The A3 north-bridge chip will support PC1600 and PC2100 DDR SDRAM. Its integrated graphics core is based on the latest generation of Radeon chip, the Radeon 7500 - and not, you'll note, the Radeon 8500 (aka R200). The chip supports an external 4x AGP slot. Mobo makes are free to use any compatible third-party south-bridge

For more info warp to reactorcritical

Asus Germany has released two new BIOSes: Bios P4T 1006 - 03 Beta
Bios P4T-M 1005 - 02Beta
As always be careful when flashing your BIOS.

If you look at the results, the ABIT KR7A is magnificent! Other boards that are based on the same chipset (VIA KT266A) are not able to acquire some good benchmark results. Some might argue, synthetic benchmarks are not a good representation and is subjected to test environments and errors. Well, lets take a look at the rest of the crunching numbers of other applications in the next few pages. The Abit board even blew away Iwills XP333! Now that's impressive! Check out the review. A must read...

Because I'm currently bored to death and there are no hot news around I decided to make up this list of the most current firmwares for your drives. These most often fix stability, compatibility and performance issues. Read More...

NvNews have found a once in a life time Deal on a VisionTek GeForce3 Ti200

Per Hansson has posted a guide on how to overclock your Atlon XP over @ here.

Intel has released an update BIOS version P04 for its D850MD/D850MV Pentium 4 Motherboards. This release adds various new features and fixes.

Busy bee Zefanja, the hardware guru of TechConnect, reviewed MSI's VIA KT266A solution to the mainboard market. It is based on the new VIA KT266A chipset therefore faster than its predecessor KT266 chipset. Also MSI has some new excellent features. Curious? Check The-CAD's review now

Again Asus Germany (...****...) has some new beta BIOSes out: Bios A7V266-E 1005 - 04 Beta
Bios P4T 1006 - 02 Beta
As these are beta use caution when flashing your BIOS. There are no reports of updated features as of yet.

LITTLEWHITEDOG has just completed a very comprehensive review of Promise's Ultra133 TX2 controller and Maxtor's D740X-6L hard drive. While these components may bring the ATA133 drive standard to your system, are they really needed?


They ran a series of four different benchmarks on the Maxtor D740X (along with two other drives) using the Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller, and then ran them all again on a Promise ATA100 controller to see if there are any benefits to using this new standard.

Arctic Alumina is different from its predecessor Arctic Silver II, because it contains no silicone, where Arctic Silver II contains between 18 - 22% silicone. The Alumina compound uses a layered composite of Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) and Boron Nitride (BN), which, if you remember from Engineering Class are both considered ceramics. Both of these materials have good thermal conductivity and electrical resistance, thus making Arctic Alumina neither conductive nor capacitive. In simple terms, it means if you accidentally get a little bit on the bridges on top of your CPU, the materials that make up Arctic Alumina should prevent those bridges from inadvertently or accidentally closing. LittleWhiteDog Review of the new thermal paste

My pal Zefanja from The-CAD just ICQ'ed me that he has put his review of Hercules latest offering to the graphics card market online. The review includes benchmarks of Q3A, 3DMark2001 and more. Afterall the Hercules board received 9/10. Read the full review @ The-CAD

Argh: Bios P4B-M 1002 - 04 Beta
Bios A7V266 1005 - 03 Beta
Bios A7V266-E 1005 - 03 Beta
Bios CUR-DLS / -DLSR 1012 - 01 Beta
Bios TUV4X 1004 - 02 Beta
Bios CUV4X-V 1004 - 01 Beta
We also managed to get our hands on an updated version of Asus HealthMonitor PcProbe: v2.15.04 These german Asus guys really give me the creeps...

Finally... KT7 / KT7-RAID - KT7A / KT7A-RAID: 1. Fine tune the register value of CPU driving strength to enhance the system stability.
2. HPT 370 RAID BIOS version 1.11.0402. The RAID function is for KT7-RAID / KT7A-RAID only. This BIOS version is also for non RAID boards and HPT BIOS will be automatically disabled while RAID controller chip not detected.
3. BIOS compile date: 11/07/2001. KT7A / KT7A-RAID V1.3 And Newer: 1. Support AMD Athlon XP from 1600+ to 1900+.
2. Support AMD new Duron 1G and above.
3. HPT 370 RAID BIOS version 1.11.0402. The RAID function is for KT7A-RAID only. This BIOS version is also for non RAID boards and HPT BIOS will be automatically disabled while RAID controller chip not detected.
4. BIOS compile date: 11/07/2001. KT7E: 1. Fine tune the register value of CPU driving strength to enhance the system stability.
2. HPT 370 RAID BIOS version 1.11.0402. The RAID function is for KT7-RAID / KT7A-RAID only. This BIOS version is also for non RAID boards and HPT BIOS will be automatically disabled while RAID controller chip not detected.
3. BIOS compile date: 11/07/2001.

Can't believe it. Asus Germany has some beta BIOSes ready again: Bios TUA266 1004 - 06 Beta
Bios CUV4X 1010 - 01 Beta
Bios CUV4X-E without OnBoard Audio 1005 - 01 Beta
Bios CUV4X-E(A) with OnBoard Audio 1006 - 01 Beta

NeoWin Received word that Tom's Hardware has a review of the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 6 weeks prior to its official release. This review shows how to unlock the multiplier on the AthlonXP and how to reach AthlonXP 2000+ speeds easily.

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Review

NVIDIA anounced their new mobile graphics chip NV17M at Comdex. The new chip unites 128Bit DDR memory and a new developed GeForce GPU on a single chip .NVIDIA says that the new chip is about 5x faster in Q3A (1024x768-32) and 4x in MDK2 compared to its predecessor GeForce 2 GO and those lucky boy's over at NvNews have put together a short preview that covers some of the exciting and revolutionary new features of the NV17M.

MSI P4 SiS645 DDR board - MSI 645Ultra Review @ OCWorkbench: MSI mainboards never fails in delivering an impressive package with lots of goodies within. It has the best features like D-bracket, 1Mhz stepping for your overclocking needs. We were able to increase the FSB to 112Mhz CAS2 Ultra, voltage:1.85v memory running at 298Mhz scoring 1239/1248 in SiSoft Sandra memory benchmarks. Voltage tweaking is also available if you find that the current performance is not enough for you. Documentation is also pretty well written and BIOS screen shots and explanations of the various BIOS settings are direct to the point. The BIOS needs a bit more tuning to make it better at DDR333. Overall, a well packaged P4 DDR solution. Asus A7N266 (nForce) Review @ HardwareMania: As a result A7N266 we tested was just an engineering sample. Asus is still working on it and they warned us about the performance when we took the sample. Neither the card, nor the drivers are ready yet. But it is a fact that even as a sample, it is better than AMD761 with the same CPU and Ram. If you consider that the street price of the nForces with integrated audio and GPU will be about 200$, it may be a good solution for the ones looking for a complete system. You will have GeForce MX400, 6 channel audio, 100MBit Ethernet and many other features at the same time for only 200$. Asus A7V266-E Review @ LostCircuits: After more or less skipping the VIA KT266 chipset, ASUS releases its view of what a KT266A chipset-based mainboard is supposed to look like. Loaded with features like support for the iPanel, SmartCard reader and onboard CMedia 6-channel sound including SPDIF support, the A7V266-E is bound for success. Using new power-supply technology supplied by ON-Semiconductor with the MOSFET drivers integrated in the core controller, ASUS does away with 2 phases, yet manages to achieve a superlative in stability, particularly under overclocked conditions.

There are reports that a new hardware bug exists if you use a specific hardware/software combination: Windows 98/ME
Detonator XP 21.83; official release
GeForce 3
VIA based motherboard The bug not further described causes a performance loss of up to 60%. Discuss about this bug in our forums. Source: Onlinekosten (german site)

The OCA crew have been running this board nearly 2 weeks now and finally have the review posted for reading. They have quite a few pics, benchmarks and experiences with MSI's flagship KT266A based motherboard. Here's a snip from the review. Read More