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Below you
can find the PC Hardware news for the selected period.
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Thursday, January 24, 2002 |
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Thermaltake Volcano 7 Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:34 EET |
OcPrices.com have just finished a review of the Thermaltake Volcano 7 cooler. Featuring a temperature sensor on the fan, this cooler in theory responds to increasing temps by upping the fan RPM. Sounds great, but does it work?
"I recently purchased a Thermaltake Volcano7 from Bigfoot Computers because I desperately needed something to cool my CPU, but at acceptable noise levels. My Volcano 6cu+ was just too damn loud - my hamster frets every time I turn on my computer. The Volcano7 promises to deliver cooling when needed and tranquility when possible. All at a reasonable price. Let’s see if it delivers..." |
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HardwareZone Awards 2001
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:33 EET |
This year's HardwareZone Awards 2001 was held at the Merchant Court hotel on the 23rd of January. Attended by manufacturers and distributors, the event aims to give recognition to product excellence. The awards began months ago with the community casting their votes on products which they feel are worthy of the award. The final nominees were then rounded-up based on the number of votes from the community and were then given a final round of testing at Hardware Zone's Reviews Lab.
Winners were decided based on its performance, ease of use, features, innovation and value. They had more categories this year, as many as 39 of them, totaling more than 150 products, tested by their team of dedicated reviewers. Another 6 categories were voted by the community through an online poll conducted in HardwareZone. Check it out! |
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Gigabyte 7VTXH+ Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:30 EET |
At OcWorkBench you can read an article about Gigabyte 7VTXH+ motherboard.
"Gigabyte has definitely make the 7VTXH+ an outstanding product. It has abandoned its tradition of making non-oc boards. They have also made it as one of the first tier manufacturers to adopt the VT8233A South bridge and bring ATA-133 performance to the Socket A mainboard. From the CC Winstone2000 results, we can confirm that the ATA-133 definitely brings up the overall I/O performance of the system. The results obtained in Quake3, Dronez indicate that this board is pretty on par with the fastest boards out on the market right now." |
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12v on/off LED BayBus Article
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:27 EET |
CaseJunkies.com has a new article up. It's all about a 12v on/off LED BayBus. Heres a snippet:
"Before I painted my case, I decided that I needed a bay bus to turn all the new toys on and off. I didn't really want to buy one off the web, mostly because none of them really went with the look I wanted. I decided that I wanted to get 5 switches across a 5.25" bay. Given the whole look of black with bright blue highlights." |
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Thermalpaste shootout!
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:23 EET |
Overclockers Club have just completed a review or "shootout" rather, of the new Arctic Silver III, Arctic Silver II, Old Nanotherm, and the New Nanotherm thermal paste's. Here is a quote from the shootout:
"Arctic Silver has came out with a new thermal paste called, Arctic Silver 3. Right after Arctic Silver notified me of their new thermal paste, ESGN tells me about their new Nanotherm thermal paste. The new Nanotherm paste now comes with 50% more paste than the older paste they sold. Arctic Silver 3 comes with a total of 3 grams of paste, which is the same as Arctic Silver 2, however Nanotherm only comes with 2 grams of paste. Today, I will be comparing Arctic Silver II, Arctic Silver III, the new Nanotherm and the old Nanotherm." |
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Direct Die with an O-ring
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:21 EET |
Over at Spode's Adobe Surlyjoe and Spode climb out of their hibernation and shed some light on their new direct die system using an o-ring clamp. A breif, but intresting read involving tales of darkness and EVIL. Go see for yourself! |
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Santa Cruz 6-Speaker PCI Sound Card Video Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:19 EET |
3dGameMan.com posted a video review of Santa Cruz™ 6-Speaker PCI Sound Card. "A wickedly affordable kickass sound card!" Check it out! |
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Samsung Syncmaster 171MP LCD - HDTV Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:17 EET |
At PcStats.com you can read a review of Samsung Syncmaster 171MP LCD - HDTV. Here's a quote:
"One of the hardest aspects of reviewing technology is constantly having to sidestep previous iterations of a monitor, video card, or processor to something which is now tenfold better, and that makes your previous judgements now seem obsolete. It's also one of the best parts of this process because we are constantly being surprise by what the industrial designers are coming up with. To put it another way, "we have the technology, we can build them better, faster, stronger!" While this isn't quite a re-run of the the six million dollar man, the very new, and very cool Samsung 171MP is something that has caught our attention." |
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Review of the Shuttle AK35-GTR
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:14 EET |
Active-Hardware posted a review of the Shuttle AK35-GTR. Here's a clip:
"Following the launch of the AK31 rev 3, Shuttle was showered with praise. The Rev 3 was almost universally claimed for its performance, something few Shuttle boards could claim in the past. Furthermore, despite being targeted towards the mid-end of the market, the AK31 rev 3 was supplied with a wide range of Overclocking items, which quickly endeared it to tweakers everywhere. This time, with the AK35GRT, Shuttle is aiming a bit higher, by including both an integrated RAID controller, and a 6-channel out C-Media sound-card." |
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Done! Finished! Complete!
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:12 EET |
Dan's Data have finally managed to plough through the last of the CPU coolers that were waiting to be added to their enormous comparison. Eight more coolers today, made by two companies who seem to think that giving their products interesting names would be a sign of weakness. Bitspower's NP15S, NP60CD, NP60CS, NP60E and NP61D have joined the first page of the comparison, and Sibak Tech's even more memorably named AC-01-625B, AC-02-625B and AE-01-625B are now sitting on the end of the second page.
Not counting tests of the same cooler with different fans, there are now eighty-five Socket A/Socket 370 air coolers in the comparison. Plus some P4 coolers, plus some chipset coolers, plus some water cooling gear. Check it out! |
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The Acorp 7KT266A Motherboard Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:09 EET |
Hot Hardware posted a review of the Acorp 7KT266A motherboard. This is an Athlon board, matched up with the popular KT266A chipset, which usually equals excellent performance. Not the typical motherboard they are used to seeing around in their labs, we found out that the 7KT266A held a few surprises for Hot Hardware, both good and bad. Check it out! |
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Cross-Platform tests
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:06 EET |
Accelenation.com have an article detailing their new multi-platform test suite. The users may be interested in the scores obtained across the following six platforms: AthlonXP+Win98, AthlonXP+Win2K, AthlonXP+WinXP, Pentium4+Win98, Pentium4+Win2K, Pentium4+WinXP. And a quote for those interested:
"Some might consider that comparing a 1.4GHz Pentium4 to a 1.4GHz Athlon XP is unfair on Intel. However, at the time of purchase both processors cost the same amount and in my opinion this makes the comparison perfectly fair." |
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Lite-On LTR-32123S 32/12/40 CD-RW Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:02 EET |
Got Apex? has posted a review of the Lite-On LTR-32123S 32/12/40 CD-RW. Here is a clip:
"As a Got|Apexer, I of course love a good deal, and in this case that's a drive that does what I need it to do, without costing extra for features I don't need or necessarily understand. For the consumer, just looking for a decent CDRW drive, that means that while you might miss out on newer features such as Mt Rainier support, you should still be able to get a fast drive with buffer underrun protection, decent DAE performance, and modern error correction. Enter Lite On." |
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Belkin Networking Equipment review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 10:00 EET |
EXHardware has posted up a new review! They take a look at an excellent networking package from Belkin consisting of their uniquely designed 8-port 10/100 switch, Desktop PCI network cards and some really awesome Gigabit capable CAT6 (not CAT5 - that's CAT6) cables! How does it all perform? Check out their review to find out! Here's a snip:
"Belkin's switch empoys a very unique design and it atcually looks really good! I've seen too many hubs/switches designed for home use and they just look plain ugly. Furthermore, the Belkin design is space saving because it stands upright and has a very small footprint, perfect for those of us who have cluttered and messy tables. The switch we're reviewing here today is Belkin's top of the line 8-port model, if you do not need to hook up so many computers, you can opt for the cheaper Belkin 5-port switch which is exactly the same except for the 5 port limit instead of 8. Setting it up is as simple as it can get, just plug the AC adaptor in, plug the network cables in and you're ready to go." |
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Bluetake USB Dongle Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:57 EET |
Bluetooth products are finally starting to make there way to the marketplace. One of the companies that hopes to be leader in the Bluetooth market is Bluetake, a spin off of Thermaltake. Today I am Not a Geek dot com are looking at their first Bluetooth product, the USB Dongle.
“To briefly introduce the Bluetooth concept, is a cable replacement technology that simplifies person-to-person and machine-to-machine interaction. It utilizes short-distance radio link technology to enable the wireless connection of mobile terminals such as desktops, laptops, printers, PDAs and mobile phones can exchange data or voice with one another.” |
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Windows XP Modem Tweak Guide
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:55 EET |
Windows XP much like other Windows OS, offers several improvements over the previous release & XP is no exception, offering some nice updates to the Networking features. 3D Spotlight's WinXP Modem Tweak Guide will take you through optimizing the performance, reliability & security of your Dial-up connection in Windows XP as well as several other misc. tips. |
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Lativa Black Case Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:54 EET |
Mikhailtech review another black mid-tower, this one called the Lativa. Looks pretty nice and has some cool features, but also some major shortcomings. Here's a quote:
"Instead of spending 5-10 minutes getting all the stuff in, with the removable tray it took me a fraction of the time. Using thumbscrews also helped out a considerable amount. What can't be justified, however, is the use of the 60mm fan. I'm aware that a slide-out tray creates some space issues, but many manufacturers (Lian Li is the first that comes to mind) have remedied the problem. Installing drives is also a lot easier if you have room to move your hands freely in and out of the case. Overall I'm pleased with the way everything went inside as it didn't take up too much time. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that for the price there are no other features like removable drive racks and the like." |
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Cooler roundup
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:52 EET |
Cooler reviews seem to be one of the most present ones among computer hardware related sites. Bench House joins the band wagon and provides a cooler roundup. The coolers reviewed are: Cooler Master AAC001, Cooler Master HCC-002, Evercool ND12T, ThermalTake Volcano 6Cu, Volcano 6Cu+, Volcano 7, Global Win SAK 38 and Global Win CAK II-38. The coolers were tested in open and closed computer case states. The processor used was AMD Athlon XP 1500+ and all of the measuring was done through use of ASUS' IPanel diagnostics device. The article also covers some basics like thermal paste usage and extra case fans and their effect on CPU's temperature. |
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ZZZ's 113th issue
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:49 EET |
The 113th issue of ZZZ online is up. This week they talk about magnetic fridges, power generating mud, and review a portable writing tablet ("which turned out to be a big headache"). Check it out!
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DFI NB70-SC Motherboard Review
Posted by: CrackMaster at 9:47 EET |
At PcStats.com you can read a review of the DFI NB70-SC motherboard. Here's a clip:
"Large OEM's and computer retailers hailed the original i845 chipset as a savor to the Pentium 4. Finally, a chipset that allowed SDRAM compatibility and broke the shackles of expensive RDRAM. Little did they know that pairing a Pentium 4 with SDRAM would severely hamper the performance as much as 30%!
Now with P4 DDR chipsets coming from every corner, from Intel's own i845-D to SiS's 645 and VIA's unlicensed P4X266, users no longer have to put up with lousy performance to save some money. Today we'll be looking at DFI's NB70-SC motherboard based on the i845-D chipset. With the rather plain brown PCB, the NB70-SC looks quite drab in the face of the red and black coloured boards we have been seeing so much of these days." |
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