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Disappointingly, the OS image hasn’t even been updated with the latest versions of Windows Media Player, Windows Live Messenger and so on. This makes for a massive update session the first time the user goes online, and that’s not a good way to start the relationship. Supplied CDs include the XP Home OEM install disc and Asus’ support DVD containing the necessary XP drivers and a recovery utility.

However, it’s worth noting that Asus is prepping a special edition Eee PC that will be preloaded with a cut-down version of XP which is expected to be available within the next eight weeks. Emmanuele Silanesu, National Retail Manager for ASUSTeK Australia, told apcmag "we’ve been working with Microsoft on a special condensed version of XP which has just passed the R&D tests this week". The pared-back image, which includes the Microsoft Works suite and will be based on Windows XP Home with SP3, "will be approximately 1.5-1.8GB in total depending on Windows updates" Silanesu says.

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OCZ may be best known for their memory products such as low latency and high speed RAM, but they also provide other products with enhanced speed and performance. Their line of cooling products as well as flash memory provide excellent performance in today's market. Today, ASE Labs has the OCZ Rally2 Turbo 4GB USB flash drive for review. Even flash can be dual channel.

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It has been a long time since I last reviewed a Logitech product. CES has come and gone and with the show brought some interesting items. One such item that Logitech was showing was the diNovo Mini which is targeted to media center PCs like those provided by MythTV. The diNovo Mini was released a few weeks ago and it is the spotlight in this review.

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What happens when you need a full size case for a new build? Maybe you want the extra space for additional cooling or hardware support. Look no futher than the Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS. We already know that Thermaltake is a big player in the cases and modding market. This case certainly fits its name. It is big, heavy, and tough.

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Honeywell produces many different types of products in the consumer and enterprise market. It was just some time ago that SOYO partnered with Honeywell to produce a new line of consumer electronics and out of that agreement comes the newest LCD monitor from Honeywell: The ARIUS 22" HWLM2216. ASE Labs is proud to be the first site to review this monitor.

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When looking at the AMD Phenom 9500 under Linux, we had found this processor had posed a number of issues from kernel panics to other troubles when running Ubuntu 7.10 with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel. Once, however, upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 with the Linux 2.6.24 kernel these problems had vanished and we were pleased by this native quad-core desktop processor from AMD. Released a month prior to the first Phenom desktop CPUs were the quad-core Opteron 2300 Barcelona processors. We hadn't looked at any AMD Barcelona processors at that time, but today we finally have our hands on two of the new AMD Opteron 2356 server/workstation processors. The Opteron 2356 CPUs come clocked at 2.30GHz, and is a revision B3 Opteron meaning that it has a proper fix for the TLB erratum -- this model was introduced only earlier this month. We have benchmarked the new Opteron 2356 in both single and dual CPU configurations and have compared the results -- under Linux -- to two of Intel's quad-core Xeon processors.

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The OVC TC20 earphones are aimed at the more budget conscious in-ear audience. Priced at only $39 they are many times cheaper than most big brand earphones. The only question is how does their sound performance stack up against the more expensive in-ears.

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Once this drive is on the market in full force, I can see it becoming one of the most popular USB drives out there. It's fast, it's remarkably small, it's cheap, and its a lot of fun to show your friends how huge (sarcasm) your 8Gb drive is.

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ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe will be one of the first motherboards to be launched on the market based on the forthcoming nForce 780a chipset - which, by the way, is delaying a lot to be released. But don't think that nForce 780a is simple the AMD version of the nForce 780i - it isn't. One of the main differences between the two is the support for HybridSLI, which features HybridPower, a feature that disables the video cards installed in the system when you are not playing games and generates 2D images - i.e. when you are using Windows, a word processor or a spreadsheet - thru the chipset to save a lot of power, and GeForce Boost, which uses the on-board video to increase 3D performance. The problem is that both features require compatible video cards and so far only two video cards support each feature. Other features from this motherboard include three PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots supporting 3-way SLI and Quad SLI, a passive cooling solution for the memories, an eSATA port, co! axial and optical SPDIF outputs and more.

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Gigabyte is a solid company. They're at the top of my list, it would seem, so picking a current-generation entry-level motherboard without integrated graphics narrows things down to about half a dozen options, with the GA-P31-DS3L at the front. But is that really enough to base a decision on? Well, if you're reading this, then Jesus, of course not. Here's what to expect: OK performance, dull layout, and Ultra Durability! After a trip to the bench, this board indeed gets a nod for being better than the other P31 motherboards. Here's what that means.

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Cyber Acoustics are based out of Asia and claim to have had involvement in the PC audio industry for many years, since the 80`s in fact. Now, that should be plenty of time to get the recipe right, so to speak. The company offers many products from headsets and iPod solutions to full on surround sound systems like the one I`m looking at today. For the purposes of testing I have several systems around my home to provide an adequate representation of where these speakers stand, all things considered. I think that when evaluating speakers in general, it's a very good idea to try and listen to the same piece of music through several different systems.

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Apple's Time Capsule combines a gigantic 1TB hard drive with a speedy wireless router that dishes out legacy B and G Wi-Fi along with the new N standard. It's an overall solid package that delivers on its promise of easy-to-use centralized storage for a home network, and its wireless performance is very good as well. The only drawbacks are that the much-touted Time Machine feature only works with OS X Leopard, setup isn't as easy as we anticipated from an Apple product, and naturally it's a bit expensive..

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There are times when Benchmark Reviews will test a product that seems very similar to another that we've already reviewed, with only subtle differences separating them. A much less common occurrence is when we see the exact same product, only wearing a different name. Kingwin is fortunate then to have built their RVT-12025 HDT CPU cooler from an award-winning mold. Designed from the Heat-pipe Direct Touch technology created by Zaward, and later incorporated into the award-winning Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU cooler, the new RVT-12025 is a chip off the old block... a very well established block.

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Alphacool has a very nice product with their LCD Display. Like I said, it has been around for a while but even today it's still very functional and modern. It's cheaper than an external color display to use with Windows Vista for it's sideshow feature and it's better function and performance wise than the Pertelian V5. The display sells for around 100 euros nowadays and the smaller 240x64 ones for 70 euros. The Pertelian sells for around 35 euros, which is half the price of the 240x64 pixels version but the Pertelian doesn't have screen as nice as the Alphacool LC-Display.

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In Win has been developing some pretty interesting cases lately and the B2 Stealth Bomber is the latest ATX tower from the Xtreme Series. With an auto-sensing front door and a touch sensitive mechanism to activate the front cover this case is far from what one would expect in a case. Join us as we see if this tool-free case can be as stealthy as the plane its named after!

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It's not the first time I've entered the wonderful world of notebooks, but recently I've found myself getting a bit tired of sitting in front of the same desk in the same room so many hours a day. I thought that it was finally time to take the plunge and get back into the wonderful world that is notebooks. There are three kinds of notebook users; those that get their notebook through work for business purposes, those that buy it themselves and say that they're going to use it all the time, but actually don't, and then of course the group of people who buy it and actually do use it. I hope to find myself in the latter; previously I was in the second group and found my notebook being used as a door stop more than anything else.

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Last month we had looked at the Radeon HD 3200, which is part of the AMD 780G Chipset. In that Linux-based review we had found the performance to be admirable for being an integrated graphics processor (IGP) and it was quickly supported by the proprietary fglrx driver, aside from AMD not yet introducing the CrossFire/Hybrid Graphics Linux support. To deliver those Radeon HD 3200 benchmarks we had used the ECS A780GM-A Black and today we're publishing our full run-down on this AMD 780G motherboard that's paired with the AMD SB700 Southbridge. The A780GM-A boasts support for AMD Phenom processors, DDR2-1066 memory, PCI Express 2.0, and an HDMI port in addition to one VGA output.

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Quote: The 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 graphics card couples the power of two HD3870 GPUs on one card to provide the muscle necessary to smoothly drive today's games with ease. And if you are a player that insists on the absolute cutting edge and top notch performance at any cost you can take advantage of CrossFireX and use two of these cards in tandem.

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Since AMD bought ATI they have struggled to compete with NVIDIA for the performance crown. Instead they have chosen a different strategy by releasing GPU's that while still fast mainly compete by offering an excellent performance and features for a low price. The HD3870 GPU is no exception and today we are testing HIS interesting HIS HD 3870 IceQ 3 Turbo.

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ThinkComputers loves ThermalTake's lines of cooling supplies and cases. The company is known for its think of everything packaging and subtle stylishness of its products. ThermalTake provided ThinkComputers with a 650W version of its new ToughPower QFan line of power supply units. We expected this power supply to sputter when connected to our enthusiast-level gaming rig-the results of our testing are in the review.

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Today is the day where I try something a little different here in the Pro-Clocker lab. I will take some of the fastest DDR3 modules on the market and see how high I can get them to overclock. We are taking four sets of the highest quality DDR3 that are advertised at least 1800MHz from their respective manufacturers. OCZ, Super Talent, Patriot and Kingston were all nice enough to test samples for this mini roundup.

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When Coolink first notified me about the ChipChilla, the first thing I thought of was the reference NVIDIA 680i motherboard and how loud the stock chipset cooler is. Coolink advertises the ChipChilla as a solution for overheating Northbridge chipsets, and while it is true that a few of the current chipsets get very hot, they rarely overheat to the point of failure. It is not a coincidence that the chipsets that run hot are also the ones with very loud fans, opening the door for an aftermarket solution. Recently I tested the Coolink GFXChilla in our Mega 9-way VGA Cooler Roundup and found that the cooler performed very well for its size and that the unit was well made. The ChipChilla at first glance appears to follow the same lines as the GFXChilla, and the two when used in combination would add visual appeal to a system.

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This small device from Mitron allows you to switch between two different hard drives. Can be useful in some situations where you don't want one OS to see the other system. Also for family PC with one disk for the business and one for pleasure with no risk of virus infection from one to another. Lets take a closer look at this nifty product which fits in 3.5inch bay.

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The 9600GT from nVidia is a pretty decent GPU as far as the price/performance ratio is concerned and thus its no surprise to see many vendors jumping on it. Today we take a look at one such card by Leadtek modeled as WinFast PX9600 GT with 512MB RAM. Looking at its specifications, the PX9600 GT runs at stock speed as per nVidia's specifications with nothing overclocked.

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A couple of months ago, I read a post in a forum that stated: with an Intel processor you should use an Intel chipset, and have seen something similar nearly every day since, including today. I guess that I agreed with it, subconsciously if nothing else. Such was the distance that I had strayed from my roots in such a short time. Which is why when I was informed that I would be reviewing an LGA775 board with an nVidia chipset, I was a little apprehensive, and still am. Today I will be looking at the brand new Asus Striker II NSE motherboard. It is a full-featured DDR3 board for LGA775, utilizing the nVidia nForce 790i SLI chipset, belonging to Asus' ROG (Republic of Gamers) motherboard line. Will the Striker II NSE interrupt my current love affair with Intel chipsets? Read on to see...

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When NVIDIA released the G80 core in late 2006 the enthusiast world rejoiced. New levels of image quality were in reach with a single card that used to require two or more. The mainstream market anxiously awaited its share of the G80 love only to be disappointed by the lackluster 8600GT/GTS. Fastforward to last year when the world was given the G92 core. Even more peformance was to be had by enthusiasts willing to shell out the $250 or more it would take to enjoy the pleasure of gaming on a 8800GT/GTS 512. And the mainstream market waited. Only this time things would be a little different. This time the mainsteam market would not take a step back but a huge leap forward, in performance that is, not price. Finally, we were given the card that all of us could afford and not be ashamed to put in our forum sig. The 9600GT from NVIDIA was just that card. Offering levels of performance usually enjoyed by the bigger boys at a price we all can swallow placed this card into unknown t! erritory. As if that wasn't enough XFX got their hands on a few and cranked the heck out of the clocks even further. So I present to you the Alpha Dog 9600GT XXX from XFX. What could be better then having one of these cards in your rig? How about having two!?

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If you're in the market for a desktop replacement notebook, but don't want a glitzy gaming machine, you could do a lot worse than Toshiba's loaded Qosmio G45-AV690. Designed to be the central hub of a digital home, it sports a lot of media-centric features including an HD DVD burner, HDMI output and it even comes with a digital cable adapter too. Sadly, it has bloatware issues and one of its primary features is its HD DVD playback capabilities, which is essentially outdated tech at this point, making it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend.

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One result of the SC 34 meeting was an open letter, signed by 30 members, which read: "We the undersigned participants at this SC 34 meeting wish to make it clear that we deplore the personal attacks that have been made during the [OOXML] standardisation project in recent months. We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree. We call on all organisations and individuals involved in SC 34 standardisation to support this view, and to refrain from initiating or engaging in any such personal attacks."

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The most notable change in GIMP 2.5 happened under the hood. The color tools in GIMP have been ported to GEGL. This does not yet have much impact on the user experience but it is a first and important step forward. With full GEGL integration GIMP will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing.

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Yahoo! Inc. , a leading global Internet company, announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.'s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!'s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!'s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

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It has been a long time since I last reviewed a Logitech product. CES has come and gone and with the show brought some interesting items. One such item that Logitech was showing was the diNovo Mini which is targeted to media center PCs like those provided by MythTV. The diNovo Mini was released a few weeks ago and it is the spotlight in this review.

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What happens when you need a full size case for a new build? Maybe you want the extra space for additional cooling or hardware support. Look no futher than the Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS. We already know that Thermaltake is a big player in the cases and modding market. This case certainly fits its name. It is big, heavy, and tough.

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Honeywell produces many different types of products in the consumer and enterprise market. It was just some time ago that SOYO partnered with Honeywell to produce a new line of consumer electronics and out of that agreement comes the newest LCD monitor from Honeywell: The ARIUS 22" HWLM2216. ASE Labs is proud to be the first site to review this monitor.

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It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.

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There are quite a few products available nowadays that allow you to display and capture over-the-air High Definition television content to your home computer or laptop. While the number of choices are plentiful, most of them are designed for those outside the confines of the United States. The reason for this is simple; the US tends to lag far behind other parts of the world when it comes to transmitting high-def signals over the air. With the inevitable transition toward digital broadcasting due to federal laws getting ready to take place early next year, this trend is finally changing. With this thought in mind, AutumnWave has come forward to address this new market need. They are a US based company founded in 2005 and at the time of this writing, their entire consumer product line is designed for mobile television devices.

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If you've got a Home Theater PC (HTPC), you know how awkward it can be keeping a full-sized keyboard lying around your living room. Logitech feels your pain, and has come up with a miniature wireless keyboard that doesn't take up much space but offers full control over any PC from up to 30 feet away. Its touchpad is a bit sensitive and you won't be typing a term paper on it, but for 99% of HTPC control tasks the diNovo Mini works wonderfully and is one of the most well-designed controllers we've ever tested. If you have a Playstation 3, the diNovo Mini works well with that system too.

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Like other Crucial Ballistix Tracer memory the Crucial Ballistix Red PC2-6400 4GB Memory Kit looks amazing, compatible, reliable, stable and overclockable. Crucial has always impressed me with their prompt service and memory support. Of all the memory I've reviewed it's by far the most compatible, which is fundamental when choosing memory.

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Today I will reviewing the Thermaltake Silent Water and am curious to know what has changed since my Aquarius III review in 2005 and indeed much has changed. Installation and ease of use has really been improved and is worlds apart since the Aquarius III. It no longer is complex as it was in the past.

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CPU cooling has always been important for the overclocker, but due to dual and quad cores it's becoming increasingly important for the casual user too. Water cooling and phase change are both great ways of cooling a CPU; however the extremes of these methods are both very expensive and can be rather risky. This is the reason why Air Cooling is still used today, though don't label it as boring, air cooling has changed dramatically over the past 3 years. Today I will be looking at the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 which features anti-vibration rubber and a 120mm 'quiet' fan. So lets take this cooler out for a spin and see how well it performs....

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The release of the video enabled iPod has been wonderful for travelers. However, sometimes one may want to watch the video on their iPod on a full screen. Luckily, the USBFever people have the solution for this situation. The iPod AV Cable allows one to use the iPod Video to play videos on any RCA composite enable monitor. With this cable, you can hold a video stores worth of movies in your palm and enjoy them on a TV or monitor. Unfortunately, Apple has modified the video out on the newer iPod Classic and third gen iPod Nano, so this cable is unable to output video with these iPods.

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The Thermaltake DuOrb CPU cooler is by far one of the most interesting looking CPU coolers on the market today. With a true Dual-Flow design it uses the system air flow to cool down surrounding temperatures and helps dissipate the heat of CPU, RAM, VRM, North Bridge, and the back of VGA card. The Thermaltake DuOrb CPU cooler gets testing on an Intel Core 2 Quad today, so read on to see if this new offering from Thermaltake can live up to its heritage.

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Several years ago in a thread posted within a storage section of a popular forum, I learned of the fabled RAM Drive. This was several years before the GIGABYTE product of the same name, back when using memory as a storage device was more of a fable, or story of myth. At the time, no one had ever actually seen a RAM Drive, or at least not anyone tooling around in forums. This wasn't because they didn't exist, it is just that they cost more than a Honda Civic. Today we will be looking at the future of hard drives. Mechanical is on its way out, and with it rotational latency. Moving at the speed of electrons is in, near instant access times and faster loading screens are on the way.

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We're real people, and we hate spam just as much, if not more than you do. We *really* do not want to send you mail you do not wish to receive, and we apologize if we have been doing so against your wishes. Your continuing subscription to this mailing list is completely voluntary, and you may remove yourself at any time. The following information is a summary of your current mailing list subscription:

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Does that processor of yours that you just bought not too long ago seem like it is lacking in power trying to run the latest games and applications? Many people will answer yes to this question, and many PC enthusiasts will turn to overclocking in order to extend the performance life of their computer. With the added performance that is gained by overclocking, another gain is seen as well; heat. In order to keep your freshly overclocked CPU cool under its new settings, looking into aftermarket coolers should be your next step. OEM cooling solutions typically work great for stock speeds and maybe even a slight overclock, but for those users looking to gain the most from their CPU, an aftermarket cooler is definitely in order. Luckily, Arctic Cooling has provided us with their Freezer 7 Pro for Socket 775 processors to see how it holds up to the extra heat gained from overclocking.

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When AMD introduced the 3850 graphics card, it came bundled with 256MB of RAM which is a bit on the lower side for games that come out nowadays. Granted the 3850 is targeted as a mid-range card, it still pumps out pretty decent performance so a higher frame buffer could help. Today we look at the 3850 solution from AMD's biggest partner when it comes to graphics cards- the Sapphire HD3850 card with a frame buffer of 512MB.

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Overclocking these days is great; while many years ago it used to be reserved for only the most knowledgeable of computer enthusiasts, these days with so many software programs out there, overclocking can literally be done by anyone. The overclocking card of choice today is the 9800 GTX which has been out for just over a week. While out of the box the performance is pretty good, if we can get a bit more for nothing then we're not exactly going to complain. Since we already know about the 9800 GTX, let's just get stuck straight into the test system setup and have a look at the clocks we achieved.

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The drive seems to be a Western Digital AV GP hard drive, AV being Audio Visual, GP being Green Power. One spec conspicuously absent was drive rotational speed. Since Western Digital seems to have gone out of their way to omit this I would imagine that the drive is spinning at something less than 7200 RPM. Will this have a major impact on performance? The answer to that question is coming up soon in a later section.

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A laser pulse fired at a piece of material like aluminium briefly heats it to millions of degrees Celsius and raises its pressure to about 1 billion times that at sea level on Earth, similar to the extreme conditions inside gas giants and brown dwarfs. The experiments could help scientists learn how easily this exotic matter conducts electricity, which could shed light on the magnetic fields produced by the objects. The experiments could also help scientists better understand gamma-ray bursts. Some scientists say the extremely high temperatures present in gamma-ray bursts should lead to the production of antimatter, a phenomenon that might be replicated by the Texas Petawatt Laser. "It's surmised that we can actually create a small amount of matter-antimatter plasma in the lab with the petawatt laser," Ditmire says.

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The price of beer is likely to rise in coming decades because climate change will hamper the production of a key grain needed for the brew - especially in Australia, a scientist warned Tuesday. Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said climate change likely will cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a key ingredient of beer.

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On a percentage basis, this number is still below what Intel announced to cut as part of its massive restructuring that began in 2006. Including sold departments, Intel so far has eliminated more than 16,000 people from its payroll (which is, by the way, also close to our initial prediction and more than 50% above Intel’s original guidance). According to its annual report, Intel employed about 86,300 people at the end of December 2007, down from about 102,500 18 months earlier.

AMD also announced that it expects Q1 2008 revenue to be about $1.5 billion, up 22% from Q1 2007, but down 15% from Q4 2007. A decline is to be expected because of the seasonal pattern, but 15% is probably much more than most financial analysts would have expected. AMD said that the steep decline is due to "lower than expected sales across all business segments." A loss for the quarter now appears to be all but certain and the question will be how high this loss will be. Based on its 2007 cost structure and the product and financial information provided by the company last year, we estimated in October 2007 that AMD would have to post sales of about $2 billion per quarter to deliver a profit.

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Our Board has reviewed your most recent letter with regard to the unsolicited proposal you made to acquire Yahoo! on January 31, 2008.

Our Board carefully considered your unsolicited proposal, unanimously concluded that it was not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders, and rejected it publicly on February 11, 2008. Our Board cited Yahoo!'s global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as its substantial unconsolidated investments, as factors in its decision.

At the same time, we have continued to make clear that we are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders. Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo!, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders.

Since disclosing our Board's position with respect to your proposal, we have presented our three-year financial and strategic plan to our stockholders, which supports our Board's determination that your unsolicited proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!. Those meetings with our stockholders have also provided us an opportunity to hear their views.

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Recently, it has been observed that Comcast is disrupting TCP connections using forged TCP reset (RST) packets [1]. These reset packets were originally targeted at TCP connections associated with the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. However, Comcast has stated that they are transitioning to a more "protocol neutral" traffic shaping approach [2]. We have recently observed this shift in policy, and have collected network traffic traces to demonstrate the behavior of their traffic shaping. In particular, we are able (during peak usage times) to synthetically generate a relatively large number of TCP reset packets aimed at any new TCP connection regardless of the application-level protocol. Surprisingly, this traffic shaping even disrupts normal web browsing and e-mail applications. Specifically, we observe two different types of packet forgery and packets being discarded.

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"There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger, but this very much depended on personality type," said team leader Jane Barnett from Middlesex University. "This will help us develop an emotion and gaming questionnaire to distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life." Barnett's paper was presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in Dublin.

• How Fast is Linux Developed and Released?
  An average of 3,621 lines of code are added to the kernel tree every day, and a new kernel is released approximately every 2.7 months.
  The kernel, since 2005, has been growing at a steady state of 10 percent per year.
• Who is Writing Linux?
  Every Linux kernel is being developed by nearly 1,000 developers working for more than 100 different corporations. This is the foundation for the largest distributed software development project in the world.
  Since 2005, the number of active kernel developers has tripled, reflecting the growing importance of Linux in the embedded systems, server, and desktop markets.
  Between 70 and 95 percent of those developers are being paid for their work, dispelling the “hobbyist” myth present from the start of open source development.

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What happens when you need a full size case for a new build? Maybe you want the extra space for additional cooling or hardware support. Look no futher than the Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS. We already know that Thermaltake is a big player in the cases and modding market. This case certainly fits its name. It is big, heavy, and tough.

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Honeywell produces many different types of products in the consumer and enterprise market. It was just some time ago that SOYO partnered with Honeywell to produce a new line of consumer electronics and out of that agreement comes the newest LCD monitor from Honeywell: The ARIUS 22" HWLM2216. ASE Labs is proud to be the first site to review this monitor.

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It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.

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Remember that the Tracer series from Crucial is very mature. I even reviewed the original set of black modules last year. These new red modules mark a trend in computing that Crucial is good to follow. The fact of the matter is that people like personalization. I'm guilty of that myself. I know that these modules are hardly better than the normal Ballistix breed, but the fact that it is red and has lights adds something of value to people. Red is my favorite color and I would naturally gravitate to these in a computer I would build.

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With games getting more and more demanding, the amount of frame buffer available to the GPU has been on a continuous rise. However, as we saw in the ASUS 8800GT-1GB article, it doesn't always help to equip your VGA card with more RAM than the reference design of a manufacturer. Today, we see MSI going down that road with their 1GB version of the 9600GT graphics card.

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Despite the fact that DDR3 has a slightly better performance and consumes less power compared to DDR2, it is still hard to recommend DDR3 unless you have a huge chunk of money to spend. For a far less price, one can purchase 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 instead of the more expensive 2GB (1X1GB) of DDR3. Not only is DDR3 so much more expensive compared to DDR2, in real-world, you would hardly see a major performance increase using DDR3. Of course, this could all change in the very near future as DDR3's price will drop with more motherboards on the pipeline supporting it and manufacturers ramping up the production. Until then, DDR2 is still a better choice to buy. That is why we are seeing many memory manufacturers still not giving up the DDR2 and releasing higher performance DDR2. A month or two ago, OCZ the released DDR2 PC2-8500 Reaper HPC 4GB Edition. This is one of the highest clock speed 4GB DDR2 that is available on the market. Today, join us as we put this memory to the test.

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Notebook mice are getting more and more popular. They offer 100% of the functionality of a standard mouse, but have it all packed into a smaller package. In addition, seeing that most laptop buyers are consumers that like to be unplugged and free to roam (hence why you buy a laptop), it is only common sense that a wireless mouse would make a smart purchase.

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Gigabyte was nice enough to send us two motherboards, one based on the P35 and the other the X38. We wanted to see how much better it really is over the P35 purely based on benchmarks and overclocking. Not to give the whole review away in the introduction, but I was really surprised with the GA-EX38-DS4 as it took our E8400 to a whole new level.

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Corsair is best known for its memory products-DIMMs and flash-but it has a solid line of power supply units, as well. The company sent ThinkComputers its TX750, a 750W unit with a single 60A 12V rail-powerful enough for a GeForce 8800 GTX. While non-modular, the cables are sleeved and have quick-release connectors. We tested this device with a five-year warranty-results within.

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ASUS has created a huge wave in the sub-notebook & portable Internet device markets with their Eee PC. Sub-notebooks are normally wonderfully exotic looking hardware for delightfully high prices. Well, exotic until one looks at the specs. The MacBook air is a great example - it looks like a killer machine until one looks at the combination of the lackluster specs and a price that makes even the most enthusiastic Mac fan blush. As for portable Internet devices, the Nokia N series is the first that comes to mind. Granted, they are really fantastic machines with excellent screens and software, but I am a bit old school I suppose. I still want a real keyboard. The Nokia N810 is close, but like my HTC TyTN, the keyboard is good for casual data entry and not suitable for long sessions of messaging, IRC or typing out documents or spreadsheets. The Nokia and other portable devices tend to also be pretty light on specifications, unless one is willing to pay the obscene price that OQO wants for their sub-sub-notebook.

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The Samsung CLP-610ND is an affordable option to the high end CLP-650 and a great replacement to the lifeless CLP-300. Priced at $150.00 more than the CLP-300, you won't be disappointed in what you pay for. First off, you get built in network capability. This is a must have for any business! The second and more important aspect of the CLP-610ND is the quality and speed of each print job. The self-calibration increases some print jobs but ensures you get top quality every time. At 21 pages per minute, you can have your report in your boss' hand in no time.

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Less than a week ago we pushed out the first public release of the Phoronix Test Suite. This GPLv3 Linux benchmarking software had received a great deal of interest, but v0.1 did have a few bugs and a number of uncompleted features. Yesterday though we pushed out version 0.2 of the Phoronix Test Suite with a number of improvements, new benchmarking profiles, and other changes. In addition to noting some of the improvements made in this release, there are also other Phoronix Test Suite highlights to share from this past week.

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If you've recently found yourself thinking that you might just bite the bullet and buy a new high-end graphics card, news last week that new models from NVIDIA could be coming as soon as July may make you rethink that decision. The day before the 9800GTX was officially unveiled, rumors started to leak that NVIDIA was already preparing a new line-up of high-end cards under the 9900 naming scheme, and that the 9800 series would be discontinued in July. With NVIDIA moving onto the CPU market in the near future, you have to wonder if the strategy will be the same when they continue to battle AMD and the even stronger Intel. If you really sit back and take a look at the big picture, you can see why consoles are so popular these days.

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In this review we take a closer look at the latest product from Gainward, based on the recently released 9800 GTX we compare the BLISS' performance in several games, and find out how cool and quiet this new high end video card is. Read on to learn more.

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If you're looking for a 9600GT, the chances are we can give you a pretty good idea of which one to get. We get a lot of samples, but the 9600GT would have to be one product that we've received over and over again from different companies who are mixing it up with big clocks and bigger coolers. The latest 9600GT to make its way into the labs is from ASUS and carries with it some stock clocks, but also has a mean looking cooler that we've seen before. We've been happy with the 9600GT ever since its interception, and it's managed to receive a number of awards. Let's see if ASUS can impress us with their incarnation of the card.

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* Over the last few years, a lot more attention has been paid to power supplies, and their ever important role of giving our prized possessions the juice they need to run as pain free as possible. However, not only have companies been tempting our wallets with excellent rail stability and high efficiencies, they've also touted the low noise levels of their units. The PSU I have with me today sports a large, slow spinning fan and with near silence being one of it's main features. I'll be interested to see how much it can actually reduce my rig's noise levels by.

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Nexus HXR-5500 Memory Heat pipe Cooler. A long name for such a simple product. But it's simplicity also makes it cheaper and I like the look of it as well. Again Nexus used Heat pipes to help cool down in this case the memory. The HXR-5500 is basically a large platter of aluminum stuck to the side of your memory along with a heat pipe to cool it more efficiently and therefore give it more over clocking capabilities.

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A new company to us here at Pro-Clockers is Eagle Tech. Browsing around their site we see they are active in cooling, speakers, power supplies and storage. Storage is why we are here today as Eagle Tech has sent us their ET-CSIU2J-BK JBOD External Storage Enclosure. This unit utilizes the JBOD standard and a very interesting front bezel. The enclosure houses two SATA drives and plugs into the PC via the USB port.

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Today I will be looking at the Asus P5K Pro, a DDR2 P35 board. Though the X38 boards have been out a while, and the X48 boards are finally hitting the market, the P35 chipset is still very popular, with its maturity and excellent performance. The P5K Pro is an economy-minded board, filling in the fairly sizable gap between the P5K Deluxe and the stripped down P5K SE. How will the P5K Pro size up against its big brother? Read on to see...

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Most HTPC users will find that there are only a limited number of CPU coolers available to use in most HTPC cases because of their smaller size. OrigenAE created the C10 to help fill that void. The C10 has three U-shaped copper heatpipes that come in direct contact with the CPU, and 35 aluminum fins behind a standard size 70mm fan.

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While there were whispers of the 8800GS in the background, it was never really one of those cards that got much attention. Everyone was too busy concentrating on the 8800GT and new 8800GTS 512MB card to really pay much attention to it. ASUS are only one of two companies in Australia who have an 8800GS on the market here. The only other company who chose to take up the card and release it locally was XFX. The card seems to be a bit of a weird model and we're not too sure where it will sit. The card should sit behind a 8800GT, but the 9600GT also sits just behind it. It's possible that both cards perform quite similar and companies chose to uptake the 9 series model over the ageing 8800 series.

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Helio is one of the few indie phone operators around, and the Mysto is the latest in its line of stylish, youth-oriented units. It is lightweight and multimedia friendly, but some will find it too focused on next-gen features and not friendly enough for day-to-day, mundane tasks like quick calls..

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At first glance this memory is very impressive and it's doesn't just stop at great looks. At PC3-10666 speeds the memory can generate a fair amount of heat. Thankfully the heatpipe/heatsink combo used works extremely well and it allows the modules to remain cool. Of course excellent case ventilation is required for it to work to its full potential.

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MSI laptops are becoming more popular with good reason, offering excellent performance at competitive prices. Their latest gaming laptop comes with retro style Turbo button which overclocks the CPU on the fly. Equipped with 8600M GT and 2Gb ram this multimedia power house aims to impress.

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Gateway has recently revamped its FX line of gaming desktops - internally at least. Though it looks the same as other older FX machines we've seen from Gateway, this one is easily the most powerful Gateway ever assembled, and even includes a factory-overclocked quad-core processor running at a steamy 3.66GHz. Though its performance is generally excellent, we think Gateway has pushed this machine's CPU a bit too much, as the BTX induction fan is way too loud and we were able to make it blue screen on cue. It's also puzzling to us why Gateway builds

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With Soho, the researchers were only able to take images in the upper section of the corona - the outer part of the Sun’s atmosphere. Stereo's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI) instruments monitor the Sun at four wavelengths, which allowed astronomers to see how the wave moved through the different layers of the solar atmosphere. "We were able to show for the first time that this wave actually propagates almost all the way from the surface of the Sun to high up in the Sun's atmosphere," said Dr Gallagher.

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The group, led by Jane Greaves of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, found the 100,000-year-old fetal planet about 520 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. "The new object, designated HL Tau b, is the youngest planetary object ever seen," said Anita Richards, an astronomer at the U.K. Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. Richards, who worked with Greaves' team to describe the infant planet, said it's just 1 percent as old as the young planet found in orbit around the star TW Hydrae last year. "We see a distinct orbiting ball of gas and dust, which is exactly how a very young protoplanet should look," Greaves said, noting the far-younger planet should take on a Jupiter-like essence in millions of years.

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Honeywell produces many different types of products in the consumer and enterprise market. It was just some time ago that SOYO partnered with Honeywell to produce a new line of consumer electronics and out of that agreement comes the newest LCD monitor from Honeywell: The ARIUS 22" HWLM2216. ASE Labs is proud to be the first site to review this monitor.

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It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.

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Remember that the Tracer series from Crucial is very mature. I even reviewed the original set of black modules last year. These new red modules mark a trend in computing that Crucial is good to follow. The fact of the matter is that people like personalization. I'm guilty of that myself. I know that these modules are hardly better than the normal Ballistix breed, but the fact that it is red and has lights adds something of value to people. Red is my favorite color and I would naturally gravitate to these in a computer I would build.

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Even though my previous reviews on Kingston Technology products were about their flash division, Kingston still is very much an enthusiast RAM company. Their HyperX series now comes in DDR3 at very high speeds. While DDR3 is still very new, Kingston offers a kit that runs at a scathing PC3-14400 which is 1800MHz DDR. The KHX14400D3K2 is on the bench for review.

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OCZ Technology has certainly had an impressive array of USB flash drives over the past few years, but they haven't stopped there. OCZ is continuing to revise their flash drive series and their most recently example of that is the Rally 2 Turbo. We found the original OCZ Rally to be fast, but the Rally 2 Turbo claims to take data transferring to incredible new heights with its latest dual-channel technology offering up to 35MB/s reads and 30MB/s writes. Like the original Rally, the Rally 2 Turbo is encased inside an aluminum chassis and comes with a lifetime warranty.

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We have taken a look at a lot of LCD monitors here at ThinkComputers. While most of them are adequate for all scenarios, none of them have been dubbed as gaming monitors. Well the ASUS PG221 is dubbed as a gaming monitor and we can see why just by looking at the specs, a 2000:1 contrasts ratio, 2ms response time, and all the connections you want on a LCD. Not only does it have these features it also has a 15W bass speaker, built-in webcam, touch-sensitive controls, and a cool lighting effect. It seems the PG221 has everything any gamer or consumer alike would want. Let's see if we can find anything wrong with it.

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Tuniq, a leader in CPU cooling has sent us over a HDD cooler that will do both of the above mentioned solutions. Tuniq is showing they are more than CPU cooling. The Sanctum is a full enclosure cooler that intends to cool down that ultra fast hard drive of yours. The cool thing about the Sanctum is that it is a passive cooler so it won't add to the noise of the hard drive it is trying to cool. But is it enough to warrant paying $22 from Newegg? Lets check it out.

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With only a few warts, the positives outweigh the negatives. I love the look and solid feel of the case and the cooling performance is actually quite good and silent. The quick disconnect fan is a very innovative idea that I wouldn't mind seeing used in other cases. The tool less feature in the case, 5.25 bays, are really easy to use and hold the hardware solidly in place. While a purely personal opinion, I think the case has a clean and elegant look to it that would fit in any office or room. In the end Silverstone has a solid case, but could use a boost in a few areas.

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ATI partners have brought their HD3870X2 products to their market for quite some time now, we compared the performance of samples from Jetway and HIS, unfortunately the results are not as encouraging, CrossFire can be a blessing or a curse depending on the games used. If you wonder what the other sides of the medallion looks like... keep on reading.

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Intels fastest dual core CPU is the 45 nm Core 2 Duo E8500 which is clocked at 3,16 GHz using a multiplier of 9.5. This microprocessor is a very good choice for gamers and we compared its performance to eleven other dual and quad core CPUs.

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Well here I am again finding myself locked in the iBuyPower bunker with more graphics cards than I can poke a stick at. Alongside three 9800 GTX graphics cards we also have two 9800 GX2s all ready to go into the funky water cooled system that we've been provided with today. With Tri SLI drivers in hand, more benchmarks than we had last time and some Dominos Pizza and Dickens Energy Cider, we're ready to get stuck into the wonderful world of expensive VGA setups which is overkill for most of us, but still wanted oh so badly.

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The Seagate FreeAgent Pro is among many other current external hard drives. Its sleek design will help keep your desktop clutter free. Available in 320GB, 500GB, 750GB, and 1000GB capacities and supporting USB, eSATA, and dual FireWire 400 there is quite a number of drives to choose from for your liking. The touch sensitive power points and included AutoBackup software help the FreeAgent Pro stick out from the crowd of other devices. Let's take a further look at this external hard drive.

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It's been a while since we've seen anything from Albatron. That's about to change though, as today we have with us the 9600GT. The thing that's particularly exciting about the Albatron 9600GT is that it really follows nothing but the reference design, including the core and memory clock. Why would we be excited about this? - The thing is, we've looked at so many 9600GT cards since launch and every single model has carried with it an overclock. We're not complaining, but we haven't actually had a chance to look at the 9600GT in its stock form, and it will really be interesting to see how it fairs.

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Earlier this month we took a look at the NVIDIA Quadro FX1700, which is one of NVIDIA's mid-range workstation graphics cards that boasts 512MB of video memory, support for CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), OpenGL 2.1, and the power consumption for this PCI Express graphics card is less than 50 Watts. In the tests that followed, the FX1700 had performed quite well at the workstation-oriented SPECViewPerf benchmark and we had compared its Ubuntu Linux performance to Solaris Express and Microsoft Windows Vista. The NVIDIA Linux driver with the FX1700 had the best performance and it ended up being a nice graphics card for around $500 USD. Today we are looking at the NVIDIA Linux workstation performance once again but this time it's on the mobile front with the Quadro NVS 140M, which can be found in a number of business notebooks including the Lenovo ThinkPad T61.

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Intel originally planned for the X38 chipset to be the big kahuna for the Core 2 platform, but unfortunately its extremely poor overclocking, heat generation and lack of support for the 1600MHz FSB made Intel go back and bring up a new chipset. X48 however is not actually a new chipset, rather a hand picked X38 silicon that works at higher FSB clock speeds along with a lower voltage draw than that of the X38. But this also means it carries a premium with it, thus Intel decided to give it X48 naming. To date we have already tested the MSI X48 Platinum motherboard based on the new DDR3 version of the X48 chipset, and today we have our second DDR3 supporting X48 from ASUS. We used this same board in our DES Vs. EPU article, that being the P5E3 Premium WiFi. How well does it stack up? Let's take it for a spin and see.

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At the heart of our Palit GeForce 8800 GTS 1GB Sonic graphics card is the G92 core clocked at 730 MHz which is a generous step up from the 650MHz that comes on most GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB cards. Not only does our card have double the memory, it's clocked higher than the standard 512MB cards as well, coming in at 2100MHz versus 1940MHz for the standard card. After a bit of testing different speeds we overclocked our cards up to 760MHz core, and 2250MHz memory clock frequencies. While this isn't a huge increase it is still an impressive 30MHz core and 150MHz memory increase over an already substantial overclock...

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Case lighting has definitely come a long way. In the early days, any and all case lighting involved a drill, soldering iron, some knowledge of electronics, and an attempt to find something that would work in a case that was originally beige. Today, it is pretty hard to find something new and unique, nearly everything one could imagine has already been done, but the guys at CoolJagUSA have come up with a really cool item, programmable LED marquee fans. Program a message to be displayed on your case fan.

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Barriers are meant to be broken. As capacities have increased and prices fallen, each company wants those bragging rights of having the biggest, or at least the fastest. We put three 1TB hard drives through the paces - Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 and Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 (ST3100340AS) as well as their Barracuda ES.2 (ST31000340NS). Which one will come out on top?

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While the 9800 series of cards from NVIDIA might be the talk of the town at the moment, there's no denying that the 9600GT is more in line with most people's budgets when it comes to buying a graphics card. The latest 9600GT to make its way into the labs comes in the form of a Foxconn which manages to carry quite a hefty overclock on its stock cooler. We've seen a lot of 9600GTs come through, and most have managed to show us something that has impressed us.

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Sennheiser creates some of the best audiophile headphones you can buy, but they also manufacture professional headsets for the aviation industry that feature an active noise-canceling technology dubbed NoiseGard. Today we'll take a look at a pair of their high-end consumer headphones, the PXC 450, that includes the same NoiseGard technology as used in some of the professional aviation models.

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Quote: Configuring the Patriot Viper Series 2GB PC3-12800 DDR3 memory kit was extremely easy, which made getting up and running at over 1600MHz and 7-7-7-18 timings even more enjoyable. It usually takes some tweaking to get the test system stable at such elevated frequencies, but this kit was pretty much plug and play.

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It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.

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Remember that the Tracer series from Crucial is very mature. I even reviewed the original set of black modules last year. These new red modules mark a trend in computing that Crucial is good to follow. The fact of the matter is that people like personalization. I'm guilty of that myself. I know that these modules are hardly better than the normal Ballistix breed, but the fact that it is red and has lights adds something of value to people. Red is my favorite color and I would naturally gravitate to these in a computer I would build.

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Even though my previous reviews on Kingston Technology products were about their flash division, Kingston still is very much an enthusiast RAM company. Their HyperX series now comes in DDR3 at very high speeds. While DDR3 is still very new, Kingston offers a kit that runs at a scathing PC3-14400 which is 1800MHz DDR. The KHX14400D3K2 is on the bench for review.

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Kingston Technology produces all kinds of memory including RAM for a computer to flash memory. Kingston is pushing harder and harder into the consumer flash market. Kingston sent over their high speed SD flash memory for review and the SD2/2GB-U is really fast.

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We like the HD 3870 X2; generally speaking it gets good gains at high resolutions in most applications we test. The single PCB design is leaps and bounds ahead of the original dual GPU offering from NVIDIA under the 7900 naming scheme. We've seen pictures of the HD 3870 X2 from ASUS before, but now it's our chance to get down and dirty with it to see if it's worth spending the extra money the ASUS cards generally carry with them. The ASUS bundles on a whole are pretty good and give you everything you would expect out of a high-end card. You do pay a premium for ASUS cards which give you little extras like the CD Wallet and a more recent game.

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One positive result with the release of new graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA is that older models usually drop in price. AMD's first DirectX 10 card, the HD2900XT might no longer be the fastest card out there but it still packs a lot of punch. While it works well it has two faults: the card runs quite hot and the fan is pretty loud. Arctic Cooling has the solution for this problem. The Accelero Xtreme 2900 promises not only to cool the GPU more than 20C lower than the stock cooler but also make the card run much more silent.

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It seems like it was just yesterday that I bought my first discrete graphics card to outfit an overclocked Cyrix M2-300 6x86MX-based computer. Back in those Windows 98 (first edition) days of 1998 the term GeForce wasn't even in existence yet, and NVIDIA was called referred to as nVidia. So when I bought my first computer late that year, I would have never thought Quake II played on my RIVA TNT2 AGP video card would mark the last time I would spend money in an arcade. This was nearly ten years ago and since that time NVIDIA has developed several successful GeForce product lines, including the newly launched 9th generation.

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Earlier this year Kingston released the DataTraveler HyperX series USB drives which are available in three different capacities: 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB. This is by far the fastest USB drive Kingston has produced with transfer rates of 30mb/s read and 20mb/s write. It not only has fast transfer rates, but fast access times as well. The HyperX is enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost and comes with a 5 year warranty. Read on further to see how well this USB drive puts out.

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Just as DDR2 went through a maturation process, DDR3 is finally beginning to realize its promise. And with kits from the top contenders already pushing the 2GHz barrier, those looking (and who can afford) to make the jump from DDR2 to DDR3 are taking notice. Up to this point, many scoffed at the idea of spending several hundred dollars upgrading to a DDR3 based system, and for good reason. DDR2 compatible motherboards based on INTEL's P35 or NVIDIA's 680i have, for the most part, served their masters well. Coupled with the retail pricing landslide that's grabbed hold of DDR2 chips in recent months, yesterday's builds have clung to life longer than many in the industry could have predicted, or hoped.

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Quote: NVIDIA has done a great job with Quad-SLI and with some driver improvements it should only get better. The XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards running in a quad-SLI showed increased performance in every application we tested versus a single GeForce 9800 GX2, which is something that can not be said about the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 as they had some driver issues on Tomb Raider: Anniversary. We almost didn't include Tomb Raider: Anniversary in our testing, but our two store-bought DVD versions of Bioshock say they have been installed too many times, so this game was a last minute addition...

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This is the first card we've seen from VVIKOO, and what a card it is. Expecting nothing more than a reference design I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box to discover just how cool this 9600GT is. With the VVIKOO 9600GT in hand and its mammoth clocks, it's time to see how it fairs against the competition in this price bracket. The 8800GT sits slightly more expensive while the HD 3870 sits at around the same price.

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Quote: With the current predictions that flash and Dram prices will stay low or go even lower there is no reason not to own several good sized flash drives. These devices are ultra portable and ultra useful. If you are a student, business owner, or office worker then you will surely find a use for flash memory. Jason Dumbaugh takes the OCZ Rally 2 drive for a plug and play experience and shares with you the real speed and value of this portable device.

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For those users out there that are constantly swapping around parts, Thermaltake introduces the BlacX HDD Docking Station. This USB 2.0 device is a variation of a hard drive enclosure that lets the user plug a bare drive into an opening on top, and then eject the drive with a push of a button. The BlacX is so simple and easy to use, anyone with extra drives laying around should think about picking one of these up.

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This product combines some the best features of gaming mice with a trigger attachment to give a new and unique experience to FPS games. I have to admit, using a trigger instead of a mouse button is a lot of fun and making the transition was not as awkward as I anticipated.

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When you think of Noctua, you generally think of cooling. After all, these folks have been in the business of making cooling solutions for quite some time. Taking this into consideration, it should come as no surprise to see this Austrian company getting involved in the TIM race. After all, what good is a high-end cooler without a quality material to work as an intermediary? Of course, getting into the middle of a heated market of thermal interface material could prove a challenge. There have been many newcomers hitting the streets with their own special goop and most have sent the vaunted Arctic Silver compound to the curb, so we will need to see if the cooling specialists at Noctua can keep up, or even surpass, the other guys.

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If you are in the market for a high-end graphics card and have the budget for the $600 price tag, the PNY 9800 GX2 is a great option. After all the testing was done, my second round with a PNY 9800 GX2 reaffirmed what I found the first time out with the XFX branded card. The 9800 GX2 is one beast of a graphics card. The PNY 9800 GX2 is able to play games at settings unobtainable with any two other video cards.

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* *The CNPS9700 NT was easily able to keep up with some of the best Air-Coolers we've tested. At idle speeds it was able to be as cool as the best, but fell back a couple degrees on the full load scores. Still, this cooler is pretty much top's when comparing to the others and is a great choice for someone looking for a quiet cooler that performs very well.*

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A few weeks ago I got this email with the request if I'd wanted to check out a programmable led fan. Sure I said, and a couple of days later it was in the mail ready to be checked out. As it's been a while since we've looked at anything really mod related, it was refreshing to see something like this. It's probably the most expensive fan you've ever seen, but is it worth the dough?. What we are looking at today is the CoolJag

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Quote: While a 1GB dual channel DDR2 kit might be a tough sell considering the demands of operating systems like Windows Vista and the extremely low prices on 2GB and 4GB kits, the Aeneon XTUNE 1GB DDR2-1066 Dual Channel Memory Kit did perform well. The speeds and timings are competitive with many kits from other brands, and the performance was quite respectable.

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The first motherboard on AMD 780G to be tested in our lab is a full-size ATX motherboard, which reminds of the popular Gigabyte M55plus-S3G, Gigabyte MA69G-S3, and MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital. This product starts a new Black Series aimed for users in need of a functional and upgradeable basis for an all-purpose PC.

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It feels weird to have done four articles on the 9800 GX2 without having actually had a look at a single retail card yet. The first retail card to come out of the gates comes in the form of a ZOTAC offering. With the latest WHQL driver in hand, the 174.53, we're going to see how the GX2 holds up against the direct competition, the HD 3870 X2 from AMD.

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Last year AMD introduced the flagship 790 Chipset series as part of their Spider Platform for use with the Phenom processors and Radeon HD 3800 graphics. Until earlier this month when AMD introduced the 780 Series, missing was any chipset with integrated graphics capabilities supporting these first AMD quad-core processors. Now we have AMD's 780G and 780V Chipsets, which are designed to be the mainstream solutions to the 790FX, but they pack the best integrated graphics processor (IGP) ever created by the combined ATI/AMD engineering talent. Since its launch at the CeBIT trade show, the AMD 780G has received rave reviews for its vehement performance due to its graphics core that's derived from the AMD RV610. The benchmarks available on launch day were only for Microsoft Windows operating systems, but this morning we have the Radeon HD 3200 Linux results from the AMD 780G. Is this IGP a crown jewel on Linux?

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It may come as a surprise to some, but graphics cards aren't always just about getting the best frames per second. Home theater, fileserver, and other specialized PCs may never see a game but in most cases they still need a video card to operate. And of course that is leaving out the surprisingly large number of PC users that simply do not play videogames (I've been told such people do exist).

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Last week we have reviewed a motherboard based on the Intels latest chipset for enthusiasts, X48. Nvidia closely monitored the launch of Intels new chipset and decided to take on it with its own high-end chipset for Intelss processors, nForce 790i Ultra SLI. New chipset brings support for DDR3 memory, 3-Way SLI, 1600FSB and all 45nm Penryn-based processors. Finally.

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ASUS is one of the most well-known motherboard manufacturers. Its boards are known for consistent stability and awesome features, as well as excellent design. ThinkComputers reviewed the M3A32-MVP Deluxe/Wifi, a top-shelf, Crossfire-capable motherboard using the AMD 790X chipset and an on-board wireless module. This writer's first motherboard review, I load this board with everything I could throw at it: a top of the line power supply and graphics card, oodles of RAM, and three operating systems.

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The Rosewill R6XR8-BK ATX mid tower computer case is one of the latest cases from Rosewill and features a screw-less design with dual 120mm fans for good airflow. Legit Reviews takes a look at this black case to see if the beauty is only skin deep. Read on as we crack this case open to see if no tools are really required and to see what we think about the case after we install a system into it.

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In late February NVIDIA had introduced the GeForce 9 series with the introduction of the mid-range GeForce 9600GT 512MB graphics card. Earlier this week they then introduced the GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card, which consists of two NVIDIA GPUs bridged together with SLI support. We have been quiet on how the GeForce 9 series performs under Linux, but this morning we are providing our initial GeForce 9600GT results using an ASUS EN9600GT TOP HDMI and comparing its Linux desktop performance to its GeForce 8 sibling and the ATI Radeon HD 3850 and 3870. On Windows the GeForce 9600GT has been able to outperform the Radeon HD 3850/3870, but on Linux an entirely different story is rendered.

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Upgrading your rig can be such a pain can't it? Trying to figure out where technology is headed so you don't waste your money on obsolete garbage. With the speed at which progress takes place it is no wonder that many people find themselves searching for answers. Take for example the new DDR3 standard. Right now DDR2 is so inexpensive you can get 4GB for under $100 USD and that is just an awesome price. But DDR2 days are numbered and DDR3 is so expensive right now it just doesn't make much sense. What is an enthusiast to do? Thankfully Foxconn has a solution. They have taken Intel's X38 high-end chipset and installed it on a board capable of supporting DDR2 or DDR3. Now you don't need to worry about which standard to choose. Better yet when the time comes to migrate over to DDR3 you won't have to throw away your motherboard. But are things as rosy as they appear? We have seen these hybrid motherboards before and what they bring in compatibility they usually lack in raw horse! power. Come with me as I take the X38A from Foxconn out for a spin and see if this board can deliver where it counts or does it end up dead on the side of the road.

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"We are offering free-of-charge support to anyone who is having issues installing Windows Vista SP1," Microsoft blogger Brandon Le Blanc said. Unlimited installation and compatibility support is available at no charge until March 18, 2009, according to the Microsoft Service Pack 1 support site. There are three options available under the free support plan for U.S. users: e-mail support, which will be answered within one business day; online chat, which has a current waiting time of around 40 minutes; and call, available only for users who have a software-assurance agreement, professional contract, TechNet subscription, or MSDN subscription, or for those who come under the Microsoft Partner Program.

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Donna L. Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, at the University of California, Riverside, predicted that Internet users "will really like this because it's probably a better way to search a site than going to the sites themselves. " "But as consumers appreciate this more, there'll be more and more outcry from companies." Ms. Hoffman said. Consumers who see advertisements on Google when they search The Post's or The Times's content might view the ads as carrying the endorsement of those news publishers. "Why would I advertise on those other sites when I could just advertise on Google and piggyback on the equity of the other brands?" Ms. Hoffman said.