Just got word from VR-Zone.com that they have posted their FIC AN19E Mainboard review, a AMD board based on VIA'S KT400 chipset.

The FIC AN19E is definitely a board that should be looked into by any enthusiast that is looking at the KT400 chipset. FIC is definitely improving their image as a company geared towards all segments of the market, not only the low and mid ranged portions. A very expandable board with all the features a user would want are just some of the characteristics of the AN19E. Along with being extremely stable, the board performs up to par with other KT400 boards, but in a few benchmarks, the older KT333 chipset does outperform the new KT400.

The guys over Gamersdepot have posted a nice P4 2.2Ghz Laptop Shootout. The laptops used in the shootout were Compaq 2810T ($3276.99) and Dell Inspiron 8200 ($3129.00). Gamersdepot: "In this review we're looking at the latest from both companies ? each coming with the latest in mobile technologies. The Compaq Presario 2810T is stacked to the rafters with features and styling that make it a viable contender for your dollar. On the other hand, the Dell Inspiron 8200's latest build is nothing to pass up either. Built on one of the fastest mobile chips around, either one would make heads turn at the next LAN party you attend." In terms of price there is not much difference in them. So what aspect does make them different from each other? For specs on laptops and review link click Read More.

With so many chipsets battling for market share of the Intel enthusiast crowd, it can sometimes be difficult to choose the right motherboard. Join TweakTown as they take a peek at the Shuttle AS45GTR Motherboard. It uses the new SiS 846 chipset and offers several features that aren't all that common. Let's see if it can handle the stresses of an enthusiast rig!

Viperlair have reviewed the feature rich MSI i845PE Max2-FIR motherboard. "The MSI 845PE Max2 packs a lot of features, some old, some new, in the rather crowded Pentium 4 motherboard arena. The addition of FireWire is a feature that many home, mainly multimedia users, may find very useful. Gigabit Ethernet, though hardly mainstream, should provide plenty of bandwidth if you haul this rig to a giga-LAN party." Warp 2 ... www.viperlair.com for the review.

There's a new chipset on the block from Intel and it's the 845PE. It gives a bunch of new features to the Pentium 4 processor line, including official DDR-333 support and Hyper-Threading. Today TweakTown takes a look at two new motherboards from ASUS and Gigabyte based on the new chipset. Which board shall win the battle of supremacy? Read on and find out!

Almost all of us would like to have a modified case, but not all of us have the time or skills to pull off a professional looking job. Warp 2 TweakTown as they take on the Xoxide LL60 Enclosure. Based on the vaunted Lian-Li PC60 case design, the folks at Xoxide can feel your pain and try to make something special out of something already special. Let's see if they can pull it off!

MrIcee and OPPAINTER over at XtremeSystems have got their hands on a 2400+ and 2600+ respectively, and are putting them thru their paces in their Prometeia cases with the worlds highest achieved AMD Speed results to date, as both the Xtreme boys have achieved 2700Mhz with their respective CPU's. You can read their entire adventure on this thread. Click Read More... for a link to the thread.

TNR has just put a review up of the recently released Corsair XMS 3500C2 DDR memory. This memory is based on the Winbond -5ns chips and is the latest offering from Corsair Memory. They test it on an Abit IT7-MAX with a modded BIOS and a volt-modded P4 2.26B. Link: Warp 2 the review

ExtremeTech is at it again and tool Logitech's first ever 5.1 system to the test. And according to the test ExtremeTech claims it is the best 5.1 system ever. They may be technically but personally I prefer a more distinguished design... These features include a beefed up 450-watt amplifier, a decoder to handle DTS, Dolby Digital and ProLogic II, a line-level input jack for your DiscMan or MP3 player, and a headphone jack for those late-night gaming or movie sessions. Also new is a wireless IR remote that allows the tweaking of center, subwoofer and surround channel volume levels, overall volume level, a mute toggle, an effect selector, an input selector, and a test button that sequentially outputs pink noise through the five satellites to verify correct speaker configuration. Click the image to get to the review.

Raising the bar on their own multimedia systems, the MegaWorks 510D is a high-end 5.1 speaker system based on the Newton Series MC50 satellites, as offered by Cambridge SoundWorks, 500 Watts RMS of power, much like the Klipsch's Promedia 5.1.

VR-Zone has posted their review of Epox' latest VIA KT400 based mobo EP-8K9A2+. This one sets itself apart from other solutions as it adds BIOS unlocking for Athlon XP CPUs. Features include: Socket A AMD Athlon?, Athlon? XP, Duron? 3 x DDR SDRAM PC2700, 4GB max. 6 PCI, 1 AGP 8x Highpoint HPT372 UDMA/ATA 133 RAID VIA Tahoe VIA VT6103 Physical Layer / Transceiver ATX

This seems to be the first review of a release version of Nforce2 Motherboard. OCWorkbench have released their ASUS A7N8X nForce2 Mainboard Review (with a beta BIOS).
Features including Dolby audio, SerialATA, Dual LAN, USB 2.0, AGP Pro (8x). The Dual LAN allows you to set up this machine as a router.

After working on this project for a great deal of time, Sean Pelletier has just completed and posted a somewhat unusual review. A few weeks ago, he was approached by Sapphire Technologies with the offer of reviewing their RADEON 9700 Atlantis Pro graphics card. Despite being an NVIDIA-based website, NVNews are entirely committed to being an objective and honest website and he eagerly accepted the challenge of reviewing this product. However, the fact of the matter is that this card is likely overkill for the majority of the market. As evidenced by the benchmarks in this review, the key to unleashing the speed of this card is to utilize an extremely fast processor. Given the fact that processors such as 2.8GHz Northwoods are only typical for Hardware Review websites and a handful of dedicated computer fanatics, it is difficult for me to recommend this product or any other top of the line ( ie: expensive ) graphics card.

After looking all over the place for coolers that don't cost a fortune, some have managed to find a company that deals in cheap HSF units. But we need more than just a low price. Join TweakTown as they take a look at the Neng Tyi Nexus NC02 HSF. While the entry price is one of the best available, better take a closer look at the performance of this little thing. If one can match performance with a low price, we'll have a definite winner on our hands.

DataFuse is taking a closer look at Zalman latest 385 gram aluminum/ copper cooler for your video card. It has no fan so should suite your need for silent PC parts. The ZM80 suits Nvidia and ATI cards as well as others. It features a copper heatpipe. Review @ DataFuse and they really love that WeightWatchers nightmare.

Anandtech has posted their latest review of EPoX's newest motherboard the 4PEA+based on Intel's 845PE chipset offering DDR333 support and more (RAID, USB 2.0, onboard LAN, onboard 6ch sound and SATA). Also they have a piece of info why EPoX is so famous for stable overclocking boards: Overclocking-wise, it doesn't seem like many boards can match what Epox is able to consistently dish up. After talking with several Epox reps, we learned that Epox's "secret" to engineering consistently well-overclocking motherboards is to design boards with cleaner circuit layouts, which help in feeding a steady voltage to all the components on a motherboard. Warp 2 the review

ExtremeTech looks at 6 motherboards with the latest VIA chipset for the Athlon XP. They'll recommend what to buy, and reveal an interesting fact from testing: faster DDR400 memory doesn't deliver the best performance. Among the participants are the MSI KT4-Ultra, the Asus A7V8X, Abit AT7 Max2, and boards from Soyo, Shuttle and Gigabyte. On a sidenote Xbitlabs reports that VIA will probably release a A revision (KT400A) that already is in the pipes: If KT400 was expected to be the last Socket A chipset from VIA, they probably do not have anything new to showcase this year. Hence, it is logical for them to update the current version of their product ? VIA KT400. In fact, that is what they do. According to this web-site, Iwill will soon launch three new mainboards for the Socket A platform, one of them will be based on the KT400A chipset. The information is unconfirmed, but looks rather logically.

Dave @ Beyond3D tells me that their Intel D845EBT Motherboard Review has been posted. This board uses the Intel 845E chipset and features DDR 266 support, USB 2.0 and more. Here's a snip.

Despite all the well documented issues surrounding RAMBUS and Intel's relationship with the IP company it is evident that, indeed, RAMBUS did provide the best match-up to the Pentium4. However, one thing became clear: adoption of RAMBUS RAM was not as widespread as Double Data Rate (DDR) RAM and if it continued in this fashion it would always remain a high end, possibly niche, solution. Intel needed something else to bring the Pentium4 to the masses - the 845 chipset was it.

Among the first of a couple of reviews to come today we have the Lian Li PC6099B Miditower Aluminium Case in our testing labs. Here is a snip: For harddrive assembly Lian Li is offering a 5 drive bay cage that is mounted by two thumbscrews, located just behind the two dust filtered front intake fans. This provides good cooling for your harddrives which are mounted vertically in the cage. The two 80mm front fans (ARX FD1280-D3033E) proved to be of the same type as the rear and top fan. They are designed using a ball bearing system which allows a longer life cycle at the cost of a little more noise compared to sleeve bearing designs. Luckily the ARX fans are really bearable in terms of noise production. Read the review

Digit-Life is the first website to publish their Audigy 2 review. They plotted it against the first Audigy series and seemed to highly like it. Main advantages pointed are are richer sound, DVD Audio support, good software bundle. However it does not become clear if Dolby Digital decoding is now done in hardware or not, although the review suggests it is. Read more...