[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Perfect 10 Review:

AT7-Max2 a perfect 10 mainboard? Hexus seems to think so. We like the Max2 series as much as the next guy…but we tend to reserve our “perfect 10” ratings for the ladies and not the hardware.

During all these tests, the test system did not crash once.

...and there you have it, a perfect 10.

Radeon 9700 Reviewage:

The fellas at OCAddiction have the Radeon 9700 on the test bench today. With brands of the Radeon 9700 coming in around the $300 mark if you look around ( about $310 online ), it is impossible to beat.

The 9700 is the card to have. PERIOD. It runs any current game, and doesn’t even break a sweat with all the bells and whistles on. ATI has grabbed the golden ring from nVidia with the 9700, and if they have their way, they will hold onto it into 2003.

EPoX Mainboard Review:

Further proof the world is coming to an end, we had ATi reviews by NVIDIA based site, now our buddies at EnvyNews are busting out EPoX mainboard reviews. Heh…well, maybe not “end of the world” stuff, but the review is worth checking out.

I was able to get my 2.4G up to 2.7G much like I did with the 4G4A+, on the other side with stability both the 2700 and 3200 DDR options ran, but by sacrificing either overclocking or onboard options. However I have not given up on the performance and overclocking with these two options, I need to get my hands on a couple different manufactures of higher speed DDR and find out if it is the memory, motherboard or the pairing of the memory with the motherboard.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Are We Ready?

O.K., O.K., so I may be a little burned out on the “Are You Ready”? campaign already, …probably because this is a product that was suppose to BE here already. But their teaser page has been updated again with weird commercial style movies via the new little "n" on the page. One reader hit the nail on the head when he suggested this wallpaper saying:

After seeing the “Are you ready” campaign that nVidia is running, I actually thought about registering www.wherethehellisthenv30.com but decided against it. I can’t believe they are using a “Are you ready” promotion on a product that is late.

Heh,whether or not it is a valid point, you got to admit you laughed at the wherethehellisthenv30.com thingy.

Big Un’s:

What do you get when you put a Zalman, Swiftech and two Thermalright coolers together? I don’t know, but you better have a friend help you carry em’ cause these are some of the biggest, heaviest HSF’s out there, all being tested by SilentPC today.

We have three celebrated heavyweights and a renown low-noise specialist for our first heatsink roundup review. The contenders: Thermalright SLK800 and AX7, the venerable Swiftech MC462A, and the CNPS6000Cu from low noise specialist Zalman.

Spinning Light Things:

Normally a night out club hopping with the crew makes the lights, as well as the rest of the room, start spinning…kinda reminds me of this lighted fan being reviewed at Sound Card Central. This is the actual quote that came with the link:

It's big, it's bad, it's a blue LED fan. Ok enough of the gay clichés. Here's a review of everyone's favorite lighted fan.

Just so you know, [H]ardOCP fully supports the rights of any lighted fan, regardless of which way their power adapter plugs into the mainboard….and we mean it.

AMD Developer Center:

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

Get Buzzed - Shoot People:

Sounds like a normal weekend night around our casa. I know plenty of you were a bit tipsy when you have been handing my ass to me in Counter Strike over the last few weeks. Now it is official, we can feel proud and boozing and gaming...at the same time.

REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 28 -- Microsoft Corp. and Anheuser-Busch Inc. today announced an interactive bar program for Budweiser and the Xbox(TM) video game system, scheduled to visit bars, clubs and pubs during evening hours, for contemporary adult consumers 21 years old or older. The national program will be conducted in more than 100 markets by nearly 300 Anheuser-Busch wholesalers from Oct. 28 through the end of the year.

This looked to be legitimate and was referred to as a press release from Lesli at AEG. Thanks Bryan Intihar.

Celeron at 3GHz:

But we hear it is still dog slow! Hell, I really don't know, just talking trash about the throw away CPU from Intel. Hexus has the real scoop, you know better than to listen to me...or especially that Steve guy.

A bit of further experimenting lead to a rock-solid default voltage speed of 2940MHz. Yes, you've read that correctly. Increasing the load voltage to ~ 1.6v lead to a stable speed of 3150MHz, as shown below. Note the Stepping ID of 7. This denotes the very latest C1 stepping.

I bet is sucks for gaming just about no matter how fast it is. Might as well have the cache on the mainboard. Like who would be stoopid enough to do that?

[H]ard|CS:

See the link on the menu? You too can now participate and possibly get your name in lights...or at least waste some time on the [H]ard Counter Striker server. Only one is running now, but more are soon to come. Thanks to ThePlanet and Corsair.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition - Blair's Tech Edition II

SATAII & iSCSI:

The new storage components from Intel include a Serial ATA controller, an iSCSI storage adapter and an ultra-low voltage Celeron processor.

OMG Them Again?

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Rambus Inc. will show off the third generation of its Raser serializer/deserializer hard macro, designed for 10-Gbit/second networks, at this week's Chip2Chip conference here. Rambus touts the Raser X as a way for companies with existing, lower-speed backbones to move to 2.5- to 12.5-Gbit/s interconnects without replacing system backplanes.

Psst, Got Any Triangles On Ya?

In a techno-economy in which the next "killer app" may be a sophisticated game called Doom 3, makers of graphics chips and video cards must stay several steps ahead of mouse-wielding, saber-bearing gamers bent on nothing less than total domination of perfectly rendered virtual worlds. In this special report, NewsFactor takes a look at the mind-bending technology of triangle rendering, vertex manipulation and pixel shading that turns PCs into dream machines. Intrigued?

Pirates Pay Up:

The Federal Court in Sydney has ordered the ringleader of a major piracy operation to pay over $220,000 in damages for his part in the sale of counterfeit PlayStation CD-ROMs.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition - ATiNews?

NVNews Cherry Busted:

Yes, there is a "Powered by ATi" review over at NVNews. This is a sure sign of the apocalypse. We hear their domain is soon to change to "NVNewsAndSomeOtherStuffToo.com". I imagine NVIDIA is going love one of their biggest fansites catering to ATi as well. Is this an OMEN?

For those who can afford to buy the latest and greatest hardware the moment it comes out, purchasing a new-generation card such as the 9700 Atlantis Pro is a no-brainer.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

Dually in the Flesh:

As mentioned, we have been pretty excited about dual channel DDR on the Pentium 4 platform and we posted last night that SiS will be getting into the fray with a mainboard from Asus. Asus was kind enough to get us some photos of the board so that we could see the configuration.

[H]ardHats Still on Sale:

We have about 50 [H]ardHats left over from our special order that we announced this weekend. The page is a little slow to load as you guys will hit it pretty hard. The caps are near black, but actually navy blue and a "fitted" style so they look really nice. The "[H]" logo on the front is done in a 3D embroidery and actually stands up off the surface of the cap. Not a cheapy cap by any stretch. HackerThreads is handling the sales and delivery and we have had nothing but great feedback about them so far.

Shuttle VIA KT400:

Michael at LostCircuits finds the spare time to get a board review together. This one focuses on the Shuttle board that sports the KT400. How did it go?

The AK37GTR comes out on top of the Soyo KT400, especially with respect to the FPU bandwidth which is the highest we have seen so far on the VIA KT400 chipset.

Flat or Round:

We started making our round cables years ago to facilitate better air flow in our boxes. Since then it has got to be big biz. TheModfathers look into data transfer across dem dar round ones.

Well, the results came as a surprise to me as it is clear that not all cables are made equal.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition - Blair's "Tech" Edition

Light-emitting Silicon:

GENEVA, Switzerland -- STMicrolectronics claims to have achieved a breakthrough in the creation of light-emitting silicon and said it would have engineering samples of monolithic silicon devices based on the technology, combining electrical isolation and optical communication, before the end of 2002.

Suing Patriots?

Two major privacy and civil liberties groups are preparing to file lawsuits this week to force the Bush administration to disclose more information about how it has been using the USA Patriot Act, which was signed in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks so as to give federal law enforcement officials greater powers to track and eavesdrop on electronic communications.

Back to Aluminum Interconnects?

Among the findings that appear in the current issue of the journal Science: When it comes to forming tiny structures in computer chip circuits and nanotechnology, aluminum may endure mechanical stress more than 30 percent better than copper, which is normally considered to be the stiffer metal.

Allrightythen:

While he was in the bathroom I could hear him getting into the shower stall and wiggling around and then I heard him drink out of the toilet," she said. "And after he was done drinking out of the toilet, he wiggled into the shower some more and turned on the shower. Later on, when I had gone in after he left the house, I realized he wiped his face on my husband's bathrobe."

The bear truth.

Its a Conspiracy:

Eating too much monosodium glutamate - the flavour enhancer common in oriental and processed foods - could make you go blind.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

DDoS:

You might not have even noticed the attacks on the core name servers last week but trust me, a lot of folks did. And it looks like things might get stepped up now to stop this type of activity. Both links here are a great read.

In the wake of last week's unprecedented DDoS attack against all 13 of the Internet's root-name servers, the government and ICANN, one of the Internet's main governing bodies, are considering changes to help protect the DNS system against future attacks.

Expensive Digits:

An online gamer is insuring his fingers for £375,000 because they have become one of his most important assets.

Thanks to kothas for the link.

Also, catch the story below this one on the BBC News page as it shows that the UK is seeing the gaming industry as a viable part of their economy.

Dynamat Sucks:

Well, maybe it does and maybe it does not, but surely OCers Down Under show off how to not use the sound deadening material. Dynamat is also very expensive and that may be one reason they were not supplied enough to do the case properly. One [H]'er mentioned to us last week that you might check out Peel & Seal from your local HomeDepot.

It sounded pretty much the same. The fans hummed, the drives whirred. Dissapointingly, I wasn't greeted with a completely different sounding computer.

Best Buy & 9500 Pro:

While word from ATi is one thing, word for our helpful Blue Shirts is just a bit more reassuring.

Regarding the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro here's the tentative scoop. In stock date: 11/17/02. Retail price: $219.99

We were told by ATi that the card would carry a US$20 rebate as well when priced at US$219.99.

We Dont Need No Stinkin' Cases:

Brooks Clark shares with us his ideas when it comes to building a computer "enclosure". He has some original ideas for sure and I can't wait till he gets the Lazy Susan incorporated. Any true tweaker will respect the ease of upgrading for sure.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Take the Tour:

Factory tours have been something that have always excited us as they are usually something we don't all get to see. VRZone has put a quick behind the scenes look at EPoX and them building their KT400 based boards. If you are into a bit of nostalgia, here our tours of an ABIT board assembly line from 1999, VisionTek building the first GeForce3 in 2001, and Gainward's assembly line this summer. Some nice mpegs with the Gainward tour that will show you the equipment in action.

H2-Ho'n Again:

Get pumped and cooled over at ExtremeMHz. They chime in with Part 2 of their H2O action and have some really nice pics to go along with it. So good looking work that should give you a few ideas.

In this installment we will discuss overclocking and the cooling subsystem that was used for the ExtremeMHz Flagship Case.

Apple Won't Make It:

Just guy, his page, and his opinion. And the guy has free PCs to boot. Now that we have filled our daily "Piss off the Apple Folks" quota, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

4. Second hand Macs, and old Macs are still too expensive, second hand and old PCs are free, and let you get on the internet and do email, why pay? (I have 2 PCs just waiting to be given away.)

DivX Arrives:

I think there are a lot of us that have been waiting to see this happen. And you just thought the movie industry was upset about digital content. This will light a new fire for sure. Thanks Russell Johnson.

The KiSS DP-450, set for release in late October, will enable playback of videos encoded in DivX versions 4.xx and 5.xx. Additionally, the two companies are working closely together to develop future products that will be "DivX Certified" and offer full compatibility with all versions of DivX video.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

9700 Vs NV30 @ B3D:

Beyond3D lays it on the line with an article comparing the yet-to-even-be-announced NV30 with the ATi 9700 VPU. It is a pretty technical read that will not appeal to many folks, but still fun to see. We will get back with you on NV30 and let you know how it was to game with, because ain't that what it is really about?

Several math functions become real instruction in DX9 VS2.0, like EXP, LOG and FRC. MOV instruction has been split in two. It now only moves floating point data and no longer accepts the address register as a destination. A new instruction, MOVA, has been introduced that moves a floating point value by rounding as defined here when writing to an address register. Moreover, the following macros are new: ABS, SINCOS, NRM, LRP, CRS, SGN, POW. To save space, we won’t include instruction set in DX8 VS1.1.

I was really scared they were going to include that VS1.1 there for a minute. Thanks to Brent for the linkage.

Bad Virus Writer! Bad!

Ann Arbor, MI - In the first major case of a cure being worse than the disease since George W. Bush replaced Bill Clinton, the 15-year-old author of the self-propagating Goldbear email virus that clogged computer networks last week was forced yesterday to apologize in writing to all of his victims.

Sneak Peeks:

OCer Down Under had the opportunity to go to the WPC Expo in Japan earlier this month and they now have their article posted.

We took the opportunity to have a closer look at the upcoming DDR dual-channel mainboards based on nVidia’s “nForce 2” and Intel’s “Granite Bay” chipset.

DVD R Got You Down?

Has the whole, "What format DVD burner do I buy?" kept you stumped. Sony has realized this and they are about to deliver a DVD burner that will go AC or DC...kinda. CDRLabs has the Full Monte.

This is what someone at Sony must have been thinking when they designed their new "Dual RW" drive, the DRU-500A. This new DVD writer is the first drive with the ability to write to DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW discs and is the first drive to hit the market with support for 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW speeds. Of course Sony hasn't stopped there. They've also included a whopping 8MB buffer, support for their Power-Burn technology and 24x CD writing speeds, the fastest found on a DVD writer.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Dual Channel DDR:

Asus just dropped a bomb in the old email box, one that many of us are going to love.

I mean, what more is there to say till we can get our hands on a test board...except that DCDDR has been the one thing that has really kept me excited for about the last six months. I am figuring we will be seeing Intel's Granite Bay chipset about that time as well.

Console Vs PC:

The question comes about once again and I am still firmly set on the PC side of the argument. I mean even if my two XBOXes had not spontaneously combusted, they did not come close to touching the kind of gaming I do on the PC. 3DAvenue chimes in with the latest argument.

However, as it stands today, the console world has again caught up. Xbox live, a network for multiplayer gaming on the Xbox, is now in full force with similar systems from Sony and Nintendo on the way. The difference is this time around, the PC doesn't have an innovative feature to take the thunder away from the consoles, and although the base of PC gamers will probably never shrink considerably, the developers and publishers out there are seeing this trend.

Koolance EXOS Reviewage:

Koolance is getting some more press today and turning some more heads with their new design for sure. Scott over at ClubOC has beat on the EXOS and he shares his opinions with us. Not to be left out, our very own Steve gives his two cents as well.

The EXOS is the best water cooler I've seen, I honestly mean that.

9700 Pro Reviewage:

LegionHardware has there own Steve, and he has taken it upon himself to crank out some 9700 coverage of the "Built by ATi" card.

Unfortunately I did not have much luck overclocking the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, which is disappointing after hearing how well GigaByte’s 9700 Pro card overclocks.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Big Sticks, Moving Fast:

The crew over at OCIA have recently revisited their Corsair modules and have kicked them thoroughly in the ass. Check out this result.

We were able to attain a max stable FSB of 210. To get this speed, we had to lower the multiplier to 8.5 and raise the DDR voltage to 2.8 as well as the CPU core voltage up to 1.85.

There is a reason we continually suggest you look into buying Corsair Ram...because the stuff is some of the best on the market when it comes to performance and consistency. A lot of the "high performance" DDR folks out there have never even heard of the word "consistency". Yeah, you know who you are.

Blue 9700 Pro:

While I am not a big fan of Sapphire Gin, a quick outing with your favorite game on this 9700 card might give you the same buzz. A GamingNexus points out, the "Powered by ATI" cards are pretty damn nice. Here is our review for comparison.

It's definitely on the high range in terms of price but you get performance that is second to none. As you can see from the benchmarks, it just blows the Geforce3 Ti500 out of the water.

Fun Speculation:

Matt Swift writes:

Either you or Steve linked it on the [H] frontpage at the time, and I remember reading in the thread that nVidia was dropping the GeForce name in favor of a new name "Eclipse."... Could it be, the flash page on nvidia.com is possibly a confirmation of the name? (After all, it's a spinning graphics chip blocking out the sun every time it spins.)

If it comes to pass, we will say, "We told you so!" If not, we will tell everyone we saw Matt hitting the crack pipe all the time over in the park.

Asia TnA:

Sorry, I meant Q&A, over at UnrealPlayground. Thanks Ben.

Notes From SiS:

We finally got some first hand feedback from SiS about their recent patent issues they were having with the chip-making process. SiS explained that the patent infringed upon was part of the SiON process technology, which is the last layering step in the CMOS process. This process has been dropped and another has been adopted and fully implemented.

ABIT OTES @ TR:

Software utilities that allow you to ramp up the clock speed of your graphics card have been around for years, but now Abit is upping the ante with the Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES, a graphics card that comes overclocked right out of the box, with a radical new cooling system thrown in for good measure.

And it is really cool looking too! Our review is here for comparison.