Content and news by Rob Williams

Ever since the SoundBlaster AWE 64, we have been waiting for a Creative Labs product that lives up to the SoundBlaster legend. The bar was set very high with the pre-PCI generation of SoundBlaster products and Creative became the de facto standard in PC sound. The Live! and Audigy product lines didn’t bring about the same revolution in sound for which Creative was known. Rather than advancing by leaps and bounds, the industry has slowly and steadily been creeping forward over most of the last decade.

Check out the full review over at AnandTech!

The new Sonata II is Antec’s premier enclosure for silent computing applications. The Sonata II combines the classic style and silent performance of the original Sonata quiet computer case with upgraded features and a very innovative cooling design. The popular piano black case is equipped with Antec’s unique advanced chassis air duct for increased cooling of the latest CPUs and graphics cards. The air duct is
rear-vented to help improve silence, and can be adjusted in three directions to ensure that the opening is always directly positioned above the CPU for maximum cooling.

Check out the full review over at The Tech Zone.

Want a safe way to try out Mr. Microphone? Err, I mean, the Mac Mini? Well, now may be your chance. To our surprise, Apple has announced a new promotion offering customers the opportunity to try out the Mac Mini for 30 days, with a money-back guarantee if you “don’t love it.” The normal return period is 14 days.

Check out all the info at Arstechnica. This would be a great way to see if you would like to go Apple or not!

Here’s something that should have been thought of sooner, Sony has released a new wireless “PowerPoint” presentation mouse (via 2.4Ghz RF dongle) for their VAIO line of computer peripherals. In place of the scroll wheel is a joystick that can navigate the cursor on the projector. Currently this is only avaiable in Japan where the mouse will retail for $70.

If you love PowerPoint, check out the new mouse over at Everything USB.

The setup and management is easy, the print server just works, the photo album just works, as does the web server. In fact, everything seems to just work.

Head over to Hexus for the full review!

So specifically on this Galaxy model I can say, the Zalman copper cooler looks and works fantastic, its noise level is low in IDLE though the temperature already is 45 Degrees C. At high-performance the card remains under 60 Degrees C, which is good. The card although based on reference design has it’s own touch and feel. The blue PCB, the copper cooling, something I applaud very much. The new Dual BIOS functionality. In retrospect I must say I really do like the idea of the Dual BIOS functionality of this graphics card.

Check out the full review at Guru 3D.

One of the better known companies in this technology segment is Jabra. With a solid network of retailers and an extensive range, they seem to have the market sewn up, but just how good are their products? We got three of them in to try out.

Check out the full review over at Hexus!

Our recent look with the AW8 left us rather satisfied. The little brother AL8 wasn’t quite the same experience. It’s a solid board
no doubt, but it didn’t have anything to make it stand out from the crowd.

Head over to InsaneTek for the full review!

IF THE THEME OF this past Spring’s Intel Developer Forum was multi-core processors, the theme of IDF Fall 2005 was performance per watt. Not only did Intel announce a new, common processor microarchitecture that promises higher performance and lower power consumption than the current Pentium 4 and its derivatives, but the CPU maker also outlined a broad range of initiatives for reducing power consumption while boosting performance. Those initiatives are taking form in its next wave of products, its 65nm fab process, and in a number of cutting-edge R&D projects. I sat in on the major keynotes and a handful of sessions whose contents resonated with the overarching theme of better performance per watt, and my report follows.

Check out the whole informative read at Tech Report.

Gainward kindly supplied two 7800GTX Golden Sample cards to allow us to test the performance in an SLI configuration. That’s £800 worth of pixel pushing power staring back at ya! The Golden Sample moniker is only used for Gainward’s top of the range boards which are factory clocked with higher core and memory speeds. Make no mistake, pair two of these up and you’re sitting pretty for at least 2 years

Read the full review of these killer cards at Pure Overclock!

A terrorist has two prime objectives; to obtain information and to disable a target at any cost. A personal computer user could unknowingly assist a terrorist in accomplishing these objectives but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Check out the full review over at Bona Fide Reviews.

How much is there really to say about a keyboard? The Hiper keyboard breaks no new design ground like a split-keyboard design, or adds any esoteric functions keys or controls. What the Hiper keyboard does do though is offer a compact layout with a comfortable, responsive feel and a pretty slick looking design that would match well with any aluminum case, but especially compliment a desktop SSF aluminum chassis with a silver LCD.

Man! This is a great looking keyboard. Read all about it at Overclockers Online.

A SIMA card will allow you to turn that PF88 Extreme Hybrid into an AMD motherboard, or perhaps a low powered Intel motherboard using their mobile part. The SIMA cards have their own additional North Bridge as well as power management and the required ram slots for the appropriate CPU (so no DDR2 for you AMD fans, at least until we see the AMD Socket M2).

Check it out at Viper Lair!

For the last couple of months we’ve been providing fairly
in-depth and frequent updates in regards to NVIDIA’s driver performance
as well as overclocking abilities. It wasn’t until recently that NVIDIA
began supporting CoolBits under Linux, prior to this the only
alternative was video BIOS editing or NVClock. Even though there hasn’t
been a major update to NVClock in over two years, earlier today the crew
over at Linux Hardware released the 0.8 Beta. Today, we’ll be offering
up a quick preview of this latest build.

I gotta check this out!! Read more at Phoronix.

The Shuttle XPC Barebone SD31P is the worlds first Small Factor PC for Intel’s dual-core Pentium processors. Based on the Intel 945G chipset with ICH7-R, it supports both 64-bit and dual-core processors. Unfortunately we didn’t have a dual-core nor a 64-bit Intel processor to test the SD31P to its fullest potential. We used a Intel 540 for this review but in combination with a X850XT graphics card which makes this Shuttle a powerful fragbox ;-)

Check out the full review over at HardwareXL!

Power supplies, everybody needs one, but which one do you need? Lots of companies make them, but are they any good? All the major companies claim that theirs is the best, how do you know? You can read all the reviews you want, and listen to everyone, and what they ‘suggest’ you buy. I have many PSUs lying around from my purchases and reviews, normally when I hear I am getting something for review I like to check around and see what others thought of it, and see what I can expect from the product, but I have found that it’s always different, all reviews are different.

For the full review, head over to Think Computers.

The Samsung WriteMaster SE-W164 is a USB 2.0 only device and sports a rather impressive maximum writing speed of 16x for single layer DVD media, 8x DVD+R DL burning, and 4x for DVD-R DL burning. That is smoking fast even when compared to today’s internal DVD burners.

Check out the review at PC Stats.

I would have to say I was happy, the bass on the Audics 5.1 was spot on and I could push the speakers up quite high before I got any sort of waffle from the sub. This doesn’t take away the speakers quality as I have a Yamaha SUB on my home theatre setup that cost 3 times the price of the Audics 5.1 set and that can waffle on high levels.

Head over to Xtreme Computing for the full look.

Currently, there are two major new design trends for computer
cases. One trend is to move the motherboard tray from the right side of the
case to the left. This, in turn, will make a mounted ATX motherboard upside
down as well as make the right side panel the decorative focus instead of
the left side panel. The other new trend in computer cases is to have the
front of the case entirely modular, having 5.25″ drive bays from top to
bottom. Both these designs have their own mutually exclusive advantages.
While many companies have used either one or the other design in their new
cases, Aerocool is first company to adopt both design trends into their new
computer case, the Masstige. In this review, I will take a look at the
innovative and versatile Masstige.

Head over to A True Review.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – August 30, 2005 – AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that Quantic Dream is making maximum use of the AGEIA PhysX™ processor for its sequel to Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Quantic Dream has been integrating extensive physics functionality into KARMA using the AGEIA PhysX SDK. When these features are hardware-accelerated by the AGEIA PhysX processor, players will experience a depth of interactivity and realism never before seen in electronic games. The AGEIA PhysX processor will be available on PC add-in boards in late 2005.

Check out the full press release here.