computer-reviews.net

Seagate Barracuda ES 750GB Hard Drive

Friday, September 22nd, 2006 | Hard Drives, News | No Comments

XYZ computing does a review of the Barracuda ES 750GB Hard drive. This drive, which is intended as an enterprise solution comes in 750GB, 500GB, 400GB and 250GB versions. The article covers the 750GB version.

The aims of enterprise storage are quite different from those in home computing. Speed is not as much of a concern in large arrays of discs, like it is in the gaming community. The focus is more on power savings, optimizing its use in large arrays and extending the life of drives.

With a 16MB of cache, NCQ and a SATA2 interface, this drive does failry well in the performance arena. It’s best points are its gigabyte for dollar values which place it well for those who are looking for a drive to provide large capacity. And the extended life won’t be looked down on either.

Read it at XYZcomputing

Apple to use AMD in their computers

Friday, September 22nd, 2006 | News | No Comments

Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD told an audience at a dinner in San Francisco that Apple plans to use AMD chips in their computers sometime in the future.

Hector seems a little urked at how Intel has made the PC industry a price battleground and that consumers have to decide what computer they get based on price alone.

There is still a lot of room for growth in the PC market and this move will help to grow AMD’s market share, when Intel is the big brother most of the time.

Read at theinq via techPowerUp!

What is a silent computer?

Friday, September 22nd, 2006 | Desktop Computers, News | No Comments

The folks over at Silent PC Review have taken a close look at what actually constitutes a noiseless PC. Notably there was a time when computer manufacturers referred to their computers as noise free, but were actually not.

The take a close look at the difference between a computer that makes enough noise for us to hear, and one which is quiet enough for us to not notice. Noise issues like the regularity of sound are taken into account. For example a irregular sound that goes up and down is much more annoying and noticeable than perhaps a “louder” sound that stays constant, allowing us to block it out.

An apt article from a site dedicated to quiet computers.

Read it here: What is a Silent computer

OCZ DDR2 PC2-8800 Gold Edition put through their paces

Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | News, RAM Memory | No Comments

Madshrimps threw together a test for the OCZ PC2-8800 memory modules.

According to their tests they were able to push them up to 1111MHz with a voltage increase for stability, unfortunately voiding the warranty. This was at 4-4-4-12 2T timings.

The speeds matched those of the Corsair XMS2 DOMINATOR PC2-8888 kit, minus the warranty. Looser timings of 5-6-6-15 allowed them to be pushed up to 1140MHz with perfect stability and only 2.42 volts.

Full article here

Workstation graphics card comparisson

Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | News, Video Cards | No Comments

Rojak’s Pot have released a new revision to their workstation graphics card comparisson.

The range includes Nvidia, ATI and Matrox for their lineup. No actual testing here, but a good overall impression of what the different cards are specced to do.

Included in the overview are architecture, manufacturing process, transistor count, open GL support specs, vertex pipelines, vertex shader version, pixel pipelines and pixel shader version supported.

Core speed, geometry rate, fill rate, memory bus width and finally memory type, speed and bandwidth.

Read it here.