|
|
Reviews Around The Web
|
Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
|
|
|
|
Monday, August 18, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
Today, I will be looking at the EP45-DS3L, Gigabyte's economy-priced P45 motherboard. This is probably the least expensive newly released motherboard I have seen coming from either of the top two motherboard manufacturers in a very long time, and obviously marketed towards those buyers looking at buying boards from ECS, ASRock, or one of the other manufacturers that build budget motherboards. Will the EP45-DS3L meet the high standards that we have come to expect from a Gigabyte motherboard, with features found on its bigger brothers? Read on to see!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We're writing to let you all know that we have just posted a new article at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features and performance of four P45-based motherboards from Gigabyte. We?ve got both their high-end and low-end DDR3 based P45 boards, along with their high-end and low-end DDR2 boards. This will provide us with a clear and concise overview of what type of performance and features you can expect at difference price points. We?ve got a lot of questions to answer, such as finding out the performance differences between DDR2 and DDR3 P45 platforms, how features like copper heatpipe cooling and twelve phase power help overclocking, and how power consumption differs between high-end, ultra-packed motherboards compared to trimmed down, minimalist boards. On the low-end, we have Gigabyte?s EP45-DS3L for DDR2 based systems along with the EP45T-DS3R for DDR3 based systems. On the high-end, we have the much more exciting EP45-DQ6 platform for DDR2 based systems, and for the high-end DDR3 landscape, we have the cr?me de le cr?me of Gigabyte?s P45 lineup, the EP45T-Extreme. Come on by the site and check them out...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While the saying is that you get what you paid for, I think you might get a little extra with the ASUS TOP 512MB GeForce 9600GT. While you could easily spend three, four, or five times as much to have the latest and greatest video card, if you are satisfied with "really good" performance and a fatter wallet in the end, the ASUS TOP 512MB GeForce 9600GT is a good choice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The original CrossHair was great, at the time, but we feel the CrossHair II is one to miss. I think Asus has done what it can with what Nvidia and AMD has handed over, but ultimately there are better products elsewhere that can be had for a fraction of the price. The swanky pants Republic of Gamer board might do a lot of things pretty well, but nothing spectacularly like you'd expect. It feels decidedly average at the end of the day, and we don't drop £150 on an average product.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The other day we looked at the Smooth Creations Asylum and inside was the new Diamond HD 4870 XOC Black Edition. This isn't your normal overclocked HD 4870, though; if you have a look at the specifications on the thing, you will quickly discover that the card is packing some mega serious clock speeds. So what we've done is pull the card out of the Smooth Creations rig and install it into our testbed to see how the card performs against some of our other favorites. Since this wasn't a retail sample, we won't be looking at the package today. What we will do is have a quick look around the card and then check out the clockspeeds before moving onto the testing phase.
|
|
Friday, August 15, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
Need to build a new rig on the cheap? Need modest Crossfire support, and a decent feature-set? The ECS P45T-A might be worthy of your consideration, as it packs in a good amount of functionality, solid performance, a cool color scheme and of course, a good price tag, of around $110.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Today we are looking at their mammoth Hyper Z600, a Passive capable CPU cooler that weighs over a kilogram(!) and towers over 6? high. While my motherboard sweats nervously in a corner, at the thought of supporting this giant cooler, let?s take a look at the product packaging.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have already taken a look at the BlacX USB and BlacX SE which is also a USB only desktop drive device. The Thermaltake BlacX units have started a new class in hard drive storage. You can't really call them carriers since you don't take them with you on the go, nor can you call them internal hot swap since they do not sit inside the case. I guess for now, until someone tells me differently we will call them desktop hot swap devices. The first two USB only BlacX units we looked at performed brilliantly for USB. In the back of my mind, though, I knew the transfer performance was being held up by the connection and recommended to everyone to just hang tight and wait until the eSATA version became available. Today we have this version in hand; the BlacX (part number ST0005U) with eSATA support has finally made its way to my door step and even though I have other articles that need to be written up first, I just had to see how this baby performs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This External enclosure supports JBOD, Individual, Raid 0, and Raid 1 modes for effective storage management. It also has the Ability to accept two drives with a total capacity of 2TB.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, are they truly studio-quality? Eh, if you had a studio you wouldn't put up with the sweepingly uneven amplification. You can compensate for it, and get some very impressive sound from these ATH-CK7s--rolls off the tongue, don't it?--but then they're going to be tied to whatever device you've got them plugged into. I can't use these with both my media player and my PC, because once I switch from my PC speakers, I have to reset my equalizer. And they would be a total waste if my media player didn't have a multi-band, customizable equalizer. There's no preset in the world that can correct for these babies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It IS a great sink in terms of quality, and usability. Anyone can install it, and almost anyone would appreciate it's appearance, yet it's performance and cost are found to be lacking. If you could find this heatsink on sale it would turn out to be a great buy, but otherwise... I'm not sure exactly what would motivate users to purchase it, other than an unusual fondness for Zalman, and a wee case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fancy a dainty yet feature-packed portable media player? There's the Samsung YP-S3 to consider, and here's an overview of this latest device from Samsung's lineup.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the PCSTATS test bench today is the new Samsung Syncmaster 943B 19" LCD/TFT monitor. The Syncmaster 943B is a mainstream/business oriented LCD display with a competitive price tag of about $290 CDN ($290USD / £60 GBP). The Samsung Syncmaster 943B offers users a luscious black 19" screen (5:3 aspect ratio) with a native resolution of 1280x1024 pixels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Powercolor's latest HD 4850 PCS graphics card is based on the AMD HD 4850 reference design but comes with an improved cooler and slightly increased core clocks. While the overclock makes only a small performance difference, the cooler substantially improves the product. Even under load the PCS 4850 is barely audible which makes it the quietest graphics card ever tested - of all performance classes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Today we are taking a look at another DDR3 kit on the market, this time it comes from Crucial. We got their PC3-10600 kit for review which is the first DDR3 kit that we look at from Crucial. We are going to benchmark it vs some well performing kits on the market to see how well this memory kit performs and also see what type of overclocking results we can expect from the kit.
|
|
|
|
|
|