[H]ardNews 9th Edition

3.2GHz Pentium4 Review:

Dock Overclock from Motherboards.org weighs in with his review of the 3.2GHz “C” Pentium 4. Of course a little overclocking was thrown in for the fun of it and it seems 3.5GHz on a 1GHz FSB bus was attainable on regular retail cooling.

The CPU is very fast and shows a significant power lead when comparing performance differences between the older 2.4 through 3.06GHz P4's and then the difference between the 3.2GHz and 3.0GHz P4's. Overclocking was quite substantial, and if this same strength is shown in the boxed retail CPU as well many enthusiasts will be flocking to the Intel.

Visiontek Scores More Stores:

A new Press Release out of Visiontek today lets us all know they have scored with more stores nationwide. Visiontek, as part of their cool, new “hip” image, is said to be working on helping consumers score with more chicks next….well, at least A chick to start you off. But let’s not get the cart before the horse, lets look at the “more stores” for now:

VisionTek, a division of Hartford Computer Group and a supplier of advanced PC graphics cards and memory solutions, today announced the addition of fourteen new resellers including many of the leading sources for computer products among consumers. VisionTek’s new resellers include Amazon.com, American TV & Appliance, Comp-U-Plus, ComputerHQ, ComputerStop, Compuvest, DataVision, GameStop, J&R Music and Computer World, Hammerhead Technology, Micro Center, Micro Warehouse, PC Mall, and Zones. They join VisionTek’s roster of current resellers which is headed by CompUSA and Fry’s.

Win2k SP4:

Apparently I was asleep at the wheel again, only about a thousand people or so e-mailed me to let me know the Windows 2000 Service Pack #4 was available. Get it if you need it, don’t if you don’t. If you are on Win95 or WinMe you don’t need this…but you really should join us in this Millennium and upgrade. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

MS Wins JAVA Appeal:

Well, it looks like Microsoft won the case against JAVA on appeal. Not sure how many appeals are left, or how far either party is willing to pursue this case, but it seems that MS has the upper hand for now.

A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a ruling that would have forced Microsoft Corp. to incorporate Sun Microsystems Inc. Java programming language in the Windows operating system.

GigaCube R9600Pro Lite:

The GigaCube R9600Pro Lite is reviewed at Overclockers New Zealand today. The card doesn’t perform up to the reviewer’s expectations. Here is a clip from the conclusion:

The overall picture is not pretty for Gigacube's R9600Pro Lite 128MB. Due to the reduced memory frequency, 400MHz, its performance is roughly on par (or below) with a Leadtek A310 FX5600. At its current price you will better off with a cheap R9500Pro. All in all, Gigacube R9600Pro Lite is an average gaming card and has a confusing naming convention.

All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro:

The current low end All-In-Wonder gets a little review action today from Gaming Nexus. You guys know that I am the biggest fan of the high end A-I-W cards but this is the kind of card a big time TV buff ( and a casual gamer ) might like, but the gaming end of things is too low to recommend to most of you guys. This sums things up:

At the end of the day, the Radeon All in Wonder 9000 Pro is a jack-of-all-trades and master of some.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

[H]ardWear Goes Live:

Caps, T-shirts, and Sweats (Sweats will be added to the store later tonight). You have been asking for it, so here it is finally, and YES, we even have chick's tops this time round. The shirts and caps we have are quality clothing, no cheap crap here.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Leadtek WinFast A310 Ultra:

Bjorn3D reviews the Leadtek WinFast A310 Ultra TD MyVivo today. This card is the high end FX5600 coming out of Leadtek right now so people looking for a midrange performance and ViVo capabilities might be interested in this card. I’m not sure I like that screen covering the fan very much…you can see where that might getting clogged fairly easy.

The benchmarks don't really paint a great picture for the WinFast A310 Ultra TD MyVivo, though. Considering the fact that the Radeon 9700 Pro is not priced much higher ($60-70) than this FX 5600 Ultra, the increase in performance could be compelling enough for people to spend the extra cash. However, NVIDIA has established a reputation for providing new drivers regularly that usually provide some noticeable improvement to their products.

GiGi GeForce FX5600P Turbo:

3D News Net reviewed the GiGi GeForce FX5600P Turbo. I c-c-cant h-h-help b-b-but t-t-think t-t-that t-t-the Gi-Gi-GeForce name was not such a g-g-good m-m-move on the part of Albatron’s marketing department. Good card, weird name.

I was impressed with Albatron's heatsink and ramsinks and how Albatron applied thermal compound on each BGA memory chip and the GPU core so I was sort of expecting to get at least decent overclocking results. What I ended up getting were pleasant results.

Gigabyte GA-6PENXP:

The Gigabyte GA-6PENXP i865PE mainboard has made it through a successful round of testing at SubZero Tech. Like most others that have reviewed the GA-6PENXP, SubZero Tech seemed duly impressed with what the board had to offer.

This has been a journey, and as a hardcore enthusiast I have a hard time now justifying some featureless 875 boards over this plentiful 865 offering. In the usual case I recommend with a double edged sword; for most the 865 is a darn good deal and I cannot recommend it enough, but those obsessed with the numbers and the FPS counts losing sleep over their PAT status I would say save up for an affordable 875.

[H]ardNews - Blair Tech Ed.

Mystery Net Traffic:

Mysterious packets of internet traffic that have puzzled experts for weeks may originate from one of three different computer attack tools. Network administrators first spotted the peculiar packets arriving at internet-connected computers around the world in mid-May. The packets are all a characteristic 55,808 bits long. Many security experts suspected that a malicious program installed on innocent machines was spewing out the packets, but could not determine their purpose.

Bugs In Your Cookies:

Privacy advocates say a shift by Microsoft could effectively marginalise a particularly intrusive use of web bugs, the tracking and profiling devices used by online marketers and spammers. Last month Microsoft retooled its Hotmail service, adding a feature that allows users to block web bugs placed inside email messages. A similar option exists in the most recent version of Microsoft's widely used Outlook Express email program, and the company says the next release of its other email program, Outlook, will block the tracking mechanisms by default.

Windows For Robots:

Basically, ROCI is a project to create a distributed framework for multi-robot perception and control. For the past year, the project has been focusing on small robotic systems that are intended to work individually and cooperatively to solve various sensing and surveillance problems. The current state-of-the-art in control software allows for supervised autonomy, a paradigm in which a human user can command and control one robot using teleoperation and close supervisory control.

Incremental Synthesis:

A U.K. based company is preparing to enter the EDA market with "interconnect specific incremental synthesis" (Isis), a technology that allows IC process migration and leakage current reduction. The company, In2Fab Technology, promises to eliminate the need for re-synthesis in order to accomplish these goals.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Case Modding Heirloom:

Our pal Insey, a long time [H] reader, sent me this touching father–son story. You’ll see in these pictures that Dad handed down his tools of the “case modding” trade to his young case modding son to carry on a long tradition of case mods. Now that you have the back story…check out the old Dremel tool that Pops gave his son.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

KT400A Round-Up:

Another motherboard round-up, this one is a KT400A round-up by the fellas at Hexus. Boards from Albatron, AOpen, DFI, EPoX, Gigabyte, Jetway, MSI and Soltek all made the review:

Performance isn't exactly a trade secret, KT400A is slower than nForce2. The question really was by how much. And it's a pleasure, genuinely, to note that it's not that much at all. What was good to see, performance wise, was all the boards being so close to each other in performance. That's a great indication of BIOS stability, a mature platform and no funny business.

Prolink FX5600 Ultimate:

If everyone can agree that the GFFX 5600 Ultra is a great bang for the buck video card, then they will also have to agree that getting a 256MB board like this one here from Prolink is definitely a good way to go if you are looking to upgrade.

While the Prolink GeForceFX 5600 Ultimate Golden Limited 256MB video card was not the fastest performing card that we have ever tested, it did pretty well considering its low price point. For just $185 US you can get a video card that can handle all of today's games with both AA and AF enabled at reasonable resolutions.

ATi Posts Profit:

ATi posted a profit this quarter according to the companies chairman, a small profit…but still a profit. Looking at the bigger picture you see what is truly impressive…sales were up almost 30% from the year before.

ATI Technologies Inc., a fabless graphics chip vendor, made a net profit of $12.4 million on sales of $342.1 million in the third fiscal quarter that ended May 31, 2003. This compared with a loss of $2.0 million on sales of $266.2 million in the same quarter a year before. Revenues for the third quarter were up 7.4 percent compared to $318.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2003 and up 28.5 percent compared with the same quarter a year before. The gains were based on the success of the Radeon line of processors, the company said.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Getting Some ZZZs:

The 171st issue of ZZZ is online today. The weekly bizarre bazaar features loads of freakish things from the world of technology. Some of the topics this week:

Water memory, Digital bongs, Virtual sex, Stealth-defeating radar, Electronic canaries, Quantum computing simplified, Neutrinos and friends.

Gigabyte GA-8PENXP:

The brightly colored Gigabyte GA-8PENXP i865PE mainboard is on the Hardware Zone review bench. Let’s see what the fellas thought of the board:

The new GA-8PENXP is the latest and greatest Intel 865PE offering from the folks at Gigabyte. The board is well featured, with a lot of great integrated peripherals and devices that should appeal to a lot of power users.

VIA “Total Connectivity”:

VIA announced details of their upcoming VIA Technology Forum or VTF2003 to be held in Taipei in late September. You can get all the details from the link above, here is a small clip from the PR to hold you over:

Fourth annual VIA Technology Forum in Taipei and Beijing in September 2003 to showcase how developing innovative open architecture technology platforms will enable the industry to design for the future. VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today announced that the VIA Technology Forum 2003 (VTF2003) will be held in Taipei on Wednesday 24th September and Beijing on Friday 26th September 2003, with a theme of 'Total Connectivity: The Revolution'.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Hyperion 4-In-1 Drivers:

The latest Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers are posted at VIAArena. This bring them up to version v4.48 so grab them if you need them. As always, drop me a line if these quadruple your performance or bork your box in a big way.

VIA Hyperion drivers are suitable for any VIA chipset and all Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (Win95/98/98SE users, see **Note below). If you are looking for VIA 4in1 drivers, these are the drivers you are looking for. The "Hyperion" name was added to the 4in1 driver set name in December 2002. This is the fourth release with the Hyperion name.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

PixelView GeForce FX5600 256MB:

The GFFX 5600 is a great budget board for people looking for good performance at a decent price. Guru3D looks at a 256MB version of the GFFX 5600 from Prolink. Surprisingly the added memory doesn’t add to the pricetag much. Have a look:

This product is about 25 bucks more expensive than the competition with a 256 MB model GeForce FX 5600. Bare in mind though that this one is equiiped with 3.3ns memory and has VIVO connectivity. If you do not want to spend heaps of money on a high-end graphics cards then we definitely recommend the product.

Canterwood Round-Up:

Nordic Hardware has has rounded up several i875P Canterwood mainboards for your viewing pleasure. Boards from ABIT, DFI, MSI and Gigabyte are all represented in the round-up giving you a pretty good idea which board offers what.

Intel's 875P chipset offers superb performance, which we have seen today, provided that it's paired together with a new 800MHz FSB processor. If one's aiming to get the fastest motherboard available, it has to be based on Canterwood.

Mods & Ends:

Retractable Cables @ R&B Mods - Zalman 400w PSU @ 3DGameman - Achieve 500W PSU @ Modfathers - TR3-M2 HSF @ TechTastic - Lighted Keyboard @ TechMods - CPU-Mate Copper HSF @ FrostyTech

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

RIAA Suing Again:

Charles Frank let me know that the RIAA is going to start suing individuals again as a way of dissuading file sharing. This quote about stealing is pretty funny:

"You have to look at exactly who are your customers," he said. "You could say the same thing about shoplifters -- are you worried about alienating them? All sorts of industries and retailers have come to the conclusion that they need to be able to protect their rights. We have come to the same conclusion."

Some people have different definitions of the word “rip-off”. Some people think plopping down almost $20 for a CD that only has two good songs is a “rip-off”. Some people think record labels like Sony paying Mariah Carey $80 million to buy her out of a contract is a “rip-off”. Sony advancing Michael Jackson $100 million for an album that made less than $18 million in sales is a “rip-off”. Bad business decisions cost us all in the end through higher CD prices.

Artist deserve to make more than $1 per CD, at the same time, you shouldn’t be forced to pay $10 per good song….solution? Cut out the middle man. Plain and simple, cut them out. That is my idea.

Senate Fighting Spam:

Spam makes everyone’s blood boil. Getting 13,000 to 15,000 a month only makes it worse. Finally the Government is getting involved and laying down some hefty fines for these screwballs. Thanks Iceman.

This week’s Senate Commerce Committee approval of the Burns-Wyden “Can Spam Act” paves the way for the federal spammer-prosecution framework to be transmitted to the floor of the Senate. Containing an array of requirements—including legitimate response-addresses and mandatory identification of mass mailings as advertisements—the Act actually has teeth: punishments including jail time and fines as high as $25,000 a day.

3D Magnetic Crystal:

IBM claims world's first 3D magnetic crystal…then ripped out of their polyester clothes and screamed “BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL….”. O.K. I’m a retard and that never happened, but it would be funny.

IBM Research has created what it claims is the world's first 3D magneto-optical crystal, complete with embedded quantum dots with optical properties.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

[H]ard Wedding:

We are honored to have each and every one of you guys stop by every day and make the [H] a little part of your day. So imagine how we felt when we have dedicated readers like Eric and Anne make us part of their big day!! Congrats guys, we’ll send you a pair of His and Her RatPadz or something to commemorate the event.

For those of you wondering, yes…Anne is giving Eric the Heimlich maneuver after he tasted the frosting.