[H]ardNews 4th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed

You Are Going to Jail:

Yeah, you little file-swapping music-stealing scumbags are going to the big house where you will have new friends that stand behind you a lot. Then again maybe not.

It doesn't matter if you've forsworn Napster, uninstalled Kazaa and now are eagerly padding the record industry's bottom line by snapping up $15.99 CDs by the cartload. Be warned--you're what prosecutors like to think of as an unindicted federal felon.

The Gibson:

If all goes well for a small band of engineers at Gibson Labs in Sunnyvale, Calif., this will be the year they put commercial electric guitars on an Ethernet network for the first time. The next question: Will anyone want a digital Les Paul?

UtraSparc III Docs:

Sun boasts their UltraSparc III as an "open" architecture, yet seem to recognize that there is insufficient information freely available for the open source community to support it with operating systems. I have been told that the required documentation does exist, however, with a Sun part number of 805-0408-05-P. An early version of this manual was allegedly made available to Linux developers once a Confidential Disclosure Agreement was signed (Sun's version of a Non-Disclosure Agreement), however no such offer has been made to the OpenBSD team, an offer that if made is likely counter to the project's goals.

New Wife/GF Utility:

Just by pointing his super-magnets at the right spots on your head, Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone can make you go momentarily mute or blind.

May I See Her First?

BANGKOK - Illegal motorbike racers in Thailand have upped the stakes of the game. No longer content with money or the loser's motorbike as the prize, the winner now gets to take home his rival's girlfriend for a night as well. (Insert "Bangkok" joke here.)

Serious Security:

The simple answer is that better security systems alone will not stop such attacks. No computing initiatives alone are enough to make systems trusted, nor the acquisition of more security systems. What then to do, if we must not allow an attacker to have such devastating effects upon our infrastructure? How can we effectively and reasonably take counter-measures? The answer I believe, lies within a multi-tiered approach to making appropriate actions possible in a timely manner.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

GeForceFX Reviews:

In the immortal words of Brad Hamilton, "Learn it, know it, live it."

HardOCP

The Bottom Line: The GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is a very hot and noisy beast that may give you a bit of an edge over the current king of the hill, the ATI 9700 Pro in some applications. If you are an NVIDIA fanboy, this of course has your name all over it.

AnandTech

As we mentioned at the start of our GeForce FX Preview - "Kudos to ATI."

Extremetech

For nVidia, GeForceFX represents a return to at the very least performance parity with ATI. For ATI however, Radeon 9700 Pro looks strong versus GeForceFX, and these results show just how much performance ground nVidia had lost to ATI when Radeon 9700 Pro first shipped.

VIA's True24 Audio:

Taipei, Taiwan, 27 January 2003 - VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today announced the True24™ Initiative, a bold undertaking encapsulating three goals: to drive higher quality audio solutions onto the PC, to develop a clearer standard for these solutions, and to help educate consumers about hi-fi PC solutions.

Read the PR in its entirety here.

mOdds & Ends:

Vantec 470watt PSU Review @ MonkeyReview - Pretty Lights @ MyWorld - DIY HD Silence @ SilentPCReview - Vantec Nexus Control Panel Review @ BurnoutPC - Vantec Nexus Fan Controllers @ FragWare - FREE STUFF @ OCerCafe - LianLi Case Review @ ViperLair - Digital Doc @ ModTheBox - More Rheobus @ OCIA

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

First To 3 Million:

Congratulations to the hard working members of Team [H]ard|OCP and them being the first and only team to reach the 3 million watermark in the Folding @ Home Distributed Computing challenge.

New DivX:

For all you folks that like backing up you movie collection, you will be interested in knowing that DivX 5.03 is out.

Kingston HyperX:

Nexus has their mitts on some sticks of PC3500 from Kingston that is out of their HyperX line you may not be familiar with. Kingston is planning on stepping into the OCers ring this year with quality sticks that can do the aggressive timings we all just dream about.

This memory is definitely geared toward enthusiasts who want all the bandwidth they can get. Faster ram will always increase the performance of your PC. Like Corsair, Kingston’s hard work and time testing 100% of all the HyperX PC3500 modules has paid off.

We have been banging on more than a few sticks of it here and it has really been shining.

Letters & BS:

Dan starts off this week having a discussion about being high in China, then totally switches gears and points out the lies that we hear all the time.

EPIA Modding Madness:

I think that there is a pretty good chance a few bong hits were part of the inspiration for this idea, but it turned out looking very sweet. Seriously, these guys did some great and original work.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Get Your GFFX Now:

Need to have your GFFX fix, and need it now. Get out your wallet and head to EBay.

Combine this sliver of super-powered silicon with radically redesigned boards, special heatsinks and fans and you’ll understand why the GeForce FX gives hard-core gamers the bragging rights they deserve!!

DDR Guide:

If you don't know anything about DDR Ram, here is you one chance to catch up with the rest of us. Don't worry, it is simple, but if you don't pick it all up on the first read through, we can send the short bus to pick you tomorrow.

Our suggestion to you is this, and we have been doing this for a long time. Buy name brand memories for maximum compatibility and simply less issues that plague many sticks of Ram. Corsair, Kingston, and Crucial are high on my list.

9500 Pro Review:

It is the big red card that comes in the small red box that kicks lots of ass. GamingNexus has a go at some games with the Sapphire Atlantis 9500 Pro.

In conclusion, the Sapphire 9500 Pro is a great card with superb performance for its price point of around $180 for the OEM where as the GF4 4400 is around $190.

Woo Woo Woo:

Just be glad you don't live in Oakland. The text story is here but you really have to watch the video feed to get the full story. Seems I am in the mood to listen to some Snoop now.... Blame Michael Dahm for bringing this to our attention.

“The whistles go whoo whoo,” says whistle fan Bubb Rubb.

nForce2 Review:

Asus scores another win with their nForce2 solution over at CyberCPU.

I found this system to boot faster and run just about every program I used faster.

Stoopid non-Geeks:

Yes, this is one of those moments when we, the Geeks, get to laugh at all the "normal" people out there for being....well, so normally ignorant as only non-Geeks can. Thanks John Taylor.

These images are the result of 8 years in the retail computer industry - 8 years that are thankfully behind me. After working as a technician in a retail store for a famous computer company (think cows), I was let go in August of 2002 because I believed it was better to do a quality repair job rather than just format & reload no matter what the real problem is.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

GFFX 5800 Ultra Review:

Better get it while its hot, because it may not be posted too much longer. The review is very slim but does contain some significant gaming benchmarks. Of course it is all in German over at TecChannel, so you will need to take your BabelFish.

AMD Roadmap:

This Japanese website shows Barton very soon with BartonMP, Athlon64, and Opteron to debut around the same time. You can head over with your translator to see what they have to say about it.

Other things to note are 90-nm process chipset slated for Q104 in Athlon64 and Opteron flavors as well as a "budget" Athlon64 chip codenamed "Paris" that will carry 256KB of L2 cache compared to the Clawhammer's 1MB. Barton will be phased out of the new "Duron posistion" by years end if all goes according to plan with nothing but Hammer chipsets for sale. This is sure to turn up the heat in the market place.

Barton 2800+ Review:

FlickerDown has a translation of a Taiwan article showing off the power of Barton in AMD's new 2800+.

However, in both CPUs the FSB has remained at 166MHz (333 DDR). It will take a significant effort to move to 200MHz – not because the CPUs cannot operate at that speed, but because AMD will have to guarantee their operation...

Aopen GFFX:

BoogleTech has the scoopage of a GFFX card from AOpen dubbed the "Aeolus FX" that is showing off what appears to be the same stock cooler, but with a new cover.

Aeolus FX is one of the fastest AGP 8X cards currently available.

Available? I wonder where I can get mine?

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

SATA PCI Card:

I think many of us have seen some of the SATA reviews out there, what few their are, and most likely you have gone away dissappointed. EnvyNews has a review up of a SATA controller card this morning that rides the PCI bus. I think this may be one of the "problems" with current SATA controllers. Once we see SATA controllers integrated onto HyperTransport and PCI Express busses, they will really show their strength. Anyway, that is my two cents.

Stick to Gaming:

I have seen the guys over at VoodooExtreme popping off lately about information from "top dogs" at hardware companies. I would have to guess that they are talking to the head janitor to be getting some of their information.

Sounds like ATI has an Ace up their sleave: a top dog at ATI has told us that the R350 will debut in march, and as told before will be 10% faster than the FX, but the kicker will be that it's also $150 cheaper. The massive price difference is due to the fact the R350 will be a 10 layer PCB, while Nvidia's fastest will require 12 layers.

The parts about March and the FX do not sound too far off, but thinking that a top-of-the-line 3D card is going to be selling for US$249 is simply off base. Bottom line is, don't get your hopes up. Thanks to Chris for the heads up.

Ti4200 Review:

The four guys at 8BallsHardware review the Asus Ti4200 powerhouse.

The V8420 is an impressive overclocker, memory-wise, at least. I managed to hit 660Mhz DDR on the memory, but only 300Mhz on the core.

Xabre600 Review:

This review is short and to the point over at Tweakbox. You especially have to love the first sentence of their conclusion.

....this card just isn't worth the money, what ever that ends up being.

Our own Brent came to pretty much the same conclusion in this very detailed write up we did a few weeks ago.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

3DMark2K3 Interview:

The crew at HomeLanFed has cornered a couple of folks from the company once known at MadOnion. They hammer out some questions about 3DMark 2003.

They use beans?

9500 Review:

This is one for you guys on the other side of the ditch. BlargOC has a review of the non-Pro 9500 from Connect3D.

So is the card worth your hard-earned cash? Out-right I would have to say yes. With the 9700 Pro cards still way over £200 you simply cannot afford to ignore the 9500 as a cost-effective high performance card.

PreBuy Kits @ Best Buy:

One of our super secret double Blue Shirt agents drops us this information. Thanks Erik!

Just finished unloading the truck at by Best Buy store today and we received about three or four BFG GFFX Pre-order kits, out of the blue. Looks like they'll be going for $100 and have everything that the online kits have - even the brain. It's so nice to finally be getting some physical evidence of the NV30's existence...

Games Are Good:

Hopefully not for training serial killers and mass murderers though.

Three University of Victoria psychologists will try to determine whether video games are high-tech time-wasters or if they have any intellectual benefits.

The study has not been done yet, but we are glad to see someone actually looking into finding out about this instead of just spouting BS like most folks do with little or no proof to back up their idiotic statements.

Surprisingly, almost no research has been done in this area despite the widespread presence of video games and computers in modern homes today. Researcher Bub puts this down to intellectual prejudice. He said this lack of investigation to date makes this project all the more compelling.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Cooling:

CoolerMaster HAC-V81 HSF @ GeekXtreme - Lux Design HSF @ VirtualHideout - PowerCooler for S478 & S462 @ ClubOC

mOdds & Ends:

Acoustic Mat Review @ ModTown - ITCase @ DeviantPC - Paint Your Mouse @ SubZeroTech - DIY Colored Face Plates @ TechTastic - Everyone acts like this is something new, but the one and only TBone was doing water windows a couple years ago. Case Fishes @ OCerCafe

Misc.:

Plextor USB CD @ ClubOC - Find out what speed your AMD CPU is @ Overclockers.de WCPUID seems to be much easier. - 15 FREE USB Flash Drives @ EnvyNews

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Want Some Candy?:

Eye-candy that is…NVIDIA has provided 3DGPU with some "official" images of their highly anticipated GeForce FX graphics card. From the looks of things, the only major update to this revision of the card’s Flow FX cooler is a neon-yellow scheme to the plastic covering. Hopefully, the color of the plastic cover is not the cause for the card’s lengthy delays.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Iceman's Ed.

Patch Those Servers:

Hey, all you people that don't patch your damn Microsoft OSes are screwing things up all over the place...even for us Linux folks! At least the problem looks nipped in the bud in North America. Many thanks go out to you guys that were in the NOCs around the US this weekend pulling some long shifts. What else you were pulling while you were locked up in the NOC alone is information we do not want to hear.

If you are totally at a loss, here is the scoop again.

Hot Chicks:

I really thought this was lining up to be a joke, but apparently it is the real deal. You just have to wonder if they will have some of those old African women with banana titties showing off the latest fashions. I guess we can be thankful buttfloss is not in this year.

National Geographic is doing a swimsuit issue.

[H]ardNews - Iceman's Ed.

Fast & Furious:

Sounds like what cable used to be like...

Getting Smaller:

Researchers have made a new molecular device that could store up to 100 gigabits of data per square inch. Massimiliano Cavallini of the CNR-ISMN in Bologna in Italy and colleagues at Bologna and Edinburgh universities used molecules called "rotaxanes" to make the device. The special structure of these molecules suggest that they could be used as switchable components for artificial machines (M.Cavallini et al. Science 2003 299 531)

I/O I/O Off We Go:

But amid the clutter, a few trends emerged this past week at the Server I/O conference here. Infiniband probably will stay in a small but strategic niche and live to see a significant performance upgrade in 2006. On the motherboard, PCI Express is off to a slow start, while the competing PCI-X will likely be huge in 2004, then slowly fade. And the battle between Ethernet and Fibre Channel in storage networks won't kick into high gear until 2005.

Slip N Slide:

Hyped, sensationalised snake oil. That is how well-known security researcher Thor Larholm has described the claims made by WhiteHat Security that it has found a way to exploit a flaw in the way all web servers communicate.

Hot & Wet:

Beer Exec: "Find me a pair of breasts! Big ones! No, make that four breasts! Is there still such a thing as mud wrestling? How about if we make it wet-cement wrestling instead? And, hey -- could they be lesbians?"

You are damn right you can. Usually we would not post this, but there is a link so that you can watch the commercial as well. Maybe we could all pitch in to get them to shoot the sequel where they make out in the wet cement. Put me down for twenty.

Don't Get Killed:

I live by the 8th ranked Most Danger Intersection and drove through the 9th a bunch during Christmas. How bout you?

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Vid Price War Cometh:

You might read this headline and Digitimes and think to yourself, "No duh Bucky." I did see the ATI 9700 Pro drop from 399 to 349 at Best Buy and last week it seemed to have jumped back up to 399. I am quite sure we are going to see the pricing wars heat up here soon depending on performance numbers of course that come forth from 9700 Pro and GFFX Ultra comparisons we will be seeing soon.

New sparks of competition in the high-end graphics card market are expected to be rekindled with ATI Technologies-camp card maker CP Technology planning price cuts for its Radeon 9700 products, while Nvidia-group manufacturers like Micro-Star International (MSI), Albatron Technology and Gainward adding new GeForce4 Ti 4800SE (NV28) cards for the segment.

KT400 Review:

MSI has become a major player in the mainboard market and they are steadily showing off their talents more and more supplying feature rich boards to North America. VirtualZone gives us review of the KT4 Ultra.

The KT4 Ultra-FISR is the most feature rich motherboard I've ever tested, with USB 2.0, Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, support for DDR-400 and AGP 8X, and Serial ATA, nothing comes close to the board when we look at features.

Our review of the same board is here.

Shuttle Lands @ NewEgg:

m4yhem drops the linkage on us that shows the NF2 Shuttle breadbox with all the bells and whistles for sale and in stock at NewEgg. Nice. We will have a FULL review posted this coming week that shows you just what this box is all about.

Shuttle SN41G2 Nvidia nForce2/MCP-T 2 DDRAM FSB266/333MHz for AMD SOCKET A Processors Barebone PC FLEX ATX - Retail

Idiots Learn About the Net:

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24 — A Los Angeles man who says he was libeled in eBay Inc.’s “feedback” section of its Web site has sued the online auction house for refusing to remove statements he says damaged his reputation. Analysts say the case, sparked by an online sale of vintage Hollywood magazines, cuts to the heart of what makes eBay work: the power of buyers and sellers to keep an eye on each other.