computer-reviews.net

Transcend 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800 memory

Thursday, September 28th, 2006 | News, RAM Memory Reviews | No Comments

Bigbruin takes a look at this set of DDR2 sticks from Transcend. They are actually two seperate sticks, and do not come in a single package. That being the case, you just buy two sticks.

They are shockingly unexciting, without any heatspreaders or any little lights. Just plain old black chips on green board.

Although their looks are nothing to write home about their performance is not half bad. In overclocking efforts done by bigbruin they managed to get them to overclock by about 20% without adding heatspreaders or making drastic adjustments. Just upping the voltage to keep things stable.

For a set of very plain looking sticks, these are worth a look at, especially if you like the old school look of memory cards.

Check out the full review at bigbruin.

Leadtek PS7900 GS TDH 256MB

Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | No Comments

This Leatek video card, based on the GeForce 7900 GS chipset comes with a pretty good set of extras and a good cooling solution.

Keeping the card cool and only spinning up enough to be heard when temperatures get quite high, Leadtek have done a good job at making this budget oriented card quiet. The cooler is reminiscent of a 6800 GT cooler.

The card comes with two games, Serious Sam 2 and Spell Force 2 as well as Cyberlink PowerDVD 6 and a utility CD. Also included is a DVI-to-VGA connector, S-video combi cable and a 6 pin PCIe power adapter.

Testing at bit-tech shows that the card places itself well amongst the other cards of the same type. There is very little difference between one card based on the 7900GS and another, the main difference comes in their cooling solutions and the extras that you get with the card.

The card itself has room for about a 33% overclock using the standard overclocking software that comes with the card. A pretty good card at a reasonable price.

Check out the full review at bit-tech

Asus releases 4 new video cards

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | No Comments

Asus recently released 4 new video cards, the Radeon X1950XTX & Radeon X1950 Crossfire and the GeForce 7950GT & 7900GS.

The radeon’s come in two different flavors, one with and one without crossfire capabilities. HDR effects, adaptive anti-aliasing, shader 3.0 and up to 512MB of DDR4 memory are also part of the package. Both are based on the same VPU.

The non-crossfire version offers a little more for those who hope to use the graphics card with their hdtv and comes with whole host of adapters for connecting it up.

The GeForce cards are two different offerings. The GT is a faster variation based on the the 7950GT VPU and comes with 512MB of DDR4 memory.

The 7900GS offers much better value for your money and is the more budget oriented offering. It also offers great performance but without the massive cash layout. It is based on the Nvidia GeForce 7900GS VPU and comes with 256MB of memory.

All the cards except the 7900GS are Windows Vista ready.

Read the full articles: Radeon X1950XTX & Radeon X1950 Crossfire and the GeForce 7950GT & 7900GS via techPowerUp!

Super low power consumption AMD dual-core platform

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 | CPU Processor Reviews, News | No Comments

Energy savings is big business, especially in big businesses where the power bills for feeding hundreds of power hungry machines can be mind boggling.

AMD have had a great emphasis on how much power their processors can save, but this has mostly been aimed at the server market. These kinds of power saving are now available to the consumer market with the EE range of energy effiecient dual-core processors.

The biggest power savings come with the “Energy Efficient Small Form Factor” EE and SFF model which uses a pretty low 54W at idle. This is quite a saving compared to the Intel rivals, but might not be enough warrant it.

Perfect for use in home theater systems though and small form factor boxes where cooling is a very sensitive issue.

The full low-down can be found at Tom’s Hardware

Icy Dock 3 Bay Hot Swap SATA Hard Drive Enclosure

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 | Hard Drive Reviews, News | No Comments

If you are looking to expand the number of hard drives in your computer, and you are running out of space inside this could be one of the options to turn to.

With a size that is smaller than two 5.25″ drives, and the ability to hotswap up to 3 SATA drives it gives you a nice alternative to further clogging up your computer’s insides.

It fits into the double 5.25″ slots on your computer and is cooled by a fan at the back which wicks away heat into the computer, keeping the drives inside the enclosure that little bit safer from damage.

It also comes in 4 and 5 drive versions. It requires 2 molex connectors which are the older 4 pin power connectors found on optical drives and older hard drives. This is a little strange, but for the convenience, that’s what you’ll have to put up with.

Easy to install, and you can remove a faulty of broken hard drive without turning the computer off.

Read the full review at Big Bruin

Seagate Barracuda ES 750GB Hard Drive

Friday, September 22nd, 2006 | Hard Drive Reviews, 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 Computer Reviews, 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 Reviews | 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 Card Reviews | 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.