Tech News

• Gigabyte GA-8KNXP i875P Review @ PCStats

  Published: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "In terms of peripheral expansion, the Gigabyte 8KNXP features an 8x AGP Pro slot as well as five PCI's. The six DIMM slots can accommodate up to 4GB of ECC/Non-ECC PC2100/2700/3200 DDR RAM, however you can only use eight banks of memory. Each side of DIMM counts as one bank, so plan your memory early lest you be caught with six double sided DIMMs of which only four will be used."
  Kind of makes you wonder why they even bothered to include 6 dimms. Gigabyte was one of the first companies to release a Canterwood enabled motherboard and it’s good to see it can still run with the best of them.

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• Zalman ZM-WB2 Waterblock Review @ ModFathers

  Published: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "It significantly whopped the Altantis within the flow rate of a pump pushing at 600l/h, it must be remembered that the Atlantis was designed for a higher flow system. It performs better with a pump above 1000l/h, however with the success of blocks such as the White Water this high velocity / high turbulence design clearly has great advantages over the older higher flow ones."
  I’m quite surprised at how small the Zalman block is compared to some other that I've seen.

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• Dorkstorm: The Annihilation

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  These sorts of lists are hella funny.
  "Live Action Role Playing
  Distinguishing Characteristics: Aside from the barbarian clothes and giant monster heads, it’s impossible to know who might be LARPing. The only way to be sure is when they throw make-believe fireballs at you from their very fingertips, but by then... it’s already too late. "

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• Reaping and Sewing From Corn

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "Earlier this year DuPont announced a new polymer called Sorona that is used to make clothing such as swimsuits, negligees, carpets and upholstery. Sorona products are based on petroleum, but DuPont has joined with Genencor to engineer a microorganism to ferment sugars from corn and corn biomass that would replace the petroleum."
  And you thought corn was just for dinner.

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• Microsoft unpacks details of Longhorn storage

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "One of the most significant enhancements to Longhorn is a data storage system called WinFS, technology designed to make information easier to find and view. Clearing up long-standing confusion, a Microsoft senior vice president said that WinFS will work with--not replace--the existing file system in Windows, called NTFS, when WinFS debuts in late 2005 or 2006."

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• 'Subversive' code could kill off software piracy

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "Fade exploits the systems for error correction that computers use to cope with CD-ROMs or DVDs that have become scratched. Software protected by Fade contains fragments of "subversive" code designed to seem like scratches. The bogus scratches are arranged on the disc in a subtle pattern that the game's master program looks for. If it finds them, the game plays as usual."
  Pretty smart but I don't think it would be hard to get around.

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• NL: Review Block

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  phj34r the l33t 9r45pin9 ph0r p0w4!!
  
  Or something like that.
  
  - Aspire X-Alien Review @ 3dXtreme
  - Thermalright SLK-900A Heatsink @ BleedinEdge
  - Microcool NorthPole Northbridge Cooler @ TheCruible
  - Aerocool Extreme HSF Review @ Overclockers Club
  - Radeon 9800 Pro Volt Mod @ MadShrimps
  
  This review block to you by..

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• MSI 848P Neo-LS Review @ Extreme Overclocking

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  "When the Intel 875/865 chipsets were released, they became an instant success with the incorporation of an 800MHz FSB, dual 64-bit memory controllers, native serial ATA, and official support for DDR400. These features are nice, but do not come cheap. Not everyone can afford to dish out $100-$200+ just for a motherboard."
  This is a review of an i848P enabled motherboard from MSI, it's basically an i865PE with a single channel memory controller, not the most ideal solution for a gaming platform but the boards are cheaper.

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• Airflow and Heat: A cooling guide @ Short-Media

  Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 | By: Dennis

  Even though the site name implies "short" the guide is far from it. Actually they come to the same conclusion that many seasoned casemodders already knew. To many fans can actually be bad thing.
  "We would be lying if we weren't. It was our assumption that the tests with ALL the fans in operation would produce the best results but it didn't. Time to idle represents how effectively the configuration removes heat from the PC case. The shorter the time the better."
  The methods are rough but the info and diagrams help get the point across.

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• Cooler Master Cool Drive 4 Review @ GruntvillE

  Published: Monday, October 13, 2003 | By: Dennis

  Coolermaster HDD cooling at its best?
  "Cooler Master explains, "The CoolDrive 4 combines all of the functions of our newly released Aerogate II & the solid hard disk drive cooling device like our CoolDrive 3. It provides you solid protection for the hard worked data, the convenience of being able to monitor 4 different important component temperatures, as well as controlling all 4 corresponding fans.""
  Is it good? Hard to tell since It really depends on where you place your sensors. The front of the drive will be cool due to the placement of the fan but the back will be as hot if not hotter than the drive without the cooler.

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