[H]ardNews 5th Edition

R U Reddy:

You guys keep sending me this, so in an attempt to get you to stop sending it, we are going to post it. It is a page at NVIDIA's site that asks, "Are You Ready?" Well, damn skippy we are ready...and have been. The real question here is, "Is NVIDIA Ready?" I think we can all easily answer that question by shopping for an NV30 based card.

Non 5.1 Surround:

Ripped straight from the pages of Blue's News. Sounds pretty damn nifty.

Dolby Virtual Speaker, to be launched Tuesday, promises to create the effect of a 5.1-channel speaker system using normal stereo PC equipment. That means that instead of hearing distinct sounds from two speakers on either side of the PC monitor, the listener will experience the illusion of hearing sound from an additional two speakers behind him or her, and one directly in front. The ".1" refers to a subwoofer effect.

Logitech MX700:

We have been talking a lot about this mouse lately, and even a few others seem to like it as well. I am starting to have some issues with mine that seem to be related to the batteries getting weak possibly. Even with its early warning system and when the software tells me the battery level is "good", I am having issues with the cursor hanging on items on the screen. Charge it back up to full and I am good to go. If anyone else is having issues, drop me a line so we can figure out what the deal is. Also I uninstalled the mouseware drivers and software and it made no difference either. I am not even above thinking that this is an ATi issue as I did not see this until I recently put a 9700 Pro in. Hmmmm....

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

9700 Pro:

Bjorn3D waxes nostalgic and then declares that "Speed is not longer king!" Hey, we got off that meth a long time ago anyway...

The king is dead - long live the king! NVIDIA's Ti4600 can do nothing but move aside and let the new champion take place on the throne

Dueling 4200s:

These NVIDIA chipsets are still very much on our favorites list when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck. UKGamer heads up the Albatron and the Asus.

Both the Albatron 4200 Turbo P and the Asus V8420S are very capable products. There is no shying away from the fact that these are Ti4200 cards and whilst in our tests we did surpass the performance of a Leadtek Ti4600 card this was only after some impressive overclocking.

New Swifty:

The blokes over at Phlux dig into the latest and greatest from Swiftech. It is also worthy to mention that many mainboards are not coming with the four mount holes anymore, so you might give this some thought before you buy.

Unfortunately, for a $50USD heatsink it doesn't perform as it should. Although it performs worse than the Thermalright AX-7 by only a few degrees, it still costs a lot more.

H2-Ho'in:

SystemCooling let's us sneak a peak at one of their latest projects in which they wanted to cool a box down using good ol' H2O.

I tried air-cooling in the case first and while the results could be acceptable, I felt there were improvements that could be made. The first thing I did was to cut out the front 80mm intake replace it with a 120mm fan. I used the fan from the rear of the case. It is a 25mm thick 120mm fan rated at 100CFM.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

I Remember Video Ram:

Dan's Data stops reviewing LED flashlights and toys long enough to write about something we found of interest. It lays out what all that RAM on your VidCard is used for. Still if you want to run high resolutions with AA turned on, you had best have 128MB on board. And just wait till games like DOOM]|[ show up with huge textures being utilized.

Games are written for the most popular hardware, not for the most powerful hardware. So it's still not easy to find anything that'll stretch a 64Mb card, even with texture detail turned all the way up.

ABIT KT333:

Even though the KT400 boards are out, they are still showing very little advantage except for the hardcore OCer willing to run uber-high synchronous FSB and memory busses. OCersOnline reviews the "legacy free" VIA KT333 board from ABIT.

The AT7 MAX is one sweet socketA motherboard! I dare to say that this is one of the best socketA motherboards I ever tested: it comes with a lot of excellent onboard features like 5.1 sound, onboard LAN, a HPT374 RAID controller offering not two but four IDE RAID channels, giving you a total of 12 IDE devices!

New Mod Toys:

I see these badboys getting into a few cases as they become more and more popular.

Basically, LED Beamers are small led spotlights that run off a 12V supply. The version I have for review is designed for in-car use although a new version intended specifically for PC modding is due out soon.

Quiet and Hot?

Spode is showing off a SOHO job that was done to quiet things down a bit. Nothing about the temperature is mentioned though. I would interested in knowing about that.

We reduced the noise by probably 75% and the client was thrilled.

Rant-O-Mac-it:

Firstly, Jobs keeps making the same mistake over and over. He builds these cute little machines that are design marvels. They even work pretty well. But they are not upgradeable.

Sorry, I needed something to put in this space and I don't remember pissing off the MAC guys this week, so....

Had Your Silica Gel Today?

I became so intrigued by these little packets which seem to have more "DO NOT EAT" warnings on them than, for instance, rat poison or antifreeze, that I actually decided to do some research into the matter.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

9700 in Denmark:

They have a new brand of "Powered by ATi" card that they are showcasing. I don't know if we will ever see a Connect3D card here in the US, but maybe this will be some use to our Euro-readers.

A new king has risen amongst graphic cards. The performance is excellent, it is great for overclocking, and it has a really nice TV-Out, an incredible architecture and runs really well.

More 9700 Pro:

Take your popup killer with you when you go to check out this 9700 review over at Hardware Avenue, although there is not a lot of anything new to be seen, the card is still pretty amazing when it comes making games look pretty.

Showcasing breakneck speeds rendered with a level of image quality never seen before, the Radeon 9700 Pro is definitely the hardcore gamers current choice.

ABIT Vid Reviewage:

Rodney strips down and greases up for this latest video....oh wait, he sends that version just to me. If you care to see him fully clothed and reviewing the ABIT IT7-MAX2 click right here.

The ABIT IT7-MAX2 Motherboard is without a doubt is one of the best motherboards on the planet for the Intel P4 CPU. With onboard HTP374 RAID, 5.1 Audio, 10 USB 2 ports, 2 Firewire ports, LAN port, etc. and is unbelievable at overclocking with stability to boot! Watch the Video to find out more...

Small Shuttle:

Hexus reviews this unit that has been out for a while now and works out to be an excellent little LAN gaming box with an AGP slot. Hell, maybe even a replacement for your desktop if you are into external drives.

The scores laid down by the SB51G when paired with a Radeon 9700 Pro are competitive with any DDR setup, and not too far off those laid down by PC1066 RAMBUS. That, in my eyes at least, is remarkable when you consider that the whole ensemble isn't larger than most shoeboxes.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - In the News

DIE SPAMMER DIE:

It’s part spam, part pop-up porn ad software, part computer virus, part e-greeting card — but a complete nuisance. Internet users are starting to complain to their anti-virus providers about a suspicious e-mail making the rounds that purports to be a harmless electronic greeting card. But trying to pick up the card has severe consequences: a copy of the e-card e-mail is sent to everyone in the recipient’s Outlook e-mail address book, similar to the worm-like behavior of the Melissa virus or the LoveBug.

This even will make the "legit" spammers feel ashamed. Actually I doubt it...thanks Iceman.

Game First, Kill Later:

This seems ridiculous. Unless the actual sniper's weapon has a computer mouse and keyboard connected to it, how could clicking a mouse button translate into the actual skill?

Finally a journalist that does not have their head firmly planted in their ass chimes in on games and guns. Thanks Matt Scott.

Microsoft Knows Better:

And it is apparent that they just don't give a damn.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. apologized to New York City for blanketing public property with hundreds of butterfly decals used to promote the company's new MSN 8 Internet service.

MS got exactly what they wanted and that is BIG PRESS in big places. Thanks Brian Yacuik.

Half Sissy; Half Mad Killer:

This was interesting to see and thanks to Scott McCollum for the linkage. Seems as though many in the new media are quick to blame the "horrifying violent" video games for all that is wrong with our community, this guy wants to beat his drum on the other side of the fence.

If the dopey parents and politicians that think throwing fifty bucks at a kid and telling him to go play in the arcade or watch The Matrix five times at the mall is the proper way to raise their kids, I think it’s fair to blame the sissyfication of America on ten million copies of Myst.

What about Barbie 3D Dressup? That was pretty fun too...not that I ever played.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Big Guns:

When we showed you this short clip last week of that fully automatic Airsoft pistol firing, we got more mail than we had anticipated with many of you asking about it. I totally forgot at the time, but there is another guy into this that can help supply such toys. Plycon, the guys that have been selling us HSF equipment for years now and also one of the few sites with a name mo stoopider than ours, also does PlyconsArmory. They can help you guys out looking to buy and of course we know their customer service kicks ass.

Considering we're very experienced at web based sales, with an excellent reputation for quick shipping, quality products, and great customer service - we were sure we could do it better.

Asus i845PE Review:

If you are going to jump into a Pentium 4 based board right now, I would high suggest you check out the i845PE boards by Asus, ABIT, MSI and AOpen. They are all looking very nice. AMD3D has a review of the Asus board here. Ours is linked here for comparison.

Overclockers will be extremely happy. The BIOS is excellent with loads of options available to take your P4 processor to the max. There's voltage adjustments for DDR, AGP and CPU ... not to mention the ability to fix your AGP/PCI frequencies. Auto ratios for memoey allow you to run your DDR Ram beyond 200Mhz.

[H]ardForum Happenings:

Gaming Mouse?

Random Reboots.

Hard Bonging

MicroChannel Water Block

XP 2400+ OC

Sapphire Feedback

Puffy Caps?

We are also having some page load issues that look to be bandwidth oriented that we are working on.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Next Gen Fans:

The title of this article at Tweakers Down Under certainly caught my eye. I was thinking I was going to see some technological breakthrough. These are still just fans that spin and blow...some might even suck. More pretty lights and clear blades.

Vantec NEXUS:

Still, while fans can get boring, most of us still all need some them to keep our rigs cool. IPKonfig shows off a new and rather spiffy fanbus-type unit from Vantec. They have a look that will spiff up the front of any case as well.

H2O How 2:

All of you have heard of it and most of you have seen it, but few of you have experienced it. If you truly ever want to be the E1337 among the 1337 this is one way to get there. VirtualHideout shows us how to get wet, right out in public.

The heatsync that comes with a CPU is designed exactly for the temps that the CPU will generate. When you overclock a CPU, it will produce much more heat than normal. Chances are, that a plain old air-cooled heatsync will not have enough cooling power for this much heat. That is why we can turn to water-cooling for help.

Black Aluminum:

Scott at ClubOC has a review posted of the LianLi that is done with a black finish to give it a rather racy look. Also this one is pre-modded with a window. I remember my first experience with the Lian's box back in 2000. Still used on a daily basis and still looks great. Neat how a "chrome" paint pen matches the silver color very well.

The first impression of a Lian Li is the impeccable workmanship involved. We all know that most computer hardware is not assembled by hand but you would have a tough time thinking that when you first see a Lian Li. They way everything goes together, the fit, finish, and attention to detail is what makes Lian Li stand out from most case manufacturers.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

High Speed Wireless:

While only in an experimental stage this surely will set the stage for things that are to come. Thanks ID3NTITY.

The new system is four times as fast as the 2.5Gbps wireless system NTT put on show at the same event in 2001. This is the first time the laboratory experimented with a 10Gbps wireless system (photo). There are many potential uses for such a high-speed wireless technology, such as for 10Gbps wireless Ethernet links or for radio links between different buildings where a high volume of data has to be sent to and fro. NTT plans to announce the new system at the "Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference" (APMC) to be held in Kyoto in November.

Going Pro:

While this does not have anything to do with your girlfriend and her ideas to make a quick buck, it is certainly something that is going to hit you hard in the wallet. Then again, the best is not usually the cheapest. AMDWorld reviews the Radeon 9700 Pro.

That simply is NVIDIA won't just need a faster card they will need an all-round design to match the features and capabilities of the RADEON™ 9700 PRO card.

Vantec HSF Reviewage:

This is not one that will be up everyone's alley, but if you are building a rig that is cramped for space or a 1U server, Vantec is making some low profile all-copper HSFs that are being shown off over at OCIA.

It just seemed logical that a high speed fan would be needed to keep such a tiny heatsink cool, but Vantec proved me wrong.

Linux and 8500:

An Alpha version of the fully hardware accelerated TCL driver for ATI's R200 chipset is now available. Check the snapshots page to download precompiled binaries

Thanks to Chris Gianelloni for the linkage.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition - Memory Stuff

Memory Review I:

KingMAX PC3200 Memory is getting a little attention from the PCStats crew. Seems they had a few problems with this memory, so it might be something you guys will want to look at.

The BIOS was set to use the most aggressive memory timings. Unfortunately, while running the first round of 3DMark tests the system would crash back to desktop. Things weren't getting off to a good start. In fact, I had to increase the voltage to 2.7V to get the the memory to run stable just at stock speeds!

Memory Review II:

If you have a newer laptop and are looking into DDR memory for it, Explosive Labs is reviewing the Crucial DDR PC2100 SODIMM.

The surprising amount of people that have laptops nowadays can be seen by visiting any large university. This has all lead to a higher demand for laptop memory. We have all heard the benefits of increasing physical memory. In all but a few rare cases, the only option for laptop users to increase performance, other than buying a whole new laptop, is increasing memory.

Memory Review III:

Well, it has MEMORY on it…right? Hardware Zone does the Radeon 9000 Pro today.

No doubt the various mainstream graphics card put up a good show, the Gigabyte MAYA AF64DG-H RADEON 9000 Pro was a well rounded performer and if this is anything to judge other RADEON 9000 Pro cards by, our say is that the RADEON 9000 Pro has the best blend of features, performance and stability among the mainstream graphics cards.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

GF4 Ti4600 – Ti4200 Shortages?

According to this DigiTimes story there is such a demand for the Ti4200 – 4600 chips, NVIDIA can’t keep up. This is the first I have heard of this, you'd think they'd have a surplus of 4X AGP cards with the launch of the 8X parts only two weeks ago.

A shortage of Nvidia’s GeForce4 Ti 4200, Ti 4600 and MX 440 chips graphics chips due to seasonal demand has started to be reported in the market. According to graphics card makers, the tight supply has been felt most for GeForce4 Ti 4200 and 4600 chips, and so far they do not know when the situation will improve.

That may sound great for NVIDIA, but the opposite can also be said... people with money in their hand looking to buy, will buy the “other” big name card if yours isn’t on the shelf. NVIDIA better get some stock on them thar store shelves.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Mercury Service @ ShackNews:

I thought I’d share this with everyone else like me, who is looking for a GOOD place to download Demos, Files and Programs without waiting in line for hours. Our friends, Steve and Maarten at ShackNews are now offering easily the best service out there for damn near nothing.

Fileshack is owned and maintained by the Shacknews team and is widely regarded as the fastest gaming files network in the world, with a network provided by Speakeasy.net The Mercury service plan gives you unlimited access to the entire file library with ten times the bandwidth reserved for Mercury members while everyone else is stuck trying to squeeze through the public servers. On top of that we know what gamers want, so we're throwing in services like web space, email that isn’t spammed, discounts and more.

I took this screenshot when I went to download the James Bond: Nightfire Demo today, after seeing that, I signed up for a Mercury account, and this is what I got for my $5.

Priority Downloads at 10x the speed; Shackmail.com e-mail address; Shack Space 20mb of space; No Advertisments when surfing ShackNews; ShackStore Discounts 5% off of ShackStore purchases; Comments Tag So I look uber cool when posting comments; More amenities to come.

Although I am outright pimpin’ the Shack, it is only because they are a trustworthy bunch of guys and they have a great ( cheap ) service. We don’t get a single thing out of this other than what I got for my $5…a damn good deal.

[H]ardNews

Buy [H] Crap!

We are back with a special order of the [H]ardHats. These are a very dark navy blue; so dark they look almost black indoors. Embroidered red [H] logo on front with a red sandwich bill. “HardOCP.com” is embroidered across the back as well. Our retailer, HackerThreads, has right around 130 of these for sale today. I have been wearing one of these caps myself for a couple months and they are really nice. I would not suggest them though if your hat size is over 7.5 though as they will be a bit tight.

HackerThreads will soon be hosting an entire line of screened shirts, sweats, and jerseys for us very soon.

We have had some recent database issues that have affected load on the database server so Search has been disabled for the time being. We should have it repaired by Sunday and will have some downtime for maintenance on Saturday night. Just FYI...