premium product dubbed the Athlon 64 FX-51, clocked at 2.2GHz. ...
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Chaintech Apogee AA5700U Redefining the meaning of mainstream By Robert Maloney March 15th, 2004 When we last checked in with NVIDIA before the holidays with our look at the 5900XT, we were surprised at its performance / price ratio. Releasing the 5900XT no less than two months after the similarly priced 5700 Ultra...
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The S3 DeltaChrome S8 & S8 Nitro A Veteran Re-Enters The Fray... By, Marco Chiappetta March 9, 2004 Anyone with even the slightest interest in PC graphics is aware that NVIDIA and ATi have had a virtual stranglehold on all segments of the add-in card market for the last few years. For hardcore enthusiasts, the names "3dfx"...
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Hercules Audio - Muse Pocket USB External Soundcard Audio at your Fingertips Jason R. Gibson February 29, 2004 Recently Hercules is punching out more new audio devices then you can shake a stick at. This time, they're back with yet another way of getting the groove from your computer to your speakers, the Gamesurround Muse Pocket. ...
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The GV-R96X128D 9600XT from Gigabyte High-End Quality at a Mid-Range Price By, Jeff Bouton March 2, 2004 When it comes to deciding on the perfect video card for your needs, manufacturers don't make it easy for the average buyer. While naming conventions are aimed at classifying the product so the consumer can decipher what they are getting,...
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ATi Introduces the HDTV Wonder Bringing High Definition TV to the PC By, Jeff Bouton February 26, 2004 While we are all sitting and watching the 3D Graphics card battles rage on, in the PC TV Tuner industry, competition is a little less prominent. While a lot of enthusiasts are caught up in the hype of whose video card is faster...
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Abit's Radeon 9800 XT 256MB ATi Invades More of NVIDIA's Turf... By, Marco Chiappetta February 25, 2004 Historically, with the release of each new core logic chipset, enthusiasts the world over eagerly anticipate what Abit has in store for them. From the original BH6, to their current flagship "MAX" line of motherboards, Abit...
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DFI LANParty NFII Ultra B vs. ABIT AN7 The Clash of the nForce2 Ultra's By: Tom Laverriere February 29, 2004 Fast, stable, feature-rich and affordable, these are just some of the words we have chosen historically, when speaking about NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset. Over the past year we have seen quite a...
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Diamond Multimedia's Stealth S80 A legend returns to the graphics market By Robert Maloney February 15th, 2003 Many seasoned PC enthusiasts fondly recall being the first on the block to have a high-powered Diamond Viper card in their rig, and boasting about it to their friends. Back then, Diamond and performance were nearly synonymous...
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NVIDIA ForceWare 55 Hands-On New Features for Enthusiasts By: Chris Angelini February 18, 2004 It used to be that graphics manufacturers dedicated themselves to incorporating nifty features into their hardware, besting the competition from a specification point of view, at the very least. Developer resources limit the usefulness of these...
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MAD DOG Entertainer 7.1 DSP Sound Card 8 Channels of Chest Pounding Sound By Tom Laverriere February 17, 2004 Many of today's motherboards are equipped with more than ample integrated sound solutions, which has made aftermarket sound...
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The MSI FX5950 Ultra-VTD256 NVIDIA's Flagship GPU, MSI Style... By, Marco Chiappetta February 12, 2004 After facing some fierce competition from ATi's R3x0 GPUs and fielding a mountain of criticism regarding questionable driver "optimizations", NVIDIA has had to deal with quite a bit of adversity as of late. They have also...
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Albatron's PX875 Pro Motherboard Power, Performance, and Good Looks By: Jeff Bouton February 5, 2004 Since the advent of Intel's i865 and i875 chipsets, the two have performed similarly, with a slight advantage going to the 875 and its PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology). Soon after the release of the 865 however, motherboard...
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Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Prescott And Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition Significant changes in P4 architecture bring future scalability By, Dave Altavilla February 1, 2004 During the course of the year in 2003, AMD and Intel were engaged in a rigorous competition of raw MHz versus IPC (instructions per clock cycle) marketing. While...
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Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Wireless Edition Performance Anywhere You Want It By, Tom Laverriere February 5, 2004 Ever since its inception, the nForce2 chipset has taken off and never looked back. It brings a lot to the table in terms of stability, performance, and most importantly affordability for the Athlon XP platform. The latest...
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Soyo's SY-CK8 Dragon Plus Motherboard A New Enthusiast Board for the Athlon 64 By: Jeff Bouton January 29, 2004 If all goes as planned for AMD, 2004 will be the year of the Athlon 64. They gave us a taste of their new product line in the last quarter of 2003, with a limited supply of Athlon...
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ASUS DRW-0402P/D DVD±R/RW Drive Review High Capacity on a Budget By Chris Angelini January 28, 2004 It's hard to believe that the very first DVD writers were priced in the neighborhood of $16,000, especially considering the current landscape of low-cost optical hardware. There's still a market...
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The Shuttle ST61G4 XPC ATi's Radeon 9100 IGP In Action... By, Marco Chiappetta January 26, 2004 A quick glance and Shuttle's XPC feature comparison table hints at one of the reasons why they have been so successful with their line of small form factor systems. Browse over to that page and you'll see that they have consistently...
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Hercules Video - Prophetview 920 Pro DVI A Gamer's Flat Panel And More Jason R. Gibson January 15th, 2004 It has been a while since we at Hot Hardware have taken a look at a new Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Back in March of 2001 my fellow H.H. colleague, Dave, ventured a look at one of the forerunners of modern LCD displays. Needless...
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Soyo Raptor SY-PS400 Adjustable PSU Review Not Your Father's PSU By: Jeff Bouton January 6th, 2004 When someone is getting ready to build their new dream machine, the power supply is often overlooked. Generally people focus on the performance side of the equation, getting the fastest CPU, hard drive and Memory they can afford, along...
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The AMD Athlon 64 3400+: The Athlon 64 Gets Its First Speed Bump... By, Marco Chiappetta January 6, 2004 AMD closed out 2003 by quietly releasing the Athlon 64 3000+. The 3000+ was clocked at the same 2.0GHz as the Athlon 64 3200+, and it used the same 754 pin socket, but it featured 512K of L1 cache, only half that of the 3200+. ...
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ASUS SK8V K8T800 Motherboard Review Socket 940 Platform Featuring VIA's K8T800 Chipset By: Chris Angelini January 4, 2004 They say it takes years to establish a solid reputation and minutes to destroy it, which is why the office Christmas party requires a delicate balance of business and pleasure. Dating back to 1997, the folks...
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