If you're looking for a convenient all in one CD-ROM - CD-R - CD-RW - DVD-ROM drive than be sure to check back with HotHardware's review of Plextors latest offering. One of the newest changes that Plextor has begun implementing on all of their CD-R drives is the black CD tray. By utilizing a black tray, accuracy of the writing process is increased by absorbing any excess laser light. The end result is a more precise burn with increased reliability and compatibility. But when it comes to reliability, a colored CD tray is just the beginning, complimenting three key technologies that help the PleXCombo to be one of the best CD writers on the market. Read the review

VR-Zone has done up a review on the new ECS AG400 card based on the SiS Xabre 400 GPU. SiS Xabre 400 supports AGP 8X and DirectX 8.1 therefore it will make it a worthy competitor to the GF4 MX440 in terms of price and performance and even to the GF3 Ti200. The cool thing about ECS AG400 is that it offers 3DVR connector that allow 3D Glasses to be used to obtain 3D Effects during gaming. By turning on the Transparent mode offer as a feature by the Xabre 3DWizard tool, in games such as Quake 3 or Counterstrike, the walls are transparent therefore it is great news for Cheaters but bad for Gamers!

Automation, the ultimate addition to your computer. Why should you have to bother with temperature and fan controlling when you can have a small device like this put your cooling on "cruise-control" and allow you to enjoy your computer. This component has no flaws whatsoever and would make a great addition to any case, especially the windowed variety!

Sometimes we overlook the small things. An LCD Viewscreen has become a staple part of most digital cameras and video cameras. Unfortunately, these viewscreens are often difficult to deal with in the sunlight and other bright, harsh lighting conditions. While the editor was at PC Expo in NYC, he met the folks from Hoodman, who make hoods for LCD Viewscreens. They gave him a H300 hood, which he has reviewed.

No, this is not an article about cooling. This is something little that you can do to make your mouse's life a bit better. Everybody wants to look good, your mouse too.

Check the mod out: http://metku.net/cryo/ Degger*: Cool! That's a nice idea ;-)

Just got word from Haddad that he's just posted his Creative SB Extigy Review! Here's a byte from his article!

While the Audigy is Creative?s latest PCI Soundcard, Extigy is their first external Soundcard. Though seemingly having much in common feature wise with the Audigy, the Extigy is NOT an external Audigy and this review will cover why not as well as what it is & how they differ. The Extigy also features some great stand-alone capabilities, not just the fact that thanks to a USB interface it can just as be easily used with a laptops or as a Dolby Digital decoder for your DVD Player, Xbox or whatever!

I probably wouldn't find better words so here is the header of the Tech-Report article: Nvidia announced the Personal Cinema last year, and a lot of people let out a sigh of relief. Finally, some capable competition for the integrated digital video graphics crown had arrived. Up until the Personal Cinema's launch, there really wasn't a competent competitor for ATI's All-In-Wonder series of graphics cards (well, unless you count Matrox). These cards were based off various Radeon cores. They integrated TV tuners for couch potatoes and a slew of video input and output ports for video editing, and Nvidia didn't have anything even close. The Comparison

Getting plaqued by a monitor too small? Well Anandtech has taken a look at the Cornerstone 21'' c1035 which is their second monitor review ever. Finding it is a mid-range buck banger you might be interested in the review. People looking for the more high-end class of 21'' CRT's could like the Eizo FlexScan F931 better but more expensive.

OverclockerCafe has taken a look at a cool looking aluminum case: Chili Pro III Micro ATX. It really is an eye catcher of sorts if you ask me but only when you own a micro ATX motherboard. It also has no fans included but can be equipped with 92 mm rear exhaust and 80 mm intake in base...

VR-Zone has taken 2 new ABIT P4 motherboards out for a spin which are none other than BD7II-RAID and BG7 based on i845E and i845G chipsets respectively. Both boards possess the usual useful features such as USB 2.0, 6 channel audio, LAN, RAID (BD7II-RAID only). BG7 comes with the extra integrated graphics as well as DDR333 support too. Definitely, these boards are among the favorite choices for overclockers therefore they take a close look at their performance and overclockability. There isn't a problem attaining 3Ghz air cooled with a P4 2.4Ghz on these boards.

The Tech-Report is back with a review of Soyo's latest AMD based offering in the motherboard market. Sporting RAID support and other nice goodies this board really should be worth a look. Now, Soyo has returned to the Athlon side to bring you the KT333 DRAGON Ultra, a board that bears a striking resemblance to the DRAGON Plus, but now features a KT333 chipset with support for DDR333 memory. But Soyo wasn't just content to swap out a chipset; they've made other changes, as well. Read on for the details. Read the complete review

Our pal Dean Nottis sent along information that he has published two new reviews. First up is the CoolerMaster HHC-001 Cooler: In other words there is a liquid in the middle of the tiny tubes, once it gets hot enough the liquid turns to gas and flows to the top of the tube. As it reaches the other end, the fan cools the gas back to a liquid state and it returns to the bottom again waiting to go back through the same process. This is the core feature of the CoolerMaster Heatpipe and the technology that makes it successful. Second to that is the Trek 16 Megabyte USB Thumbdrive which proved to be a useful data carrying device. Read more for the links to the reviews...

Well as expected a number of Matrox Parhelia reviews have been posted on-line today. I'm sure they'll be more to come over the next few days/weeks/months but for now if you want to check any of the early ones - Click on Read More for the links. Rancho*: Being the first doesn't always mean being the best. Some of those reviews seem A BIT biased - including Tom's Hardware (author Lars Weinand [also Editor-in-Chief at RivaStation]): In Part II, we'll be looking at the Parhelia's image quality and its performance at maximum quality, with a comparison to an NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600. Here, we won't be including ATI's Radeon 8500, because its anisotropic filtering, which involves various driver tricks, is somewhat controversial and would make a comparison unnecessarily complicated. Declaring different algorythms as 'tricks' is simply unprofessional. Under this declaration he shouldn't have compared Nvidia's FSAA with Matrox FAA either. Why? Different algorithym...

MSI, one of the top three motherboard manufacturers in the world, has in the past few years been targeting the enthusiast market by products filled with features and functionality, one of the latest being the MSI KT3 Ultra - ARU motherboard. As you can probably tell from the name, the KT3 Ultra - ARU is based on the Via Apollo KT333 chipset, one that incorporates a few new features over the older KT266-A chipset. Is the new KT3 board worth the upgrade?

Available in black or silver panel colors; Celsius or Fahrenheit measurement displays; detecting from -40° to 90° C or -40° to 194° F; the LIAN LI Temperature Monitor will add a bit of style to any computer. For anyone wanting a visual display to quickly check those computer temperatures this unit is a definite addition.

Just got word from Haddad that their new Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 speaker review is now online.

With every new soundcard line Creative launches, they also get ready a complimentary range of SoundWorks speakers to come along with them. In fact, with the Audigy introduction it came the new Inspire line.

This time around we are taking a close look to the Inspire 5300 speakers, coming as budget 5.1 system, essentially replacing the DTT 2200. Retailing in most places for less than $90, maybe and this is exactly the kind of system you were looking for.

Well this is finally one of the read worthy reviews around. The Tech-Report has been working hard on this comparative review covering the basics of 3DSound and six different soundcards: Hercules / Turtle Beach / Philips and Creative Labs make their stand in the review. In most cases, the differences we uncovered here aren't anything to write home about. The Muse XL was notably slower than the rest in the benchmarks, but otherwise everything was pretty even. As for the listening tests, all of the differences we heard were the results of back-to-back tests, but no matter what we said about any of the cards, none of them were objectionable. The days of ISA Sound Blasters that hiss like a cat are gone; unless there's a really bad card out there that we didn't include, the state of PC sound today is that even the worst card sounds pretty darn good. If one were to listen to any of these cards by itself, one probably wouldn't find any gross deficiencies in audio quality (with the possible exception of the overdone EAX effects in Serious Sam, but we're not sure whether to blame that on the sound cards or the game developers).

MikhailTech is one of the first site's to get a close look on one of Lian Li's latest case offerings. Our review sample is on the way so be sure to check back with us sometime next week to read our's. Here is a snip: The front door is made of plastic (probably acrylic) and has a pair of clips which compress when you push in; this allows for the door to lock/unlock. It's attached using two hinges at the top and bottom, both of which are secured by hex screws. The window is translucent blue and smooth except for the portion covering the 5.25" bays. I don't see a reason why it's there but probably for looks. Also notice the two vertical "bulbs" on either side of the bays. MikhailTech Review

If you are a true geek, you hunger for more computing power all the time, no matter what you currently have. Overclocking your computer (successfully) to 4.5GHz wouldn't be enough. Nothing is enough.

You want it all. You could win a brand new 10GHz multiprocessor system tomorrow and within minutes you'd be saying "Please sir, can I have some more?" Computers are cheap these days, so it's not uncommon to find a Geek hiding in a dark little room illuminated only by the glow of two or three monitors, his desk cluttered by two or three keyboards, two or three mice, in addition to the usual geek stuff. If you're like me, the only reason you DON'T have two or three computers on your desk is because you can't afford two or three really good monitors (anything less than 19" is tiny to me) and you don't want to keep switching back and forth. Even if you only pay $150 a pop for 19" monitors -- that gets expensive quickly. Enter the SwitchView MP.

The Belkin 11Mbps Wireless Access Point (WAP) is designed to act as a "bridge" between your existing wired network, and your wireless devices. It has been built around the assumption that you already have a wired network in place, be it a corporate sized LAN with routers and switches or just a small office / home network with a couple of routers, hubs, or gateways. This device allows you to add wireless capabilities to your existing LAN, simply by plugging this device into your wired network, and giving it an IP address either by setting it manually, or by allowing your existing DHCP server to assign it an IP address. The wireless access point will then be able to "relay" data from your wireless devices to your wired network, thus acting as a router / gateway for your wireless devices and workstations.