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May 2005 |
ATI have unveiled their dual-VPU technology at Computex. It's called "ATI CrossFire" and allows more than one of their video cards to be used together in the same system, much like NVIDIA's SLi.
Coverage on Anandtech, FiringSquad, HardOCP, HWAnalysis, Beyond3D, HWSecrets, NeoSeeker, PC Perspective, TBreak, TechReport and Xbit.
There's a thread here in our Video Cards forum about this new technology.
The SETI project has received a boost, with plans for a new telescope array in northern California, dedicated to their search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. The Allen Telescope Array will be made up of 350 small silver aluminum dishes that are to be spread out over 90 acres. Yes, Allen as in Paul.
HWZone have published the results and conclusions of their 8-way nForce Ultra motherboard shootout. Xbit meanwhile have released part two of their NetBurst architecture article.
AGS spotted this quad SLI motherboard from Gigabyte on THG. The board, currently named "GA-8N-SLI Quad", shows four PCI Express slots that can be occupied by SLI-compatible graphics cards.
HWAnalysis ponder the dual-core market while OCW have a guide to choosing which dual-core path to take. From a quick glance around the forums, the general concensus seems to be "AMD faster, Intel cheaper". But when you factor in the motherboard costs etc, it's still a bit muddy.
OCW also have some info on the remote management technology introduced with Intel's 945 and 955X chipsets.
Murray noticed that Toshiba now have a slimline DVD burner with support for HP's LightScribe label-etching technology.
The CIA have been simulating internet attacks, thanks te_kin. More info here.
Hexus look at the benefits of PCI Express from a video editing perspective. XYZ meanwhile explain what the BTX platform is all about.
SilentPCReview give us a detailed visual tour of Antec's new P180 case, which was apparently designed with their assistance, with silence in mind.
From Hammer: IP infringement is now a fundraiser for terrorists.. so the Americans would have us believe. Ars Technica takes a look at a cynical piece of manipulation.
Monday Midday Reviews
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Monday, 30-May-2005 12:20:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Coolermaster Aquagate Mini R120 liquidcooling kit on ABXZone.
Danger Den MCT-40 Coolant on Techniz.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Tech Toxic Radeon X700 Pro PCIe on PimpRig.
PowerColor Bravo Radeon X700 on OCOnline.
Radeon X800XT PE AGP on Accelenation.
HIS iX850XT Turbo Radeon on OCPrices.
Memory:
Corsair Xpert XMS 3200XL on Motherboards.org.
OCZ DDR3200 2*512mb Titanium on RBMods.
OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Titanium on PCModdingMy.
Misc:
Bytecc BT-200 USB 2.0 to IDE Adapter on Virtual-Hideout.
palmOne Tungsten E2 PDA on XYZComputing.
Shuttle XPC ST20G5 S939 mini-PC on Hexus.
HP Colour LaserJet 2028 MFD printer/scanner etc on TrustedReviews.
Fujifilm FinePix F810 Zoom widescreen digicam on TrustedReviews.
Triplett 3526-B Digi-Probe multimeter on Phoronix.
Telstra has scrapped plans for retail VoIP for at least another year. "The trial found that the consumer experience was below expectations in terms of voice quality and reliability." Update: Apparently they've changed their minds, thanks ho_k.
Voyager 1 and 2 continue to boldly go, reporting back from the very farthest edges of the Solar System. Still operating in remote, cold and dark conditions 27 years later, the Voyagers could last until 2020.
BigBruin have some thermal images of some DFI motherboards. Everyone knows the importance of cooling computer components, and we'll see what areas on these boards may need extra cooling for optimum performance.
FiringSquad have a guide to unlocking extra pipelines on AGP GeForce 6800's. But what if you could turn the 12-pipeline GeForce 6800 into an even more powerful 16-pipeline card without spending a dime?
Xbit have a detailed article on the NetBurst architecture of Intel's P4 CPUs. All developers’ efforts were dedicated not that much to the increase in the number of commands performed per clock cycle but to reaching the highest frequency possible for the same production process as that used for P6 architecture.
In this thread, Cathar points out a video showing how not to watercool a hard drive.
Dan has more letters: PC remotes, surround headphones, USB laptop charging, cheap LED lights, yet another fuel saver, low voltage electrocution, another little MPV player, Jesus on music sharing, and a flame-throwing hearse.
Hexus spotted a 4-way Xeon system from IWill at Computex which uses an unusual memory riser setup.
BleedinEdge report on a voltage problem on DFI nForce4 boards. If you own 1 of these boards and have the jumper set to 5 volts, DFI Tech support in the USA recommend changing it back to the 3.3 volt setting until DFI R&D in Taiwan can fix the problem. Seems to be a lot of debate about the existence of this issue at the moment.
ExtremeTech address the price vs performance ratio of dual-core CPUs from Intel and AMD. The discrepancy casts the differences between AMD and Intel into sharp focus.
ASUS announced that their P5WD2 motherboard is the first Intel 955X chipset motherboard to provide native memory support up to DDR2-1066 or more. By unleashing the true potential of DDR2 memory standards, the P5WD2 Premium delivers superior overclocking capability for memory and overall system performance. More info in an 83KB DOC here.
Corsair unveiled XMS2-8000UL DDR2 memory. Available immediately in both single module and dual kit packages and rated to run at aggressive latency settings of 5-4-4-9, the new XMS2-8000UL was developed in collaboration with ASUS® Computer for its latest Intel® i955X chipset based motherboard, the P5WD2 Premium. Backed with a life time warranty and a potential to be overclocked to 1066+ Mhz, Corsair's new XMS2-8000UL complements ASUS' P5WD2 Premium motherboard as the ultimate choice for enthusiasts. More info in a 158KB PDF here.
Corsair also announced some new flash memory products. The new Corsair Secure Digital (SD) and type I Compact Flash (CF) media are now rated at blazing fast 60X (9 MB/sec) or 80X (12MB/sec). Designed with the advanced users and photo journalists in mind who demand performance with uncompromising reliability, Corsair's new high speed flash memory products are compatible with most popular digital cameras and handheld devices. More info in a 163KB PDF here.
ECS announced their PF5 Extreme motherboard, based on Intel's new 945P chipset, for LGA775 P4's up to 1066MHz FSB. I.O.C. enables the system to automatically boost frequency to enhance overall performance by intelligently detecting the CPU loads. On the other hand, ECSonic II allows users to adjust the overclocking of the frequency or voltage on CPU, PCI Express x16 slots and DIMMs by themselves. The combination of I.O.C. and ECSonic II provides users with the utmost overclocking flexibility. More info here.
GeIL announced an extreme low latency version of its Ultra-X series DDR. "In the lab, our engineers are able to post the newest UltraX-XL DDR 400MHz module at CL 1.5-5-2-2 with 2.5V to 3.6V power consumption on the DFI-SLI-DR motherboard." Jeff Hsieh, Chief Executive Officer of GeIL said. "These newly released Extreme Low Latency modules came with GeIL's latest EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) technology which offers extra peace of mind for hardcore gamers who demand more." More info here.
VIA released their new C7 "Esther" processor, which they claim is the world's smallest, lowest power and mose secure native x86 processor. Initially to be launched at speeds of up to 2.0GHz, the VIA C7 processor boasts the highly efficient VIA V4 bus interface with speeds of up to 800MHz with competitive write bandwidth and linear ordering modes, as well as SSE2 and SSE3 support for enhanced multimedia performance, and 128KB of both L1 and L2 on-die cache memory. More info in the press release here, product page here and there's a thread in our VIA Hardware forum here.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Sunday, 29-May-2005 15:59:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Systems, Portable, SFF:
Shuttle SB83G5C Media Center XPC mini PC on TBreak.
Targus Liz Tote Deluxe Laptop Bag on FutureLooks.
Watford Aries 6435 prebuilt A64 system on Bit-Tech.
Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 PDA on DesignTechnica.
Shuttle XPC SN25P nForce 4 Ultra mini PC on AMDZone.
Shuttle SB86i XPC mini PC on Hexus.
Shuttle ST20G5 mini PC on OCProjects.
Motherboard & CPU:
VIA EPIA SP 1300 All-In-One mini-mobo and CPU on TweakTown.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual Core CPU on PCPerspective.
Foxconn 925XE7AA-8EKRS2 Intel 925XE motherboard on ExtremeOC.
ULi M1695/1567 Reference Mainboard for A64 on OCW.
DFI LAN Party NF4 Ultra-D A64 board on PCModdingMy.
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 NF4U A64 board on HWZ.
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 NF4U A64 board on HWZ.
Intel Pentium D 820 CPU on Xbit.
Intel Pentium 4 670 CPU on Xbit.
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum NF4U A64 board on HWZ.
Case & Modding:
SilverStone LC13 HTPC Case (video review) on 3DGameMan.
XMod Blue UV PSU Sleeving Kit on OzCaseMods.
Xmod Cable Management Kit on OzCaseMods.
Aspire X-QPack SFF case on Hi-TechReviews.
Antec P160 tower on DriverHeaven, our review here.
Logisys 20-in-1 Multifunction Panel on ExtremeMHz.
Sunbeam Trio Mid-Tower case on LANAddict.
SilverStone LC14M HTPC Case (video review) on 3DGameMan.
SilverStone Temjin TJ03 case on DriverHeaven.
SilverStone Lascala LC13 HTPC case on Rage3D.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 29-May-2005 14:47:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Samsung 910MP & 730B LCD screens on OCOnline.
MediaGear SongBank mp3 player on GeekExtreme.
Rio Forge Sport mp3 player on CoolTechZone.
TerraTec Cinergy T² USB2.0 TV tuner on BIOSMag.
Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks Deluxe webcam on FutureLooks.
Eizo ColorEdge CG220 22.2in professional TFT screen on TrustedReviews.
Samsung 910MP 19" Multi-Function Monitor on ByteSector.
Samsung SyncMaster 930MP Multifunctional 19" LCD Monitor on BonaFideReviews.
Cooling:
Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro CPU cooler on PCModdingMy.
Thermalright XP-90C CPU cooler on ViperLair.
Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro CPU cooler on Bjorn3D.
Thermaltake Beetle CPU cooler on BleedinEdge.
Prime Cooler Hypercool III+ & Hypercool 4+ CPU coolers on PCModdingMy.
Thermaltake Silent 939 A64 CPU cooler on A1-Electronics.
PolarFLO TT Series CPU waterblock on MadShrimps.
Arctic Cooling ArctiClean thermal paste/pad remover on GideonTech.
Swiftech H20-120 Rev. 3a watercooling kit on PCModdingMy.
PrimeCooler HyperCool IV + Led CPU cooler on HWZone.
Mouse, Keyboard Etc:
Logitech diNovo Media Desktop on CoolTechZone, our review here.
Steelpad Qck+ Mouse Pad on TechIMO, our review here.
Razer Diamondback gaming mouse on 1337reviews.
Key Tronic LT Designer Keyboard on XYZComputing.
Logitech Cordless Desktop LX500 and LX700 on CoolTechZone.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 27-May-2005 17:08:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 nF4U A64 on HWZ.
BFG BFGRNF4U nF4U A64 on HardOCP.
ABIT Fatali1ty AN8 nF4U A64 on Hexus.
Chaintech VNF4 Ultra nF4U A64 on HWZ.
DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D nF4U A64 on HWZ.
Gigabyte 8I955X Royal LGA775 P4 on LegionHardware.
ECS KN1 Extreme nF4U A64 on HWZ.
EPoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra nF4U A64 on HWZ.
Memory:
OCZ Technology Platinum Edition EL PC-4800 Dual Channel DDR on OCIA.
OCZ Platinum PC5000 DFI nF4 Special 1GB Dual Channel Kit on InsaneTek.
OCZ 2x 512 MB PC3200 Gold (2:2:2:5) on Guru3D.
OCZ DDR Booster memory overclocking tool on SGOverclockers.
OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Gold on GamerGod.
Storage:
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 SATA HDD on TechReport.
LiteOn SOHW-1693S DVD Writer on Techniz.
NEC ND-3540A DVD Writer on TrustedReviews.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 SATA HDD on XbitLabs.
Power Supplies:
FSP Power Supplies roundup on XbitLabs.
Thermaltake PurePower TWV 500W ATX 2.0 Modular on TweakNews.
SeaSonic S12 500W on Techniz.
Tagan i-Xeye TG420-U02 on PCModdingMy.
Ultra X-Finity 500W on Hybrid-Mods.
New Chipsets & CPUs from Intel
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Friday, 27-May-2005 15:20:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Intel have released their 945 Express chipsets and two new Pentium 4 CPUs, the P4 Processor 670 and Pentium D 820. To quote Tech Report: The P4 670 is the fastest single Pentium 4 processor ever released, running at nearly 4GHz. The Pentium D 820, meanwhile, runs a full gigahertz slower, but it has two complete Pentium 4-style CPU cores onboard for a very nice price.
(P)reviews on Anandtech, Bjorn3D, ByteSector (and here), ExtremeTech, Hexus, HotHardware (and here), NeoSeeker, Tech Report, TrustedReviews and Xbit. There's a thread for these new products here in our Intel Hardware forum.
PCWorld report that the Pentium D raises some digital rights management questions - there's a thread discussing this here.
ArsTechnica have part 1 of a detailed Xbox360 article posted. More coverage on TheTechZone and an interview with ATI about the Xbox360 on Bit-Tech. WindowsForDevices think they know what O/S the new console runs on. TheTechZone also have Sony PS3 info from E3, while Bit-Tech say the PS3 GPU is still in development. Designtechnica wrap up with some Console Wars musings.
TechIMO have their E3 coverage posted, while Pimprig have a booth babes gallery.
TechSpot compared some mice. The contenders today are from Logitech: the MX1000 and MX518, from Razer: the Viper and Diamondback, and from Microsoft: the Wireless Intellimouse Explorer, and the Optical Mouse by S+ARCK.
NewScientist have a fascinating article titled 11 steps to a better brain. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells.
PhysOrg report on multi-level nanostructures possibly being the future of super-high-capacity optical storage.
AMDBoard have pics and info on an 8-way Opteron board from IWill which is dual-core ready. Hmm, cooling between those CPU boards will be interesting.
This is not safe for work, and pretty crude, but what the heck, I chuckled. b3ta have some phallic logo awards, which should serve as a warning to graphics designers, thanks te_kin. Reminds me of the hubbub over a recent logo change by a certain ISP.
From Eroda: i found some interesting firefox extensions: a band width tester, tetris like game - great time waster, control any media player from this (well most) i love this one custom skins as well, text editor - need to restart firefox.
Paul spotted a report on a trojan that encrypts your files and demands a ransom to get them back. An email address is supplied through which users are supposed to request for their files to be released after paying a ransom of $200.
MadShrimps wonder if highspeed memory is really required for A64 gaming. We don´t think so, we think having memory faster then PC3200 is overkill and does not improve real world performance one bit.
From Nick: Disney have released their beta version of Virtual Magic Kingdom to the public. VMK lets you experience the magic of Disney Theme Parks from anywhere at any time. Explore the hidden mysteries of Adventureland, travel back in time down Main Street, take an enchanted journey into Fantasyland® or conquer a bold adventure in Tomorrowland® - right from home!
Hexus have a sneak peek at IWill's ZMAXd2. Two dual-core Opterons and SLI video cards.. in an SFF mini-PC.
Some Australian star-gazers have found a new planet with the easy-to-remember name of OB-05-071. It is believed to be around 3 times the weight of Jupiter, and to orbit a star similar to our sun.
TechPowerUp toured the Sapphire Factory in China.
TheReg report on gummi bears being used to defeat fingerprint scanners. Well, not really, but the same gelatine goop. Talking to a guy at the PC Show about this yesterday, their system checks the finger for a pulse while scanning the print. This fixes the gelatine-model problem and also stops someone chopping off your finger to get access to your office. Of course, now they'll just point a gun at your head and make you open the door instead.
Fwoar spotted that Australia has joined Operation Spam Zombies to help stem the ever-growing tide of spam from hijacked PC's.
Remember kids, playing with lightsabres is dangerous. Especially if you make your lightsaber by filling a flouro light tube with petrol, thanks Daniel.
PCPerspective have a preview of AGEIA's PhysX "Physics Processor". In this preview we look at the hardware specifications as they are known today as well as what kind of work AGEIA has gone through thus far to get their software implemented in game engines.
Bit-Tech report on AMD's involvement with the making of Star Wars Episode III.
TrustedReviews have a DDR2 Memory Roundup. As all the modules were rated at least PC4300, 266MHz speeds and, because this is available using either Intel’s 925X or 925XE chipsets, this was the speed at which default testing was carried out.
NYT reckon the Joke is dead, thanks to the Internet.. thanks Te_kin.
Dave spotted this Sci-Fi Casemod Contest, which annoyingly is only open to residents of the USA. They're just afraid of BlueSmurf entering his The Imperator project, I bet.
Poida sent in this little downloadable game for Windows, Linux and Mac. There's a thread discussing it here.
Video:
Chaintech AE6800 Apogee on Legion Hardware
Gigabyte X800 & X800XL on Hardcoreware
ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB PCI-Express on TheTechLounge
Asus Extreme Radeon AX800XL/2DTV on HotHardware
EVGA GeForce 6200 TurboCache 64MB PCI-Express on Techniz
Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PE VIVO AGP on Bjorn3D
Gigabyte GV-RX85X256V-B (RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition) on HardwareZone
Cooling:
Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro on Sudhian
Swiftech MCP-350 & PolarFLO TT Pumps on Gruntville
Thermaltake Big Typhoon Universal CPU Heatsink on LAN Addict
Thermaltake Sonic Tower cpu cooler on RBmods
Vantec Iceberg 5 VGA Cooler on PC Modding Malaysia
TTGI Super Flower SF-610 Fan Master on MadShrimps
RAM:
GSkill 2-3-3-6 3200 Memory on Ap0calypse
Corsair PC2-5400UL DDR2 Memory on Legit Reviews
Audio:
Samsung YP-T7Z 1.0 Gigabyte Multi-function MP3 Digital Audio Player on Futurelooks
Sonos Digital Music System on DesignTechnica
Motherboard:
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D on ClubOC
MSI K8N Neo Platinum Motherboard on CoolTechZone
MSI P4N Diamond nForce4 SLI I.E Mainboard on Hexus
Case:
NZXT Trinity Mid-Tower Gaming Case on ExtremeMHz
NZXT Trinity Case on OCIA
RaidMax Samurai gaming computer case on A1-Electronics
Antec Performance TX1050B Case on Legit Reviews
PSU:
PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI Power Supply on XYZ Computing
Cooler Master Real Power 550W on InsaneTek
CoolMax CU 400 Power Supply on ClubOC
XION PowerReal 500w Power Supply on ClubOC
FSP Group FSP400--60GNL Power Supply on Hi-tech Reviews
Antec TP-II 480 Blue PSU on Techniz
Misc:
ADS Tech's TV Station 100 on BIOS
Logisys Wireless Remote Multi-Function Panel on Pimprig
Axis Communications 221 Day & Night Network Camera on TrustedReviews
Thailand Display Flex Keyboard on SDMLanReview
UV Acrylic on Raptor-Mods
Elonex Lumina 40in Media Centre PC on Trusted Reviews
Samsung SF-565P Multi-Function Fax/Laser Printer on PCStats
Samsung SyncMaster 243T on Pyroport
Bit-Tech have part 4 and part 5 of their gargantuan SLI article posted.
NewScientist have an article about the computing grid being built to cope with the data output of the Large Hadron Collider, which comes online in 2007. Inside a 27-kilometre-long circular tunnel that straddles the border of France and Switzerland 100 metres underground, the Large Hadron Collider will push protons to almost the speed of light and smash them head-on at energies never before created on Earth.
From Leon: Theres dual cores on shelves in Japan this week. Opteron 275 (2.20GHz) is 169,000 yen (AU$2115)?Opteron 270 (2GHz) 135,800 yen (AU$1700) and Opteron 265 (1.80GHz) 114,800 yen (AU$1435). Still too much for me though..
ExtremeTech have some more info on AGEIA's Physics Processor from E3. We saw a video of the demo, and it looks neat, but the highlight came when the plane crashed into the hangar and realistically destroyed stacks of crates and boxes in an explosion of interactivity we simply don't see in games.
Apple is recalling laptop batteries again. They're also considering Intel processors for future Macs, thanks AzzKikr.
Interesting news from TheInq, about solid state hard drives from Samsung. It can make SSDs to support capacities of up to 16GB, it said, suitable for notebook and tablet PCs, and with power consumption rates less than five per cent of current hard drives.
This Hong Kong based site has some benchmarks and info (translated) on VIA's K8T890 Pro dual-graphics solution, their answer to SLi.
Ocelotx spotted this monster video card on TomsHardware. It's from Gigabyte and sports two 6800GT GPUs, with 512MB of DDR3.
BigBruin have a fairly introductory article to memory types.
Anandtech have a comparison of multi-core technology from AMD and Intel. The Xeon MP Version 2007, alias Whitefield, will have 4 cores, and run at speeds at around 2.6 GHz. At that speed, there are reports that it would consume less than 90 Watt.
From Dinuc: Congratulations to Mred32, who narrowly beat IPW for the title of April Iron photographer. He has submitted a great theme for June's challenge. And a reminder that you only have a week to submit an entry for May's challenge, the theme is "derelict".
ExtensionTech have an interesting article examining a false unsubscribe link in a spam email.
TCMag have a Catalyst performance comparison from v5.1 to v5.5 on a Radeon X850XT PE system.
Phoronix meanwhile look at NVIDIA Linux driver performance.
Here's an interesting one, a neural-mapping chip and sensor startup company. Initially, it will focus on three applications: sleep/drowsiness detectors for the automotive and industrial markets; therapeutic solutions for attention deficit disorder (ADD) problems; and gaming consoles.
Kenny spotted these 100GB Blu-ray disks. The disc, unveiled at a TDK exhibition in Tokyo this week, can record data at 72 megabits per second, double the 36 mbps rate for current Blu-ray Discs.
Lots of people sent in this Challenge Lord Vader game, one of those 20-questions things. Seems to work pretty well.
From WGAF: Found a couple of reviews of new Samsung Sata II models thought might be of interest. 160GB P80 Sata II model HD160JJ here, obviously an update to the ageing Sata/150 P80 SP1614C model. Spec page for new model at Samsung here. 250GB P120 Sata II model SP2504C review here, spec page at Samsung here. 200GB model SP2004C has become available in aus in last week or so and can be found via a few online stores but no sign of the 250GB SP2504C model yet.
Dan has more letters. In the latest batch: PS2 to VGA, multi-monitor in the cheap seats, undeletable files, command line uptime, and AA selection.
TheTechZone report from the Fatal1ty challenge at E3, where people tried to win prizes and cash by beating the top-ranked gamer. They also have a third gallery of booth babes.
From Murray: Toshiba has developed two technologies that will enable robots to interact with several people at once as well as follow them around without bumping into them.
It seems the Brisbane meet last night was a big success, congrats and thanks to Biatch for organising it all. There's 3 galleries of photos here (click the avatars for each gallery.)
Quite a few people sent in this lion vs Cambodian midgets story, at various URL's, but nobody seemed to notice that none of the URL's were actually hosted by the BBC. Interesting story, but it's not real. :)
On a similarly absurd note, Australia now has the best talcum-powder detection dogs in the world, thanks boky.
Netcraft have info on phishing sites being defaced or removed, seemingly by hax0rs using their powers for good.
Seto noticed that OpenBSD 3.7 was released a few days ago.
HWSecrets have a PC cooling for newbies guide posted, as well as a tutorial on the various kinds of memory cards.
CeBIT Sydney has snuck up on me again; it's on this week at Darling Harbour as per previous years. Might see if I can do my usual "stuff I found interesting" report, which unfortunately seems to get smaller every year.
From Stuart: The Department of Communications for Information Technology and the Arts is planning public consultation workshops on spyware in May and June.
TechReport look at ATI's new AGP Radeons in some depth.
From White Rhinto: Google introduces personalized home pages, article here. Russian lake disappears, article here. I assume they're not related. :)
Interesting Forum Threads:
Canon owners important message in Photography.
cold fusion reactor PSU in Modding & Electronics.
Hamster case mod in Modding & Electronics.
Recovering a bad flash, easy or hard? in Intel Hardware.
The F1 Monaco Grand Prix 2005 in Motoring.
Overclockix LTSP PXE Boot Folding Farm - Uber Easy! in Team OCAU.
Cremation or burial, which is more expensive? in The Pub.
Sunday Evening Reviews #2
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Sunday, 22-May-2005 18:36:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Gigabyte DVD-ROM/CD-R/W Combo Drive on ClubOC.
Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200.8 HDD on ViperLair.
Western Digital Caviar WD3200JD HDD on StorageReview.
Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL on CDFreaks.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PE: AGP on HotHardware.
PowerColor X850 XT Platinum Edition VIVO AGP on Bjorn3D.
Crucial Radeon X850XT 256MB PCI-E on XtremeResources.
Gigabyte GV-RX80256D Radeon X800 on RBMods.
PowerColor Bravo X700 on PCStats.
Misc:
SunBeamTech Wherever PCI Rack on TechTastic.
Epson AcuLaser CX11N Multi Function Device printer/scanner on TrustedReviews.
Motorola A780 (Quad-Band) mobile phone on HWZ.
Konica Minolta DiMAGE X60 digicam on DesignTechnica.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 22-May-2005 18:01:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
LICS AAF-1 CPU Water Block on PCModdingMy.
Thermaltake Thunderblade Blue 120mm glowing fan on SDMLanReview.
Cooler Master Aquagate Mini R120 watercooling kit on OCOnline.
Audio:
Logitech Precision PC Gaming Headset on ComputingOnDemand.
Etymotic Research ER-6i Isolator Stereo Earbuds on BIOSMag.
Power Supply:
Ultra X-Connect 500W on GideonTech.
Thermaltake TWV500 500W on TechPowerUp.
Mouse, Keyboard Etc:
MonsterGecko PistolMouse FPS on HotHardware.
Logisys Ergonomic Cool Fan Mouse & M-Coupe Optical Mouse on Phoronix.
Logitech MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse on XYZComputing.
Belkin MediaPilot USB keyboard on EverythingUSB.
Logitech MX 1000 Laser Cordless Mouse on Monster-Hardware.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 22-May-2005 15:59:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
Epox 9NPA+ SLI S949 A64 SLI board on PCPerspective.
ABIT AX8 K8T890 S939 A64 on InsaneTek.
ECS nForce4-939A A64 on ByteSector.
Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI S939 A64 SLI on Sudhian.
Memory:
Mushkin DDR PC-4000 Redline Dual Channel (video review) on 3DGameMan.
OCZ PC3200 Gold Edition (BH5) DDR on PimpRig.
OCZ EL 1GB DC DDR400 Titanium Edition on Techniz.
OCZ DDR 5000 DFI NF4 on DriverHeaven.
Cases:
Aspire X-Dreamer II pre-modded case on 3DVelocity.
XION II Series Gaming Case on ClubOC.
SilverStone TJ06 on PCModdingMy.
COMPUCASE 6K31 Micro-ATX on 3DVelocity.
GTR B-01 MicroATX HTPC case on DansData.
Portable and Mini:
ASUS W2P00VB notebook on Xbit.
Biostar iDEQ 330P Barebone SFF mini-PC on TrustedReviews.
Fujitsu N3510 Centrino (Intel 915PM) notebook on HWZ.
Saturday Afternoon
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Saturday, 21-May-2005 14:00:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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E3 bits: Xbit, InsaneTek, GamingNexus, GameCloud, DesignTechnica, GamersDepot, PrimoTech, E3coverage.com, GamersHell and LANManiac. Booth babes on Futurelooks and TheTechzone.
Australia's CSIRO promises an animation revolution, thanks Wessam. What we are doing is taking the mathematical equations used to model complex fluid interactions, such as the aerodynamics of aircraft or the behaviour of mined ores in crushing mills, and applying them to animating fluids for motion pictures and computer games.
Bigtosser let us know that an unofficial Win98 SP2 has been released. Coskun's service pack includes more than 100 bug fixes gleaned from Microsoft's Windows Update site and various technical support documents.
TechPowerUp have more info about Albatron's AGP to PCI-Express converter card. They claim it's only compatible with the following AGP Video cards from NVIDIA: MX4000, FX5200, FX5700, FX5700LE, GeForce 6800, GeForce 6200.
The previous DARPA Grand Challenge, where self-piloting cars negotiate a 142-mile desert course, didn't go too well, with no competitors completing it. However, it's time to try again!
Bjorn3D compared HyperMemory and TurboCache, in the form of the Sapphire Radeon X300SE HyperMemory & Leadtek WinFast PX6200 TC TDH video cards.
LostCircuits meanwhile have a DDR2 memory roundup. We have taken a number of samples from manufacturers such as Corsair, GeIL, Mushkin, Kingston and PDP and ran it through the different paces with synthetic benchmarks and real world applications.
TechReport and HardOCP both have more details on the Xbox 360's GPU.
Interesting Forum Threads:
Revisiting Eve Online in Games.
Replacement LCD PSU in Modding & Electronics.
G70 Spec unveiled in Video Cards.
X850 XT - Liquid metal cooling in Video Cards.
Catalyst 5.5 Released in Video Cards.
American weapons in space; new air force strategy in Current Events.
OFMG, hail in brisbane in The Pub.
Australia's Attorney-General announced that a review of the private sector provisions of the Privacy Act has found that, overall, the National Privacy Principles have worked well in protecting the privacy of Australians' personal information. More info here.
Albatron released the world's first AGP-8X to PCI-Express bridge card. Your AGP-8x card simply piggybacks on the ATOP card's AGP-8x slot located on the top edge. The ATOP card is then plugged into the mainboard's PCI-Express slot. More info here and a thread in our forums here.
AGEIA announced that ASUS will be their first PhysX board partner. Details of the agreement will be announced at a later date, but the two companies have agreed in principle that ASUS will develop and market PPU boards with the AGEIA PhysX processor, the world's first and only dedicated physics processing unit. Gamers using ASUS add-in boards with the AGEIA PhysX processor will experience unprecedented physics-based effects and environments in next-generation games. More info here.
Nethercomm announced the development of Broadband-in-Gas (BiG) Technology, thanks thetron. Broadband-in-Gas delivers unmatched levels of connectivity by making use of Ultra Wideband technology to wirelessly broadcast information in a way that is both safe and reliable by using the private spectrum isolated within natural gas pipelines. More info here.
VIA announced the demo of VIA DualGFX Express technology at E3. VIA DualGFX Express technology enables dual-graphics card platforms providing exceptional 3D graphics performance on a single display, as well as the ability to provide enhanced support for powerful multi-display systems. E3 will see the first public display of the high-performance VIA K8T890 Pro core-logic chipset, running dual graphics cards for enhanced 3D gaming performance. More info here.
Western Digital announced they are now shipping Serial ATA II hard drives with 300MB/s data transfer rate. The new WD Caviar® SE16 hard drives feature 16 MB cache - 2 to 8 times the cache size of standard desktop-class hard drives - which, combined with its 300 MB/s transfer rate, deliver a one-two performance punch for customers. More info here.
Friday Morning Reviews #3
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Friday, 20-May-2005 03:44:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Card:
Gigabyte GeForce 6200 TurboForce vs TurboCache on LegionHardware.
Sapphire Hybrid RADEON X800 XL 512MB (PCIe) on HWZ.
Sapphiretech X800 VIVO 256MB AGP 8X on Tech-Mods.
ATI X600 Pro All-In-Wonder on TrustedReviews.
Sapphire X800 XL Ultimate on TheTechZone.
Cooling:
Aerocool GateWatch fan controller on GruntVille.
Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 (Rev. 2) video cooler on XtremeResources.
Jetart JACSH1 Graphics Card Cooler on ARP.
Titan Bianca Watercooling Kit on A1-Electronics.
Gigabyte G-Power BL Heatsink CPU cooler on Short-Media.
Giga-Byte G-Power GH-PDU21-MF CPU cooler on 3DXtreme.
PolarFLO TT Pump and Basic System Set watercooling kit on Tech-Mods.
Cases & Modding:
COMPUCASE 6C29 BUF Case on 3DVelocity.
CoolerMaster WaveMaster midtower on TheTechLounge.
Logisys Remote Multifuction Panel on Hi-TechReviews.
Sunbeamtech Transformer case on CoolTechZone.
Misc:
Apple Mac OS X v10.4 - Tiger on TrustedReviews.
PDPSys Patriot PDC1G3200+XBLK (PC3200 2-2-2-5) memory on Guru3D.
Pentax Optio S5n digicam on TrustedReviews.
Samsung CLP-510N Color Laser Printer on BonaFideReviews.
Friday Morning Review #2
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Friday, 20-May-2005 02:39:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte 8N-SLI Royal nF4 SLI Intel Edition LGA775 mobo on TBreak.
AMD Athlon64 4000+ S939 CPU on TCMagazine.
Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 Dual-Core LGA775 CPU on XbitLabs.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU on LinuxHardware.
Mouse, Keyboard Etc:
i.Tech Bluetooth Keyboard portable projection keyboard on TrustedReviews.
Microsoft Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth on FutureLooks.
Networking:
SonicWALL TZ 150 Wireless firewall/router on TrustedReviews.
Laplink PCmover transfer software on BIOSMag.
Portable and Small Form Factor:
Notebook USB VGA Port Replicator with 2-port KVM on EverythingUSB.
FSP Universal Notebook Power Adapter on Hexus.
MSI Megabook S250 laptop on Hexus.
palmOne Treo 650 PDA/GSM Phone on TrustedReviews.
Orange SPV M2000 PDA/phone on BiosMag.
Orange SPV M2000 PDA/phone on TrustedReviews.
Sony Ericsson P910a PDA/phone on DesignTechnica.
Acer TravelMate 8100 laptop on FiringSquad.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 20-May-2005 02:22:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
LiteOn LVW 5045 Home DVD Recorder on Tech-Mods.
Lite On LVW 5045 160GB HDD+DVD Recorder on Bjorn3D.
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 500W Speaker System on TheTechLounge.
Matrix Orbital MX6 Series PLED USB Display on 3DVelocity.
Philips Rush SA238/17 128MB Portable MP3 Player on FutureLooks.
2405FPW 24in LCD Monitor on TrustedReviews.
X-Micro EVA 256MB MP3 Player on PCModdingMy.
Altec Lansing GT5051 Surround Sound Speakers on CoolTechZone.
Zensonic Z150 Universal Remote Control on AuseHardware.
Storage:
Seagate Cheetah 15K ST3146854LC 146G SCSI Drive on Tech-Mods.
Seagate USB 2.0 Pocket Hard Drive on LegitReviews.
Maxtor DiamondMax 10/300 & Hitachi 7K250 Hard Drives on SilentPCReview.
Kanguru 256MB Biometric USB Flash Drive on PimpRig.
Gigabyte GO-B5232A CD-RW and DVD-ROM drive on InsaneTek.
Western Digital Raptor 74 & Caviar SE 250 hard drives on SilentPCReview.
Power Supplies:
Seasonic S12 380W on Tech-Mods.
FSP GreenPower 400W on Techniz.
Thermaltake PurePower 460W on A1-Electronics.
Ultra 500w X-Connect on AbsoluteInsight.
Antec TruePower 2.0 480W on PCModdingMy.
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 19-May-2005 15:28:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thetron and Sjc both sent word of a CSIRO patent issue. Apparently the CSIRO holds a patent for technology that increases the speed of a wireless LAN by about five times, and is now widely used in most laptop computers. Manufacturers pay the CSIRO a license fee to use the technology, but now five of the largest computer companies in the world are banding together to try and break the patent.
PCStats rounded up some GeForce 6600/6600GT video cards, while Bit-Tech have the third part of their SLI article posted.
Next time you're in hospital, you might be attended to by a medical robot. Doesn't sound like the sponge baths will be nearly as much fun.
From Des: How about some links to some of the many ultra portable PCs that now exist on the market: OQO model 1, Ipod sized XP pc. Tiqit, PDA style XP portable. The Toshiba Libretto is back with a vengeance, PC mag review.
CaseModGod have a pretty cool "liquid metal" modding project log posted, while BurnOutPC added some serious cooling to an In-Win X710 tower.
MadShrimps looked at a pile of Mushkin memory and also interviewed them. Mushkin, that is.. not the memory sticks.
ExtremeOverclocking have a guide to power supplies. MadShrimps meanwile report on upgrading to A64 Venice from an older system.
HWSecrets cover Intel's dual-core technology, while ATI's HyperMemory gets a going-over on DriverHeaven.
Driverheaven detail their experiences in moving to a Linux desktop using Ubuntu, which is something I keep meaning to play around with.
ByteSector have some E3 coverage posted, while TheTechZone unsurprisingly focus on the booth babes.
Dan's looked into some old cool gadgets that can be found on the cheap lately.
DJ_Pain spotted a suckerpunch from Bill Gates.. launching Xbox 360 "killer app" Halo 3 at the same time as Sony's competing PS3 console.
MadShrimps have a general Athlon 64 overclocking guide - HWSecrets have a similar guide, for video cards.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 19-May-2005 01:31:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Albatron PX925X Pro-R LGA775 P4 board on Motherboards.org.
AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ dual-core S939 CPU on TBreak.
AMD Athlon64 3800+ Venice S939 CPU on TechReport.
Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal i955X LGA775 mobo on HardWareZone.
ECS PF88 LGA775/S939 motherboard on OCWB.
Cooling:
Danger Den Chrome Version MAZE4 GPU Water Block on Techniz.
Antec Notebook Cooler on XYZComputing.
Prometeia Mach II GT phase-change cooler on PCStats.
Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro CPU cooler on BigBruin.
Mitron Aluminum Reservoir for watercooling on PCModdingMy.
COOL by Corsair liquidcooling kit on FutureLooks.
Titan Alaska HDD Cooler on XHardwareReviews.
Portable:
Mobility Radeon X700 portable graphics chipset on Beyond3D.
IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43 Notebook on HotHardware.
Scanners & Printers:
EPSON Perfection 4990 scanner on Xbit.
HP Color LaserJet 2840 All-In-One on BIOSMag.
Samsung SF-565P Multi-Function Fax/Laser Printer on PCStats.
Wednesday Evening
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Wednesday, 18-May-2005 19:32:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AusGamers have some more E3 bits: Nintendo Revolution Press Release. (Official) Quake 4 trailer (not just a better version of the previously released one, but two full minutes of footage and intro to the game). We (GameArena) have two guys over there that will be providing an Aussie take on the event; all our coverage will be up here.
From Dinuc: There's a very close race for the April Iron Photographer challenge, 1st and 2nd are equal and 3rd and 4th are only one point apart with just over 24 hours to get the votes in. The theme for April was Power, so get into the thread here and help decide the April Iron Photographer.
From DrDevil: Today was the launch of the Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager. Official info here, reviews on BargainPDA, MobileTechReview and PalmAddicts.
From Smack01: SteakTheMooCow today officially became the 200th member of the largest Case club on OCAU; the ANTEC/CHIEFTEC CASE OWNERS/MODDERS Club. We are always looking for new members so we encourage all owners of ANTEC/CHIEFTEC or equivalent case owners to join the club. Club post located in the CASE CLUBS HUB thread here.
From Stabo: The community wireless group in South Australia called air-stream is having an open day this weekend. The aim is to introduce people to the technology and help expand the network. The founding members are all members of Overclockers and the forums is where the original idea was born.
Bit-Tech have the second part of their SLI article posted. In this part, we evaluate the real-world gaming performance of GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT in SLI, and come to the conclusion that the GeForce 6800 GT delivers the best bang-for-buck High-end SLI solution. They've also come up with some info about NVIDIA's upcoming high-end G70 GPU using TurboCache technology, like the current low-end ones.
There's new ATI Catalyst 5.5 drivers available. Tweaktown examined them, as did this site (not in English, but the graphs work).
ZDNet have an article on the worst foods to eat over your keyboard. Canned air is your friend - brilliant for removing dry particles from the keyboard. Have a dog handy to eat the crumbs as they are blasted into space.
Digitimes report that mobo makers are not expecting dual-core CPUs to boost mobo sales. Seems odd to me, that they're not considering how many people have been holding off upgrading from AthlonXP or older P4 systems until the dual-core shakedown happens. It's certainly what I've been waiting for.
News.com cover perpendicular recording for hard drives, and why it's important. With longitudinal recording, we are getting close to the point where data integrity will be harmed if we continue to shrink the magnetic grains. This is due to the superparamagnetic effect.
This kind of thing sometimes makes me wish we never made it out of the caves.. apparently South Koreans will soon get SMSs from their dogs letting them know the mood they're in, thanks Neevo. The service, which will begin on Friday, will also translate basic messages into dog sounds. The service will cost about one dollar.
Interesting Forum Threads:
The P5WD2 Thread in Intel Hardware.
Dual-Core 3.2GHz @ 4.1GHz in Intel Hardware.
Valve Survey Summary in Games.
PC games in trouble in Games.
Oppo Digital DV971H DVD player review in Audio Visual.
Folding with dual-core processor (8xx series) in Team OCAU.
15TB-20TB of single volume storage. How would you do it? in Storage, Backup & Memory.
Macro challenge in Photography.
Nokia Sensor in Mobile Phones.
OCAU Jerky Group Buy v2 in Geek Food.
GIF, JPG, PNG, oh my! (Which compression format to use) in The Pub.
Why geeks and nerds are worth it in The Pub.
Star Wars Fan Film in The Pub.
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 18-May-2005 12:43:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Mushkin Redline XP4000 high-voltage DDR on Anandtech.
Corsair XMS2 PC-4300 Pro 1GB DDR2 Twin2X kit on OCOnline.
Corsair XMS TWIN2X1024A 5400UL on LegionHardware.
OCZ PC2-5400 Platinum EB on TechPowerUp.
OCZ PC2-6400 Gold DDR2 on RojakPot.
Cases:
Aspire X-QPack MicroATX on BleedinEdge.
Thermaltake Tenor HTPC case (video review) on 3DGameMan.
COLORS-it 8008-B3 Case + Remote HTPC bits on 3DVelocity.
Thermaltake Soprano on CoolTechZone.
Aspire X-QPack MicroATX on ViperLair.
Aerocool Magic-3D tower on Hi-TechReviews.
Nzxt Nemesis Elite tower on RBMods.
Aspire X-QPack MicroATX on TweakNews.
SilverStone SST-LC10M HTPC case on SystemCooling.
Logisys Case-51W tower on Techgage.
Video Cards:
ASUS N6600 GT/TD GF 6600GT AGP on XBitLabs.
HIS ATi Radeon X700 Pro IceQ 256MB on OCPrices.
MSI GeForce 6600 and 6600GT cards on OCNZ.
3 Radeons from Sapphire on GDHardware.
Sapphire Radeon X800XL Ultimate 256MB on Rage3D.
ASUS Extreme N6800Ultra/2DT GF 6800 Ultra on Hexus.
BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC 512MB on FiringSquad.
Connect3D Radeon X800XL 256MB on GamerGod.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 17-May-2005 15:12:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Top story today is that Sony have unveiled their PlayStation 3 at E3, a big entertainment convention in the USA. Coverage on GameSpot, DesignTechnica and ByteSector. There's a thread with more info here in our Other Toys forum. Unfortunately it won't be available until 2006.
Speaking of E3, eroda sent in a link to Gamespot's live video coverage of the event. GAMESPOT'S NONSTOP, FULL-BLAST VIDEO COVERAGE. This year, we're going all-out: E3 Live, a continuous live video presentation lasting the entire duration of the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Every minute of every hour of every day--and more. And yet.. "WE'RE OFF THE AIR. WE'LL BE BACK ON IN: 12 hours 54 mins 45 secs". Brilliant.
Sudhian wonder if 3DMark really predicts game performance or not. To date, FutureMark only allows certain approved optimizations in its ‘official’ driver recommendations, which raises the murky issue between drivers and cheats all over again. My simple answer is: maybe. Which is why you should use it in conjuction with other, real-world benchmarks, not in isolation.
SilentPCReview explained their hard drive testing methodology. The bulk of the noise produced by a hard drive comes from the electric motor that spins the discs. This is the noise you hear when the drive is idling. Except when first turned on and spinning up to speed, the drive is at a constant speed, so the noise at idle is always present.
Xbit report that PQI have joined Corsair and OCZ on the 1000MHz DDR2 podium. It is uncertain when memory modules officially certified to function at 1GHz reach the market and what the actual price on such components would be.
Bit-Tech rounded up a few SLI motherboards for testing. In this part, we're looking at 4 SLI motherboards, including offerings from Asus, DFI, Gigabyte and MSI. We've put them through their paces, evaluating their real-world gaming performance, as well as the included bundles and their overclockability.
MadShrimps follow up with an AMD64 CPU Cooler roundup. In this massive A64 heatsink roundup we compare 17 cooling solutions from different manufactures including Scythe, TTIC, Arctic Cooling, Thermaltake, Titan, Thermalright, Zalman and Coolermaster.
From RnR: Bees uses dance to tell other bees the location of food. This idea have never been proven before, but using radar now it has. The image below the article is worth the clicking. :)
Callan notes that NASA seems likely to save Hubble after all. Griffin is proceeding with plans to send a shuttle mission to repair and upgrade Hubble, reversing a controversial decision by his predecessor Sean O'Keefe to simply let the telescope die. Yay!
A pile of stuff from Tekka: Toshiba Develops 45-Gbyte HD DVD Disc. Windows for India, others won't run on faster chips. Microsoft Readies Its Antivirus App. Google adds movie reviews. Google Video BETA. Intel: next-gen dual-cores not NetBurst. The Truth About Windows Genuine Advantage.
We mentioned a little while ago that OCAU member Norbs was riding a pushbike from Sydney to Melbourne to help raise funds for the Children's Hospital. Well, he's finished it successfully! You can read about it on his website and in this forum thread.
Top story otherwise seems to be Intel's HyperThreading possibly being a security risk. More info here from the discoverer and here on Infoworld.
THG compared a couple of mini wireless routers, as well as two Small Form Factor PC's for Intel and AMD CPUs.
GamePC meanwhile compared nForce 4 SLI chipsets for Intel and AMD CPUs. Anandtech are the latest to compare HyperMemory and TurboCache in the value videocard arena.
SGOverclockers are a new site from Singapore - they have a heatsink design guide and a watercooling guide.
Ken spotted a way to win a million bucks playing video games.
ExtremeTech explain power supply technology, while Iain spotted this PSU calculator, which can tell you roughly how much power capacity you need.
Fancy yourself as a rock, paper, scissors legend? Maybe you should enter the international championship. He said there was a whole book on RPS strategies, some players studied their opponents' patterns of moves, while others relied on psychic abilities or looked for physical "tells" that indicated their opponent's next move.
AMDHardware spent some time overclocking a Venice cored 3500+ A64, while Procooling modified an A64 to provide more accurate temperature readings.
After the initial fuss, the Segway hype seems to have died down. However, RnR spotted an extreme version now available. The Segway XT has been specifically developed for stability, comfort and performance on uneven and tough terrain (it is not intended for sidewalk use).
Our man in Japan, forum admin and prolific review writer Chainbolt sent in some cool news: A while ago the biggest Japanese PC consumer magazine ("DOS V") interviewed me in my "capacity" as an OCAU hardware reviewer.
 
Nice mention of OCAU in the mag as well!
Folding@Home Giveaway 6 Winners
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Monday, 16-May-2005 19:50:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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From Bollocks, our Folding Team Captain:
The winners for Giveaway6 are:
Main Prize: FBOX BYO011:Celeron 2800, ASUS P4S800-MX, 512MB memory, 20G HDD, DVDROM, ATX Miditower.
Donated by FFF, Razorback, Tired.
The winner is.... outbackozzie (491)
Consolation prizes:
1: VisionPlus HDTV Tuner
Donated by Computer Alliance
The winner is.... Skit (1129)
2: A selection of Cooling gear includes a choice of a cooler for AMD 64, P4 or Socket A.
*60mm, 80mm and a 120 mm Fans
Spire sound absorbent pad kit.
4 x 80mm Fan grills.
Donated by Lownoise PC
The winner is.... woodwarp (322)
3: 8 x DVD writer: LG GSA - 4082B
Donated by chainbolt
The winner is.... Punk (3957)
Prizes from the Agg Cave
4:Thermaltake TWV-480 PSU. This is the one with the "Total Watts Viewer" and fan control knobs in a 5.25" bay. I'll chuck in a tin of Penguin Mints (mmm, caffeine) too.
The winner is.... digamma (4327)
5:Thermaltake's "Giant III" video card cooling monster, with heatpipes and radial blower etc. Have some Thermaltake Copper Ramsinks and Penguin Mints with that.
The winner is.... jboles (2620)
6:Thermaltake's Tower 102, gigantic CPU cooler. Fits virtually all CPUs and frightens small children. I think it's the same as the Silent Tower seen here but without fan. So I'll chuck in a Thermaltake UFO dual-blade fan with it.
The winner is.... Turbine (3370)
Congratulations to all the winners of Giveaway6. Send me a PM with your postal details and we will arrange for the prizes to be shipped to you ASAP.
A big thanks to the Sponsors of Giveaway6 it has been a huge success with 667 people nominating, our biggest giveaway ever in terms of participants.
A huge thanks goes to those helped OCAU regain the No1 folding team title by nominating for the giveaway. We had 178 new members and 112 members come out of retirement, your contribution is greatly appreciated. Not to forget the members that have done the hard yards that got us to the top in the first place your dedication will keep us there for years to come, I salute you.
Now don't go away because in the next few weeks there will be another Giveaway and all those that qualified for the draw of Giveaway6 will automatically receive a bonus number in the draw for Giveaway7 if they are still active when it starts. We should have some great prizes so keep them points rolling in.
You can congratulate the winners in this thread.
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 16-May-2005 14:56:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Thermalright XP-90c CPU cooler on PCPerspective.
Thermalright XP-90c CPU cooler on Techniz.
Asetek Vapochill Premium Edition on SGOverclockers, our review here.
Speeze Laptop Cooler on DriverHeaven.
Case, PSU & Modding:
NZXT Nemesis Elite case on TechIMO.
ACRyan Xneon Lighted SATA Cables on Techniz.
Silentmaxx 580W IC-Tech PSU on Phoronix.
OCZ Powerstream 420W & 600W PSUs on SGOverclockers.
Nextherm ICS 8200 Airconditioned Midi-Tower case on ATrueReview.
Storage & Memory:
Transcend JetFlash 110 512MB USB flash drive on BigBruin.
OCZ EL PC-3200 Gold Series Dual Channel Kit on ExtremeMHz.
Crucial Ballistix 3200 and Ultra 3200XL on DriverHeaven.
Audio:
Logitech Z-5500 THX Speakers on XtremeResources.
Geil iBall mp3 video player on DansData.
Thermaltake Circlefire audio bay device on GruntVille.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon64 3800+ Venice S939 CPU on TechPowerUp.
EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra nF4U S939 A64 mobo on TweakTown.
Mouse Etc:
Logitech MX518 optical mouse on DriverHeaven.
Logitech MediaPlay Cordless Mouse on XYZ.
Portable:
ACER FERRARI 4000 AMD Turion 64 Notebook preview on AMDBoard.
BenQ Joybook S72 laptop on HardWareZone.
Misc:
Enermax Aluminium USB Hub on DriverHeaven.
ASUS Extreme N6800Ultra/2DT GeForce video card on Hexus.
As you can imagine there's a lot of XBOX 360 chatter going on at the moment. ArsTechnica have their thoughts, as do TeamXbox, HardOCP, Anandtech, TomsHardware, Bit-Tech, ByteSector and Hexus. IGN have a FAQ, while FileShack have a video featuring Xbox engineers talking about the new console. 1UP.com have a developer roundtable, talking to various games developers about their XBOX 360 plans. Some hardware and games info on ChicagoTribune. The question of backwards compatability is considered on ArsTechnica, while Betanews report that the iPod will connect with the new Xbox. CNet discovered that the game demos are running on Mac G5's. There's talk of the new Xbox being watercooled, but it actually seems to employ a (now fairly conventional) heatpipe system. There's a blurry capture of the cooler here on HardOCP, but we're still after more details on that side of things. Of course, Team OCAU is wondering if it can be used for Folding!
AusGamers have a Quake 4 teaser video, thanks James.
Xbit report on the memory market in May. We are going to discuss the situation with the memory prices, the changes in the market shares, new established joint projects and of course, new products that might be of interest to hardware enthusiasts and overclockers, as well as to ordinary users.
From White Rhino: The MPAA has sued and subsequently caused the shutdown - or soon to be shutdown - of six major TV torrent sites. Info here and here, forum thread here.
There's a lot of talk about an iPod going boom, but the lesson is really more about not opening lithium-ion batteries, which burn in air and release nasty fumes.
XYZ report on a gaming company boycotting booth babes because they feel they draw attention away from the games themselves. They plan on doing this not by refusing to have booth babes, but instead by hiring ten unattractive woman to work their booth. Yeah, great marketing idea, guys.
ABIT introduced the Guru Panel, a multifunction in-bay device. The Guru Panel is much more than a multimedia device, it’s a gamer’s best friend. While immersed in their favourite game, the Guru Panel is hard at work monitoring hardware, looking out for new emails, generally ensuring gamers stay up to date with what’s going on around them. More info and pics in a 670KB DOC file here.
Corsair Memory announced that their XMS2 5400UL is the first true ultra low latency memory to reach the DDR2-1066 milestone in Anandtech testing. For more information on the product, go here. For the complete article on the DDR2-1066 milestone achievement, visit here.
Gigabyte released the GV-RX30HM128D, its first ATI RADEON X300SE HyperMemory PCI-E graphics card designed for powerful entry level PC systems. More info here.
Microsoft have an all-in-one "PC health service" for consumers. To address the need for a more comprehensive PC health solution, Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to deliver Windows® OneCare, a comprehensive and simple-to-use consumer subscription service that will provide automated protection, maintenance and performance tuning as an all-in-one package for Windows-based PCs. For more info, see the press-release here.
PowerColor are the latest to release a 512MB version of the Radeon X800 XL. The PowerColor X800 XL with 512MB GDDR3 SDRAM memory, delivers frame rates that surpass any previous mainstream graphics card More info in a 65KB PDF here.
OCZ Technology partnered with ASUS to bring the enthusiast community the industry’s first motherboard and memory solution rated for 1000MHz. Together OCZ Technology and ASUS, two industry leaders sought after for their high quality, high performance products, have made a giant leap on an experimental board and broken the 1GHz barrier. For more info, see the press-release here.
Sunday Morning Reviews #2
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Sunday, 15-May-2005 02:11:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Video:
Bluetake BT400 G5 Headset on CoolTechZone.
EverGlide Ricochet Pro mousepad on A1-Electronics.
eDimensional AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset on BigBruin.
audio/video controller on Ecoustics.
iAUDIO5 mp3 player on TomsHardware.
Mouse Etc:
Homer Simpson Mouse on SDMLanReview.
Thunder 9 Gaming Pad on ATrueReview.
X-RAYPAD Thunder8 Dual Surface Mouse Pad on ExtensionTech.
Storage:
MediaBank HS-Ri hotswap internal RAID system on Techniz.
Plextor PX-716A DVD burner on OCOnline.
Vantec All-In-1 USB Card Reader on Techniz.
Samsung SP1604N 160GB ATA/133 7,200rpm HDD on HWSecrets.
Portable:
Garmin iQue M5 PDA/GPS on TrustedReviews.
Tulip E-Go Turion64 Laptop preview on AMDBoard.
Misc:
Arctic Silver ArctiClean thermal pad/grease remover on TechPowerUp.
Samsung SGH-E630 (Tri-Band) mobile phone on HWZ.
HP PSC 1610 Multi Function Device printer/scanner etc on TrustedReviews.
Manfrotto 055PROB (Bogen 3201BPRO) Professional Tripod on ARP.
OCZ EB DDR2 PC2-5400 Titanium Dual Channel DDR2 (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Sunday Morning Reviews
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Sunday, 15-May-2005 01:05:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Case & Modding:
Matrix Orbital MX6 mini-LCD on PCModdingMy.
Thermaltake Shark Aluminium Full Tower case on Phoronix.
DynaPower Black Widow case on OCOnline.
Aspire X-QPACK MicroATX case on PimpRig.
Coolermaster Wavemaster (Yellow) TAC-T01-EY on SpodesAbode.
Hiper Media Series Chassis mATX HTPC case on OzCaseMods.
Silverstone LC10M HTPC Case on XtremeComputing.
Mountain Mods U2-UFO Brushed Aluminum Case on SystemCooling.
Power Supply:
Tagan TG480-U22 480W Two Force on OCPrices.
Hiper Type R 480W on OzCaseMods.
Motherboard & CPU:
ECS RS400-A LGA775 P4 board on PCStats.
Chaintech VNF4 Ultra Zenith VE S939 A64 board on LegionHardware.
Chaintech VNF3-250 S754 A64 mobo on OCInside.
ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe LGA775 P4 board on LegionHardware.
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe/Extreme N6600 Motherboard & Graphics Card Bundle on TrustedReviews.
ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid Intel/AMD motherboard on Hexus.
Intel Pentium 4 540 (3.2E) Socket LGA 775 Processor on PCStats.
ECS PF21 Extreme LGA775 P4 mobo on Bit-Tech.
MSI K8N Diamond S939 A64 mobo on HWSpirit.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
(1 Comments)
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Saturday, 14-May-2005 14:20:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Gigabyte G-Power Pro CPU cooler on DriverHeaven.
Speeze Chillmax LGA775 P4 CPU cooler on DriverHeaven.
Corsair COOL watercooling kit on TrustedReviews.
SilverStone Variable-Speed Fans on NinjaLane.
Thermalright XP-90C with LGA775 RM on Hi-TechReviews.
Logisys Computer Pyramid Fan Controller on Ap0calypse.
Logisys Computer Stove Fan on Ap0calypse.
CoolJag JAC16EC (OAK-D) CPU cooler on Phoronix.
Video Cards:
Gigabyte Radeon X600 XT on XYZ.
MSI GeForce NX6800GT PCIe on HotHardware.
Leadtek WinFast A6600 GT TDH GF 6600GT AGP on Xbit.
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V Radeon X800 XL on TechReport.
Radeon X800 XL 512MB PCI-Express on TheTechLounge.
ASUS Extreme AX800XL-2DTV Radeon on ViperLair.
Triton USB2.0 Video Card for Mac Mini on EverythingUSB.
ATI X800 XL 512MB on TrustedReviews.
Point of View GeForce 6600GT on Bjorn3D.
Sapphire X850xt PCI-E on RBMods.
ATI Radeon X800XL 512MB on Motherboards.org.
ATi Radeon All-in-Wonder X800XT AGP card with the lot on GamingNexus.
Memory:
OCZ EL 1GB DC DDR400 Gold Edition on Techniz.
Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL DDR2 on Sudhian.
Centon Advance PC2-5400 DDR2 on LegitReviews.
OCZ EL DDR PC-5000 Dual Channel Platinum DFI nF4 Special (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Xbox 360 Announcement
(67 Comments)
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Friday, 13-May-2005 21:18:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I was going to hunt around for info on the newly-announced Xbox 360, but AusGamers have saved me the trouble. They've got the Press Release posted, as well as Technical Specs and an Unveiling Movie. They also have a 2.4MB zip of Xbox 360 Pictures available, but if you just want a quick look, here's a couple:
 
Click images to enlarge!
A quick bite of the specs:- Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
- Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
- VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
- 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
- 1 MB L2 cache
- Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500MHz processor
- 10 MB of embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
- Unified shader architecture
There's an official website here and a huge thread in our Other Toys forum, with today's stuff starting about here.
Friday Afternoon Pics
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Friday, 13-May-2005 15:04:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a few random pics from boky, Gary_J and Timbot.
   
See if you can guess the theme of the left two. :)
Seems like I'll never get around to doing a proper report on my Nullarbor-by-motorcycle trip, so here's all the photos in an unsorted pile. Some nice pics there, we really live in an amazing country:
Click for about 100 pics!
The Mars rover Opportunity is having a little sand dune trouble on the surface of Mars. This is not the first time a rover has encountered a wheel problem. In June 2004, Spirit's right front wheel became balky. Spirit overcame the problem by driving in reverse, allowing it to drag the faulty wheel while driving itself with its five other wheels. Meanwhile, Cassini has found yet another moon around Saturn, bringing the known total to 47.
TechReport look at three dual-Opteron motherboards supporting PCI Express.
Sniper spotted a story on Parajet flying. It's not new technology, but it looks like a lot of fun. It's the ultimate feeling of freedom. It's like riding a three-dimensional motorbike. He also sent in these amazing rendered pictures on another forum.
HotHardware are the latest to compare HyperMemory vs TurboCache, in the budget video card arena. If you are budget focussed, TechSpot's low-end PC buyer's guide may be of interest.
From Hyrax1: A very well done rendition of Star Wars featuring fruit and vegies - it's an advertisement for organic food versus chemically treated food and it's very funny. Check it out.
You can win yourself a copy of Unreal Championship 2 for Xbox over on HardAvenue. It's an Australian competition.
TBreak fitted a small PC with an even smaller LCD screen.
Some basic guides: replacing a motherboard without reinstalling Windows on PCStats, protecting your PC against invasions and really deleting your files on HWSecrets, taking portrait photos on TheTechZone.
Here's huge pile of security-related news from Paul: Microsoft grants licenses left and right. Security Live CD paradise. Missing backup tapes spur encryption at Time Warner. Search recent TV programs online. Papal succession fuels April religious spam blitz. Shark Tank: What the @#$%! Is This? Cisco hacker arrested. Social engineering tricks by virus writers took a strange twist this week after hackers bundled malicious code with pictures of a famous dead albino gorilla. Microsoft last week pulled the plug on an online security competition after it emerged that system flaws enabled entrants to manipulate their scores. A security hole in Dashboard could expose users of Apple Computer's new Tiger operating system to attack, and may put personal information like passwords and credit card data at risk. eBay con man sentenced. Webseminar: phishing and pharming. What if the bad guys found ways to infiltrate your computer through the very antivirus software that you thought was protecting you? A new cyber-war aimed at Tokyo. SANS study: Hackers aren't just picking on Microsoft. That should keep you busy for a while!
At the time of writing, OCAU's Folding@Home Team is the #1 team in the world again. After we lost first place to the [H]orde a monster fightback was triggered, getting us back into the lead in less than a month. Congratulations to all, but don't stop now, we need to build a buffer to keep ourselves in first place. To get in on the action, join Team 24!
Firefox has been updated to v1.04 to fix the security issues of the last few days. You can grab it on AusGamers: Windows, Linux and even Mac OS X.
If your parents/spouse hassle you for excess gaming, tell them that you're enhancing your business skills. "The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change," said Luman, 38.
This probably not-work-safe link from thetron is about the saddest thing I've ever seen.
Google have stopped downloads of their Web Accelerator, but according to them, not because of security concerns. "It is a limited beta," he said, "and we reached the capacity of users."
Lots of people sent in this vegetable-oil cooled PC from Germany.
SimHQ are the latest to examine gaming under WinXP 64bit, while HardOCP looked at Far Cry 64-bit using the recent patch.
HardCoreWare examine if SATA-II's 3Gb/s transfer rate has any real-world impact.
Some reproducing robots have been created. This allows a damaged robot to jettison defective cubes and replace them by working ones or for it to construct a separate robot from scratch by building a stack of individual cubes.
Sniper pointed out this dual GeForce 6800U card on a Chinese site. Translated here.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 12-May-2005 01:05:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Video:
Plextor PX-TV402U USB TV tuner/converter box on BensCustomCases.
SoniqCast Aireo mp3 player on CoolTechZone.
Samsung Yepp YP-MT6Z 1GB mp3 player on PCStats.
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy4 Pro sound card on Xbit.
Chaintech AV-710 sound card on Techniz.
Memory:
OCZ EL DDR PC-4800 Dual Channel Platinum memory on Xbit.
OCZ PC-3200 EL Gold 2-2-2-5 DDR on OCIA.
Video Cards:
HiS Technology Radeon x850 XT and x850 XT PE AGP 8x on Guru3D.
Sapphire Radeon X800 XL Ultimate PCIe on Bjorn3D.
Gigabyte GeForce 6600 on Short-Media.
Cases & Modding:
MGE Viper ATX Gaming PC Case on FutureLooks.
SunBeamTech Light Bus lighting controller on TechTastic.
SilverStone Eudemon Multifunction Panel on LANAddict.
Aspire X-Plorer tower on Hi-TechReviews.
Thermalrock Circle Full Tower on LegitReviews.
XG Sidewinder case on Rojakpot.
Thermaltake Tenor desktop & HTPC case on A1-Electronics.
PSU:
Hiper Type-R Blue Label Modular 580W on PimpRig.
Antec Phantom 500W Hybrid on SilentPCReview.
AeroCool AeroPower 550W on XtremeResources.
Misc:
OvisLink Wired SIP IP Phone on Techniz.
USBGeek Mini Vacuum on SDMLanReview.
Toshiba MK1032GAX 5400RPM 100GB 2.5" HDD on 3DVelocity.
Ricoh Caplio R1V digicam on TrustedReviews.
Linksys Phone Adapter PAP2 landline to VoiP on TheTechZone.
LG Electronics PY2DR plasma HTDV on DesignTechnica.
Innovative Sleep Solution SleepTracker alarm clock on ATrueReview.
Wednesday Evening Reviews
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Wednesday, 11-May-2005 19:15:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard / CPU:
AMD A64 X2 4800+ dual-core CPU on LostCircuits.
Biostar NForce 4 Ultra Socket 939 A64 mobo on DreamWareComputers.
Intel 840 dual-core P4 CPU on ByteSector.
Asus P5ND2-SLI nForce4 Intel Edition P4 mobo on PCPerspective.
ABIT AN8 Fatal1ty S939 A64 mobo on TBreak.
ECS RS400-A LGA775 P4 mobo on ByteSector.
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe S754 A64 mobo on PCStats.
Portable and Mini:
Foxconn E-bot Small Form-Factor System on Xbit.
PalmOne Treo 650 PDA on HWZ.
Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop on TrustedReviews.
Mouse, Keyboard Etc:
Steelpad 4D Mousepad on TechGage.
Saitek Eclipse PC Keyboard on 3DXtreme.
X-Ray Thunder 8, Thunder 9 and Aqua 3 mousepads on Hi-Techreviews.
Logitech MX3100 keyboard and mouse on CaseModGod.
Printers:
Samsung ML-2250 Laser Printer on TrustedReviews.
Samsung CLP-510 Colour Laser Jet Printer on FutureLooks.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 11-May-2005 02:46:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Extremely busy in the forums this week. Here's a snapshot of what's going on:
12v to 5v in Modding & Electronics.
Electronics: Timer in Modding & Electronics.
Project Aliens (large pics) in Modding & Electronics: Worklogs.
Water cooling system for 4 PC's? in Extreme Cooling.
Running 6 LCD Monitors in Overclocking & Hardware.
Damaged 3GHz Prescott - still works? in Intel Hardware.
What is your Venice preference? in AMD Hardware.
Tracking share of net quota in ADSL sharehouse in Networking & Internet.
Email Spam Software (IMSS) DMZ or LAN? in Networking & Internet.
Wireless Network Booster in Networking & Internet.
DFI NF4 Ultra-D & Corsair 3200LLv1.1 2x512mb in Storage, Backup & Memory.
RAID 5 Question in Storage, Backup & Memory.
Using a PDA for GPS navigation in Portable & Small Form Factor.
Image Copy Protection Ideas? in Graphics and Programming.
Cleaning CPU? in Newbie Lounge.
Windows Terminal Server Load Balancing problem in Windows Operating Systems.
Ubuntu in Other Operating Systems.
Battlefield 2 (updated with movies) in Games.
Duke Nukem Forever may arrive, how will we react? in Games.
Bad batch of fuel = lose a cylinder! in Motoring.
Major Calibra project (56k warning - pics) in Motoring: Worklogs.
Build a bridge in The Pub.
William Shatner - Has Been in TV, Movies & Music.
Big Brother 2005 in TV, Movies & Music.
Fair Use Provisions in Australian Copyright Act to be reviewed - Have a SAY! in Current Events.
Devil's number 616, not 666 in Current Events.
Internet "Robin Hoods" Jailed in Current Events.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 11-May-2005 02:03:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's reports of two critical flaws in Firefox. "Users can further protect themselves today by temporarily disabling JavaScript or disabling the 'Allow websites to install software' option in Tools > Options > Web Features." More info here, thanks Jim, and here on MozillaZine.
HardWareZone have a GeForce 6600 GT AGP video card shootout, while MadShrimps compare DDR2 memory from Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin and Transcend.
Digitimes report that AMD will migrate all CPUS to the new sockets over the next couple of years. Socket M2 and Socket F processors will both support dual-channel DDR2 memory, customers of AMD in Taiwan indicated. More info here on Xbit.
Lovers of spicy food will be happy: there's a new hot sauce available, apparently the hottest possible. Diners must sign a disclaimer recommending protective gloves and eye wear - but even sweating testers in safety gear were blinded by tears for 30 minutes. Mmm, burny.
Apparently Intel's dual-core P4's have appeared in Japan, thanks Leon. They're for sale in Akihabara, where all new hardware seems to appear first. NeoSeeker meanwhile have their dual core thoughts posted.
Thetron spotted this Hack IIS 6.0 Challenge contest, where you can win an Xbox. Seems to be open to hax0rs worldwide (the contest, not the target server.. yet.)
Apparently global warming could make England colder, along with other parts of Europe, thanks RnR. The Gulf Stream transports 27,000 times more heat to British shores than all the nation’s power supplies could provide, warming Britain by 5-8C. Interesting.
Iroquois spotted a TheReg article where Toshiba claims that an agreement on Blu-Ray / HD-DVD convergence is not actually getting much closer.
The BSA has apparently been sending copyright infringement notices to various Australian ISP's, but not all are received. iiNet managing director Michael Malone said his company had not received any e-mails from the BSA, and expressed surprise at the organisation's allegation.
Anandtech took a look at 64-bit gaming, with a 64-bit update to the already impressive game Far Cry. You can grab the patch here.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Tuesday, 10-May-2005 16:53:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
ATI RADEON X800 XL 512MB Graphics Card on Xbit.
MSI NX6600GT-TD128E GeForce 6600GT on ViperLair.
HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo VIVO 256MB AGP on BonaFideReviews.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX PC4300 on PCModdingMy.
OCZ EL 1GB DC DDR400 Gold Edition on Techniz.
Kingmax SuperRAM PC3200 1GB Dual Channel Kit on InsaneTek.
Cases:
Aspire X-QPack small case on Short-Media.
Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200 airconditioned case on Techniz.
Power Supplies:
ePower Tagan 480W on Phoronix.
NorthQ NQ-4001EX Super Silent PSU on PCModdingMy.
XClio-Meridian 400W and 450W on SystemCooling.
Storage:
Vantec NexStar 3 External HDD Enclosure on Pimprig.
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 Serial ATA II HDD on ClubOC.
Shikatronics Manhattan Edition USB 2.0 flash drive on Viperlair.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 10-May-2005 13:04:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Quite a few more AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core reviews today: Bit-Tech, FlyingSquirrels, HardwareSecrets, Hexus, PCWorld, SimHQ, Sudhian, TechwareLabs, TrustedReviews and XbitLabs.
Cooling:
Logisys Pyramid Smart Fan Controller on XYZ.
SelectCool JFK-1 CPU cooler on SDMLanReview.
Titan Bianca watercooling kit (translated) on Overclex.
Jetart JACSH1 VGA cooler on TechPowerUp.
Spire KestrelKing VI CPU cooler on XYZ.
Audio / Video:
Logisys Alien 2.1 PC Speakers on PimpRig.
In-deep Canopus Edius SP system for HDV editing equipment on Hexus.
Plusdeck 2 PC Cassette Deck on Bjorn3D.
Optek Fretlight USB/LED Guitar on TrustedReviews.
Sennheiser RS130 Wireless Headphones on DesignTechnica.
Computer Geeks Portable DVD Player on RBMods.
Hyundai HY-6611 MP3 Player on RojakPot.
Folding Giveaway 6 - Last Reminder!
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Monday, 9-May-2005 22:18:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This week is your last chance to enter Folding Giveaway 6. You could win yourself an entire Celeron PC, an HDTV Tuner, a pile of cooling gear, a DVD burner, some other cooling gear, a 480W PSU or some penguin mints!
How do you enter? Sign up to Fold for OCAU, complete 250 points worth of folding by the end of this week and receive 1 entry. That's easy, but if you can complete 1000 points, you'll get 4 entries in the draw. Nominate yourself for the giveaway in this thread. Find more info in the Team OCAU forum and the Folding Team page.
Thanks to ComputerAlliance, LowNoisePC, chainbolt and the FFF for donating the prizes.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ & 4200+ S939 Dual Core
(2 Comments)
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Monday, 9-May-2005 15:43:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few lucky websites have just released reviews of AMD's new S939 dual-core A64 chips. Now it's time for AMD's dual-core desktop processor line, the Athlon 64 X2, to take its turn on stage. Sporting a fashionable 939 pins on its underbelly, this CPU promises to drop into the average Athlon 64 desktop system and transform it, almost magically, into a dually. The X2 offers an infusion of creamy multitasking smoothness and nearly twice the peak processing power of an Athlon 64 FX-55.
Coverage on AMDZone, Anandtech, HardOCP, HotHardware and TechReport.
There's some discussion in this thread in our AMD Hardware forum.
Sciby sent in these pics of Michelin's "Tweel". I saw a clip of this on the TV news a while ago, but it's nice to see them in more detail now:
  
  
Seems like a good idea - I wonder how long until we see them on the road. No more punctures!
PCPop have pictures of the new AMD sockets, S1 and M2. More info if you translate it, but not much.
Xbit report on P4 500 series with EMT64 being available in June. Intel’s lineup of EM64T- and EDB-enabled Intel Pentium 4 processors 500-series will consist of models 571, 561, 551, 541, 531 and 521, which are clocked at 3.80GHz, 3.60GHz, 3.40GHz, 3.20GHz, 3.00GHz and 2.80GHz respectively.
Digit-Life meanwhile have part two of their processors for common people series of articles posted. As promised, in the continuation of the first part, we are going to review the performance of low-end processors for Intel LGA775 platform. Mainly Celerons as you'd expect.
TrustedReviews compared a pile of GeForce 6600GT mid-priced graphics cards.
There's an interesting article on NewScientist about 3D-mapping real locations rapidly. Surely we can think of some non-military uses for this.
Furfle spotted an article on DirectX 10 on ExtremeTech. He also sent in this warning about a dodgy website which can trap you if you miss-spell Google.
On a similar note, there's some concerns about Google Web Accelerator posted in our forums.
There's a new version of RivaTuner, a video card tweaking utility. There's a new Overclockulator too, which is apparently a FREEWARE program that includes some very handy calculation apps including a CPU speed calculator, PSU wattage calculator, Vram Ns/MHz Converter, and a Celcius to Fahrenheit (and vice versa) temperature converter.
SharkyExtreme have a high-end gaming PC buyer's guide posted. The basic purpose behind this guide is to give you a general idea of what kind of high-end gaming PC is possible with a budget of (USD) $2500.
MadShrimps spent a little time playing with dry ice. It is not usable for daily 24/7 cooling, it’s mostly used by those people who like to push their PC to a higher speed. By using subzero cooling you can obtain impressive overclocks. Dry Ice will provide you better performance then air- and water-cooling, as well as single stage phase change cooling setups.
Thetron found the ultimate job for a Matrix fan, working inside the virtual MMORPG world of "The Matrix Online". To make it more real, Warner Brothers has hired an entire cast of performers to play key characters inside the game.
LegitReviews report on UTT Memory IC's. What are they? It stands for UnTesTed memory IC's. This means that after the IC's were packaged they were NOT speed binned and offer no ratings from the factory.
Some of these are from back in April, but we only received them this week.. strange.
Australia's Attorney-General Department is investigating the possibility of a "fair use" amendment to the Copyright Act. "The Government is aware developments in digital technology are changing the way people use copyright material," Mr Ruddock said. "Many Australians believe quite reasonably they should be able to record a television program or format-shift music from their own CD to an iPod or MP3 player without infringing copyright law. However, this issue needs careful consideration," he said. ... "I know there is intense interest in this issue and I look forward to receiving public submissions," Mr Ruddock said. More info in this 57KB PDF.
The Attorney-General Department also made some new appointments to the Classification Review Board. The Classification Review Board is responsible for reviewing, upon application, Classification Board decisions regarding films, publications and computer games on behalf of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. The Review Board is comprised of individuals so that, as a whole, it is broadly representative of the Australian community. Review Board members, as statutory appointees, endeavour to make decisions, applying the classification tools, which reflect as objectively as possible what they consider to be the standards of reasonable adults in the community, rather than the personal standards of members. More info in this 54KB PDF.
ASUS announced the P5WD2 Premium motherboard. To provide a computing solution that blends into users’ daily life, the all-new motherboard incorporated ASUS Intelligence (AI) features, which delivers enhancements in TV functions, wireless connection, noiseless cooling and automatic performance adjustment. Combined with support for the dual-core CPU platform, the P5WD2 Premium is a complete package made for complex multi-tasking and a comfortable computing experience. More info in this 81KB DOC.
EVGA announced that Alienware will use their GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MB in their high-end desktop systems. The EVGA e-GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MB PCI-Express graphics card, one of the first 512MB cards in the market, was built with the high standards of the recently announced EVGA Genuine Spec, which provides assurance to consumers that the video card they buy is accurately and correctly designed to meet NVIDIA's actual and original design specification. More info here.
GeCube announced a 512MB Radeon X800XL video card. Equipped with the ATI X800XL VPU and 512MB of GDDR 3 high speed memory, the GECUBE RADEON® X800XL graphics card supports DX9 for 3D performance while creating the perfect gaming experience with movie-quality graphics. More info here.
Matrox released 64-bit Windows drivers for some of their AGP, PCI and PCI Express video products. The Matrox 64-bit SE drivers support both AMD64 processors and 64-bit Intel® Xeon processors. With this release, Matrox continues its distinguished tradition of delivering high-quality, reliable, and future-proof graphics solutions to professional markets, with real-world benefits such as increased productivity and efficiency. More info in this 28KB DOC.
Sunday Midday Reviews
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Sunday, 8-May-2005 11:24:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Power Supply:
ePower PCMCIS Fanless 450 LION on SLCentral.
Thermaltake PurePower TWV500W modular PSU (video review) 3DGameMan.
FrozenCPU DIY PSU Modulation Kit on PimpRig.
OCZ Powerstream 520W on RBMods.
Video Cards:
PNY Verto GeForce 6600 GT 128MB AGP on Hexus.
GeCube X800XLA-VIVO 256MB (RADEON X800 XL - AGP) on HWZ.
Albatron GeForce TC6200Q (Turbo Cache) on LegitReviews.
ATI X800 XL 512MB on Hexus.
ATI X800XL 512MB on Sudhian.
Portable and Small Form Factor:
ASUS M5A Centrino notebook on XbitLabs.
Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 gaming laptop on BIOSMag.
Soltek EQ3501-300P LGA775 SSF Mini-PC on ViperLair.
Display:
Sharp AQUOS 45" LC45GX6U LCD TV on ByteSector.
LG Flatron L1750H 17in TFT monitor on TrustedReviews.
Ring your mum!
Neevo sent in a fun way to attack a website. For example you could nuke OCAU or flood Google.
Here's an interesting homemade heat exchanger in the PCDB.
Bit-Tech have 15 pages of coverage from a recent case-modding competition at the World Cyber Games.
HWSecrets cover what dual-channel DDR is all about, while LegitReviews look at what validated server memory involves.
PC-Perspective compare TurboCache and HyperMemory, giving cheaper video cards access to system memory.
Dan has more letters. A guy with a glorious old brick of a DSLR, someone running seismic sensors in the Aleutians, an easy one about fans, and _two_ people abusing me. What more could you want?
ArsTechnica have an article about the history of the GUI. A History of the GUI traces the development of the GUI from its conception in the 1930s, to the first GUI demonstration in 1968, all the way up to the latest in GUI eye candy today.
Iroquois spotted the Top Ten 802.11 myths of 2005.
DesignTechnica went to China to look at how Lenovo is handling IBM's PC business, having purchased it recently. Interestingly, more than 90% of the PCs sold in China do not go out with Windows. While a large number of these used to go out with Linux, the Linux shipments have all but evaporated and have been replaced by DOS.
From BlueDreamer: GIMPshop for Mac OS X 10.3. Scot Moschella has faithfully recreated the Adobe Photoshop interface for the Gimp to hopefully convert some PS users to Gimp. Currently not available for windows but a linux version in rpm format can be found here. Update: Bern spotted a windows beta for download here.
Saturday Midnightish Reviews
(2 Comments)
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Sunday, 8-May-2005 00:03:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
be quiet! Polar Freezer and Revoltec Graphic Freezer on XtremeResources.
Zalman VF700-Cu video cooler on TechPowerUp.
Titan Vanessa L-Type Heatpipe CPU Cooler on XYZComputing.
Jetart ThermoEye DT2000 Thermometer on RojakPot.
Three Heatsinks from Coolermaster and Gigabyte on Bit-Tech.
Asetek VapoChill LightSpeed vapour phase-change cooler on OCTools.
Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4 (Rev 2) VGA cooler on MarnsCDA.
Thermaltake Silent 939 CPU cooler on Techniz.
Case & Modding:
Sunbeam Samurai tower case on ClubOC.
Logisys Day & Night Inter-Switchable CCFL case lighting on Phoronix.
Thermaltake Armor fulltower ATX/BTX case on TheTechLounge.
Spire Digipanel Multifunction Panel on BigBruin.
Sunbeam 20-in-1 Superior Panel on LANAddict.
Storage:
Vantec Nexstar 3 USB HDD enclosure on ClubOC.
Corsair Flash Voyager 512MB USB storage on GideonTech.
A lot of us in IRC the other night were exploring Google Maps thanks to this page. It's an amazingly detailed satellite-photo view of North America (and some other regions) with some interesting things highlighted. Be warned, I experienced severe time suckage when playing around with this.
Sciby spotted a human centrifuge being used to simulate artificial gravity, to counter the effects of extended weight loss. Didn't someone try to kill James Bond with one of these? For the initial study this summer, 32 test subjects will be placed in a six-degree, head-down, bed-rest position for 21 days to simulate the effects of microgravity on the body. Gibbon reckons that's his kind of job.
Hopefully it won't be too long until dual-core Opterons make their way to the desktop in Socket939. Digitimes report Q3 2005 is when they'll arrive.
HardOCP looked at 64-bit gaming, seeing if the move from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows is going to improve your gaming experience.
Overclockerz made some parabolic antennae to improve wireless networking.
From Simon: Interesting article on New Scientist about a company NanoCoolers which makes a liquid gallium filled chip cooler "The system draws heat away from a circuit by pumping liquid gallium alloy through a series of pipes... Furthermore, it can be pumped away from a heat source more efficiently by means of electromagnetic pumps, instead of hydraulic ones." It will be interesting to see how these shape up.
Apparently the Sober Worm is spreading like wildfire. More info from a sysadmin's perspective here.
3DVelocity have a socket478 cooling roundup. If you're researching for a new P4 cooler, check out our recent Five Large Coolers and Six Smaller Coolers roundups.
From Dinuc: The top ten of the April challenge have now been picked and it's time to vote for the April Iron Photographer. April's theme was Power and there were some great entries.
Iroquois put together an interesting Guide to DShield in our Networking and Internet Forum. DShield.org is an attempt to collect data about cracker activity from all over the internet. This data will be cataloged and summarized. It can be used to discover trends in activity and prepare better firewall rules.
Thursday Night Reviews #2
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Thursday, 5-May-2005 22:41:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Mouse Etc:
Razer eXactMat Mouse Pad on MikhailTech.
Ulti-mat Mousepad on XYZ.
Cameras:
Panasonic BL-C10 - Network Camera on TrustedReviews.
Canon PowerShot A510 digicam on TrustedReviews.
Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens on RojakPot.
Audio / Visual:
ColorVision Spyder2PRO studio monitor calibration solution on FutureLooks.
Epson P-2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer on BiosMag.
Matrix Orbital MX6 mini-LED screen on MadShrimps.
BenQ FP17E+ LCD monitor on AuseHardware.
Misc:
Jetart ThermoEye (DT2000) thermometer on Phoronix.
LapWorks Laptop Legs laptop stand on TheTechZone.
Thermalright XP90-C CPU cooler on OCIA.
Thermaltake TWV-500 PurePower Modular on Techniz.
Firebox VoIP Cyberphone on BIOSMag.
Tech Air - Geo Air Bag laptop bag on ReviewUK.
Corsair TwinX 1024 4400c25 memory on BleedinEdge.
X-Micro WLAN 11g PCMCIA Card on PCModdingMy.
Plextor PX-716A DVD Writer on TrustedReviews.
Nokia 6680 WCDMA 3G mobile phone on OCW.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 5-May-2005 22:06:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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CPU and Motherboard:
Intel Pentium 840 Extreme Edition dual-core CPU on TechReport.
Intel Pentium 840 Extreme Edition dual-core CPU on HWAnalysis.
ATI Radeon Xpress 200 for Intel Platform mobo chipset on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte 8I955X Royal i955X P4 mobo on TBreak.
Case & Modding:
Sytrin Nextherm ICS8200 airconditioned case on AMDBoard.
Sunbeam Samurai case on Bjorn3D.
Raidmax Virgo 811 Black case on TweakNews.
Ninja Budget Case on ATrueReview.
ASUS Vento 3600 case on HotHardware.
Revoltec Case-Modding Products on XtremeResources.
Aspire X-QPACK Aluminum Mini Case w/ 3 Windows (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Antec TX1088 AMG case on OCOnline.
Video Cards:
ATI Radeon X800 XL 512MB on NeoSeeker.
Sapphire All-in-Wonder X800 XT AGP on TrustedReviews.
Albatron TC6200Q GeForce with TurboCache on ViperLair.
MSI NX6600GT-VTD128SP GeForce 6600GT on PCStats.
Gigabyte GV-RX70P256V X700 PRO on Hi-TechReviews.
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT AGP on TweakTown.
Thursday Morning Reviews
(1 Comments)
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Thursday, 5-May-2005 10:59:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Cooler Master Aquagate Mini watercooling kit on PCPerspective.
Scythe Kamakiri CPU cooler on SilentPCReview.
Vantec Iceberg 5 VGA cooler on Techniz.
Spire Verticool SPA49B0 socketA CPU cooler on FrostyTech.
Thermaltake Beetle CPU cooler on Phoronix.
Thermaltake Sonic Tower CPU cooler on A1-Electronics.
Water Cooling with PolarFLO on NVNews.
Three Very Different LGA775 Coolers on 3DVelocity.
Titan Vanessa L-Type CPU cooler on PimpRig.
Memory:
OCZ EL PC-4000 Gold VX DDR on ByteSector.
Corsair XMS Xpert TWINXP1024-3200XL DDR on LegionHardware.
Ultra Products 1024MB PC3200 XL Dual Channel DDR kit on BigBruin.
OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Bandwidth Enhanced DDR2 on RojakPot.
Corsair XMS 3200XL Xpert DDR on NinjaLane.
Bluetooth:
Bluetake BT510 Bluetooth Mini Mouse on HWPacers.
Palladio 2-100 USB Bluetooth Adapter on TCMagazine.
Trust BT210 Bluetooth Headset on TCMagazine.
ATI Radeon X800XL 512MB
(6 Comments)
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Thursday, 5-May-2005 00:52:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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ATI has released a 512MB Radeon X800XL video card chipset today. They say it allows gamers to run today's top games at the highest image quality settings possible, at very high speeds, delivering an amazing gaming experience. Further, the introduction of 512MB graphics cards allows game developers to raise the visual quality bar for their next-generation games currently in development.
Coverage on Anandtech, Beyond3D, Bit-Tech, DriverHeaven, Guru3D, Hexus, PCPerspective, TBreak (linked earlier) and TechReport. Keep on top of things in our Video Cards Forum.
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 4-May-2005 12:41:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Connect3D Radeon X700 Pro PCI-E on RBMods.
Leadtek Winfast PX6200 TC TDH 256MB GeForce 6200 with TurboCache on HotHardware.
ATI Radeon X800XL-512MB on TBreak.
Sapphire Radeon X800XL on TechWareLabs.
Club3D Volari V3XT low-end AGP card on Bit-Tech.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice on NeoSeeker.
ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE i925XE P4 board, our review here.
ASUS P5WD2 i955X P4 board on TBreak.
MSI P4N Diamond (nForce4 SLI Intel Edition) P4 board on HWZ.
ABIT AG8 i915P LGA775 P4 board on LANAddict.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Purepower TWV480 PSU on SLCentral, in our roundup here.
ACRyan RyanPower2 CableFREE 550W ACR-PS2100 on SLCentral.
Vantec Stealth 520W on PCStats.
Portable and Small Form Factor:
Fujitsu P7010D Laptop on DesignTechnica.
Soltek 3501 Pro Prescott mini-PC on SFFTech.
Rock Xtreme TI laptop on DriverHeaven.
SkyHawk IceQ IMC6375 Mini BareBone (part 2) on GruntVille.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 4-May-2005 02:40:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Venice-cored A64's seem to be what everyone is waiting for at the moment. HotHardware took a look at the Venice-cored 3800+, while LostCircuits compared ClawHammer, NewCastle, Winchester and Venice cores.
Sony have been experimenting with a robot among toddlers, to see how children and robots interact. They now dance with Qrio and help it get up when it falls. "It seems (the children) think of (Qrio) as a feeble younger brother," Tanaka said.
TomsHardware look at the state of 3D stereo imaging for gaming. It is stereoscopic vision, or depth perception, that helps produce the giddiness - or vertigo, depending on the situation.
From Jason: This page lists a few books on Linux, PHP etc freely downloadable in PDF format. The downloadable ones start at the bottom of the page.
Digitimes report on a serious fire at a major IC packaging factory in Taiwan. The Chungli plant focuses on producing substrates for higher-end IC substrates, including those used for CSP (chip scale package), BGA (ball-grid array), PBGA (plastic ball-grid array) and FC (flip-chip), and the company’s major clients for those segments include ATI Technologies, Intel, Motorola, Nvidia, Infineon Technologies, Freescale Semiconductor, VIA Technologies and Sunplus Technology, the sources said.
GideonTech have a story about being on a case-modding TV show.
HardwareSecrets have a big table comparing ATI video chipsets.
Slashdot report that the Australian Government Information Management Office have released A Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies.
Paul sent word of a supercomputing model of global warming being confirmed by climate scientists. They said the findings confirm that supercomputer models of climate change are on target and that global temperatures will rise 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) this century, even if greenhouse gases are capped tomorrow.
TheTechZone have an article about the histogram feature of digital cameras, while Bit-Tech have a basic electronics introduction article.
Jack sent word of cheap, tiny PC's to help close the "global digital divide". "Your PC is a bulky, noisy, expensive mess that clutters up your life," Ndiyo's Dr Seb Wills told a Microsoft Research conference in Cambridge, UK.
Interesting Forum Threads:
For Futurama fans: Bender case mod in Modding & Electronics.
Do you use a surge-protected powerboard? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Iron Photographer May Challenge - Theme: Derelict in Photography.
Nikon D70/ Canon 350 real life testing. Part 1 in Photography.
Blade and Mount Game, AWESOME in Games.
Runaway Truck in The Pub.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 4-May-2005 01:09:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases & Modding:
Antec Titan 550 Server Case on LegitReviews.
Revoltec Star Series Procyon II 7 in 1 multifunction panel on XtremeResources.
Audio / Video:
Actiontec Wireless Digital Media Player on TheTechLounge.
Tune Belt iPod Open View Armband Carrier on FutureLooks.
Diamond XtremeTV PVR600 USB 2.0 Power Pack HTPC conversion kit on EverythingUSB.
Bose Triport Headphones on DriverHeaven.
Altec Lansing inMotion iM4 Portable Audio System on CoolTechZone.
iPod Mini 4gig (2nd gen) on AuseHardware.
Networking:
JAHT 108Mbps Wireless Devices on Techniz.
D-Link GigaExpress DGS-1008D ethernet switch on ViperLair.
Storage:
Gigabyte GO-W1616A DVD Burner on PCStats.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ Hard Drive on Bjorn3D.
Seagate 400GB Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive on TrustedReviews.
Thetron noticed that Australia's DoD is buying an Apple cluster. The contract, signed last month and valued at almost $90,000, specifies the supply of an Apple Xserve cluster node running OS X 10.4, which was officially launched last Friday.
SilentPCReview have a quiet wooden case project posted. There's also a new Special K entry in the PCDB, where a geek takes a boring Compaq deskpro and turns it into a custom PC for his girl. Awww.
BoxGods has an interesting article about the dramas involved with making a modded PC for a competition. That left me with about 14 full days to build a totally custom PC from scratch. Not to overdo the dramatics, but I spent the last 5 of those working around the clock.
Your next IT job could be on a cruise ship with a lot of other geeks, thanks Paul. Their idea has drawn some criticism from critics who are labelling IT a "slave ship" and a "sweatshop", prompting some to doubt SeaCode will ever get launched.
Apparently Microsoft provides a special version of their "Bliss" desktop background for New Zealand users. Bizarre.
Dan has some thoughts about future displays and some letters.
TweakGuides have a guide to tweaking Firefox, a popular alternative browser.
Decker spotted a guide to converting a webcam to work in infra-red.
From Loop Goose: Futuristic wheelchair/vehicle here and here. Flash timewaster - WWII in ASCII. "Leather" jacket made from mouse + human bone cells. Plus a whole lot of other weird links here.
Here's a cool idea, a Time Traveller's conference. Of course, they only ever need to hold one, as future time-travellers can come back to it. It's at MIT in a few days time, thanks Ashley, who says: It needs help being promoted so future travelers know about it and doesn't just end up as a lot of guys in DeLoreans claiming to be called "Doc Brown" and "Marty". One point twenty-one giga-watts! :)
ABIT announced two SLI additions to their Fatal1ty motherboard range. Based on the NVIDIA® nForce 4 SLI and nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition chipsets and built with ABIT Engineering, the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI and Fatal1ty NI8 SLI deliver an unprecedented gaming experience with Dual OTES and OTES SLIpstream cooling, ABIT AudioMAX sound, and the power of dual NVIDIA-based graphics card support. More info in a 605KB DOC file here.
Cooler Master have a new liquid cooling system. Cooler Master is the first in the world to patent (pending approval) an exclusive design of a 2-in-1 module which consists of a pump and a CPU water block to eliminates the need for a 5½” bay to mount the pump or tank. This new technology comes completely fully assembled which includes the CPU water block, radiator, fan, thermal paste, cooling fluid and tubing. More info here. Haven't we seen on-waterblock pumps before?
OCZ announced PC2-6400 Platinum with 4-3-3 Timings. Supporting the lowest latency DDR2-800 currently available today, the OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum series is guaranteed to deliver unparalleled speeds amid incredibly stable and reliable operation. More info here.
Orion Multisystems announced a 96-node deskside Cluster Workstation. They say it's a personal supercomputer that fits under a desk and is the highest performance general-purpose computing platform that can be plugged into a standard power outlet. More info here and there's a thread in our SMP & Clustering Forum about it here.
Soft Trading announced a new Icemat Siberia USB Soundcard and Steel Sound 5H gaming headset. More info on the soundcard in a 66KB PDF here and the headphones in a 43KB PDF here.
Valve and Vivendi Universal Games settled their lawsuit. Under the settlement agreement, VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve's games, including Half-Life®, Half-Life 2, Counter-StrikeTM, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, effective August 31, 2005. More info here. This is interesting, because it means Valve have effectively removed the traditional separate publisher/distributor role from selling the games they write. TheInq have their thoughts posted and there's a thread discussing it here in our Games Forum.
Motherboards.org compared the Celeron and Sempr0n "value" CPUs, while TrustedReviews looked at HyperMemory and TurboCache, as seen on lower-end video cards. They also compared two digital pens.
SimpleSam sent in this very cool Deep Space slideshow, full of amazing pictures of galaxies etc. Probably very painful on dialup.
AMDBoard have info about the end of S754 A64s. AMD also encouraged resellers to push socket 939 Athlon 64 instead, insisting on the larger bandwidth, lower consumption and dual-core compatibility of the latter.
Quadbox noticed this clock screensaver.. I like the "timeline" one.
THG report on nanotechnology being used to improve thin displays in quality and performance. According to the research firm, nanotechnology could replace a current set of compromises consumers have to make when purchasing devices with screens.
LegionHardware have an nForce4 SLI roundup, covering four motherboards. PCModdingMy meanwhile compared Speed-Pad and maXXpad mousepads, while DriverHeaven looked at the Zalman CNPS7700-CU and Arctic Cooling A64 Freezer CPU coolers.
Another odd but interesting link from Raven: this time it's the infinite cat project. If you're lost, here's the first cat, click "Next Cat" a few times to see what's going on.
Digit-Life noticed that there are five Intel processors at 2.8GHz for S478, and set out to compare them all. They are the "new" and the "old" Celeron CPUs, Pentium 4 (Northwood core), and two Pentium 4 processors (Prescott core).
How's this for cool? Rainbow lasers, thanks Timbot.
Microsoft's "Windows Hardware Engineering Conference" or WinHEC 2005 was on recently, with coverage from TechReport and AnandTech.
Finally, TheInq report on PR stunts and one-upmanship from AMD and Intel at WinHEC. So, there was Intel on day one with an F1 car, and AMD without one! Aaaargh, a breach in the front lines, hide the women and children. In a move sure to make Fedex stockholders happy, up popped an AMD F1 car the next day. Ha! Take that.
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 2-May-2005 02:08:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Video:
Bitate Sf403ex mp3 player on RBMods.
Sennheiser HD 215 headphones on TrustedReviews.
Sony HFM-HT75W HDTV-Ready LCD TV on BIOSMag.
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX soundcard on Techniz.
EarLove Hi-Fi Protection hearing protection on SDMLanReview.
Systems:
Dell Dimension XPS Gen-4 prebuilt gaming PC on Hexus.
IBM ThinkPad R52 Centrino notebook on HotHardware.
Printers:
Epson Stylus Photo R1800 A3 photo printer on TrustedReviews.
HP Deskjet 1280 wide-format inkjet on BIOSMag.
Misc:
ThermalRight SI-97 CPU cooler on HWZone.
Triplett Line-Bug 4 phone/LAN tester on Phoronix.
Samsung SGH-D500 (Tri-Band) mobile phone on HWZ.
Garmin StreetPilot c320 GPS Navigation System on TrustedReviews.
PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510-SLI PSU on Bjorn3D.
Compex iWavePort 802.11g Wireless LAN Card on FutureLooks.
Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED camera lens on RojakPot.
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system on ArsTechnica.
Sunday Night Reviews
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Sunday, 1-May-2005 23:33:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS CT-479 Pentium-M Adapter for S478 on PCPerspective.
Chaintech Zenith VNF5 Ultra S939 A64 mobo on PCStats.
ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition P4 mobo on HotHardware.
DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR S939 A64 mobo on PimpRig.
Case & Modding:
SilverStone LC11 case on Short-Media.
MX610 USB PC PLED Bay Insert on Guru3D.
ThermalRock Circle case on ViperLair.
Nemesis Elite Edition & Trinity Classic cases (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Sunbeam 20-in-1 Superior Panel on ATrueReview.
Connex USB Cables on SDMLanReview.
Memory:
OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-5400 EB Platinum DDR2 memory kit on ExtremeOC.
TwinMOS Twister PC3200 BH-5 on TechPowerUp.
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