Items tagged with review
The ASUS P4T533 i850E Motherboard Review i850E Armed with 32-bit RIMM 4200 By -Chris Angelini and Dave Altavilla June 17th, 2002 ASUS first earned acclaim with the hardware enthusiast community for building reliable motherboards that deliver industry-standard performance. Their products often feature value-added integrations, such as IDE RAID, USB 2.0 and C-Media?s six-channel audio processor (as opposed to the software codec many manufacturers opt for). Accordingly, ASUS boards often command a premium price. The P4T533 is no exception, coming in at more than $300. The price doesn?t tell the whole story however. Along with the motherboard, you also get a 512MB...
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The Matrox Parhelia 512 Matrox Re-Enters The 3D Graphics Ring - Big, Bad and Pretty By -Dave Altavilla May 14, 2002 We know you've been waiting for this, haven't you? Of course you have. Since the launch of the Matrox G450, we don't know of any hard core PC Hardware Enthusiast that hasn't been waiting for Matrox to step back up to the plate, with a new high end 3D Gaming Graphics card. It was then that Matrox Graphics made a conscious decision to step back from the ridiculously competitive 3D Graphics scene and watch as giants fell. Perhaps their next generation 3D Gaming chip was not ready for prime time or perhaps they just didn't want to duke it out in the down...
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The Shuttle AK35GT2/R Motherboard Review Improving on a Proven Design By, Jeff Bouton May 16, 2002 We see a lot of hardware come through the Hot Hardware labs. Every once in a while a piece comes along that stands out from the rest, making a lasting impression. A few recent items that come to mind is the Hercules Game Theater XP, The Visiontek Ti Series video cards, and the Shuttle AK35GTR motherboard. The AK35GTR was a real champ. Built around the KT266A chipset, this board didn't have the flash and pizzazz of other high-end motherboards, but it delivered where it mattered most, in quality, performance and, of course, overclocking. In fact, if you were to...
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The eVGA e-GeForce4 Ti4600 Video Card with ACS2 A "GeForce" To Be Reckoned With By, Jeff Bouton May 7, 2002 eVGA.com is a relative newcomer to the video card market, starting their operations in 1999. Although they may not be a household name just yet, we have a feeling that things are about to change for this "new" company. Becoming a major player in a market that is fiercely competitive is no small task, however. Early on, eVGA realized that they had to offer the user a product line that would give them something the other manufacturers couldn't. For starters, the team at eVGA put together a patented install software package, dubbed ADM (Automated...
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The ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 Review Will The Real All-In-Wonder Please Stand Up? By, Jeff Bouton April 22, 2002 ATi has been manufacturing video cards and other multimedia products since 1985 and was one of the earliest companies to institute the concept of a combination TV/Video card. The theory seemed simple, combine a quality graphics card and TV tuner into a single PCB, that would give the consumer the best of both worlds in a single product. And so the ?All-In-Wonder? product line was born. These days, ATi has been releasing new models of the ?All-In-Wonder? at a feverish pace, with three new versions since last fall alone, the All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV,...
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The ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 Review Not Just a TV Card By, Jeff Bouton April 4, 2002 I'm sure if you asked any computer enthusiast to name a manufacturer of combination TV/Graphics cards, there is little doubt that many would say "ATi." We're not saying that they are the only game in town but it is hard to argue that they haven't carved out quite a niche for themselves. With competition from players like Hauppague, as well as the relatively recent edition of nVidia, with its "Personal Cinema" product, ATI still holds a major share of the combination TV/Graphics card market. What sets ATI apart from the rest, is that they were one of the first to pioneer...
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The MSI KT3 Ultra ARU Motherboard Review KT333 Muscle and All the Trimmings! By, Jeff Bouton March 24, 2002 This evening we will be taking a look at the new KT3 Ultra ARU motherboard from MSI. This is the first of what will surely become a long line of motherboards to incorporate the new VIA® KT333 chipset. The new chipset offers a number of new features to help propel its performance beyond that of the popular KT266A. In addition, the system comes with the VIA® VT8233A Southbridge chipset which brings a number of new standards to the table as well. The main claim to fame of the new VIA® KT333 Chipset is the added support for PC2700 DDR RAM, allowing for 2.7GB of...
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The ASUS A7N266-E Motherboard Review An All-In-One Powerhouse! By, Jeff Bouton March 6, 2002 Not satisfied with being a dominant player in the commercial graphics market, nVidia recently made the leap into the chipset market. In some ways it seems like the perfect move for the graphics giant to take. What better way to secure their dominance as a chip maker than to take on a part of the market that has needed a serious shot in the arm for quite some time? Prior to their efforts, it was accepted by most of us that on-board graphics were just meant for simple 2D capability. Not many of us ever really questioned that fact. It was what it was, and if you wanted...
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The Shuttle AK35GTR Motherboard Review Raising the Bar on Quality and Performance By, Jeff Bouton February 12, 2002 Over the last several months, you have seen us report on a growing number of motherboards based on the KT266A chipset from VIA. Review after review we?ve gone over the virtues of this very popular chipset, which is perhaps the most popular and successful chipset VIA has produced to date. While the similarities of these motherboards lie with their respective chipset, the relationship usually ends there. With varying designs, features and qualities, each motherboard manages to present various differences to help them stand out from the rest of the pack. ...
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The Acorp 7KT266A Motherboard Review More KT266A Action In The House! By, Jeff Bouton January 23, 2002 Today we'll be reviewing the latest in a long line of KT266A motherboards to move through the H.H. labs, the Acorp 7KT266A. Although some of you may not have heard of them, Acorp has been around for a number of years and remains one of Taiwan's top manufacturers of computer hardware components. The 7KT266A is one of the newest additions to a well established line of motherboards. With the praise that the KT266A has garnered over the past few months by reviewers and users around the world, it is no surprise that Acorp made it their chipset of choice for...
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The DFI AD70-SR Motherboard Review More KT266A Lovin' In The House! By, Jeff Bouton December 6, 2001 DFI has been long known for producing quality motherboards with great stability, but they usually lacked any innovative features. With their latest release, the AD70-SR, DFI hopes to break with tradition. Incorporating the high performing Via KT266A chipset, on-board RAID and overclocking feautres, the AD70-SR brings a decent amount of muscle to the table. There is no doubt that the KT266A chipset has been getting a lot of praise these days with its top of the line performance, making it a virtual no-brainer when it comes to deciding which chipset should be in the center...
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Intel's Pentium 4 2GHz. Socket 478 Processor Breaking through the 2GHz. ceiling with ease By, Dave Altavilla August 27, 2001 Alright, I'll admit it... I was a William Shatner fan. That is to say, when old Bill played the all powerful James T. Kirk, I couldn't help but admire his swagger and command of the situation. Unfortunately, times change and old Bill finds himself stooping to the level of lame Priceline.com commercials. He's merely a shell of the man he use to be. Ahh, but I can still hear the words echoing in my head, "we must have more power Scotty!" Yes sir, ol' Bill sure did know how to command attention, back in the day. Well, much...
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Intel's "Tualatin" Pentium III 1.20GHz. Processor Encore From a Classic By, Jeff Bouton July 31, 2001 Not long ago, the rumors of a new Pentium III processor called "Tualatin" began circulating around the internet. The occasional article claiming information or pictures of the "yet to be announced" processor would crop up, offering us a little glimpse of what was to come. Some of you may have heard of the new .13 micron process, or maybe that it required less voltage than previous Pentium III's. For me, my first glimpse was a screenshot of a 1.26GHz. chip from Taiwan with 1.475V stamped on it and a large silver shield hiding the die. Information...
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Gigabyte's GA-6OXM7E i815 Socket 370 Motherboard It sure looks nice...but how does it perform? By, Marco ?BigWop? Chiappetta 11 / 2 / 2000 The hardware community had been eagerly anticipating a worthy successor to the mighty 440BX chipset. When Intel released their 133MHz FSB capable "Coppermine" Pentium IIIs it was time to also replace the aging BX chipset with a more feature-rich, capable part. The BX lacked native support for AGP4X, UDMA/66/100 hard drive transfers and wasn't designed to fully support FSBs greater than 100MHz. To compensate, Intel released the i810 and i820 chipsets to handle the needs of these new Coppermine processors. There were many issues to deal with should...
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The Iwill KK266Plus KT133A Motherboard Its Nice, but DDR is here... By, Marco Chiappetta September 27, 2001 Recently, we were presented with the opportunity to review one of Iwill's Socket-A motherboards. We haven't had much experience with Iwill's products here at HotHardware, so we jumped at the opportunity to get their KK266Plus in our lab. There is no denying that Iwill has made quite a splash lately, releasing a string of high performing, well equipped motherboards targeted directly at the enthusiast market. The board we'll be taking a look at today, the KK266Plus is a "revamped" version of their original KK266R, based on the VIA KT133A chipset. The KT133A has...
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MSI's 694T Pro Motherboard Let's Shed Some Light on the Subject By, Jeff Bouton September 6th, 2001 When one thinks of quality motherboards, several manufacturers come to mind, one of which has to be MSI. For over 15 years, MSI has been producing some of the finest computer products on the market and today we've reviewed yet another, the 694T Pro Motherboard. This model being the first of their motherboards to sport the new VIA Apollo Pro133T Chipset, offering support for Intel's new "Tualatin" processor. With the promising results we've been seeing with the last few "Tualatin" capable motherboards, I was eager to get the...
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Shuttle's AE25R Motherboard Twice The Fun By, Jeff Bouton September 25th, 2001 It seems like it was just yesterday when I was running a state of the art 486 processor at 33MHz. and a whopping 16MB of RAM. A hot new game called Doom had everyone talking and I had just installed a brand new 2X CD-ROM drive in my rig. Since then (thankfully), the industry has seen a steady influx of new technologies, as well as improvements upon existing ones, that have raised the bar of performance to what at the time seemed improbable. Countless times through the years we?ve heard statements that a certain product had reached its limit, and a few months later the limit would be...
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Soyo's SY-TISU Motherboard All Overclockers Welcome By, Jeff Bouton August 20, 2001 With the July release of Intel's new Tualatin processor, we are seeing an ever increasing number motherboard manufacturers incorporating support for the new processor into their designs. And why not? The PIII Tualatin CPU, based on a 0.13-micron manufacturing process, it capable of running at faster speeds while requiring less power than its predecessors based on a .18-micron process. Marry those qualities up with the i815EP's B-stepping and you have the makings of a high-performance system, capable of running virtually any of today's most intensive applications. Today we are spotlighting...
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The CDI InWin Alaska 3 "Cool Case" Practical? Maybe Not...Worth it? You bet! By, Marco Chiappetta September 20, 2001 It's upgrade time. Picture yourself browsing all of the best on-line retailers looking for great deals on all of those high-end parts you've been dying for. Only the best of the best will do Your new rig will be the pinnacle of performance and functionality. Your shopping cart is comprised of the most sought after video card, tons of RAM, a huge hard drive, the fastest CPU and the motherboard is an overclocker's dream The list goes on and on. But where are you going to house all of this killer hardware? You didn't...
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Intel's Pentium 4 1.8GHz. Processor Yielding additional gains in performance By, Dave Altavilla July 2, 2001 You may have heard this before but as the old saying goes, "image is everything". When it comes to microprocessors, MHz./GHz. speeds are typically what draw a consumer to a product. At this stage of the game, Intel seems to have that part of the routine down cold. Our latest lab test of the Pentium 4 Socket 423 Processor clocks in at 1.8GHz., a full 400MHz. ahead of their rival (now nemesis) AMD. Even though the numbers don't lie, so to speak, clock speed only paints half the picture. As such, in an effort to get you on the inside track,...
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Elsa Gladiac 920 Video Card More GeForce 3 Action! By, Jeff Bouton October 11, 2001 When it comes to graphics cards, there is no arguing that ELSA is among the industry leaders. For over 20 years they have been producing top quality graphics cards, as well as other computer peripherals geared toward both the commercial and industrial markets. For years they have been specializing in professional level graphics boards engineered for use with graphically intensive design applications such as CAD. Today we will take a look and one of their latest commercial boards geared for folks like you, that just want our games to run smoothly and look great. The...
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The 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP An "In House" PREview and Test Of Alpha 2 Product By Dave "Davo" Altavilla 4/24/00 This product review needs no introduction. We have been waiting a long time for the next coming of Voodoo Graphics. In what seems like a deluge of market hype over next generation 3D Graphics chipsets from various vendors, 3dfx unleashes one of their most lethal weapons in the battle for 3D dominance. Currently in an "Alpha 2" stage, we received, what 3dfx would classify as their mid range product, the Voodoo5-5500 AGP. We at HotHardware want to emphasize again that the board we will show you in the following pages, is indeed...
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