3DSoundSurge is taking a comprehensive look at the Swan highend 2.0 speaker system M200. Made of Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) construction, high quality heavy duty binding posts and very good attention to detail. The amplifier send a true 72 watts RMS to the system feeding a 5 ¼ inch long throw linear excursion design driver and a 1-inch silk dome tweeter that utilizes a ferro fluid cooled voice coil. Everything about them has a feel of quality. Something else that jumps out immediately is each satellite is the size of some of the smaller multimedia subwoofers. For all the test results on this attractively priced ($200) performance system check out the review. Related link: Swan Speakers

Today Xbitlabs is going to take a closer look at a barebone small form-factor PC from FIC. And you know, it appeared a really optimal solution for both: home and office use. If you are not a hardcore gamer and if you are not going to get the Nobel prize for highly complex calculations, then you should definitely learn more about this stylish creature from FIC @ Xbitlabs.com.

Just got word from AC @ Nvmax.com that they have posted their LiteON 48X 16X DVD & 48X12X48X CDRW drive review. Here's a snip:

The one test you have not seen elsewhere, featuring stupidity and complete uselessness is that of our Lee Jeans CD test. Check out the attached images to see what we are going on about. This mini CD is like a standard mini CD except Lee Jeans added on some legs and thus made an irregular CD that not only wont work on just about all CD drives but can also damage them due to uneven spinning. It was purely by chance we managed to snag one of these babies, featuring a special edition of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire!" soundtrack. We can tell you that every drive tested spins this thing real fast to try and read it.

Looking for a new sound card? Then you should check out Overclockersonline.com as they have posted a new review of Hercules' Fortissimo III 7.1 sound card. Here's a snip:



Budget-minded people probably know the older GameSurround Fortissimo II with Crystal CS4624 chipset and the GameSurround Muse with C-Media CMI8738 chipset. These still are fine & cheap 4-channel sound cards, but of course they both lack 5.1 high-end cinematic audio support. Now times have changed as Hercules have designed a whole new Fortissimo III sound card with 8-channel 7.1 sound support. This means you can hook up no less than 8 speakers to this card ... Let's check it out.

DDR-400 is still yet to be approved as an official industry standard by JEDEC. This hasn't stopped several companies releasing DDR-400 memory, and even faster. Geil is one such company who accelerated in this area who went ahead and released their DDR-433 solution. TweakTown took time to put the memory through their usual torture tests to see how it stood up to the challenge with the most aggressive timings they could possible throw at it.

Xbitlabs tested a four-channel IDE RAID controller solution from HighPoint, which boasts the ability to work with two HDDs connected to a single cable. As a result, the four-channel RocketRAID 404 controller turned our capable of working with 8 hard disk drives at a time. Find out what it is worth in the review.

With many cases becoming more pleasing to the eye, what is a manufacturer to do to try to stand out from the crowd? Join TweakTown as they take a peek at the Antec Performance Plus 660AMG enclosure. With the reputation of Antec, we can't wait to see what they have in store for us this time. Find out if they can live up to their past endeavors.

From Neowin's mod Osiris comes a review of the Nokia 7650 for your viewing pleasure.

Modfactor have written a review about the Samsung 172T LCD screen. Here's a snip: When I first saw the package containing this monitor, I thought that there's no way an LCD can be inside a box that small, but there was! I've seen a lot of LCD's in my life and this one is so compact and slim that it can easily fit into a tiny box Head over here to read the complete review.

"Just imagine, surfing the net by the pool, chatting over IRC on the couch or my favourite: cable internet in bed. Yes! Cable internet in bed! Heaven! With wireless networking all this and more is possible. Wireless networking provides an enormous convenience advantage over traditional ethernet networks, but unfortunately they are rather slow compared to 100Mb ethernet and while we wait for faster wireless links we are stuck at 11Mb, that is until D-Link step in. There are a lot of 802.11b 11Mb wireless products out on the market at the moment, but D-Link's AirPlus range is rather special."


Click "Read More" for the Full Story

Techseekers.net have reviewed the boxed version of RedHat 8 Professional and compared it against Windows XP in terms of use for the average user.

Enter RedHat 8 Professional. This is the latest distribution from RedHat. RedHat 8 has made waves with its new interface called Bluecurve?. Bluecurve? is a uniform graphical user interface with convenient and logical access to applications and settings. RedHat 8 Pro also integrates OpenOffice.org an office suite that is compatible with the well known Microsoft Office.

Read more here.

Techseekers.net take a look at the Radeon 9700 Pro from Connect3D.

With the ?delays? of the NV30 which should have been competition to the 9700, Nvidia are falling a little in the 3D performance game. So at present the fastest performing mainstream 3D cards are the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro and the Nvidia Geforce4 Ti4600. How do they compare against each other and how do they compare against their lesser brothers, the Ti4200 and the 9000 Pro? Read more here.

With the SiS 648 chipset taking the enthusiast market by storm, how is a person to know which manufacturer to choose? Join Cameron "Sov" Johnson as he takes a look at the EPoX 4SDA5+ motherboard which uses this very chipset. It has a few surprises in store for us and may be just what the doctor ordered for your next Pentium 4 rig.

Although the chipset did not cause much excitement over at HardwareZone's labs, the card did however impressed most of them with its features and overclockability. For that, they are giving MSI 4.5-stars for a job well done on the MX440-VTD8X.

X-bitlabs.com reports to have tested 13 of the most popular of today's IDE hard disk drives with a whole lot of benchmarks, including the new file copy test of theirs. Find out which HDD would be the best choice for you today.

A mouse with Cruise Control, a mouse 8 buttons, a mouse that looks cool and a mouse with a Rapid charge base station. The Logitech has all this and more. There are eight customizable buttons and one scroll wheel which doubles as a clickable button on the MX700. That should certainly make all the "button lovers" happy. The left and right click buttons are installed in a very interesting fashion, which adds a "hype" factor to the mouse. They are actually part of the silver body of the mouse. The buttons do not feel like those on the Apple Pro Mouse, which requires you to press on the whole mouse body to make a click, and they feel like regular mouse buttons. There are three little round buttons between the left and right click buttons. Two of them, located at the two ends of the scroll wheel, comprise the "Cruise Control Scrolling System". Fast RF Cordless technology used in the MX700 has been improved by Logitech to match the speed of a USB connection, allowing you to use the mouse within a six foot radius of the receiver. Unlike the older cordless mice which could only transmit signals at a rate of 40hz, equivalent to the speed of a PS2 port, the new Fast RF technology can transmit signals at 140hz, which is actually faster than what the USB port can handle (125hz). You won't miss out on a bit of the optical performance or accuracy because you will not be limited by the speed of the radio signal. Press Read More for further info.

Abit claims to have achieved a revolutionary cooling method for VGA adapters that is supposedly 15% more effective than standard cooling solutions. Also Abit today is going to officially announce their first product with Outside Thermal Exhaust System the Siluro GeForce 4 Ti4200 OTES. It is equipped with a 7200RPM fan and takes up the AGP and one PCI slot. Naturally the reviews below focus on overclocking capabilities. Review @ Hexus Review @ OCWorkbench

Today a very special new mouse made by Logitech has caught my attention. It is called MX700 CORDLESS OPTICAL MOUSE RAPID CHARGE BASE STATION and is not yet listed on the official US pages of Logitech. It is an optical wireless eight button mouse and comes with a recharge station and seems to be equipped with a new Fast RF Cordless technology. Current prices are $60+. Normally we don't post links to shops, but this baby is an exception... Read more...

The Gainward card has come up trumps. It has unique features that round off the card well. The look of the card has to be a great bonus. I managed to overclock the card to 300/570 which is impressive. The cooler does it job well and is not audible over my stock AMD heat sink fan. The performance is above that of the reference Ti4200 tested earlier.

Click "Read More" fore more information.

For those looking for an enclosure that says "I've got it all together", there is Lian Li. They have become known for both quality and looks in nearly every model they design. Come join TweakTown as they take a look at one of their newest offerings, the PC6089. With a track record like Lian Li has, it will be tough to keep up the good work. Let's see if they can do it one more time!