[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Editorials and Opinions:

Well, when CNN doesn’t provide me with enough controversy, I sometimes like to browse the online editorials and opinion columns like this one at PCMag written by John C. Dvorak. He talks about internet controversy and the likes…interesting stuff. Thank Matthias for the linkage.

Benchmark Test Controversy Dept.: Watching AMD and Intel battle each other for some sort of performance crown that nobody but AMD and Intel execs care about is like watching the Bloods and Crips in a gang fight. And there are the equivalents of drive-by shootings in the process.

ASUS A7V8X Review:

A1-Electronics has posted a quick 2 page review of the latest from ASUS. They gave the board high marks, have a look.

We have given this ASUS A7V8X KT400 motherboard one of our Gold Medals for a variety of reasons not least the selection of features. We would have liked to have seen a Smart Card reader combined with USB ports for the front panel included as we consider this to be basic facilities.

Hercules Radeon 9700:

Extreme Cooling robbed a Hercules truck carrying Radeon 9700 Pro and Radeon 9000 boards. They posted pictures of the evidence. Nice looking boards, and the 9700 looks to have some decent cooling on it judging from the looks of the big bad copper orb on it.

Mainboard Comparison:

ASUS vs. ABIT in this write up on TechPC. The gang pit the DDR IT7 Max2 against the P4T533 RAMBUS board. Somewhat of an odd match up, but people still trying to decide on a DDR board vs. a RAMBUS board will want to give this review a look.

The idea of this review is basically to place DDR's fastest and RDRAM's fastest up against one another by running a vast amount of benchmarks at same clock speeds for comparison. We here at Tech-PC believe that the ABIT IT7-MAX2 is currently the best and fastest DDR solution available and that the ASUS P4T533 is currently the fastest RDRAM solution available.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition - UT2K3 Demo ATi Style

UT2K3 ATi Style:

For all of you ATi card owners that happen to be fans of the new Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo, you can grab this small file that is floating around the net, extract it into your textures folder and now enjoy the opening animation featuring the ATi logo instead of the NVIDIA logo…pretty slick. Grab it here.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Totally Tubular:

The mainboard with the audio tubes with the “old time” or “retro” look is being reviewed by the gang at Active Hardware.

The beast in question is none other than the AX4B 533 Tube, which, as its name indicates, incorporates audio-out capabilities that are tied-in with a good old-fashioned vacuum tube. That's right, a vacuum tube. Surprising as it may seem, this innovation (sic) will come as quite a delight to high-fidelity audio enthusiasts, who swear by the capabilities of the little bundles of glass -- a subject we'll be exploring during our analysis.

Cool Cordless Mouse:

One of the only reasons I don’t use my wireless keyboard / mouse set up all the time is because it eats the batteries. This new Logitech set-up looks like it will cure that.

The Rapid Charge Base Station looks rather weird. It doubles as the charger and the signal receiver. When you want to recharge your mouse, all you have to do is place it on the base station, just like you would place a PDA in its cradle. It takes less than two hours to fully recharge the 2 AA Ni-MH batteries inside the mouse. You can recharge the batteries whenever you want to, due to the fact that the Ni-MH batteries do not have a "memory effect". The base station is one of the most wonderful things a cordless mouse can come with.

Radeon Video Review:

The “Mr. Rogers” of the hardware review community, 3Dgameman has a review of two Radeon 9700 cards, this is only part 1 of a two part series.

Ticket to Hell:

O.K., I am not religious or anything like that….but I can guarantee you an E-Ticket TO HELL for hacking the Dalai Lama’s computer network. Holy Cow, what were they thinking?

Responding to accusations that China's government tried to break into the Dalai Lama's computer network, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday that Beijing opposes all computer hacking. The spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry's press division said she had no details on the accusation by the computer manager for the Tibet Buddhist leader's government in exile in India.

( I had someone point out that Buddhist believe in reincarnation as opposed to heaven/hell. Well, we think about it this way...if you hacked the Dalai Lama's network, the chances are high you will be reincarnated as farmer John's favorite sheep...ie: Hell )

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

Delays Cause Speculation:

EBN has an article that covers speculation behind AMD delays. If anything rings true, it was their statement saying that people who are into “conspiracy theories” are having a field day with the delays.

Super Plastics:

Hmmm, instant booting computers sounds cool doesn’t it? That is just some of the uses they are talking about in this Science Daily article…cool stuff. Thanks WickerBill.

Researchers at Ohio State University and their colleagues have expanded the possibilities for a new kind of electronics, known as spintronics. Though spintronics technology has yet to be fully developed, it could result in computers that store more data in less space, process data faster, and consume less power. It could even lead to computers that "boot up" instantly, said Arthur J. Epstein, professor of physics and chemistry and director of Ohio State's Center for Materials Research.

Intel Fab News:

There are thousands of companies that use this approach to cut costs, but Intel is getting a little attention for having their employees take a two week vacation over the Christmas holidays.

Intel Corp. said on Tuesday that it had requested more than 3,000 staff at its key Irish manufacturing plant to take two weeks off at Christmas in order to help it cut costs. The company, which employs 3,200 people directly and 1,000 contractors at its semiconductor fabrication facility outside Dublin, said the move reflected market conditions. "Clearly the market is tough at the moment and this for us is an effective way of saving costs," said Intel Ireland spokesman Frank Turpin.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition - DOOM ]|[ At The Movies

DOOM III Movie:

Not the kind you can download…well, yet…heh. Warner Bros. will be taking DOOM ]|[ to the big screen. This article has quotes from the gang at id Software, including the man himself, John Carmack.

"Doom," a first-person shooter, launched in 1993, and a third installment is scheduled for release next year. The feature film's story line will most resemble the third "Doom," which is set in the future at a paramilitary base on Mars, where a scientific experiment goes awry and accidentally opens a portal to hell. The vastly outnumbered hero fights off the forces of hell as they come from the portal onto the deserted base. This will be the basis for the feature version, without the constraints of the first-person shooter format.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

AMD Design Win:

GF4 Pro600 8x Box:

Some box art from the folks at Gainward that gives a little insight into the new naming scheme that coincides with the release of 8X AGP. You might also notice the TV-Out / DVI and BGA memory on these cards as well, something that had been reserved in the past for higher end cards.

CompUSA Getting Bawls:

The Washington Post is reporting that CompUSA is adding the high energy drink Bawls to their list of products they carry. You’ll notice CompUSA has lately been moving towards carrying “cool” items like neon lights, case modding equipment and the likes. This is another move to stay with the times, I suppose.

"Having Bawls in the stores is no doubt a marketing tool CompUSA is using to court the hard-core gamer market," said Stephen Heaslip, founder of Blue's News (www.bluesnews.com), a Web site for the inveterate gamer. "It says to gamers, 'We can speak your language.'"

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

P4 2.8GHz Review:

The Guru3D busts out an 11 page review of the latest and greatest from Intel. Interesting reading for sure.

MIST Silent HSF?

Odd looking heatsinks are making somewhat of a comeback. This unit looks like a 2 in 1 cooler with a quiet fan attached. Let’s see how it performs.

The heatsink looks like two regular heatsinks glued together, it's really quite bizarre, but at the same time it looks very manly with it's twin fan pointing into the center of the heatsink. The heatsink is made out of aluminum and a nice 4mm thick copper base, machine lapped to perfection. Not as good as what we've seen on for example Swiftechs waterblocks, but pretty close.

Low Profile HSF:

Since we are on a HSF kick today, Vantec’s ass kicking little, low profile cooler grabs a little spotlight this morning with the help of the Viper Lair guys.

The server, and low-profile desktop market never needed performance coolers for a couple of reasons. For servers, they're built within very tight specifications, and the cooling that is provided is usually more than enough. For the low-profile desktop, the same arguement applies, and let's face it, if you have one of these, stealth and aesthetics are probably a concern, and nothing contradicts

New Matrox Drivers:

New Matrox drivers are out today. Now your Parhelia will finally beat the Ti4600 by a large margin now!!! Right?? I mean, wasn’t the drivers suppose to be holding that card back? Heh…just kidding about the Parhelia. So if you need other Matrox drivers, here's the link, go get what you need...if you need them though.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - NVIDIA Goes 8X AGP

NVIDIA Goes All 8X AGP:

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

STMicro And AMD:

STMicro to provide 64-bit compilers for AMD processors. The Portland Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, is to provide compilers and associated tools, for the 64-bit Athlon and Opteron microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

For the first time, the CDK will target the 64-bit Windows operating system for the x86-64 architecture as well as Linux for x86-64, Portland said. The x86-64 “cluster development kit” toolset will include scalar and parallel Fortran, C and C++ compilers, debuggers, profilers, tools and utilities that support the development for Linux and Windows workstations, servers and clusters.

Free Stuff Reminder:

Here is your weekly reminder to get over to Hypothermia and win some the FREE STUFF I have rounded up for you guys. There is just over a week ( and 9 motherboards, cpu’s and vidcards ) left to win, so get over there and win something.

Normally we have a "One a Day for a week" contests, but this contest is a little different, this time around we are running this contest for a full month!! I have 30 items, mostly motherboards that are all waiting for a new home.

Console Happenings:

While not PC News, It looks like the company that was a longtime Nintendo partner has been bought by Microsoft, maker of the Xbox. Hmmm, interesting development there.

Microsoft executives on Tuesday confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in the game industry: the company's purchase of British game developer Rare. Ed Fries, vice president of Xbox game content for Microsoft, confirmed the purchase at a promotional event in Spain for the game console. Microsoft said in a statement that it had paid $375 million in cash for the developer, best known for creating titles such as "GoldenEye" and "Donkey Kong 64" for Japanese game giant Nintendo. Rare will now produce console games exclusively for the Xbox, although it will continue to make games for Nintendo's Game Boy

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

VapoChill Review:

Cravin someg subzero temps or your processor , but you don’t live in the Antarctic or have a 50 gal drum of Liquid Nitrogen? Try this…

Even if you paid just a little attention in your physics' class at school, you'll know that to make CMOS-based electronics (CPU) go faster, it pays to cool them down as well as you can. Put simply, extensively cooling CPUs to near zero Celsius temperatures results in faster switching time for semiconductor devices and increased circuit speed due to lower electrical interference.

nForce2 Ad:

I have a feeling that this was suppose to be funny but instead will come back to haunt them with 1000% overclockability and 100% stability. After all, those are performance claims are they not? Think about it.

Light Strips:

Light Strips are cool, very cool especially when you are a big case modding freak, or just looking for that “something special” to add to your case.

Like in our Rev. 1.0 review, we will be using our 'WOW' factor meter to judge different types of lighting. These different types include a regular neon tube light, a cold cathode neon light, flexible neon lighting, and the Rev. 1.0 Lightstrip. Now the 'WOW' factor doesn't necessarily mean how bright it is, but both a combination of brightness and functionality. Can it bend? Can it give life to a case?

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Awesome SFF Mod:

I almost missed this AWESOME mod because I didn’t recognize ViaHardware’s new name ( sounds like a small country in the middle east ), you don’t want to miss this Small Form Factor case mod….hella nice.

Super Camera:

A strange coincidence, I am looking at getting a new digital camera ( mine is on its last legs ) and then Blair sends me this link to a 11 MegaPixel Camera they are developing. Holy cowzers…11 Mega Pixels.

Canon will bring to market an 11-megapixel single-lens reflex digital still camera for high-end users in November, the company announced Tuesday. The EOS-1Ds uses a new CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensor Canon developed, the company says in a statement. Until now, CMOS image sensors, which record photons of light and change them into electric signals, had a maximum size of 6.3 million pixels.

Hammer Tech Resources:

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Golden Sample Ad:

We give the gang at Gainward a hard time over their “Golden Sample” naming scheme…and we thought that maybe nobody at the company had never associated the name with the close resemblance it had to “seedier” meanings…guess I was wrong.

You have to love overseas advertising, those guys can do and say damn near anything…a far cry from what is acceptable here in the States. Heh…golden sample.