Article Snippit:

"Simpletech has done a great job with their Nitro memory. The memory performed great in our benchmarks, and overclocked very well. The modules were nice and stable and did not overheat.

Simpletech didn't just stop at performance however. They created a very nice package that will appeal to modders as well as overclockers. The red PCB modules look fantastic, and they matched my ATI card perfectly! The biohazard symbols add a touch of flare too."

Quote:
"If you haven't noticed Sunbeam lately, you should. They have been producing new products at an astounding rate, and I would have trouble keeping up on them if I were doing just Sunbeam reviews. Regardless, maybe YOU have seen this before; if not, how about an 80mm Dual CCFL fan grill, with a UV reactive casing? Sound cool? See if you like it..."

OCIA.net checks out the Transcend Xabre 400 Video Card in their latest review. Below is a direct quote from the review:

"NVIDIA and ATI. Not too many people know of (or care about) other graphics chipset manufacturers. Well, among the lesser known manufacturers lies SiS. Yes, the same manufacturer many of you know for their northbridge chipsets on motherboards. Today we will take a look at Transcend's Xabre 400 graphics card. This card has been on the market for a while, but lets see if it can still be a viable alternative for someone looking to save a few bucks."

Hankering for some A64 loving but worried about the price? Check out The Crucible's review of Albatron's K8X800 Pro II. The board retails at about $110 USD and performs about as well as the ASUS K8V Deluve.

The Albatron K8X800 Pro II is basically a clone of the ASUS K8V Deluxe, except that the K8X800 Pro II has far better onboard sound and lacks the Promise SATA raid controller. Not that this is a bad thing, the K8X800 Pro II has proven to be a worthy competitor. Keeping pace with it's far more expensive brethren. Being compared to the fastest Socket 754 board we have yet tested is a testament to the work Albatron has put into this board.

[H]ardOCP have a new article out entitled Overclocking the Prescott 2.4A! So what's so special about this cpu, well it's called a Prescott Pentium with a 533MHz Quad Pumped FSB and no HyperThreading! Here's a snip.

One very important issue that can be confusing needs to be mentioned here. The Prescott 2.4A is not the same as the previous ?2.4A? Northwood CPU that is still for sale in retail channels. Should you decide to buy a 2.4A and want the same spec CPU that is used for this article, you will want to purchase a CPU that is the SL7E8 specification. As of writing this, the SL7E8 is the only Prescott core 2.4A available.

AMDZone have thrown up their review of AMD's Athlon 64 2800+! Here's a snip.

If you thought AMD was finished with lower rated Athlon 64's you were wrong. They have now released a 2800+ model running at 1.8GHz with 512KB of L2 cache costing in the $170s. Despite this release the Athlon 64 3000+ remains near the $200 mark. With the recent FX53 release their desktop Athlon 64 line runs from 1.8 to 2.4GHz which is enough of a spread to field a pretty impressive mid range to high end desktop line. We have an OEM version of the 2800+ in our labs for testing, and what follows is a comparison of it to the entire Athlon 64 line, and to the 3.2GHz P4 Northwood. In future articles we will look at overclocking, and compare to Prescott.

SilverStone is known to many people in the HTPC market as a producer of affordable HTPC cases who listen to the public and try their best to give us what we want. After the LC03 had made its ways around the various review sites and received some constructive criticism, SilverStone set out to make a good case, great. What they ended up with just happens to be exactly what the doctor ordered. In an HTPCNews Exclusive, I present you with the SilverStone LC03-VFD .

Today TweakTown are comparing Athlon XP HSFs in a Mini-Roundup from Scythe with their Arctic Cooling 2L, Vantec with their AeroFlow 2 and Thermaltake with their POLO 735.

PC lights are a delight to have in a PC. Modding being the latest trend among computer users, lights add a great deal to the overall decor of the case. There are variety of lighting products available in the market for PC use. They range from $2.99 lighted fan grills to the most expensive lights that can cost up to $29.99. Sunbeam is not new to the modding community.

Just got word from our bro's over at Driver Heaven that their Prometeia Mach II review is out! and version 3.0 of Driver Cleaner has also been released.

The Mach II unit is an impressive sight to behold and is styled to match the Lian Li PC60 case which sits atop it - basically the lower refrigeration unit is attached with a hole cut through to allow the evaporator to cool your CPU. You can of course find other cases to mod but I was supplied by Extreme Prometeia a full setup, ready to build. According to the Nventiv site, assembling the Prometeia is as easy as ?fitting a heatsink?, while I didn?t run into any major problems myself I would class myself as a fairly experienced builder and I can see several areas which would prove very daunting to a beginner level builder.

CDRLabs have thrown up their review of Lite-On's first stand alone DVD recorder the LVW-5005!

Today, we bring you a review of the LVW-5001's big brother, the LVW-5005. This new DVD recorder has all of the features found on the LVW-5001 and then some. Featuring Lite-On's new All Write technology, the LVW-5005 can write to both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW media and is the first stand alone DVD writer with the ability to record audio and video directly to CD. This new DVD recorder also includes things like a built in TV tuner, progressive scan output, and a front mounted DV Link input connection. Of course, this is only a taste of what the LVW-5005 has to offer.

What thermal compound do You use? I guess the best in the market, but which is the best? We take for closer look, nine popular compounds based on silver, copper and silicon. In alphabetical order, there are:

TheCrucible takes a look at Thermaltake's newest heatsink the Polo 735. This is the first in the new Combo Cool line. These heat sinks come with the ability to mount on AthlonXP Athlon64/FX and Pentium4 systems. The performance is pretty good too. TheCrucible compares it to an SLK900U and MCX462-V.

Overclockers club have thrown up their review of Aerocool's HT-101 Heatsink! Here's a snip.

Aerocool is rapidly making a name for itself in the performance air cooling market. They have been very successful in the past with their use of super conductor tubes (Heatpipes). Back in January I looked at the Deep Impact DP-102 and today we will be looking at another unique super conductor tube based heatsink the High Tower HT-101. Can Aerocool repeat the success they had with the DP-102? Read on to find out!

More and more modding is the way that the hardcore computer user is going and having the most unique toys sets one apart from the rest. Crystalfontz provides toys for the modder or for the system admin who wants an easy way to monitor his hardware without having to hook up a monitor to the computer. They provide a wide variety of LCD displays for just about every application imaginable. Today we have the pleasure of reviewing the 634 LCD (CFA634-TFB-KU) with drive bay kit. It is a 4 line by 20 character display that is backlit and has the option of being connected to USB or serial connection.

Quote: We set out to find out if a pre-built HTPC could finally rival one that we enthusiasts would build. We found one that looked as if it might and decided to give it a run for its money. Joshua Schipmann reviews the Gateway 901x and takes it through all the standard HTPC ropes so you guys can make an informed decision on your next HTPC purchase. Come see if it's worth your dollar or if it would be better spent somewhere else.

Article Snippit:

"With yet another All in Wonder weapon in its arsenal, ATI is yet again proving to the market that it has no intention of slowing down and taking it easy. Sure they have taken a huge market share that has been held tight by their rival for years, but ATI is not stopping. With a product cycle coming close to the lifespan of a suicidal lemming, it seems that every time I have a review of an All in Wonder written and finalized, there is another one at my door waiting for some attention.

The All in Wonder 9600 fills a rather wide performance gap between the AIW 9200 and the AIW 9600pro/xt and is targeted towards the mainstream consumer that want a boat load of multimedia features and fully compliant DX9 gaming, but also with a pricetag that is equally attractive."

TheCrucible give you the low down on OCZ's PC4000 memory kit. The results are pretty darn good considering they only ran it at stock voltage. Check out the review for more info.

Quote:
OCZ has produced a quality dual channel memory kit that does what it is supposed to do, and more. It runs at it's rated timings and frequencies without any problems. You can still squeeze a few extra megahertz out of it, even at only it's rated 2.8v. I personally would recommend it to anyone looking for a high quality very fast one gigabyte hunk of memory. You cannot really go wrong with this OCZ' PC4000 Dual Channel EL memory kit.

The board layout is quite different to the SK8V, the SK8N features a CPU socket much closer to the centre of the board and memory slots which run parallel to the top of the board. This layout does make working in the case slightly easier as the CPU and memory are further away from drives and cables than normal. Cooling of the ram may also be assisted depending on the cooling of your case or PSU. All IDE, SATA and power sockets are placed down the edge of the board which allows for greater air flow through the rest of the system where it is needed. The final design point of note is the PCB space to the side of the PCI slots is free from components and traces, something that is rather useful as capacitors in that area makes the addition and removal of PCI cards more difficult.

Hardware Pacers has posted a review on the X-micro WLAN 11g PCMCIA CARD. Here is a snippet:

"The X-Micro WLAN 11g PCMCIA Card (802.11g) provides all the compatibility a wireless card can get. It can be used in combination with any WLAN Adapter (11b - 11g - 11g Turbo) to incorporate any Notebook to the wireless world." X-micro