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Systemax Warhawk AMD Athlon 64 Based Nvidia SLI ready Gaming Computer

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | View Comments

Systemax computers are known more for their value for money than extreme computing power and gaming performance. Well, it only takes time before the two come together. The Warhawk is a Systemax computer based on the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor that’s designed for gaming. It comes up well against most games and is good value for money for those looking for a little kick from a pretty standard computer.

The Warhawk itself is just one of the standard setups of the Systemax computer gaming range. Everything is customizable and you can chop and choose the parts as you wish. This gives you the ability to up those parts that are more important to you and to downgrade those ones that you would rather upgrade later.

The 3500+ processor will do for most people’s systems, and for my liking I would go for this one. You need to add about $150 dollars to get the slowest dual core AMD X2 or a 3800+ version. The FX-60 chip will add $1000 dollars to the price.

The video card will do the trick, but if you do intend to do some serious gaming I would suggest upgrading to the 7900GT graphics card. Not only will it increase the performance quite a lot, but you can also upgrade that to an SLI setup in the future if needed. Doubling up of the standard card will limit future upgrades as you would have to replace both cards.

Select any of the Corsair memory options to get the most from your system. The most simple is very standard Corsair memory, but for only $5 more it provides some peace of mind that your system is good to go. 1GB or memory should be enough for anyone’s needs.

For data storage, single, RAID0 and RAID3 options are available. I tend to stay away from RAID0, which stripes information over 2 disks. When one disk fails, data is lost. The bonus is that it is very quick as it can write or read from either disk, whichever is closer to the information at the time. RAID3 provides parity and so the failure of anyone of the 3 drives can be tolerated, but there is the overhead of the parity writes. RAID0 is the faster choice, but less fault tolerant.

The rest of the system offers all sorts of extras that you can opt to upgrade, or in many instances, choose to leave out. Overall, it’s a nice looking sytem and is an easy way for you to get a fast gaming system without having to search around for all the different parts yourself.

Sony VAIO VGC-RB53 Intel Pentium 4 630 3GHz Desktop Computer

Monday, May 1st, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | View Comments

Sony VAIO computers offer a fully integrated desktop for those who want everything pre-packaged and ready to go. Although better known for the VAIO range of laptop computers, these desktop models will give you most of what you need for day-to-day operations, with the security of a big brand company behind you.

Although cheap sony computers are not that easy to come by, this one does come in as one of the cheaper sony computers I have found. Even though its range of parts are not the most cutting edge, the advantage is the savings in the initial purchase.

The Intel Pentium 4 630 3GHz processor gives enough processing power for modern applications. Although dual-core technology is taking strides into the desktop market, there are still many applications that do not need all that extra.

Designed with entertainment in mind, the Sony VAIO desktop computer comes ready for storage of DVD media, and a DVD burner for making your own. The 200GB hard drive provides enough storage space for many hours of video, and the SATA interface ensures that upgrading to bigger faster hard drives will be very easy.

The 512MB or memory should do for most applications, including Microsoft Office and various other office related software, however 1GB might be more in order if you intend running video software.

Amongst the extras, there are 4 USB ports, which gives a little more flexibility if you have lots of peripheral components on your computer. There are the standard mouse and keyboard slots as well as networking (LAN), audio, VGA and parallel ports. One extra, obviously aimed at those interested in video editing, is the firewire port. This extra is not very common on mid-range computers, so this is a a very pleasing extra. There is one at the back of the case and another at the front.

There is a DVD burner and Flash card reader accessible behind panels at the front of the case. The flash card reader also has 2 USB ports and a firewire port at the right side.

For the price, this computer is a good buy. It offers pretty much all you need for a first video editing computer for making home videos and such projects. There is room for expansion and sits in nicely under $1000 with a monitor.

A-data MyFlash RB1 Shock resistant, Waterproof Flash Drive

Friday, April 28th, 2006 | Reviews, USB Removable Drives | View Comments

Flash drives have become very popular because of their flexible use, small size, and fairly high capacity. Their solid state technology means they are much more resistant to a few bumps than other storage media like hard drives.

Despite this, they do often need to take a bit of a pounding, and they are not always designed to be able to handle that. In answer to that A-data designed this drive which is encased in a rubberised exterior.

The design allows it to take those drops on the floor a litle bit better and is also resistant to water for those who insist on using electronics by the pool or who might get caught in the rain.

It comes with many of the standard features of drives today including a USB 2.0 interface, allowing for fast transfer of information. It should require no specail drives in modern operating systems and solution are available too.

Sony VAIO VGC-RB54G Pentium D 820 2.8GHz

Thursday, April 27th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | View Comments

Coming in at a reasonable price, this sony vaio computer comes into a range closer to that of what I would like from a home entertainment system PC.

With the usual array of parts, like DVD burner, DVD-ROM, flash card reader, USB, and remote control, what makes sets this model apart from the others in its range?

The Pentium D 820 processor runs a little slower than the 3GHz version of the same cpu, buts allows a much lower price. The premium paid for the fastest is ridiculous at times and I’d rather go for the slowest in the range, than go for an older processor.

The layout of this model is a little more plain. Other models have extra audio/visual ports at the bottom of the front panel, whereas this one does not. There are still the usual ones at the back for the permanent connections you have.

One great thing is that this one comes standard with 2 hard drives in a RAID 0 setup. What this does it set the two drives up together, with the data being split over them and being managed by the onboard controller. The allows much faster speeds as things can be written to either of the drives saving a lot of time. This comes in handy when recording video as it requires a lot of information to be written very quickly to the drives.

The 1GB of DDR2 memory will do the trick and the 128MB ATI graphics card will give you all you need to connect it up to your television and get things running smoothly together.

A-data MyFlash 2GB Portable Flash Drive

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 | Reviews, USB Removable Drives | View Comments

The A-data flash drive has a small compact size and has a large capacity. It is well priced for drive of 2GB which provides just over 3 CDs worth or space for your data.

It is a standard flash drive with no special software required apart from the usual USB2.0 drivers that come with pretty much all operating systems these days.

Besides its small size making it less bulky to carry, the low profile design will ensure that it will fit in any available USB port. The small height of the USB plug compared to the relatively large height of the flash drives in the past has often meant that they needed and extension cable or a spot with an open adjacent USB port.

USB 2.0 ensures that it will have the highest possible transfer rates for a drive of this kind which should make a big difference for moving large files to and from the flash disk itself.

Other features include:

• 2GB capacity
• USB 2.0 interface
• Drivers for Windows 98 included
• LED indicator when its in use
• Security and Partitioning software are supported