Monday Reviews

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The X700 Pro is ATi's mid ranged PCI-Express solution, falling somewhere in between the entry level X300 series and the top of the range X800 series. Unlike previous mid ranged solutions, the X700 is actually a scaled down version of their top-performing PCI-E part, the RV423. As usual, HIS were very quick off the blocks with one of their special IceQ cooler editions, which is the model we are looking at today.

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The good thing about the X800 XL is that it is priced much lower than the X800 Pro while having much better specifications in most areas. On paper, this means that the X800 XL is quite a deal for the gamer. The table below shows the specifications between some of the cards that Sapphire offers and you can clearly see that he X800 XL looks very attractive, especially when compared to the now overpriced X800 Pro.

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The Geforce 6600/6600GT GPU, like its opposite the ATI X700/X700 PRO, offers considerably more for the money than the mainstream cards of previous generations did. PCstats is testing out nine Geforce 6600 and Geforce 6600 GT based videocards, in both AGP and PCI Express versions. The features of each videocard will be compared, as well as the standard run of gaming benchmarks. SLI benchmarks will be analyzed wherever possible with the overall aim of deciding which of the mainstream graphics cards solutions in this roundup provides the best value for money, whether you are looking for a single mid-range gaming card or a dual-videocard SLI powerhouse.

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As technology pushes farther than the needs of most people, mid-range products have seen incredible performance at a fraction of the cost. Nvidia's 6600GT GPU has proven its self as more than able to handle today's toughest games as we've gone through the cards of most vendors. Today we look at one more 6600GT card, Albatron's Trinity PC6600GT video card.

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With both HyperMemory and TurboCache, the card comes with a certain (typically small) amount of on-board memory, say 32MB. The card can then scale up to a defined level of total memory by using system RAM. ATI's HyperMemory cards come in two variations: the 128MB HyperMemory version features 32MB VRAM on board, and the 256MB HyperMemory version has 128MB VRAM on board. NVIDIA has so far chosen three different configurations of TurboCache cards: the 128MB TurboCache version has either 16MB or 32MB of local memory, and the 256MB version sports 64MB.

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On the other side of the coin we have the high-end cards. ATI did a refresh in this sector as well by releasing R480 which is really an updated R420 chip on 0.13µ low-K silicon process. The problem (if you can call that) was the newly released parts targeted the PCI-e segment only. It took ATI a few months to realize the AGP market is still huge and that they need to have a better support for it. Having said that, AGP users are still getting love from ATI when it comes down to high-end cards.

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Equipped with quiet or fanless cooling solutions which are friendly to the ear, mainstream is going silent.... just like the PowerColor Bravo X700 videocard. This card uses the Radeon X700 core with 256MB of GDDR2 DRAM memory modules. Like all X700-based cards, the Powercolor Bravo X700 is PCI Express x16 compatible. What makes the Bravo X700 special is it's fanless heat-pipe cooling solution as well as the fact that it's one of the few dual-DVI mainstream videocards on the market. Since it can operate in a low noise situation, the Bravo X700 is great for HTPCs with its HDTV support too

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Another video card review at Rbmods tonight, we have a heavy weight card from Gigabyte in the left ring corner with a silent pipe cooling technology that weighs in at an amazing 400 grams. Can it stand up against the other "heavy" weight cards in the right ring corner? Seriously yes, we will take a look at this new card from Gigabyte which seems to mainly focus on speed and silence so it will be interesting to see what we can do with this product.

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Enthusiasts who are reluctant to or not in a hurry to upgrade to a PCI Express platform must have rejoiced when the latest high-end ATI AGP cards starting arriving on store shelves. If you really love ATI and your AGP motherboard, then you can get a flagship Radeon card, like Sapphire's Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, which I happen to have on the review bench today.

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We last looked at MSI when we tested their K8NNeo4 Platinum SLI. We found that to be an excellent board, and today we look at its junior partner, the K8N Neo4 Platinum. This is the nForce 4 Ultra version ofthe board which doesn't have features like Soundblaster audio onboard, or of course SLI, but does share most of the same design. Before we dig in deeper lets take a look at the board specs.

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MSI has taken on NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset and incorporated a sensible array of features that make the P4N Diamond into a true deluxe mainboard. General performance is good and SLI performance, too, is about as good as it's going to get with LGA775 as platform base. It's recommended as a fast LGA775 board with all the trimmings, but it can't be recommended as the SLI board of choice - no Intel board can. SLI and overall gaming performance belongs to AMD.

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We've been testing this processor intensively for over two months now, in all kinds of extreme conditions, with over half a dozen motherboards and twice that many graphics cards, in both single-card and nVidia SLI mode, with games and productivity suites, and now we're through and ready to tell it like it is.

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The Corsair memory modules tested here today presented a great deal of value compared to SimpleTech's offering we most recently looked at. What's more is that the Corsair memory features extras that users might expect when spending more than $200 for memory; heatspreaders, lower latencies, higher stock frequency, and Corsair's unique activity LEDs.

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DDR2 is becoming more and more a factor in the memory industry. Despite the fact that it is currently limited to the Intel Pentium4 platform, the market share has increased not only in the OEM market but we also see some higher acceptance in the enthusiast community. 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.

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Have a super loud CPU fan sitting inside your case that you want to quiet down? Looking for something much quieter and quite possibly more awesome? We check out Corsair’s very own liquid cooling system to see if its all that.

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Did I mention that I like big cases? Well, I do. I also like the Aspire X-QPACK. It looks good without sacrificing functionality. It’s compact, yet offers room for two 5.25 inch drives, two hard drives and a floppy. It’s lightweight, but still quite sturdy. The carry handle makes for easy portability and the cooling is surprisingly good. With three windows, LED fans, LCD temperature display, a 420W power supply with a dynamite finish and sleeved cables, and five color choices it also gets big points as a pre-modded case. In fact, the X-QPACK really challenges the modder to mod the components inside the case, as so much of the interior is visible.

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You have probably seen the Nemesis case before but this time we will look at the elite verison which really seem to be a hotted up version. It has a nice display that shows you temperatures etc on the top of the case and many other nice features. So what do we think about this case? Keep reading and you will find out our toughts.

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Those of you looking to build a SFF PC from scratch will want to give the Aspire X-QPack a close look as it offers more in terms of options from most pre-built SFF PCs. Overall, it's a decently designed chassis though it doesn't stray too far from the basic fundamentals of a "cube" SFF.

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The Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro is a definite winner. In our testing it was able to provide excellent cooling on an overclocked Pentium 4 with a minimal amount of noise. The universal nature of the G-Power's design means that the same performance can be transferred between any Intel Pentium 4 (either Socket 478 or Socket 775), as well as K7 and K8 AMD CPUs.

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The G-Power Pro is an aluminum heatsink with a nickel plated copper base that utilizes 4 heat pipes to move the heat from the base to the fins for efficient cooling. The fan is a whopping 110mm which is quite unique as most fans now days are usually 80mm, 92mm, or 120mm.

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When we think of Giga-byte we tend to think of motherboards and video cards. Today 3DXtreme has the pleasure of reviewing a cooling product by Giga-byte, the G-Power cpu cooler. We have reviewed a cooler by Giga-byte in the paste, the 3D Cooler-Ultra GH-PCU31-VH. This time around they take the heatpipe theme and apply it in a different fashion. What they come up with is this cooler we are looking at today. Let’s see how well it performs…

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If you consider yourself an "overclocker," then you already know everything about the Prometeia brand of phase-change coolers, and we really don't have to say a single word more. For anyone who isD:\@Advert_Code_Promos@ n't familiar with the name "Prometeia," it is special device that chills an Intel or AMD processor down to an operating temperature of between -20°C to -30°C, with the end goal being better overclocking.

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Overall, the Danger Den Chrome Version Maze4 GPU water block is performing very well during in the testing section. The package includes all the necessary components for proper assembly. Furthermore, it was totally silent during the operation. The installation was very simple, just took about few minutes is able to install the Maze4 GPU water block on to the VGA card. But, it does not bundle with any RAM sink for the VGA RAM. Anyway, with the retail price at $69.95 USD, it was slightly pricey for the water cooling enthusiast.

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Today, we continue our look at Antec's 2005 line of enclosures with an in depth look at their Performance TX1050B Server Case. The Performance TX series happens to be Antec's third generation of cases and has been updated to include the latest technologies. All models are designed to meet Intel's Thermally Advanced Chassis (TAC) design guide and come with ATX12V v2.0 power supplies.