News

August 27, 2008

Apple + iPhone = Censorship

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 27, 2008 at 2:22:59 PM

You need to read stories about the App Store from Apple. This one details that Apple is not allowing a certain comic book from appearing in the store. The comic book is violent and such, but so is all the R rated movies on iTunes and the like. Apple needs to step back and let people use their device the way they want and stop this crazy APPLE MUST APPROVE EVERYTHING stint it is on.

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Apple recently took an axe to Murderdrome, an electronic comic book in its App Store that the company deemed too violent. Murderdrome, created by the United Kingdom-based Infuriouscomics, had been created especially for the iPhone. Apple turned down Infuriouscomics' application to put the comic in the App Store.

Tags Art Censorship Apple iPhone

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August 26, 2008

Thermaltake BlacX

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 26, 2008 at 3:50:09 PM

Data backup and storage have come a long way since the use of floppy disk to house that precious data. Today we can use the hard drive as the removable storage thanks to products like the BlacX.Next Page »

Tags Storage Thermaltake Enclosure BlacX

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»ATP ToughDrive 4GB Camo USB Flash @ ASE Labs

LHC Full Documentation Released

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 26, 2008 at 2:17:45 PM

The Large Hadron Collider has tons of documentation on experimentation and building specs. This flows from the idea of the scientific community that information sharing is key for progress to be made. Now you know I'm going to make a snide remark about how the media companies are stifling innovation, didn't you? I guess I'm done with that remark.

The LHC is planned to make black holes that will SUCK UP THE EARTH!!! No, just kidding. In reality, the LHC will make miniature black holes that will decay very fast and give us a better understanding of the universe. Progress like this can happen only when large undertakings are complete.

Tags Science Physics LHC

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7 Comments

August 25, 2008

Monday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 25, 2008 at 2:29:10 PM

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ATP Electronics is a 17 year-old company best known for their EarthDrive recyclable USB flash drive, which is not only made of recycled materials but also has part of the proceeds go towards rainforest protection. They also make memory products for both enterprise and home applications in addition to various types of removable storage. Today, ASE Labs has the ATP ToughDrive 4GB Camo edition.

»Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless Internal HDD Enclosure MB672SKGF @ ASE Labs

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This is the second product from Icy Dock to pass by the Labs of ASE. In the previous review, we saw that Icy Dock knows how to make an excellent product. Will the trend continue with the internal version of the screwless hard drive enclosure? The Icy Dock 3.5" Screwless SATA Internal Enclosure (MB672SKGF) hopes to earn a valuable 5.25" slot in computer and it did on mine.

»Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless External Enclosure MB664US-1S @ ASE Labs

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It seemed like some time ago that external storage was the oddball for people. Times have certainly changed now that internal hard drives are so large that backing up to optical media is really an impossibility. More and more external drive enclosures are coming out to provide the need, but they aren't created equal. Icy Dock's 3.5" External Screwless Hard Drive Enclosure (MB664US-1S) aims to fit the external storage needs of everyone in a convenient to use package. I believe they have achieved that.

Thermaltake Armor+ MX VH8000BWS Mid Tower ATX Case Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Since ASE Labs is getting more and more into producing videos, it is time to start reviewing digital video cameras. The first such device is absolutely perfect for the Youtube crowd and has been making the rounds on the internet. The Flip Video Mino from Pure Digital promises web videos made with ease and they aren't kidding.

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Quote: Good things come in slightly smaller packages... Smaller than a full tower case, that is! A few weeks ago the Thermaltake Armor+ VH6000BWS full tower chassis was reviewed at Bigbruin.com, and the overall impression was quite positive. This time around we have the mid tower version, the Armor+ MX VH8000BWS, another solid case that houses all of the features of its larger kin, as well as some additional ones.

Patriot Viper 2GB DDR3-2000MHz Memory Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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The crucial link in the chain for getting = the best performance from the Patriot Viper PC3-16000 2GB Memory Kit is = whether or not your motherboard and processor can handle Front Side Bus increases. If your Nvidia or Intel chipset based motherboard can't give you something upwards of at least 1600 MHz FSB, then you won't really be tapping in to the bulk of the memory's potential. Nvidia 790i users can at least expect great things from the BIOS memory and CPU Bus Link option. A quick change to a memory setting or two and you're running at 2000 MHz. But, again, you'll get much better results if you at least tap in to your processor's 1600 MHz FSB potential.

[News] BFG ES800 Power Supply Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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BFG has a great power suppy here - not only does it look good, but it does it with performing style. For the duration of the testing, and the subsequent gaming session afterwards, performance remained solid while silence was in full effect. I found no issues with any of the cabling, or the installation of the unit - that was the fault of the unit. Overall, I would have to say that if you're in the market for a PSU at this price point ($219), BFG's ES800 is an excellent choice. While it's lack of support for Tri-SLI is definitely disappointing, it's ability to take a system with two 4870x2 or 9800GX2 cards is admirable.

Two dozen GeForce 9600GTs overclocked

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It was an excellent chance to get overclock numbers from not just one card, but from 24. The model chosen was the PVT96GYDF4 clocked at the standard 650MHz for the GPU, 900MHz for memory, and 1625MHz shader clock. Each card was tested on the same system with a Athlon 64 X2 4600+, 2GB of Corsair DDR2 800MHz on the Asus 590 SLI based CrossHairwith an 850 watt Antec Truepower Quattro. We pushed each card to its limits using Riva Tuner, and to test for stability Crysis was used. It made quick work of a clock speed it didn't like usually with a crash quickly into the built in GPU benchmark.

NZXT Sentry LX @ Bjorn3D

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With all the advances and new releases in the computer industry this summer, it's easy to overlook the smaller things that often play excellent support roles. One of these devices in particular happens to be a fan controller. Not just any fan controller, but the NZXT Sentry LX. Today we'll have a look at whether NZXT has delivered a winning product or one that you can live without. For those of you that don't know, NZXT has been around for a few years now, focusing their efforts primarily on cases. This is the second fan controller to come from NZXT, following the Sentry 1.

World's slimmest USB Bluetooth Dongle Reviewed @ DragonSteelMods

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Today for review I've got a very small solution to that problem from our friends at USBFever, it's called the World's Slimmest USB Bluetooth Dongle, and while I'm not sure if it's the World's Slimmest it is very, very small, about the size of a quarter, so it will fit anywhere and you won't have some ugly big USB Dongle sticking out of your computer to enable BT functionality. So continue on for a quick look at a great option to enable BT on your computers...

ASUS GeForce GTX 280 TOP Graphics Card

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It was only going to be a matter of time 'till ASUS strapped some mean clocks onto the GTX 280 and put it under its TOP naming scheme. Well, that day has come and it's time to see what happens when the GTX 280 gets, for the most part, an unnecessary but much loved speed bump. The tumbling GTX 280 prices over the past few weeks make the card more and more affordable for people wanting to get a top gaming experience. While we all know that for the most part the new AMD HD 4870 X2 is the faster single card on the market, NVIDIA still hold the crown of the fastest single cored card.

Thermalright Ultima-90 Intel/AMD Processor Cooler Review @ Tweaknews.net

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Thermalright set out to pack the performance of a 120mm cooler into a 90mm package. With the Optima-90I, it looks like they've done just that. The cooling is very good with the 90mm fan and the package is relatively compact. As always, the workmanship is outstanding the mounting is not too difficult, though a bit bothersome for AMD users.

BFG Tech LS-680 Power Supply Review @ OCIA.net

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BFG Tech is one of those companies you expect quality products from, no matter what you're buying. While most famous for their graphics cards, they make a range of products, including motherboards, accessories, and power supplies. BFG has a few lines of power supplies, from modular to energy efficient, and has recently started advertising their 550W and 680W LS power supplies. A few weeks ago, our very own Zahn had a look at the 550W version and was generally impressed with the quality and performance versus the price. Today, I'm going to have a look at the 680W version to see if it's true to their slogan.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic 512MB Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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* Today I will be looking at one of Sapphire's latest video cards, the Radeon HD 4850 Toxic, a 512MB DDR3 factory overclocked version of the HD 4850. This card comes complete with ramsinks, the first I have had on a video card that I didn't install myself, and a Zalman heatpipe cooler. Will the HD 4850 impress me as much at the HD 3850 did? How will it fare against the cards I plan to compare it to? Read on to see!

Asus P5QL-E @ InsideHW

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Before we tell you anything concrete about ASUS P5QL-E we should clarify differences between Intel P45 and P43 northbridge. If you followed up IT scene in last couple of months you should definitely know that Intel's P45 is the first chipset made in 65nm technology and that it introduced to us with few new technologies and higher overclock margin. One of most important new possibilities that were implemented into P45 was ability to divide PCI Express line into two x8 lines.

Gigabyte Previews Intel Canmore DVP Platform at IDF

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As consumers we want digital access to our media, but at the same time = we=20 want big screen displays not to be undone by the noise of a computer. = Intel=20 thinks it may have a solution to this problem. Make a computer that is = cheap=20 and quiet, and specialized at media playback in high definition. The = Intel=20 Canmore Digital Video Player concept was discussed this week at the Intel = Developer=20 Forum in San Francisco, and Gigabyte have been quick to highlight its = entry=20 into this emerging marketplace.

Razer Piranha Gaming Headset Review @ Tweaknews.net

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Everyone that is a gamer knows that having the freedom to game whenever you want is severely limited to who you are living with or next to. Other than some special situations, both will actively object to you disemboweling your adversary with a gattlin gun at 3am in the morning with you 5.1 speaker system at gaming volume. Because of that simple problem, gamers rely on a good set of gaming headphones to span those times where our gaming audio is not appreciated by others.

TomTom One GPS Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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* One piece of technology that has really made it into the hands of most consumers is the GPS. Some people really rely on GPS units and for constant drivers they are a valuable tool. I really have never used a GPS before so this will be a first for me. Today I will be looking at the TomTom One GPS unit, which features a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 1GB internal memory, built-in Bluetooth, and preloaded maps of the US and Canada. Geeks.com was nice enough to send the TomTom One over.

Intel E8600 Core 2 Duo Processor Review @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: 6GHz was easily attainable with the E8600 having an ungodly low 1.84vcore and I was able to bench between 6100MHz and 6200MHz depending on the benchmark. Consumers with single-stage phase change systems should be able to easily hit speeds of 5200Mhz to 5500MHz as I was booting at 5500MHz around -40 Celsius with ease. This is where the E0 stepping really shines, past 5GHz it just tears everything else to shreds and makes it look easy...

Kingwin Mach 1 900Watt Power Supply Review @ DragonSteelMods

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Up on the review block today is the Mach 1 900Watt Power Supply from Kingwin that not only looks great, but features an interesting modular cabling system that securely locks the cables into the PSU to insure they will not come loose. During my time with the Mach 1 I found it to be a very quiet and exceptionally stable power supply that will meet or exceed the demands of most high end system on the market today.

Tension Labs EAP03 Earphone Audio Processor @ techPowerUp

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Tension Labs EAP03 is the name of a brand new earphone audio processor that can boost your experience in a variety of ways. The EAP03 features a built in microphone and can sample it into the audio feed, providing you with the power to control the level of isolation you want from your earphones.

Scythe Ninja 2 Cooler @ Pro-Clockers

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Unlike the others Scythe did not add more heat pipes to the cooler to attempt to make it better. The added weight and size as well as an improved fan to aid in a higher performance capacity in the Ninja 2. There are a few more differences we can discuss but we will not be doing it in the introduction of the review. So sit back, relax and read along as we take the Ninja 2 for a little ride.

XFX GTX280 XXX: Fast Furious @ Bjorn3D

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Just over two months have passed since the release of our initial article. XFX has sent us a replacement sample for the GTX280 which is completely free of from the electronic component hum we initially experienced. In addition to the GTX280, XFX also sent us their latest and greatest XXX version of the card for review. We decided to embrace this as an opportunity to compare the two cards in a head to head along with a number of other popular graphics solutions. Our intent is not to rehash the plethora of features already covered in great detail in the aforementioned article, but more to concentrate on serious testing and expound on those features that prove noteworthy with the more mature drivers we will be using.

Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic Graphics Card

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Now that the HD 4850 has been hanging around for a bit, we're beginning to see more and more companies jump on the aftermarket bandwagon. The latest company to do this is Palit, bringing the highly popular HD 4850 to the also highly popular Sonic line. The HD 4850 has had so much going for it from the word go; its aggressive pricing and excellent performance gave users everything they wanted. It wasn't all rosy, though; while the use of a single slot cooler was handy, it caused the card to run extremely hot.

ASUS Striker II NSE Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: The Asus Striker II NSE sports an attractive black PCB and very little color compared to many other boards. The black color lends to the overall classy feel of the board. With the first glance at the board, it is hard to miss the Fusion block system that cools the board. Asus has decided that hard core enthusiasts would like to cool off the North Bridge using their water cooling setups, and provided an easy way to do that by placing a water block on the North Bridge...

Denon AVR-2808CI Receiver Review @ Digital Trends

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Its predecessor, the AVR-2807 was one of the best midrange receivers of the last couple years. The 2808CI adds digital goodies like HDMI 1.3 and 1080p upscaling, as well as the Audyssey MultiEQ XT auto-calibration system, which tailors the amp's sound to your room acoustics. It's a complex amp to set up, and the user guide is so-so, but when you're finally done you'll be rewarded with great sound and power across three independent zones. The bottom line: You can't do better than this for around $900 USD. For a few extra bones, you can step up to the Denon's 2809CI was recently released and adds adds a few extra inputs, including an HDMI, and Audyssey Dynamic Room EQ.

ATi Radeon HD 4870 X2 @ InsideHW

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is ATi which showed to all of us that even when hard times come they are continuing with good work as if competition isn't a problem and as confirmation of their efforts we got incredible new generation of graphics cards. The whole story started with great Radeon HD 4850 and continued with HD 4870 that had GDDR5 memory. After great critics for these two GPUs, ATi was aware that they shouldn't stop there, if they want to overthrown nVIDIA from the top performance throne. And they did it.

Diamond HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: The Diamond HD 4870 features some of the most current technology available on the market and sits at an easily affordable price point. The power requirements aren't anything to snuff at but for those users looking for a single-GPU card to game at 1920x1200 with high settings, the Diamond HD 4870 is an excellent option. A single HD 4870 wouldn't be able to game at 2560x1600 but the beauty of CrossFire would let you couple two or three of these cards together till you have enough graphical power...

Tags Reviews

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»Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless Internal HDD Enclosure MB672SKGF @ ASE Labs

August 21, 2008

ATP ToughDrive 4GB Camo USB Flash

Poster: Logan King

Posted on August 21, 2008 at 4:08:35 PM

Many flash drive companies claim superior performance, pricing or in some cases even design. But how many flash drives can claim to be waterproof and heat resistant? Today we look at a product from a company that does just that, in the form of the ATP ToughDrive 4GB Camo.Next Page »

Tags Storage Flash USB ATP ToughDrive

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5 Comments

August 19, 2008

Tuesday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 19, 2008 at 3:12:57 PM

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This is the second product from Icy Dock to pass by the Labs of ASE. In the previous review, we saw that Icy Dock knows how to make an excellent product. Will the trend continue with the internal version of the screwless hard drive enclosure? The Icy Dock 3.5" Screwless SATA Internal Enclosure (MB672SKGF) hopes to earn a valuable 5.25" slot in computer and it did on mine.

»Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless External Enclosure MB664US-1S @ ASE Labs

Quote
It seemed like some time ago that external storage was the oddball for people. Times have certainly changed now that internal hard drives are so large that backing up to optical media is really an impossibility. More and more external drive enclosures are coming out to provide the need, but they aren't created equal. Icy Dock's 3.5" External Screwless Hard Drive Enclosure (MB664US-1S) aims to fit the external storage needs of everyone in a convenient to use package. I believe they have achieved that.

»Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP @ ASE Labs

Quote
Since ASE Labs is getting more and more into producing videos, it is time to start reviewing digital video cameras. The first such device is absolutely perfect for the Youtube crowd and has been making the rounds on the internet. The Flip Video Mino from Pure Digital promises web videos made with ease and they aren't kidding.

Quote
A few months ago, I reviewed a DDR3 kit from Kingston that supported 1800MHz operation at fairly fast timings. It was criticized by some that the modules did not include XMP information to aid in easy system setup. Fast forward to the current market and the KHX14400D2K2/2GX delivers XMP support.

Thermaltake DuOrb Heatpipe CPU Cooler Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Quote: Installing the Thermaltake DuOrb heatpipe CPU cooler on a motherboard with an open layout should be very simple thanks to the well thought out mounting hardware that will hold the cooler in place and will keep it from sliding around. As seen in the review, there could be issues installing the DuOrb on some motherboards.

Corsair 2GB DOMINATOR DDR3 2133MHz Memory Kit @ Legit Reviews

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Last month on July 1st, Corsair Memory announced the immediate availability of a new DOMINATOR DDR3 memory kit running at 2133MHz. The launch of this memory kit made it the world's fastest DDR3 memory solution in production volume, a title that it still holds over a month later. Read on to see how this kit does on an EVGA nForce 790i SLI Ultra motherboard at 2135MHz.

Gigabyte EP45-DS3L EP45T-DS3R

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"Intel's P45 Chipset was released this summer along with the P43, G43, and G45 Chipsets as the mainstream Eaglelake alternative to Intel's current flagship X48 Chipset. Though over the older X48 motherboards, the P45 has the advantages of using Intel's newer ICH10 / ICH10R Southbridge and support for up to 16GB of DDR2/DDR3 memory, which is double that of what's supported by the X48. Today we are looking at two Intel P45 motherboards compliments of Gigabyte with their EP45-DS3L and EP45T-DS3R. The EP45-DS3L and EP45T-DS3R are just two of Gigabyte's motherboards bearing the P45 Chipset but in total they have eight different motherboards using this version of the Eaglelake Chipset."

Tuniq 3 Casing reviewed at BurnOutPC.com

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Sunbeamtech has left a clear presence in the hardware industry by developing a huge line of products and since a year or so they created a whole new premium series to offer cases and coolers. What we are looking at today is their Tuniq 3 casing which offers their patented 3D Core-Fan Bracket, tool free drive installation and two cold cathodes underneath the bottom to finish it off.

ASUS Radeon HD 4870 TOP 512MB Graphics Card

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What's so great about the TOP line-up from ASUS is that they don't get a card and just add an extra 10MHz to the core and 20MHz to the memory, the TOP line-up of cards are really well overclocked cards that stand out from the competition. That latest card to carry the TOP name comes from the AMD team; the HD 4870 has quickly become a hot product for so many people thanks to the aggressive performance and even more aggressive price tag. Today we'll be checking out how the ASUS overclocked version goes against a stock clocked offering and see if it's worth paying the premium that the TOP cards carry to get the larger out of the box clocks.

ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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* Today I will be looking at ATI's most recent release, the Radeon HD 4870 X2. I can't quite imagine the performance capacity of a pair of HD 4850s, so I really have no idea what to expect from twin 4870s, complete with two full gigs of DDR5 memory. This will be my first ATI-branded Radeon card, which will make things even more interesting. Will the 4870 X2 offer the ultimate 3D graphics experience? Read on to see!" A post in your news would be appreciated! Please send your news to news@ThinkComputers.org Regards, Bob Buskirk Founder, Webmaster, Editor-in-Chief bbuskirk@thinkcomputers.org http://www.thinkcomputers.org

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 Video Card 100251SR @ BmR

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Technology doesn't play favorites, and when it reaches an apex there is an indifference towards who develops it. ATI has learned this lesson the hard way, having watched from the sidelines for so long that most have forgotten that AMD could be a leader in technology. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the latest evolution in graphics cards, and ATI has delivered something bigger than we've ever seen before. Benchmark Reviews is fortunate to test the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 Dual-RV770 GPU video card 100251SR against a collection of todays hottest video cards available.

TRENDnet 300Mbps Dual Band Wireless N Gigabit Router

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How do you decide which router to buy in this day and age? Is there one product that has it all? You'll be hard pressed to find a product with all the bells and whistles, but we may have one here today that comes close to the mark. Today we get up close and personal with TRENDnet's very latest router, the 300Mbps Dual Band Wireless N Gigabit Router sporting model number TEW-672GR. Specifically, we are looking at version 1.0R, which is the shipping version you'll find in the stores when buying.

Kingston HyperX PC3-14400 2GB Memory Kit Review @ HardwareLogic

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* "Listen up folks, the DDR3 era is upon us. Both Intel and AMD have adopted the newer standard, and with Intel's Core i7 (the chip formerly known as Nehalem) peeking around the corner, there's just no looking back. Despite the temptation posed by dirt-cheap DDR2 modules, any build from the ground up should be focused on DDR3, save for those on an extremely tight budget. Newer processors are finally starting to benefit from the added benefit, and each new chipset release finds new ways of optimizing memory performance, making those DDR2 modules seem ancient by comparison."

News - Corsair TX750W Power Supply Review at Overclockers Online

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For a unit that performs as well as those which double it in terms of cost, Corsair's TX750W is quite a contender. Uncommon to most budget power supplies, Corsair has neither fallen short on performance or features. Shrugging off each of our tests is a feat of its own, but matched with perks found commonly in much more expensive units such as a beautiful paint job, quality fan, fully sleeved wires and matching black Molex connectors, I must honestly say, this is pretty much as good as it gets.

MSI Wind Laptop Review @ Digital Trends

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It's been almost a year since the original Asus Eee 701 appeared stateside, making traditional ultra-portables look fat with its size and weight, sending prices plunging with its $400 price tag, and triggering a landslide of imitators. In that time, many have tried, but few have succeeded in one upping Asus at its own game. The Wind is MSI's freshman effort in the emerging subnotebook genre, but the company has managed to run with the best of them by offering a 10-inch display, a fast and efficient Intel Atom processor, and loads of storage.

Gigabyte M912 Possibly in the USA? and Other Details @ TechwareLabs

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Quote: We have heard from an anonymous source that the M912 Gigabyte netbook will sport some features not to be found in any other netbooks at this time. We have also heard that it may indeed be coming to the USA though we do not have confirmation nor an available date as of yet. Stay tuned as we will bring you the update first when the information becomes available. For the full details of what the M912 will be packing when it hits the US check out our scoop.

Digit-Life Review: ATI RADEON HD 4870 X2 2x1024 MB

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"First of all, it was planned to oppose GeForce GTX 280 with CrossFire configurations based on two separate HD 4850 or HD 4870 cards. Then the company presented a dual-GPU solution on a single PCB, the RADEON HD 4870 X2. We've already published its preview with several tests. Now it's time for a sterling article with theoretical data, synthetic tests, and an expanded set of games."

LukWerks WiLife Security System @ TechwareLabs

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Quote: Interested in getting a fully featured security system but don't want to pay over $300 for it? If so, then WiLife's Digital Video Security System might be worth a look. One of the featured items at CES earlier this year, was the WiLife Security System. WiLife, a sub company of Logitech, now offers wireless security for your entire home. Featuring three different types of cameras each for different instances, these include your standard indoor camera, weather-proof outdoor camera, and even a spy camera found in an alarm clock. Now I'm sure most of you guys just got some wild ideas of what to do with that spy camera, I know I thought of a few. Read on to see how the WiLife truly performs.

Tags Reviews

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August 18, 2008

Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless Internal HDD Enclosure MB672SKGF

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 18, 2008 at 7:29:40 PM

Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless Internal HDD Enclosure MB672SKGF

Icy Dock seems to make amazing products that work just as they are designed and marketed. It really is a breathe of fresh air when you pick up the 3.5 internal enclosure and it works perfectly.Next Page »

Tags Storage HDD Enclosure SATA Icy Dock

[Top]

»Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless External Enclosure MB664US-1S @ ASE Labs

Monday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 18, 2008 at 1:47:05 PM

Quote
It seemed like some time ago that external storage was the oddball for people. Times have certainly changed now that internal hard drives are so large that backing up to optical media is really an impossibility. More and more external drive enclosures are coming out to provide the need, but they aren't created equal. Icy Dock's 3.5" External Screwless Hard Drive Enclosure (MB664US-1S) aims to fit the external storage needs of everyone in a convenient to use package. I believe they have achieved that.

»Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP @ ASE Labs

Quote
Since ASE Labs is getting more and more into producing videos, it is time to start reviewing digital video cameras. The first such device is absolutely perfect for the Youtube crowd and has been making the rounds on the internet. The Flip Video Mino from Pure Digital promises web videos made with ease and they aren't kidding.

Quote
A few months ago, I reviewed a DDR3 kit from Kingston that supported 1800MHz operation at fairly fast timings. It was criticized by some that the modules did not include XMP information to aid in easy system setup. Fast forward to the current market and the KHX14400D2K2/2GX delivers XMP support.

ASUS TOP 512MB GeForce 9600GT_Graphics Card Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Just a few weeks ago, the Radeon HD 4850 was released and with it came a huge boost of performance for the price. The 4870 is the highend version of the RV770 series of GPU released from AMD. Sapphire provided a card for this review and the Radeon HD 4870 is here.

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Quote: While the saying is that you get what you paid for, I think you might get a little extra with the ASUS TOP 512MB GeForce 9600GT. While you could easily spend three, four, or five times as much to have the latest and greatest video card, if you are satisfied with really good performance and a fatter wallet in the end, the ASUS TOP 512MB GeForce 9600GT is a good choice.

Maxtor BlackArmor 160GB Encrypted Portable Drive Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Quote: The BlackArmor 160GB encrypted portable drive provides a unique twist on a rather common item. Portable hard drives are everywhere, and in general are easy ways for people to lose valuable personal or business data. Security is the key feature of this product, and if protecting your portable data is a high priority, Maxtor has made it just about fool proof.

[News] Zalman CNPS9300-AT CPU Cooler Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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It IS a great sink in terms of quality, and usability. Anyone can install it, and almost anyone would appreciate it's appearance, yet it's performance and cost are found to be lacking. If you could find this heatsink on sale it would turn out to be a great buy, but otherwise... I'm not sure exactly what would motivate users to purchase it, other than an unusual fondness for Zalman, and a wee case.

[News] Quakecon 2008: Wrap Up @ Virtual-Hideout

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The Venders area was a lot smaller than the last Quakecon I attended in 2k5, I don't really know the reason why. The big Intel/Dell/Alienware trailer always had a lot of attention, tournaments and giveaways. AMD/ATI took up the largest area, with gaming stations on all 4 corners, and a small stage in the middle.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 280 Graphics Card

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The other day we looked at the GTX 260 from GIGABYTE. Today we're going to be looking at the slightly more expensive GTX 280 version from them. Since launch, we haven't really seen any companies do much with the GTX 280. While a few have come overclocked, we have found that they've all stuck to the reference cooling option. Today we're going to be looking at the GTX 280 from GIGABYTE which follows the reference design down to a tee. The good news is that the price is also extremely competitive and for the most part the overclocks a lot of companies offer can be achieved by using a program like Rivatuner on your stock card.

Leadtek WinFast PX9800 GTX+ @ Bjorn3D

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Like the older card, the newer card also supports NVIDIA's CUDA, which allows the GPU to function as a CPU for computational purposes. The latest FAH has started to take advantage of this, and the preliminary results look promising. Although the newer GTX 200 series cards have a much more powerful CUDA, the fact that you get CUDA in the 9800 GTX/GTX+ means the card will be able to utilize such power when the application is able to use CUDA.

OCZ SOE Urban Elite Edition DDR3-1600 2GB Dual Channel Memory Kit Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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* It's been a couple of years since I reviewed my first kit of memory, a pair of green camouflage OCZ Special Ops Edition (SOE) DDR modules near the end of the DDR era. Here I am, around 20 memory reviews later, with my next pair of camo OCZ modules, their Special Ops Edition Urban Elite Edition DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) 8-8-8 2GB kit. As the original Spec Ops, the Urban Elite is basically marketed towards gamers for a simple choice in building their gaming rig, just choose the camouflage memory. Will the Urban Elite live up to the expectations we have for OCZ memory?

ASUS P5Q Deluxe Intel P45 Motherboard

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Intel has really pushed forward into the Express chipset lineup with the new 4 series being touted at what the 3 series should have been. It seems like the 3 series was just a stepping stone and the 5 series isn't all that far away. But that's for a totally different processor architecture. So far, we have already had the early P45-DQ6 and MSI P45 Platinum cross our paths. Today we are looking at another big wig P45 offering, namely ASUS' P5Q Deluxe Motherboard. Featuring its EPU6 energy saver, DDR2 and a wide array of features including Express gate, ASUS hopes to topple the likes of GIGABYTE and MSI. Let's see just how well it manages to perform.

Foxconn GeForce 9500 GT G96 Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews

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Not everyone can afford the bleeding edge of graphics hardware, and not everyone needs it. NVIDIA has already made headlines with their high-end GeForce GTX 280 video card, which offers high performance at a premium price. Most enthusiasts have seen so much coverage for the high-level graphic products that it might feel like nothing exists for the lower consumer segment. Benchmark Reviews hasn't forgotten about the entry-level enthusiast, which is why we test the Foxconn GeForce 9500 GT 256MB PCI Express video card 9500GT-256FR3 against the bigger names in this review.

BFG GTX 280 OCX 1GB Video Card Review @ Hardware Canucks

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* *Through the last few years, BFG has always been at the forefront of the pre-overclocked craze and with their OCX cards, they take things to the next level. We should mention now that in our conversations with BFG they have stated that creating a highly overclocked GTX 280 isn't as easy as it seems due to the massive amounts of heat generated by the core directly influencing the final overclock. That being said, in this review we will be looking at their GTX 280 OCX which is highest-clocked GTX 280 in their lineup that keeps the stock cooler.*

Multimedia Streaming @ InsideHW

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If you are TV fan and you have wireless network and notebook, than you probably at some point thought how it would be nice to take your notebook and simply move to other room, go on balcony or backyard and with no interruptions from other householders watch your favorite show or some sport event. Still, TV tuner demands antenna and cable and that's when you realize that even though your notebook is portable, after all, you won't watch TV as you would like to.

Mushkin XP2-6400 4GB CL4 Kit @ techPowerUp

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Mushkin has also jumped the 4 GB DDR2 memory bandwagon and is offering these kits at tighter than usual latencies. This kit runs at 4-4-4-12 at 2.0 - 2.1V.

Gigabyte EP45-DS3L S-Series Intel P45 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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Today, I will be looking at the EP45-DS3L, Gigabyte's economy-priced P45 motherboard. This is probably the least expensive newly released motherboard I have seen coming from either of the top two motherboard manufacturers in a very long time, and obviously marketed towards those buyers looking at buying boards from ECS, ASRock, or one of the other manufacturers that build budget motherboards. Will the EP45-DS3L meet the high standards that we have come to expect from a Gigabyte motherboard, with features found on its bigger brothers? Read on to see!

Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition

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The other day we looked at the Smooth Creations Asylum and inside was the new Diamond HD 4870 XOC Black Edition. This isn't your normal overclocked HD 4870, though; if you have a look at the specifications on the thing, you will quickly discover that the card is packing some mega serious clock speeds. So what we've done is pull the card out of the Smooth Creations rig and install it into our testbed to see how the card performs against some of our other favorites. Since this wasn't a retail sample, we won't be looking at the package today. What we will do is have a quick look around the card and then check out the clockspeeds before moving onto the testing phase.

NZXT Sentry LX Fan Controller Review @ DragonSteelMods

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Up on the review block today we've got the Sentry LX Aluminum Dual Bay Fan Controller from NZXT and it's very well made, easy to install and even easier to use. The Sentry LX is a stylish black colored aluminum with diamond cut accents so it will fit in nicely with most any chassis.

Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB 2.0 Dock

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I have already taken a look at the BlacX USB and BlacX SE which is also a USB only desktop drive device. The Thermaltake BlacX units have started a new class in hard drive storage. You can't really call them carriers since you don't take them with you on the go, nor can you call them internal hot swap since they do not sit inside the case. I guess for now, until someone tells me differently we will call them desktop hot swap devices. The first two USB only BlacX units we looked at performed brilliantly for USB. In the back of my mind, though, I knew the transfer performance was being held up by the connection and recommended to everyone to just hang tight and wait until the eSATA version became available. Today we have this version in hand; the BlacX (part number ST0005U) with eSATA support has finally made its way to my door step and even though I have other articles that need to be written up first, I just had to see how this baby performs.

PowerColor HD 4870 @ Bjorn3D

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A few weeks ago the world was greeted to a sight many people only read about. The sight I am referring to is the dead coming back to life. No I'm not talking about the next Robert Rodriguez joint. I am talking about the rebirth of ATI and their return to the forefront of PC gaming. In an event that took the world, and NVIDIA, by surprise ATI unleashed their HD 4800 series of cards upon us. With performance levels far surpassing the previous generation and coming in at a price reserved for lesser cards, is it any wonder ATI was able to return to their former glory overnight?

Cyber Snipa Sonar 5.1 reviewed at BurnOutPC.com

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Cyber Snipa's Sonar 5.1. design is somewhat funky, it has these flame red ear cups and the rest of the design is all black. It has the same styling as the Cyber Snipa Stinger mouse we reviewed a while back. It's like Razer using their neon green and black theme. Cyber does it the other way round and uses hot rod red to fire things up a bit. These headphones have a bunch of neat features, for starters their 5.1 surround. This means you could actually make out the difference between an enemy sneaking up behind on your or watch your dvd's with all the sound effects and rumble. Yes that's right this headset what Cyber Snipa likes to call Force Feedback built inside.

ECS GeForce 9600 GT Graphics Card

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I've seen more 9600 GT cards than I would like to honestly admit. The bottom line is, though, that the card does offer some excellent value for money and if you don't have the budget to buy new high-end cards like the HD 4870 or GTX 280 and GTX 260, the 9600 GT still remains a very good option. Today we're going to take the time to check out the latest 9600 GT incarnation from ECS and see what it has to offer over the competition. In a time where bundles and overclocks separate brands, we see if the latest version from ECS can stand out.

Single HD 4870 X2 vs Two HD 4870s on P45

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Just the other day, I was talking about how the HD 4870 X2 is a great card for P45 users. When I tested HD 4870 in CrossFire a few months back on both the P45 and X48, we noticed that the x8 / x8 configuration present on the P45 actually gave us a bit of a hit in performance. So, what we're going to do today is chuck a pair of Sapphire HD 4870s into a P45 board and do a bunch of tests. We're then going to pull those two cards out and stick in a single HD 4870 X2. We will run the same tests and proceed to compare. Since we've already looked at the cards themselves, we're just going to get stuck straight into the benchmarking side of things. Let's begin by taking a quick look at our testbed we're using today, before getting stuck straight into the benchmarks.

ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra Video Card Review @ Hardware Secrets

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ECS is very popular on the low-end segment, so we were really surprised to see this company launching a good high-end solution. The Hydra kit contains two GeForce 9800 GTX+ running at their default clock configuration and one Thermaltake BigWater 760is water cooler. The video cards come with the cold plates already assembled, so the only work you will have to do is to connect the hoses coming from BigWater to the video cards and fill the water tank with the coolant liquid that comes with the kit. We took an in-depth look on Hydra, check it out.

Optimus Maximus Keyboard Review @ Digital Trends

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Thanks to a glowing array of 115 individual OLED displays fitted under its keys, Art Lebedev's Optimus Maximus is the first and only keyboard that literally morphs before your eyes. Pressing shift and watching all the letters beneath your fingers leap to caps gives you some idea what the Maximus is capable of, and why it's become one of the most hyped-up, fawned-over and generally talked-about devices on the Web. While it delivers sheer novelty value in spades, we found that its princely pricetag, layout and reliability woes may threaten its practicality as a typing device.

Asrock X38 TurboTwins-Wifi Socket 775 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers

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It has been a short while since we have had an Asrock motherboard on our test bench. Today, we are ending that dwelt with the X38TurboTwins-WiFi. We know that the X38 is almost a thing of the past but for some of us it is the best priced way to get 16x across two slots when wanting to run a Crossfire setup. So read along as we take the X38TurboTwin for a ride.

XFX GeForce 9600GT XXX Edition Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: The XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition provides a solid performance/price card that easily fits into most gamer gamer budgets. Given it's minimal power requirements and single-slot cooler, the 9600GT would be at home in the meekest OEM computer or a mid-range custom gaming computer. The XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition is definitely not the fastest option available on the market but it is one of the better buys when you are trying to get the best bang for your buck. If you are gaming at 1280x1024 I would highly recommend the 9600GT as a solid purchase that will hold strong for another 12 months with medium to high quality settings in current and upcoming titles...

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 260 Graphics Card

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Like the GTX 280 which has dropped in price over the last few weeks, the GTX 260 has followed suit. Whether you're a fan of ATI or not, the release of the HD 4800 series and their performance to price ratio has forced NVIDIA to cut margins on the new GTX line-up of cards and give us an extremely powerful card for what now resembles a fair price. To date we've only had a look at one GTX 260 which came with a massive out of the box overclock. What this means is it hasn't really given us the ability to completely come to terms with what the GTX 260 offers in its cheapest form; the stock form.

ASUS P5E64 WS Pro X38 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews

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As predicted for this year, the dizzying high prices of DDR3 have finally dropped to within reason- even edging into that of DDR2's price point. The reason for such drastic price drops is that chip makers like Micron, Samsung, Hynix, and Qimonda are currently in full swing mass production of DDR3 DRAM - increasing supply and beating demand. This excess in inventory of DDR3 means a steady supply affordable and readily available chips that have helped to spur such rapid market adoption, evident with over fifty different motherboards currently on the market that support this memory standard.

Palit Radeon 4870 X2 CrossFire Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: If you want the absolute best when it comes to gaming graphics performance a pair of Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards are what you need. They are super fast graphics cards and at $549 each they aren't priced too high compared to where other cards have launched in the past few years. AMD has done a great job with these cards and they were able to take back the performance crown with the release of these cards. NVIDIA can no longer say they have the fastest graphics card and that has to hurt with NVISION just a couple weeks away...

Biostar A740G M2+ @ InsideHW

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AMD RS740 chipset. Graphics core is based on RV410, identical graphics core as for AMD RD690 chipset. DX10 is not supported, which isn't a big problem because there isn't any integrated graphics that can run DX10 games with decent framerate yet. Communication between CPU and chipset is limited to 1 GHz, as for 690G, and in case of full duplex: 2 GHz (communication is carried out in both directions). Since 740G doesn't support HTT 3.0 (690G doesn't support it to), it is bottleneck as far as performances of integrated GPU are concerned.

Sapphire HD 4870 X2 Video Card Review @ Hardware Secrets

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AMD is saying that the new Radeon HD 4870 X2 which was released today is the fastest single video card in the world today. Is that so? Let's compare its performance to all other high-end video cards available today. Check it out.

Tags Reviews

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August 17, 2008

SAGE 13.

Poster: Logan King

Posted on August 17, 2008 at 11:24:23 PM

The Sonic Amateur Gaming Expo's 13th event began today.

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We invite any and all Sonic fans to come to the 13th iteration of this long-standing, Sonic community tradition, hosted by one of the community’s original sites, Sonic Fan Games HQ. Play the latest and greatest fan projects all in one place for one glorious week of celebrating not only Sonic the Hedgehog, but our community as well.

For those not involved in the "scene," SAGE is essentially a place where talented programmers and artists show off fan games they have been working on, sort of like a close-knit version of E3, and is one of the most major pieces of the Sonic community. Games such as Sonic: Time Attacked and SRB2 have been first shown at the Expo in the past, which have gone on to be resounding successes. There will be workshops and online broadcasts involving various people involved in the series in the past, as well as a few non-Sonic related games (there is a Halo fangame, for example).

Jump to the Site for the full spread.

Personally, I'm looking forward to another Emerald Ties: Crossing Fates demo.

Tags Games Sonic game

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August 14, 2008

Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless External Enclosure MB664US-1S

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 14, 2008 at 2:52:00 PM

Icy Dock 3.5 Inch Screwless External Enclosure MB664US-1S

All enclosures are not built the same. Icy Dock steps in to show how a real enclosure should be made and they get it right the first time.Next Page »

Tags Storage HDD USB eSATA Enclosure Icy Dock

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Intel Tries To Fix Windows And SSDs

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 14, 2008 at 1:53:01 PM

I don't know what hardware companies bother trying to fix Windows with hacks and such that should be in the Kernel level. Intel is better off focusing its efforts on hardware instead of trying to shoehorn a backwards operating system with a bad design into something it shouldn't. Run a special distribution of Linux if you are worried about SSD speed and reliability.

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Intel is offering a "dashboard" for Windows that allows the user to choose and control which applications or files are loaded into the Intel Turbo Memory cache (based on flash memory chips) for performance acceleration. Intel calls this "User pinning." Custom pinning profiles can be created to pin applications or files that match the user's activity, according to Intel. Data intensive programs, gaming, digital media editing and productivity software are examples of applications that will see the most benefit, according to Intel. Intel is trying to address a longstanding shortcoming of Windows: its inability to take full advantage of flash storage devices. "There are issues related to taking full advantage of the speed of a (flash drive)," said Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, in an interview at the Flash Memory Summit.

Tags Windows Software Vista Intel

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August 12, 2008

Why Do We Tax Everything?

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 12, 2008 at 1:58:23 PM

Seriously. Can someone explain how the country got so screwed up that we started taxing everything? This country was founed on individual NOT paying income tax and the greedy bankers and corrupt politicians made the tax act of 1919 that forced an income tax on everyone. Now we've got all these sales taxes from different states and the like. Now they want to try to tax digital downloads. This is really appalling. The government should really butt the hell out and start repealing taxes. I guess since that jerk Corzine took office in NJ, we'll never see 6% sales tax ever again. Thanks for your big help with our budgets. You really helped everyone out by raising those taxes... Have there been any states that lowered their sales tax? This country is really heading down the toilet. The government thinks it's okay that most of our paycheck goes to pay it's salaries. That's utter crap. You get taxed on income, taxed on goods you purchase... Ohh, if it is luxury goods, that gets extra taxing. Don't forget the use tax (the way the states try to recoup the lost sales tax from out of state purchases, greedy bastards). Social Security, Medicade/Medicare, An average person probably loses 50% (or more) of their wages to some form of tax. This is truly a problem that no politicians care about since they are all greedy and corrupt. We are heading into an economic crisis (not there yet) and all they want to do is raise taxes.

Tags Tax Government Corruption

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August 11, 2008

Monday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 11, 2008 at 2:54:10 PM

»Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP @ ASE Labs

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Since ASE Labs is getting more and more into producing videos, it is time to start reviewing digital video cameras. The first such device is absolutely perfect for the Youtube crowd and has been making the rounds on the internet. The Flip Video Mino from Pure Digital promises web videos made with ease and they aren't kidding.

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A few months ago, I reviewed a DDR3 kit from Kingston that supported 1800MHz operation at fairly fast timings. It was criticized by some that the modules did not include XMP information to aid in easy system setup. Fast forward to the current market and the KHX14400D2K2/2GX delivers XMP support.

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Just a few weeks ago, the Radeon HD 4850 was released and with it came a huge boost of performance for the price. The 4870 is the highend version of the RV770 series of GPU released from AMD. Sapphire provided a card for this review and the Radeon HD 4870 is here.

Moneual MonCaso 972S Home Theater PC Case Review @ Bigbruin.com

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You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards.

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Quote: The Moneaul MonCaso 972S home theater PC case is something like an all-in-one solution for those looking to build a highly function, extremely attractive HTPC. You not only get a great case with plenty of top-notch features, but you also get a multi-function remote control and an integrated seven inch touchscreen to make interacting with your system enjoyable and convenient.

Patriot Viper PC3-16000 2GB Memory Kit Review @ HardwareLogic

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*Patriot tries to make the choice very clear with one of the fastest memory kits currently on the market. Specially designed for the high end 790i chipset, the Viper PC3-16000 kit sizzles at a stock speed of DDR3-2000. You read that right, 2000MHz! It also weighs in at 2GB (2x1GB) with timings of 9-9-9-24. Sporting an nVidia inspired bright green paint job, there is no mistaking these sticks among the sea of RAM choices available. If you are looking for a memory kit that can help push your system to its limit, you'll definitely want to keep reading as HardwareLogic throws these Vipers on the test bench to see what life at 2000MHz is really like.

Thermalright IFX-14 CPU Cooler @ Pro-Clockers

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This is just what Thermalright did with the IFX-14. The cooler consists of twin towers linked by a set of heat pipes. Now I am not going to give you all the features here in the introduction. But I will tell you the cooler does come with a little surprise. Something that no other cooler comes with. If you want to know what it is then you will have to continue reading.

[News] Zalman ZM750-HP Power Supply Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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The Zalman ZM750-HP Power Supply passed testing and all my methods to melt it down. It's rated to 750 Watts and doesn't come up short in any power rail. If four 12v rails offering 20 amps each isn't enough, then consider Zalman's 850 or 1000 watt Heat Pipe models. Most users are going to find this PSU far more capable for their SLI based systems and endless drive arrays. It's a silent, clear winner from a name trusted by enthusiasts the world over. You can rest easy that the Zalman 750 Watt Heat Pipe Power Supply can fulfill its purpose.

QNAP TS-409U Rackmount NAS Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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QNAP wowed ThinkComputers a while back with its TS-109 Pro NAS, a small, aluminum-cased, single-drive unit. QNAP has grown quite a bit since then, and recently released a larger unit for its small business and corporate users, the TS-409U. The TS-409U is a quadruple bay rackmount NAS with support for up to 4 TB of space in a variety of storage configurations, including RAID5 and RAID6. Its variety of server software, including a full LAMP stack and printer server, can provide usefulness and utility to users at all levels of technical know-how and work goals.

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4850 Graphics Card

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The HD 4850 is the card that has put AMD/ATI back on the graphics card map over the past month. While the HD 3850 and HD 3870 were both good cards, a constant line-up of NVIDIA cards along with price drops meant that the aging technology was having trouble keeping up with cards not only in a similar price bracket, but cheaper again. The latest HD 4850 to come into the labs is from GIGABYTE and before we get stuck into the performance side of things, we will have a look at the package and what's inside as well as the card itself. So, let's not ramble on anymore and just get stuck into it.

D-Link DSM-510 @ InsideHW

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How often you wanted to watch movie on TV that was stored on your PC? How did you solve the problem? Have you burned it on DVD and watched it on DVD player? Or have you watched it through TV-out on graphics card? Whatever you did, we are sure that at some point something bothered you, or the picture quality was really bad, or perhaps you just wanted simpler solution.

Akasa Omega @ techPowerUp

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Akasa has taken the Mirage-62 case and has updated it using thick aluminum panels, adding air vents which also can be used for water cooling units and a stylish new front door. The mid-tower case features loads of space and some clever design choices to make it big enough for even the largest power supplies and longest graphics cards.

Prestigio GeoVision 350 @ InsideHW

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Prestigio GeoVision 350 belongs to low-cost GPS navigation devices (we could say that it is cheapest) but its exterior doesn't give that impression. Casing and windshield cradle are nicely done without rough edges. They doesn't look cheap and don't give impression of low quality product. We don't have any complaints neither on functionality neither on mobility of windshield cradle. In package we found 12V charger (with adapter for car cigarette lighter), USB cable, external (additional) GPS antenna and manual.

Supertalent PICO Gold @ Bjorn3D

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Just think, not too many years ago you had to look to floppy disks and cd burning to put files on something you could carry with you, either for class or work or even as storage. Then came the flash drive, pen drive, removeable media, usb drive, etc... It has many names. They started out large and eventually got smaller and smaller. Today, Bjorn3D is happy to present to you the worlds smallest pen drive........ with BLING. The Super Talent 24K Gold PICO. It's about the size of a quarter and yet can hold 8GBs of information and water proof to boot. But does it really work? It is so small, and yes, I will even submerge it in water. Scary!!

OCZ Alchemy Series Elixir Keyboard Review @ DragonSteelMods

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Up on the review block today I've got a new product from our friends at OCZ Technology, it's the Alchemy Elixir Series Keyboard and it's advertised as a gaming peripheral but it's also a great all around keyboard as well. It features 10 Macro keys, 7 Internet keys and 8 Media keys along with the ability to switch modes between standard and your personalized gaming configurations with the touch of a button. This keyboard retails for $29.99, and at that price most people wouldn't expect much, as most other 'gaming' keyboards out there cost two to three times as much, but the Elixir will surprise you with its functionality, comfort and ease of use. It's a very nice keyboard really that works well, is well made and most anyone will be happy with, OCZ has brought quality, professional gaming keyboards down to budget level with the introduction of the Elixir Series of keyboards.

Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1250W Power Supply Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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As enthusiasts build high-end computers which require more and more power for the multiple processors, multiple graphics cards, and multiple hard drives in these rigs, power supply manufacturers, such as Cooler Master, churn out power supplies with increasingly higher wattage to handle these power-thirsty devices. Cooler Master sent ThinkComputers the next generation of its Real Power Pro series, the six-12V-railed 1250W monster with enough connectors and juice to power just about anything one could throw at it.

GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Motherboard

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The first chipset to have come out in the 7 series was the 780G, the first with the next generation in onboard graphics along with HT3 support for the Phenom processors. AMD really outdid themselves; not only was it future proof, it finally introduced a good onboard graphics accelerator. GIGABYTE has been one of the biggest producers of motherboards along with ASUS and MSI. And one thing is for certain with these three companies; above all else, if the chipset is good, you will find at least one board based on it. Today we are looking at the GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard. How does it stack up as a HTPC board? Let's have a good look.

ASUS P5E64 WS Professional

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Intel's latest performance desktop chipset is now the X48 Express, but there still is life left in the X38 Express, which was released late last year. The Intel X38 and X48 Chipsets share many of the same features including support for the latest dual-core and quad-core Intel processors, DDR3 system memory support, and 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 interfaces with there being very few differences to the end-user between these chipsets. In addition, benchmarks we have delivered from different motherboards have shown the X48 has little to no performance improvements over the older Bearlake chipset. ASUS's X38 motherboards are still very much in the market place and today we happen to be looking at one of their workstation motherboards based around the X38. The motherboard we are looking at is the ASUS P5E64 WS Professional, which ships with all of the usual ASUS innovations in addition to having four PCI Express x16 slots.

Thermaltake NBCool T500 Notebook Cooler @ Bjorn3D

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Laptops have become compact enough to tote along just about anywhere you go. Along with that compact size comes all the heat of modern processors, and the Mobile models generally run hotter than their Desktop counterparts. This heat still needs to be removed, or it'll build up and cause a thermal shut down and damage that expensive equipment.

ECS P45T-A Motherboard Review @ HardwareLogic

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Since 1987, Elitegroup Computer Systems has been providing motherboards to the masses and now stands as the fourth largest manufacturer in the world. I will be taking a look at ECS' latest creation, the P45T-A, based on Intel's fantastic P45 Express chipset. The motherboard arrived at HardwareLogic's West Coast Lab and immediately demanded attention with its 1333 FSB, CrossFire support, eSATA, 8 channel audio and 16GB of DDR2 capacity. And since its from ECS, you know its affordable. Take a few minutes to check out this review as I throw the P45T-A motherboard on to my test bench for some serious benchmarking. How did it do? There's only one way to find out.

[News] Norcotek RPC-450 Rackmount Enclosure Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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These two things, though quite bad on their own, don't obscure the wall of pros that come hurling along with this chassis. Firstly, is the complete modularity, and secondly is the included hardware - being able to fit 11 hard drives which are cooled off the bat is incredible, especially when they're actively cooled. Couple this with the fact that this is one of so very few cases at this price point which are capable of holding an extended ATX system, and the fact that when the door works, the inbound airflow is filtered, the result becomes a very good deal, despite the flaws.

MSI GeForce GTX 280 OC Graphics Card

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While the GTX 280 might be the most powerful single cored graphics card on the market at the moment, it didn't seem to be greeted with welcomed arms. A high price tag and small to no gains over its older dual GPU brother, the 9800 GX2 meant that people didn't get all that excited about it. Today we're going to take the time to see what MSI have done to the card. We know they've decided to overclock the card, but we wonder if they've done anything else with it to let it stand out from the pack. While we haven't fallen head over heels for the GTX 280, there's no denying that it's a very fast single core card and it's difficult not to be impressed by the performance the single GPU puts out.

HTC Touch Smartphone Reviewed @ TheTechLounge

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For me, Windows Mobile has always been primarily focused on data access, rather than data creation or modification. The Touch excels in this regard. It's not a multimedia powerhouse, but it will get an acceptable job done for most of your basic needs. If HTC added a hardware keyboard and a standard audio port, I think this would be a perfect Windows Mobile device. For now, if you are looking for a small, attractive smartphone and you can put up with a less-than-ideal input solution, the Touch may be a great option for you.

Sunbeamtech Quarterback Mid Tower @ Pro-Clockers

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I do a lot of case reviews as the junior reviewer at Pro-Clockers. It doesn't bother me, because I've got a case fetish of sorts. In its own twisted way it works out fine for everyone involved. Over the years, I've owned big cases, small cases, weird cases and modded cases. To be honest, I change cases more than some men change shirts. The last few years, I settled in with the Antec Sonata II. It's a great case and did what I needed it to do. However, I changed it for the Aerocool AE Plus last month. Always a sucker for big fans, the Aerocool drew me in. After trying out the Sunbeamtech Quarterback, I switched again. My main rig is now happily housed in the slightly odd, yet highly functional Quarterback. Read on to see why I changed cases.

ATI HD 4870 at Icrontic.com

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There's really just no denying it: AMD has truly impressed us with the HD 4870. It easily rips through the latest games without ripping through the wallet and has really stirred things up in the market. If you're in the market for a powerful card this summer, you just can't go wrong with the AMD Radeon HD 4870.

Tags Reviews

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August 8, 2008

Russia invades South Ossetia, Georgia declares war.

Poster: Logan King

Posted on August 8, 2008 at 7:01:31 PM

Quote
Russian troops in the South Ossetian capital said their artillery had begun firing at Georgian forces, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia's president earlier promised to defend his citizens in South Ossetia.
Moscow's defence ministry said more than 10 of its peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia had been killed and 30 wounded in the Georgian offensive. At least 15 civilians are also reported dead.

Amid international calls for restraint, Georgia's president said 150 Russian tanks and other vehicles had entered South Ossetia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says he is willing to agree an immediate ceasefire
He told CNN: "Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory."

Linky.

I hope this can be ended soon, though I'm not optimistic of that happening. This is the result of 15 years of stress between the two countries, and I think Russia will use it to prove a point (make an example, if you will) before they agree to a cease-fire.

Tags News government war Russia

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Flip Video Mino F630W

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 8, 2008 at 5:32:04 PM

The Flip Video Mino is the latest in Youtube inspired technology. Specifically made for web uploads, it gives you video in a small and easy to use package with a boutique price to match.Next Page »

Tags Video Multimedia Digital Flip Mino

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»Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP @ ASE Labs

August 7, 2008

Thursday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 7, 2008 at 3:25:03 PM

Quote
A few months ago, I reviewed a DDR3 kit from Kingston that supported 1800MHz operation at fairly fast timings. It was criticized by some that the modules did not include XMP information to aid in easy system setup. Fast forward to the current market and the KHX14400D2K2/2GX delivers XMP support.

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Just a few weeks ago, the Radeon HD 4850 was released and with it came a huge boost of performance for the price. The 4870 is the highend version of the RV770 series of GPU released from AMD. Sapphire provided a card for this review and the Radeon HD 4870 is here.

[News] GIGABYTE EP45-DS3R Motherboard Review @ Virtual-Hideout

Quote
You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards.

»Eagle Tech N-Series Pro SATA Enclosure @ ASE Labs

Quote
ASE Labs prides itself on giving you fair and honest reviews for all types of computer products. This is one of the reasons that ASE Labs has been around for over seven years and keeps going strong. Today ASE Labs has the Eagle Tech N-Series Pro Serial ATA to USB2 Hard Drive Enclosure on the review bench. The fair and brutally honest review follows.

Nova Master Review - XSReviews

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* As we've seen with many reviews of mouse pads they can be an important part of a gamers arsenal of ultimate ownage. Nova have been making high quality gaming surfaces for over 15 years by now they should have gotten good at it. Their latest series of mouse pads has been much revered by gamers around the world so lets see how the biggest, therefore best - because of course size is what's most important - pad in this series fairs under a normal gamer's scrutiny.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic 512MB

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Back in June we were first to deliver Radeon HD 4850 benchmarks on Linux just after the new high-end ATI/AMD GPUs were launched. We were also successful in using the Radeon HD 4850 with an open-source driver and had exclusively shared that CrossFire support is coming to Linux along with a horde of other improvements. These new Linux features are coming soon, but today we are looking at a new Radeon HD 4850 graphics card from Sapphire Technology. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic 512MB ships with a performance-oriented Zalman cooler and it also comes factory overclocked.

Cooler Master CSX Medusa Cosmos Chassis

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For over two years, Cooler Master has awed members of the media at trade shows like CES and Computex with their CSX line of premium cases. CSX cases are part of a calibration between Cooler Master and Smooth Creations, a private company specializing in applying show quality automotive finishes to consumer electronics. 'Till now, Cooler Master has held on to their limited production cases with a tight grip; some costing as much as 1200 U.S. Dollars. Media samples were non-existent so coverage of the products has been limited to the snap shots thrown in from event coverage.

Diskeeper 2008 Professional Review @ DragonSteelMods

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As hard drives become bigger, the possibility of fragmentation increases. Using innovative technologies that work behind the scenes, your hard drives will never succumb to fragmentation slow down with Diskeeper 2008 on duty. Some of these components have impressive names such as: InviTasking Technology, I-FAAST 2.0, Frag Shield 2.0. Today I will look at the Professional version of this degfragmenting software.

Thecus N5200PRO NAS @ techPowerUp

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Thecus' N5200 PRO NAS device holds up to five drives internally in any RAID configuration desired for maximum safety. With plenty of features and a modular design, when it comes to both hardware and software, it fits anyone's needs. As the N5200 PRO uses a fast 1.5 GHz CPU it has serious potential to stomp the competition.

Thermaltake BlacX SE @ Bjorn3D

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With the changing face of computing someone needed to come up with a fast, easy, hot swappable method of docking hard drives to a desktop or laptop that doesn't involve seating it in an enclosure or case, yet provide enough protection to read or write to the drive then move on to the next drive easily. Thermaltake decided to fill that need and designed their BlacX line of docking stations. We felt the need for this type of storage so when we got the chance to test the Thermaltake BlacX SE we were ready to see if it would fit the bill.

Quote
You can't really put a label on this motherboard or designate it for any particular kinds of users. There are far too many useful features that you don't find on your typical budget motherboards. And while many professional motherboards also tend to offer the bare essentials, that's not what you get here. At this price, you can't go wrong if you're on a budget and really want a good quality motherboard. It's going to be really tough topping this one with anything else.

BlueAnt Supertooth 3 Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone @ Legit Reviews

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The BlueAnt Supertooth 3 handsfree Bluetooth speakerphone provides a safer, legal alternative to talking on your cell phone while you drive. Voice prompts provide assistance to help you connect the device with your phone and upload your address book. With up to 15 hours of talk time and a charge time of just 3 hours is this Bluetooth speakerphone right for you? Read on to find out!

Sapphire HD 4850 TOXIC in Crossfire

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We've literally loved everything about the HD 4850 since its release. The only thing that worried me was the high temperatures coming out from behind the card. While the stock single slot cooler is an excellent choice, it simply isn't going to do as good a job as dual slot coolers with bigger fans. Sapphire has not only chosen to include aftermarket cooling on the card, but also to take it a step further by overclocking the bad boy. With two in hand today, we will be looking at both single and Crossfire performance. Before we get into that, though, let's have a quick look at the package and the actual cards.

AMD CPU Guide @ tkArena

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When people think about PCs the first thing that strikes their mind is often the CPU. Currently Intel and AMD are the major players in the desktop segment and we recently posted a guide to Intel CPUs and now it's time for AMD processors. In it, we give an overview of where AMD sit at the moment with their current line of processors. There's so many tags in the naming scheme for AMD CPUs - and this article explains them.

Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB Graphics Card Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Quote: The Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB graphics card may look just like a unit from the HD3870 series, but it is a top of the line model offering a PCI Express X16 interface, a 750MHz core clock, and 900MHz GDDR5 memory which makes things very interesting thanks to the greatly increased bandwidth (in comparison to GDDR3 and GDDR4).

Vantec NexStar 3i External Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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The Vantec NexStar 3i External Hard Drive Enclosure incorporates power saving modes to help save power and prolong the life of hard drives. It operates in three power saving modes: idle, stand by, and power down; all of which are automatic. The USB connectivity provides high data transfer rates on hard drives with up to 1TB of data. The small design of the NexStar 3i takes up very little desk space and even keeps cool with an aluminum case. Read on further to see how it performs.

Lexar 8 GB Class 2 SDHC @ techPowerUp

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Lexar's new entry level 8 GB SDHC card is quite unique. It is both reasonably priced and offers really good performance for a Class 2 card. Actually the card surpasses the Class 2 requirements in our testing. At around $50 quite a nice achievement.

7 Days with the HP 2133 Ultra Portable Netbook @ TechwareLabs

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Quote: Ultra Portable laptops have reached new levels of usability and even shrunk in size recently. What Asus started with its introduction of the EeePC other manufacturers have continued and introduced their versions of the now popular Netbooks. We take a look at one of the nicest designs on the market right now with HP's 2133. This all aluminum masterpiece would fit right in on the show room floor and gives its owner just the right asthetics and feel. But we test out the engine under the hood in addition to the fit and finish of the 2133. Find out what our inspection showed.

Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer Review - XSReviews

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You can see all manner of designs and technology these days on CPU coolers ranging from the weird and wonderful, to the more conservative and stylish. But it is the technologies behind the cooling that matters the most to any hardware enthusiast. One technology that has offered impressive performance in the past is the HDT design, where the heatpipes actually touch the CPU. This should deliver greater and faster dissipation due to increased contact between the heat transport components, in this case the heatpipes and the core. One product that has this tech and wishes to use it to create some hopefully great results, is the Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer. Lets take this one for a spin and see how its does.

Corsair Dominator DDR3 2133MHz 2GB Kit

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DDR3 has been progressing slowly, but at a steady pace and it's not looking like stopping. While the JEDEC officially only supports 1333MHz DDR3 on its records, Intel has gone a step further; something we wouldn't have expected them to do. They've pushed the boundaries of DDR3 by introducing the XMP profiles that allow speeds of 1600MHz and very soon 1800MHz on its X38 and X48 chipsets with DDR3 memories. While this may seem quite impressive, it's still not enough; not when the 2000MHz barrier is in sight and quite a few companies are pushing to reach it. Corsair says it has managed to hit speeds well beyond that.

The AMD 790GX Chipset Arrives - Asus M3A78-T Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews

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AMD has finally released the AMD 790GX chipset for enthusiasts around the world. The AMD 790GX chipset is designed for performance gamers and multimedia enthusiasts alike, and promises to deliver outstanding gaming as well as full HD video performance. With the AM2+ processor in mind the AMD 790GX Chipset along with the ATI Radeon HD 3300 graphics core provides awesome gaming compatibility and fantastic multimedia capabilities right out of the box at an ultra competitive price.

ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX+ TOP Graphics Card

Quote
We saw the 9800 GTX+ launch a little bit back, but samples have been scarce and stock has been even harder to get a hold of. It's been a while since we've seen a card be a paper launch, but it seemed the 9800 GTX+ was exactly that. It was designed to help draw attention away from the release of the new AMD cards. Today we're not only looking at a standard GTX+, but the overclocked model from ASUS that comes in under the TOP naming scheme. Let's have a quick look at the package and the card along with what ASUS has done with the core, shader and memory clock.

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-EXTREME P45 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews

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There are two kinds of computer enthusiasts in this world: those with a personal connection to the system motherboard, and those who simply refer to the part as a computer mainboard. For overclockers, the relationship with a well-designed motherboard can mean love or hate, and no two parts are alike. The motherboard is, after all, the foundation of every computer, and the importance is central to stable system operation. No matter if you are a low-demand office worker who plugs away on letters or spreadsheets every day or if you are a high-performance hardware enthusiast who demands extreme frame rates from your video games, one component alone will determine your ability: the motherboard. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Gigabyte GA-EP45T-EXTREME P45 Ultra-Durable 2 DES motherboard against our harsh overclocking demands.

ASRock P45R2000-WiFi DDR2 / DDR3 (P45) Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks

Quote
* *Following up the X48TurboTwins-WiFi, ASRock continues with the philosophy of catering to the mid-range and high-end (enthusiast) markets with a board utilizing another new Intel chipset, the P45R2000-WiFi. The latest from ASRock is based off the popular Intel P45 chipset, a follow up of the P35 chipset, and allows for high speed DDR3 memory support along with two PCIE2.0 slots for your CrossFire needs. Along with the latest and greatest chipset, the board hosts a number of innovative features such as support for 1600 and 1333 FSB processors out of the box as well as hybrid DDR2 and DDR2 memory compatibility. *

Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX HSF - BCCHardware

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* *The Big Typhoon VX is...well....Big. You're not going to want to try and jam this into a small case, but it should easily fit in any mid or full case with no problems. The big advantage of a big cooler likes this that uses a nice big 120mm fan is that at low speeds (1300 RPM), it's going to be very quiet (~16dBA). When you crank the fan up to full speeds of ~2000 RPM, you can hear it, but it is moving a ton of air (86 CFM) so if you need that extra cooling for a big overclock, the Big Typhoon VX can help you out. . .*

Apple iPhone 3G Review @ Digital Trends

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The iPhone 3G is mostly what we were hoping for in the second version of the too-popular-for-itself handset. Apple addressed call quality concerns, as well as demands for a faster Web experience via 3G and corporate email support, already making it a worthwhile upgrade for many first-gen iPhone owners. And while the addition of stereo Bluetooth and Assisted-GPS are mere catch-ups to other smartphones, the new App Store boosts it way ahead. We're a little disappointed that the iPhone 3G still lacks video recording, and we'd like a user-replaceable battery and expandable storage, but overall it's a thoroughly satisfying phone and iPod.

OCZ DDR3 1600 MHz Platinum EB Ed. 4GB Kit @ techPowerUp

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OCZ is offering a full line-up of DDR3 memory. Their Platinum Series was always known for their great price/performance ratio and this Enhanced Bandwidth kit is no different. It offers tighter timings at 1600 MHz than the competition, at a lower price point. So can it give us some serious bang for our buck?

SilverStone SST-TS01B RFID External Drive Kit @ BmR

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External HDD Enclosures are plentiful and cheap these days. It's tough for a manufacturer to differentiate its products in the marketplace, and the competition on price is never-ending. Silverstone Technology has introduced a new product that is completely unique in the market, with a security system that you won't see anywhere else. Instead of relying on passwords to allow access to the encrypted data on the HDD, the SilverStone SST-TS01B uses a small RFID Key to identify an authorized user. This is not new technology, it's in commercial use in other markets, but it's the first time I've seen it used to unlock an encrypted HDD.

News Release: Eagle Consus N-Series SATA to USB External Storage System (ET-CSNSU2-BK) @ C.O.D.

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My latest adventure (you will read about it soon) left me with a few <http://computingondemand.com/> SATA hard drives lying around. With those drives came a great opportunity to incorporate them into an off site storage solution. That being said, I absolutely must do this with some style. Enter the Eagle Tech Consus N-Series Sata to USB enclosure. Eagle Tech has a very industrial feel to their products. The presentation starts with their website and transcends into their products. Hard and soft edges along with some color contrasts bring attention to them aesthetically yet somehow still maintain a simple appearance. Do they offer features to match? The ET-CSNSU2-BK Consus series enclosure is garnished with aluminum side panels, thumb screws, a USB 2.0 (would you expect anything less?) interface, provided USB cable, a power adapter, and an internal SATA interface that supports both SATA 150 and SATA 300.

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R @ InsideHW

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This time we have tested a middle-lower class motherboard but nevertheless an interesting model, Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R. Gigabyte was always, at least when it's comes to DS3 series of motherboards, known for simplicity and real good production quality. As far as this model is concerned, there is enough space around CPU socket, so you can very easily mount any cooler. EPS 12V connector is positioned in upper left corner while 24-pin ATX connector for supplying components on motherboard is placed in upper right corner.

OpenGL Benchmarking On Linux Reaches New Heights

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We have been covering the Linux benchmarking scene since 2004, but one area we have never really been satisfied with have been the OpenGL tests that are available. There are now plenty of free software games that are available for benchmarking, but with most of them being based around the open-source Quake 3 engine, they aren't that demanding upon the graphics processor. The ones generally good with stressing the graphics capabilities of the system are the id Software games (Doom 3, Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars) with native Linux clients. Under the workstation umbrella, there is just SPECViewPerf. On the Windows side though there are a number of OpenGL and DirectX games, tech demos, and other benchmarks. Thanks in part to the Phoronix Test Suite, however, we are starting to see a new era of OpenGL benchmarking that are able to stress the graphics card and are visually pleasing.

NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT Video Card Preview @ Legit Reviews

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Quote: Performance aside the GeForce 9500 GT offers consumers other things like compact size, a quiet cooler and low power consumption. The fact that it doesn't need any additional power connections means that it will make for an easy upgrade for many that don't have a power supply that is able to handle more devices. These strong areas make for great selling points not to mention that the GeForce 9500 GT can run F@H and is CUDA ready for parallel applications. In the future things like GPU video transcoding will be sure to take off and the GeForce 9500 GT can...

Tags Reviews

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August 6, 2008

PR: gOS Announces gOS 3 Gadgets

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 6, 2008 at 1:26:08 PM

August 6, 2008-Booth 1627 --LinuxWorld Expo, San Francisco, California-gOS, the Linux OS known for its debut in the $199 Wal-Mart gPC and NetBooks, today announced the details of the newest version of its Linux operating system for consumers, called gOS 3 Gadgets. gOS is demonstrating a beta version of the OS on a variety of NetBooks and NetTops at LinuxWorld and online at http://www.thinkgos.com.
Next Page »

Tags News PR gOS

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August 5, 2008

ASE Adnet August 2008 Contest

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 5, 2008 at 4:34:42 PM

My advertising network, ASE Adnet (http://www.ase.cc), is having another contest and this time anyone with a site can enter. We're giving away an Asus EEE laptop. You can win by posting about the contest on your own site.

Check out the contest. If you refer some people, you'll get more entries!

Quote
What is this contest?

The August contest is open to everyone, regardless if you are a publisher on ASE Adnet or not. We are offering up an Asus EEE running Linux for everyone to win. The details of the computer are here. The contest winner will be picked by a random drawing and you can receive multiple entries as outlined below.

Entries

Current publishers on ASE Adnet get 3 entries
New publishers from this contest date get 2 entries. Make sure you sign up.
Every publisher that refers another active publisher will get an additional entry (no max!).
Make a news/weblog post on your site about ASE Adnet and this contest to receive 2 entries (contact aron@aselabs.com for verification).
Make over $200 with ASE Adnet and receive 3 additional entries (not including referral revenue).
Make over $500 with ASE Adnet and receive 7 addition entries (not including referral revenue).

Tags ASE News Adnet

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Federal Government Immune From Laws

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 5, 2008 at 2:18:48 PM

It seems that Judges think that the Feds are immune from laws governing the US. The USAF cracked some code and the company sued under the DMCA. The judge threw the case out saying that the government is immune from laws (basically). I'm sorry, in America (that's the US), we abide by the laws at all levels of government. If we didn't, the administration gets a blank check to trample over our rights... ohh wait, they already did that. This country is getting more and more screwed by the day. Write your congressmoron and tell them that if the government doesn't like a law, THEY HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE LAW! The DMCA is a piece of crap and the USAF knows it. The judge is too stupid to hear the case. If he did, the law might turn out to have been unconstitutional.

Quote
The backstory on the case involved, Blueport v. United States, borders on the absurd. It started when Sergeant Mark Davenport went to work in the group within the US Air Force that ran its manpower database. Finding the existing system inefficient, Davenport requested training in computer programming so that he could improve it; the request was denied. Showing the sort of personal initiative that only gets people into trouble, Davenport then taught himself the needed skills and went to work redesigning the system.

Although Davenport did his development on a personal system at home, he began to bring beta versions of his code in for testing, and eventually started distributing his improved system within his unit, giving the software a timed expiration. A demonstration to higher-ups led to a recommendation for his immediate promotion, but that was followed by demands that the code for his software be turned over to the USAF.

Davenport responded by selling his code to Blueport, which attempted to negotiate a license with the Air Force, which responded by hiring a company to hack the compiled version by deleting the code that enforced the expiration date. Blueport then sued, citing copyright law and the DMCA.

And then...

Quote
But the court also addressed the DMCA claims made by Blueport, and its decision here is quite striking. "The DMCA itself contains no express waiver of sovereign immunity," the judge wrote, "Indeed, the substantive prohibitions of the DMCA refer to individual persons, not the Government." Thus, because sovereign immunity is not explicitly eliminated, and the phrasing of the statute does not mention organizations, the DMCA cannot be applied to the US government, even in cases where the more general immunity to copyright claims does not apply.

It appears that Congress took a "do as we say, not as we need to do" approach to strengthening digital copyrights.

Terrible. Judges in this country are just plain stupid.

Tags DMCA Legal US

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August 4, 2008

Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 4, 2008 at 3:49:30 PM

Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-14400 KHX14400D3K2 XMP

The Kingston KHX14400D3K2/2GX is a refresh to the original 14400 DDR3 kit to provide XMP support. The update modules perform excellently and are a great value.Next Page »

Tags RAM Kingston HyperX DDR3 KHX14400D2K2

[Top]

Will Spore Do Well?

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 4, 2008 at 1:58:40 PM

I find that the game called Spore will probably do well. There are a few things that bug me, though. One of them is that all generated content is uploaded back to EA's servers. Who owns that content? EA is probably one of the worst things to happen to video games. They are just a big company that releases the same utter crap for the 10th time and complain when sales are bad. No one wants to buy a polished turd. Spore is their first totally new game in a long time.

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There's no disputing that people are enjoying the game's content creation system. That's because EA released the Spore creature creator in June as a free download in order to both stoke interest in the game and, perhaps more important, to populate the game's database of creatures with users' creations.

And it worked. The company says more than 2.5 million people got the creature creator and made more than 2 million different species, all of which will become part of the game.

What isn't known is how the rest of the game will go over, or how important that will be to whether it is a financial success. That's because, for the most part, EA hasn't shown very much of Spore's actual game play publicly. In a long series of demos over the last three years, it has mainly shown the creature creator and certain parts of the cell and space stages. But few people outside EA have seen extended play from the rest of the game.

Tags Games EA Spore

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12 Comments

August 1, 2008

Radeon 4870 X2

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on August 1, 2008 at 6:12:26 PM

Yes, it is real.

Removed due to NDA I never signed...

A spec sheet from Sapphire sent the details and this picture. It has a 6-pin power adapter as well as an 8-pin. That's pretty hefty requirements for power. I'm unsure when the cards will be released. Probably soon.

Tags Graphics Sapphire Radeon 4870 X2

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July 31, 2008

China To Censor Internet During Olympics

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 31, 2008 at 1:51:58 PM

So much for the IOC saying that internet access would be unrestricted to reporters. Anyone else see a huge problem bringing the Olympics to a place like China now? The fact that they are censoring a public forum really leads one to wonder how the IOC decided to host in China (among thousands of other things). Come to think of it, the guise of child pornography is going to be the start of censorship in America... Oops, already is. Nice job USA.

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"I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers. "I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered games related."

The revelation came a day after journalists learned that organizers had backtracked on earlier guarantees that journalists would have access to an uncensored Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues. The announcement meant that thousands of reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites deemed embarrassing to the Chinese government, such as Amnesty International or any sites related to the crackdown in Tibet or the banned spiritual group Falun Gong.

Sorry, IOC. You failed. You didn't hold up to your end of the bargain. If you had any balls, you would have said no games for you to China if they stopped meeting your terms. Walking away is one of the best negotiation tools and you morons couldn't see that.

Tags Government China IOC Olympics

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July 29, 2008

Tuesday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 29, 2008 at 2:42:06 PM

Quote
Just a few weeks ago, the Radeon HD 4850 was released and with it came a huge boost of performance for the price. The 4870 is the highend version of the RV770 series of GPU released from AMD. Sapphire provided a card for this review and the Radeon HD 4870 is here.

NVIDIA's GeForce 9500 GT Debuts, Solid Graphics For Under $100

Quote
You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards.

»Eagle Tech N-Series Pro SATA Enclosure @ ASE Labs

Quote
ASE Labs prides itself on giving you fair and honest reviews for all types of computer products. This is one of the reasons that ASE Labs has been around for over seven years and keeps going strong. Today ASE Labs has the Eagle Tech N-Series Pro Serial ATA to USB2 Hard Drive Enclosure on the review bench. The fair and brutally honest review follows.

»Logitech Quickcam Vision Pro @ ASE Labs

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Logitech is a company that should be well known to the readers of ASE Labs. The company specializes in computer peripherals which include their line of mice and keyboards all the way to webcams. The focus of the review is the newest webcam from Logitech, the Quickcam Vision Pro which is billed to be Mac ready with ease. In reality, it works on every operating system.

Leadtek WinFast GeForce PX9500 GT

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If you find yourself getting sick to the stomach when you see how much cards like the GTX 280 and GTX 260 are and just can't understand why people would spend so much money on a graphics card, the 9500 GT could be in your league. The 9500 GT, as you might have guessed comes in below the 9600 series and well below the 9800s. It's designed for people who are looking at getting away from onboard graphics but don't want to blow too much money. You have to wonder with the new GTX 280 / 260 naming scheme as to why NVIDIA are still continuing to update the older 9000 series of cards. Either way, we have a new low to mid-range graphics card that's cheap and can hopefully offer low resolution gamers something that doesn't break the bank.

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In comparison to the recently released GeForce GTX series, the GeForce 9500 GT has only a fraction of the number of stream processors, ROPs, and texture units available, but the GPU's configuration does put it on par with or ahead of the GeForce 8500 / 8600 series of graphics cards, that the 9500 GT will eventually replace (along with the already released GeForce 9600 GT).

GIGABYTE 9800 GT Zalman Edition

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It seems like NVIDIA graphics card releases run as clock work with the Catalyst drivers from AMD. With the GTX 280, GTX 260 and 9800 GTX+ released not all that long ago, it comes as no real surprise that NVIDIA has gotten up once again and released not only one new card today, but two. The first card is the 9800 GT which is what we have here with us now. The other is a 9500 GT which of course sits at the lower end of the scale when it comes to performance. Unlike some of the more recent releases, it seems that companies are already prepared to attack the 9800 GT with new cooling methods and overclocks. We see here that GIGABYTE has already strapped a Zalman cooler onto the newly released card and Palit are ready to go with an overclocked model carrying the

Tuniq Ensemble 1200W Power Supply Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Quote: I expected the Tuniq Ensemble 1200W power supply to perform well after seeing what the 950W Tuniq Miniplant had to offer a few months ago, and my expectations wound up being exceeded. The unit ran cool and quiet, managing to provide stable power to the beefiest system I could put together while producing a trivial ripple of a fraction of one percent.

[News] Kingston 4GB PC2-6400 HyperX Memory Review @ Virtual-Hideout

Quote
When it comes to our computers, we'd love to always have the biggest and the best. However, reality indicates that isn't always possible. But that also doesn't mean we have to settle when it comes to memory options. For the PC enthusiasts who are looking for quality and value, Kingston offers the KHX6400D2LLK2/4G Memory Kit, a product in their HyperX DDR2 line. The HyperX DDR2 offers faster speeds, lower latencies, higher data bandwidths and lower power consumption than DDR.

AirLive AirTV-1000U @ techPowerUp

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The AirTV-1000U DVB-T TV Tuner is something you would not expect from a company like AirLive. They are known for their excellent networking products, not TV Tuners. The USB based AirTV-1000U features some interesting features, like recording, EPG and time shifting support.

Cool IT Systems NV Reference SLI Cooler @ techPowerUp

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The CoolIT Systems coolers are certainly a unique way to get into liquid cooling. They come pre-assembled and are maintenance free. We are taking a look at their dual card cooler for two GeForce 8800 GTXs, but CoolIT offers a very similar variant for the GTX 260/280 and for AMD cards as well.

ECS GeForce 8800GT 256MB

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When AMD had unveiled the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and ATI Radeon HD 4870 last month, NVIDIA was left in an awkward position. The Radeon HD 4850 had sharply outperformed the (more expensive, at the time) GeForce 9800GTX, which led NVIDIA to immediately begin slashing prices and introducing a slightly faster GeForce 9800GTX+ that ramped up the memory and core frequencies. ATI's flagship Radeon HD 4870 also had no problems competing with the more-expensive GeForce GTX 260 / 280. Many of NVIDIA's partners as a result have slashed their prices on their earlier GeForce 8 and 9 products. One of the NVIDIA products that was previously considered a good budget graphics card was the GeForce 8800GT, but now how does it stand up against the latest from ATI and NVIDIA? In this article we are looking at the ECS GeForce 8800GT. What is particularly special about this card and some of the other newer models shipping the GeForce 8800GT GPU is a BIOS revision that should yield a performance increase.

Maxtor BlackArmor 160GB Review @ Digital Trends

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If you're the paranoid type or just someone who cannot afford to have his or her data stolen, the Maxtor BlackArmor external backup drive will likely bring you a large dose of piece-of-mind. Data on the drive is encrypted with a key at the hardware level using government-grade 128-bit AES encryption, so if you lose it whoever finds it will have zero chance of recovering the data. Even better, if someone steals the drive and doesn't have the password, they can reformat the drive but the process destroys the encryption key, making all the data inaccessible even by data recovery professionals. This high level of security comes with a high price tag though, and the drive also suffers a few design drawbacks too, so you should only consider it if data security is a top priority.

News - Thecus N5200B Pro Network Attached Storage at Overclockers Online

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The Thecus N5200 Pro is no doubt, an awesome unit. It is flexible, fairly easy to use, and it's fast, oh let me tell you, it is fast. But, it also is not without a few kinks. When it comes to hardware, Thecus knows a thing or two and have assembled a cutting edge NAS powered by common everyday off-the-shelf hardware tied together with a custom mini-ITX motherboard, a combination resulting in unmatched performance.

Tags Reviews

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Yahoo Returns Stolen Money

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 29, 2008 at 2:01:30 PM

Did that headline grab your attention? Yahoo will refund money to people that bought DRM stricken music that can no longer be played. This is an important trend. Companies are finally seeing that DRM is not the right way to do things.

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And surprisingly, EFF doesn't necessarily want Microsoft to also offer refunds. After Microsoft shuttered MSN Music, the company announced last spring that it would stop issuing DRM keys. After being criticized, Microsoft decided to continue supporting its music for three more years. McSherry said that Microsoft's decision ensures that customers get what they paid for. That's all EFF wanted.

"In both cases, each of the companies has been forced to acknowledge they must do right by their customers," McSherry said. "I do hope that any other vendor (selling DRM-protected media), learns a lesson. They all must live up to the conditions that they set when they sold their music."

The point is that once you buy DRM content from a company, if that company decides to stop its DRM key delivery service, your content is garbage. That's what is happening here. This is why it is important to keep open files only. All of your iTunes purchases will be backed by Apple even when the company goes under, right?

Tags Music DRM Yahoo

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July 28, 2008

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 100243L

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 28, 2008 at 7:57:22 PM

The Radeon HD 4870 series is the newest performance model from AMD's ATI branch. Sapphire steps up and provides a sample of this new and high performance part and it shines.Next Page »

Tags Graphics Sapphire Radeon RV770 4870

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2 Comments

Monday Reviews

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 28, 2008 at 2:33:56 PM

Thermaltake Armor+ VH6000BWS Full Tower Chassis Review @ Bigbruin.com

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You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards.

»Eagle Tech N-Series Pro SATA Enclosure @ ASE Labs

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ASE Labs prides itself on giving you fair and honest reviews for all types of computer products. This is one of the reasons that ASE Labs has been around for over seven years and keeps going strong. Today ASE Labs has the Eagle Tech N-Series Pro Serial ATA to USB2 Hard Drive Enclosure on the review bench. The fair and brutally honest review follows.

»Logitech Quickcam Vision Pro @ ASE Labs

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Logitech is a company that should be well known to the readers of ASE Labs. The company specializes in computer peripherals which include their line of mice and keyboards all the way to webcams. The focus of the review is the newest webcam from Logitech, the Quickcam Vision Pro which is billed to be Mac ready with ease. In reality, it works on every operating system.

»Sans Digital MS2UT+ Black RAID Enclosure @ ASE Labs

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As readers of ASE Labs, you know that I have always said that it is very important to have proper backups and have redundant storage. While we have seen the MS2UTN+ from Sans Digital, this new model contains a LCD screen to easily setup and manage the unit. It is really amazing what a two line LCD can give you in terms of piece of mind.

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Quote: The Thermaltake Armor+ VH6000BWS full tower chassis will not frustrate, and will not disappoint. There are plenty of tool-less features included to simplify the installation process, and the only components that required a screwdriver were the motherboard and power supply. The design of the case is slick and attractive, but doesn't go over the top. The simple external styling is complemented by a spacious, well laid out interior that will show through the large side panel window when fully assembled.

Spire CoolFlow III Review - XSReviews

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* When it comes time for an enthusiast to upgrade his or her processor, it's usually quite a momentous occasion. Lots of planning goes into the perfect choice of hardware, and it's not uncommon for a cooler upgrade too; as faster usually means hotter. Therefore they usually go for something something much beefier than before -- not one which looks similar to the stock Intel model. It's odd saying that as today, we've got a Spire CoolFlow for review, which does, look remarkably similar to the stock Intel heat-sink and fan. Let's just hope it gives a boost in performance.

Preview of the AMD HD4870X2 @ Bjorn3D

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When AMD launched the HD4850 and HD4870 earlier this year they continued with the strategy that they had started with the HD3000-series. Instead of trying to create a really fast, and expensive, GPU and then scale it down over the following 6-12 months for other segments, AMD decided to create the best GPU for the $200-$300 enthusiast segment and then either scale it down for the entry level segment or combine more than one GPU for the hard core gamers. The reception of the HD4850 and the HD4870 has been very good and these GPU's even got NVIDIA to lower their prices quite a lot just to be able to compete.

Lian-Li Tyr PC-X2000 HTPC/Gaming Chassis @ techPowerUp

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Lian-Li is pulling out all the stops with the new Tyr case series. On our testbench is the X2000, which is not only the tallest case we have ever tested, but is packed with SATA backplates for six hard drives, three 140 mm fans and a long list of other features, too numerous to mention.

ASUS P5Q-E Motherboard Review @ HardwareLogic

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* The ASUS P5Q-E motherboard aims to do just that by featuring Intel's new hotness, the P45 Express chipset that has everyone buzzing. Among its many highlights, the P5Q-E delivers native 1600 FSB CPU support, CrossFireX capable, eSATA, RoHS certified and recognizes up to 16GB of DDR2-1200 memory. Wow. Considering this all comes at an affordable price point, I couldn't wait to get it in the lab and on the test bench. If you're in the market for a new motherboard, you'll definitely want to check this review out. Read on as HardwareLogic unleashes its entire benchmarking suite on this board to find out if its worthy of being the foundation of your next build.

Corsair TX750W Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers

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Corsair is one of those companies no matter what they venture into it will be a success. Not only are they one of the most successful memory manufacturers but last month we took a look at their Voyager 32GB flash drive and it too was a big hit. Corsair has of lately broaden their range of products to include power supplies. The HX received great awards from around the web. based on the same tech that made the HX a hit the TX series is sure to be a benchmark in the world of power supplies. The unit that we will be taking a look at today is the 750 watt model. According to Corsair the TX is designed to give you maximum amount of power with the maximum of protection but at a minimum amount of money spent.

[News] Raidmax Iceberg Case Review @ Virtual-Hideout

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The Raidmax Iceberg impressed us with its sturdy and quality construction. We were definitely not expecting an aluminum case to be so strong, but the thick aluminum of the Iceberg makes it one of the strongest cases we've seen. The design of the case also makes it one of the easiest to disassemble, from the nice side panels to the easy-to-remove front panel. Cooling options provided were also very decent, with four fans out of the case.

ASUS P5Q-E Intel P45 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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Today I am looking at the Asus P5Q-E, one of Asus' three budget-minded P45 motherboards, this one supporting CrossfireX, with two x 8 slots, and one x 4 slot (the primary PCI-E slot is x 16 when a single video card is used). It also sports heatpipe chipset cooling, and other features we'd expect only on Asus boards costing much more, all with an energy-saving theme. How will this board stand up to the requirements of enthusiasts? Read on to see.

BFG GTX 260 896MB Video Card Review @ Hardware Canucks

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* *Both the GTX 260 and the GTX 280 were launched a little over a month ago and while the higher end 280 was available immediately at launch, the less expensive 260 was greeted with a paper launch. Since that time, Nvidia seemed to have been surprised by ATI's launch of the HD4800-series of cards which turned out to be extremely successful and performed above what many expected them to. In order to combat these lower-priced cards, Nvidia has sent the prices of the GTX 280 and GTX 260 into freefall. Once retailing for a bit over $400, GTX 260 cards can now be had for a shade under $300 after rebates here in Canada in some rare cases. Say it with me again: competition is good.*

Lian-Li PC-V1010 Aluminum ATX Case @ techPowerUp

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The Lian-Li V1010 is the successor of the very popular V1000. It now incorporates some of the new and unique features, which you will find in the X2000 or X500, at a much lower price point.

Coolink Chillaramic Thermal Compound Review @ DragonSteelMods

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Today for review I've got a new entry into the thermal compound competition, it's from Coolink and it's called Chillaramic. The '-ramic' part of the name denotes that it is a ceramic based compound, something that is sort of rare when it comes to thermal compounds these days, most are metallic based compounds as they've been shown to have the best thermal conductive properties, but many newer ones have no metal particles at all in them.

Thermaltake M9D Computer Case Review @ Rbmods

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When I choose a computer case, I am often drawn towards a couple of things: good looks and cool features that will make building and using the computer enjoyable. Thermaltake, makers of a wide variety of computer products, sent us a sample of one of their new cases, the Thermaltake M9D mid-tower computer case, which from the package seems to combine stylish looks with a sophisticated design. Can their case live up to these lofty goals? Let's find out in this case review.

Sapphire HD4870 @ t-break

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With nVidia done with its high-end product launches for this generation, it was obviously time for AMD to fire back. Now most of you would remember that AMD's previous generation of GPUs were less than stellar and about the only product that got anyone excited was the X2. Now since the new RV770 is based on the same R600 roots, we wondered what AMD was able to do to the core to turn it around.

Leadtek WinFast PX9600 GSO Extreme 384MB

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We're not quite sure what makes this 9600 GSO so Extreme, but we intend to find out today. Not unlike its 8800 GS twin brother, the 9600 GSO hasn't really had much attention due to AMD offering two new cards, the 9600GT already being excellent value and of course NVIDIA offering two new high-end models as well. There are a lot of people on a tight budget though, and the 9600 GSO might come in at a price point that's most attractive to them. We'll have a look at the Extreme version from Leadtek today and see if it's worth buying or if should you save a few more dollars and just buy the better known 9600GT.

Zerotherm FZ120 CPU Cooler Review @ DragonSteelMods

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Today for review I've got the FZ120 CPU Cooler from Zerotherm and it's a beast, in terms of both size and performance. The FZ120 takes the top spot in most of our cooling tests while remaining virtually silent at the same time. Since the FZ120 is so large it does pose a challenge when installing, and it just downright won't fit in smaller cases like SFF or even most HTPC cases, but if you're looking for great quality, silence and excellent performance the FZ120 deserves a closer look...

News - Kingston DataTraveler BlackBox 2GB at Overclockers Online

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All things considered, I was impressed with the Kingston DataTraveler BlackBox. It performed admirably well even though it has to deal with on-the-fly 256-bit AES encryption. Also, the security process is relatively transparent in that all you have to do is put in your password and subsequently, the drive acts just like a normal USB flash drive. The build quality is excellent unlike some older DataTravelers I've owned; I soaked the drive in a cup of water for several minutes and it still worked.

CineRaid Quad-bay SATA/SAS RAID Device Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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Every now and then, ThinkComputers gets the opportunity to review a piece of hardware which we'd consider dream hardware. Sometimes it's attainable, but it's excess to most of us. The CineRaid Quad-bay SAS RAID device is one of these. It's an external RAID device: it connects via a PCI-Express Serial Attached Storage card and adds extremely fast and failure-tolerant storage to a system. It's meant primarily for professional graphic artists, but we gamers can drool and perhaps even purchase one of our own if we have a burning need for speed. ThinkComputers reviews it.

NZXT Performance Power 800 Watt Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers

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If you haven't guessed by now this unit is an 800 watt model. This much power should be enough to power a decent multi-GPU rig. The PP800 has the greatest amount of power output in Performance Power as the other models are 500 and 600 watts. Like most power supplies today the PP800 boast four 12 volt rails totaling up to 78 amps. A lot of power, a lot of ampere and an SLI certification is enough to warrant a good run on the old test bench.

Sapphire HD 4870 Video Card Review @ Hardware Secrets

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AMD/ATI has released two new high-end graphics chips recently, Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850, known by the codenames RV770 XT and RV770 PRO, respectively. As you can guess by the numbers, HD 4870 provides a higher performance compared to HD 4850 and currently is the fastest GPU provided by AMD/ATI - until Radeon HD 4870 X2, a video card featuring two HD 4870, is launched. In this review we will benchmark HD 4870 from Sapphire and compare it to its main competitors from nVidia. Is this video card a good buy? Check it out.

Tagan Icy Box IB-285StU-B USB 2 1/2 @ Bjorn3D

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We found an alternative to the 'Tote Around' syndrome in the Tagan Icy Box IB-285StU-B 2 1/2 inch Sata Drive enclosure. It's all-inclusive, wallet-type design is a breath of fresh air in the world of portable storage; and it manages to store large amounts of data and does it while providing a stylishness that you seldom see in carry along storage solutions.

OCZ Reaper HPC PC3 12800 @ Pro-Clockers

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We all know OCZ as the company that never stops. It seems like every day I am receiving some kind of press release from them. Just recently there was a P.R. notice to introduce a new line of ram kits under the Fata1ty branding. Yet another line to add to their vast array of memory. That is good news for some as you can continue that black and red theme you have going on. Our test subject today is from a more familiar line know by OCZ fans, which is the Reaper series. The Reapers are known by its trademark black heat spreaders and copper heat pipes. Today we will take the Reaper PC3 12800 for a ride on our test bench and see what kind of potential they have.

Digit-Life Review: Lower- and Higher-End Phenom X3/X4 Processors

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The main participants are AMD Phenom X3 8450/8750 and Phenom X4 9550/9850 on one hand, and Core 2 Duo 4300/4400/4500/4600/4700 (the entire E4x00 family) as well as the new Core 2 Duo E7200 on the other hand. No deep analytical conclusions this time. This article is to help users make a choice.

ATI Catalyst 8.7 Analysis - XP Vista

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As we roll towards the end of the month, I have to admit we were a little worried when we hadn't seen the latest Catalyst release. No doubt AMD have been extremely busy working on the latest HD 4870 incarnation; the X2. There are some decent looking performance improvements mentioned in the release notes this time around, so let's see how they go in our tests today.

Razer Mako 2.1 THX Certified Multimedia System Review @ ThinkComputers.org

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Razer and THX have teamed up together to design the Razer Mako 2.1 THX Certified Multimedia System. This sound system offers OmniDirectional speakers which fill the entire room with surround sound. The Mako comes equipped with an all-in-one touch sensitive control pod which allows you have the controls right at your fingertips. The control pod also provides 3.5mm headphone jack for quiet listening and a 3.5mm auxiliary input jack for those looking to hookup their iPod or MP3 player. This system certainly beats others out there in sound quality, even those Bose MP3 player systems you might have.

ZOTAC 9600 GSO 384MB Graphics Card

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The 9600 GSO has been out for a while now, but we haven't really seen many of them around. The first one we saw was from Palit and carried with it a large 768MB of memory with quite a hefty overclock to boot. At the same time, it did have some issues in our test bed. While we loved the card, we probably didn't really get to have as close a look as we normally would. We all know that the 9600 GSO is nothing more than an 8800 GS with a new name, but how does the card sit in the current market? Is it something worth considering or should we just opt for the slightly more expensive 9600GT?

Nintendo Wii Fit Review @ Digital Trends

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Exercise-oriented video games aren't new, but Wii Fit is certainly the most technically advanced one yet. Fun games like snowboarding, Hula Hoop, and tightrope keep it from being tedious. The ingenious Balance Board tracks your center of gravity, and although we're skeptical about its fitness evaluation criteria, a few weeks of use has noticeably improved our balance. We wish you could save your own workout routines, and we advise against taking it too seriously as a fitness tool, but overall we're impressed with Wii Fit, and the Balance Board has lots of potential as a controller.

Kingwin EL-35EU-SBL Elite USB 2.0 and eSATA_Drive Enclosure Review @ Bigbruin.com

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Quote: Kingwin's EL-35EU-SBL Elite USB 2.0 and eSATA drive enclosure is a sharp looking product that could simply use some better software. If you want an eSATA drive enclosure and only need basic back up capabilities, already have back up software, or don't intend to use the back up capabilities, I could recommend this enclosure. If are looking for a back up system that offers configuration flexibility, this may not be a good choice for you.

Tags Reviews

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July 24, 2008

Sans Digital MS1U Media Saver

Poster: Aron Schatz

Posted on July 24, 2008 at 11:06:58 PM

The MS1U takes a laptop hard drive and turns it into portable storage for digital memory cards. You no longer need to turn your computer on to get the pictures off of a memory card.Next Page »

Tags Storage Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS1U

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