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ASUS G70S Gaming Notebook Review
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 “Multi Dual Engine” slogan very nicely described the constructive peculiarities of the new ASUS gaming machine: two cores, two graphics cards, two hard drives, two 2GB memory modules, even two screens!
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ATI Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Accelerator Review
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Until recently, there used to be a gap in the product line-up of ATI graphics accelerators. ATI Radeon HD 4830 should patch it up and strengthen the front line between ATI Radeon HD 4670 and ATI Radeon HD 4850.
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Asus P5QL-E: a $100 Mainboard on Intel P43 Express
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Today we are going to talk about an affordable mainboard on Intel P43 Express chipset that will challenge an expensive Intel P45 Express based solution from the upper price segment. Read more in our detailed review!
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Zotac Nitro VGA Overclocking Controller
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Zotac's Nitro is a clever little USB gadget that puts the overclocking power of your graphics card right at your finger tips. You can also monitor temperatures and adjust the fan speeds. The best is that all this can be done on the fly, without switching out of your game or benchmark.
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Guru3D PC Buyer's Guide Christmas 2008 edition
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Today Guru3D offers you their annual PC Buyers Guide, the 2008 Christmas edition was just launched. This article brings you a set of recommendations of products we feel are great components to build yourself a nice gaming rig.
Mind you that I deliberately said Gaming PC there as it is our focus, that and being budget aware. We break down this article in three segments, low-budget, mid-range and high-end. Guru3D's guide will only cover the box. Monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers are not included.
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OCZ's new ModXStream PSU
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"The OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W tested out to be a good power supply.
It produced good voltage regulation and delivers excellent efficiency. In
addition, the ModXStream does its job very quietly, is 80Plus and NVIDIA SLI
certified, and comes backed with OCZ's PowerSwap warranty. On the down
side, the DC outputs were not as clean (AC ripple) as we have come to expect
from OCZ and PC Power & Cooling. And the 3-Year warranty goes along with
the lower price point."
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ATI FirePro V8700 Workstation Graphics Card
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ATI has spent much of the last decade producing the FireGL line of high-end workstation graphics cards, regularly challenging and often times besting competing products from Nvidia's Quadro lineup. ATI's last generation of FireGL products, which we covered heavily, were excellent all around performers. Certainly not perfect, but definitely solid improvements over the generation of FireGL cards which preceded it. Now in late 2008, we're seeing ATI / AMD's first moves to eventually kill off the long-known FireGL brand. Its replacement? The ATI FirePro.
ATI has yet to introduce top to bottom FirePro-class products to replace the FireGL, but it's delivered the first four cards of many to come in the future. ATI has released four new workstation cards under the FirePro moniker. On the low-end you have the FirePro V3700 followed by the mid-range V3750 and V5700 models, and finally the new high-end model which we'll be looking at today, the RV770-based FirePro V8700. Come on by the site and check it out...
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Tagan BZ 1300W PSU
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Tagan BZ 1300W PSU - Tagan delivers some impressive features in this 1300 watt powerhouse of a PSU. It is advertised as future proof and guaranteed to last, but does it deliver the full 1300 watts of advertised power under our test conditions?
"And people question me on why we keep fire extinguishers handy on our test benches."
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Icy Dock 2.5" to 3.5" Hard Drive Converter
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"Icy Dock has sent me over quite a little ingenious product, it takes any 2.5" hard drive and essentially turns it into a 3.5" one. This can come in handy for many things including of course using it inside of your PC, or even inside of an external enclosure, the Icy Dock Convertor can make your 2.5" drive go anywhere a 3.5" can. "
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GeForce 180 driver trio tested
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"Going head-to-head today are drivers from both before and the actual Big Bang II era - the GeForce 178.24, which is the last WHQL release of the 178 series, the GeForce 180.43 official beta, the WHQL-certified GeForce 180.48 and the latest leaked driver available, the GeForce 180.70 beta."
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Albatron Mini-ITX Evolves – KI780G On Display
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"Albatron are no strangers to Mini-ITX, in fact we have already tested a couple of boards from them on a Mini-ITX format, including a Socket 754 based and an AM2 based board. Today, however, they are raising the stakes just a little higher. Phenom may not be the highest clocking kid on the block and it can’t keep up with Intel on a clock-for-clock basis with Core 2, let alone Core i7, but where AMD lacks in the enthusiast market, they do have the goods in the power friendly market. Not only that, a top clocking Phenom X4 processor can also be had for cheap now.
Today Albatron have sent us their Mini-ITX KI780G board based around AMD’s very popular IGP chipset, the 780G. Let’s see just how well it’s able to perform compared to VIA's Nano platform."
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First-tier motherboard makers planning layoffs
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With Asustek Computer unlikely to meet its original annual shipments goal for both notebooks and motherboards, while annual profits in 2008 are also likely to drop compared to 2007, the company is planning to layoff 5% of its total workforce, equal to around 200 staff, according to industry sources. Although Asustek's revenues in 2008 will see a growth of over 20%, low gross margins for notebooks, netbooks and motherboards will cause the company's profits to drop 10-20% on year to NT$22-24.7 billion (US$654.96-735.34 million), noted the sources.
Asustek commented that its is evaluating a "small" workforce reduction. In addition, the company said it will also adjust its inventory control and channel operation.
As for the first quarter of 2009, Asustek said it expects revenues performance to hit bottom in January and February.
In related news, Micro-Star International (MSI), Gigabyte Technology and Elitegroup Computer System (ECS) are also said to be planning to cut staff by an average of 3% each.
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Sitecom's WL-308 Wireless 300N XR Gigabit Gaming Router
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It’s all a bit frustrating really, as when we started testing we really thought Sitecom was onto a winner here by combining all the high end networking features we crave with a unique advantage of an inbuilt traffic management system. Unfortunately, while the StreamEngine technology does indeed work in managing the downsteam bandwidth and is clearly a fantastic new technology with a lot of potential (and one we’ll be keeping close eyes on), it doesn’t do enough to ensure playable pings in online games when a connection’s upload traffic gets busy, which is a real shortcoming considering it is the router's unique selling point..
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GMC R-4 BullDozer Case
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"In the recent CeBIT event, GMC has showed off their latest cases and one of the most outstanding cases would be R-4 BullDozer. Why is this R-4 BullDozer so unique and outstanding? It is mostly due to its vertical optical drive design which is the trademark of their R series cases. Today we have a chance to review this case and let us reveal the misery of R-4 BullDozer and share with you."
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ATP EarthDrive, a USB drive with a biodegradable housing
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Over the past couple of years I've had dozens of flash drives in my hand, with varying sizes, shapes and colors but the EarthDrive from ATP is the first USB drive that claims to be eco-friendly. The housing of the ATP EarthDrive is built using the maximum amount of biodegradable materials, it features plastic made from corn, and ATP promises an unspecified portion of all profit generated from EarthDrive sales will go towards American Forests, an organization which plants trees through the United States as well as on a global basis.
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Silent Computer Article
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These days everyone wants a quiet computer, it doesnt matter if its a stationary, laptop or HTPC they are all supposed to perform at all times with the smallest amount cooling possible.
That equation does not really go together that well, todays computer parts put out a amazing amount of heat so there will be noise until we figure out another way to keep the parts cool.
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