Legit Reviews News History
Press Releases
Here are a couple press releases that are worth a mention.
ATI CATALYST 5.3 Launched w/ support of OpenGL 2.0
Good news today for S3 and parent company VIA as they announce that the GammaChromeS18 is now available on the open market. Great news for VIA who have been trying to put a number of new products out the past few months.
"With the release of CATALYST 5.3 today, ATI is pleased to announce support for Open GL 2.0. The addition of Open GL 2.0 provides a platform to further leverage the power of our latest hardware to enhance the realism ofOpen GL-based games and applications. Users have the ability to enjoy increased visual realism in how scenes are rendered and in the use of shadows - bringing a cinematic gaming experience that much closer..."
For The Full Press Release & To Download the Drivers Visit This Thread
S3 Graphics Ships GammaChromeS18 PCI-E Cards
Good news today for S3 and parent company VIA as they announce that the GammaChromeS18 is now available on the open market. Great news for VIA who have been trying to put a number of new products out the past few months.
"Keeping pace with the latest developments in the graphics arena, S3 Graphics today announced the availability of GammaChromeS18, the first in the GammaChrome line of GPUs targeted at the mainstream graphics market, featuring full DirectX 9.0 hardware, a native PCI Express interface and S3G's signature Hi-Def(tm) native HDTV display capability for the ultimate visual experience..."
For The Full Press Release & To See Card Images Visit This Thread
Posted by | Wed, Mar 09, 2005 - 01:36 PM | Comments
Today's Reviews Around The Web
Dual nVIDIA 6800's on a single card:
HardSpell.com is showing off an ASUS card with dual 6800's this morning. The card looks like a monster and leaves me wondering if I can run two of these babies on an SLI motherboard. No interconnect is present, but would you need one since both cards already have dual GPU's?
Talk more about it in our forums on the thread about this card!
Reviews Around The Web:
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TC 64MB @ Guru3D
ATI ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT @ Hexus.net
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI and 3D1 @ TweakTown
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI Motherboard @ PCSTATS
Arctic Cooling Silentium T2 Case @ ap0calypse.com
Thermaltake Armor VA8000 Case @ motherboards.org>
In-Depth Comparison of Serial ATA RAID 5 Adapters @ Tweakers.net
DoubleSight DS-1700 @ Modasylum.Com
Samsung Syncmaster 920T 19" LCD @ GideonTech.com
Sony VAIO VGN-S2HRP @ xbitlabs
HP Pavilion ZE2000 @ HotHardware
Posted by | Wed, Mar 09, 2005 - 09:13 AM | Comments
Athlon 64 4200+
" AMD IS CLOSE to releasing its next Athlon 64 CPUs. Busy people at the Xtreme Systems forum managed to get a CPU-Z snapshot of the AMD upcoming 4200+ CPU. That is what that site reckons.
This CPU is actually clocked at 2600MHz just the same as the FX55 but in the case of Athlon 64 4200+ the multiplier is locked higher. The 4200+ has 1MB of cache built on 90 nanometre marchitecture and works with 1.4 volts.
This looks like a San Diego core to us as it has SSE3 and it is built on 90 nanometre marchitecture.
This means that FX57 new AMD gaming CPU that should rock at 2.8GHz and have multipliers completely unlocked is close to its release. Maybe CeBIT? It would not be the first time. Helas.
"
Posted by | Wed, Mar 09, 2005 - 12:25 AM | Comments
Asetek releases very quiet cooler
" A DANISH based company that likes to cool things out and goes under the name of Asetek finally released a very nice and inexpensive CPU air based cooler.
The company is going to show this product at CeBIT and you will be able to see it in just a few days time. Asetek joined forces with German based Leonhardt Group Industries to bring what they call a highly effective cooler aarchitecture.
The VapoChill Micro PCU cooler is filled with hermetically sealed gas/liquid captured in chambers and exploiting phase change cooling principles. The company claims it's much more efficient than the currently heavily used heatpipe cooler principle.
We won't get into details how it actually works. The current retail version will support old P4 socket 478 and LGA 775 while it will work with all of the Athlon 64/FX/Sempron/Opteron using socket 754, 939 or 940.
The retail price excluding VAT is ?27 and price should end up around ?40 for a retail product with VAT. It will be available in volume starting May 1st.
"
Posted by | Wed, Mar 09, 2005 - 12:23 AM | Comments
CeBIT: the show readies to kick off, Taiwan sets new record
"Long acknowledged as the world?s leading technology tradeshow, CeBIT starts again this Thursday, March 10 in Hannover, Germany with the strongest ever attendance from Taiwan. According to preliminary data from organizers Deutsche Messe AG, 777 exhibitors will represent Taiwan this year, surpassing the 2004 record of 702 companies by more than 10%. Once again, and now for nearly a decade, Taiwan ranks as the number two exhibiting region after host Germany.
The world?s leading news agencies are already reporting from Hannover that an enthusiasm is returning to the industry, which is still thought to be able to generate stellar growth. After three slow years, CeBIT this year will welcome 6,270 exhibitors, up from 6,109 in 2004. After Germany and Taiwan, China has 310 exhibiting companies, the US 209, South Korea 202, Great Britain 193 and Hong Kong 176. For the first time, more than 1,600 companies have been registered directly from Asia and these companies will occupy about 39,000 square meters of floor space."
Posted by | Tue, Mar 08, 2005 - 05:09 PM | Comments
Counter-Strike and Warcraft III on ACON5 roster
"ACON5 is slated to kick off March 9 in the UK followed shortly after in China March 26, according to Abit gaming brand manager Lester Lau. The ACON5 gaming tournament, sponsored by Abit, Intel, ATI Technologies, LG Electronics, Corsair and Creative will be held in over 20 countries and territories, with 16 semi-finals, said Lau.
According to Lau, thousands of gamers helped last year?s ACON4 event become a major success. ?This year?s event will have more locations and bigger prizes, as well as the addition of a new game into the contest,? .
The gamers will first compete in regional ACON5 qualifiers. During each qualifying event, the winners will win the right to represent their region at the ACON5 Finals. From there, the winners will be flown, all expenses paid, to the ACON5 finals. Last year, Warcraft III: Frozen Throne was chosen to be the official game. This year, ACON5 organizers have added one of the world?s number one online games, Counter-Strike, to the roster. This year, Abit was able to garner Valve and Blizzard?s official support for the ACON5 event, Lau said."
Posted by | Tue, Mar 08, 2005 - 05:08 PM | Comments
In life after the bubble, tech takes a backseat
"Five years ago Thursday, a pin pricked the Internet bubble.
And in that five-year span, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen by more than half, corporate America has pulled back its IT spending, a large swath of jobs have been cut across a number of industry sectors, consumer confidence has waned, and the tech sector, which garnered the biggest benefit during the go-go years, has suffered a black eye.
"It took 86 years for the Red Sox to win the World Series. It may take a little less for the Nasdaq to hit 5,000 again," said Richard Peterson, chief market strategist at Thomson Financial."
Posted by | Tue, Mar 08, 2005 - 05:06 PM | Comments
Intel Talks About Gaming & Multi Threads
Who said that Intel doesn't care about gamers? Today we get a PR from our Intel contacts saying that they are going full steam ahead with dual-core-based software! We hope that all our friends in the gaming industry get all the help they need from Intel!
"SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 8, 2005 - Intel Corporation today announced it has been working closely with game developers on threading their games and has expanded seeding of its dual-core-based software development platforms. These efforts will fuel gaming software and features such as physics, artificial intelligence, character animation and world simulation that can take advantage of multiple CPU cores and threads. "
Posted by | Tue, Mar 08, 2005 - 04:46 PM | Comments
Monday Reviews
Intel's BTX Form Factor - An Analysis and Opinion
BTX based systems are (very) slowly surfacing, but what is this BTX all about anyway? We take a look at what it consists of and whether we think it will be any good. AMD also provided us with a response regarding their systems and the BTX standard.
"I can count the number of commercially available BTX mainboards and chassis' in this country on one hand. I can count the number of UK retailers selling packaged Pentium 4 processors with the Type 1 BTX Thermal Module on the fingers of no hands."
HEXUS.review - Intel's BTX Form Factor
Reviews Around The Web:
Soltek SL-K890 Pro 939 Motherboard @ hardcoreware.net
Foxconn WinFast NF4K8MC-ERS nForce4 Motherboard @ Bjorn3D
Soltek K8T890 @ t-break
Thermaltake Rocket @ Legion Hardware
Spire CoolGate Pentium 4 Heatpipe Cooler @ Adrian's Rojak Pot
Thermalright XP-90 Heatsink @ mikhailtech.com
Koolance VID-NV2-L06 GPU Cooler @ SystemCooling
Gigabyte Neon Cooler 775 & Neon Cooler 8 @ Legion Hardware
3.4GHz Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 @ Club Overclocker
Intel 660 and 3.73GHz XE @ Bytesector
HIS X850XT and X850XTPE @ Hardware Avenue
MSI and XFX 6600 GT AGP and PCI-E Video Cards @ HardOCP
Albatron Trinity PC6600GT PCI-E @ Club Overclocker
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 11:53 AM | Comments
Nvidia gets refresh on SLI driver
" WHILE IT WILL REMAIN beta until Nvidia finishes testing it, a beta release of Forceware 70 has been available on the firm's site for a few days now.
Nvidia tested 60 games and applications and added it to the SLI ready list. This driver also brings support for 6200 with the Turbo Cache series, better video support called PureVideo and of course better SLI support.
Sources close to Nvidia said this driver has much better SLI support and lets you do many things that you could not manage with Forceware release 65. "
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 05:30 AM | Comments
Firefox developer feels like throwing in the towel
" FIREFOXER Mike Connor is complaining in his blog that the development of the Mozilla-sponsored alternative browser isn't getting the attention it deserves from its parent.
An exasperated Connor says he?s "on the verge of just walking away indefinitely" from the project because of its "glacial pace of development."
The problem, says Connor is that there are only half a dozen folk who review the product and they?re not active enough right now. At least, not as active as him, he suggests."
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 05:29 AM | Comments
TwinMOS launches DDR2-533 SO-DIMM for Sonoma platform
"TwinMOS Technologies announced today that it has completed the R&D for its DDR2-533 SO-DIMM. The product is designed to support the Intel Sonoma platform, as well as Intel?s next generation Napa platform.
However, TwinMOS did not reveal its production schedule and when contacted, could not confirm when the DDR2-533 SO-DIMM would hit the market.
The company stated that it designed the DDR2-533 SO-DIMM for the Sonoma platform in accordance with the 4-bit prefetch architecture of DDR2 specifications and to support bandwidths up to 4.3GB/sec. The products will operate at 1.8V, and features on-die termination (ODT)."
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 05:26 AM | Comments
A Cut Above
" Let's say you're a big-league pitcher, blessed with a good but not great arm. You've played several seasons in the majors, yet you've never managed to hold down a steady place in a starting rotation, mainly because you can't get quite enough velocity on the ball. You work with different pitching coaches and sports psychologists. You try new exercise and diet regimens. Ultimately, you decide that your innate talents aren't going to take you to the all-star level you've always dreamed of. You need a little help. "
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 05:25 AM | Comments
AMD set to detail multi-OS plan
"SAN FRANCISCO--Advanced Micro Devices will detail its "Pacifica" virtualization technology by the end of this month, enabling software companies to start working with the feature, which makes it easier for a computer to run several operating systems simultaneously
The Pacifica technology is scheduled to arrive in processors in 2006, later than the comparable Vanderpool Technology--now officially called Intel Virtualization Technology--that is promised to appear this year in Intel chips. What's not clear is whether the two technologies will be compatible, raising the prospect of complications for some software makers."
Posted by | Mon, Mar 07, 2005 - 05:23 AM | Comments
Will mobile phones ever replace the MP3 player?
Every year I am seeing cell phones doing more and more, but the next improvement that I am really looking forward to is in the music realm. Spare me the $200-$400 MP3 player and give me a mobile phone loaded with a few gigs of flash memory.
"Nokia and Microsoft have agreed a deal to work on delivery of music to handsets, while Sony Ericsson has unveiled its phone Walkman and Motorola is working on an iTunes phone. Can mobile phones replace the MP3 player in your pocket? Full-length music downloads on mobile phones have not taken off so quickly - held back by technical challenges as well as issues over music availability. But the mobile music industry is confident that the days of dedicated MP3 players are numbered. "
Posted by | Sun, Mar 06, 2005 - 07:46 PM | Comments
Friday Reviews
The Tech Report's CPU Decoder Page Updated
Looks like Scott and the gang now have 240 processors listed on their site to help guide you to finding the right CPU or to tell you what the heck you own.
We've just put the finishing touches on an update to our CPU Decoder Ring. Among the changes are the addition of the newest CPUs (including the Opteron x52 and Pentium 4 6xx series) as well as some older chips that didn't make it into the last update. Additionally, columns have been added to show support for both the NX bit and 64-bit capability. A quick query reveals that 240 processors are currently represented on the chart.
Reviews Around The Web:
Intel 660 3.6Ghz & 3.73Ghz EE 64bit Pentium 4 Processors @ Tweaknews.net
Intel's 64-bit Technology @ PCSTATS
P4 600 Series 64-bit Performance @ Lost Circuits
Intel Pentium 4 660 and EE 3.73 GHz @ Behardware.com
DDR-2 PC-5400 Shootout - OCZ vs. Corsair vs. Kingston @ TweakTown
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 2x512MB @ DevHardware
Corsair XPert TWINXP1024-3200XL @ ipKonfig
Corsair XPERT Memory - TwinXP1024-3200XL @ OCTools.com
Corsair TWINXP1024 3200XL (Xpert) @ Rbmods
Gigabyte 8IPE775 Pro @ Hardware12v
Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe 915G Motherboard @ PC Perspective
DFI LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D @ Legion Hardware
MSI K8N Neo3-FSR @ TrustedReviews
AOpen i915Pa-PLF Motherboard @ PCSTATS
SiS 756 Reference PCI-E Motherboard @ OCW
Posted by | Fri, Mar 04, 2005 - 03:09 PM | Comments
Targeting AMD and ATI, ULi finds its niche
"ULi Electronics was spun off from ALi, to focus on core-logic chipsets, about two years ago. DigiTimes recently met with ULi CEO and president Alex Kuo to talk about how the company evolved in that time from a notebook-chipset maker to a niche player in the desktop market, specializing in southbridge chips and single-chip K8 AMD core-logic solutions. Kuo also spoke about partnerships and the challenges he faces managing a niche player in a competitive market. "
Posted by | Fri, Mar 04, 2005 - 01:57 AM | Comments
Intel rethinking the living room PC
"The lukewarm response for the EPC--a living room computer that functions as a DVD player, a digital-video recorder and a media storage vault that sort of looks like a VCR--is prompting the company to rethink the design and function of the devices, said Don MacDonald, general manager of Intel's home product group.
Future living room units will be smaller, more stylish and likely less costly, he said. They could possibly even be integrated with movie delivery or other content services. Equally important: The fact that the box is a PC will be heavily de-emphasized."
Posted by | Fri, Mar 04, 2005 - 01:53 AM | Comments
Forum News
Today in the forums we have some interesting threads going on. We are having yet another motherboard away! Rich is giving the Chaintech nForce 4 Ultra AMD A64 939 motherboard to the forum member who can come up with the most creative reason as to why he should have it. In other news we show off how Corsair and Kingston are now best chums in the memory industry. If you haven't yet checked out the thread on turning an old CRT monitor into a fish tank it is worth doing. Then after you are done checking that out the computer stuff you can read how a woman has listed some USED breast implants on eBay that are going for over $14,000!!!
I'm heading back from San Francisco today, so expect more IDF content soon. We have had 20+ meetings with all the big companies and a bunch of information to pass along!
Posted by | Thu, Mar 03, 2005 - 09:24 AM | Comments
Growth rate slips for Firefox usage
" New research shows the growth rate of open-source browser Firefox is slowing, while Microsoft's browser market share continues to dip.
Two tracking surveys released Monday showed that Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser has dipped below 90 percent market share.
IE, which comes preinstalled on the vast majority of computers, had already dipped below the 90 percent threshold in a November survey by OneStat, a Dutch Web metrics firm. At the time, Microsoft pointed to WebSideStory's results, which showed it was still above 90 percent. "
Posted by | Thu, Mar 03, 2005 - 01:44 AM | Comments
DFI shipped 80,000 motherboards in February
"DFI said that its motherboard shipments were down 18% on-month, reaching 80,000 units in February, as the Chinese New Year holiday, which lasted from Feb 7-13, reduced the number of workdays for the month.
Consequently, the company?s February revenues were down 29.7% on-month to NT$170 million, company sources said, adding that sales of industrial-use ACP (applied computing platform) motherboards accounted for 35% of the company?s total revenues for February, down from the 47% recorded in January.
However, ACP motherboards as a proportion of total revenues are expected to rebound to 50% in March as the company will begin volume shipments of the ACP models, for a number of special projects, this month, the sources noted"
Posted by | Thu, Mar 03, 2005 - 01:42 AM | Comments
Albatron ready with Nforce 4 SLI board
" ALBATRON IS joining the current trend of introducing SLI boards and at this time only Epox and Abit are really late with its SLI designs. We know they both have them just not ready as yet.
Albatron just announced its K8SLI motherboard and we believe it will show it at Cebit up and running. The company managed to squeeze some space on the board by eliminating the well known "switch" card and disobeying Nvidia reference design. At Nvidia reference boards and Asus, Gigabyte and MSI boards you have to use a special "switch" card to enable dual graphic card mode or single graphic card mode. Albatron board is 7.7" x 11.5" wide and long and does look smaller from the other boards."
Posted by | Thu, Mar 03, 2005 - 01:39 AM | Comments
VIA?s February revenues down 37% on-year
A few weeks ago it looked like ABIT was going through some hard times, but now it looks like VIA is having some. Today they noted revenue is down greater than expected mainly due to their fact that their P4 chipsets aren't out yet. We talked to VIA today at IDF about this and they said it will be another few weeks for the new chipsets to be shipping from their board partners. Looks like next month is going to be rough also!
"VIA Technologies recorded revenues of NT$1.03 billion in February, down 33.4% on-month and 37.1% on year, the chipmaker announced yesterday. Revenues were down due to a reduced number of workdays, with the week-long Lunar Chinese New Year holiday taking place in February, company sources explained.
However, the on-month decline was greater than expected, with market sources saying that the company has not been able to deliver its PCIe-enabled core-logic chipsets for Pentium 4 CPUs in volume. VIA said that it plans to start volume shipments of three versions of Pentium 4-compatible chipsets, the PT880 Pro, PT894 and PT894 Pro, by the end of March."
Posted by | Wed, Mar 02, 2005 - 02:22 PM | Comments
IDF Spring 2005 - Multi-Core and Intel SLI
Hexus has a few really good, and really interesting pieces up on IDF 2005, Nate should be posting his notes sometime today, so until then check these out.
IDF Spring 2005: Day 1 Keynote : Craig Barrett
IDF Spring 2005: Manufacturing Enhancements to CMOS Technology
IDF Spring 2005: Intel Multi-Core strategy
IDF Spring 2005: Silicon Photonics as true Interconnects
" It is no secret that the high end parts are not volume in any market; the reason they are made is for 2 key reasons ? for the enthusiast and for the press. The press love to write about them and the enthusiasts love to show off and talk about them. We call it ?willy waving?, and our lead hardware reviewer, Rys, always has the biggest, so I?m told"
Posted by | Tue, Mar 01, 2005 - 02:49 PM | Comments
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