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Get your fill of the latest computer game and technology news from around the web.





News Archives...

December 6, 2000 - December 11, 2000

NVIDIA Today Editorial

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 7:08 EST by: ryan

PenStarSys has just posted an article: "NVIDIA Today: Continued Dominance?" This article deals with NVIDIA and their success in the past year, as well as the hurdles they are coming up against with a revitalized 3dfx and increased competition from ATI. Quite a bit of forward looking material here, as well as some basic information about the upcoming NV-20 and further releases. Here is a direct quote:

"The GeForce 2 series have done exceptionally well for the company. Very good supplies of chips have been available (as compared to the GeForce 256) to manufacturers, so there was a huge flood of GeForce 2 based cards hitting the market. Every major 3rd party video card manufacturer utilizes the GeForce series of chips in one way or another, and this has translated into thousands upon thousands of chips sold by NVIDIA at excellent margins."

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New 6.50 Detonator Drivers

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 7:05 EST by: ryan

3DChipset.com has received the 6.50 Beta Windows9x & WindowME Detonator drivers for the likes of who play with beta drivers.

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Hitman: Codename 47 Rv.

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 3:43 EST by: ryan

FiringSquad has posted up their take on Hitman: Codename 47:

"Ah, the life of a hitman. Just think, your waking up on any given day means one less person will never have a case of the Mondays ever again. We first got a glimpse of Hitman Codename 47 a few months ago, when the demo rolled into the office and halted all productivity. Everyone gathered around the computer watching, not a mouse was stirring. I've always been a fan of watching people play games. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing, but I derive just as much by watching others do their thing. And let me tell you, Hitman is a game that I could watch for hours on end. The looks, the play, the sound - everything about this game makes me want to just kick back in a poof chair and observe."

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HP Jornada 720 Review

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 3:41 EST by: ryan

Here's our latest review posted on the "HP Jornada 720 Handheld PC". Quote:

"Hewlett Packard Inc, one of the main stream leaders in the electronic industry unleashes their latest hand held PC the Jornada 720. Even though its hefty price tag, Jornada 720's performance and features are simply unmatched by any hand held PC at the moment."

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All-in-Wonder Radeon

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 3:37 EST by: ryan

Tech-GODS has done a review of ATI's All-in-Wonder Radeon card. They take a look into the new architecture, 3D performance, and all the Multimedia capabilities that the card has. Here's a clip:

"What all the previous versions of this card were lacking though, in my opinion, was the strong 3D video to make it a true all-in-one card. The Rage 128 chipset that was resident on previous versions of the AiW was lacking in 3D performance across the board and the AiW was considered as a midway point between a gaming card and a multimedia card. Since that time, though, ATI has released its powerful Radeon chip which puts the Rage128 to shame. So now, the ATI AiW still having the same great body has gotten a new engine and is ready to scream. Just how good does this card do now? Read on and we'll see whether or not the All-In-Wonder really lives up to it's name.

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GXT1212 Case Review

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 6:06 EST by: ryan

The Tech Zone is gonna have trouble shoving this one in the Christmas stocking! But still, this is a nice little upgrade for someone. What am I talking about? A new computer case of course! One with twin 120mm fans, and a 330 watt Enermax power supply. And it sells for under $100! Interested? Read the full Tech Zone review of the new GXT1212 here. Speedy 3D will have our review of this product tomorrow.

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SCSI RAID Controller

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 6:03 EST by: ryan

This is indeed a different kind of review from Athlonmb.com. You may have guessed it to be a motherboard review: you would be mistaken. Their http://www.athlonmb.com/article-display.cfm?ArticleID=51">contributing editor, Dieu, has taken a very detailed look into the Atto UL3D Dual Channel SCSI RAID Controller. If you want the highest and most reliable hard drive configuration, this is the one to get.

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Thunderbird Vs. PIII

posted: December 11, 2000 @ 6:02 EST by: ryan

PCRoddin pits the Pentium III against AMD's Thunderbird for a bang heard around the world.

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Soyo 7VMA PM133 Mobo

posted: December 10, 2000 @ 8:02 EST by: ryan

Andreas of PCinsight has a stapled a review of the Soyo 7VMA PM133 motherboard for the Socket 370 platform. The 7VMA is based upon VIA's integrated chipset, the PM133:

"VIA's Apollo Pro 133A has had plenty of time to mature the past year and the PM-133 chipset builds upon what the Apollo Pro 133A has become. We are quite happy with Soyo's incorporation of the PM-133 chipset. It offers excellent stability, a good feature set, solid performance, very good integrated 3D performance and a rather simple-yet-effective overclocking feature set."

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Iwill WO2-R Mobo Review

posted: December 10, 2000 @ 8:01 EST by: ryan

TweakTown have reviewed the Iwill WO2-R socket 370 motherboard based on the Intel 815e chipset. This board has some nice features as well as some not so good features. Overclockability is poor, but stability is high:

"Iwill was founded in April of 1989. Iwill began selling SCSI solutions to Taiwanese market. Now, Iwill are strongly into the motherboard market and lately have been designing and manufacturing some of the latest and fastest motherboards not just for the Taiwanese market but for the entire world. The Iwill WO2-R is one of the first Iwill motherboards TweakTown has had the pleasure of testing. The WO2-R is based on the Intel 815e chipset which was released by Intel to help improve speed and make the Intel Pentium 3 / Celeron processors a more viable and stable option for the end user market."

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Cyclone 5000 Mid ATX Review

posted: December 10, 2000 @ 8:01 EST by: ryan

Virtual Hideout has posted up a new review of the Cyclone 5000 Mid ATX Case:

"Here you see my 5 drives in this case and I'm still left wth a free 5.25" bay....very nice! The bezel has a cool rounded look to it . All the included fans have 4-pin pass-thru molex connections so you wont give up any of the precious PSU connections. Speaking of the PSU, It's a 300 watt DEER PSU....I know, I know. alot of you have had bad experiences with them or heard about them...but I personally have'nt yet so I wont say anything more than the only drawback is it only has (4) 4-pin molex power leads coming off it and, well, im using all of them here. So , if you've got another drive to fill up the 5.25" bays, you will need to link it to another drive."


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i815 Motherboard Roundup

posted: December 10, 2000 @ 7:59 EST by: ryan

Are we in the age of Intel? They are still bigger than AMD and it may stay that way if AMD does not get their marketing team some more coffee and longer hours at the office. Pentium 4? !@#$ That! We have all seen those horrendous Pentium 4 benchmarks, Intel is holding onto the thin string of SSE2 software implementation to show that the P4 does indeed have balls. While that is all going on what about the Pentium 3's? We all saw those benchmarks showing a Pentium 3 actually beating a Pentium 4 at the same clock speed. The most popular platform for these Pentium 3's is the i815 and HardwareOC has 4 of them to show you what they can do!

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Hercules GeForce2 Review

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 8:29 EST by: ryan

Kinda late, but it's always fun to see more of these. RipNet UK has posted up a new review of the Hercules Prophet GeForce 2 GTS.

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Thermaltake Blue ORB Rv.

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 3:57 EST by: ryan

UKGamer.net has posted a review of Thermaltake's Blue ORB cooler. Here is an extract from the review:

"The Blue ORB is for use with VGA card cores and chipsets. Cooling the chipset had been overlooked by the overclocker (no pun intended) for a long time and once it was seen that cooling the chipset could result in better MHz gains from your processors it was quickly leapt upon by the overclocking community."

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News Oni screenshots

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 3:56 EST by: ryan

Yeah, we don't normally post up stuff for playstation 2, but this game is also coming out on the PC soon. On EuroGamer is a gallery of twenty new screenshots of the PlayStation 2 version of "Oni".

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Chrome Orb Review

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 7:37 EST by: ryan

PCinsight has put up a brief review on Thermaltake's popular Chrome Orb cooler for the Socket A platform. Here's a taste:

"Though Golden Orbs were later designed for Socket A processors, physical design issues hindered proper usage and often resulted in physical damage to the CPU itself. This sent Thermaltake back to the drawing board and the Chrome Orb is what they had come up with. With its mounting surface totally redesigned for the Socket A platform, the Chrome Orb was the answer to those problematic "Socket A" Golden Orb installations."

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GeForce2 Buyers Guide

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 7:36 EST by: ryan

With such a vast amount of chips in the GeForce2 family it can sometimes be difficult to find which one will best fit your needs and budget. With this guide Gamer's Depot takes you through the whole family with complete benchmarks to help make your decision easier.

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Mechwarrior 4 Demo Out

posted: December 9, 2000 @ 7:35 EST by: ryan

FilePlanet is now mirroring the MechWarrior 4 Trial Version from Microsoft.

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Mechwarrior 4 Demo Today

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 10:08 EST by: ryan

Here's a clip from the PR mailing:

Microsoft today announced that the trial version for MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, developed by Microsoft's FASA Interactive group, will be available for download later today on the game's official Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/gams/mechwarrior4/. MechWarrior 4 weaves heart-pounding BattleMech action with the continuing drama and unfolding storyline of the perpetual BattleTech universe. The game is currently available at retail.

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HL: Wasteland Beta 2

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 10:07 EST by: ryan

Wasteland Beta 2 at FilePlanet.

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SY-7VMA Mobo Reviewd

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 6:33 EST by: ryan

Whoa, it's another late night here in the HotHardware labs! They've posted a review of a new motherboard from Soyo based on the VIA PM133 chipset, the SY-7VMA. This board is a venerable "Jack-of-all-trades", but is it a master of any?!?

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VIA KT133A Overclocking

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 6:32 EST by: ryan

ViaHardware just posted an article on overclocking with the VIA KT133A Chipset. This chipset finally brings the ability to overclock AMD processors via the Front Side Bus. This added bandwidth offers tremendous performance increases over the old 100 FSB. Here is a snip:

"Well the VIA KT133A chipset is certainly a blessing to AMD. The 133/266 Front Side Bus of the new chipset, gives a very nice performance increase over the previous KT133 chipset with processors running at 100 FSB. This could be AMD's Ace in the Hole. The AMD Duron already has a good performance lead on the Intel Celeron, and now with a higher Front Side bus, the Celeron simply can't compete. However on the high end side, the Amd Athlon and Intel Pentium 3 are very close in performance. Now that AMD has the KT133A chipset available to them, a AMD Athlon should top the performance of a similar speed P3, if using the 133/266FSB."

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Win an ATX Case!

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 6:31 EST by: ryan

Here are the details on Fast-MHz's contest.

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Game Engines to Advanced?

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 6:30 EST by: ryan

Video card manufacturers and 3D game engine developers are in cahoots,
enslaving action gamers in an endless cycle of debt. Faster graphics
processors breed higher polygon counts, faster processors, even more
accelerated, volumetrically-fogged polygons. It never ends. 3D Action planet has posted their thoughts on this subject.

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Team Arena Gold

posted: December 8, 2000 @ 6:28 EST by: ryan

Id Software's add-on pack for quake 3 has gone gold. In case you missed the demo they had released a few days ago, here's the link.

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Hot Tech Deals @ Gen-X

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 3:56 EST by: ryan

Gen-X Comp has some nice coupons for my fellow readers today:

'TECHDEALS' gets $10 off anything that is $100 or more.
'TECHDEALS20' gets $20 off any ticket that is $400 or more.

Coupon can used on clearance items like their Celeron 600@ 900MHz with Golden Orb for $139(before coupon)or their Celeron 633@ 950MHz with Golden Orb for $159(before coupon).

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Lazy Man Case Mod

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:25 EST by: ryan

The Tech Zone has a back to basic article on case mods. They show how they were able to reduce case temp and get their Celeron 300a back to 450Mhz, all for just $5.13! This is something anyone can do. Check out the $5.13 Lazy Man's Case mod here

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Pentium 4 Price Drops

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:24 EST by: ryan

Insane Hardware have got some figures from Intel for the Pentium 4 Price drop that comes into effect as of the 10th of December 2000. The 1.4GHz P4 Processor has a bigger slab cut out of it than the 1.5GHz P4, but all round a few hundred bucks savings isn't too bad, considering the Christmas season is upon us.

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Canon CanoScan N656U

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:23 EST by: ryan

Hardware Zone has posted up a review of the Canon CanoScan N656U scanner.

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Acoustic Edge PSC-706

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:22 EST by: ryan

Neoseeker has posted a review of Philip's top of the line Sound Card, the Acoustic Edge PSC-706. This is one card that you will definitely consider if you are in the market for a new sound card or think you might need something better than what you've been putting up with for the longest time.. Pair this card with some decent sounding speakers and you have one hell of a system.. Just have a listen:

"The Acoustic Edge is powered by Philips’ own SAA7785 ThunderBird Avenger DSP chip. This audio accelerator can process 256 sounds simultaneously and actually offloads digital mixing and Directsound processing from your CPU. This becomes important when you consider that the card has some sophisticated features that would otherwise put added stress on your system. As it is, many of the card’s special processing features are “free”. The chip can also process 96 streams of 3D accelerated audio including positional reverb, so it is a fairly powerful and full featured DSP chip."


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Via KM Chipset Preview

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:21 EST by: ryan

Via Hardware posted their preview on the VIA KM Chipset. Here's a snip:

"It is a well known fact that the AMD Duron is a better performing processor, clock to clock, then the Intel Celeron. However until recently there were no integrated graphics platforms for the AMD Duron. This forced AMD to lower the prices of the Duron to make it affordable to build into low end systems. Despite the lower cost of the Duron, many system builders did not like the idea of an add on graphics card for a lower end system, and still opt for the Celeron/i810/i815 combo. Enter the VIA KM Chipset."

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Asus P4T Mobo Review

posted: December 7, 2000 @ 6:20 EST by: ryan

ASUS is first out of the starting gate with their newly released P4T board. With incredible stability, this board is an overclockers dream. Gamer's Depot has a review of this lovely board.

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Another Thermal Paste Review

posted: December 6, 2000 @ 6:29 EST by: ryan

TweakTown have posted a quick review of CPUFX.com's Silver Paste Cleaning Kit. They were very impressed with this kit and it's capacity to remove old or unneeded thermal paste (not only silver paste either) from processor cores, resulting in a brand new looking shiny core!

"CPUFX.com sent us their very own Silver Paste Cleaner which is designed for end users and product manufactures to remove thermal paste, which has been pre-applied or applied on your processor to increase thermal conductivity between the core and the heatsink base surfaces. Over time thermal paste, of all kinds, get old and less effective which requires the user to replace the thermal paste with new paste to make for better thermal conductivity."

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Case Modding @ Hard|OCP

posted: December 6, 2000 @ 6:29 EST by: ryan

Hot on the heals of our own case modding pages, Hard|OCP has released the first part to their own case modding tales.

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Creative GeForce2 Ultra Review

posted: December 6, 2000 @ 6:27 EST by: ryan

3DHardwarenet has taken a look at Creative Labs latest offering in terms of gaming graphics accelerator, the GeForce 2 Ultra, featuring, yes, you guessed it, nVIDIA's monster GPU with the same name. Here' a snip:

"I was going to include VideoMark 2000 test scores but VideoMark 2000 would look up every time during the memory transfer tests when using the Creative Labs GeForce2 Ultra. I've tried this with other cards and the test finishes without problems... using the Nvidia version 6.47 drivers (beta). As the driver revision is a beta release I won't go deeper into this problem for now."

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