Maxit Mag - Thursday Hardware Roundup Feb 22

Written by Maxit

Go Zalman Beastie

Zalman CNPS9700 NT CPU Cooler

“is one incredible product that is sure to please. If you don't want to install a water cooling system because of the potential risks, then this is a great alternative. I was impressed that this cooler could keep a Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU overclocked to 3.2GHz using 1.55 voltage cool. This is something that's even a challenge for some water cooling kits to accomplish…”

DIRECT URL: http://www.3dgameman.com

Corsair TWIN2X2048-8888 Review

"Because it simply screamed when the right balance of FSB/CPU/memory speed was achieved, and because I was able to hit a scorching 1131-4-4-4-12 setting.

Let's face it. As soon as you get any memory that hits 1000-4-4-4-12 you are pretty much laughing. After PC8000 you really are only looking for how easy it is to get it running at 1000MHz+, how far above it you can push the memory if you are lucky enough to have a motherboard and chipset that can handle it, and on how many motherboards it will run at that speed. How high you can push the memory is a good indication of the quality of the stick; and often because of processor or FSB limitations you may still be better off to run the memory at less than its maximum speed - if you can run it with a higher FSB and a higher CPU speed."

REVIEW URL: http://www.neoseeker.com

Silverstone TJ09 Temjin Tower Case Review

"With the TJ09 Silverstone is focusing on airflow to dissipate the heat of Dual/Quad core processors and especially high end VGA cards. Their design is classic elegant with functional and clean looks. This is a high end product made for high end systems, can it keep a Core 2 / Geforce 8800 GTX cool enough? We find out..."

REVIEW URL: http://www.madshrimps.be

Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 Rev 3.3 Motherboard – Native 1333MHz FSB and more

"One of our first motherboard to come into our labs based on the P965 Express chipset was the Gigabyte P965-DQ6. This board had it all - great overclocking, plenty of features onboard as well as a great look and feel. Gigabyte did have a few issues with this board in terms of stability, a few samples refused to work properly, this produced a 2.0 revision. While this may have been enough, Gigabyte sporting its new Gigabyte United name still wasnÙt fully happy and has now brought out a new revision 3.3 model which on paper looks to be fantastic. The newly formed company is quite serious about making their motherboards the highest quality in the industry with improvements such as All-Solid Capacitor designs using the most expensive components from Japan.

Today we will explore the revision 3.3 DQ6 motherboard as there have been quite a few changes made to the overall design. WeÙll check out those new changes and then compare it to the first DQ6 released and against one of the best P965 motherboards we have tested so far, the ASUS Commando."

DIRECT URL: http://www.tweaktown.com

ATi R600XTX/XT/XL Series Unveiled

"VR-Zone has learned about some new details on 80nm R600 today and there will be 2 SKUs at launch; XTX and XT. There will be 2 versions of R600XTX; one is for OEM/SI and the other for retail. Both feature 1GB DDR4 memories on board but the OEM version is 12.4" long to be exact and the retail is 9.5" long. The above picture shows a 12.4" OEM version. The power consumption of the card is huge at 270W for 12" version and 240W for 9.5" version. As for R600XT, it will have 512MB of GDDR3 memories onboard, 9.5" long and consumes 240W of power. Lastly, there is a cheaper R600XL SKU to be launched at a later date."

DIRECT URL: http://www.vr-zone.com

ATi 65nm RV610/RV630 Cards Info

"VR-Zone has gotten some concrete information on the process technology and memory interface of RV610 and RV630. Both will be based on 65nm process technology from TSMC. RV610, the low end version will only have 64-bit memory interface and we have told you earlier that there will be 2 variants at launch; RV610LE which is DDR2 based and RV610PRO which is DDR3 based. The RV610LE card has 4 layers and consumes 25W of power while RV610PRO has 6 layers and consumes 35W of power. RV630, the mainstream version will have 128-bit memory interface and comes in 3 variants; DDR4, DDR3 and DDR2. The power consumption stood at 128W, 93W and 75W respectively. There will be samples in March and expected launch in April."

DIRECT URL: http://www.vr-zone.com

D3DGear V.1.81 is available for download @ 3DChip

Release Notes:

1. Added a new option, audio Volume button, to movie recording. The Volume button gives user an option to manually select audio input source and its
volume for movie recording. This solves the problem where the audio of
recorded movie appears too low when Sound Blaster Audigy audio card was
used.
2. Added two new curves to PerfGraph: Total Drawn Primitives, Vertex Buffer
Lock Calls.
3. Added menu shortcut of offline help document.
4. Added default hotkey of framerate, screenshot, and movie recording.
5. D3DGear UI was change to have XP style.

DOWNLOAD URL: http://downloads.3dchip.de/treiber/D3DGear.php

nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB – Halving the memory

"They shouldnÙt have changed the name anyway, since it is an 8800GTS with just less memory. Fortunately they didnÙt do something stupid like call it the “8850GT” which does nothing but cause panic to everyone who owns a new graphics card.

Palit have come to the party today and shown us the 320MB version of the 8800GTS - weÙre going to have a quick look at it and the package before we gets stuck into what really matters, and of course what we really want to know. Are we sacrificing much by loosing 320MB of memory?"

DIRECT URL: http://www.tweaktown.com

NZXT Zero Computer Case Review @ Tweaknews.net

"The new Zero case from NZXT has a lot to recommend it. It's a cooling monster without the growls and roars you'd expect from eight case fans. It has a sleek, classic look that doesn't appear to have been inspired by an Anime episode. The Zero will hold plenty of drives and the tool-free features are well designed and executed. The aluminum and plastic construction keep the weight down without sacrificing sturdiness."

REVIEW URL: http://www.tweaknews.net

AMD's 690G Chipset Arrives - ECS AMD690GM-M2 Motherboard

"During the AMD down under Christmas party for media and partners, we sat down with both AMD and ATI representatives and asked some questions. One of them was will ATI/AMD produce chipsets for its competitors like Intel. A big resounding “Yes” was given to us and explained. Chipsets for the Intel sector will carry the name ATI and likely carry the Xpress naming that has happened with the previous generation of chips. AMD based chipsets will be given a new naming system based on its Northbridge architecture, for example the Crossfire 3200 for AMD has been renamed to AMD 580X (RS580 Northbridge). ItÙs unclear how much the push towards the Intel sector will be considering the relationship AMD and ATI now have, one thing is clear, AMD chipsets will now be bigger and better than ever before.

Today we are looking at one of the first culminations from ATI/AMD. While some of the older chips have been renamed, todayÙs contender is the first to be made since the merger occurred last year. Named the AMD 690 chipset series, it carries some new features. ECS have kindly sent us the first sample to us ahead of launch at the end of this month. ItÙs based on the AMD 690G chipset and comes with embedded ATI Radeon X1250 graphics with support for all Socket AM2 processors."

DIRECT URL: http://www.tweaktown.com

I Got My Own DVD-R Copy of Windows Vista... Shipped by Microsoft!

"Last Saturday I got my copy of Windows Vista, generously sent by Microsoft. The thing that immediately caught my eye was the “type” of copy they sent: a plain DVD-R. What is the message Microsoft is trying to send by shipping a DVD-R instead of an original copy to the press? It could be an OEM copy, I really donÙt mind. But a DVD-R copy is really bad to their reputation. People say that a picture is worth than 1,000 words. See the picture below and take your own conclusions."

ARTICLE URL: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com

Bookmark

Email This

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0) Add Comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Write comment

Show/Hide comment form

Tech News

Hardware