Thursday Reviews

Quote

With the Ram out of the static bags, you can see the cool Ballistix print that Crucial added to the heat spreaders. The black PCB looks cool from this view and is a nice added touch. Although most of these features are hidden when the RAM is tucked in the slots, at least you know Crucial went to all extremes to make this RAM appealing to the performance user.

Quote

Overclocking the MSI GeForce 6800 yielded some very interesting results. From a stock clock speed of 325MHz and stock memory speed of 700MHz, we were able to overclock the card to a clock speed of 376MHz and memory speed of 798MHz. This is a 51MHz increase in core speed and 98MHz in memory speed. By all accounts this is a very good overclock considering the card's single-slot design and relatively quiet operation.

Quote

The package is as flashy and eye-catching as they come. I really liked the inclusion of the window on the back so you can take a peek at the card itself. If the extra 128MB over their competitors don't work then maybe the sexy, black PCB will.

Quote

Today we will be looking at two examples from their dual channel DDR line: the Patriot Memory Dual Channel 1GB PC4000 eased latency and Patriot Memory Dual Channel 1GB PC3200 low latency memory kits. Our goal in this article is to not only see if they perform up to their advertised specification, but to also see how much extra headroom each kit can afford. With that in mind, lets get started.

Quote

Today I have the pleasure of taking a step into Intel's new LGA775 backyard and review their top of the line Alderwood motherboard based on the new Intel 925X Express chipset formally released in June. What the Alderwood brings to the table is the new LGA775 pin configuration Intel P4, the new faster DDR2 memory and lets not forget the PCI Express videocard specification everyone has been talking about.

Quote

Chaintech's Summit SK8T800 is an interesting board in many ways. It's clear from the outset that features have to play second fiddle to cost. In that case, and at the time of production, Chaintech chose, correctly we might add, VIA's K8T800 chipset as a base. Every feature emanates from the feature-filled southbridge. That means RAIDable on-chip SATA, 10/100 LAN, USB2.0, and decent AC'97-supplied sound. It just feels like a board that's destined for the OEM market. Not bad for a package that currently costs $80 in the States.

Quote

More often than not, cheaper priced memory has a hard knock life getting respected in the enthusiast community seeing the market is dominated by a select few that make amazing memory, but it always comes at an amazingly high price. What I wanted to prove today is that you can save a boatload of money and still get absolutely exceptional memory capable of lower latency timings at stock speeds and still pull through with a jaw dropping overclock to boot.