Tech News
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Asus A8R-MVP motherboard CrossFire on a budget @ Tech Report
Published: Monday, February 6, 2006 | By: DennisLeave it to Asus to break the mold. It's too bad other companies can't afford to be so bold.
"Fortunately, the CrossFire Edition chipset has an ace up its sleeve. Its north bridge is capable of interfacing with alternative south bridge chips, including those built by ULi. Asus has taken advantage of that capability with the A8R-MVP, a CrossFire-capable motherboard built with ULi's M1575 south bridge. The M1575 fills in many of the features missing from the SB450, and it shouldn't suffer from the I/O performance problems that afflict the SB450."
Phj34r my l33t ryme skillz
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4GB Xbox360 Hard drive @ xbox360Galazy
Published: Monday, February 6, 2006 | By: DennisConsidering how much I actually use my current xBox I really doubt I'll be spending any money on the 360. However for those that did here is a funky accessory for you.
"Now, I'm sure all of you are wondering how well this performs, and since it is a flash drive, it performs extremely fast. This drive uses the same Magicstor 4gigs microdrive that its predecesor for the PSP uses. We tried this system in several different ways and tried to transfer data as fast as possible, and did not experience any strange issues. But if you're looking for an alternative to the hard to find and expensive official Microsoft unit, then this is not the drive for you."
Flash memory without the boobs.
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Abit to change company name
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: Dennis"Following yesterday's announcement of USI's intention to purchase Abit Computer's motherboard business and brand, Abit announced a special shareholders meeting to discuss several items, including the disposition of Abit's Neihu building, changing Abit's company name, revising the company's "articles of incorporation", the disposition of the company's assets, and the release of the directors from non-competition restrictions imposed by Article 209 of Taiwan's company law."
Just think of how this effects poor ole Wendell.
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ECS PF22 Extreme @ Digit-Life
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisHere is another violet ECS board on the review block in that Russian lab called ixbt.
"The PCB layout is good: nearly everything is convenient, except for installing/removing memory modules in case of an installed video card. Both system fans on our sample worked fine during our tests. But ECS Extreme motherboards often come with fans that start howling after several days of work. The only jumper on the board (Clear CMOS) is easily accessible even when the motherboard is installed into a PC case. Brief description of its functions is published on the PCB. The 4-phase switching voltage regulator of the processor incorporates two filed-effect transistors per channel and thirteen 1800 uF capacitors."
Nice list, and of course it goes on, one of the Digit-Life signatures.
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ECS PF5 Extreme @ techPowerUp
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisECS has been known to make some pretty strange boards over the years and something about this one seems familiar, not in functionality or editor complains but in color and style.
"When I first hooked this board up to the test bench, I was surprised to see the PSU switch on an off repeatedly in fractions of a second, even though I never touched the power button. Usually this is caused by a short circuit. The PSU detects the short and turns off, then it turns on again, and so on."
Strangely enough I still have the board in question despite Soltek quickly killed it off for technical reasons. -
Running high VDIMM & low VCORE you risk to killing your Athlon 64 CPU
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: Dennis"Here's quote from Tony from OCZ who made the information public after he received the info from AMD themselves:"If you run a high vdimm and a low vcore with E die (revE, aka venice, san diego, manchester, toledo, newark, lancaster, denmark, venus, ..) you are running the risk of killing the cpu's. So if you have OCZ VX (or others) and you
are not raising the vcore on your cpu you stand a chance of pumping a lot of current into the memory controller and causing permenant damage."" -
Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 @ TechFreaks
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisWe’ve been hearing good things about this keyboard. Strange thing is when Microsoft introduced the "Natural" keyboards back in the 90's the public was all pissed off saying they were not natural and in some cases were worse than a standard straight keyboard. Personally I like the style and even find it difficult to switch between the natural normal versions.
"You can not benchmark a keyboard. When it comes to purchasing a keyboard, especially an ergonomic one, people are looking for comfort. Sure, price and fancy buttons may play a role, but it all falls back to the feel of the keyboard. This is where Microsoft Natural keyboards excel. Naturals have always had, as their name would suggest, a more natural feel over regular keyboards. Microsoft's latest edition to their Natural line, the Natural Elite 4000, takes comfort to an entirely new level."
The 4000 series is split, dipped, and curved to provide better key access and comfort. I would tend to agree. -
Chieftec BH02 Black with 400W PPU @ TweakPC
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisNice Case!!. Might have to look into getting me one of these.
"Geliefert wird das Gehäuse in einem blauen, im Vierfarbdruck gestalteten Karton, auf dem neben dem Tower selber auch die Besonderheiten des Gehäuses dargestellt sind. Das Gehäuse selber ist in eine Plastiktüte eingepackt und wird von zwei Schalen aus gepresster Pappe im Karton stabilisiert. Dem Gehäuse liegt neben einem Kaltgerätekabel auch noch ein Ferritkern, zwei Schlüssel und ein Beutel mit Schrauben und Abstandshaltern für das Mainboard bei."
uhhh, ya no clue what that says, for all I know it could be a cookie recipe. -
TTIC NPH WB K8-1 CPU Water Block Review @ Madshrimps
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisFor a waterblock this one does indeed look cool. Not as cool as the Ninjalane line of block we started to develop last year but cool enough.
"It was fun having this block inside my case, it has got "the looks" and it delivers stunning performance. This new water block from nPowertek proved its capabilities with the heat column design which can handle an enormous amount of heat.
There’s just one possible catch, nPowertek asked me to test the block with a powerful pump, because this block is very restrictive and a slower pump might not be able to get fresh water through the block fast enough."
This is a common problem with "micro fin/channel" waterblocks. The channels are small to promote heat transfer but require more pressure to work efficiently. -
Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 Review @ Overclockers Online
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2006 | By: DennisThere is nothing like a sexy red motherboard to brighten the day. Actually the only thing better than a red motherboard is a super sweet red video card to complement the offering. Sadly the "new" Gainward kind of blows and MSI needs to play katsup. I guess that leaves ATI branded cards, sheesh what is the world coming to.
"The layout of the board is good. The 24-pin ATX power connector is in a descent spot away from the socket area. Those installing long video cards may need to be wary of the caps next to the DIMM slots; the 6800GSs used in testing were long enough to pass by them, but they sit rather close, so be careful when inserting/removing long video cards. Something that's missing that I really like seeing are the color coded front IO jumpers. "
As if you need to access the jumpers after the board is installed, I mean really why bring Gigabyte into the picture when this is a Foxconn review.
