<strong>DH, FiringSquad, 3DCenter, TweakPC, InsaneTek, TweakTown, Techgage, Designtechnica, HWZ, TW Labs, BIOS, Hardware-Mag, Hexus, bit-tech, TrustedReviews, Bjorn3D, Madshrimps, Tweaknews, Legion Hardware, NGOHQ, TechConnect, Beyond3D, etc.</strong>

Newance Triplecone review @ DH

"For most home users, when it comes on deciding which high end computer case to buy, the greatest factor is most probably not the efficiency of the case but the innovation of its design. Today I have a pretty strange looking case for review from Newance, a new found company which is a subsidiary of the large German company Listan, the Triplecone. The Triplecone is not only a large and very well built case, but its design can even confuse many unwary eyes, as many people will confuse it for a large speaker. Let us have a look of it up close.."

Source: DH.

Seven Things That the Xbox 360 Does Better Than Anyone Else @ FiringSquad

"FiringSquad just posted a companion piece to our “11 Design Mistakes of the Xbox 360”. (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/xbox_360_mistakes/) This time we go over the 7 things that the Xbox 360 does better than all its competitors."

Source: FiringSquad.

3DCenter News: aTuner 1.9.40.8198

"Our ATI & nVidia graphic cards tweak tool aTuner has reached a new version. aTuner supports ATI Catalyst drivers fromversion 3.0 up to 5.10 (CP versions only, not CCC versions) and nVidia drivers from version 23.11 up to 81.98. The newversion has the following updates:
- Complete nVidia driver support up to 81.98.
- Support for Advanced Anti-Aliasing options on G70 based cards.
- Hardware detection now includes much more different GeForce and Radeon models.
- Support for Adaptive Anti-Aliasing on Radeon cards (Catalyst 5.9 and up).
- Support for triple buffering under OpenGL on GeForce cards.
- Re-organisized gamma panel."

Source: 3DCenter.

Powercolor X800 GTO 16 @ TweakPC

"Powercolor goes Tweaking and offers a X800 GTO with 16 instead of the usual12 pipelines - the Powercolor X800 GTO 16. What can the card do an how doesit perform? Looks like a real bargain for about 180 Euro."

Source: TweakPC.

KickButtComputers.com - Skull and Crossbones Theme @ InsaneTek

"Tired of messing up your cases while attempting to do some mods? Want a crazy looking system without doing any of the work?KickButtComputers has the solution. Their latest Skull and Crossbones them is pimp!"

Source: InsaneTek.

ASUS P5N32-SLI Motherboard - 955X vs. nForce4 IE x16 @ TweakTown

"With all these features you would expect us to get a good amount of overclocking out of this board, you are not wrong here. We raised the CPU voltage to 1.5v, Memory to 2.2v, FSB term voltage to max, NB and SB voltages at 1.5v, PCI Express locked to 100, Hyper Transport links at 1000MHz and 16bit connection we managed to hit a FSB of over 361MHz - a record for any Intel Pentium 4 board we have tested so far. We also kept the memory locked at 800MHz DDR to eliminate any memory limitations which is easy through the asynchronous nature of the nVidia chipset."

Source: TweakTown.

Func sUrface1030 Archetype Review @ Techgage

" Gamers don't want to put up with subpar equipment... they want the best. Seeing that high-end hardware can be extremely expensive, it's good to start with the modest mousepad! Today, we are taking a look at the Func sUrface 1030 mousepad, which looks to offer much more to the gamer than other pads on the market."

Source: Techgage.

Designtechnica reviews Canon EOS 5D Digital Camera

"Let's get it right on the table. The Canon EOS 5D is ridiculously expensive when compared to the 200-plus digital cameras currently available. At $3,299 for the body only, this D-SLR is for Porsche drivers who don't mind being weighed down by a 2-pound plus camera. We're reviewing it for a couple of reasons: first the camera offers major breakthroughs that eventually will trickle down to more mainstream models (read that as more affordable). But perhaps most important is the fact we simply could! What red-blooded American wouldn't want to take a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S for a spinor to try out this over-the-top camera?"

Source: Designtechnica.

Sony Ericsson W900i 3G-enabled Walkman Phone @ HWZ

"Continuing their Walkman avalanche with the first 3G-enabled W900i, Sony Ericsson now has a complete range of offerings for their Walkman phone portfolio. Read on as we detail you our first impressions of the W900i."

Source: HWZ.

AMD Dual-Core FX 60 Overclocking @ TW Labs

"Continuing its trend of offering products with features that consumers demand, AMD has released the FX-60. The AMD FX 60 is a dual-core, completely unlocked processor built for performance and overclocking. See just how well it performs and overclocks in our review."

Source: TW Labs.

Cooler Master Stacker 830 Aluminium Case Reviewed @ BIOS

"The new Cooler Master Stacker 830 (?179) PC enclosure mixes striking goodlooks with powerful functionality. Breaking away from traditional PC casedesign to provide individual styling, its streamlined and robust tool-freealuminium chassis and black mesh panels look awesome. Be warned though: it’shuge and should only be considered if you have plenty of floor space. Butthis isn’t a system for SFF wimps - it’s for those who want to rule theworld..."

Source: BIOS.

Hardware-Mag.de: Intel Centrino Duo Plattform im Detail

"Fast genau ein Jahr ist seit der Vorstellung der zweiten Centrino-Generation vergangen, da steht uns bereits die na"chste Evolution ins Haus. Angespornt durch die Idee der zwei physikalischen Kerne in einem Prozessorgeha"use und den aktuell immer kleiner werdenen Strukturen, entwickelte Intel in den vergangenen Monaten die neue Centrino-Plattform mit dem Codenamen Napa. Napa ist der Nachfolger von Sonoma und beinhaltet neue Prozessoren, eine verbesserte Chipsatz-Generation und aufpoliertes Wireless LAN - damit sehen wir erstmals Dual-Core Architektur im mobilen Sektor. Dabei will man nicht nur die Leistung weiter steigern, sondern durch 65 nm Fertigung, verbesserte Energiesparfunktionen und effizientere Ausnutzung der zur Verfu"gung stehenden Resourcen die Akkulaufzeiten erho"hen und den Komfort erweitern. Wir pru"fen in unserem Artikel alle Neuerungen des 3rd-Generation-Centrino, alias Napa. Wir wu"nschen Ihnen viel Spa? beim Lesen!"

Source: Hardware-Mag.

HEXUS.reviews :: AMD Athlon 64 FX 60 Microprocessor

"AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 is the best consumer processor AMD have ever produced. With effectively a pair of FX-55s sat in the same socket, sharing an efficient memory controller, it's close enough to FX-57 in single-threaded apps that the multi-threaded advantage makes that slender gap moot. Targetted at the well-heeled enthusiast, the new dual-core processor should be a shoo-in for those with FX-57s already, and those with the required readies to drop on the latest and greatest."

Source: Hexus.

AMD Athlon FX60 at bit-tech.net

"With that said, with the exception of one multi-tasking scenario, the Athlon 64 FX-60 is the fastest all-round processor on the planet. The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 may be attractive to someone who often finds themselves wanting to do more than two things at the same time, but that market is limited to a few die hard power users. However, it's worth noting that there are rare occasions where I find myself running out of processor power with my current Athlon 64 X2."

Source: bit-tech.

AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 @ TrustedReviews

"AMD has resolved the situation by launching the latest version of the Athlon FX as FX-60 rather than FX-59, and the big news is that it’s a dual core processor. The new FX has a clock speed of 2.6GHz, which is nominally 200MHz slower than the 2.8GHz FX-57, while the X2 4800+ runs at 2.4GHz. In many respects the FX-60 is a pair of FX-55s in a single Socket 939 processor, or if you prefer you could think of it as an Athlon 64 X2 5000+. Naturally the FX-60 is unlocked so while comparison is a little unfair let’s see how the FX-60 stacks up against the FX-57."

Source: TrustedReviews.

AMD Athlon 64 FX-60: Dual-Core FX Has Arrived @ Bjorn3D

"Today, AMD is releasing its latest FX based CPU, the FX-60. First off, you may say, 'What happened to the odd number scheme FX-51, FX-53, FX-55 and FX-57?' Well, this new CPU starts off 2006 in the AMD world of Dual-Core Performance CPU. At this time, we see that these dual-core CPUs will end with an even number scheme."

Source: Bjorn3D.

120mm Fan Roundup @ Madshrimps

"We test 6 different fans from Titan, Acousti, Arctic Cooling, Coolink, Antec and Papst. Using a Scythe Ninja in a closedcase we're set to find out which fan will act as the best heat exhaust."

Source: Madshrimps.

Zalman Fatal1ty FS-V7 Graphics Card Cooler Review @ Tweaknews.net

"With great looks and excellent performance, this cooler would be an asset to most any compatible graphics board out there. Installation was a snap thanks to Zalman's online installation guides and compatibility charts, and the Fatal1ty's noise-to-cooling ratio is very good."

Source: Tweaknews.

Legion Hardware - (Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Technology)

"Overall it seems as though both technologies are founded on good ideas. They are both aiming to deliver feasible HDTV recording options, larger memory capacities with increased performance, as well as a more secure media format. Happily, both technologies are successful in their goals, but for the end consumer there is a dilemma; which technology will survive, for surely both cannot coexist?"

Source: Legion Hardware.

World Exclusive Review: Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 VGA Cooler @ NGOHQ

"Today we are going to test the new Accelero X2 VGA Cooler from Arctic Cooling. We will find out how the first GPU cooler with heat pipes technology performs. As I previously mentioned this product is intended for the new ATi RADEON X1800 series. In case you didn’t know, the RADEON X1800’s stock heat sink/fan is quite loud, especially at full speed or in use with Crossfire. It should be pretty interesting to see a VGA cooling solution with six heat pipes at work."

Source: NGOHQ.

TechConnect Magazine's Vista Transformation Pack 3 is out!

'WindowsX’s installation package is, as ever, excellent and fully functional, and it contains everything required to run the skins and the added software..'

Source: TechConnect.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 - 500GB Hard Disk @ TrustedReviews

"Seagate was the first hard drive manufacturer to launch a native SATA hard drive with the Barracuda 7200.7 but truth be told it wasn’t particularly fast or impressive. The 7200.8 update was the drive that the 7200.7 should have been, and now we have the 7200.9 which meets the SATA2.5 specification. The headline change is the move from a 150MB/sec interface to 300MB/sec but we all know that this will bring minimal benefit when you are running a single hard drive as 150MB/sec offers plenty of headroom. Instead we should concentrate on the less obvious changes such as the addition of Native Command Queuing which is intended to transfer data more quickly between the hard drive and processor."

Source: TrustedReviews.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Technology Interview @ Beyond3D

"Bethesda's Morrowind was one of the "big three" computer roleplaying games released in 2002, along with Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. Sporting an advanced engine many high end systems buckled under the pressure and gamers delighted at what they saw. The game went on to win multiple awards and warranted two expansions and re-releases. Bethesda is close to finishing the latest in the Elder Scrolls series: Oblivion and its renderer looks to be no push over either even for today's monster cards if you choose to pump up the detail settings. Being released for the PC and the Xbox 360 we asked the developers what was under the hood graphically as well as some of the inroad they have been doing with regards to artificial intelligence and physics. Gavin Carter was kind enough to answer our questions for the Beyond3D readership."

Source: Beyond3D.

Corsair 2GB XMS2 Review @ HardwareHell

"The memory timings were the strangest part of the whole review. I could not overclock much at all with relaxed timings. I was able to boot into Windows with 5-5-5-15 at 255 FSB, but it wasn’t stable and would end up with a BSOD every time. 5-5-5-12 resulted in a black screen. Yet slightly better performance was shown with the relaxed timings of 5-5-5-15 over 5-5-5-12."

Source: HardwareHell.

An interview with Core Duo (Yonah) Father @ HWzone.co.il

"I would like to inform you of another article from HWzone Israel, this time it's about an Interview with David Perlmutter, VP at intel and the Father of Core Duo - intel newest centrino processor. A significant part of the development of Intel's new line of products was done in its development center in Israel. Prior to the launch of the new products, we got a chance to talk with two Israel Intel officials - David Perlmutter, Senior Vice President and manager of Intel's Mobility Group and Ronnie Friedman, Vice President of Intel's Mobility Group and Manager of Intel's Mobile Processors Group."

Source: HWzone.

The Quest for Lag Free Gaming @ Tech-Hounds

"We've finished our first article for 2006 and it's available on our website. In this article,we explore what can we do to avoid lag, stuttering, and performance - memory wise.It looks like 2 GB is a must if you want to run games at the highest details, but we think themajor improvement of having 2 GB (or even 4 GB) of memory is not performance or lackof stuttering. It's game loading time - far shorter for newer games."

Source: Tech-Hounds.

NEC ND-4550A Super-Multi DVD±RW/RAM @ CDRLabs

"When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x, the ND-4550A took about 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. While this wasn't enough to top the DVD writers from LG and Plextor, NEC's new "Super-Multi" drive gave them both a serious run for their money. The ND-4550A also turned in some good writing times with DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media but, for whatever reason, it would not erase or packet write to DVD-RW discs at anything faster 4x. Writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media wasn't a problem for the ND-4550A either. However, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives we've tested."

Source: CDRLabs.