eVGA have a good name for themselves in the graphics card business, making very decent cards which work without fuss.

The card provides what you would basically need for a home entertainment center.

This card ONLY runs on Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005, so don’t get it if you don’t use that operating system.

Features…

• MPEG2 Decoding Acceleration
• Dual TV tuner
• Plug-N-Play
• 3D and 2D graphics support

MPEG2 Decoding acceleration is accomplished by allowing common processes and instructions used by the decoder to be taken over by the card in its hardware.

Reports on this card are good and actually rate it very well against its competition from ATA and AverMedia.

When you get the card you will need the latest drivers from eVGA, after that things will run smoothly and you can enjoy your home entertainment system instead of messing around with uncooperative components.

Click here for eVGA nVidia NVTV Dual TV tuner card driver updates

Click here for eVGA nVidia NVTV Dual TV tuner card software updates

The WinFast PVR 2000 TV tuner card allows you to watch full screen cable or antenna TV on your desktop computer. There is a built in MPEG-2 encoder to give excellent quality with little CPU usage.

This card supports Microsoft Media Center 2005.

This card is a good choice if you are building yourself a system to be used as part of an entertainment center.

Some of the key features…

• DirectBurn
• Remote Control
• De-interlacing
• Picture-in-Picture
• Recorder wake up

DirectBurn allows you to record your favorite shows of whatever it may be straight to a DVD. Instead of taking the two steps to record to the hard drive and then to DVD, you can do it straight away.

The Remote control comes into its own when you are using the system with an entertainment center. When using it in a desktop envrionment, it may only be partly useful, but the real advantage is not having to use a mouse or keyboard.

Traditional TV signals are interlaced, which means that the screen is updated in two sweeps. It first updates all the even numbered lines and then all the odd numbered ones and so on and so forth. De-interlacing takes that signal and converts it to a higher quality non-interlaced signal, which is the kind all desktop computers use.

Picture-in-Picture allows you to preview other channels in a small frame on the screen, you can have a look whats on the other channel and then choose to change, or keep track of two channels at the same time.

Recorder wake-up makes it truly a replacement for your DVD machine. Set the time to record and the card will wake up the computer to record your shows.

As well as these, there is FM radio and ability to view image files.

Unfortunately the remote control does not fully control the software. You need a mouse to set recording times and access your files. This is a bit of a pain, but should be alright. If you need full remote capability you need to opt for something else.

With the slow but sure movement away from AGP to PCIe, there seems little reason why anyone would want to get an AGP card. But as we will see, the not-so-current technology can give you tons of performance for fantastic prices.

The GeForce 6800 card from eVGA is a standard nVidia card with eVGAs labelling on it. The 6800 is the last in the 6000 series from nVidia and has now been succeeded by the awesome 7800.

However fast people convert to PCIe, there are still a lot of people with AGP. AGP is still not bad either, as the speed of PCIe has only recently started to take off compared to AGP.

The standard specs of the 6800 are…

• 128MB DDR
• AGP 8x connection
• Large cooler

This card is the best deal for those who still want cool games on AGP. This card far outdoes its 6600 younger siblings, while still coming in at a great price.

Games handle well with games like Doom3 coming in at about 80fps in high quality mode at 1024×768.

If putting together cheap high powered gaming computers this card will give it that edge it needs without sacrificing a lot in terms of money layout.

Overclocking is another plus of this card. To get a slower card the it’s GT counterpart eVGA just turns off 1 of the pipelines and the card can actually be unlocked so its practically as fast as a GT version.

Overall good value, nice buy to upgrade your computer, but if building a new one, go for PCIe for future upgrades.

This board seemed to be popular choice for a budget motherboard, but unfortunately, it is too good to be true.

Reports are mixed on this board. Some have installed it without problems, but too many have had issues or one sort or another.

The board includes

• SATA
• USB 2.0
• Socket A
• Built in LAN and audio

At first appearances this board gives a good lot of features for the money.

I will state now that I don’t recommend this board, too many people have had issues with it. It’s drivers are not up to date, and are hard to find, support from Chaintech is not that great, instability like random shutting down and crashing.

In short a board with lots of features, but if you don’t get one that works straight away, you are in for a hard time. And overclocking is not recommended.

The Diablotek GeForce 6200 is a card that does a good job at replacing any standard onboard graphics solution. Allowing increased performance from games, this good value card will make your gaming experience more realistic without making a huge hole in your pocket.

At a glance, it features

• nVidia GeForce 6200 GPU
• 256MB memory
• AGP 8x

Although graphics cards have been increasing a lot in terms of performance, there is still a place for graphics cards that are not top of the range. Many games and all other common programs will run just fine on less powerful video cards.

The compulsion to upgrade to the latest is the best way to stay up to date, but is an extremely expensive habit to keep up.

The GeForce 6200 supports the latest Shader Model 3.0 which is part of Microsoft DirectX 9.0. It supports the latest effects.

The card is available for AGP 8x, and I don’t think there is a version for PCIe. This gets a mixed reaction from me, as AGP 8x is fine for the purposes of this card but might be a bit limiting if you need to upgrade on the same motherboard later. But this card is perfect for your purposes now, if you need more later, just upgrade your motherboard too.

Included with the package is the standard nVidia software. Some manufacturers include their own software with a card, but the standard stuff from nVidia is pretty foolproof, and there is really not reason to want anything else.

Performance wise you will be able to get great results in 1024 x 768 mode, while it will support higher, with looser quality settings.

Overall a good card for your money

• Good for upgrades to computers with AGP 8x
• Decent performance
• Supports Shader model 3.0
• Standard software

The 7800 range of GPUs from nVidia are their latest range of GPUs, delivering more performance than their now slightly older 6800 series. But at a higher price tag

The video card market is one that is moving fast. As often as they can bot nVidia and ATI are coming out with new technologies to give that extra something in your games.

At a glance this video card includes…

• nVidia GeForce 7800 GT processor
• 256MB of memory
• SLI capability (you’ll have to get 2 identical cards to use it
• Dual DVI support (2 flat panel monitors)

The GeForce 7800 runs at a respectable 400MHz with memory access at 1GHz.

The biggest difference will come in when using it in the SLI setup which links two of the cards together using a small bridge.

The performance outdoes the performance of the Radeon X850 by about 10% in tests using modern games. It’s performance is up to 40% better than that of the 6800, also from nVidia. This is a great increase. Compared to the relatively small increases experienced from new CPUs, this boost in performance is like a giant leap forward for video cards and gaming.

Real life performance in games will be increased from an upgrade to this board. If you are into modern games then this may be a worthwhile investment for you. I say investment, because at just under 400 bucks, it is. The card supports Shader Model 3.0 introduced in Directx 9.0c.

As noted before the increase in performance with 2 cards in SLI makes a further boost in performance of 50%. However, this is not really required, not even for the coolest new games. It’s quite refreshing to not have to upgrade to 2 cards.

So in terms of performance benefit for games, this card is worth it. You definitely won’t be disappointed.

A name branded computer at a more than reasonable price, this mid range model from HP/Compaq hits the mark in terms of blend of parts and performance.

This compute is intended to be more than is needed for the average user, aimed at a slightly more performance oriented individual.

The basic breakdown of components are…

• AMD Athlon 64 3500+
• 512MB DDR memory
• DVD burner
• 200GB hard drive
• Name brand security

The AMD Athlon chip is well suited for the heavy use environment. I provides enough power to do anything on the computer with ease. It can handle a bit of gameplay too, if you add a graphics card to the package. The socket 939 interface will allow easy upgrades in the future as it is still quite commonly used.

The computer comes bundles with Microsoft Windows XP SP1, which means upon arrival, you will need to update it to SP2. Which is a little bit of a hassle.

Graphics are handled by an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200. This provides enough performance for office related tasks, but that’s about it. Thankfully there is an open PCIe slot, which will allow you to put in a cool graphics card with no trouble at all. There are also 2 extra PCI slots.

Memory is pretty standard 512MB, with 2 extra slots available if you need more. I would recommend the extra if you intend multi-tasking many programs at the same time or playing games.

The 200GB hard drive provides more than enough space for anything. Even if you save DVD videos to the hard drive you should not have to worry.

Other extras include the DVD writer, which is a plus, so you can save all that extra information off your computer and perform easy backups.

It also has LAN, Modem, integrated audio and some extra software, namely Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Money Standard 2005 and Microsoft Works 8.0.

Pros

• Name brand PC
• High class processor
• upgradable

Cons

• Old version Windows

AOpen will lauch its mini PC on November 1st, with shipping commencing around mid-November.

There will be two varients on this model. One with a Celeron M 1.4GHz and the other with a Pentium M 1.7GHz.

The computer is planned to be sold with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, with a Linux version available in the US.

Source: Digitimes

Acer always does a good job with it’s laptops and this model is no exception. At the low end of the spectrum, you can’t expect the greatest performance, but you will certainly get a machine that can start you in the world of laptops and portable computers.

The major specs of this model are…

• Intel Pentium M Processor 1.6GHz
• 512MB or RAM
• 400MHz bus
• DVDRW
• 15.4 inch wide screen monitor

The inclusion of Windows XP Home is usual, but if you want more, you could opt for XP professional.

The standard PC card slot is there, but unfortunately there is only one. What this means is that if you use it for something, you either need to swap out cards if you want to use something else, or get one with multi-funtionality.

All the other standard ports are there including USB, LAN, Modem, audio and VGA.

The processor should do the trick for most laptop uses, but does not come in at a range capable of replacing a desktop computer at home. The Pentium M model will run fairly cool and give you a fair bit of battery life.

Memory is 512MB, but unfortunately this comes from two 256MB sticks of it. There are, unfortunately, only two slots on this laptop, as with most laptops. If you need to upgrade your RAM, you will have to take out one of the current sticks and replace it, instead of just adding more.

The hard drive that comes with it has a decent 60GB. The addition of a DVD writer is great. It takes it that one little step closer to having the functionality of a desktop computer, a great extra to have.

The graphics card is matched to the monitor well, so it’s maximum output equals that which the monitor can handle. It doesn’t leave any room for error if you want that little bit extra graphics power. If you run a game for example, it probably won’t be able to handle it.

It includes wireless internet, modem and LAN so connecting to the internet should never be a hassle.

People seem to be generally happy with this computer, bearing in mind its limitations on power. Reported battery time of 2hrs is not great, but acceptable, especially seeing as that’s with wireless internet connection.

This is a great deal in terms of what you get for the price and would be hard to match anywhere else.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) plans to unify its CPU platform with the 940-pin Socket M2 CPU.

Intel has taken the same move already, to unify its desktop and notebook CPUs.

AMD plans to unify across it’s entire range from entry-level to high-end.

Although it will initially be aimed at the high-end market, it should move into the lower-end sometime next year.

Socket 939 and 754 should still be on the market at the end of this year.

The aim of this move is to reduce production costs, meaning that they only have to produce for one socket type.

Source: Digitimes