T.G.I.F News Edition..

Date Posted: Friday, January 31, 2003, 5:19:14 AM

Author: hitek

The MoBorg Case Mod Project @ Viper Lair "I paid only 12 euros for all three big boxes of mainboards. At a other sales-stand I bought a cheap, and rather standard looking case, also for 12 euros. Once we arrived back home, T-Mug helped me out by first testing all of the mainboards, and the few that were still operational were put aside. With the rest of the broken main boards and the newly bought case, I started my case modding." More information on this project can be found here. Project: Nightwing @ DeviantPC "The square in the centre is the one you should be looking at so ignore the other one (mistakes happen). The position of where the fan would go was marked out so that it would be in the centre of the bezel. The exact centre of the fan was also marked on the bezel so that the blowhole would be central. As with cutting any blowhole the steps and precautions needed to be taken are always the same." More information on this project can be found here. Case Modding Sunbeam Style @ Tweaktown "Computer case modding has became so popular that it has featured in the world's largest newspapers, captivated many users worldwide, and changed the marketing strategy direction of many mobo and graphics card manufacturers to please the growing enthusiast market. Today Shawn “Toxic” Baker gives us a run down of a company who is dedicated to the case modding user, Sunbeam in Taiwan - and we aren’t talking about the Kettle and Toaster makers either before you ask!" More information on this review can be found here. Albatron Ti4200P Turbo Video Card Review "Albatron used Computex 2002 in Taiwan to launch their company and since then they've released many solid motherboard and video card products. Being a follower of nVidia, they have released products on nVidia's full range of GPU's. Today Cameron "Sov" Johnson checks out their Ti4200P Turbo video card based on GeForce4 Ti4600 technology, with the overclocker in mind. If you cannot afford the asking price for a Ti4600, stop and check out the Ti4200P Turbo from Albatron!" More information on this review can be found here. SOUND CARD Sound Sensitive Cold Cathodes Released @ Lux-Design (c) 2003 Lux-Design "The new SOUND CARD Sound Sensitive Cold Cathode light includes an optional cathode setting for sound sensitive mode. This mode plugs directly into your sound card and will allow the cathode to blink and react to sound whether that be a gunshot in your favorite action shooter, or your favorite music. Specifications: - Three settings: On/Off/Sound Sensitive - Length: 12.25 inches of pure light. - Diameter: Demand +/- 350mA at 12VDC. - Average Current Damand +/- 4.3w. - .75 inches Encasing - Huge Lifespan More information on this new product can be found here. Voyeurmods 48 Hour Tax Relief Event! (c) 2003 VoyeurMods "Starting at 12:00am MST on January 31st 2003, we will be marking down the ENTIRE store for our "48 hour Tax Relief Sales Event! All items in the store will be reduced by an automatic 15%. Some items already on sale will be even lower. Please start your shopping early, quantities are limited. Some items will be available for backorder. If an item is backordered, you will be notified in the "My Account" area. This sale ends on February 1st 2003 at 12:00am." More information on this sale can be found here. TherMagic CPU Water Cooling System Review @ MaximumPDA "Why water cooling, what’s wrong with the standard heatsink fan combo? A year or two ago that would be a valid question that could only be answered by the most hardcore of system cooling enthusiasts. In today’s 2Ghz and up PC’s the shear size of the heatsink has gotten out of control and can weigh up to several pounds in the more extreme set-ups. That’s a lot of copper sitting on your P4 or Athlon processor/motherboard added to the weight is the fact that in some setups the motherboard actually flexes or bows up to a half an inch or more to accommodate the massive heatsink/fan’s mounting system that is required to keep it attached to the board. Of course the boards are designed to flex for these types of applications but that doesn’t mean that you’re not as nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs while attaching such a system." More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech H20-8500 Water Cooling Kit Review @ Modtown "The fantastic guys over at Swiftech have sent me the Swiftech H20-8500 Water Cooling Kit with optional MCW50 GPU Water Block. When I first saw this kit I thought to myself fantastic looking piece of kit. I am a lover of blue and to have a full kit where each piece of the hardware was blue it was a great bonus, now did it perform as well as it looked?" More information on this review can be found here. Maximizing Flow Rates in a Water Cooling Setup @ ProCooling "My systems have always had T connectors with a fill line in the past. Not because that is the best way to fill and bleed a system (in fact it isn't especially great at either) but because of space. I never could seem to find the space for a reservoir in my cases because they were either small (PC-50) or crammed full of hardware (all the others). So I stuck with a fill line and a T and waited from a few hours to a few days for the lines to clear of air (if they did). This has been the weak link in the ease-of-use of all my water cooling setups." More information on this guide can be found here. Shuttle S.F.F XPC SK41G Review @ Hexus "The chassis feels solid to the touch and the buttons are sturdily mounted. The feeling of quality continues from the initial impressions. There's a blue LED that glows when the unit is in operation - a nice touch. The business end is down at the bottom. Shuttle have kept the same configuration on each XPC that I've looked at. A 5.25" and 3.5" bay take up most of the space at the top." More information on this review can be found here. FlashDisk 64mb USB Drive Review @ Mikhailtech "Size wise the FlashDisk is pretty small; only slightly larger than a container of Chapstick, a few quarters' in length and smaller than a Samsung R225m phone. The miniature dimensions of flash drives in general is what makes them so attractive; they're even more portable than a floppy and much more durable than a CD. Being a fraction of the size of a Zip disk and requiring no other device to make it work, this is the best form of portable storage in my opinion. Unfortunately, it comes at a price. You're paying a lot more per megabyte than you would with a CD, DVD, Zip, LS120, whatever. This is the trade-off for portability." More information on this review can be found here. Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe Review @ Bjorn3D "So what is the difference between the 2000 XP and the 2000 XP Deluxe? Stereo! The older XP model did not support stereo and the newer XP Deluxe does. A few other things have changed as well. The remote is improved and the remote control receiver cable is longer. Software versions have been updated and the drivers are Windows XP Certified." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Nexus RheoBus Review @ Overclocker Cafe (c) 2003 Overclocker Cafe "I decided to hook up every fan I could find to the thing and see what happened. After telling my wife to go get the fire extinguisher, I hooked up all the case fans (5) in the Cooler Master, the Heatsink fan, the fan on my GF4 cooler, and 4 more case fans I had lying around. I figured I might as well make sure, right?" More information on this review can be found here. Corsair PC 3200 Part 2 @ Nexus Hardware "Recently, I received a new motherboard, and now I’m more prepared to handle the extreme speeds capable of todays DDR. I also recently reviewed a stick of Corsair’s XMS PC3200 CAS2.5, however, we were not able to run the ram at its full potential. Equipped with a new motherboard, we hoped to do better!" More information on this review can be found here. Sumbeam Cold Cathodes Review @ Think Computers "Most of you have seen tons of cold cathode reviews all over the net. A lot of people think a cold cathode is just a cold cathode, "they are all the same". Well I once thought that too, until I took a look at Sunbeam's cold cathodes." More information on this review can be found here. Tweakmonster Rev. 3 Lightstrip Review @ OCIA "As you can see, the lightstrip gives off a nice purple haze. Keep in mind that the light given off by the strip is not near as bright as a cold cathode. The goal of the lightstrip is not to flood the area with light, but to give individual components a nice glowing accent. Users can simply place the strip inside of their PC to help illuminate hardware or you can choose to make a project of it." More information on this review can be found here.

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Thursday News Edition..

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2003, 11:11:40 PM

Author: hitek

You're Never Too Old to Mod Your Box @ System Cooling "The modding craze has caught on with young and old alike, the difference being that as we get older, we tend to become more conservative in our likes and dislikes. As I fit into the latter category of enthusiasts, I decided to mod my personal box in a manner that would best suit my personality." This article must have been named after MTB! More information on this guide can be found here. How To Build a Power Supply Article @ PimpRig "The power supply is perhaps one of the most overlooked components in a computer. It takes dangerous high voltage coming out of the wall and converts it into multiple lower voltages for use with digital electronics. Many people don't even give a second thought as to what their power supply is or what it does. Understanding how a power supply works, however, can provide insight into such common computer symptoms as the infamous "blue screen of death", random crashes/reboots, and data loss." More information on this guide can be found here. Pre-Modded Chieftec Case Review @ Sound Card Central "There are vast amounts of companies now that produce pre-modded cases for the computer. The case has become one of the main focal points for a persons computer, and many people like to mod their own to really make it stand out. Then there are the people who just don't have the time or skill to mod their own cases (like me) so they buy pre-modded cases. In the eariler stages, there wasn't much of a choice in the pre-modded selection, but now, there are hundreds of different pre-modded cases one can buy, and they can eve be customized to ones liking." More information on this review can be found here. Computer Exhaust Systems RACHEL Review @ XtremeMods "With the increase in computer speeds more heat and noise being generated by your computer. As a result it may become undesirable to be anywhere near you're loud and hot computer. ComputerExhaust.com is developing a new technique where the hot air and some of the fan noise from your case is directed through a pipe that leads into your wall." More information on this review can be found here. Corsair XMS3500 Memory Review @ ExtremeMhz "A while back we compared the performance of multiple flavors of the Corsair XMS series memory modules, and their performance relative to our reference Crucial brand memory. As expected, the Crucial memory performed admirably, but it could not keep up with the Corsair modules when subjected to the most stressful of conditions. The winner of the competition came as no surprise; the Corsair XMS3200 led the pack and maintained a commanding lead over Crucial and its XMS siblings. Today, ExtremeMhz will throw the XMS series 3500 into the mix to see what new levels of performance can be achieved." More information on this review can be found here. OCZ Technologies PC2700 Rev 3.2 DDR Review @ Viper Lair "This particular module overclocked to 428 MHz. The module was able to run at the most aggressive timings up to 400 MHz, at which point it would not boot. Upping the timings to CAS 2.5 with a RAS to CAS delay of 2 allowed the memory to boot and complete all of the stress tests. Above 400 MHz the memory would not operate properly unless we upped the voltage to 2.7 Volts, at which point the module would successfully complete the Memtest86 loop." More information on this review can be found here. ABIT AT7 Max2 vs IT7 Max2 Comparison @ The Modfathers (c) 2003 The Modfathers "When the topic of motherboards came up, very few manufacturers created comparable platforms for both AMD Socket 462 and the Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478. Then, just as I began to lose hope ABIT released the MAX2 range, interesting as they were, I was hesitant as they simply looked to good to be true. Like for like motherboards?” More information on this review can be found here. Leadtek WinFast XP2000 Deluxe Review @ Modtown "Also known as 'CoolCommand', supplied with the card is a remote control. This is an extremely useful addition to the package, all of the cards major functions can be accessed and controlled remotely from your home computer." More information on this review can be found here. Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro nForce 2 Motherboard Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "The Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro is as fast as our current champion, the Epox 8DRA+. It is not too strong in the overclocking department, but hey, people do not buy a system/OEM board to overclock. Future BIOS releases may increase it stability somewhat. All in all, a good system board for system integrators but not overclockers." More information on this review can be found here. Firefly USBee and Translucent USB Drives Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Firefly USBee and Translucent USB Drives are small, lightweight and portable which makes them very convenient for data storage. Since it allows a very quick method of backing up, transferring/receiving, transporting data it a must have for staying mobile." More information on this video review can be found here. Unreal II: The Awakening Screenshots "3DGameman has the latest preview pictures from the upcoming Unreal II: The Awakening. The screen shots look amazing and the game which is story line driven looks very promising." More information on this preview can be found here. Thermalright's SLK-800 Review @ TechTastic "The SLK-800 is considered the top of line heatsink from Thermalright. It features an all copper design with superbly crafted fins. To keep the heatsink snug to your processor, a well designed 3 lug retention clip is included. Also included with the heatsink is some thermal grease and eight circular cushion pads. One thing that becomes obvious when you pick the unit up is how heavy it is. The SLK 800 weighs in at 505g with out the fan!" More information on this review can be found here. Xoxide's Caffeinated Soap Review @ OCIA "Now it seems as though the soap is not infused with caffeine in the same manner as coffee. The soap has countless little brown/dark yellow flakes throughout that come off as you wash. Given the surface area of the skin, and the fact that these flakes come off during washing, the claimed dosage of approximately 250mg of caffeine per serving is entirely feasible." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Z-640 Speaker System Review @ Designtechnica "With ever increasing applications for speakers (new game, computer, & theater systems) as well as new standards (5.1, 6.1, Dolby, THX, etc.) audio makers are constantly aiming at a moving target. The latest two releases from Logitech (Z-640 & Z-680) aim to fill all the home needs at two very competitive price points – and do very nicely. But after last year’s award winning Z-560 series that may come as no surprise. Read on to see how the Z-640 compliments Logitech’s speaker line-up." More information on this review can be found here.

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Wednesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2003, 12:20:11 AM

Author: hitek

OCZ DDR PC3700 Review @ OCAddiction "While the OCZ PC3700 is actually rated at 466MHz, my system is simply not capable of running at that speed. However, I was able to reach 460MHz effectively and while doing it, had the memory at the most aggressive settings possible. That is what is truly amazing about this memory. While OCZ claims these memory sticks are capable of 466MHz at CAS 2.5, hitting 460MHz at CAS 2/5/2/2 is nothing short of amazing. Also notice how Cpu-Z recognizes the memory modules at PC3700, whereas most other memories are recognized simply as overclocked PC2700." More information on this review can be found here. Seagate Barracuda SATA V HD Review "The ST3120023AS uses an 8MB cache to enhance performance. Combined with the 2 60GB platters and 4 Heads to utilize the full 120GB of space on the platters. On paper, it seems to be a winning combination, but let's hold off until we see the results." More information on this review can be found here. SysFx provides Water Cooling Gear with a Twist! (c) 2003 SysFx "If you are in the market for new water cooling gear or are contemplating purchasing new modding equipment for your rig, SysFx has a new line of custom liquid cooling, kits, cases, lighting, mods for your practical or xtreme computing needs. SysFx is passionate about providing the best water cooling gear on the market as well great customer service and support. Their line of PT-188 series based pump tank combinations are some of the most unique and case modder friendly products that I have seen on the market. MTB will be working with SysFx over the next few months to showcase some of these brand new products." Be sure to head over and check them out. More information on this company can be found here. Swiftech Press Release - MCX4000T™ Thermoelectric Heatsink Assembly for Intel® Pentium 4® processors (socket 478) "The MCX4000-T™ is a fully assembled air-cooled thermoelectric (Peltier) solution designed to manage thermal loads of up to 100 Watts. The product is intended for applications where liquid cooling is not an option. Features highlights: -226 Watts Thermoelectric module -Optimal cooling capacity: will dissipate 70 Watts continuous thermal load to ambient temperature with 80CFM fan. -Hybrid copper base, thin aluminum pin heatsink: thanks to it's massive 3/8" thick copper base, the MCX4000-T™ is the first commercial air-cooled heatsink on the market capable of absorbing, and dissipating the combined thermal load produced by a thermoelectric module of this class, and the latest generations of Intel® micro-processor. -Patented Helicoid pin design (U.S. patent 6,469,898) : pins are individually machined in an helicoid shape, to increase their surface area, and further enhance heat dissipation efficiency. Suggested MSRP: $94.95 (U.S) More information on this new product can be found here. Logitech Cordless Elite Duo Review @ 3DXtreme "The elegant and comfortable Logitech Cordless Elite Duo delivers maximum freedom, performance and value. It combines an ultra-flat cordless Zero-Degree Tilt™ keyboard with the high-performance Cordless MouseMan® Optical." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Z-680 THX Certified Speaker Set Review "The total RMS wattage for the whole set is 500 watts, while the peak is power is 1000 watts. True Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround sound with built-in hardware decoding, Dolby Pro Logic® II decoding creates a 5.1 soundfield from two-channel sound sources round out the features of this incredible package." More information on this review can be found here. Albatron PX845PE Pro II Silver Review @ Review Nation "The 845PE is Intel's newest chipset for their Pentium 4 processor, supporting 533Mhz FSB and DDR333 memory. The chipset also supports Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, which has been around for some while in their Xeon processors but has only recently become available for the Pentium 4. In case there still is someone out there who doesn't know what Hyper-Threading is (in which case just where have you been?)." More information on this review can be found here. scopEBox: The watercooled LAN rig Project "I already had something in mind when I began to explore this idea a bit further. I had my heart set on a Chili microATX professional case which is one of the smallest and definitely one of the coolest miniature cases on the market. The question was could I really pull this off? Would I be able to water-cool it? What kind of CPU temps would I get from it? Am I totally off my rocker (don't answer that)? Well let's find out and see shall we." More information on this project can be found here. Nest Case Review @ Think Computers "The last case I looked at from Custom Cases was the Feel IV case. The case was very stylish and not expensive at all, but it lacked space. Custom Cases sells case that are not very expensive, but are very stylish. Today I will be looking at the Nest case from Custom Cases. This case is very visually appealing." More information on this review can be found here. *EXCLUSIVE* CaseArts "Red Cherry" Dragon Case Review @ Virtual Hideout (c) 2003 Virtual Hideout "This CaseArts "Red Cherry" Dragon case hits a grand slam with a fantastic package at an extraordinary price. With a finish so strong, smooth, and detailed, right down to the tiny reset button, the few minor internal blemishes almost don't deserve to be mentioned at all. That's just how much the good outweighs the bad. Also, before I forget, I want to mention that there was NO sticky buttons or doors anywhere on this case. If you've ever felt a homemade painted case, you've probably dealt with the typical sticky buttons and stuck doors because the paint is too thick. That's not the case here, the finish was so thin and smooth , it feels absolutely factory done. Might be because IT IS factory done! Even the feet swing out smoothly and do NOT scratch the paint off. The finish is baked on and seems to be as strong as any typical factory finish. That's a great thing." More information on this review can be found here. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra Preview @ Hexus.net "The card has some special features which we thought we should mention now. It has a industry standard connector for extra power feed, which even though you can boot Windows without this connected, the drivers warn you about this. The cooling is a mixture between the ABIT OTES cooling, and the latest MSI cooling. There is a lot of copper on this card and it is all bolted in very tightly." More information on this preview can be found here. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra Preview @ [H]ardOCP "The card we have today is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra reference board with a clock speed of 500MHz and a memory speed of 1GHz DDR2. There has been lots of talk about NVIDIA controlling production of the first GFFX cards to hit the market, but since this is a "reference board", we are still going to label this article a PREview. We will be visiting actual retail cards when they become available to us." More information on this preview can be found here. Shuttle SN41G2 Barebones System Review "The introduction of the SN41G2 also marks the debut of the new G2 case design for the XPC product line. Sporting a cleaner and richer design than the usual case, the SN41G2 has enough style to fit in with any high-end components in a home theater setup. The brushed aluminum finish is complemented by a blue and orange sequence of bright LEDs which illuminate the area around the buttons. Fortunately, Shuttle has not sacrificed functionality for style. Looking at the front of the case, we see a number of various ports In total, we have access to an SPDIF, Mic, Headphone, 2 USB 2.0, and one Firewire port." More information on this review can be found here. CoolerMaster X-Dream (HAC-V81) CPU Cooler Review @ Overclockers Club "Around here (East TN) the temps have been in the low teens (°F) for the past week or so, and with outside temps like that, keeping my computer cool, really isn't that hard to do. However, in the summer when things get up into the 90's I'll be more concerned about keeping my precious CPU cool. My family doesn't much care for my Tornado powered MCX462, so I've been looking for a new HSF that'll keep things cool and allow me to tone things down a bit when the computer isn't being used. That's where Cooler Master's new heat sink, the X-Dream, comes into play." More information on this review can be found here.

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Tuesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 28, 2003, 1:16:22 AM

Author: hitek

Kingwin Black Aluminum-Mg Alloy Case with 3 Windows Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Kingwin Black Aluminum-Mg Alloy Case has style and functionality written all over it. This case includes: Aluminum-Mg alloy construction, 3 clear acrylic windows, 4 front USB ports, 1 front firewire port, 1 front microphone jack and earphone jack, 5 ball bearing case fans, removable motherboard tray, and more." More information on this video review can be found here. January Budget Gamers PC Guide @ RipNet-UK "We'll be starting up a new build-your-own-PC guide here at RipNet-UK, with me writing them. We'll be getting $1000 of cold, hard, cash to build the best gaming rig we can. Those of you who complain that's too expensive, go buy a console. PC gaming is not for you. $1000 is pretty much the absolute minimum for a budget gaming rig, because any lower than that and you'll be upgrading very soon. And then it just adds back up to $1000 or more. So let's get cracking!" More information on this guide can be found here. Project BigBlue @ OCHardware (c) 2003 OCHardware "OCHardware.com is proud to bring you Project: BigBlue. This is the first of what we hope to be many articles featuring modded cases. In this article Holley, the cases' creator, will share his secrets that were used in the making of the case. From stock to masterpiece, you will know exactly how it was done and how it can be recreated." More information on this guide can be found here. 3 1/2" Four Channel Rheobus Review @ OCIA "As you can see the device is pre-made, so there is no assembly required to install. This is unlike it's baybus counter-part which required drilling out a case face plate in order to install. While it is fun to mod your case, I for one am a huge fan of plug 'n play." More information on this review can be found here. Nexus Fan Controller Review @ PCReviewSpot "Vantec has chosen to use a more sophisticated, higher-quality method - Pulse Width Modulation, or PWM. This works by digitally encoding the power signal which passes to the fans, and pulsing it at variable intervals as defined when turning the knobs. For example, if you wanted 6V instead of the default 12V coming from the power supply, the PWM control chip would turn on the signal for 50% of the time, and the other 50% the signal would be off. It does it so fast though, that you do not realize it and the fan will spin in a smooth continuous motion. This is great because it will only draw half the power (a resistor would draw a full 12V and dissipate 6V as heat), and will not dissipate virtually any heat." More information on this review can be found here. Abit IT7 Max 2 V. 2.0 Motherboard Review @ Nexus Hardware "Abit has been in the computer industry since 1989. Since then, they have established themselves as one of the industry leaders for enthusiast based computer products. Today I have the 2nd implementation of the IT7 Max, the IT7 Max 2 V.2.0. Abit has put together yet another board aimed at the enthusiast market, and hopefully it will perform as well as some of their previous boards." More information on this review can be found here. OCZ PC 3500 EL Review "Yesterday, I got to review one of the finest 845PE boards I’ve seen to date. The 845PE chipset brings a lot to the table. One of those things is a thirst for memory bandwidth. The 845PE allows for much faster memory speeds and impressive gains over older chipsets can be made due to this. Today I have a stick of ram that can fully take advantage of the 845PE chipset. Introducing, the OCZ PC 3500 EL DDR ram." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Stealth VAN-470A Review @ Monkey Review "Each PSU delivers power, some a little more efficiently than others, but they all carry the same drawback: with the increase of power, you guessed it, you generate more heat. So this, in itself creates a new problem. Vantec has done a good job of remedying this issue by using 3, yes 3, double bearing fans which can be adjusted via rear switch. You have the option of selecting "Slow", "Medium", or "Auto". The "Auto" setting relies on an internal sensor to detect the temps, and adjust the fans accordingly to meet these needs. I've looked at PSU's with a similar feature; Antec's True Power Line offers a similar feature but lacks the switch, which I really like." More information on this review can be found here. Monitor Makeover Part II @ TwistedMods (c) 2003 TwistedMods "With all of the emails I received about heat issues after the first monitor makeover, I decided to do a follow up article. Monitor Makeover Part I brought you something new and innovative, a monitor window. In by performing this mod, you not only did something new and innovative, you did something dangerous and daring! In this guide, I'll show you how to take a little danger out of future monitor modding as well as a few new enhancements for your freshly modded monitor." More information on this guide can be found here. Asus V8420 Deluxe GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB DDR Review @ 8BallsHardware "Asus is one of many competing hardware manufacturers that have a stake in the graphics card market. While being more known for their top quality motherboards, they also produce some fairly impressive graphics cards to boot, one of them being the Asus V8420 Deluxe Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB DDR graphics card on review at 8BallsHardware." More information on this review can be found here. Meritline USB Notebook Light Review @ Mikhailtech "USB lights in general aren't that popular because, as we'll see shortly, while they do offer some functionality and quite a bit more pizzazz, they're not justifiable enough for mass marketing, though for under $20 a pop it just might make for a nice stocking stuffer. 11 months from now. Anyway onto the kit. The packaging is pretty scarce, as should be the case; there's nothing else aside from the light itself. No software is required (and therefore it'll work on any OS, so long as your computer has a functional USB port) and although it is USB2.0 certified don't get your hopes up, it won't shine any brighter." More information on this review can be found here. Sunbeam Tech UV Fans Review @ Icrontic "Light up your PC without flooding the room with unwanted light. UV Fans may not be a new concept but Sunbeam Tech made UV Fans self-illuminating. There is no need for buying a UV CCFL tube to activate the bright and vibrant colors of these fans. Sunbeam Tech took their CCFL Fans and transformed them." More information on this review can be found here. Sunbeam UV CCFL Fan Review @ ExtensionTech "I can't seem to find another UV CCFL fan review on the web myself, so this maybe the first. Regardless, have you been waiting for the Sunbeam UV version of the CCFL fan to get widespread? Me too! I was lucky enough to get one from Sunbeam Tech. A little news on some upcoming products that you may be interested in is located at the end of the review also. So come have a look! And please try and enjoy the first movie I have made for a review." More information on this review can be found here. CES 2003 Coverage: Parties and Events @ Futurelooks "A show like CES is truly for the Media! For those of you that couldn't be there, Futurelooks has taken the time to give you a glimpse of the side of CES that only the few, the proud, the Press get to see. The Beach Boys and The Blues Brothers await!" More information on this event can be found here. New contest for Water Cooling Case + Extras @ Overclocker Cafe "The Overclocker Café is continuing its series of weekly giveaways. The drawing for this Saturday February 1, is for a beige X-Aqua H20 Extreme water-cooled case plus the winner’s choice of video and CPU block as offered on the Xoxide website. Folks may enter up to once per day to take home this case and goodies." More information on this contest can be found here.

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Monday News Edition..

Date Posted: Monday, January 27, 2003, 1:02:35 AM

Author: hitek

DDR RAM Guide II @ Overclockers New Zealand "By now, many of you would have seen our original ram guide, which has a total of 15 modules, ranging from DDR-266 to DDR-400 varieties. Sadly, we were not able to push some of the modules to the maximum as the trusty Abit KR-7A maxed out at 200 MHz. (pretty amazing for a stock KT-266A board) In order to remedy the situation, we've upgraded to the latest Epox 8DRA+, which allows a more aggressive timing and higher FSB, maxed out at 218 MHz." More information on this guide can be found here. Lian-Li PC65U Case Review @ Viper Lair "The only thing keeping me from 100% recommending the Lian-Li 65U is the fact that almost everyone has one, or some variant of it. I wouldn't exactly call it a clone, but if you look at the Skyhawk MSR-4610, it looks a lot like a Lian-Li. This is a really petty thing, I know, but the fact that your dream machine is going to be housed in a case that doesn't stand out like it used to makes it lose a little of its lustre." More information on this review can be found here. Ex Xbox Controller Guide @ Blagged-Hardware (c) 2003 Blagged-Hardware "So you like your Xbox controller do you? Wish you could use it on your PC also? Well, with a fairly simple soldering job, you can do just that. The Xbox is essentially a stripped down pc, and uses USB for its controllers, so all you have to do is change the Xbox plug end to a regular USB plug end, and viola, Xbox controller goodness on your PC." Very cool! More information on this guide can be found here. Lux Design Aerocool X-Factor HSF Review @ Virtual Hideout "The X-Factor is based on an extruded-fin design, with fins radiating outward from a center that encompasses a copper core, a design that has been featured on other heatsinks before. The heatsink is about regular size in terms of its footprint, but isn't tall, being only 28mm in height. This comes into effect later on as the implementation of the clip design futher shortens the fins' effective height. The fan utilized is a 70mm square by 15mm thick unit. While the frame of it is made out of aluminum, the blades are still plastic and have merely had a metal finish applied to them. It flows a respectable 32cfm." More information on this review can be found here. Quick LED Fan Comparison "The best feature that's been very consistant with all these led fans, is there's no additional powering of the leds needed. Meaning, it's practically an invisible feature you gain with "0" drawbacks. That's a very good thing and actually pretty rare in modding products. It seems alotta times when you gain something that's bright or has lights, you've got that annoying extra power cable or inverter for it, not with led fans. They look like an ordinary clear fan until you turn them on." More information on this review can be found here. Lian Li Aquarium Side Panel Review @ Overclocker Cafe "Right from the get-go, this review turned out to be the most fun I've had with a review in a while. My two kids had to come and watch me, to see how I was going to "make fish appear." I was expecting at any minute one or both of them to go and get a fishing rod." More information on this review can be found here. Gigabyte Maya II Radeon 9700 Review @ TweakTown "Simply mentioning the words "GeForce FX" sends a shiver down the spine of enthusiast’s users in the tech community as its retail release draws near. Don't forget about the graphics company from Canada though, ATI still currently have the speed crown in the Radeon 9700 Pro. Gigabyte are one of the third party manufacturers who switched to ATI from nVidia and today Cameron "Sov" Johnson takes a look at their Maya II Radeon 9700 - a cheaper, cut down version of the Pro version." More information on this review can be found here. GeForce FX Q&A with nVidia "We have just posted our GeForce FX Q&A interview with Hazel Heng, Marketing Manager of nVidia Asia in Singapore, where she was kind enough to answer our questions regarding their upcoming GeForce FX." More information on this interview can be found here. Kingston HyperX PC 3500 Review @ Nexus Hardware "Kingston recently has recently released memory that is geared towards the gamers and enthusiasts crowd. This memory is called Kingston HyperX PC3500. It is rated at an astounding speed of 433MHz DDR CAS2-4-4-8-1T. Kingston’s engineers carefully designed and qualified these modules to their rated speed. HyperX modules are designed to push the limits of the enthusiasts’ computers. Lets see how they do!" More information on this review can be found here. Thrust Master Firestorm Wireless Review "There are a plethora of different game pads to choose from these days. However, shopping for them can be quite difficult. You try and take into account the price, features and comfort of the unit. Today we will look at Thrustmaster's Firestorm wireless, hopefully this wireless technology will perform well, I have enough wires on my desk as it is!" More information on this review can be found here. I-TEE Case Review @ DeviantPC (c) 2003 DeviantPC "Quick release mechanisms were first seen in Chieftec’s cases but even with this the slides had to be screwed to the drives. The i-Tee’s system is truly a tool free process. The cooling in the case takes the form of two 80mm fan grills mounted on the side of the case. The fan grills also fit 60mm fans; these are supplied. Surely, adding two 80mm fans (now the defacto standard really) wouldn't have been too much trouble?" More information on this review can be found here. EasyHardDisk 20GB USB 2.0 Review @ Envy News "In the dozens of USB Flash drives, Flash memory storage products, and portable drives we've reviewed to date, not one offered the best of all the features we sought - affordability, portability, and performance. However, a new and exciting product we're looking at today offers all three. Enter EasyDisk's first foray into hard disk based storage - the EasyHardDisk. Packing a performance punch that wrecked our other two portable drives in our labs, this 20GB model does not disappoint." More information on this review can be found here. SIIG Serial ATA PCI Card Review "When it comes to storage technology, the buzz is all about the new standard on the block: Serial ATA. Serial ATA, or SATA for short, is one of the more revolutionary steps that is taking place in the computer industry. No more do consumers have to put up with those wide IDE cables that block airflow or deal with rounded cables that may be shielded just enough to prevent major data loss; the days of trying to plug in drives without bending pins or playing with jumpers are now coming to an end as well. Ultra-fast transfer speeds, tiny cabling, and hot swap ability are now available to those that are equipped to use it." More information on this review can be found here. ABIT BG7E Motherboard Review @ Whining Dog "The ABIT BG7E is a great solution to those of you who don't need it all but want just enough to get things going. The BG7E is a stable platform for the Pentium 4 Processor with support for HyperThreading should you decide to upgrade to an H-T enabled Pentium 4. Perhaps the best part is the fact that it's an ABIT board - and with that comes options and flexibility. Thus if you're shopping for a solid system for that Intel P4 of yours, consider the BG7E - you won't be disappointed. We'll be using this board as a baseline comparison for all other P4 boards to come." More information on this review can be found here. Akasa PAX.mate Acoustic Absorption Matting Review @ ModTown "There are many different products out there to reduce PC noise. Today I am looking Akasa's PAX mate absorption matting. The idea behind this product is to reduce noise that is emitted from your PC case via fans etc. This is achieved by lining the inside of the case with the material in an effect to stop sound leaking out of the case." More information on this review can be found here.

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Weekend News Edition..

Date Posted: Saturday, January 25, 2003, 10:03:23 AM

Author: hitek

Vapochill Premium Edition Review @ OCPrices "With the advent of the Athlon, such a low powered device barely provided tangible gains over water-cooling. Higher and higher power peltiers are now available, but given that to be effective, the peltier must be of a rating around 1.5x the thermal output of the CPU to be effective, the combined dissipation of the peltier's hot side means that you need SERIOUS cooling to dissipate heat from the peltier (we are talking a watercooler with at least 2 radiators here!). What I am trying to say in a very round-about manner is that in order to get extreme cooling from a modern PC, (a Pentium 4 running at just 2GHz outputs over 90W) you really do need a professional super cooling unit." More information on this review can be found here. Thermaltake P4 Spark 7 Highest Performance Cooler Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Thermaltake P4 Spark 7 Highest Performance Cooler outperforms most other coolers that are currently on the market. Cooling performance is great even in the 3GHz+ range, has an adjustable fan and a fantastic clip design for super easy install and removal. Also, you get all of this at a reasonable price." More information on this review can be found here. Iomega HDD 80GB USB 2.0 Ext Hard Drive Review @ HardwareZoom "No software is required as it is designed to be plug and play. The round port at the back of the drive that looks like a PS/2 port is actually for power input. Next to it is the connector for the USB 2.0 cable. However, you will need to run Windows 98SE and above to enjoy the bandwidth of USB 2.0. For Mac users, you will need OS 8.6 or above and Mac OS USB v1.3.3 or above. Once you plug in the drive and powered it up, a removable drive will appear in Windows Explorer and a drive letter will be assigned automatically. You can immediately browse the content or read and copy files like a floppy disk." More information on this review can be found here. BFG GF4 Ti-4200 Review @ Overclocker Cafe "We overclocked our Asylum Ti-4200 using the Coolbits registry hack. In doing so, we discovered why the BFG seemed to in most every test; barely edge out the ABIT card. What we expected to find was the core clock speed set at 250MHz and the memory clock set to 500MHz. What we saw was that the memory speed of the BFG card was defaulting to 513MHz instead of the expected 500MHz. This is not enough to get big gains or in a tizzy about but it does explain the constant 1-2 fps advantage the BFG card has shown so far." More information on this review can be found here. Tt G4 VGA Cool Mod Review (c) 2003 Overclocker Cafe "The frame rates and temperatures from our modifications speak for themselves as far as raw performance. Some small but not insignificant gains. What I want to get back to is that the VGA CoolMod is geared more as a higher performance visual mod. Meaning, you don't buy a neon chipset cooler and not think about the neon." More information on this review can be found here. MSI MX440 8x Graphics on a Budget @ TweakTown "While graphics designers, programmers, and hardcore enthusiasts await the retail launch of the upcoming GeForce FX from nVidia, many forget the huge and very lively value market, with users who have a budget to consider. One of the current value solutions on the market is the GeForce 4 MX, and today Cameron "Sov" Johnson takes a look at MSI's MSI MX440 8x graphics card based on this very chip from nVidia." More information on this review can be found here. Cyber Cooler Anodized Aluminum Dual Fan HDD Cooler Sale @ The Cutting Edge (c) 2003 The Cutting Edge "Cyber Coolers aluminum HDD coolers come in 7 great colors to match anybodys case. At just 5/8" tall and with 2 ball bearing fans it packs a lot of cooling power in a small space. The 4 pin connector has a male connector on one side and a female on the other to allow for hooking up another component without having 2 plugs. Comes with mounting screws and instructions. Specifications: - Anodized aluminum for great looks - 2 ball bearing fans - 4 pin pass through connector with 9 inch lead - Extends HDD life - Adds stability - Easy instulation - Comes with mounting screws Right now all 7 colours are on sale for $5.49 (U.S). The sale starts this weekend and ends on Friday January 31st at midnight." More information on this sale can be found here. Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra Motherboard Review @ Icrontic "As NFORCE2 motherboards chip away at the top ranks the KT400 chipset seems in jeopardy. Gigabyte had a successful run with the popular 7VAXP motherboard. The Ultra series is the next step up. The Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra motherboard comes with an absolutely impressive amount of features. Accessory after accessory come out of the box before the motherboard finally appears. On the surface Gigabyte appears to have put together one of the most user friendly purchases that has been seen to date." More information on this review can be found here. Soltek SL-75FRV KT400 Motherboard Review @ TweakersZone "Today on the review table we have a motherboard from Soltek - the SL-75FRV KT400 motherboard. Soltek was founded in 1996 and they manufacture a range of motherboards, graphics card and also USB cards. The SL-75FRV KT400 motherboard includes features like, AGP 8X and DDR400 support and the VIA Apollo KT400 chipset." More information on this review can be found here. SunBeamTech's 4 Port Rheobus Review @ Xtrememods "Nowadays, people just want to get the quietest possible system. Some people will do anything as they simply hate the noise but with modern systems, nearly everything has to have a fan including the Graphics card, CPU, Chipset & PSU whereas at one time, nothing but the PSU did." More information on this review can be found here. Shielded Round IDE Cables Review @ Viper Lair "Unless we're talking about SCSI or proprietary devices, IDE cables are fat and have a large amount of surface area, causing IDE to be one of the main culprits when trying to find airflow obstruction. So, as many a computer "modder" has done before, people started to improvise - they started to cut up their cables lengthwise, and twist their cables, or enclose them in heat shrink-wrapping or using cable ties to keep the wires tightly bound together, in a "rounded" shape." More information on this review can be found here. Pro Race Driver (PS2) Review @ Ascully.com "Code masters is promising the most immersive racing experience ever by enveloping gamers in the heart of a global racing championship with the announcement of Pro Race Driver. Retaining the series' core values of close-contact racing with real cars, real teams, real track, real drivers and an astounding damage engine, Pro Race Driver introduces a character-based narrative and episodic storyline. The game blends real world global championships with a fictional cast." More information on this review can be found here.

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T.G.I.F News Edition..

Date Posted: Friday, January 24, 2003, 11:22:15 AM

Author: hitek

ASUS A7N8X nForce2 Motherboard Review @ ExtremeMhz "Everyone in the computer enthusiast community is familiar with the Asus name. This top tier manufacturer has been producing and delivering high quality offerings across their very considerable product line for over 13 years. Asus' products include notebooks, graphics cards, optical storage, PDAs, and assorted server, desktop PC, and communications equipment. To us they are best known for their motherboards. Regardless of what the requirements may be; full featured to value priced; enterprise to SOHO, Asus has a mainboard that will fit the need. Today, ExtremeMhz will be reviewing the Asus A7N8x motherboard based on the nForce2 chipset." More information on this review can be found here. AOpen AK77-8XN Motherboard Review @ Overclockers Club Canada "I read up as much as I could find on this board before acquiring it, but this came as a shock to say the least. AOpens website, under "key features" for this board, states, "CPU Jumper-less Design" and "1MHz Stepping CPU Overclocking". A good lawyer could probably make their case BUT you have to set a jumper for the basic levels of 100, 133, 166 and 200 fsb." More information on this review can be found here. Asus P4G8X Deluxe Motherboard Review @ Hexus.net "At first glance the Asus P4G8X Deluxe looks very much like any other motherboard until you notice that there are four Ram slots split into groups of two. This signifies that the board has the capability of dual band DDR. Looking more closely we also see some other interesting features like a serial ATA raid controller, a Broadcom Gigabit on board network chip and a Molex power connector on the motherboard." More information on this review can be found here. Voyeurmods.com Hot VEXX Deal! (c) 2003 VoyeurMods "MTB has received word from our good friends at VoyeurMods that they have reduced the price on their popular VEXX Mid-Tower Case. Right now the case has been reduced from $89.95 to $75.00 (U.S). The sale will run from 12:00am MST on Friday the 23rd until 11:59pm Saturday the 25th. Here are some feature details: - High Gloss Automobile finish (you pick the color) - Large Side window - 2x QUAD 80mm Fans (you pick the color) - 80mm Stainless Steel Laser Cut Grills - 350 watt power supply More information on this sale can be found here. Zalman ZM80-HP GPU Cooler Review @ The ModFathers "The second that this thing thuds on the doormat, as the sweating postman walks down the road, you know this is no "normal" cooling solution. When you look at the packet you are immediately hit by how many parts there are to this kit." More information on this review can be found here. Magnum 390 Water Cooler Mod @ Dark][Tweaker "Dark][Tweaker has posted a new guide. Last week we have converted our Magnum 390 water cooler, you know, the cool heatsink made of copper. A new cover from Plexi and a small LED mod transformed the radiator into a completely new model." More information on this guide can be found here. Nexus Multi-Function Panel Review @ TechTastic "Now that you have upgraded and overclocked your computer, a little insurance is in order. With computers getting faster, there’s always a concern of overheating your CPU and hardware. To the rescue, comes Vantec with their Nexus Multi-Function Panel." More information on this review can be found here. Spire Neon Bar II Review @ myWORLD Hardware "Case modding has been quite popular these day. After such a great effort in modding the case, you will surely feel the sense of satisfaction and admiration of your work. One most common thing when it came to modding was the lighting. Most of the case modder used to use the neon lights." More information on this review can be found here. 15" Kiss Technology Widescreen TFT Review @ DeviantPC "The screen defaults to a resolution of 1024*768 and 60hz refresh with a PC, and native resolution depending on the input such as a camera. The Coolview is very easy to look at if it is used for DVD playback or server monitoring, but for general web browsing and work the clarity and contrast became very noticeable. As such the TFT would be misplaced as a primary monitor; despite its low profile it is not really suitable for this purpose." More information on this review can be found here. AeroCool AB7080 Socket A Cooler Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "All in all, the AeroCool AB7080 is an average HSF, with okay performance and a tolerable noise level. The only thing that makes it stands out is the easy engaging clip." More information on this review can be found here. Everglide CaseWraps Review @ LAN Party (c) 2003 LAN Party "Are you bored of your old white or beige case that makes your computer look like it has no personality? Have you ever found yourself dreaming about one of those fashionable boxen sitting quietly behind your favourite computer shop window? Everybody has at least once in his lifetime considered giving case modding a try to make their case look hot, but most of the people pass it off with the excuse that it would be too difficult and expensive to be worth the try. Today, Casewraps brings us a new way to case mod by proposing a quick and easy way to change your computer's personality. Add Everglide to the mix, who have associated themselves with this project to allow you to customize the designs, and match them with their other products." More information on this review can be found here. Chic Intelligent Wireless Keyboard Review @ Spode's Abode "Now I have plenty of keyboards, I even have one that is totally waterproof that you can fold up. But I didnt have a black one and neither did I have a wireless one - so I ordered it, and at only £10 it was a steal." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Cordless Elite Duo Review @ OCAddiction "The reason behind Logitech's naming of the keyboard "elite," is the superior functions the keyboard boasts in comparison to Logitech's other keyboards, or any other manufacturer's keyboard for that matter. Perhaps the greatest quality in this duo that should be the deciding factor in purchasing one, is the simple fact that it is cordless. It is however, important to remember that not all wireless peripherals are created equal! With both the keyboard and mouse, I was able to take approximately 25 steps away from the receiver and still maintain connectivity. That's at least 20 feet away. I was also able to control my computer from a different room, showing the fruits of Logitech's smart decision in using RF (radio) technology instead of infrared." More information on this review can be found here.

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Thursday News Edition..

Date Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003, 9:05:53 AM

Author: hitek

AMK PC75 PC Case Review @ Icrontic "The AMK Computers PC75 PC case has always been a favorite. It is roomy. It has a multitude of features. It looks great. And it is expensive. For the extravagant few who want to splurge then this PC case will more than satisfy. We got together with AMK Computers and took the PC75 one step further...yes it's moddin' time. Hang on as there's over 65 images for the full tour! More information on this review can be found here. Koolcases Aluminum Silver Case Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Koolcases Aluminum Silver Case is a very stylish product that comes standard with two 80mm Sunon fans, drive rails, removable HDD cages, front USB ports, side window, all aluminum construction and more. This case has all the looks and space needed at an amazingly low price." More information on this video review can be found here. SamCheer PC90 Titanium Case Review @ BurnOutPC (c) 2003 BurnOutPC "Great cases are hard to find these days, Cheiftech and Lian Li are currently the most popular for most enthusiasts out there. Lian Li has enjoyed the top spot for best brand to find for high quality aluminum cases. But that's my personal opinion. SamCheer enters the very competitive case market with their solution for you." More information on this review can be found here. Quiet MP Dual-CPU Workstation Guide @ SilentPCReview "SilentPCReview contributor Leo Quan tackles the challenge of quieting his SMP machine. He applies PC silencing concepts freely, modifying them to his needs, and goes the whole 9 yards with a slew of mods. He gets very close to his elusive goal and, in the process, comes up with an effective new silencing technique for really noisy hard drives." More information on this guide can be found here. Win a Top-of-the-line Danger Den Water Cooling Kit @ PimpRig "PimpRig.com has teamed up with DangerDen.com to giveaway a complete uber-pimp water cooling setup! The prize includes: - Maze 3 Water Cooling Kit Complete: - Choice of AMD or Intel Block. - GPU cooler Choice of Radeon or Geforce 4 - Chipset Cooler - Black Ice Extreme Radiator in Black - Clear Reservoir - Hydor L20 Pump - 1/2 Inch fittings on the entire kit - 10 feet of ClearFlex 1/2 inch tubing - Hose clamps and all necessary hardware Free stuff is always good in my books! More information on this contest can be found here. Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280PV Review @ Techware Labs "AGP 8x is now in the forefront of the video graphics environment, and Albatron is the first to bring it to you. The GeForce 4 Ti4280 is now out. Always driving to be first in the market with strong products, Albatron has delivered new and cutting edge products for years. They have decided to keep up the tradition by coming onto the Video card market with a strong representation of what this company is all about. See how it performs here." More information on this review can be found here. New Products Released @ Lux-Design "Our good friends at Lux-Design have sent MTB news on two new product releases: Super Multifunction Panel w/Blue Light LCD & Alarm System (c) 2003 Lux-Design Features: - Either external or internal application is available - Super blue LCD with alarm system - 2 sets of fan speed and temperature can be monitored at same time - 8cm cooling fan will make system stable - 3.5" HDD can be installed inside LCD Display Function: - Monitor 2 sets of fan speed and temperature at same time - Alarm system work for overheating and low speed fan - Range of alarm system can be set easily - Working range: 40°C - 80°C - 1000rpm - 5000rpm - LCD with super bright blue light Mobile Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with LCD - All aluminum structure design, effective heat dissipation. - Patent design of bottom fan, suited for high capacity and high speed HDD. - Automatic fan speed monitor, Check fan speed all the time. - Automatic temperature monitor, guard HDD all the time. - Overheating alarm and Low-Speed fan alarm system. - "Temperature" display either in "°C" or "°F". - Strong structure design and automatic in/out handle. Specs: - Dual 40X40X20mm Ball Bearing fans - 5000 RPM for each fan - 13 CFM - 26 DB - 0.72 Watt Power consumption, 12VDC - Dimensions 110 x 101 x 12.2 More information on these new products can be found here. Alpha 8942 HSF Cooler Review @ Nexus Hardware "Alpha has been producing cooling solutions for quite a long time! Their first leap into heatsink technology was in 1989, and since then, they have produced nothing short of outstanding products. Today I have their latest P4 cooling solution to test". More information on this review can be found here. Altec Lansing XA3051 Surround Console Speakers Review @ Hexus.net "As the technology in modern consoles progresses, more than just the graphical capabilities have advanced; gone are the days of monaural sound, and for the modern gamer, nothing less than surround sound will do. Today we present a review of a set of speakers designed specifically for console use, from speaker veterans Altec Lansing: the Altec Lansing XA3051 speakers." More information on this review can be found here. LIUtilities Winbackup & Stomp INC's Backup MyPC Reviews @ Spode's Abode "I'm not the kind of person who would normally be reviewing back-up software. In fact I hate installing anything other than games or Adobe Photoshop, but today I'm willing. Not because Spode has injected me with wild hallucinogenic drugs, but because last night the gods of binary thought they would play a trick and wipe my hard drive. Lets not get into that story, but instead review the products." More information on this review can be found here.

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Wednesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 22, 2003, 9:33:58 AM

Author: hitek

VapoChill PE S478 Titanium Review @ VR-Zone "VR-Zone has reviewed the latest phase change cooling unit from Asetek, the VapoChill PE S478 Titanium which is sleek in appearance and performs great. As the processors get hotter and overclockers get more extreme, a product like this will definitely satisfy this group of consumers who are constantly trying to maximize performance out of their current systems. With this VapoChill PE S478 Titanium cooling unit, we are able to overclock a cheap P4 1.8AGhz to over 3.5Ghz which is an impressive 95% improvement in clock speed!" More information on this review can be found here. Black Ice Extreme Review @ Nexus Hardware "As watercooling solutions become more and more popular, more and more commercially made products are being released. After my first water cooling attempt, I must say that I couldn’t be more pleased with the temperatures as well as sound levels of my computer. Since then, I have expanded my list of “used and abused watercooling gear”. I have played with tygon tubing, a dual fan radiator, as well as an Innovatek Graph-O-matic. Today, I have yet another radiator to look at, the Hardware Labs Black Ice Xtreme." More information on this review can be found here. Matrix Orbital MX212 USB LCD Review @ GruntvillE (c) 2003 GruntvillE "The LK202-24-USB has six general purpose outputs. These are provided to control relays or other electronic devices. This allows external devices to be turned on or off using your PC or controller and software commands. That's right; you can control everything from case fans to cold cathodes to even your desk lamps! If you've followed my article on installing a color video module into your case, you can also use the GPO's to control that! There are2 types of GPOs on this bad boy, low and high power. GPO 1, 2 and 3 are referred to as Low Power GPOs and are capable of sourcing +5V at 20mA which is limited with a 240 ohm current limiting resistors. GPO 4, 5 and 6 have no current limiting resistors and offer an optional +12V power through the white floppy connecter located bottom left of the display." More information on this review can be found here. Elite Acf 999 Clear Panel PC Case Review @ TechPC "Why did I go with an unknown name and not Aluminum? Simple. Price was the defining factor. This case has all the must-have components and because it doesn't carry a name like Lian Li or Antec or ThermalTake, it can have a smaller price tag. Having Aluminum is a bit pricy today, still, and since they came out last year to the vast markets the prices of them have not moved much. So I have everything the other big names have, just not Aluminum, and at half the price!" More information on this review can be found here. BeanTech BT-80 Crystal Clear Acrylic Chassis Review @ TwistedMods "After covering the numerous good features of the BT-80 as well as the design flaws, you may be having mixed opinions at this point, allow me to explain further some advantages to acrylic cases and then give the final word. No matter which acrylic case you may decide on, the fact remains that it is nearly impossible to hide ALL wiring. Keep this in mind as well as the fact that acrylic does scratch easily, so keep the box for transporting it! To prove my point, I took a penny to the bottom side of the case and with a fair amount of pressure, was able to leave a nice scratch. Aside from this, advantages of any acrylic case include the fact that you will have something different from the normal metal chassis and window." More information on this review can be found here. Lian Li Aquarium Side Panel Preview @ 3DGameman (c) 2003 3DGameman "Lian Li has expanded on the famous water window modification and has added a new side panel with plastic aquarium fish to their product line. 3DGameman has some nice preview pictures as well as a discussion on this new product in their forums." More information on this new product can be found here. Cooler Master Black Widow Case Review @ Hexus.net "The Cooler Master Black Widow is the same design as the Cooler Master ATC-201B, apart from a variation in colour. A few weeks ago I reviewed the ATC-201B-SXT (black sides) which is very similar to the Black Widow. After looking over the case there are a few differences which become clear. The main difference is the Black Widow has an anodised black front with black drive bays." More information on this review can be found here. HighSpeedPC's XP Unlocking Kit @ HighTekPC "Since money has become quite scarce for me, I decided to sell my Thunderbird to a friend and only upgrade my CPU to a palamino, running at 1533 (XP1800+). I went with this because A: I got a good deal and B: my mobo won't even go higher than 1.67GHz (XP2000+) at 133 FSB (12.5 multiplier). So that increased my performance, if only a little (SSE sure helped Q3 break 150fps) And with this new core, came the hope of overclocking. AMD decided to lock the multiplier and that's wherethis kit comes in." More information on this review can be found here. ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti-4200 Review @ Overclocker Cafe "We were able to get the core clock up to 310 MHz and the memory topped out at 321 MHz. Anything beyond this and tearing started to occur, but would still run. At 319/626 the card would lock up under load after about 45 minutes. We ran the speeds at 310/621 for about 3 hours under stressful conditions with absolutely no problems whatever." More information on this review can be found here. D-Link Wireless Kit Review @ LAN Party "There are currently three major Wireless LAN standards that operate using Radio Frequency technology. These are, in order of introduction on the market, 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. (Yes, b comes before a. Go back to elementary school if you didn't pick that up the first time around). The 802.11b and 802.11g standards run at a 2.4GHz frequency, while 802.11a uses a 5GHz frequency to transmit data. This was one of the main problems back in the day, because 802.11a and 802.11b WLAN can't connect to each other, but 802.11g can interoperate with 802.11b networks. 802.11b is limited to 11MBPs (22MBPs with special Texas Instruments DSP, which is named 802.11b+) while 802.11a can achieve speeds of 108MBPs. 802.11g can achieve speeds of 54MBPs." More information on this review can be found here. MSI StarSpeed 16x DVD-ROM Drive Review @ Viper Lair "The StarSpeed handled commercially pressed software well enough, and handled every DVD I threw at it. Things were not as rosy with some CDR media though. All media, burned at 16X and lower, were readable by the StarSpeed, but I had some problems with some random discs (Sony, Kodak, and generic) burned at 24x. Our Plextor 24/10/40A, the burner used to create these discs, read them without any issues." More information on this review can be found here. Belkin OmniView 4 port KVM Review @ ExtremeMhz "Many of us have multiple systems that we use with regularity. Some of us are space constrained and find it impossible to add more monitors, keyboards, and mice in a confined environment. Still others have financial constraints that make it impossible to invest significant money in additional peripherals. The advent of the home office is yet another contributing factor for the need to adapt an approach that businesses have used for years. To meet this need, Belkin, one of the leading providers of computer accessories has developed the "OmniView" line of products. Today ExtremeMhz will be reviewing the OmniView SOHO series which allows a single user to control up to 4 computers from a single unit located at arms length." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec AeroFlow VA4-C7040 Review @ ExtensionTech "CPUs produce heat. There is no way to get around it. There are a few different ways that we try to deal with the heat; air cooling is the cheapest and most mainstream method. There is always water cooling, but if you don't want to spend the money, or balk at installing a complicated water cooling system, then air cooling is your only route. Vantec has sent us their AeroFlow VA4-C7040 to see if it can stand up to the wide range of heat sinks available today." More information on this review can be found here. Atlas 520W Gold PSU Review @ Tweakers Australia "Power supplies often get overlooked by the average PC user, who usually concentrate more on the main parts such as the motherboard, video card, memory, etc than anything else. Speak to any hardcore overclocker though and it's common knowledge that a system needs a stable power source. This is where the Atlas 520W Gold ATX PSU with 3 temperature and speed controlled fans comes into the picture." More information on this review can be found here. eDimensional Wireless E-D Glasses Review @ Overclockers Club (c) 2003 Overclockers Club "This was defiantly a fun product to review. Within seconds, my skepticism was ceased, and I have to admit, the E-D glasses did give me "the best 3-D graphics" that I had ever experienced. I'd defiantly recommend the glasses to anyone looking for something new. Those of you out there that after nothing but "maj0r pWnAgE" should defiantly take the performance cut in mind." More information on this review can be found here.

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Tuesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2003, 1:58:12 AM

Author: hitek

Waterblocks from the Hardware Store Part 2 @ The ModFathers "In part 2 I will start to show you the process of manufacturing your block. My goal in this section is to show you how to flatten pipe, make a radiator, and explain the concept and make turbelizers." More information on this guide can be found here. Thermaltake AquariusIIT Liquid Cooling Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Thermaltake AquariusIIT Liquid Cooling offers an out of the box water cooling setup for your PC that is very easy to install and performs well. It includes all the parts and documentation needed to get everything setup very quickly with no hassles. Great cooling at low noise levels is what this product is all about." More information on this video review can be found here. Taisol Heat Pipe Socket A Cooler Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "Generally speaking, heat pipe is a vacuum tube filled with a low vaporising point liquid. The liquid absorbs heat and evaporated to the other end of the tube. The vapour is cooled by external means, e.g. fans, and condenses to the bottom end of the tube by gravity." More information on this review can be found here. Aunt Hagar's Mini-ITX Project @ ExtensionTech (c) 2003 ExtensionTech "This may look ghetto to you, but it will never be seen and it does a tremendous job! To secure the floppy drive ($35.00), hard drive (My old HD $30.00), and power supply I used little bungee cords (4 for $1.79). I took screw eyes (20 for $.89) and attached them on either side of the object. I then fastened the bungee to one side and hooked it to the other side. The power supply required two bungee cords going from side to side as well as top to bottom. The floppy drive set some distance from the bottom of the box so I made a bracket of sorts out of a Halloween candy dish ($.79). The bracket screwed (tiny screws $1.00) into the box, and the floppy drive sat on top if it." More information on this review can be found here. OCZ EL DDR PC-3500 Memory Review @ Hexus.net "This is probably the most aesthetically pleasing module that I've seen. The all-copper heatsink lends a certain weight and gravitas to the 256MB test module. The heatspreaders are a direct replica of those found on premium Mushkin modules. I'm sure a certain Michael Schuette may have something to say about that. Impressive specs. and impressive looks. We'll now see whether it can deliver in impression fashion as we thoroughly benchmark it." More information on this review can be found here. SOYO SY-P4I 845PE Motherboard Review "The rather uninspiringly titled SY-P4I 845PE is SOYO's interpretation of what makes a decent Intel-based motherboard. Based on the DDR333-compatible chipset and supporting the much-vaunted Hyper-Threading technology that's currently enabled in the 3.06Hz P4, this SOYO should appeal to a wide cross section of potential buyers." More information on this review can be found here. AMD XP2700+ Review @ OCAddiction "The Thoroughbred 2700+ outputs 62 watts of heat, and runs a default voltage of 1.65. AMD looks like they have finally settled down the new core with the addition of the extra layer to give some more headroom in performance." More information on this review can be found here. CES 2003 Wrapup Report @ Designtechnica "The 2003 International Consumer Electronics Show has been hailed as the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow with more than 116,000 attendees and over 2,200 exhibitors; all spread over 1.25 million square feet of show floor space. With growing concern of the economy in today’s news, one look at the show and you would have guessed we were in the best of times. With some of the largest and most extravagance booth Designtechnica has ever seen, it was made very clear that exhibitors have faith in the economy and their new products. Notable industry announcements include the support of HDTV from the cable television industry as well as recognition for the onnected home and the role home networking plays in our lives and the products we love." More information on this report can be found here. Samsung Syncmaster 17" TFT-Active Matrix Review @ Tech PC "There was almost nothing wrong with this product. If I was to complain about anything it would be the lack of a decent printed manual, I had to plug the unit in and view the manual on the PC. Another point is the fact that I somehow locked the monitor and it did take a while, rummaging thru all the documentation, to find the solution. A minor note is that the 'off native resolutions' were not very good. This has always been an issue with TFT/LCD displays anyways." More information on this review can be found here. 4-Way Power Supply Shootout: Vantec, Enermax, ThermalTake, Antec @ AnandTech "Incredibly, the power supplies on modern PC’s have been fairly slow to develop new technology. Often, diehard gamers will replace a motherboard, processor, ram, maybe even hard drive several times within the course of a year. On the other hard, other essential items such as the case and power supply become afterthoughts or items purchased only when completely necessary, like when a particular chipset (or two) deems it essential to increase the output wattage in order to support the processor core." More information on this review can be found here. Prometeia Micro Freezer Cooling Unit Review @ Bit-Tech "Chip-con approached the extreme cooling of a processor with their Prometeia range in a similar way to Asetek; they took a compressor, a condenser, an evaporator shaped to fit a processor and filled the system with a refrigerant. Initially the most obvious difference between the approaches of the two companies was Chip-con's choice of housing all the cooling hardware in its own box and selling it as an add-on for any existing tower case, where Asetek supply their solution in a case ready to fit the rest of your system in to. Here Chip-con's choice brought the freedom of appearance to its customer's computers, and this came at the price of installation hassle; which required, among other things, cutting a nice big hole in the base of your chosen case. Realising that a lot of people want for an easy life they started shipping a version of their Prometeia boxes with an 'Enlight PC Case' bolted on top with all the hard installation work done." More information on this review can be found here. Prometeia Micro Freezer Barebones Kit Review (c) 2003 Bit-Tech "In the pack you get all the mounting screws, washers and seals for insulating your socket and preventing condensation and three and half metres of seal string, which I will explain a little later. You also get a couple of shims for AMD CPU's to help protect the core and an extra long hex or allen key to tighten up the bolts that secure the micro freezer to the CPU. It's good to see a tube of Arctic Alumina is provided, not only do they include some thermal compound but some good thermal compound, no point in pinching pennies when you have just splashed out on a £450 cooler." More information on this review can be found here.

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Monday News Edition..

Date Posted: Monday, January 20, 2003, 12:08:41 AM

Author: hitek

PCMods Auction 2003 Announced! "After over 2 years of business, PCMods has accumulated several pallets of product that cannot be sold at retail, and we have decided to liquidate it. There is no better way to clear a pile of old cases and case mods than to sell them at an absolute auction. The huge pile includes: - New, unused products that have been discontinued and are no longer for sale Used products. - Case parts galore. - Products given to us as samples by would-be-vendors. - R&D products that never made it to production and various oddities that have worked their way into our possession. - Everything from aluminum cases to bios saviors. All items start at $0.01 cent with approximately 200 items up for bid. Worse case scenario: we clear out a pile of stuff and earn $2. The auction starts today and goes through Tuesday 1/28/03." More information on this auction can be found here. Dynatron 80mm UV Fan Sale @ The Cutting Edge (c) 2003 The Cutting Edge "Dynatron 80mm UV fans offer a lot for the money. They glow very bright under UV lighting and have a 16 inch 4-pin lead for power and 3-pin lead for RPM reading. The 4-pin lead has a purple braided sleeving on the blue and orange fans and black sleeving on the green fans. The 3-pin leads are the same color as the fans. Spins at 2400 RPM and pushes 34 CFM. All Dynatron fans are priced at $3.49 each and the sale will end at midnight on Friday, January 24th." More information on this review can be found here. Innovatek InnoVibe Rev2 HDD Noise Reducers Review @ PC-Arena "It consists of two plastic brackets, which are affixed to the side of a hard drive. There are rubber buffers that then bridge the gap between the hard drive and the case mount. The idea is that the hard drive is not held in place by any metal, thus stopping vibration. This in turn reduces the amount of vibration passed onto the case chassis." More information on this review can be found here. Innovatek Graph-O-Matic Vid Card Waterblock @ Nexus Hardware "I recently reviewed the Innovatek Water Cooling Kit and I was very impressed overall. The German company, Innovatek, has a broad base of products that range from complete kits to radiators. Today I will be looking at their Graph-O-Matic. The Graph-O-Matic is a video card waterblock that is aimed at hardware enthusiasts and overclockers." More information on this review can be found here. Radeon 9500 to 9700 Mod @ Designtechnica "This Mod will effectively turn your 9500 into a 9700. But you have to have the correct 9500. A 9500 with 4 rendering pipelines, modified to enable all 8 pipelines, will effectively double the memory bus, if you have the extra 64 Meg of memory to attach it to. We will explain below which card to acquire for this awesome graphics card transformation. Also, be sure to read “Things to Consider” before attempting this mod." More information on this article can be found here. CPUfx UltraViolet Paint Kit Review @ IPKonfig "Computer modding has taken quite a variety of turns over the last year. This has generated a lot of unique ideas, trying to go beyond what we're used to seeing. And what we're looking at now is UltraViolet paint. UV paint doesn't need a lengthy introduction-it's pretty well self-explanatory." More information on this article can be found here. Chieftec Dragon Aluminum Case Review @ Overclocker Cafe (c) 2003 Overclocker Cafe "The Chieftec Dragon DX-01 Aluminum Case represents the absolute best bang for the buck available in the high performance case arena. The lightweight aluminum chassis is only the beginning. Dual intake and exhaust fan mounts, removable drive racks, the drive rails to allow ease of access of 5.25" devices, locking bezel and side panels are some of the many reasons this case rates as high as it does." More information on this article can be found here. Lian Li PC-75 and 50 Clams "The Lian Li PC-75 has an excellent reputation as a kick ass case; and for good reason I may add. Between now and Saturday January 25th, folks can get their name in the hat to win a Lian Li PC-75 Server Case and a 50 spot to go with it, good at Xoxide.com to dress the box up with or whatever they want. Enter as often as once per day to take home a killer case. A randomly drawn name will be picked this upcoming Saturday January 25th." More information on this contest can be found here. ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard Review @ Overclockers Club Canada "The A7N8X Deluxe is Asus's second Nvidia based chipset attempt in making a top performing motherboard using the Nvidia nForce2 SPP chipset. Users will remember the original nForce 420D and 620D that suffered in really low memory performance. Will the nForce2 prove worthy to compete against VIA?" More information on this review can be found here. Crucial 512mb PC2700 DDR RAM Review @ Envy News "With RAM prices still relatively low compared to recent years, a RAM upgrade is still a viable option for people looking for a quick upgrade that will inject the most performance for the lowest cost. Crucial has been on the forefront of the quality RAM race, and today we review a 512MB PC2700 DDR stick." More information on this review can be found here. Let's Get a T@2 Part 1 @ Hardware HQ "Tattoo's have always been a cool thing in my book. A few years back I was bent on getting one. Today I have 4, and the tradition continues, but no longer am I etching it into my skin. Now, with Yamaha's latest offering, I am etching text and images onto my CD's. Yep, you heard me, the CD." More information on this review can be found here. CoolerMaster FujiYama HSF Review @ myWORLD Hardware "Since our review on Zalman ZM80-HP, we could witness how wonderful it is that the heat pipes can help us in nailing those nasty heats produced by the GPU. Besides being used in the VGA arena, it has been used in the CPU cooling arena too." More information on this review can be found here. Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro Review @ MBReview "Well, to sum it up, I can recommend the K7NCR18D-Pro to those looking for budget performance and to those who aren't looking to do any real overclocking. You can tack on a few MHz to your FSB which will help overall system performance, but this board just can't cut it for a real overclocking enthusiast. It has the potential with the available BIOS memory tweaks and voltages, but true overclockers will avoid the board like the plague due to the lack of multiplier adjustment capabilities." More information on this review can be found here. Titan Aerofoil Aluminium Fan @ Viper Lair "Titan's idea for an Aluminium Framed Fan may not be unique and without flaws, but that doesn't detract from the fact that these fans function as intended and look good while doing it. The fans are more or less silent with just a background hum to them that will certainly be drowned out by anything else that creates noise in your PC." More information on this review can be found here.

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Weekend News Edition..

Date Posted: Saturday, January 18, 2003, 8:13:46 AM

Author: hitek

FrozenCPU's 3.5" BayBus Review @ TwistedMods "While the fans used makes a difference, this fan bus really kicks ass in terms of its desired functions. The adjustable low speed voltage alone makes it worth buying if you have a case of Tornados. FrozenCPU has certainly done an outstanding job with their latest and greatest in case quieting devices. The only con was the red/black labeling that could confuse the average, non-computer-literate user, but any modder should know enough about his box to overcome this. At $24, it would make an inexpensive but very nice addition to any modded case." More information on this review can be found here. Xoxide's SunBeam RheoBus Review @ HighTekPC "We can all see that there are four (4) channels or some of you like to call circuits. This means that you can control up to four fans on this controller. Oh! But wait! I forgot to mention that each channel can handle up to 18watts allowing you to hook up four (4) fans on each channel allowing 16 fans total! This is a major plus for any overclocker who cannot live with noise. This brings up another point. Take a look at this picture of the top of the rheobus with the heatsinks on the resistors." More information on this review can be found here. Inventory Blowout Sale @ VoyeurMods "MTB received word from our good friends at VoyeurMods that they are having an inventory blowout sale. Now is your chance to cash in on some savings for reduced stock items. Clearance items include everything from cold cathode kits, cases, fans and fan grills. Stock is limited and this sale will last until clearance stock are depleted." - Dual Blue 12" Cold Cathode Kits $15.99 - Stainless Steel Laser Cut 80mm Fan grills $5.00 - Generic black 80mm case fan $0.50 - 80mm Aluminum fans More information on this sale can be found here. New Winow Applique Designs Released @ The Shattered Web "The Shattered Web has released 9 new window applique designs for case modders looking for something different to trick out that case window. MTB has reviewed products from The Shattered Web in the past, and we strongly recommend them for any case project. If you do not see anything that interests you then please submit your custom request to custom@shatteredweb.com. More information on these new products can be found here. Vantec Stealth 470 Watt Power Supply Review @ OCIA "Not mentioned above are the OVP (Over Voltage Protection), OCP (Over Current Protection) SPC (Short Circuit Protection) and Remote Control Fail (PS off) functions which are built into this power supply. Over Voltage protection will prevent the 3.3V, +5V and +12V rails from jumping really high without warning. With this protection in place, the power supply will be shut down to protect your system from harm. Those power supplies without this feature could potentially fry your system. The same principal goes for the Over Current Protection as well as the Short Circuit Protection. The Remote Control Fail Function helps prevent memory loss and scan disk problems that might be present with other power supplies." More information on this review can be found here. Senfu Tech Station Review @ Whinning Dog "Let's face it - all the tech review websites out there go through a ton of motherboards every year and one of the common problems for many of us is finding a good way to set up a test environment for the PC components. Some of us install boards into full fledged cases while others lay the boards out on their tables. In the hopes to have a somewhat lab like environment, I opted for an open platform design After looking around the net I decided to check out the Senfu Tech Station. Let's be truthful here - one can always go to a "Bed, Bath and Beyond" or a "Home Depot" and get a simple small rack to perform the same function. Let's see if the Senfu Tech Station offers anything compelling that would warrant one to buy this over a kitchen rack." I use one of these in my office and they are great! More information on this review can be found here. Project :: Lava - Part 1 @ Moddin.net "Take one Coolermaster 201 add the effects of a volcano and Project :: Lava is born. Tigermain has been working on this project for months over at Moddin'.net. Check out all the mods he has done to this seriously modded case." More information on this project can be found here. DFI Xabre 400 T3 128 Mb Video Card Review @ Icrontic "DFI may not spring to mind first when it comes to video cards but they are pushing into the marketplace with cost effective graphics solutions based on the SiS Xabre GPU. The choice for the consumer is whether or not the DFI Xabre 400 T3 fits their needs in a budget video card. Does the Xabre keep up with the pack?" More information on this review can be found here. SMC 22Mbps Wireless Access Point Review @ Envy News "Testing the SMC 22Mbps Wireless Access Point has been one of my most positive hardware experiences here at Envy News. It was easy to set up, had excellent range and performance, and even prevented signal leeching to block unwanted bandwidth caps. If you are looking for a Wireless Access Point with some great security options, competitive price, great performance - and did I mention the lifetime warranty? - look no further than the SMC, and get your Internet in any room you please." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Z-560 Speakers Review @ Spode's Abode "This system is only 4.1 (4 satellite speakers and 1 subwoofer). These do NOT have a digital audio connection, but an analogue cable, like most. They only have a front and a rear audio 3.5mm jacks for 2 channel sound, however only 1 can be used, but for the best sound, 2 is recommended. What is annoying is that all the wires come threw the control center (not the power), meaning that there is more mess on the desk." More information on this review can be found here. Altec Lansing 251 Speaker Set Review @ Modtown "Viewing from the left-to-right, we can see a headphone jack (allowing private listening through a set of headphones), three volume control knobs (for the center speaker, surround and master volume) and finally an on/off switch with a green LED that illuminates to indicate power state (something that a modder may wish to convert to a blue LED.)" More information on this review can be found here. iRock BLiNG CD/FM/MP3 Player Video Review @ 3DGameman "The iRock BLiNG offers music lovers many options, whether it's listening to FM radio, your favorite CDs and even MP3's. This extremely functional product is surprisingly affordable considering all the great features included and overall ease of use." More information on this video review can be found here. MNPCTech.com's Heavy Duty Pro Case Handles Review @ GruntvillE (c) 2003 GruntvillE "Case Handles usually aren't the first thing a modder thinks of when they decide to start cutting into a case. Some handles are installed to simply "Make" the mod. Others are installed for pure necessity. If you go to LAN parties as often as we do here at GruntvillE; something to carry that precious computer you spent all that money on is a necessity. Now there are lots of different ways of going about this task I have seen many a kitchen drawer handle slapped on top of a case. This is fine for an ultra-light case but can take some pretty bad looking reinforcement to be used on a larger mid-tower or full tower case." More information on this review can be found here.

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T.G.I.F News Edition..

Date Posted: Thursday, January 16, 2003, 11:07:06 PM

Author: hitek

Prism ATX Case Review @ PC-Arena "I was sent the new AVGS SC-S02 Prism case by the folks at CoolCaseMods. This case has a nice look to it and has some major cooling potential. The Prism case arrived from CoolCaseMods in a battered box thanks to the poor delivery skills of the UK postal service but thankfully the case was fine. The Prism case is different to all other cases that I have seen in the fact that all the front panels can be removed and even the power buttons and leds are mounted on a removable bay cover." More information on this review can be found here. Zalman VGA Heatpipe Cooler Review @ TechTastic "The VGA Heatpipe Cooler, comes packaged with a manual, extra parts,thermal paste and even a screw driver! You should have everything you need to install this monster. The VGA Heatpipe Cooler is pretty damn cool to look at once it’s installed. I did have some concerns about it fitting in my case, but luckily I had the space. It does take up an adjacent PCI slot, but most users won’t mind." More information on this review can be found here. 64-Bits Simplified @ Icrontic "If you've just crawled out from under a rock and are asking the question "64-bit what?" mainstream 64-bit processors are just a short walk down the sandy silicon beach but what will it mean to you and I? Are 64-bit processors what we need or what we would want?" More information on this review can be found here. ABIT IT7-MAX2 V2.0 Review @ OCAddiction "Building a system with a well laid out motherboard can be a real joy if it is done smartly and ABIT doesn't disappoint. The ATX connector is in a great spot up at the top and out of the way. Floppy and IDE's are easy to get to and memory slots have enough room on either side to make it easier to install and pull memory out. Also, you'll notice a change from the original IT7 MAX is that now the CMOS battery now lays flat on the board instead of sticking straight up. While theoretically the straight up position was great for changing batteries etc. It made an easy target for getting bent or broken off." More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech MCX370 Review @ Think Computers (c) 2003 Think Computers "Well there has been many different heatsink designs out there. The most prevalent one would have to be the fin design. If you don't know what im talking about look at your stock cooler. See the fin design, thats what im talking about. Well today I will be looking at the Swiftech MCX370." More information on this review can be found here. Steelpad S3 Review @ ExtensionTech "Steelpad? Yes, but technically, it really isn't steel, it is aluminum that has been specially treated and anodized for comfort, traction, and durability. Measuring 9.84" x 9.45" x .14" thick, is this the mouse pad of your dreams? Sometimes we forget how important a good mouse and pad can be to productivity, and even getting your frag on. Join me as I put the Steelpad through the paces." More information on this review can be found here. OSC alleges insider trading by ATI CEO "Ontario's securities regulators confirmed Thursday it has started proceedings against ATI Technologies Inc. and its chairman and chief executive officer K.Y. Ho, alleging illegal insider trading. Mr. Ho was one of six people named in a statement alleging insider trading resulting in $7.9-million in profits and avoided losses and triggering "significant tax benefits." Another person is accused of having given a misleading statement to OSC staff." Bad news for ATI. More information on this news story can be found here. Monster Machine: G4/PC Hybrid Project @ Tech TV "I love my Mac and I love my PC, but what I don't love is having two monitors, two keyboards, and two mouses. Switching back and forth has become a royal pain. And since Jobs and Gates probably won't be releasing a Mac/PC combo box any time soon, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Why choose sides in the platform war when you can boot both operating systems simultaneously, on the same machine, on the same screen?" More information on this project can be found here. Sunbeam Rheobus Review @ GideonTech "Sunbeam will be offering their Rheobus in a few varieties, which included the all aluminum model that we are reviewing today. Typically the face plate has to be drilled to match the layout of the rheostats and LED's, but Sunbeam has created an integrated faceplate so all you have to do is install it." More information on this review can be found here. Albatron 17" LCD Monitor Review @ LAN Addict "The Albatron Front Control Panel is among the better of those available. It distinctly separates the buttons available, they are clearly marked, and they sure are easy to use! In addition to the Front Control Panel some higher models of this LCD Screen actually have a Remote Control; however we did not have one of these for testing so we will only mention this aspect. The buttons available for your use, abuse, and other things include the most generic of them all, Power, Up, Down, Menu, and Auto. The only one which we might need to explain is the ‘Auto’ button. I have yet to see an LCD Screen without one these days due to the way the monitors work. Essentially the Auto button readjusts your screen for you. It repositions your video to fill the entire viewable area, and adjusts both brightness and contrast." Great monitor, I used one of these in my office. More information on this review can be found here. DIY Projector Project! "This ain't no ordinary casemod. Sure it has glass windows, an LCD, a bright light and a few fans to cool the bunch down, but I've got some rather crappy modding skillz, so modding a computer case to display the full MBM dashboard on an LCD and featuring the worlds brightest "power-on-lamp" was no option." More information on this project can be found here. Basic Case Mod Guide @ Monster-Hardware "This is a basic run down of a very basic case mod. My roommate, Derek, had just built an AMD XP 2100+ system, and it was running pretty warm, about 55°-60°C at idle. While Derek works in the IT industry, and is very fluent with Windows 2000, overclocking, case modding, and overall hardware tweaking just isn't his bag. So he asked me for a little help." More information on this project can be found here.

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Thursday News Edition..

Date Posted: Thursday, January 16, 2003, 12:13:58 AM

Author: hitek

Hard Drive Window Guide @ The ModFathers "Why would you want to put a window in a Hard Drive? I hear you say. Well, the answer is very very simple, because it looks nice. To take the spin that bit further, I decided to put a LED, make a passive cooler for it and spray it. If you make a mod, you might as well go the whole way and not play with it." More information on this review can be found here. TAK68 Copper Insert Mod @ Overclockers New Zealand "Ok, so after a few hours of testing here are the results: -V9 on Low (1569 rpm) 52 - low noise -V9 at medium (3629 rpm) 43 - moderate noise, and my preference -V9 at medium-high (4017 rpm) 42 - noisy but tolerable -V9 on high (5443 rpm) 39 - Delta noisy scream Modified TAK68 (4753 rpm) 40 - quiet, about the same as the V9 on low, maybe slightly louder. Well the results speak for themselves, absouletly awesome. It's now a top cooler in my books for performance while being quiet at the same time." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Stealth Power Supply (470 watt) Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Vantec Stealth 470 watt Power Supply has all the juice you will ever need for a computer case full of hardware. It includes an AC outlet, three adjustable temperature controlled ball bearing fans, a very attractive and functional black aluminum casing and more." More information on this video review can be found here. Swiftech H20-8500 Series Liquid Cooling Kit Review @ Virtual Hideout (c) 2003 Virtual Hideout "Swiftech had a brillant idea: why not put the pump and the fill/bleed kit into one 5.25" bay for easy installation? Well the idea resulted with this kit. Swiftech takes their 115V MCP300 pump and straps it down to a 5.25" tray, then attaches a easy to use fill/bleed kit it. The pump's power cord is already cut and the wires are ready for attaching to the power relay kit (but I will get to that later). The pump's is rated at 330gph - plenty of power for an internal, closed-loop system. As you can see from the photos, Swiftech uses all plastic fittings for their kit. The plastic fittings are very reliable, however I found it hard to open and close the on/off valves. After a few uses, they may soften up though." More information on this review can be found here. Mitsubishi Diamond Data DD481648 48x48x16 CD Writer Review @ Tweakers Zone "The product we are looking at today is the Diamond Data 48x48x16 CD writer from Mitsubishi Electric. CD writers have come a long way over the last few years, with the ability to write and re-write to a CD with a big jump in speed." More information on this review can be found here. Samsung SM-332 DVD/CD-R Combo Drive Review @ Tweaknews "A growing trend in computing is efficiency. Faster computers and their contained peripherals are being decreased in size while being increased in power, What I will be reviewing today is an excellent combo unit made by Samsung. From what I am told by the Samsung company officials, this combo drive is selling like hotcakes and you will see why further on in the review." More information on this review can be found here. Altec Lansing ATP3 2.1 Speaker System Review @ RadiativeNZ "The satellites are quite a unique design, taking on an almost flat panel appearance. Inside each satellite we find two 28mm full range microdrivers, along with a downfiring 3" mid bass driver. All this is packed into the 106mm (W) x 106mm (D) x 242mm (H) satellite, which is quite an impressive feat in itself." More information on this review can be found here. iRock! 530 Portable MP3 Player @ Viper Lair "If you're a person on the go who loves your MP3s, you'll need a MP3 player. The lightweight iRock comes with 128MB of built-in memory, and produces very good sound. The only drawbacks of this unit have to do with the display. First of all, there isn't a back light, which doesn't really matter all that much, since given the size, you can't see the name of the song you are playing anyway. Since the unit doesn't hold too much music, it isn't really hard to find the song you are looking for." More information on this review can be found here. eVGA.com Case Mod Contest Announced! "Think your case is unique enough? Time to find out! eVGA.com is hosting a Case Mod Contest for a chance for you to highlight your case and place it upon a pedestal of distinction. This is a no-holds barred competition where values will be placed on aesthetics as well as functionality. This contest will run from January 15th, 2003 until February 28th, 2003. To enter, simply fill out the form below and upload your compressed image files (to be eligible, at least two pictures of your current case must be included in compressed format). For complete details and rules, visit our Official Rules." More information on this contest can be found here. Picture Tour of the CES 2003 @ Directron.com (c) 2003 Directron.com "Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2003 was held in Las Vegas in January 9-12. This is a report of what we saw as relatively new and through our PC-modder's glasses. We hope that these pictures would give our customers and visitors a glimpse of CES 2003. This show is about four times larger than the last Comdex in November 2002. It had 2283 vendor booths spreading out in five huge exhibition halls. Each hall is of the size of a football field if not more. According to the organizer, there were 116,687 attendents." Be sure to check out the Cases, Mods & Concepts section for some great cases (Kudos to VH! for this link). More information on this report can be found here.

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Wednesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 14, 2003, 11:54:35 PM

Author: hitek

Promise FastTrack TX2000 & Ultra133 TX2 Review @ PimpRig "Although the Ultra133 TX2 does not support RAID in hardware, running software RAID 0 proved to be almost as effective as the hardware solution offered by the FastTrack TX2000. Similarly, the RAID 0+1 configuration possible on the TX2000 provided a nice boost in performance as well as peace-of-mind that data was recoverable in the event of an emergency." More information on this review can be found here. Lian-Li PC6085A Case Review "The most obvious thing noticeable on this case are the huge blue light strips on the front. This would be, in my opinion, the main feature that Lian-Li is trying to market on this case. Most of their new cases have some distinguishable feature. These light strips being the PC6085A’s main sell." More information on this review can be found here. Alienware Launches New Predator Case! "3DNews has some scanned.. (ahem!) borrowed some images from the latest MaximumPC. Alienware is set to release its latest case enclosure called the Predator Case. Essentially this is the famous Antec, Chieftec, Chenming chassis with a completely redesigned exterior." More information on this preview can be found here. SiS Xabre 600 Graphic Card Reviewed @ myWORLD Hardware "SiS doesn't really require any introduction as you should know that SiS is one of the top chipset manufacturers out there. Most of the time, they produces motherboard's chipset as well as VGA cards. When trying to compare to other chipset manufacturers out there, their chipset are the most preferable as most of the SiS equipped motherboard came in more affordable price. Besides that, they also produces VGA card which is also quite affordable too. This move is to lower the digital divide among the community as everybody could enjoy the technology while not burning their pocket." More information on this review can be found here. MobileMaxx Aluminum Hard Drive Racks and Cartridges Video Review @ 3DGameman "MobileMaxx Aluminum Hard Drive Racks and Cartridges offer security and convenience at an affordable price. These products are very well crafted to ensure years of hassle free use." More information on this video review can be found here. Plextor vs. Lite-On Shootout @ Soundcard Central (c) 2003 Sound Card Central "What started out as a sole review of the PlexWriter 48/24/48A turned into a battle of Plextor vs. Lite-On. When it was over, the Lite-On smoked the Plextor by combining speed and value that the Plextor couldn't match." More information on this review can be found here. Aerocool Glacier HSF Cooler Review @ RipNet-UK "Silence is golden. The newest trend in processor cooler design is a quiet design with maximum cooling efficiency and low fan noise; hot on the heels of the Aerocool Super-Tornado (which I reviewed here) is the Glacier. The Glacier aims to place itself as a tool for all uses, capable of silent running in a PC with a stock speed CPU, or equally running in a full bore overclocking PC. So, with that in mind let's see how the Glacier shapes up." More information on this review can be found here. Leadtek WinFast A280LE GeForce 4 Ti4200 AGP 8X VGA Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "Leadtek's GF4 Ti-4200 8X is a minor update to the good old GF4 Ti-4200, the only difference being the AGP 8X protocol. From the benchmarks above, we conclude that the new GF4 Ti-4200 8X 128MB is a bit, ~ 1%, faster than the older GF4 Ti-4200 64MB, due to a bigger frame buffer. The performance gap between a GF4 Ti-4200 128MB and a GF4 Ti-4200 8X 128MB will be bigger as the GF4 Ti-4200 128MB's memory is clocked at 444 MHz whereas the new GF4 Ti-4200 8X is clocked at 513 MHz. (Still, not much point in getting a 128MB card these days.)" More information on this review can be found here. Samsung SM-348 Combo Drive Review @ Monkey Review "All in all the Samsung SM-348 drive is fast and versatile, offering the owner a single device solution for most of their optical drive needs. It's a DVD, CDROM and Burner all rolled into one. If drive bays are a scarce on your tower then this is the drive for you. Factor in the savings of having to have only one drive in your system also makes this an attractive upgrade for the frugal as well." More information on this review can be found here. Unibrain Gamer's Kit Deluxe Review @ LAN Party "I was intrigued when I received an email from UniBrain that suggested that FireWire, running at 400 Mbps, could be used for gaming. Sure, a few of us at a Hole in the Wall LANParty in Irvine, California had chuckled about how fast it was and how it would be nice for gaming, but we hadn't been serious. Apparently, UniBrain is serious. As one of the leading manufacturers of FireWire controllers and peripherals, it's easy to see why. The more adoption of FireWire there is, the easier it is to sell their wide variety of FireWire products." More information on this review can be found here. "Commercial Waterblock Test: The Atlantis from OverclockedPC" @ Overclockers.com "The main priorities in designing the Atlantis were to provide the best combination of high cooling performance, best appearance, and low waterblock weight possible at a reasonable cost. A waterblock first has to fulfill its main purpose: keeping processors cool. To do that, we wanted to keep as much surface area close to the critical die area (highest loading) as possible to maximize the transfer of energy into the water." More information on this review can be found here. $10 million in PC Chips Stolen @ News.com "LONDON--British police on Sunday investigated the theft of computer chips worth an estimated $10 million from a van near London's Heathrow airport. The thieves struck Sunday morning when the van was left briefly unattended in a commercial area close to the airport, police said. Police stressed that there were no signs that the theft had security implications for Heathrow, the world's busiest international hub. The Intel Pentium III chips were believed to have been part of a consignment from Miami, destination unknown, police said. It was not yet known whether they had been flown in to Heathrow or were to be flown out of the airport." Ouch! More information on this news report can be found here. Jupiter Mid-Tower Computer Case Review @ ClubOC "Aluminum cases have been very popular for some time now. The only problem was most were priced out of the range of the average computer geek. If I'm on a budget, why would I want to spend $200 on a nice case when I could spend that money on something more useful, like RAM or a new video card? If you don't really have that kind of money to blow on a case, why not spend half that on a off brand case and then spend the rest elsewhere? Thanks to case manufacturers like Skyhawk USA, you can now get a nice aluminum case for well under $100." More information on this review can be found here. Best of CES 2003 @ CNET "According to the show's organizers, this year's Consumer Electronics Show was the biggest CES ever. That made it even harder for our editors to choose only 10 products out of thousands as CNET's CES best of show. But after two days of combing the 1.2 million square feet of show floor, our CES team has narrowed the wide field down to these 10." More information on this review can be found here.

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Tuesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 14, 2003, 6:56:23 AM

Author: hitek

Koolance PC2-601 Case Review @ Buddhacon "As microprocessors advance, minimum feature size is reduced allowing for more transistors to fit on the same size die. Increased transistors count allows for architectural advances to improve performance – but usually at the cost of raising the power, thereby creating more heat. This has created a growing need for improved cooling solutions. Right now, the most popular method of cooling these processors is with air cooling. Air Cooling is often loud and inefficient – and many people are now looking for better ways to cool. One of the best options is water cooling. But water cooling requires many components as well as modifications to the computer case. To simplify this process, Koolance makes cases equipped with everything you need to get started water cooling." More information on this review can be found here. Antec Performance Plusview 1000AMG Case Review @ Tweaknews "This review will be a quickie as I already had the chance to review the Antec Performance Plus 1080 AMG and this model differs little. The difference however is interesting as it pays attention to a new trend and popular one as well. Modding your case has become a trend with computer owners and many manufacturers are adjusting their product-line to meet those needs." More information on this review can be found here. Beginniner's Guide to Overclocking Guide Part 1 @ ExtensionTech "Initially I will look at the RAM, because it is the first thing any overclocker should look at. RAM timings play an integral part in the big picture. How you may ask? The most common RAM timing refers to the initial access latency for the RAM. You will see it as CAS rating. This is the wait between the chipset requesting data, and the RAM actually sending the data. Setting this to a higher number will increase the amount of cycles "wasted" before the data is transferred, therefore it is more relaxed." More information on this review can be found here. Koolance Exos External Water Cooling System @ OCAddiction (c) 2003 OCAddiction "This cooling is system is self contained and will work with any existing case that has a spare PCI/ISA/AGP slot. Sounds like a good idea, but can it really be that easy to install? Is it safe? How good could the performance be?" More information on this review can be found here. ABit AT7-MAX2 Motherboard Review @ Overclockers Club "Today, we'll be looking at the ABit AT7-MAX2 Socket A motherboard which uses the VIA KT400 chipset. When ABit launched their MAX (first series) motherboard, they shocked everyone when they didn't included PS/2 ports! I don't think the computer industry was ready to give up their PS/2 ports, not yet anyway. ABit's whole idea about the MAX series motherboard was to get rid of older and outdated legacy ports like the PS/2 ports, Serial ports, Parallel port, and ect. They also gave the MAX series USB 2.0 thorought, along with on-board sound and LAN. Since then, ABit has came out with the MAX2 series motherboard and it includes some new technologies such as the Serial ATA (SATA 150)." More information on this review can be found here. Kingwin Quad LED Fan 450w PSU Review @ Overclocker Cafe "The "Devine Power" unit's chassis is aluminum construction. Not that you need a PSU to have a good balance like a tire or a sidearm but it was pleasant to pick it up and feel how light it was. Every little bit helps if you are trying to keep a LAN box light. For those of you who are interested, the unit weighed in at 1.65 kg as opposed to an Enermax we had laying around which weighed 1.91 kg. That is over half a pound difference for you Imperial types." More information on this review can be found here. Xtreme Keyboard Part 2 - Swiss Army Keyboard @ Xtrememods "The second and final part in the Xtreme Keyboard Series. In this article you will learn how I added a USB hub, a Smart Media Card reader, and a touch pad to my keyboard. Many things were done to finish this keyboard up, and make it a nice looking multi-functional tool!" More information on this review can be found here. irock Bling MP3/CD/FM Player Review @ Ascully.com "The irock! BLiNG plays both MP3 CDs and standard audio CDs. Carries over 150 MP3 songs on one CD and enjoy up to 15 hours of continuous playback." More information on this review can be found here. Thermaltake GeForce 4 Copper Heatsink with CoolMod Review @ Virtual Hideout (c) 2003 Virutal Hideout "The Thermaltake kit is an eyecatcher right away. How many video cards have pure copper heatsinks? Not many. This is probably due to the high cost of a copper heatsink. Thermaltake has managed to put this kit together for just over $20 (retail price). A very good deal for such a high quality product. The contents of the kit are listed earlier in the Spefications, but for the install I decided to use my own Arctic Silver 3 and Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive instead of the included compound and thermal tape. My reasons for this was that the stock heatsink had Arctic Silver 3 under it, and this would help to show a more exact comparison between the aluminum and copper blocks. The first step was to remove the old heatsink. To do this, I simply pushed the two plastic clips though from the back of the card, then pulled the heatsink off. I was now ready for installing the new cooling setup." More information on this review can be found here. CoolerMaster HAV-V81 X-Dream Heatsink Review @ OCIA "The clip on this heatsink is of the three prong version. This is my personal favorite type of clip. Using all three prongs on each side of the clip ensures a snug fit. Think about it; the socket on the motherboard has six prongs, so why not take advantage of all of them? My point exactly." More information on this review can be found here. Large HDD VU Kit Review @ Moddin.net "Many modders have gone blue LED crazy and changed just about every LED inside their case (I know I have). One of the most popular changes is to the case power and hard disk activity LED's, but what else can you do if you're bored with a single flashing LED? Well thankfully you can spice it up with a hard disk activity kit from the Belgium based Melvine.be" More information on this review can be found here. VIA EPIA M-9000 Motherboard Review @ TechSeekers.net "Although The EPIA-800 and the EPIA M-Series were developed for different types markets, the evolution shows and this second generation EPIA platform has developed very well.It has addressed the issues that plagued the first release and with a 933Mhz processor, MPEG2 onboard decoding, 5.1 audio, the ability to playback DVD, and all types of MPEG4 Video smoothly, the VIA EPIA M-9000 proves to be an impressive piece of kit." More information on this review can be found here.

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Monday News Edition..

Date Posted: Sunday, January 12, 2003, 11:12:31 PM

Author: hitek

Wahoo Computers Stratagem Case Review @ Viper Lair "The large amount of expansion room will ensure that this case will last you many years of good service. I am also surprised at how quiet this case actually is. Wahoo's foresight to use Panaflo fans, which move plenty of air, while remaining nearly silent, was another testament to their attention to detail." More information on this review can be found here. A-Open MK77M-V Motherboard Review @ ExtremeMhz "To wrap things up, the A-Open MK77M-V is a beautiful, small board that packs a big wallop. Its attractive colors will make it a favorite with case modders that love to show their systems off. Its value price makes it affordable for those of us on a strict budget. Even the enthusiast can still have some fun tweaking this board in search of the best achievable overclock." More information on this review can be found here. Red Pepper FP-4S Breakout Box Exclusive Review @ Envy News "Is the FP-4S worth it? If your computer already has extension ports built in, then the answer is no; it's simply a matter of redundancy. If you don't have built-in ports, this may just be the answer you're looking for. It's not locked into a specific drive bay, it doesn't require rerouting cabling through the inside of your case, and it puts the most used options right in front of you. Or, to the side of you. Or, above you - it's your choice." More information on this review can be found here. Solid Multimedia Case Review @ OCAddiction (c) 2003 OCAddicton "Yes! One of the coolest options on this case are the 2 CD-Rom Stealth Bays. One of my personal pet peeves when buying any case that is not plain beige is that when you start installing drives, baybuses, etc, everything starts to look rather ghetto. Not so with the Solid Multimedia Case. With the case, you get 2 face plates that are capable of opening up when housing a CD-Rom or similar item. It's hard to tell just from looking at it (which is a good thing) so let me show you here with a couple of pics." More information on this review can be found here. Trust 400 Graphics Tablet Review @ Blagged-Hardware "After a couple of years without a graphics tablet I decided to take the plunge and invest in a replacement for my kaput one. I choose the Trust Wireless Design & Work Tablet 400, is it up to the job? Let me show you." More information on this review can be found here. GeForce4 Ti 4200 Shootout @ Hexus.net "We have a number of Ti 4200s in for a comparative review today. What's evident is that all of the Ti 4200s boasting the newer, faster 8x AGP standard, ship with 128MB of on-board memory. Further, to distinguish themselves from pre-8x cards with 128MB RAM, these cards have seen a bump in memory speed. We'll see just how each manufacturer approaches this most lucrative GPU, what they bundle with their efforts, how they attempt to outdo each other, and see just how far we can push them. All this on 2 leading platforms. Hang on for the benchmark ride." More information on this review can be found here. Double Granite Bay Mobo Review : Gigabyte vs Asustek @ HardwareZoom "On the left of the Gigabyte board is the Serial ATA controller; here you can connect two S-ATA hard disks to the 2 connectors above or use a S-ATA -> Parallel converter for normal IDE hard disks. On the right is the Promise ATA133 RAID controller. However it is only a "Lite" version so it cannot support RAID 1+0. These two RAID controllers allow you to connect 6 devices, and together with the two normal IDE connectors, you can have up to 10 hard disks running." More information on this review can be found here. FrozenCPU Quad LED Fans and Fan Grills Review @ PimpRig "Case fans are definitely one of the most common components when it comes to case modification. These fans that find their home in your case walls don't have to be plain black and boring. Many of you haveseen the LED fans on the market and are having trouble deciding which ones to purchase. The fans I will be showing you were the ones I decided to use in my current project PC. The goal of this PC is not to just turn heads but to snap necks." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech MX700 Review @ DVHardware "This was the very first cordless mouse that I’ve tested and I must say that it exceeded my expectations! In the past I’ve heard several rumours of cordless mice that were lagging and things like that but with Logitech’s MX700 I didn’t encounter any of those problems. The tracking was even better then most other optical mice out there and having a cordless mouse really gives you a better feeling than having one with a cord. Hehe it’s quite relaxing to sit in your chair and using your leg as mousepad. With the batteries it feels quite heavy but that’s not a bad thing cause it makes your mousing experience more stable and you don’t have to worry that your mouse will fall of your desk accidentely." More information on this review can be found here. High Speed PC Tygon Tubing Review @ Nexus Hardware "I recently got my hands on an Innovatek Water Cooling Kit. However, as you read on, you’ll notice that I wasn’t particularly impressed with the tubing solution provided with the kit. My main complaint was that it kinked very easily. My other complaint was that it was not very flexible. I recently got in contact with Scott over at High Speed PC and he said that he had some Tygon tubing that was of much higher quality than what was included with the Innovatek kit. A few days later, I had 6’ of tygon tubing on my doorstep ready to be examined!" More information on this review can be found here. Techware Labs Huge $3,084 Case Giveaway Sponsored by Xoxide.com "We have teamed up with Xoxide.com to sponsor the largest case giveaway ever. We will be giving away over 20 styles of cases valued at over $3,000. The cases are manufactured by Xoxide, Lian-Li, Chieftec, Thermaltake, and even Koolance. Our aim in creating this contest was to select the best of Xoxide's cases, and offer them to our readers for giveaway. As it turns out, all of the cases were so sweet, we just had to give them all away." Free stuff is always good in my books! More information on this contest can be found here. $200 Clams Up For Grabs @ Overclocker Cafe "The Overclocker Café is kicking off their second one-week contest for January. You pick your own prize(s) this go round. Between now and Saturday January 18th, be sure to get your name in the hat to win a $200 gift certificate to Xoxide.com to buy whatever you want from their online selection. One entry per day only please. On the evening of the 18th, they will randomly select a name and it could be yours!" More information on this contest can be found here.

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Weekend News Edition..

Date Posted: Saturday, January 11, 2003, 11:16:36 AM

Author: hitek

Overclocking the Intel P4 2.4B/533 @ OCAddiction "Next, since we are shooting for a 600MHz overclock we'll more than likely need to raise the voltage a bit. Previously testing this CPU I know she needs the full 1.725v the ABIT can provide so I set it to that. I also set the memory back to 1:1 so we know there won't be any memory issues. Of course once you find your CPU's sweet spot in overclocking, you can then go back later and see what your memory is capable of. One additional item of note is the ABIT's capability of running 33MHz fixed for your PCI Bus Frequencies. This is an absolute MUST-Have option when overclocking, as it will keep all of your peripherals (sound card, NIC, etc.) in spec, otherwise providing a chance that one would fail and also hamper your overclocking experience. ABIT also has a Fixed 37MHz and 44MHz for you daring types wishing to run your PCI and AGP a bit higher than spec." More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech MCW50-T GPU Cooling Oasis Review @ TweakTown "Swiftech have been around in the processor cooling business for many years now. Today they produce coolers that are air, water and thermoelectric in nature. Follow Cameron "Sov" Johnson as he takes a look at the MCW50-T thermoelectric water cooling GPU kit for ATI and nVidia based graphics cards!" More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech MCX462+TT Thermoelectric Heatsink (Socket 462) Video Review @ 3DGameman "The Swiftech MCX462+TT Thermoelectric Heatsink fits most new Socket 462 motherboards and when equipped with a quality 80mm high-speed fan it equals one amazing cooling product. Serious overclockers will definitively want to check this heatsink out." More information on this video review can be found here. Antec PlusView 1000AMG Case Review @ BJorn3D "Antec's PlusView1000AMG is a great case and with the side panel window, it looks great too. Designed as a SOHO file server, this case can fit such a role quite nicely, but it was also designed with the average enthusiast in mind. It is easy to work in and has more than a handful of great features, such as drive rails, quick-release drive cages, snap-in fan mounts and front USB and Firewire ports." More information on this review can be found here. Freecom FX-1 USB-2 CD-RW Review @ Blagged-Hardware (c) 2003 Blagged-Hardware "This fast and well-designed USB-2 CD-RW drive connects to your PC via the USB port, fits in small spaces and is hot swappable. You can start burning your CDs right away with the included software suite. It’s great for making audio CDs, Video CDs, data CDs, or just storing MP3s, backup and image files." More information on this review can be found here. New Cold Cathode Sale @ The Cutting Edge Case Mods "We are having a 12 inch Cold Cathode special. These are dual invertor lights for 11.99 each. The special ends on Friday January 17th. These cold cathode light kits are bright and plug and play ready. Just drill a hole for the switch, hook up the wires, place the light where you want it and your done. In less than 10 minutes you can have this cold cathode light kit installed. The light is super slim and is encased in acrylic tubing to protect it from breakage. Cold cathode lights are the top choice for case lighting because they're brighter than neon and produce very little heat. Comes complete with instructions and mounting hardware." More information on this sale can be found here. New Canadian Mod Shop Online - Welcome AutoDeletePro! "We started AutoDeletePro in early 2002, hoping to fill a void in the mod community. Most etailers only sold the four standard laser cut designs and no one was doing anything unique or special with this mod. We saw an opportunity to offer different designs, with some special finishes, in sizes that were previously unavailable. With the advent of lighted fans and the variety of sizes and styles available, the case fan is still as relevant to performance modding as any other device. Our goal is to offer unique, and high quality products, at a reasonable price, with an emphasis on customer satisfaction." Be sure to go over and give them your support. I love the Canadian Maple Leaf fan grills. More information on this new Canadian Mod Shop can be found here. Silver WinView Case Review @ Digital Explosion "As many of you know all computer cases come in the usual brown cardboard box with a generic case printed on the side and you have no idea what it looks like until it is opened and out of the packaging. As the Winview is finally exposed from the packaging only 2 words came to mind "Very Nice!". More information on this review can be found here. PCXMods X-Trac Pro HS Mouse Pad Review @ ExtensionTech "PCXMods is a newcomer into the mouse pad scene. This one being geared for gamers, and even professional PC users. I'll be looking at the X-Trac Pro HS today. It is a large mouse pad geared towards optical mouse use, but as an added bonus of making a solid mouse pad, it works great with 'ball' mice. This will be one of the shorter reviews you will see here, but hey, nothing wrong with that right? Read on to see what I thought of this newcomer into the field of mouse pads." More information on this review can be found here. TwistedMods Interviews Simon (Creator of World's Third Largest Virus) "For those of you who are unaware of what the IWormGokar Virus was, it was a Virus created in the UK which did nothing but spread via Email, IRC and IIS. No destruction was involved of anyone's computer, but destructive or not - a virus is a virus and unfortunately Simon (the creator) is now being penalized for his wrong-doing. Check out what he had to say below about the situation that some newspapers are calling the World's 'Third Largest Virus.'" Interesting interview! More information on this interview can be found here. Xtreme DDR PC3200 Review @ OCHardware "Xtreme DDR has done a fantastic job making this ram overclockable. Being able to hit 498 DDR mhz at stock voltage is definitely something to brag about. We also liked to see that Xtreme DDR's price tag is slightly below most of their competitors. All that is really holding us back from making this one of our A+ products is the timings." More information on this review can be found here. OCZ PC3200 DDR Review @ Overclocker Cafe "The OCZ memory, like many of its competitors, comes equipped with heatspreaders. These spreaders are of copper construction instead of being made of aluminum. Not that weight is a big issue with memory but out of curiosity, we checked it. A standard DDR DIMM unit weighs just shy of 40 gms. The copper heatspreader most certainly did add some weight to things bringing it up to a corpulent 77 gms." More information on this review can be found here. Thermaltake Smart Fan 2 Review @ GruntvillE (c) 2003 Blagged-Hardware "Let's look at performance from two angles, first cooling. The Smart Fan 2 does a very good job at cooling. While it was running at full speed it lowered the temperatures on my CPU by 5C in idle, and 3C at full load. The drawback, it is loud. Next I tested it using the thermal probe, which is how I see most people using it, especially if they put it on a CPU like I did. I slid the probe between the heatsink and CPU with a little Arctic Silver and fired up the system. The fan did not run at full speed, and was therefore much quieter. Even at the slower speeds idle and load temperatures were 2-3C lower. As the CPU heated up, the fan sped up." More information on this review can be found here. Rounded IDE Cable Review @ Overclockers Club Canada "While it is true that a rounded cable will allow the airflow to "wrap around" the cable, instead of a regular ribbon cable blocking the airflow completely, folding regular ribbon cables allows you to shape them in ways that reduce airflow blockage from happening in the first place. While folding cables isn't that difficult, patience is required in order to make good folds that keep their shape and take up as little space as possible. Try that with a rounded cable!" More information on this review can be found here.

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Happy 1st B-Day MTB News Edition..

Date Posted: Thursday, January 9, 2003, 11:29:25 PM

Author: hitek

MTB celebrates its 1st Year Anniversary! (c) 2003 MODTHEBOX "Today marks the official first year anniversary of Canada's Premier Case Modding Source. I would take this time to thank MTB Staff, Site Sponsors and our audience for all their continued support since our initial re-launch last year. As the site continues to grow we're hoping to initiate some major changes to benefit you all. One of the biggest changes will be the launch of MTB2 which will be a complete re-design of the site from top to bottom. We also have some great features and new product reviews scheduled for the next few weeks. Watch this space for more information to be posted at a later time and date." Tyan Tachyon G9700 Pro Review @ DeviantPC "Tyan have named these graphics cards Tachyon - as their website explains a Tachyon is "defined as a theoretical sub-atomic particle that always travels faster than the speed of light". Well I wouldn't go that far in terms of its ability but Tyan's naming conventions are pretty decent. Perhaps NVIDIA should take a leaf out of their book - Tyan FX doesn't really work does it?" More information on this review can be found here. Gigabyte MAYA II Radeon 9700 (non-pro) Review @ RadiativeNZ "The Radeon 9700 can best be described as a cut back 9700 Pro as they are based on the same chipset with the different clock frequencies being one of the few things separating the two. One thing that has not been widely publicised is the fact that the majority of 9700 (and 9500 Pro's for that matter) are BIOS locked, which prevents any overclocking (which we will go into later). More information on this review can be found here. HP IPAQ H1910 Pocket PC Review @ ExtremeMhz "The Pocket PC market is growing rapidly. There have been quite a few new devices being introduced including some from newcomers like Dell and Viewsonic. Each tries to compete for the ultimate in portability by offering features like dual expansion slots and built-in connectivity. HP has taken a different approach with their HP IPAQ H1910. They have focused primarily on screen quality and form factor. The IPAQ H1910 is incredibly small and its transflective screen is breathtaking." More information on this review can be found here. Wacom Intuos2 A3 Graphics Tablet Review @ Modtown "A3 sounds huge, and it is huge - a mega plus point, having such a large active area of 300 x 450 mm (12" x 18") gives you a wide range of project possibilities. Especially for the professional/home user who needs the ability to trace/edit media at exact scale or otherwise perform tasks in tabloid or full magazine-size format." More information on this review can be found here. Ahanix Romeo DX Case Review @ Techware Labs (c) 2003 Techware Labs "The days of plain square and boring old beige cases has come and gone. Now everyone is looking for cases with some color and flare that will break them out of the same old routine and keep them from spending tons of time and money on modding or painting. ExoticPC is the answer! They have great cases made by Ahanix that fit the "out of the ordinary" scheme without breaking your pocketbook." More information on this review can be found here. Year 2003 Start Sale @ Computuning "In appreciation of all the love and support our customers have shown us, and to provide ourselves with an opportunity to bring in new products, the products listed below will be sold at sale prices reduced by 50%. Besides the list below, many other products at Computuning are now being sold at specially reduced prices. We hope you take this opportunity to acquire the products you¡¯ve been meaning to. The duration of the sale is from today, January 9th until January 16th(7 days). We thank you again for all your support you have shown us last year and we ask for you support again during this sale period. The products listed below will be sold at sale prices reduced by 50%. - CORE SAFE ATHLON WAS $12.50 NOW $6.25 - PROTECTOR XP WAS $13.50 NOW $6.75 - COOLINGFLOW (THERMAL PASTE) WAS $11.50 NOW $5.75 - 120 mm DYNAEON 95cfm CASE FAN WAS $22.00 NOW $11.00 - All COFAN case fans(80mm & 92mm) 50% OFF - FANMATE (80mm GOLD FAN FILTER) WAS $9.50 NOW $4.75 - 5.25" BAY DIGITAL THERMOMETER WAS $22.95 NOW $11.45 - SINGLE DIGITAL THERMOMETER WAS $20.95 NOW $10.45 - All PC-TOY accessories 50% OFF" More information on this sale can be found here. The Lux-Design Sale Continues! (c) 2003 Lux-Design "The response has been so great that to thank our customers we have decided to continue our sale even if 2003 has begun. We want 2003 to start with a bang! Right now we have a great sale on the Lux-Design Rheobus Version 4. This is the ultimate fan controller device for high power and adjustable fan control. - Ability to handle very large fans - Ability to handle multiple fans - Rated for fans up to 20 watts per switch - Ultra Bright Dual colored Blue/Red socketed LEDs Standard. Start with RED and change to Blue as you increase the speed of the fan. - Aluminum faceplate included - Extra large heatsinks - Cast Aluminum knobs - 90 day warranty (exceeding watts per switch will void your warranty) -Printed Circuit board eliminates wiring mess -Unit comes with a molex splitter, and "adds its own connection" in your case. Anyone that wants great air flow in their case soon comes to one conclusion: The case temperature has gone down but the noise has increased a lot. That's where a rheobus comes handy. Because of it's 20watts per channel capacity, no matter how big your fans are you actually can control them. The product has now been reduced from $89.99 to $69.99 and best of all, this unit fits all Antec, Chieftec and Chenming Case models" More information on this sale can be found here. Corsair XMS3500 DDR Review @ Overclocker Cafe "To pull this into a little tighter perspective, the previous speed demon, a stick of Corsair XMS3200C2 at the least aggressive settings maxed out at 414 MHz. The XMS3500 knocks firmly on the door at 432 MHz at these settings. I can almost hear the Doppler Effect now!" More information on this review can be found here. CoolerMaster ARC-U01 & CRC-U01 Ramsinks Review @ Mikhailtech "Named ARC-U01 and CRC-U01, these are the latest CoolerMaster kits, which include 8 separate ramsinks made of copper or aluminum. ARC-U01 designates the aluminum sinks, while CRC-U01 is the name of the copper sinks kit. Each of the sinks measures 22x8x5 (mm) and has pre-attached thermal conductive double sided adhesive tape, so the installation is quite a breeze. The ARC-U01 are, as I said, the aluminum ramsinks. They come in a Perspex formed package, which is a very good idea considering the customer usually likes to see the actual product before making a purchase." More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech H20-8500 Liquid Cooling Kit Review @ System Cooling "The Swiftech name has always been associated with high quality and innovative products in CPU air-cooling, and their approach to water-cooling is no different. Their latest offering, the H20-8500 Water Cooling Kit, offers the end user a quiet, eye pleasing, full featured water cooling kit that includes their latest CPU and GPU water blocks. The kit is designed to fit in mid tower cases with little or no case modifications. Join us as we install this kit in a popular mid tower case and evaluate its performance." More information on this review can be found here. Graphics Outlook 2003 @ 3DCenter.de "Beginning in January, the first graphics cards based on ATI's Radeon 9100 will hit the streets at prices of about 100€. ATI has only briefed their board manufacturers about this chip so far, an official presentation or note still hasn't shown up on their website. In fact, this chip isn't really new. It's purely a cleanout of R200 (Radeon 8500) chip inventories, which ATi still seem to have plenty left of. With clock frequencies of 250/250MHz the specifications are equal to the Radeon 8500LE." More information on this review can be found here. EPoX 8RDA+ nForce2 Review @ VR-Zone "VR-Zone has posted a review on the EPoX 8RDA+ board based on the nForce2 SPP chipset. This board has fast becoming the overclockers' favorite board so i have checked out in details the overclockability of this board. The BIOS allows FSB adjustment from 100-250Mhz in 1Mhz intervals, VCore up to 2.2V, VDIMM up to 2.9V and best of all the ability to locked the AGP/PCI bus frequency. As such, I am able to increase the FSB all the way to 225Mhz at 2-2-2-5 memory timings after VDD mod and the max FSB attained is 240Mhz!" More information on this review can be found here.

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Thursday News Edition..

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 10:39:44 PM

Author: hitek

Lost In Space Liquid Crystal Display @ The Modfathers "For a long time now Matrix Orbital, with no real competition, has held the LCD Monitor Display markets Crown. The Lost In Space (L.I.S) has been tipped as the first realistic contender to Matrix Orbital, particularly for the common modder With a range of colored displays and fascia plates available for the LIS, can Matrix Orbital find its throne under threat?" Matrix Orbital has nothing to worry about with L.I.S in my opinion. More information on this article can be found here. Nexus NX-3000 Ultra-Quiet 300 Watt Power Supply Review @ 3DGameman "The Nexus NX-3000 is definitely one of the quietest power supplies to date and with 300 watts it will power most new systems including the fastest Intel P4 computers with ease. The power hungry that need more than 300 watts should look elsewhere, however, if silent is what you need then this product is worth serious consideration." More information on this video review can be found here. Prolink Ti4200-8x AGP Video Card Review @ TweakTown "It seems that almost everyone is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the GeForce FX boards. But lets be honest; how many of us can really afford to cough up around US$500 for a graphics board? Come join TweakTown as they take a look at the Prolink Ti4200-8x Video Card. It offers performance with a price tag that won't leave your wallet bare." More information on this review can be found here. Aluminum 3.5" Rheobus Review @ ExtensionTech (c) 2003 ExtensionTech "A really neat feature of this rheobus is that the LED's on the rheobus change intensity going from high to low and vice versa. At a glance you can tell, if not hear what your fans are running. Even if you don't have a fan hooked up to the channel, it still works in that aspect. So how does this thing work? Well, look below. It is kind of hard to tell from the pictures, so I'll show off my mad imaging skills and make an animated Gif. The camera wanted to take a bit more exposure than I wanted. I'll give you some details that you probably want to know next." More information on this review can be found here. Experten 8855A Aluminium Case Review @ HexaPlague Hardware "As you can see this case has a slick look and there is absolutely no sharp edges a very good thing when concerning cases. The front of the case can be taken off just like that, no need to screw anything out, great move. That makes it very easy to change the 80mm fan in the case." More information on this review can be found here. Fashion PCs Romeo Max & Side Window Review @ Modtown "The back on the case we find the removable motherboard tray, which is held in place by two screws. Here I found one of the few flaws in the case, the back cut for the PSU is rather poor and at a slanted angle. In practical terms it is very rare that someone is ever going to see the back of your case for long periods of time." More information on this review can be found here. Epox 8RDA+ nForce 2 Motherboard Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "The Epox 8RDA+ has everything that an overclocker or tweaker wants. It offers a very good selection of overclocking tools and lots of memory tweaking options. When it comes to performance, the 8RDA+ is second to none, topping nearly all the benchmark suits." More information on this review can be found here. Xtreme Keyboard Part 1 - Re-key with Super-Cal @ XtremeMods "How many of you have thought about modding your keyboard? My guess is that you came across the same problem that most people do: How do I paint the keys and still read them? For those of you with raised letters, you may have tried to paint your keys already. Some of you may even trust your memory of the keyboard, but most likely, you have just avoided painting the keys, painting only the keyboard case. Then there are those who have just given up the idea, after all, you can't type with out a keyboard, and paint doesn't dry completely in a few hours." More information on this review can be found here. Micro Stealth Custom Complete Water Cooling Kit Review @ OCAddiction (c) 2003 OCAddiction "You'll notice in the image below that the copper finish is not exactly as smooth as silk. The machine marks are still glaringly obvious in the finish and certainly leaves something to be desired. This is nothing that a little bit of elbow grease and some fine sandpaper couldn't take care of, but it deemed mentioning. When you buy a "kit" you like to think that everything is ready to go, that does not appear to be the intention as the block definitely needed some work." More information on this review can be found here. IceMat After Dark Mousing Surface Review @ OCWareHouse "It seems that just about every PC accessory out there has evolved since the PC's mainstream explosion. Take mouse pads, for example - when the infamous PC rodent was introduced some time back, fabric mouse mats were commonplace in many small offices and homes. Soon after the fabric pad's conception, gamers began to realize how ineffective a dusty, dirty piece of fabric was for their evolving mouse and game technologies. The next big thing was plastic - most popularly, the Ratpadz and Everglide series of mouse pads - it was a cheap, easy to maintain and overall efficient solution to the crusty fabric atrocity. Today, we see the landscape of mousing surfaces being warped once again, as a quiet little company with loud ambitions introduces a glass mouse pad to the market." More information on this review can be found here. PC Toys Ramspreaders Review @ Viper Lair "While hefty heatsinks and cleverly designed fans are available to keep your processor and video card cool, what can be done to keep your memory at a constant temperature? The answer is quite simple, slap on some ramspreaders. Much like the ramsinks on a video card, ramspreaders, when used properly, aid in the dissipation of heat from the chips on your memory module." More information on this review can be found here. Extreme Alterations Blue LED Fan @ Think Computers "I think these fans are great for anyone, especially people with windows on their cases. They provide style and lighting and are only $8.99 which won't break the bank. They come with everything you need to install them. These fans push a good bit of air, and look good doing it! Also they are very quiet." More information on this review can be found here. Everglide Giganta Optical Pad Review @ DeviantPC "The Everglide Giganta pad made a massive difference to my online gaming, my accuracy increased and the movement was a dream to use." More information on this review can be found here.

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Wednesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 7, 2003, 11:20:53 PM

Author: hitek

Fremont Firm Caters To Digital Hot-Rodders @ East Bay Business Times "Even computer nerds suffer from vanity. At least, that is what component maker Antec Inc. has found. The 16-year-old Fremont firm has continued to grow its business, despite a record-setting slump in the PC market by selling equipment to computer enthusiasts who spend considerable time and energy spiffing up their terminals and theparts that make them run." More information on this article can be found here. Chaintech 7NJS Zenith nForce2 Review @ BJorn3D "We found it to be an awesome board and package that should appeal to enthusiasts of all kinds from tweakers and overclockers to feature fanatics. Although it is a bit pricey, it is a great board worth taking a look at for those who are in the market for a new motherboard." More information on this review can be found here. Shuttle SN41G2 nForce 2 Review @ Hexus.net "6 months ago most people would have been wondering what on earth SFF stood for and for anyone that isnt sure its Small Form Factor. These have been around for some time, but the solutions always left something to be desired, whether it be style or upgradeability there was something missing. That all changed with the introduction of the Shuttle range although even the early ones had something missing the all important AGP slot. That isnt the case these days starting with the SS51G not only was there onboard graphics and a 4X AGP slot but the level of integration reached new heights. All was well in the Intel camp when hot on the heels of the SS51G came the SB51G this time using the latest Intel chipset I845GE which supports Hyperthreading technology." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech MX™700 Cordless Optical Mouse Review @ 3DXtreme (c) 2003 3DXtreme "For most computer users upgrading their hardware is a recurring and costly event. One product that has remained with me now for quite awhile is my trusty Microsoft Optical Mouse that I have been using for a few years now. This mouse dates back to my Intel p3 650 mhz machine which was my main rig about 2 years ago. Recently however, mouse technology has made strides and today we have the privilage of reviewing the new Logitech® MX™700 Cordless Optical Mouse. This new mouse from Logitech not only brings updated optical technology (800 dpi) to the market but also updated cordless technology." More information on this review can be found here. Sennheiser HD 497 Headphones Review @ RipNet-UK "Left these headphones on fairly loud with The Prodigy for half a day and came back later. The result - a much more balanced sound that was really starting to sound musical. Much more impressive! The mid range really started to warm up and express itself and the higher frequencies fitted in better with everything else." More information on this review can be found here. OCZ Eliminator HSF Cooler Review @ Overclocker Cafe "Temps in the test bed shot up to 65 degrees C after about 15 minute and just hung there. It was all I could do not to stop testing. But I decided that if this thing was going to cook chips, I was going to find out. While it didn't cook my chip, it did cook the thermal paste. So much so, that when I pulled the heatsink out, the CPU stuck to the base of the sink and was pulled right out of its socket. Ouch!" More information on this review can be found here. Sony Playstation Case Mod Project @ GideonTech "The first step is to get a Playstation, there are a few different models that were released by Sony. Each of these models vary a bit in design internally, we will be using the 9001 model for our modification. The first portion of the mod is to take apart your Playstation. Please note doing so will definitely void your warranty if it is still valid. Flip your system over and locate the screws on the back. Unscrew them and carefully lift off the front cover." More information on this project can be found here. Dachshund Software Hare & Zoom Review @ Overclockers Canada "Recently we got a heads up from one of our forum members about some programs from Dachshund Software that are marketed as working within your Windows operating system and speeding things up. We are curious about anything that might do that and possibly allow for better gaming framerates in the bargain." More information on this review can be found here. Antec Releases 'LifeStyle Series' of PC Enclosures @ Explosive Labs "Designed for users who want to integrate PCs into their daily environment, the LifeStyle Series is comprised of three models. Sonata is a super mini tower engineered for quietness. Fusion is a next generation desktop designed to resemble other consumer electronics equipment, such as DVD players, in order to blend into a home media center. Minuet is a mini desktop (16.8" D x 12.75" W x 3.8" H), which can also be configured as an ultra slim tower when used with a stand (included with the case)." Explosive Labs has exclusive pictures posted in their forums. The new LifeStyle Series models actually look very cool. More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Mouse LED Modification Guide @ PCReviewSpot (c) 2003 PCReviewSpot "After removing the small metal brace, take that plastic piece that it was holding down (this is the Led mount) and bend it upward just a bit, this will make it easier to remove the Led. Now, turn over the circuit board and look near the very top right under the start of the Led mount where the Led wires feed into the board. There are two solder points which you will need to re-melt with your soldering iron and pop out the Led wires by pulling on the mount while the solder is molten. It shouldn't take more than a few tries before you can wiggle it out." More information on this guide can be found here. Nvidia Sponsored GiveAway @ Compter Insanity "Nvidia has sponsored a giveaway for you readers with a few different items up for grabs, all for FREE! Come and check it out so you can get yourself some FREE stuff!" Free stuff is always good! More information on this contest can be found here. FannerTech System Coolers Review @ myWORLD Hardware "FannerTech has been quite well-known for it's affordable and efficient heatsink coolers. Besides producing heatsinks, they also produced other miscellaneous products such as fan exhaust, hard disk cooler and so on. This is to meet and fulfill the demand of the current market that need an extra cooling solution." More information on this review can be found here.

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Tuesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Monday, January 6, 2003, 10:38:43 PM

Author: hitek

e-Cube Review Part 2: the next installment @ GiBTEK "I do think this compact size of case has some real benefits to many type of users. It performs as well as the big boys and holds it's own in this product range. This doesn't come cheap you may think but if you break it down into it's components than it's not really that expensive. I do hope the development of these cases continues to improve on this type of form factor as I'm sure there is room for one two improvements." More information on this review can be found here. Antec PLUS660AMG PC Case Review @ Ascully "Antec bring us yet another enclosure for our precious PC components, this time not only is it smaller and sleeker it sports a new metallic paint job. Welcome to the future of Antec the AMG Mini Tower Case!" More information on this review can be found here. CrystalFontz CFA634-TMC-KS LCD Review @ TwistedMods "Whether you use this to display system info from your computer desktop or you decide to mount it on your case somewhere, do not miss out on a mod that will quickly become a new fad. After playing with the software, installing, testing, etc, I must say that the CrystalFontz 634 LCD display is of exceptional quality. Not only is the size plenty big to clearly read, the actual lettering is VERY crisp and clean. The ability to change baud rates on this unit is also a great feature for support of various motherboards and systems." More information on this review can be found here. Power-Cube Project @ BurnOutPC (c) 2003 BurnOutPC "My goals was to make a custom cube case, not just a cubicle, It houses water-cooling, some nice hardware, and Plexiglas. It wasn't easy to find the right design. I actually made al ot of mistakes in my earlier design. I used L profiles, from an aluminum case. But it looked terrible. So I went ahead and bought some plexi. Not just any plexi, but some that was cut specifically cut for my purpose." More information on this project can be found here. Cooler Master ATC-201A SX2 Case Review @ Viper Lair "Testing the Cooler Master with the Air Guide enabled netted some interesting results. System temperatures actually increased slightly, but CPU temperatures did lower by a small margin. What is probably happening that the CPU fan is configured to draw air into the heatsink, and the Air Guide is channeling cooler outside air on to the heatsink." More information on this review can be found here. PSU Watercooling Revisited @ Digital Explosion "Watercooling a PSU, you must be mad they told us. Well, we were one of the first to do it and now we've done it again. We dug out our modding hats and delved straight in. Check out our most recent article to see what happens when you mix power and water." More information on this review can be found here. Xoxide/Sunbeam 4 Channel Rheobus Review @ Phase2Digital "Today we have a rheobus made by Sunbeam Technology courtesy of Xoxide Modifications. If you're not familiar with what a rheobus is, it's a device that allows voltage manipulation of attached devices. It's most common use is controlling the speed of fans but it can be used for other devices as well such as cold cathodes. Variable speed control in fans is helpful for those of us who do not like their machines to be louder than most jet aircraft. When your computer is not doing anything CPU intensive, the fans in your system can be turned down to lower speeds therefore decreasing the amount of noise produced. Let's check out some of it's specifications and how it performs." More information on this review can be found here. CoolerMaster X-Dream HAC-V81 Heatsink Review @ RadiativeNZ "With summer coming up, enthusiasts and overclockers everywhere (well at least in the Southern Hemisphere) are shifting their attention to better cooling. Watercooling, peltiers, phase change are all on the agenda, but at the very least a faster, noisier fan or an altogether new HSF. Today we take a look at a unique heatsink from CoolerMaster: The HAC-V81 "XDream", which comes armed with a potentiometer allowing you to adjust the fan speed. Great for those days when your shirt doesn't need to be peeled from your back." More information on this review can be found here. Bluetake USB Bluetooth Adapter/Dongle Review @ OCIA "After installing the drivers and plugging the devices into a computer with and without an ethernet connection, I was able to get the wireless computer on the Internet, sharing files between the two computers, and share the wireless computer's printer. All of this was done in about 15 minutes. I assumed these Bluetooth devices would act like a regular network card in the computer, and one would use the standard windows networking options to get them up and running. However, Bluetooth devices create their own network and use their own software." More information on this review can be found here. Zalman ZM80A-HP VGA Heatpipe Cooler Review @ Overclockers Club (c) 2003 Overclockers Club "Well, there you have it. If you are looking for quiet, the ZM80A-HP cannot be beat. However, it does sacrifice a slight bit of performance by not having a fan to keep it cooled. Zalman states in the manual, "You can expect satisfactory cooling performance with the product alone. I believe the ZM80A-HP would do extremely well with a fan added to it, as suggested by Zalman. A low noise fan would probably cool the ZM80A-HP well below the TT GF4 cooler, and something like the TT SMART Case Fan II or Vantec Tornado would work much better." More information on this review can be found here. Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1 Review @ BJorn3D "The Fortissimo III is Hercules' new, higher end card and, like its entry level cousin the Muse 5.1 DVD, its a great value. If you're not ready to drop big bucks on a sound card, but want to take a step up from entry level economy sound cards, the Gamesurround Fortissimo III is a great place to look." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Nexus Multi-function Panel Review @ TweakTown "How many times have you wished that you could just plug in that extra USB device without having to crawl around behind your system case? If this sounds like you, then come join TweakTown as they take a look at the Vantec Nexus Multi-function Panel. It offers this very capability and a whole lot more. Can it hang with the needs of an enthusiast? Lets find out!" More information on this review can be found here.

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Monday News Edition..

Date Posted: Sunday, January 5, 2003, 11:43:47 PM

Author: hitek

Creative SLIX PC Barebones Review @ DeviantPC "Barebones was upon us last year and was regarded much like fashion, the latest fad to last the summer. Looks nice to be seen with and could make an admirable LAN solution. Trying to cram as much hardware into a small a box as possible, whilst trying to deviate from that 80s beige colour, suprisingly did last the summer, and today we see integrated small systems making in-roads into business arena as well as the gamers' bedroom. This is because the units are priced pretty reasonably, have a very small footprint and are powerful to not need updgrading for a few years at least; a good buy. In step Creative, making their first foray into this busy marketplace competing with the likes of Shuttle and Asus. What does the Slix offer different?" More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech MCW5000-A Water Block Review @ ExtremeMhz "Once again Swiftech has provided the computer enthusiast a high quality product that delivers measurable results. The MCW5000-A has allowed us to take our system's performance to a new level. The ability to overclock our AMD 2000+ CPU by 58% (912 MHZ) is a testament to that fact. Priced competitively at $52.00, we believe this product is a great value, especially when considering that it should still be viable through multiple system upgrades". More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Nexus Fan Controller Review @ OCAddiction "Having seen several home-built rheobuses in the past I think its fair to say that out of the box the Nexus Fan Controllers looked astonishingly good. Coming in a choice of black or silver, the controllers look enormously professional and very sleek. The silver is a godsend for aluminum case owners who have previously had to compromise by either enduring the horrible appearance of beige or black hardware in their cases, or repainting the faceplates to match. Not a problem here. Your expensive Lian-Li is going to be matched perfectly. Likewise, the black model matches my Chieftec so well that if it wasn't for the tastefully printed Vantec logo, you would swear it had come with the case." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Nexus Fan Controller Review @ OCAddiction (c) 2002 3DXtreme "This is the Swiftech MCW50-T, the first fully assembled thermoelectric graphics card cooling unit in the world. It is a great addition to the Swiftech water-cooled assembly, or just about any liquid cooled system out there. The full package comes with decent instructions, about 10 feet of tubing, all the necessary hardware to install on nVidia GeForce and ATi Radeon graphics cards, and adapters for use with either 1/2" or 3/8" PVC tubing for different liquid cooling tubing sizes." More information on this review can be found here. 3DMark 2001 Tweak Guide @ Digital Domination "I will be using the Albatron Ti4200 Turbo in this guide. First off I use Windows XP. I have found this to be a very fast, and stable OS. People have found that using Windows 2k, with SP2 gives a nice increase to your score ~200-400 points. In my experience installing DirectX 9 also gave me a little boost, ~100-200 points. The latest drivers have performed the best. Currently I use the 42.01. The VIA 4.45s are also installed. A fresh install of your OS is a must to get the maximum score. I have found installing the 4in1s, then the video card drivers creates the least amount of problems." More information on this guide can be found here. NV28 (Ti 4200-8X) Comparison @ Explosive Labs "A common exclamation that may be heard in the hardware community these days is: "What the heck is a GeForce4 Ti 4800?" In fact, you maybe asking the same thing yourself. The Ti4800 is the afore mentioned NV28. When nVidia releases a GPU, it is usually met with much anticipation and fanfare. However in this case, the NV28 has somehow slipped under the radar. One reason is that NV28 has not had the lead-time that other GPUs have had. Secondly, everybody wants to know about NV30, really couldn't care less about any other graphics news. Third, nVidia is not too proud of this one and the NV28 not likely to make much of an impact between the Radeon 9700's dominance, and NV30 hitting the streets soon." More information on this review can be found here. VIA P4B Ultra Review @ Hexus.net "The P4B Ultra is a feature-rich, stable motherboard. The troubling aspect is that many others from differing chipsets can offer the same number of features and stability with a greater deal of availability. A better BIOS from enthusiasts' point of view, Firewire support and widespread availability would have made this motherboard into an attractive proposition. As it is it's just above average." More information on this review can be found here. Antec Hard Drive Cooling System Review @ PimpRig "Once the front bezel has been removed we can see this unit is cooled by 2 Y.S. Tech Variable Speed 40mm Fans. Under maximum RPM these little baby's will move about 5.7CFM at 22.4 dB, that's not much CFM compared to their bigger brothers, but its along the average for 40mm fans. And at 22 dB, you are not likely to notice the fans over your existing cooling solution. Definitely the most innovative part of the Antec Cooling package would have to be the 2 thermal probes coupled with the two YS Tech Variable speed fans." More information on this review can be found here. Lian Li PC-7323A Aluminum Case Review @ Mikhailtech (c) 2002 Mikhailtech "Probably the heaviest part of the case is the swinging door; unlike the rest of the thin panels, this comes in at about 3-4mm thick, most likely for noise insulation. And surprisingly enough, it does a very good job of lowering the overall level; you can discernibly hear the difference as you open/close the door. Speaking of which, it has a very unique (and loud) click. Initially I thought it used a magnet of sorts but it turns out that a pair of spring-loaded aluminum balls at the top and bottom of the case pop in and out of a small groove. The lock is a nice addition and unlike some cases, the keys can be removed in either the open or closed state." More information on this review can be found here. ASUS iPanel Deluxe Review @ Envy News "There is a certain appeal to be able to see your vital stats at a glance, and if you are a patriotic Asus fan then this product could probably suit you. However, other products such as the DigiDoc5 reviewed last month offer nearly the same performance without the migraines. It has been almost 2 years since Envy News reviews the iPanel Basic and as far as we can tell this product is as much a dismal failure as the original. The iPanel Deluxe appears to be aimed at the home-gaming user, but with the stuttering problem previously mentioned, Asus have shot themselves in the foot - again." More information on this review can be found here. Mitsumi PC Mascot Review @ Blagged-Hardware "Special Agent PC Mascot is it's name, annoying the pants off you is it's game. Mitsumi have tried something a little original, and a little out of the ordinary as far as their usual products are concerned. The PC Mascot is a plastic bird that can do many things, it retreives e-mails, reads them out to you and flaps its wings. It sounds like a fun novelty item, but after a while the novelty wears off and you'll be ready to throttle the poor bird. If you don't believe me why not come listen to it's voice." More information on this review can be found here. The Moussager Project @ ExtensionTech (c) 2002 ExtensionTech "Why is it that every time I look at something that is battery powered I try and imagine it hooked up to my computer? My thought process provides for some amusing results, though. You take a mouse, add a hand-held massager, mix well, and you get the Moussager! The implications for just such a device are obvious. I have no doubt this article will be fairly technical, so if you don't like that kind of thing, then just look at the pretty pictures. If you are still interested, then grab a mouse and a massager and sit back and enjoy yourself. And by the way, we are even auctioning this off!" Crazy idea, but I like it! More information on this project can be found here. SLK-700 Limited Edition Heatsink Review @ System Cooling "The latest member of the narrow heatspreader base SLK family the SLK-700 has recently been released as a "Limited Edition" model. While the SLK-700 and SLK-800 resemble one another the SLK-700 is never the less, different. The SLK -700 has been designed to be used with the YS Tech 74mm TMD fan and uses the proven three-pronged clip that provides rock solid attachment to "Socket A" motherboards. Like its brother, the clip is locked within the heatsink meaning that the clip can't mistakenly be installed backwards." More information on this review can be found here. Thermaltake Copper Memory Cooling Kit Review @ Tweakers Australia "Although there isn't a whole lot to say about them, the first thing you do notice is the great shine the copper produces, and like all Thermaltake products they want to make a good looking product as well as a well made one that hopefully helps increase the performance of your system in some way. These heatspreaders are a lot heavy then the original aluminium ones that Thermaltake produced, and theoretically should be able to dissipate heat at a faster rate than aluminium." More information on this review can be found here.

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Winter Weekend Edition..

Date Posted: Saturday, January 4, 2003, 9:26:33 AM

Author: hitek

VIA KT400 Motherboard Roundup @ Explosive Labs "In July of this year, VIA technologies unveiled to the market its Apollo KT400 chipset quite unexpectedly. This just 6 months after the Apollo KT333 chipset had been released back in February; there were some mixed emotions with VIA's latest move. The KT333 chipset had gained a fair amount of respect and growth in the market and was the better solution for AMD users compared to VIA's counterparts. VIA knowing they had the greater market share for AMD chipsets should have let the KT333 chipset develop more maturely in the marketplace, while they were in the process of working on their next chipset, the KT400." More information on this review can be found here. Vantec Nexus NXP-101 Review @ Envy News "Lately, Envy News has been taking a look at equipment that will help your system look wicked while keeping it thermally cool and audibly quiet. While there have been fans galore, only a few thermal sensor reviews have been done. We started with the CompuNurse Advanced, and then we took a look at the MacPower DigiDoc5. Both were very handy and have earned their places as integral system tools, but neither had that visual panache that many people want in a designer system. Not to worry; you can still have your cake and eat it too, as Vantec solves the Looks vs. Functionality equation with the Vantec Nexus Multifunction Panel." More information on this review can be found here. FireFly USBee 32MB Drive Review "Most of the Keychain drives we have reviewed had a Slant, if not, it was just another boring drive that was added to our growing pile of discarded flash memory products. However, as the IKEA brilliant ad campaign showed us, a little added spice can make even the most mundane Unboring. The TwinTech FireFly USBee 32MB has PI Protector software which diverts your internet browsing information to the drive." More information on this review can be found here. E-Compuvision Relaunches With New Look! "One our long time sponsors closed down last week in order to put the finishing touches on a brand new website design. The new design is very clean and a large improvement over the orginal. E-Compuvsion has been online since January 2000, and is considered one of the most repsected Canadian online shops. MTB would like to congratulate Ralph and wish him luck on the new site relaunch." More information on this new site launch can be found here. Antec TruePower 430W PSU Review @ PCReviewSpot "Antec is a company that is now known by enthusiasts everywhere for making high-quality inexpensive products. Antec’s cases and power supplies are their best known products, and for good reason. Regular power supplies have two voltage rails: a 12v rail and a 5/3.3v rail. In their TruePower power supplies, Antec decided to split the 5/3.3v rail into two rails. By doing so, it is possible to use all of the current from the power supply. So if a computer has many PCI cards, which run off of the 5v line, the CPU, which runs off of the 3.3v line can have all the power it wants. This is especially useful for overclockers, because overclocked CPU’s require more power than CPU’s running at stock speed." More information on this review can be found here. Lamps Electronics Cold Cathodes @ Think Computers (c) 2002 Think Computers "Its was only a few years ago that I cut my first side window. Now they are becoming standard on almost all new cases. With everyone having a window on their case, almost everyone has some type of light source in their case. It maybe a neon light, cold cathode, or some LED fans. Well today I will be looking at some cold cathodes from Lamps Electronics, a Chinese company." More information on this review can be found here. Matrix Orbital BLK-202A-4BR LCD Review @ MrPCPro "The fact that it is pre mounted for you in a PC-BAY insert means easy installation, while the features allow for advanced users to show their creativity through the use of GPO's (which we will talk more about later)." More information on this review can be found here. AOpen AX4GN 845G Motherboard Review @ Viper Lair "In a nutshell, the AOpen AX4GN holds its own against the newer i845PE. The unofficial support for DDR333 proves to be quite useful when compared against DDR266 motherboards. The black PCB is a nice touch, as well as the P4 support plate beneath the board." More information on this review can be found here. Thrustmaster Tacticalboard Review @ BJorn3D "Bjorn3D has posted a review of Thrustmaster's heavy-hitter of a gamepad. The Tacticalboard contains 42+ buttons and it functions nicely as a Virtual Keyobard, and not an annoying Gaming Device. The accompanying Game Commander 2 and Teamsound software are also nice additions." More information on this review can be found here. Everglide Spec Ops Mouse Pads Review @ PC-Arena "The folks at Everglide sent me there latest award winning gaming surface that offers excellent traction and a large mousing area, Unlike the Attack or Giganta mouse pads from Everglide these are thiner, cheaper and work well with both normal and optical mice, the Gaming mats are available in 5 eye-catching designs and priced between £9.99 and £12.99 which is much cheaper than the first groups of mouse pads that were released by Everglide." More information on this review can be found here. Game Music Extraction Guide @ TweakTown "In recent times there would have been an instance when we bet you would have liked to rip the music from some of the latest games with excellence in this area and listen without having to play the actual game. If you're interested, follow TweakTown as they gives us a full run down on just how it is done with examples from all of the latest games!" More information on this guide can be found here. Network Time Server Review @ IPKonfig "The client version stays in touch with the Network Time Sync Server, and, for the most part, takes commands from the server. The administrator is able to send out time synchs to all client machines with a push of the button. But time synching goes beyond the users' convenience; it also keeps backups in order. Time stamps are very important for backup systems, and having incorrect time date stamps can bring frustration to the backup administrator's job." More information on this review can be found here. Swiftech H20-8500 Watercooling Kit Review @ Overclockers.com "The good guys at Swiftech were nice enough to send out a sample of their latest product, the Swiftech H20-8500. This is an easy to install watercooling kit which requires almost no case modification -it is possible to install without any case cutting at all, if that's a problem. For those consumers who wish to get into watercooling but don't want to do major case surgery, this is worth a look. I'll take a close look at the kit, then test its cooling performance." More information on this review can be found here.

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T.G.I.F News Edition..

Date Posted: Friday, January 3, 2003, 10:54:34 AM

Author: hitek

Asus P4PE I845PE Motherboard Review @ Overclockers New Zealand "Asus P4PE is an exceptional board with solid performance. The features offered cater a wide range of users. The novice users will find it quite user friendly with good hardware protection and onboard functions. Overclockers certainly won't be disappointed with the extensive tweaking options and the overclocking result is impressive as well." More information on this review can be found here. X-Pider Thermal Monitor Review @ Overclocker Cafe "What really decided this for me wasn't just the ability to attach devices to the front or the temp. monitoring, but the color. All the others I had seen were either beige or black. Well, my personal case is the Lian-Li PC-7323 that I reviewed a while back and with its aluminum finish, it matches great." More information on this review can be found here. ThermalTake G4-VGA Copper Cooler Review @ OCAddiction "The HSF itself seems of solid construction. It's very heavy and made of all copper with the exception of the fan and the clear plastic cover. The copper is machined into a pin arrangement much like the Swiftech and Alpha heatsinks for the CPU. The base wasn't quite perfectly smooth. A good lapping would make it smoother, but that is another project in and of itself." More information on this review can be found here. Thermaltake Memory Coolers Review @ Overclockers Club Canada "Installing the heat spreaders can be extremely easy or tediously difficult, depending on whether or not you choose to include the metal clips. Installing the active heat spreader (the orange one) first requires that you determine the alignment of your memory module to your motherboard, and then figuring out how the fan will fit in there." More information on this review can be found here. Dynatron UV Reactive Fans Review @ DVHardware "Dynatrons UV reactive fans produce about 34 CFM wich is the average amount of most 80mm fans that you will find. Now that may of course not be a good reason for you to get them, but the real reason to get these fans is because they are colorded AND UV reactive! They look very nice with an UV Cold Cathode and I’m sure that they will look very cool in your case with an UV Cold Cathode + UV reactive rounded cables!" More information on this review can be found here. Beantech BT-84 Acrylic Tower Review @ Monkey Review "Setting up this tower has probably been one of the most time consuming from start to finish. Let's face it, we're not dealing with a material that hides scratches, chips, or bangs very well and if you're not cautious you could cause some undesirable scratches to the unit. For the most part, the tower is constructed using durable and thick enough acrylic to withstand small bangs and bumps. One area that caused us some problems was the very thin rear panel which requires you to cut out all slots for your AGP, PCI, Sound, Ethernet." More information on this review can be found here. Beantech BT-84 Acrylic Tower Review @ ModTown "I noticed that the side panel fan was extracting air from the case, but I prefer them to be the other way round and blowing air into the case. It's not a hard job to do just a case of undoing the 4 fan screws and turning the fan round. Each of the 3 case fans have been fitted with gold fan grills on the inside so you don't loose any fingers when working on the case, I would have preferred these to be chrome but I am not going to complain as it makes a change for a case manufacturer to use their initiative and supply them." More information on this review can be found here. Chieftec Wireless Keyboard & Mouse Review "I have to say I don't like the mouse much at all; the mouse uses what I regard as the OLD mouse ball function. Because I have been using an optical mouse for quite a while, it was very hard trying to get used to using a ball mouse again. I changed to optical due to the fact I got fed up of cleaning the mouse ball every five minutes. I would have thought that they would have incorporated optical technology into this mouse as all other manufacturers are doing." More information on this review can be found here. Lian-Li Product images of PC-6070 and Aquarium Side Panel @ Think Computers "We here at ThinkComputers.org have obtained images of the latest Lian-Li products. The PC-6070 Silent Case and the new Aquarium side panel." The PC-6070 looks sweet but the Aquarium side panel is an absolute joke! More information on these products can be found here. Sapphire Radeon 9000 Atlantis PRO 64Mb Review @ Alltechbox "Sapphire is a well known name in the international scene because of its own video board based on the ATI GPU, which is distinguished by an excellent quality/price ratio. The model we tested is the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Atlantis pro, belonging to the Radeon 9000 series. This series was developed by ATI for the medium price point in the market." More information on these products can be found here. Antec Cobra IDE Cable Review @ GruntvillE "The Cobra A26 ATA133 IDE Round Cable comes with dual device connections. This is a nice option to reduce clutter inside your case. The downside is if you do not want to run dual devices then you have to hide the other connector. The cable is 26" long end to end. The first section is about 10" and the second is about 16". This was great in my Antec case, it reached with no problems. This rounded IDE cable is ATA133/100/66/33 compliant. It will work with your IDE hard drives, CD-ROM, DVD ROM and other IDE devices." More information on this review can be found here. Viperlair's 2002 Editor's Picks @ Viper Lair "During the course of 2002, we've had the opportunity to look at a ton of products. some of them blew us away, and some of them just blew. With 2002 in the books, we look back at the products we loved, as well as looking back at some products that disappointed us in a major fashion." More information on this review can be found here.

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Thursday News Edition..

Date Posted: Thursday, January 2, 2003, 3:13:22 AM

Author: hitek

Cooltechnica AquaExtreme XG Water-cooled Case Review @ Computer Insanity "In this day and age, water-cooling is becoming a much more mainstream and accepted way to cool your processor. Specialty stores have sprung up throughout the internet offering a variety of every component needed to create a complete water-cooling system for your PC. As water-cooling becomes more and more commonplace, more people want to get involved, but they proverbially "don't want to get their hands dirty." So, for this market, we have a whole slew of preinstalled water-cooled cases." More information on this review can be found here. BeanTech BT80 Clear Acrylic Case Reviews! GruntvillE's Review "Well the temps weren't the most impressive but certainly weren't disappointing either. It doesn't keep up with the cooling prowess the Addtronics we reviewed recently offers but acrylic isn't known for its thermal capabilities. This case was designed to look good and it does a VERY good job. Its performance is an added benefit. Some beefier fans and I'm sure it'll be keeping up with most metal cases. On extended use expect it to run slightly warmer than a metal case but from what I've seen, it shouldn't be a factor for all but the extremist in cooling who should already know better than to look at an acrylic case." More information on this review can be found here. PimpRig's Review "Overall this case is quite nice to say the least. It does have a few minor issues but nothing too major. Just remember that ACRYLIC IS SOFT and you will be ok. The construction of this case, despite the softness of the material, is outstanding. It is sturdy and relatively light. Just seems strange to hear the acrylic creak when you pick it up." More information on this review can be found here. The ModFather's Review "When the system arrived we decided that it was not enough to review it in a few short weeks, but we also needed to build a complete modded system. A clear case it not about sticking a motherboard in and a few lights. It is only through a complete project will it shine, or waiver." More information on this review can be found here. 3.5" Drive Bay Fan Controllers Review @ System Cooling (c) 2002 System Cooling "PcToys and Vantec recently released their new "5.25" Drive Bay Fan Controllers" to the computing public. An immediate outcry went up that sounded something like this -"Gosh, all the drive bay fan speed controllers always require the use of a 5.25" bay, why can't someone make one to fit in a 3.5" drive bay?" More information on this review can be found here. ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Review @ Techware Labs "The epic battle between ATI and Nvidia wages on. While Nvidia awaits arrival of their near fabled NV30 for redemption, ATI conquers all by introducing the fastest and most advanced graphics card to date. The next-generation ATI Radeon 9700 Pro marks the second time Nvidia ceding the performance crown to ATI (the first time being the brief glory when the ATI Rage Fury beat the Nvidia TNT)." More information on this review can be found here. Albatron PX845PE ProIIS Silver Edition with Corsair XMS 3500 Review @ myWORLD Hardware "Albatron, a new company that was established in the year 2002, was actually started by it's former company, Chun Yun Electronics. In the year 1984, Chun Yun Electronics was a display manucfacturer that produces wide-screen multimedia monitors, rear projection systems, TVs, and plasma displays. But time has changed and IT era is blooming and in order to cope with the new enviroment, Chun Yun Electronics changed their name to Albatron!" More information on this review can be found here. Chaintech 7NJS Zenith Motherboard Review at ExtremeMhz "NVIDIA's first entry into the chipset market produced a mixed bag. While it was much anticipated and ballyhooed, the nForce was not the VIA killer that many prophets thought it would be. While some interesting technology was developed, the original nForce was relegated to second tier status by computer enthusiasts worldwide. NVIDIA's new offering, the nForce2 has also been released with much of the same fanfare that its predecessor experienced, but what a difference a year makes! By all accounts the nForce2 is the read deal. Many are calling the nForce2, the best performing Athlon solution ever devised." More information on this review can be found here. AOpen AX4 PE Max Motherboard Review @ Overclocker Cafe "Can you say "Loaded"? Well if you can, then that pretty much accurately describes AOpen's newest motherboard offering, the AX4PE Max. This board has everything on it but a remote control for your TV and believe me, I looked for that. AOpen has long been a staunch provider of strong, stable motherboards for the average user and now it seems that they have set their sights on the enthusiast and overclocker market as well." More information on this review can be found here. Logitech Z-640 Speakers Review @ Envy News "With every release of new surround audio standard comes a wave of home-theatre purchases. Home-theatre set-ups are usually comprised of high-caliber components, wiring, and time-consuming installation and surround-field calibration. These home system introductions are typically paralleled in the home PC enthusiast market as well, but at a slower pace of adoption. With new home releases come new PC releases; today we examine the Logitech Z-640 entry-level Dolby Digital 5.1 system." More information on this review can be found here. Lamps Electronics Cold Cathodes Review @ PC-Arena "Lamps Electronics is a new player on the case lighting scene, hailing from the People's Republic of China. Today I'm going to be looking at some of their PC Lighting products. They have sent me over a whole array of cold cathodes." More information on this review can be found here.

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Wednesday News Edition..

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 1, 2003, 10:43:33 AM

Author: hitek

Xoxide's Koolance PC2-601 Case Review @ Designtechnica "As microprocessors advance, minimum feature size is reduced allowing for more transistors to fit on the same size die. Increased transistors count allows for architectural advances to improve performance – but usually at the cost of raising the power, thereby creating more heat. This has created a growing need for improved cooling solutions. Right now, the most popular method of cooling these processors is with air cooling. Air Cooling is often loud and inefficient – and many people are now looking for better ways to cool. One of the best options is water cooling. But water cooling requires many components as well as modifications to the computer case. To simplify this process, Koolance makes cases equipped with everything you need to get started water cooling." More information on this review can be found here. Prometeia: Is this the best CPU cooling system around? @ Tom's Hardware "One of the advantages of the Prometeia compared to its rivals is that users have the option to continue using their existing systems. The only thing that you have to do is drill a hole at the base of the PC case so that the cooling tube can be installed. The cooling system can be quickly placed or installed under the PC tower. It's not necessary to move components around, although the motherboard needs to be taken out in order to install the system." More information on this review can be found here. DangerDen Maze3-1 vs. SwifTech MCW462-UHT @ Liquid Ninjas "It has been over four months since I wrote my previous SwifTech vs. DangerDen waterblock article. In the previous review, the final results were surprising because the MCW462-UH and the Maze3 waterblocks, two very different waterblock designs, performed amazingly similar in my test bed, yielding nearly identical temperature results. I've since encountered similar findings in other reviews of these two waterblocks on the web, although usually the SwifTech block does hold a small edge." More information on this review can be found here. C3 Clear Case Review @ Geekshelter "Sporting "Laser Cut .25" Crystal Clear Acrylic", with the dimensions of 18" Height x 8 ½" Width x 18" Depth (which is pretty darn big), this case will support your gaming, overclocking, and serving needs in 2003. Many colors are supplied, from blue, white (or just plain clear), orange, and so on. You can impress all your friends, at LAN parties, meet-ups, and so-forth, with this awesome case. Now you can take FULL pride, joy, and features of your cold cathode, led fans, and other light-up gadgets that fill your case." More information on this review can be found here. ViewSonic G90F Graphics Series PerfectFlat 19" Monitor Review @ Computer Insanity "In recent times, gamers and users alike are all looking for that crisp image and vibrant color. With LCD technology, you can get both quality and crispness but your bank account will hate you for it. The only other alternative is the timeless CRT type monitor. For many years, ViewSonic has been one of, if not the most notable computer monitor manufacturer. They offer high quality monitors with a wide feature set, vibrant colors, crisp text, and an affordable price. ViewSonic products have won more than 1,000 awards from industry leading publications from around the world. Additionally, the company is the #1 best-selling monitor brand in the U.S., delivering price and performance leadership." More information on this review can be found here. Koolpcmods Laser-Etched Dragon Window Review @ DVHardware "Well I must say that I’m very happy with my laser-etched window from Koolpcmods! The etching job from Koolpcmods is very detailed and it looks much better than window appliqués. A normal window kit from most shops costs about $15 to $20 so one of Koolpcmods deluxe etchings is a very good choice that costs only $10 more, if you don’t already have a case window of course." More information on this review can be found here. Direct X 9 Benchmarks @ Viper Lair "Given the number of decent DX8 titles, that is, games that actually make use of the fancy Vertex and Pixel shaders (hint: that number is low), the question is, will DX9 make any difference with the titles we have on store shelves now?" More information on this review can be found here. TherMagic CPU Cooling System Review @ ClubOC "The kit provides everything you need to install the unit. You even have the choice between an AMD or P4 kit. The kit we have is for Socket-A (AMD), so it uses a standard type mounting clip like you would find on the average heatsink. The kits include mounting instructions, TherMagic Thermal Compound, an assortment of mounting screws and push pin type fasteners. As you can see, a 4 pin pigtail adapter for power is included." More information on this review can be found here. Best of 2002 @ Hexus.net "Everyday we get asked to recommend kit for peoples systems. It is hard to know what to put in your latest rig, we are at an advantage being able to upgrade and change our systems daily. We have decided to select the top picks and best products of the Year 2002. We have seen a lot of new products, faster CPUs, new Innovations, and some interesting changes in market stances - with AMD and Intel battling, and NVIDIA and ATi also having a good battle 2003 for sure looks like it will be a very busy one. We would like to thank all the companies over the past year for providing us with an interesting insight to the new technology." More information on this article can be found here.

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