Tech News

  • Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-150 Review Posted

    Published: Friday, November 21, 2003 | By: Dennis

    Chaintech has been known to build some very pretty and feature rich boards, in this review we look at a Zenith Series motherboard built with the nVidia nForce3 for the Athlon64.

  • What should I do if the Internet goes down?

    Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This little parody guide should see you though the thick and thin of any Internet outage, though you will need Internet access to read it. big grin smile
    "4. Install A Game
    In emergency situations, installing a single-player computer game can occupy your down-time. While it won't replace the adrenaline rush of intense networked multiplayer action provided by the Internet, a quick game of Sim City or Flight Simulator may distract you long enough for your connection to return."

  • Chaintech ZNF3-150 Zenith Review @ Extreme Overclocking

    Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: Dennis

    I have had some time with this board and can honestly say, I'm a fan. big grin smile Look for more comments on this board in the next couple of days.
    "The ZNF3-150 Zenith is based on NVIDIA's nForce3 chipset, which is on a single-chip architecture. This is much different from the typical North Bridge and South Bridge common to many types of motherboards. This allows for lower system latency and less power consumption. This is one of the major differences between nForce 3 and VIA's K8T800. The NVIDIA chipset also brings adds a lot of features to the ZNF3-150 as we will show you later."

  • ABIT AI7 Review @ [H]ard|OCP:

    Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: Dennis

    I haven't posted many reviews from HardOCP in the past but that is no reason to think they are bad. Check out this little snip.
    "In designing the AI7, it seems that ABIT took lessons from past mistakes to deliver a well planned out board layout. Everything on the board has adequate space so as to not get in the way of other components, as well as some unique implementation decisions as well."
    The funny thing about this statement, There is no space between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot, The floppy connector is located under the last PCI slot towards the bottom of the board, and it looks like you will need to remove the video card to install or remove any of the memory. I wouldn't really call that "well planned" but oh well. wink smile

  • Shuttle XPC SB75G2 Review @ The Tech Report

    Published: Thursday, November 20, 2003 | By: Dennis

    Here is an industry highlight, a Canterwood chipset in a SFF PC.
    "On the surface, the SB75G2 looks like a pretty standard 875P implementation, but Shuttle's take on Intel's Canterwood platform has a few unique twists that I'll be highlighting as we move along. Speaking of moving along, let's get started with the pictures of the all-black SB75G2."

  • Battle of the i865PE, Albatron and DFI

    Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This is a head to head feature shootout between the DFI Infinity 865PE (that we reviewed here) and the similarly equipped Albatron 865PE Pro II.
    "The performance was expected and the results received from these two boards are close to that of the i875P competition. However, performance aside these are extremely good value products. The DFI 865PE Infinity in particular offers extreme value, while the performance figures were better than expected the price tag of $110 US is hard to refuse. With loads of Serial ATA, a highly tweakable BIOS and the numbers to back it up, the DFI 865PE Infinity has scored both the Legion Hardware Performance and Value awards!"
    It is good to see that Albatron is still putting the floppy connector under the last PCI slot instead of moving all of the slots down and out of the way.

  • Corsair TwinX1024-4000PRO Review @ Intel Forums

    Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: Dennis

    "Much like the TwinX512-4000 kit, the TwinX1024-4000PRO consists of a matched pair of memory modules, pretested to "run at DDR500 (250 MHz) on a Canterwood-based dual-channel motherboard." The aforementioned PRO series of Corsair memory modules differ from the non-PRO modules by incorporating a redesigned heatspreader and 18 activity LED's. According to Corsair's ProSeries press release: "
    I have discovered that the 3200LL ProSeries memory is no slouch either providing some very good overclocking headroom while running at the SPD programmed latency settings. (2326) big grin smile More on that later.

  • Pentium to AMD Heatsink Conversion

    Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 | By: Dennis

    This is a pretty sweet mod and a nice solution for those that may be in a pinch for a heatsink.
    "It was envy at first sight! Someone (Serlv) on the forum posted a link to this beautiful Heatpipe made by Thermalright, then came the disappointment. It is "not available for AMD platforms", WTH, that's bullshyte."

  • AMD and Intel renew cross-licensing agreement

    Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 | By: Dennis

    VERY old news but I felt that I should post it since it will help explain why AMD processors look like Intel processors.
    "The companies have signed four patent cross-license agreements since 1976, said John Greenagel, an AMD spokesman. "Anything that we patent they can use, and anything they patent we can use," he said."

  • 2 asetek WaterChill Reviews

    Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 | By: Dennis

    asetek WaterChill KT12-L30 @ PimpRig
    " Oh momma! I must have been a good little AquaPimp cuz lookie what the cooling fairy left on my doorstep! On the review bench today we have the Asetek WaterChill kit. Specifically the WaterChill CPU/VGA/Chip set cooling kit - KT12-L30, Asetek’s 2nd generation top of the line kit."
    asetek WaterChill Review @ ViperLair
    "Although the Swiftech solution won the majority of the benchmarks, it is really a toss-up when you look closely at the numbers. I've read other reviews where the gap was much wider, and considering that this revision of the WaterChill is the latest, Asetek did an admirable job of closing the gap."
    For reference check out our review of the asetek WaterChill.