Now that we're half-way into the month of May the first board vendors are shipping their cards. Enthusiastic users have noted the appearance of the Ti 4200 on search engines such as Price Watch as an indication that the cards were finally here, and indeed they are. Update: Now the link is available, had some problems Click on Read More... for a link to read the whole review

When it comes to modifying your computer case today, a great amount of time and hard work is needed. Some people just like to pull out their trusty dremel tool and hack away at there computer case and install various modifications like side windows, blowhole exhausts, etc. On the other hand we have the other computer crowd that like the look of a unique, modified computer, but just do not have the time or the handiness to go about a modification by themselves. In this situation, the only way for them to get a nice computer case is to have a friend do the work for them or buy a modified computer case from a company like Xoxide. Click on Read More... for a link to the review and a picture

VR-Zone today has done up a review on the new EPoX 4G4A+ board based on Intel 845G chipset. This board supports 533Mhz FSB P4, USB 2.0, 10/100Mbps LAN, ATA-133 RAID, 6 Channel audio, Debug LED etc. One special feature is the support for DDR333 which will enhance the performance even more. The BIOS of the EPoX 4G4A+ has numerous tweakable settings that makes it one of the most overclockable P4 board around.

In terms of CD-RWs and CD-Rs, it didn't seem to have any problems reading them and went through them quite easily. There was a slight grainy hissing apparent upon inserting a CD. This also occurred when copying large files. As well, testing the unit with CD Speed generated squeaky sounds, much to the likes of an ill oiled tin man. Not particularly impressive, especially given Samsung's Adopted Acoustic-noise Reduction System (ARS) feature, which is supposed to minimize noise during high-speed rotation.

The good boys at Anandtech take the freshly announced Celeron budget CPU on a test ride. The new Celeron core is based on a 128KB L2 version of the original Willamette core that the Pentium 4 debuted with in November of 2000. Unlike previous-generation Celerons, the Willamette-128 core is no different architecturally than the Pentium 4's old Willamette core. The cache organization and mapping algorithms are still the same, the only difference is that the Celeron core is only outfitted with a 128KB L2 cache instead of the 256KB cache present on the original Pentium 4. Anandtech review

What does the KT333 offer over the older KT266a? Really only two things. The first one is the ability to run your memory asynchronous with your CPU bus. When your processor is running on a 133/266 bus, you can have your RAM running at 166/333 at the same time. This gives you a 25% increase in theoretical memory bandwidth. The second new feature is an improvement in the South Bridge to support ATA 133. Since most good KT266a based boards sport ATA133 RAID controllers this second feature is really no reason to upgrade.

TechNation have now completed a review of the following 5 GF4 Ti4600 graphics cards, currently Nvidia's flagship of GPUs: Leadtek A250 Ultra TD MSI G4 Ti4600 Gainward Geforce 4 ?PowerPack? Ultra/750XP GS Visiontek Ti4600 Creative 3D Blaster Titanium 4600 To read the whole review click here.

Considered by most "the sweet spot" for an enthusiast card, most Ti4400 boards offer all the fancy and speedy factor of the more expensive 4600 Titanium's but at a lower price... today take a look at Creative's 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti4400 videocard @ TechSpot.com.

The nForce was Nvidia's first entry on the chipset market, and while at the time of release was a pretty hot item, its high price kept it out from the big headlines. With the release of a graphics-less version of the chipset, the company was finally able to get more retail boards in production targetting the mainstream sector. With more than adequate performance and integrated components, ABIT is one of the few manufacturers with an nForce board out, TechSpot takes a closer look at the NV7-133R Athlon/Duron motherboard from ABIT.

Just got word from Aron that he's posted his EL Custom Shop's EL wire and lightstrip review. Here's a byte:

The kit that I have will be somewhat different than if you bought it. I received a flatlight wire, a regular EL wire, a heavy duty inverter, and a spliter. All the wires and splitters are made by using lock and release plugs. This is a really easy what to attach the wire. EL Custom Shop has really paid attention to detail when designing this. The end of the wires are booted and heatshrinked to perfection.

3dXtreme is excited to announce their Liteon 24x10x40x External USB 2.0 CD-ReWriter review. Here's a blurb: "While the Liteon 24x10x40 is agreeably more of a luxury item than a necessity for most users, I feel that techs on the go will have the most use for a unit like this. Liteon brings the same level of quality to this drive as they do to all their other products and there's no reason why I wouldn't suggest a second look at this drive for someone in the market for an external CD-RW drive. Laptop users and users lacking the motherboard support to add an IDE CD-RW should also consider this route. The Liteon 24x10x40x performed as well as any internal IDE CD-RW drive would. The read and write speeds really didn't differ at all and the drive burned perfect copies of the software I made backups with. Also burning MP3 to CDA and CDA rips to MP3 worked as flawlessly as my 40x12x48x internal IDE Liteon burner does." Read the complete article over here.

Here are some hardware reviews to read for your weekend enjoyment. Check them out if you like and have some pleasant days off. GlobalWin TAK-68 vs Coolink H2TWIN VIA P4PA Motherboard Ahanix Platinum XP Case Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz ATi AIW Radeon 8500 128MB X-Micro Impact T4600 Video Card Nintendo Gamecube Blaupunkt MDP-01 MP3 Hard Drive Abit AT7 KT333 Motherboard MAGNUM 390 Watercooling Kit VIA Debuts Tablet PC Design at WinHEC

Just got word from Crow that they have posted their GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB review. This one is based on a reference board design. Here's what they told me about it:

In this review we did a different test pattern.We used an Oscilloscope machine to analyze the RGB signal and each of power capacitor (GPU and Memory). We put the GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB up against these different cards: Geforce4 Ti4600/ Ti4400/ MX460/ 3 Ti500/ Radeon 8500.

The following benchmarks and tests were run: Comanche4, 3Dmark2001/2000, Codecreatures, AquaMark and more.

With the onset of the new "quiet" trend in cooling, people are just plain sick of dealing with a screaming heatink/fan combination to properly cool there processors. People would rather sacrifice some cooling today just to have a peaceful workstation. Due to this consumer trend, companies themselves are dropping the "strap a screaming delta onto a finned block of copper" mentality and are running to the designing boards again to try to find another method of effective cooling!

If your building a new system or building your first system, and your on a buget then the Ahanix Platinum XP case should defiantly be taken under consideration. This case comes packed with a lot of cool features, at a reasonable price. Some of the features include, built-in stealth cdrom covers (makes it so that your beige cdrom doesn't have to be seen), built in digital temperature display, awesome gray & silver metalic paint scheme, and built in usb & firewire ports in the front side of the case!

VR-Zone has done up a review on the new ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128MB edition.

This card practically combines all the goodness of the TV, Video and Graphics into one solution. Users are able to watch TV programs, DVDs, VCDs, save and edit them and play latest games as well. Also we checked out the overclockability of the card too and managed to overclock the card quite a bit to 295/320Mhz.

Reverend has wrapped his usual review prowess around a VisionTek XTASY GeForce4 Ti4400 board this time. Along with the usual round of game tests Reverend takes plenty of time looking at the various IQ levels that GeForce4 Ti boards offer.

"Having spent quite a bit of time with the VisionTek XTASY GeForce4 Ti4600 prior to this review of the "lesser brother", I was pleasantly surprised that I did not really miss Ti4600. The VisionTek XTASY GeForce4 Ti4400 offers really enjoyable gaming as long as you learn to live with its obvious limitations (and which card doesn't have limits?)."

LITTLEWHITEDOG has just published a new review of a case that has been professionally modified by Northward Graphics. This relatively new company specializes in taking ordinary cases, and turning them into beautifully modified enclosures.

As most people would say, "Hey, my speakers are just fine!", or, "What's the point?". Well, I myself subscribed to that way of thinking for about seven years, yes, seven! But, with my continuous upgrades, I upgraded finally to a Sound Blaster Audigy Sound Card. At the time of purchase and installation, I wasn't all that impressed with the sound quality difference. As any consumer upgrading to a $150 soundcard, you would think that there would be a significant difference in audio quality. Well there was in fact a difference. The only problem is that I had an inferior speaker system to convey the clearer, and crisper audio quality of the Audigy(r) to my ear drums. Labtec(r) was kind enough to send me a sample of there new model of speaker system called the PulseTM-420 to take advantage of this quality sound card and show me what it can really do.

Today Overclockersclub are looking at the Eagle Aluminum Mini Server from Sky Hawk. The model number for this case is MSR-4610EPD(F). This is a great looking and very light weight aluminum case. There is no shortage of airflow, as there are five 8cm fans included with this case.