- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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eVga 7800GT SLI Review
EVGA really goes all-out in support of their video cards and that is a good thing for all users. Featuring Lifetime Warranties that actually last, a Step-Up program that’s unique in the industry, 24-7 Toll-Free Technical Support, these are trademarks of a company that cares about its customers. For those reasons, I can easily recommend an EVGA video card. The 7800GT CO adds a factory overclocked core and a copper heatsink to the feature list to further enhance the cards quality.
Check out the full review at GamePyre.
Razer Copperhead Gaming Mouse Review
At this point, I was already pretty impressed with the Copperhead, but the real shock came when I switched back to my old Logitech mouse. One word: WOW. Never before had I realized that my mouse was sooo freaking slow! The pointer was practically crawling across the screen; I wanted to reach in and drag it myself.
Head over to OCIA for the full look!
Thermaltake Blue Orb II Review
Being one of the heaviest CPU coolers tested here, the Blue Orb II is unlike anything we have seen. Thermaltake made the Blue Orb II stand out from the crowd by adding blue LED fans to the cooler to match it with the blue aluminium fins on the heatsink. Although the heatsink was made of copper core and aluminium fins, the performance was slightly better than the full copper heatsink we compared it against. It runs pretty silent at 1700RPM and performs as advertised.
If you are not a huge overclocker, but want great looking cooling in your system, check out the full review over at PC Modding Malaysia.
Sony Online to release free MMO
Following a model more prevalent in Asian MMOs, Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley, announced that his company would be breaking from a subscription model and releasing a ‘free’ game.
Of course, it’s free for the most part. Expansions and online items, which is legal with Sony, will cost money. Still, at least monthly charges and the actual client fee are waived. Check out the full posting over at Next-Gen.
SAPPHIRE RADEON X1800 XL 256MB & XFX GeForce 7800 GT 256MB Review
Both card packages offer compelling reasons for purchase and both are available immediately, but given a direct choice between the two, our money would slide over into XFX’s corner for a number of reasons. Its GeForce 7800 GT is marginally faster in a sector where framerates matter hugely. It also runs quieter, and, should you wish and funds/hardware permitting, can be put to immediate SLI use. That’s not to say that the SAPPHIRE X1800 XL is a bad card; it’s patently not, and it outscores the XFX GeForce 7800 GT on the features front, but priced at £300 it steps just a little too close to GeForce 7800 GTX money. We hope that ATI and its partners can release X1000-series CrossFire master cards in the very near future, as SAPPHIRE’s card is just crying out to be run in multi-GPU mode.
Despite the fact that the X1800XL was released after the 7800GT, the NVIDIA came out on top. It didn’t blow away the ATI, but it had other factors that warranted a purchase. Check out the full comparison at Hexus.
New interactive AMD Athlon 64 product ID guide version 2.0
The interactive product ID guide for the easy identification of all AMD Athlon 64 processors
was completely revised and is now online in the new version 2.0
Beside some processor updates it’s now also possible on the basis of each Stepping
to see the respective code name within the lower range of the virtual CPU.
This is a great little app, especially if you don’t want to remember what all the codes mean! Check it out at OC Inside.
Vapochill Micro Review
I have to say that I found the Vapochill Micro to be an outstanding product. Not only did it obliterate the stock AMD cooling solution, but the temperatures produced by the Extreme and High End models were on par with both water cooling kits I use on my system, at least at stock speeds…
Head on over to Legit Reviews for the full look.
XG Ninja 2 Case Review
Feeling Well, Today I have another review for an Xgbox product, the last few reviews I did of Xgbox products were power supplies, today I will be taking a look at one of their new entry level PC Cases, the Ninja 2. Xgbox has gotten some great scores from ThinkComputers in the past for their great products; will the Ninja 2 keep up with this tradition? The Ninja 2 is inexpensive, considered an entry level gaming case, but it has many features of the more expensive cases out there. Xgbox has a great reputation so far for their great products, and I have to say from my first impression, the Ninja 2 looks to keep that reputation.
Check out the full review over at the newly re-designed Think Computers!
Bill Gates: "The press is inflating Google".
Microsoft’s Chairman, Bill Gates, is currently touring Israel. According to Gates, the reason for this tour is to learn more about the Israeli market.
Check it out at NGOHQ.
Corsair 2GB TWINX PC4400 DDR550 Pro Series Memory Review
After reviewing 1GB of Crucial’s PC3200 Ballistix memory and 1GB of OCZ’s Gold PC3200 memory we continue the trend of enthusiast RAM with 2GB of Corsair’s PC4400 TWINX Pro Series memory. The keyword here is enthusiast as the TWINX comes in a 2GB package with a speed rating of 275MHZ (DDR550). Perhaps not today, but certainly in the near future (6-12 months) having 2 gigabytes of memory in a computer will be the standard.
Check out the full review over at Bona Fide Reviews!
Symphony OS BETA 1 Preview 1
Symphony OS, among the latest Linux distributions receiving
quite a bit of attention by the general public, has released their first
BETA candidate (BETA 1 Preview 1) after a series of ALPHA releases.
Rather than using GNOME, KDE, Fluxbox, or another one of the many
desktop environments Symphony OS has created the Mezzo Desktop
Environment to allow for a visually attractive and easy-to-use
interface. In addition, this Knoppix-based distribution packs a punch
when it comes to its standard set of packages and user friendly features.
Check out the full look over at Phoronix!
Samsung Showroom Photo Tour 2005
PCSTATS recently headed out to the Samsung Canada offices for a briefing. While we were there, we took the opportunity to snap a couple pictures of the companies brand new showroom which houses the latest Samsung products to hit the Canadian retail market. For readers of PCSTATS who have never had the opportunity to walk the expansive floors of the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES, the following photo-tour of the what we saw that day should come as a nice treat. Although, it is kind of unfair to show how awesome five 46″ LCDs look back-to-back-to-back…. I mean, how can anyone be expected to go back to a 32″ TV after seeing that!
Check out all the info over at PC Stats.
XS member Kinc sets new world records in 2k1 2k3 and 2k5!
Marcus aka Kinc set new World Records in ALL FM Benchmarks and broke the magical 50K mark in 2k1 and 40K mark in 2k3! outstanding job Marcus! congrats!
He reached those amazing scores with an FX-57 at up to 3939Mhz!!! and two 7800gtx cards in sli at up to 676mhz core and 1584mhz memory speed! the cpu was cooled with Liquid Nitrogen and the videocards were cooled with Dry Ice. simply amazing! :D
This is amazing! I remember not too long ago that people finally surpassed the 40K ’01 mark, and now all of a sudden we finally see 50K. It’s interesting that he chose to use two cooling methods, very hardcore! Check out the front page news posting at Xtreme Systems and view the discussion thread here!
Fatal1ty FS-V7 VGA Cooler & Fatal1ty FS-C77 CPU Cooler Review
Hot from Zalman, and I mean hot, are two smokin’ little gems from the Fatal1ty product line. Let me tell you I was stoked to receive this review of the Fatal1ty FS-V7 and FS-C77 from Zalman. Zalman is one of the best cooling solutions made for quiet and reliable systems. Then being teamed up with the #1 gamer in the world, Fatal1ty, these should be some blazing items.
Check out the review of both great looking coolers at Pimprig.
41 Xbox 360 games and their release dates
This list is by no means comprehensive or final. It’s just a nice listing that gives us some rough feel for when we can expect various already-announced Xbox 360 titles to be released. The closer a given date, the more likely it is to be accurate. There are also certainly titles under development that are not represented on this list.
This will give us a decent idea of what launch titles we will be able to pick up. Looks like the ones I want will be out, but there are more on the horizon. Check out the list at Joystiq.
41 Xbox 360 games & their release dates
This list is by no means comprehensive or final. It’s just a nice listing that gives us some rough feel for when we can expect various already-announced Xbox 360 titles to be released. The closer a given date, the more likely it is to be accurate. There are also certainly titles under development that are not represented on this list.
This will give us a decent idea of what launch titles we will be able to pick up. Looks like the ones I want will be out, but there are more on the horizon. Check out the list at Joystiq.
Half Life 2 Lost Coast HDR Performance: Crossfire vs SLI
High dynamic range lighting has been a buzzword in 2005 in the world of PC gaming. Lighting after all has the power to make computer generated scenes really come to life. High dynamic range versus low dynamic range brings brighter whites to gaming, and a general more realistic lighting. So great, more eye candy you say? Well it can factor into game play, and does with Day of Defeat Source. Coming from a dark area, and stepping into the light brings about a bit of a glaring, or blinding effect that can temporarily hinder your view. Now it leads us to worry about more cheating at our lans, and unbalanced play with some turning on full HDR, and some off. Perhaps multiplayer gaming isn’t the place to look at it, and so with the release of Lost Coast we have some single player action to see what kind of new experience it brings.
Check out the full performance report at AMD Zone.
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Bonus Map
The Warcraft III Bonus Maps Page now offers the latest bonus map for the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III, a bit earlier than usual (thanks Frans). Here’s the unusually wordy description of the new map, which is accompanied by some strategy tips: “Extreme Candy War 2005 is the latest version of Blizzard’s Halloween map where Alliance and Horde fight it out on the battlefield. Fans of World of Warcraft will undoubtedly feel at home as ECW ’05’s heroes are based off their respective classes. The object is to crush your opponent’s Candy Mages who channel an invulnerable shield around their Candy Vault. Once the Candy Mages are down, destroy their Candy Vault to win! This year’s version features updated hero abilities, new items, and faster paced gameplay.”
You can grab the map over at the Battle.net site!
.NET Framework 2.0 Final Released
In preparation for the launch of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 on November 7, the final release of the .NET Framework 2.0 is now available for download. Version 2.0 serves at the underpinnings for next-generation Windows applications and will be integrated into Windows Vista.
Check out the full posting at Beta News. You can grab the download there as well, and the speed seems to be pretty good.
SinTek 500w SLI, Enermax Liberty 500w, Silverstone Strider 600w Review
A stable source of power is the heart of every working PC. Overclockers can appreciate a stable and sufficient Power Supply as this could be the ‘make it or break it’ component within their PC. As of late there is a growing sense of awareness within the industry of the importance of a high quality Power Supply and today 3DXtreme is taking a look at three new comers to the market. Dual Core Processors and SLI based PCs are upping the power requirements and the marketing departments are doing a good job getting this information to the consumer. Here are the Power Supply Units that arrived for review in the last two weeks and they will be pitted against one another.
Check out the entire comparison at 3D Xtreme.
Zalman CNPS9500 LED Heatsink Review
The Zalman CNPS9500 features a very unique, vertically mounted cylindrical design. In today’s cut throat marketplace, it is essential to be able to design products which exhibit unique and innovative designs.
Check out the full review over at Extensive Mods.
Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal Review
Intel’s current flagship chipset continues to be the 955X. Gigabyte has taken that chipset and made a wonderful board out of it.
The GA-8I955X Royal provides great performance, great overclocking headroom, and has a big bundle of goodies.
Check out the full look at the board over at InsaneTek.
HiS Radeon x800 GT & GTO 256MB Review
Then there is the x800 GTO that arrived in the form of a devil that popped out of a Pandora’s box. This product really surprised me. In it’s default settings it’s not heaps faster compared to the GT but yeah, it is faster and closer to the GeForce 6800 series. The trick however is HiS’ iTurbo function. Instantly you can bump it up 100 MHz on the core, straight away, at a manufacturer supported speed. That is going to be huge in my decision making today. Not only that, we have been able to push the core towards 550 MHz bringing massive overall performance to this card. This card has the R480 core, a 256-bit memory bus, is able to deliver MID-RANGE leading performance, tremendous overclocking, and near silent operation thanks to the cooling solution.
Check out the full look at both cards at Guru 3D.
Shuttle XPC SD11G5 Celeron/Pentium-M SFF Review
One stumbling block Shuttle faces in marketing the SD11G5 is price. A search of online retailers shows it to retail at around the £340 mark. That’s a lot of wedge to pay for a motherboard, case (albeit a stylish one), and cooler. There’s also the lack of relative gaming performance from the onboard graphics. Playing any modern game is an absolute no-no, as far as we’re concerned. Shuttle, though, is aiming the SD11G5 at style gurus and those interested in an ultra-quiet, powerful machine. In that respect and if you can put up with the price, it succeeds well.
HTPC cases are becoming all the rage it seems. Check out one of the kings over at Hexus.
Raptor Gaming M1 Mouse and P1 Mouse Mat
As for the resolution tests the raptor performs well at 1024-768 and also 1280-1024 at 1600-1200 there was a notable speed decrease ad I had to again adjust the mouse settings in the game options, this I would say is outstanding, considering that this mouse retails for under 20 pounds I think you would be hard pressed to find another mouse which offers you 1600dpi response timings with the quality of the materials and construction.
Check out the full look at Xtreme Computing.