Tech News
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Epox EP-MF570 SLI nForce 570 SLI Review @ PC Stats
Published: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 | By: DennisMotherboard makers go to great lengths to make their products stand out from the competitors either by coming up wtih a unique product or including stuff that you wouldn't normally expect.
" Epox include a collection of eight small blue VRAM heatsinks (with adhesive one side) which can be stuck to anything you think needs a little extra cooling. They are a the perfect size for the motherboards' power MOSFETs in fact. MOSFETs regulate the electricity for the processor and can become hot during operation. Like any electrical device, keeping it cool is a good idea."
I would agree, keeping cool is a good idea.
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Low Cost Liquid Cooling from Asetek released
Published: Sunday, October 8, 2006 | By: DennisIt would seem that watercooling is coming in all shapes and sizes now. If you remember Coolermaster had a cooling solution very similar to this new one from asetek, with a few less features.
"Traditionally, liquid cooling was only relevant for the enthusiast markets - that is until Asetek’s solution. Up until now liquid cooling systems have always had one or more drawbacks, such as being bulky and built of many separate components interconnected by a lot of hoses, high cost, insufficient reliability and life span.
All this is history now, as Asetek has changed the standard for how liquid cooling is made, thereby making liquid cooling a compelling choice for any OEM or ODM." -
Foxconn Winfast N570SM2AA Motherboard Review Posted
Published: Sunday, October 8, 2006 | By: DennisIn this review we will be looking at one of the mainstream motherboards from Foxconn called the Winfast N570SM2AA, This is a nVidia nForce 5 series motherboard featuring the 570 SLI chipset and DDR2 memory.
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AMD to postpone DDR3 adoption, first quad-core K8L resident Socket AM2+
Published: Tuesday, October 3, 2006 | By: Dennis"Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has postponed launch of its Socket AM3 processors to the middle of 2008, from an originally scheduled third-quarter 2007, according to motherboard makers. AMD's first quad-core K8L desktop processor, the Altair, originally set to utilize the Socket AM3 connector, will be resident in Socket AM2+, indicated the makers.
The difference between AMD's Socket AM2 and Socket AM2+ is that the former adopts HyperTransport 1.0 and the latter HyperTransport 3.0, the makers indicated. Socket AM2+ is considered a transitional solution for AMD's K8L CPUs, the makers added." -
HP buys VoodooPC
Published: Friday, September 29, 2006 | By: Dennis"Hewlett-Packard has acquired Canadian gaming computer designer and manufacturer VoodooPC for an undisclosed sum.
On the closing of the deal, which is expected in November, H-P will form a separate unit within its personal systems group that will focus on the gaming industry. VoodooPC's co-owners, Rahul Sood and Ravi Sood, will become chief technologist and director of strategy of the unit respectively. H-P's Phil McKinney will become general manager of the unit. "
Now here is a story.
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DFI denies will exit motherboard channel market by 4Q
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 | By: DennisIf you look at the market share charts you'll see a drastic decline in DFI since the release of their LanParty series of motherboard. It was at this time that DFI went from a behind the scenes OEM builder to a front line player in the motherboard market. Strange how even with more press comes less money.
"Recent rumors have circulated that Diamond Flower International (DFI) may give up the motherboard channel business by the fourth quarter of 2006. Not being one of Taiwan's top-tier motherboard makers, a possible exit from the motherboard sector could encourage DFI to make an all-out effort to target the industrial PC (IPC) market, sources speculated. Nevertheless, according to DFI, the company has been focusing on enthusiast and high-end motherboards and has maintained close cooperation with Nvidia and ATI Technologies. On that basis, DFI has no plans to withdraw from the motherboard channel market, said the company."
btw didn't Chaintech denounce a similar rumor right before they dropped off the media map? -
XClio GREATPOWER X12S4P3-550W Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers
Published: Monday, August 21, 2006 | By: DennisWe don't normally report on power supplies however being that I just bought the 650W edition of the one featured in this review it seemed fitting.
"XClio is a relatively small branch of the Meridian Technology Group that started out making mainly computer enclosures. As with most companies, they soon started expanding their product lines to include PC accessories as well as power supplies. Although they aren’t a big name in the power supply side of the house, they have offered very reliable and stable units in the past. XClio has recently released their newest line of power supplies, the GreatPower series, to meet the ever higher demanding requirements of today’s power hungry systems.
Today we’re going to be looking at one of their lower powered units, the GreatPower 550w to see if it can standup to the power demands of today’s systems as well as enthusiasts and the demands they put on a PSU through over clocking and the use of extreme cooling solutions."
Spec wise I still like the Antec NeoHE 550, however despite the superior power specs it would seem that reliability is a short in the dark. -
DFI Infinity NF UltraII-M2 Review @ PC Modding Malaysia
Published: Monday, August 21, 2006 | By: DennisWhoa! a green PCB from DFI. I would have expected the gold/brown board color long before a bright green one. Something tells me that this board isn't a production sample.
"Here we have a top-down view of the DFI Infinity NF UltraII-M2 motherboard. Instead of black coloured PCB found on their LAN Party series, the Infinity UltraII-M2 is based on a generic green coloured PCB. While the PCB color may look generic, the layout is totally out of the box. Judging by the CPU socket and DIMM slot layout, we believe this motherboard is influenced by the LAN Party UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert and RDX200 CF-DR motherboards." -
2 Part AM2 Overclocking @ Legit Reviews
Published: Monday, August 21, 2006 | By: DennisEver wondered what you could get out of an AM2 system?
"When the dust finally settled we ended up with our test system topping out at 280MHz in the BIOS, which resulted in our test system running at 3071MHz. With the additional cooling help from the Nautilus 500 we were able to increase the voltage to 1.6V on the core and increase the overall frequency of our processor by 70MHz!"
This is a two part article so be sure to read them in order.
- Overclocking the AMD A64 4200+ AM2 Processor @ Legit Reviews
- Overclocking The AMD 4200+ AM2 Processor Part 2 @ Legit Reviews -
Nvidia to soon provide SLI support to Intel
Published: Friday, July 28, 2006 | By: DennisCue the Music, and give me a beat!
"Now that it has the resources of AMD behind, ATI Technologies is confident that it will be able to produce more compact, faster GPUs while being to reach the channel more effectively, and the graphics chip maker has indicated its rival is now standing alone in the market.
However, industry sources have indicated that Nvidia will soon announce that it will allow support of its SLI technology on Intel's chipset platforms, with the two companies already having met to discuss the partnership.
Intel met with Nvidia recently to seek ways to avoid any negative impact sprouting from the recent merger between AMD and ATI , the sources indicated. "
The funny thing is, back when nVidia was first making chipsets they would only do so on the AMD platform due to the high licensing costs on the Intel side.
