[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

SLK 800 Tested:

Club Overclocker has the impressive SLK 800 monster copper HSF with the cool wedge design on the test bench today. Nice coolers for sure, here’s a clip from the review.

Without a doubt, Thermalright has themselves a very capable heatsink. While the cost of the heatsink alone will push the $50 mark, the cost is easily justified when you consider how versatile the 'sink is. With the ability to mount fans of 3 different diameters and several different heights, you have a single heatsink that can perform very different roles, as exemplified in this review. On one side you have the quiet conversationalist and on the other the extreme Overclocking possibilities.

ABIT KT400 Boards:

ABIT Launches KT400-based AT7-MAX2 and KD7-RAID with AthlonXP 333FSB Support, Based on the highly-anticipated VIA KT400 chipset, the AT7 MAX2 and KD7-RAID give ABIT users the MaxIImum Edge, with phenomenal value, performance and features. ABIT launches the AT7-MAX2 and KD7-RAID with full support for all current AND future AMD AthlonXP CPUs. The AT7-MAX2 and KD7-RAID support current 200/266 FSB CPUs and are engineered to support the future AthlonXP standard, the AthlonXP 333FSB CPU.

Bathroom Ban:

You know, our buddy Joe Alpert sent me this link to the Jim Beam bathroom controversy and he had hit the nail on the head with one little sentence:

"…they better give them breaks, I’d be afraid to drink the stuff if they didn’t."

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Albatron KT400 @ Tech-Report:

What the hell was that song…remember, something about the “whales and the albatross are my brothers…” I think of that every time I hear the name Albatron. The fellas at the Tech Report have reviewed up their KX400 board.

IWill 845G Reviewage:

TBreak is flogging the IWill board into submission in this review. The board has all the usual goodies on it, and some Serial ATA action thrown in for good measures.

The P4GS has some good features onboard. Starting off, since it’s based on the Intel 845G+ICH4 combo, you automatically get onboard VGA and USB 2.0. You also get a 10/100 Network controller and 5.1 Audio powered by Realtek. Continuing with the tradition of being different, the back panel is also arranged a little differently with three USB ports on top of another and the RJ45 sitting by itself. Since ICH4 does not support ATA-133, Iwill does good by adding a Promise ATA-133 RAID controller along with a Marvell Serial-ATA controller.

Intel Expecting Growth:

This Silicone Strategies article outlines some of the things Intel expects to see in the future, where they are headed and how fast they are growing...and meeting expectations.

Intel chief executive Craig Barrett gave his cold-eyed assessment of the market for chips while attending a high-tech conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the setting up of Penang as Malaysia's hub for the industry. "We see modest growth in the third quarter over the second quarter," Barrett told a news conference. "But we haven't seen much improvement in the computing environment because companies are not investing. When it turns around will be when companies start re-investing. I'm not forecasting when that will happen." Earlier this month, Intel said it expected third-quarter revenue would be $6.9 billion, compared with an earlier forecast of $6.3 billion. It reported a net income of $446 million for the second quarter, at the lower end of market expectations

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

More BAPCo Stuff:

Actually, it is the same stuff we all know, it is just being retold by EBNS. Funny how they have it all sounding like a movie using terms like “arch-rivals” to describe them. Heh…drama rules.

An AMD spokesman today confirmed that the Sunnyvale, Calif., chipmaker examined the SysMark 2002 benchmark and concluded that tests had been dropped that favored AMD's Athlon XP processors. "We definitely believe SysMark 2002 is heavily biased toward Intel," the spokesman charged.

Lighted HSF Review:

A clear lighted fan attached to a heatsink. It is an all aluminum HSF to boot and doesn’t have very good performance. Well, it looks cool, and it would go well with this next item.

Rainbow Coalition:

Well, kinda…this is a rainbow LED mod, so ya better head on out to Radio Shack and grab some supplies for your project.

Somewhere, over the rainbow... Right, let's get straight to the point. This is a little eye-candy circuit which continuously cycles an RGB LED through the colours of the rainbow. The speed at which the colours change is adjustable. The circuit has two options: 1. Switch between the different colours. This makes the effect very noticeable. 2. Have the colours fade into each other. This is a more relaxed effect and one I find very pleasing. The choice is yours. The cost is about £2 (ish) plus the LED and PCB.

Text:

Well, since we are on a lighting kick this Ed, I thought we ought to throw this one into the mix as well. So here it is..

TexMany have seen LED modded fans before, but Antec took the ever popular mod and evolved it into a astounding product for consumer's (like me) who don't have much experience with electrical components. Antec takes a standard 80mm clear fan and adds in a little circuitry work of their own along with a strip of PCB like material. They solder on three LED's to illuminate the fan. By doing so Antec presents to you their Blue LED and Tri-Lite 80mm fans.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition - VisionTek Update

VisionTek Update:

This is rather odd, we have heard from several sources, including PowerLeap, the CPU upgrade and adapter people, that Equity Partners, Inc. working on behalf of Visiontek is actually faxing out invitations to other companies that is basically soliciting potential buyers for what is left of VisionTek for $150 Million. That much we know from PowerLeap.

Now, unconfirmed rumors from the retail market say that after the current stock of VisionTek cards are gone off the shelves, they will no longer stock the VisionTek brand ever. This makes things even harder on VisionTek, whom…from what is going around the rumor mill, will essentially only have their name, what equipment they do have left and a building for $150 Million, which is not what you would call a bargain. So with rumors of no channel sales to offer, no partner to make their cards, and barely more than the shirts on their backs ( a $150 million dollar shirt according to the fax ), things are looking pretty grim for VT all the way around.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition - Blair's Ed

Military Playing Video Games:

If the U.S. plans to attack Iraq at some point in the near future, as has been speculated, the Pentagon might want to give advance notice to submarine commanders -- they may be busy playing video games. The Interactive Digital Software Association, a trade group representing the major game publishers, said on Tuesday it has worked with its members to equip all 72 submarines in the U.S. fleet with a game console and about 20 games each.

Bad Copper Interconnects:

Yield and reliability issues threaten the touted dual-damascene copper interconnect structures of leading 130-nanometer processes, having caused both poor yields at wafer sort and unacceptable failure rates over the life of apparently good chips, according to a wide range of industry sources. Some of the mechanisms leading to those problems can be controlled by an unprecedented level of attention to processing steps, and leading foundries have demonstrated such devotion to detail in recent months. But other problems are inherent in the structure of the new interconnect stacks and can be addressed only by design rule changes and by changes in design practice, some reaching clear back to the architectural levels of design.

Unnatural optics:

Optical experiments using arrays of nanowires are demonstrating that the concept of a negative refractive index could be realized in practical systems. The work, done at Purdue University, attempts to reproduce results similar to those shown last year at the University of California at San Diego using microwave radiation. A negative refractive index, which is not found in nature, would allow scientists to construct new types of microscopes with unprecedented resolution and could allow the creation of novel photonic devices.

Bear-y Bad:

A 38-year-old man was in fair condition Monday after a grizzly bear attacked a group of animal rights activists hiking eight miles northwest of here. The victim, who was not identified, and three other members of Buffalo Field Campaign surprised a grizzly sow and two cubs Sunday afternoon. "He got his face mangled," said Ball. "He had two puncture wounds on his knee and two on his right-hand side below the kidney."

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Network Wiretap:

I’m not sure what the real name is and it’s not really that important, what is important is what this stuff can do, who is developing it and why. Have a look.

Security company Network Associates said Monday that it had purchased a small start-up whose software lets corporations and others "wiretap" their computer networks. With its acquisition of Lindon, Utah-based Traxess, Network Associates adds a product complementary to its own Sniffer network-management system, said Sandra England, the company's executive vice president for business development, and the person who closed the deal. With Traxess' DragNet program, "we can stream to disk everything that is happening on the network," England said. "It can give you far more capability to see what an intruder has done."

Don’t Upgrade:

Seems everyone has an editorial up today, Viper Lair has an article on why it isn’t necessary to upgrade, and the benefits of “butt massager chairs”.

You've seen the benchmarks, and likely you were impressed with some of the numbers, as well as the overclocking abilities of both CPUs. More likely however, you probably balked at the pricing of the chips. Well, probably not so much for the Athlon, but it's probably a good idea to bring back some cans for recycling. I'll admit, when I saw the benchmarks, I wanted the chips, but in truth, economics are a factor. Contrary to popular belief, not all webmasters get everything for free. Yessir, I'm a commoner, just like most people, and if I want something, it's going to come out of my pocket. Don't get me wrong, if I could, I'd buy every new thing that gets released everyday, but when you got a family to care for and bills to pay, I could probably do without the $500 "Butt Massager Chair".

800MHz FSB Hammer:

A chart showing the Hammer at 800MHz FSB. Coolness, not much else to go with it except speculation, and we’re not even sure who made this “roadmap” either. But....as always, this stuff sure is fun to look at.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Graphics Card Rant?:

Holy cow, what was this guy thinking? Hardware Accelerated has posted a rant about the state of the graphics industry, but the author makes some pretty funny statements in it like:

NVIDIA’s reliance on manufacturing processes at TMSC, which normally gives it a key advantage over its competitors has come back to haunt them…their reliance on a 3rd party has not only delayed their part but given ATI an advantage to not only release a product line, but in a key time with OEM’s where they choose products for their fall/winter refresh. ATI has already won a few key OEM deals, and is sure to sign more increasing its market share, slowly nicking away at NVIDIA’s dominance. Even if NVIDIA does release a high-end part, or a family of graphics cards, before Christmas they will have most likely missed this lucrative market as OEM's aren't picking their chips last minute. This product cycle has dealt NVIDIA a serious blow, showing how even one missed product cycle can and destroy a company, as can me recalled with 3dfx's troubles in the past.

I think they need to double check who actually “ownz” everyone in total market share and OEM deals. NVIDIA not being “taped out” has nothing anyone but NVIDIA, and they are claiming to still be on schedule. And 3DFX missing a product cycle was not what killed them….poor money management and little things like buying STB and making their own cards …which turned their best customers into competitors overnight. Bah…anyway, go give the article a read and send the author your rants about his rant.

Kuthec Honeycomb:

Mmmmm, honeycombs. Remember that commercial for the cereal anyone? ”Honeycombs got, a big big taste…it’s not small, no no no!!” Ooops, slipped there for a second…what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah…3 different honeycomb HSF’s reviewed at OCInside.

The company Kuthtec might not be known well in Europe, but i had to submit these heatsink tests when i saw these good results. Whereby i've directly tested all 3 types and the results are showing that even the smallest and quietest type of the KUTHTEC Honeycomb series achieves astonishing good cooling results.

New Creative Labs Drivers:

Get your Creative Labs drivers for Windows 2000 and WinXP today. Hot off the press, there are new drivers for your soundcard available today…Audigy owners will be happy. I also heard today that Creative Labs will also be releasing a Radeon 9700 card as well.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

SiS Xabre 400:

Our friends at the Tech-Report have cranked out a review of the Xabre 400 from SiS. Not a bad budget card at all with some pretty decent features, and 8x AGP support. Makes me extremely interested to see what SIS is going to do next.

VERTEX AND PIXEL SHADERS are where it's at for 3D graphics. Everyone deserves a DirectX 8.1-compatible graphics card, and trickle-down is a wonderful thing. Last year's high-end DirectX 8.1 features have now made their way down to value graphics cards that everyone can afford. SiS's Xabre is the latest value GPU to feature a full DirectX 8.1 feature set, and it's the first to support the new AGP 8X standard. Other than Xabre, only ATI's high-end Radeon 9700 graphics card supports AGP 8X, and it's only just now becoming available to consumers.

Amped Up Part 2:

O.K., so Kyle is making a little joke when he said “….highly caffeinated sugar-enhanced beverages? I am sure there will be laws against these too one day” looking at this article, it looks like they are already on their way to outlawing them. Thanks to mcravenufo for the link.

The sale of soda is already prohibited at elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the school board is set to vote Tuesday to extend the ban to the district's approximately 200 middle and high schools.

P4 2.8GHz Review:

A review of the recently released 2.8GHz Northwood. I didn’t read all the way through this review so you are on your own.

Just a few days after AMD launched their new Athlon XP 2600+, Intel is back to keep the pressure on its competitor. The new Pentium 4 2.8GHz launched today is Intel's fastest desktop processor available to the consumer. We have all the benchmarks here, find out how it compares with the previous 2.53GHz processor.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Free Stuff:

I have put together another “One A Day for a Week” Contest over at Hypothermia, this time around, there are 7 ASUS 48x16x48 CDRW Drives up for grabs. You guys had better get over there and win all seven.

It is time to hook you guys up with some more of the baddest free stuff on the planet. This time around we have seven ASUS 48x16x48 CDRW's up for grabs, all you have to do is hit the link and submit your name...it is that easy. I will be picking one winner a day at random for a week until all the drives are gone.

Leadtek Ti4600 Review:

Leadtek GeForce 4 Ti4600 VGA Review from “down under….and too the left” at Overclockers.nz.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Liquid Nitrogen 2.8GHz P4:

Muropaketti decided that the 500MHz overclocks we were seeing on the 2.8GHz P4 wasn’t good enough. So, out came the LN2 and a lotta voltage and the result was a blistering 3.92GHz, they even got it to boot at over 4.3GHz…damn.

When the Intel Pentium 4 2,8GHz CPU arrived to our testlab we ordered 10 liters of Liquid Nitrogen (LN2 -196°C) and decided to run some tests in very low temperatures. After some adjusting and testing we were able to run SiSoft Sandra CPU and Memory benchmarks and Pifast benchmark smoothly when the CPU was running at 3917MHz. We raised the FSB one more step and managed to run succesfully SuperPi benchmark while CPU was running at 3998MHz.

Better AXP 2200+:

Mobile Radeon 9000 Sighting:

Damn, I keep sending Alienware my address and telling them where to ship me one of these bad boy Area-51 laptops …but still, nothing!!! Although not officially announced, this print ad from a magazine is sporting an Alienware ad showing off a new Mobile Radeon 9000. Thanks to Charles for the scan.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

VIA 8x AGP Event:

VIA is hosting an AGP 8x event with ATi and NVIDIA. VIA will be hosting this “plugfest” ( they named it, not me ) with boards from Abit, Albatron, Acorp, Aopen, Azza, Biostar, Chaintech, DFI, ECS, EpoX, Giga-Byte, Iwill, Jetway, Micro-Star, Shuttle, Soltek, Soyo and Tyan. Whoa…

"VIA remains committed to driving technical innovation, and working with our industry partners to facilitate - not impose - wide and rapid market adoption of beneficial new applications such as AGP8X," commented Richard Brown, Director of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "AGP 8X support enables end-users to realize unequalled image quality and performance, so this event is vital to ensure greater product compatibility, and we are delighted that key players are joining us to achieve this goal.

ABIT vs. ABIT:

Well, the Ti4400 vs. their Ti4200 that is. PCExtreme has a down and dirty one page review of these two budget boards. My money is still on the Ti4200 and Radeon 8500’s in the “bang for the buck” category.

We all know that the nVidia GeForce4 Ti4600 is king of the hill...at least for the moment. But here at PCExtreme, we are more concerned about the "Bang for the buck" factor, so that tosses the Ti4600 right out the window. So we are left with its 2 smaller siblings, the Ti4400 and the Ti4200. I chose Abit's Siluro line of cards because I am a huge Abit fan, and these things just look downright mean.

Athlon 2200+ Review:

The last four guys in the world that still own "Members Only" jackets, the gang at Club Overclocker look at the AXP 2200+. The fellas like the budget aspect of this processor since the release of the 2600+ caused a significant price drop in the lower speed Athlon processors.

When AMD made the switch from the Palomino to the Thoroughbred core, everyone was expecting the new .13 micron die to bring incredible things to the desktop. Many thought we would see a much needed thermal decrease in operating temperatures as well as huge increases in peroformance. This turned out to be false on both counts. Many people also thought we would finally see a 166MHz FSB. This too turned out to be false. What we did receive from AMD was a new CPU sporting a new core, but with the same extreme heat levels and only a small performance increase.

Fun, Freaky and On Fire:

It is that time of the week folks, if it is funny, freaky or on fire…MAIL ME HERE. Got something you really want me to look at….send it. As always, when it comes to TEH FUNNAY…you guys kick ass.

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

Albatron Ti4200 Reviewage:

I am in a bit of a quandary here. If it is "Beyond3D", ain't that 4D or maybe 5D even?

Nature has the most impact here. But as we see games being developed which are focusing on more and more nature in games (Halo, Unreal II, Doom III?), the nature benchmark of 3Dmark is an very important one. However not all upcoming games will use the vertex or pixel shader for these kind of effects, a number of them will. And the nature demo of 3dMark is a perfect example on what you can do with these new features.

AMD World On Rambus:

I am not trying to be funny, it's the truth. They are looking into PC4200 RDRam that is better know as 32-bit RDRam. I think it is almost gone even though it has not really even shown up yet.

The need for overclocking this type of RDRAM may not be totally necessary but with increasing popularity of processors like the Intel Pentium 4B 2.26GHz which have shown a tendency to be incredibly stable at a frequency of 3GHz.With this obviously you ram is going to see some substantial increase in frequency , however has we touched on earlier the Intel i850E chipset has the ability to control the RDRAM multiplier automatically. So what you may see at frequencies above 150 times your cpu multiplier is the RDRAM multiplier will be reduced to a 3x multiplier i.e. the operational frequency of the RDRAM will be reduced to e.g.: 3 x 154 = 462MHz x 2 = 924MHz.

Purty Radiator:

I am being serious again, really. Look for yourself, it is all chromed out just waiting for a modded case to call home. Thanks Black_Baron.

Pentium 4 Postage:

A very interesting read over at AcesHardware forum for you guys that like to get neck deep into this stuff.

I noticed the difference in the amount of L1-cache Instruction TLB entries already in the last week and I also noticed that in the Wcpuid Feature Flags that there is feature called "RESERVED". This feature is Supported by P4 2,8GHz.