[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Danger Den:

Those crazy crustaceans over at Mad Shrimps have a little Danger Den water cooling kit review action going on today. The kit uses the older 3 barb RBX that so many of you like and not the newer two barb TDX waterblock.

Danger Den’s RBX Power kit does exactly what it promises, it gives the end-user the Power to cool his system with the best water cooling gear out there, all components are of high quality and the performance is high even when running the pump and fan at lower voltages.

ASUS P4P800-E:

Digital Daily took the ASUS P4800-E around the block a few times today. The P4800-E is a nice Springdale powered mainboard most users would be happy to own.

Asus P4P800-E is one of most multifunctional motherboards to date. It offers wide expansion options (4 channels of SerialATA with support for RAID, Gigabit Ethernet, IDE/RAID controller).

Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra-64:

The brightly colored, Intel i875P powered Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra-64 is on the review bench at Hardware Zoom today. Check out those dual 64-bit PCI-X slots.

Users will be able to benefits from the high I/O performance with the U320 SCSI as well as Serial ATA and IDE RAID. The two PCI-X slots double the bandwidth of standard PCI bus and remove the bottleneck when using high-speed connections.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Chaintech FX5700Ultra:

3DVelocity chimes in on the Chaintech Apogee FX5700Ultra with one of their patented dual conclusion reviews. This card barely got a “thumbs up” for mainstream users and was not recommended for enthusiasts at all.

The lack of TRUE DX9 support will limit the use of advanced features in tomorrows games. As far as DX8 gaming goes, for the price and bundle and especially build quality, the AA5700U is a solid performer.

Tornado FX5700Ultra:

More 5700Ultra action for you. This time around we have the Inno3D Tornado FX5700Ultra reviewed by the crew at NVNews. Again the conclusion comes down to the fact that you are better off spending your money on a 5900XT based card if you are a fan of NV products on a budget.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra with GDDR3 is typically outfitted with 128MB of Samsung 2.0ns memory modules, which are rated to operate at frequencies up to 500MHz.

9800SE To 9800Pro Mod:

If you have a Radeon 9800SE and you are feeling a bit insecure about your performance, Rojak’s Pot has a guide to modding your 900SE into a 9800Pro. Don’t worry, there is no need for a soldering iron this time around, these are soft-mods.

As you all know, the ATI R350 VPU powers three different graphics cards. They are the Radeon 9800, the Radeon 9800 Pro and the card we will be focusing on in the guide - the Radeon 9800 SE. We will be modding it into a Radeon 9800 Pro in this guide.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Everyone Knows Them:

I saw this editorial at Bit-Tech and I couldn’t stop laughing. Why? Because we all know someone like this, we run into them every day, in forums around the net. Here is a quote to get you warmed up:

I have three machines with top of the range graphics cards in them, running to twin 21” LCD monitors. My desktop runs in a resolution which would make an Eagle squint, yet I don’t visit sites which don’t conform to 640x480. All my games run at 200FPS in 1600x1200 with all the settings up to max, although why you need to run a game over 26FPS anyway is pointless because everyone knows that’s the highest rate your eyes need to see a moving picture.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Industry News

90-nm Wars:

Bragging rights are a big thing in the industry and being “first” to anything is considered a feather the cap of companies that announce them. Having said that, today, UMC claims 90-nm leadership over rival TSMC. Thanks Joe Alpert.

Taiwanese foundry United Microelectronics Corp. is claiming to the lead over rival foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. with the deployment of its 90-nm manufacturing process on Monday.

UMC Boosts Production:

This News.com story stating that UMC is ramping up 90-nm production seems to lend credibility to the story above on those claims of 90-nm leadership.

UMC, one of the world's top chip foundries or companies that manufacturer chips under contract for others, says its getting ready to expand its 90-nanometer production capacity.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

$5 Super Wi-Fi:

We talked about this yesterday, but there is a new guide on the intarweb that shows you how to take a $5 Chinese spoon amd turn it into an uber-antenna for super wi-fi reception. They say it works great, who knows…but it is something to experiment with.

Make 2.4GHz parabolic mesh dishes from cheap but sturdy Chinese cookware scoops & a USB WiFi adaptor. The largest (300mm diam)shows 15-18dB gain (enough for a LOS range extension to 3-5km), costs ~US$5 & comes with a user friendly bamboo handle that suits WLAN fieldwork- if you can handle the curious stares!

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

MSI K8 Neo Platinum:

If you are looking for an Athlon64 mainboard, this nForce3 powered MSI K8 Neo Platinum looks like a worthy candidate. You can see our thoughts on this board here.

The NForce3 brings improvements to both the OEM and consumer; Nvidia has alleviated some of the concerns of the OEMs by integrating a lot of features directly into the southbridge that negates the need for a bevy of external chips.

Albatron GFFX 5700P:

More mid-range graphics card review action for you today. The Albatron GFFX 5700P got fairly high marks from Overclocker Café for its overall bang for the buck.

The only thing we didn't like about the Albatron FX5700P Turbo is that it seems to be hard to find at present. I'm hoping this will change because with the excellent performance for 140 clams, it should be very popular and we highly recommend it.

MS OKs Antispam:

Microsoft giving its stamp of approval to consolidating new antispam authentication schemes. All I have to say about this stopping spam stuff is…HURRY UP!!!

An ongoing effort to consolidate antispam authentication schemes took a big step forward with the merging of Sender Policy Framework and Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail. Microsoft said on Tuesday that it had agreed to combine its Caller ID efforts with the SPF.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Corsair Hydrocool 200EX:

Hexus has a look at the latest version of the Corsair’s water cooling kit the Hydrocool 200EX. The newer unit is quieter and includes a few improvements over the old design. We reviewed the original Hydrocool 200 here when it was first released.

In summary, however, Corsair's Hydrocool200EX betters the initial design and manages to cut the asking price into the bargain. Watercooling needn't be difficult, Corsair has proved that again. It's fun, it's easy, and it's recommended.

Silverstone Lascala SST-LC01:

Our friends at the Tech Report have a nice looking case on the review block that will definitely be of interest to anyone building a HTPC for the livingroom. Read the full review here.

The SST-LC01 embodies everything I like about using ATX enclosures for home theater PCs. The case is just the right size for entertainment centers, has plenty of room for optical drives and multiple hard drives, and is ready and waiting for multiple TV tuners or other PCI devices.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

GF6800 After Computex:

Hexus is reporting that they were told by Gainward that all Gainward GF 6800s will not be ready to ship until after Computex. Hmmm.

It stands to reason that if Gainward's 6800 product is slipping, so is everyone else’s, so don't expect a board until next month at the very least. They've all got a lot of BIOS flashing to do.

Gigabyte GF5500GT:

With a tag line that says “Better value than the FX5200, slower than the FX5600” this Gigabyte GF5500GT review is obviously not going to be for most of you out there…but just in case:

I still can’t understand how and why this product exists. Don’t get me wrong, it’s another great value solution but do we need another good value solution? Within a $90 US to $110 US price range there is quite a number of NVIDIA solutions.

XFX 5700Ultra Dual DVI:

Antoher budget NVIDIA video card review, this time it is from the crew at Ninja Lane. The XFX 5700Ultra dual DVI isn’t the fastest card in the midrange market, but the dual DVI feature will make it attractive to the workstation crowd as well.

The XFX FX 5700 Ultra is truly a gamer card, built by gamers for gamers but I wouldn't limit its usage to just games, the dual DVI connections are perfect for any digital workstation.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

NV Comments On ATi?

Ronald Gasch, the main man over at 3DCenter, sent me a link to what is supposed to be an internal document from NVIDIA that is criticizing the ATi X800. Obviously all of this has to be taken with a few really big grains of salt because the “document” has several flaws in it which draw its authenticity into question. We are contacting NVIDIA for their comments and will update you as soon as we hear back from them.

Kyle's Update: I just got off the phone with NVIDIA PR front man Derek Perez. He did confirm that the slides linked above are NVIDIA's creation. The slide are just a few from a set of "20 or 30" that were developed by NVIDIA's USA Product Marketing team that were to be used only as a sales tool internally. Derek did say, "I am not going to apologize for them." He went on to explain how they need to outfit their sales teams as they see fit. Now that we are through that, we are hoping to see retail GeForce 6 hardware soon.

Our thoughts and a direct comparison of NVIDIA's and ATI's latest flagship video cards can be found here.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Cube Engine:

If you haven’t already had a chance to download the open source Cube engine demo you really ought to. It weighs in at a mere 24MB and has some pretty impressive features. Something fun to mess around with.

Cube is an open source multiplayer and single player first person shooter game built on an entirely new and very unconventional engine. Cube is a landscape-style engine that pretends to be an indoor FPS engine, which combines very high precision dynamic occlusion culling with a form of geometric mip-mapping on the whole world for dynamic LOD for configurable fps & graphic detail on most machines. Uses OpenGL & SDL.

Offset Mapping Demo:

Speaking of “fun to mess around with”, the fellas at the Rage3D forums have stumbled upon a pretty spanky demo for you to check out. The demo shows off the differences between regular texture mapping, bump mapping, offset mapping and the combination of offset and bump mapping.

The demo is a small download at under 3mb. You’ll want to resize the window when the program starts, us “L” to stop the light movement, “T” to swap textures and use the mouse (left and right buttons) for movement. Have fun.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

ATi Flip-Chip Substrates:

There is an article posted at Digitimes today that says ATi is now sourcing its flip-chip substrates from a new partner Phoenix Precision for its upcoming 0.11-micron GPU. Big news for ATi considering they are estimating a half million 0.11-micron units for next month.

ATI Technologies will begin sourcing flip-chip substrates from Taiwan-based Phoenix Precision Technology (PPT) for its 0.11-micron graphics chip, with first shipments of 500,000 units scheduled for next month, according to sources.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Swiftech MCW6000-A:

ProCooling has posted a new review, this time around the Swiftech MCW6000-A is on the test bench for a round or two of testing. The PC crew got very good results from the MCW6000-A, here is a clip from the review:

For users with 3/8" ID tubing or multiple waterblocks, the MCW6000 is highly recommended. And for the performance-minded, the MCW6000-A can also provide top notch performance in 1/2" loops with high pressure pumps as well.

Asetek Antarctica:

Spode’s Abode has the Asetek Antarctica water block in house for a little review action. This new 3 barb design block is an update to the older two barb block used on the popular WaterChill kit. Oddly enough, the industry is again changing and already migrating back towards the 2 barb designs.

The WaterChill kit is an impressive piece of engineering. It has a lot of superb features, an excellent finish and on top of that it looks awesome! Cooling performance is good for a kit in this price range and I can only think of a few minor draw backs with this kit.

Homebrew Antenna:

Just in case you are not already the biggest geek on your block, this tinfoil Wi-Fi antenna will guarantee you a spot in the dork hall of fame…but you’ll have a good Wi-Fi connection. And please, no tin-foil hat jokes.

The idea is to boost the output from your wireless access point. The design is based on a Deep Dish Cylindrical Parabolic. This is what you'll need: some construction paper, scissors, a glue stick, aluminum foil and the antenna template.