Tech News
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Nvidia reportedly talking with VIA about acquisition
Published: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 | By: DennisNvidia reportedly was in talks with VIA Technologies about a possible acquisition, but no deal was made due to the high price named by VIA, according to sources at motherboard makers.
Nvidia and VIA discussed three possible scenarios, including a strategic alliance, acquisition of only VIA's processor division, or the acquisition of the entire company, according to the sources. Though no deal was agreed upon, since VIA continues to see losses, the company is expected to open up negotiations again soon with a lower price, noted the sources.Via has so far denied the rumor saying that they are commited to the x86 line of products and does not want to give them up.
Personally I think they should do the merger, back in the day VIA was the way to go for motherboard core logic and then nVidia crushed them with the nForce2, seems only fitting they add the Cyrix line to the nVidia offering.
Then again this might also be a quest to divert attention away from AMD so they can swoop in and do a take over all hostle like.
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Sex, Drugs and Graphics Cards @ TweakTown
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008 | By: DennisWith a title like this who could resist?
It sometimes makes me laugh when I talk to people about my position here at TweakTown, and they think that being a reviewer must be the coolest job in the world. I suppose it’s similar to my line of thought that people reviewing $400,000 Ferraris have the coolest job in the world.
The thing is though, it’s not the glamorous lifestyle that people tend to think it is.All I can say is, damn this guy spot on!
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Stopping Vista From Thrashing Hard Disks to Death
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008 | By: DennisFor the first time in 8+ years I plunked down a healthy chunk of change to buy a new laptop. Seems my trusty old Micron TransPort ZX had started showing its age and would no longer work as a viable portable computing platform. So after some shopping around I settled on a 14.1" Asus V2 laptop. From a style and features perspective the Asus had exactly what I wanted (and then some) however came pre-installed with Windows Vista.
It didn't take long before I was longing for the speed of Windows XP but I told myself to tough it out and see if there were ways to improve performance before biting the bullet and upgrading to XP. Thanks for several guides including this one over at PCStats I can honestly say I have a system that is actually halfway responsive. Granted its still dog slow but at least now I can use the thing without having the HDD thrash around and waste my time.
If you're on the Vista bandwagon this guide is really worth a read. -
NL: Review Block - Cases and Crap
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008 | By: DennisMore review stuff, sans any real comments
Cases
- Mountain Mods H2gO Aluminum Cube Case Review @ OCIA
This is actually one of the coolest cases I've seen in a really long time, cept for those that happen to be cooler than this.
- Lian Li PC-A77 Full Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers
- DH Review: Ultra Microfly SX6
- Lancool Metal Boned K7 @ techPowerUpCooling
- Zalman Reserator XT Hybrid Liquid Cooling System @ Techgage
- CoolIT PURE Liquid CPU Cooler @ 3DGM
- Auras CTC-868 Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
- CoolJag Mini LED Flash Review @ OCC <- These are fans btwPhones?
- AT&T Tilt Review @ Digital Trends
- Samsung BlackJack II Review @ Digital TrendsPSU, kinda
- How Much Power Can a Generic 500 W Power Supply Really Deliver? @ Hardware Secrets
That pretty much concludes a long ass news posting. I hope you enjoy
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Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Socket 775 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008 | By: DennisGigabyte motherboards are usually a hit or miss when it comes to quality and performance but one thing always remains constant, blue PCB and extremely flashy colors!. This board happens to be based on the P35 and a fancy triple heatpipe cooler.
Gigabyte as long as I have known them, have never skipped out on presenting their motherboards in a very marketable fashion and this new board is no different. The white and pinkish colored box is filled with a world of information about the board but it mostly focuses on the energy saving features of the board.
I really miss the days of red motherboards, seems nobody uses them anymore, something about cost or the environment or something.
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NL: Review Block - Memory
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008 | By: DennisWell here is another review block, this time on memory.
- Patriot Memory PC2-9200 2GB EP DDR2 Kit @ Tweaktown
- Patriot Viper PC2-6400XLK 2GB Memory Kit Review @ Virtual-Hideout
- Patriot Memory PC3-15000 2GB Dual Channel Kit @ Viper Lair
- Corsair Dominator Twin3X2048 1800C7DFIN DDR3 Memory Review on Technic3D
- Kingston HyperX DDR3-1625 2GB Memory Kit Review @ ThinkComputers
- Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC3-12800 Kit Review @ ASE Labs
We had a really good meeting with Patriot at CES this year, but I'll be damned if they didn't go dark on us. Time to break out the mail bomber
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CeBit stuff from around the web
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008 | By: DennisAs many of you know CeBit (yes the big one) was last week and while many editors from the US attend it's mostly a huge party for the hardware sites based in Europe.
Ninjalane only attends 2 shows a year, CES in Las Vegas, and Computex in Taipei. We really have no desire to head to Hannover for CeBit even though we're asked about it every year.
It may be big and may be cool, but damn if its not in a sleepy corner of Germany surrounded by people that talk funny and hate Americans.- Driver Heaven: Cebit Coverage Day 2
- More Cebit 2008 Coverage @ OCC
- Cebit: Day 3 Coverage @ DH
- Final Cebit 2008 Coverage @ OCC
- CeBIT 2008: Girls @ techPowerUp (some hot ones, some not so much)
- CeBIT 2008 Coverage with more than 100 pictures on 11 pages @ OC Inside
- Cebit 2008 Coverage Part 1 @ Madshrimps
Not sure what happened to the others
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NL: Review Block - QNAP Reviews
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008 | By: DennisWe recently reviewed the TS-409 Pro from QNAP, and it would seem some of the other sites did as well. (well one in this case)
- QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbo NAS Review @ Hardware Canucks
Check out our review for reference.
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Its time to Spring Forward!!
Published: Sunday, March 9, 2008 | By: DennisFor those of us in the upper hemispheres and also acknowledge Daylight Saving Time don't forget that today is the day to make them clocks faster.
Of course in 2006 DST was later in the year but some idiot figured that if we moved it ahead 3 or some weeks we could save money. The proof is in the pudding as they say and well, independent studies concluded that we used 1% more energy instead of saving.
So here is a big "fuck you" to those geniuses.
Oh and don’t forget to move them clocks

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More ChipChilla and Coollink Stuff
Published: Friday, March 7, 2008 | By: DennisSadly Coollink didn't think of us when sending out review samples, but we'll see about getting that changed.
- ChipChilla - Chipset Cooler at Modders-Inc
- Coolink GFXChilla VGA Cooler Review @ DragonSteelMods
- Coolink Silentator CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware CanucksBlue fans unite!!

