Content and news by Rob Williams

THESE DAYS, SEEMINGLY every major memory module manufacturer is producing fancy low-latency DIMMs. These DIMMs are equipped with tricked-out heat spreaders and come in a variety of different colors, making them easy to pick out in a crowd. There’s more to them than funky cosmetics, though. The most exotic low-latency DIMMs are rated to run at extremely tight 2-2-2-5 timings at 400MHz. Unfortunately, you’ll pay a small fortune for the privilege. Low-latency modules cost close to twice as much as more pedestrian DIMMs, if not more.

Check out the full article at Tech Report.

Clear, see-through, transparent, the look of something professional. Professionalism goes hand in hand with clarity. What better way to have clarity than to have things clear? A high powered executive, in his 50th floor office, might stroll over and gaze out of the 15 huge glass windows that surround him. Getting thirsty, he reaches for his coffee mug, which sits atop a Museo Contemporary Glass Desk.

Check out the full review at Paradise OC.

In need of a good case for your next LAN party? Cooler Master’s new Ammo 533 just might be your solution. The built-in handle makes
transportation a breeze and the case design makes your system look beefier than it actually is.

Check out the full review at InsaneTek.

The SilverStone SST-LC17 is an attractive case. For an HTPC/desktop
solution, it offers very competitive cooling and does this well right out of
the box. What it could stand to improve on though is the interior
arrangement by either going to a micro ATX only design (and then rearranging
the layout) or increasing the length one or two inches. Anyone who tries to
take advantage of the full expansion capabilities of this case are likely to
run into some frustration along the way. Sure things will fit, but it isn’t
exactly easy sometimes.

Head on over to Overclockers Online for the full review.

Although Corsair’s XMS2 TWIN2X1024-8000UL memory modules,
which are rated for 1000MHz compatibility on Intel-based motherboards,
have taken some of the spotlight away from their famed
TWIN2X1024A-5400UL modules, these DDR2-667 modules continue to be
popular with enthusiasts due to their cheaper price point and phenomenal
overclocking abilities. While sticking to its DDR2-675MHz speeds the
memory can run at impressive 3-2-2-8 timings, and when loosening the
timings they can breach the 1GHz barrier. Of course, none other than
Micron’s “Fatbody” D9 ICs powers these modules.

Check out the full review over at Phoronix.

Foxconn has doven headfirst into the shark infested waters of the mainstream market and proven they can swim with the big boys. Pleasing the hardware enthusiast crowd is no easy task, but Foxconn has put their years of manufacturing experience to good use and put together a winner with this board. Even a hardcore enthusiast will have a hard time finding fault with this board.

Head on over to Viper Lair for the full look.

Hot off the heels of the last Corsair review, we have another Corsair review for you. Corsair has done it again, they are leading the pack in memory technology advancements, by releasing yet another quality high performance memory product. The Twinx2048-4000PT line of memory is engineered for speed and performance, using Samsung UCCC chips to power the sticks, these sticks just rock. Guaranteed 250Mhz at 1T with timings of 3-4-4-8, using high density, high capacity modules, being able to run high capacity sticks of ram at 1T is crucial to having a great performing system. Today’s high end systems take a performance hit if they run at 2T, so being able to run 2 gigs at 1T is a great triumph indeed, and at a speed of 250/500mhz is just amazing! Let’s get into this review and see just how well these do perform..

Check out the full look at this killer memory at Think Computers. For comparison, you can check out our review of this memory here.

Wi-Fi is all the rage. It’s moved from geeks to mainstream, especially when a hardly cutting-edge company like Kodak introduces a Wi-Fi- enabled digital camera. The EasyShare One lets you email pictures from the camera and connect to the Kodak EasyShare Gallery (formerly Ofoto) using the 802.11b protocol. Once on the site you can alert folks that you have images to share and access all of your images. Kodak is working with T-Mobile so you have 6,000 hotspots across the U.S. to choose from to beam your images to the outside world. Or if that’s not your cup of latte you can simply beam photos to your Wi-Fi enabled laptop or printer. The new 4-megapixel digicam goes beyond offering wireless connectivity. The camera has 256MB of internal memory so it holds up to 1,500 images, making it a portable digital photo album. It also has a huge swivelling 3-inch touch-screen LCD for framing and reviewing your Kodak moments.

Check out the full look at Design Technica.

Ah, the digital home. Intel would have us believe that soon instead of unplugging and unwinding when we get off of work each day, we’ll be plugging-in and unwiring in our digitally-enabled home theater rooms, where every bit and byte of entertainment we could ever want will be available to us at the touch of a button.

Check out the full evaluation at HardOCP.

Sirtec may not be one of the known big players of the PSU industry, but in fact they are a huge OEM producer of power supplies, for example for Thermaltake and Chieftec. We test Sirtec’s 410W unit which offers a beautiful chrome finish and a low-noise fan at a very competitive price.

Head on over to techPowerUp! for the full review.

A Glass Cannon bombards an Alim city in the latest addition to our weekly screenshot series. If left to its work, the cannon will level the city in short order. Stop by our Rise of Legends gallery to have a look at our latest screenshots.

Check out all the new screenshots here. This game is looking amazing!

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 31, 2005—NCsoft® North America announces that City of Villains™, stand-alone sequel to the hit massively multiplayer online PC game City of Heroes®, has gone live in North America. Developed by Cryptic Studios™ and published by NCsoft, City of Villains introduces a host of new features including the ability to create massive evil lairs from the ground up, and player-versus-player (PvP) zones where villains can battle against hero players from the City of Heroes game.

Woot! Check out the official website here.

WALTHAM, Mass. – Oct. 31, 2005 – imeem, a free desktop service that allows users to create personal private networks, has tapped Mono to quickly scale up its application from a simple technology demo running on .NET to an industrial strength server infrastructure to support its rapidly growing user base. The imeem development team also used Mono to develop client software that runs on both Windows and Mac OS X, two critical platforms in the consumer Internet market. Sponsored by Novell and led by Miguel de Icaza, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft .NET used to run rich client and Web applications on Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris. Using Mono, developers can take advantage of a complete development environment and stable APIs to build cross-platform applications by leveraging their .NET skills.

Check out the full press release here.

NGOHQ: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions for our members. Please take a moment to introduce yourself and describe your position with Arctic Cooling.

VC: As third Swiss in the Management of Arctic Cooling I’m responsible of any Marketing activities at Arctic Cooling. Among other duties I’m in contact with online and print reviewer worldwide every day and will try my best to support them with information and review samples.

Check out the full interview over at NGOHQ.

There is a calling for specialized equipment for every purpose – for chopping lumber, a Bosch chainsaw is called upon; for Beethoven recordings, the Steinway & Sons piano is used; and for isolating sounds – the Extreme Isolation Headphones come into place. Originally designed for drummers to hear the actual music while isolating the drum noises, CyberwizardPit toys with the prospect of enjoying Beethoven’s Chorale Fantasy and operating a chainsaw at the same time – and whether it is a plausible idea at that, with the Extreme Isolation Headphones in this review.

Check out the full review at Cyberwizard Pit.

Wacom is a name known throughout the photography and graphics world. They have been the makers of some of the most wanted graphic design and photography pen tablets for years, and probably years to come. Wacom produces several different types of pen tablets that are widely used in today’s professional and sometimes home environments.

Check out the full review at Extensive Mods.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – October 31, 2005 –AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that German game developer FAKT Software GmbH will be leveraging the full power of the AGEIA PhysX processor for its upcoming Crazy Machines II. The announcement is the result of an agreement that enables FAKT Software to use the AGEIA PhysX SDK to implement comprehensive physics dynamics in Crazy Machines II. This physics functionality will take on a new, breathtaking dimension for gamers using PCs equipped with the AGEIA PhysX processor.

Check out the full press release here!

This is where the fun begins. To start off X-Micro have supplied all the software needed for converting your video/music files on the installation CD included with the package which are MTV convert tool/AWV convert tool/AWV player and sound convert tool, but I’ll explain more on that later. I really couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw my video playing as seen above, the picture was crystal clear and the sound was amazing. I didn’t know really what to expect to be perfectly honest because of the LCD being only 96/64 in size but the picture quality using all 65,000 colors had me speechless.

Check out the full review at Xtreme Computing.

Our NVIDIA tweaking tool underwent quite some changes. nVHardPage nVidia videocard tweaker is tweaking utility for nVidia display adapters running under Windows 98 (SE) / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. With this tweak utility you can enable/disabe hidden features in nVidia control panel, tweak nVidia Direct3D and OpenGL settings and overclock your nVidia display adapter.

Grab the download over at Guru3D!

With the spotlight on the recently released X1000 family it seems as though the X800 family is quickly becoming a thing of the past. This is a very good thing for most consumers as well all know the older a technology gets the cheaper it becomes. The X800’s are slowly slipping into the “bargain” card category. However today’s X800 family member is fairly new and at an affordable price, the HIS X800GTO is definitely worth a close look.

Head over to Bona Fide Reviews for the full review.