[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

AOpen AX4C Max i875P:

PCStats has a look at the AOpen AX4C Max i875P mainboard today. While boards with Springdale chipsets have been getting everyone’s attention lately you certainly cannot over look aggressively priced Canterwood boards like this either.

While all the benchmarks we ran showed that the i875P equipped AOpen AX4C-Max was faster than the two i865PE motherboards we tested earlier, performance differences between them were less then 1% in office based benchmarks and less the 5% in the more intensive game-type tests. Of course this is not the fault of AOpen, rather the chipset itself.

Getting ZZZs:

This weeks installment of the bizarre bazaar known affectionately as ZZZ Online has hit the web. Here is just a small list of what you can expect to find at ZZZ this week:

GPS-PDA-barcode scanner-cell phones, Wireless tasers, Portable multimedia centers, Quarks, Flying cars and Lego Macs.

Corsair XMS PC3500:

Got a need for speed? Looking for uber-high, ultra-stable FSB speeds? The Tech Lounge might have what you need, read their review of Corsair’s XMS PC3500 DDR memory and see if this is the memory you are looking for. Here is a snip from the write up:

When looking at this memory, the most noticeable difference between it and others is the black heatspreader covering both sides of the stick. There is a bit of controversy as to whether heatspreaders actually get rid of heat, but as long as it doesn't hamper the performance, why not? At the very least they look very cool.

Memorial Day:

Like most of you, we took time to observe Memorial Day this year and remember those who have lost their lives while serving our country. I was out of town and away from anything remotely resembling the internet, so please excuse me if I reprint anything that has already been posted this weekend.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

AMD Price Cuts:

AMD announced price cuts on all Athlon XP Processors just one day after Intel announced cuts on their Celeron line of CPUs. The 2600+ is the biggest mover, down almost 32% making the final price just over a c-note. Now that is a bargain.

AMD lowered the prices of eight Athlon XP processors, a day after Intel announced price cuts on its Celeron products. Compared to Intel, AMD posted a relatively greater discount, ranging from 6.3% to as high as 31.8%. Despite the two major processor makers’ efforts to boost buying sentiment through price cuts, the processor business has been generally weak in May due to slackening demand in the motherboard market.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Sound Off:

More Envy24 audio that we missed posting last week. The TechSpot walked away with a good feeling about the Revolution 7.1 and had this to say.

The Revolution 7.1 represents another success for M-Audio. As a consumer oriented soundcard it delivers on all fronts, sound quality is probably the best you’re likely to find for the price and the package includes a quality software bundle that sweetens the deal with something that should appeal to everyone (that’d be WinDVD 4 in my case).

5900 Ultra 4 Sale:

If you think that $500 is too much to be paying for a video card, then it is likely that this eBay auction is not going to turn you on. I think I will have to wait for the retail box. It must be all those Rage3D forum members secretly trying to get one without their buddies knowing. Thanks Halo.

Buttery Slick:

I am going to guess that he got the idea for his mod at breakfast one morning. Great work that turns out to have a bit of an art deco twist at CaseModGod. Thanks to Joel Hluszko for the linkage.

The first thing I had to do was locate a toaster. I really wanted a 2-slot toaster, but found that everything I wanted to add to this system would not fit. So I purchased a GE 4-slot chrome toaster.

Modding:

Pretty Fan Grills @ TweakBox - Mid Tower Video Review @ 3GM - Black Face Plate @ R&B - CC Fans @ BJorn3D - 7/12v Fan Switch @ DVHardware - mATX Case @ MikhailTech - Al Case @ ModTheBox

Etc.:

TweakNews Interview @ Ohls - PSU Review @ VH - Cheiftec Case @ HOCTech - Mousepad @ VirtualUnderground

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Revolution Audio:

I know many of you have been looking for alternatives to Creative sound products. I personally have been using a Hercules solution for a quite a while now and have been very happy with it. There is however a new player in the ring, and that player is VIA. Their Envy24 sound chip is used on some extremely high dollar cards and now a "lesser" version is available at desktop prices. If you line it up with the competition at its price point, you will find that "lesser" is not a word that should be used to describe it. G3D has the scoopage, but their experience was not the best. I have been using the card and found it to be very solid. Also, the TechReport has their thoughts on it posted from a while back in what is a very comprehensive look at your choices in sound.

Again, I'd love to see this card succeed. It's a good piece of hardware... but with stinky drivers. People at M-Audio: send me a solution, and we'll put this card in it's proper light!

AIW 9000:

This is no doubt the little card that could...do a hell of a lot of things. Ascully reviews the budget video card from ATI that has been outfitted with the big boy video toys.

The TV tuner is extremely simple to use and comes with a brand new skin called Zero-G for the 8.1 version. I personally think this is the best ATI skin to date and is uncluttered and intuitive. There are so many things you can do with the TV tuner including recording programs in all manner of formats from Mpeg to AVI. This is especially useful as you can use your PC as a TIVO device.

Canterwood Review:

DFI is trying to push into the retail enthusiast mainboard market. They are putting together mainboards with more features aimed at OCing as well as some fun add-ons. 3DXtreme reviews the "Lan Party Pro875".

I want to show what we were able to achive at 1.6 volts on basic air cooling. The DFI Lan Party had no problems running at a 1000 mhz FSB.

Two for NF2:

Get a double dose of nForce2 goodness. First over at PCArena. They have posting on the MSI version of the chipset. Then PureOC does the NF2 dance with an EPoX board. The Asus board remains my personal pick on the NF2 front.

Talk about dissapointment, but after a couple of hours of idling I gave it one more shoot and ill be damned but the board was now able to overclock to 233MHz FSB which is mighty impressive if you ask me.

[H]ardWear:

[H]ardHats are still in stock over at HackerThreads. This is a very high quality FlexFit cap with some really nice raised embroidery work on it. Get them before they are gone.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Memory Refresher:

Can't remember where you left your car keys of put down your wallet? Well, this will do you absolutely no good if that is the case, but it could possibly get you "up to speed" when it comes to Ram. Corsair gives an online presentation of memory basics that, well...covers all the basics.

The Ram Guy has put together an audiovisual presentation on the basics of memory operation. It covers everything from the basics of how RAM chips are organized, to ECC and registers, single and double banks, single or dual channel, and latency settings and what they mean.

i845PE Roundup:

Now that the 865 and 875 chipsets have hit the market place and are showing up on store shelves in quantity, the 845PE should be coming down in price some. NordicHardware has a four-way 845PE shoot out that contains some familiar names.

The competitors are as follow: Abit BH7, Albatron PX845PEV-800, Jetway Alioth PE and finally Shuttle AB48N. We start with Abit BH7, which is a low price board directed to overclockers.

Dear Dan:

Dan lays out the facts about WindowsXP and the safety of it encrypting your files.

You're boned.

AMD Flavored:

While Intel has been getting a lot of the desktop attention lately, there are still some great AMD boards to be had still. This is not one we suggest the cutting-edge tweaker buy today, but it is still a great board as shown off by LanAddict.

But, that said, the KD7 overclocked like a monster. I didn't run into one system instability stemming from the motherboard, even under high-stress overclocks. The board just kept taking what I threw at it. The other components however, were the ones to protest. Not a small feat by any means.

Wetter & Wilder:

Corsair is striving to be know for something more than some of the best OC Ram in the world. Now they want to have their names become synonymous with computer water cooling. IPKonfig has their HydroCool200 unit reviewed here.

The performance is definitely there, workmanship is beyond perfection, and noise levels are within tolerance.

SFF Springdale:

The Tech-Report has their review posted of the first SFF Springdale unit that we have seen. This one is, not surprisingly, from Shuttle. And they have been promising big features at debut this time round.

As I mentioned earlier, the SB61G2 has impressive overclocking credentials, with adjustable multiplier, front-side bus (100MHz to 255MHz in 1MHz increments), and PCI/AGP speeds. Voltage adjustments are available for CPU (1.1V to 1.85V in .025V increments), memory (2.5V, 2.65V, 2.7V and 2.75V) and AGP (1.5V to 1.65V in .05V increments).

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

i875PE Roundup:

As usual, the words are German, but the graphs are "English"! DarkTweaker puts the Asus, ABIT, and Gigabyte boards head to head.

KT400A Review:

You had best read this one if you are wanting to read one at all, because the KT400A from VIA is going to be few and far between as I think all will be looking towards what shakes out of the KT600 at this point.

As usual the Gigabyte boards are really overclocker friendly.

Team [H]:

We have more than a few teams around [H], but only one official one that competes in the Cyberathlete Amateur League. And they happen to be kicking a good bit of ass. Battlemaster had this to say:

Just bringing another update on Team [H]ard|OCP's progress in CAL. As of right now the team is carrying a 6-0 record into the 7th of 8 weeks in CAL-O. These next 2 weeks will really be challenging as CAL tries to match up teams with similar records to play each other. This of course means that we will go up against undefeated teams as long as we are undefeated.

i865PE:

OCTools, no that is their real site name...we are not calling them that....anyway. They have posted their review of the Chaintech board that sports the 865Pe chipset from Intel. These boards have been sweet overclockers when matched with a Pentium 4 2.4C.

With just aircooling using a dirt cheap heatsink and with the vcore set at default (1.45v), we were able to achieve a maximum rock solid overclock of 3.28 Ghz with our Pentium 4 2.4C.

Wow Dept.:

Macci has posted an OC of his in our forums with a screenshot of a 1342MHz FSB. Macci is known around the community for great OCs.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Wet & Wild:

The crew at SystemCooling takes us inside the doors of a company that produces water cooling equipment for the PC. Interesting indeed.

It was great watching copper plates get precision cut, later to be used as bases in waterblocks. Each base being then carefully examined for any flaws. After the walk around in the machine shop we went upstairs to the assembly area. Seeing all the radiators, waterblocks, pumps and housings, I felt like a kid in a candy store.

5900U Review:

HardAvenue has their turn with a NVIDIA supplied NV35, better known as the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra.

With a promise of quieter operation, new technology and better performance, the 5900Ultra just may be enough to erase all memories of the 5800Ultra and the troubles it had fitting in this cut throat industry.

Chaintech Reloaded:

ViperLair has their thoughts put together on the recent Chaintech event that happened down South in New Orleans. Our own Sean Pelletier attended as well and we should have his story up soon.

Springdale:

EPoX is getting some attention from the guys at TBreak this morning. They are shining their light on the i865PE mainboard. We have seen some very good OCing out of the Springdale. While they do not cover OC in-depth, they do mention this.

With the aid of our Corsair XMS3500 memory and our unlocked 3.0 Pentium 4 ‘C’ processor, we were able to land a 100% stable system at a bus speed of 285MHz effectively 1140MHz.

[H]ardNews

Cooling:

AeroCool HSF @ ViperLair

Modding:

XPDreamer Case @ PimpRig - FlexiGlow EL Cable @ SubZeroTech - Mad Madlights @ TechLounge - Enlight Case @ Ohls - Platinum Case @ 3DXtreme - I-Tee Case @ TechCentral.de

Etc.:

Hexaplague Interview @ Ohls - Real Silent PSU @ HWExtreme - LightedKeyboard @ ModTheBox - NV Personal Cinema Sneak Peek - 802.11g SMC Wireless Router - Six DVD Burner Shootout - Wireless Keyboard and Mouse @ Techtastic - The MX700 Wireless Mouse @ Gaming Generations - WinZip Beta Review @ Geeklab

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Memorial Day:

Please take a moment to think about our holiday this weekend. It should be a time to honor the memory of all the U.S. Service men and women that have given their lives to keep the USA and much of the free world safe from tyranny and evil.

This Memorial Day we have added 161 Americans to the list of those to be honored. No matter your politics, please take a moment to think about these Americans and the very real families they have recently left behind. Many of their families and friends will not be sharing a joyous weekend like many of us. Do remember that it is because of all these men and women that have given their lives in the past that we are able to enjoy the freedoms that we do today in the United States of America.

If you wish to know more about Memorial Day, you can visit this U.S. Military Website or this one as well. Be safe this weekend.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

NVIDIA Pulls Drivers:

Many of you have been sending in your terrible experiences with the latest nForce drivers that were released by NVIDIA as WHQL drivers. We have certainly been passing that information directly to NVIDIA and while they never really took the time to respond about the issue, they did take the time to remove the drivers from their site and include instructions on how to remove the drivers from your system. Here is the complete page with everything except and apology for a job done poorly.

Updated May 23, 2003: If you have previously downloaded the 2.41 or 2.42 nForce kits and have experienced any problems please follow these instructions on how to re-install previous drivers.

[H]ardNews - Blair's Technology

Stable DRams:

The usually volatile contract market for DRAM has entered a rare state of near stability, with little pricing movement during the past three months. Even prices on the normally roller-coaster spot market have slipped an average of just 16% since early this year.

Intel Makes Decisions:

ROAD TRIP!

PS2 Power:

The NCSA has constructed a Playstation 2 Linux cluster as a test bench for scientific computation on "toy" hardware. The cluster consists of 65 compute nodes, 4 user login and development nodes, and 1 prototype node for software installation tests. All the nodes run the Sony Linux distribution for Playstation 2.

The More Things Change...:

Students from North Carolina State University are helping NASA expand the exploration of the surface of Mars. The team of students and researchers designed a wind-powered rover that can be blown, like tumbleweed, across the surface of the Red Planet collecting atmospheric and geological samples at multiple locations.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

NVIDIA Fires Back:

A follow up to today’s 5th Edition story about Futuremarks claims of benchmark fudging, News.com has a quote from NVIDIA that fires right back at Futuremark which targets their extremely expensive fees to be part of the “beta program”. Here is a quote from the article:

"Since Nvidia is not part of the Futuremark beta program (a program which costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in), we do not get a chance to work with Futuremark on writing the shaders like we would with a real applications developer," the representative said. "We don't know what they did, but it looks like they have intentionally tried to create a scenario that makes our products look bad."