Heftige overklokkers die op zoek zijn naar veel, heel veel airflow moet ff kijken naar de Wintunnel PC van Dansdata.com, die heeft een AOpen HX45 miditower vorozien van een dikke 12mm ventilator op 110/230V!

The traditional solution to this problem is to buy a bigger case and fill it with fans. In my previous case I had a PSU fan, an 80mm fan in the standard auxiliary mounting cradle at the front, the fan on the Celeron heatsink, two more 60mm fans blowing down onto the processor, another 80mm fan between the hard drives and a little slot fan sitting next to my video card and blowing warm air out of the back of the computer. Oh, and the teeny 25mm fan in my CD writer.

I've now transplanted all of my hardware into a new case, and banished five of those dinky extra fans. The PSU, standard CPU and CD writer fans are still there, because they're standard equipment, but everything else has been supplanted by one, single, 120mm mains powered fan mounted where the front fan is meant to be. I did this modification to AOpen's neat little HX 45 midi-tower case...

Het artikel geeft info over hoe je zelf zo'n systeem kunt bouwen en er zitten tevens een paar leuke foto's bij. Zie Dansdata.com.

Creative heeft vandaag de nieuwe EAX3.0 API aangekondigd. Hier de sauce uit de press release:

Creative Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREAF - news) the world's leading provider of multimedia products for the PC, today introduced EAX(TM) 3.0, a new version of its popular Environmental Audio(TM) Extensions (EAX) application programming interface (API) for developers. EAX 3.0 provides sound design tools that produce new levels of realism for morphing between environments, localized reflection clusters, individual reflections for distant echoes and improved distance cues utilizing Creative's novel statistical reverberation model. As such EAX 3.0 offers developers full control of environmental sound parameters that intensify the gaming and entertainment experience. The new sound design tools in EAX 3.0 build on Creative's Environmental Audio Extensions API that is being used by top developers worldwide to add environmental effects to 3D games.

With the Environmental Audio Extensions API, Creative is focused on delivering a powerful sound design tool that allows developers to truly explore the art of creating compelling, immersive audio environments in games, Internet audio applications and interactive entertainment titles. The new features in EAX 3.0 leverage the power of the EMU10K1 processor in the Sound Blaster Live! family of audio accelerators to deliver a new level of intensity to the Environmental Audio entertainment experience. There are currently over seventy Environmental Audio titles, of which thirty-six are available today. For a complete list of titles available to date and titles in development, please visit Creative's Web site at www.sblive.com.

Daarna volgt nog een hele zooi marketing geblah. Geïnteresseerden kunnen hier verder lezen.

Testindex.dk heeft een review gepost van de AseTek Vapochill 560+, een koelsysteem van Deense makelij dat een PII op 560Mhz laat draaien. De reviewer van Test Index kreeg het zelfs voor elkaar om er een PII-333 mee op 585 te krijgen:

When the system was delivered, it ran 585 MHz with a bus speed of 117 MHz. It started up without problems and was at this speed able to run both ‘Winbench 99’ and ‘Winstone 99’. Thereafter, I installed ‘Winstone 98’ in order to be able to compare with my earlier results and here I experienced a few problems. ‘Winstone 98’ simply broke down. Later however, I discovered that it was the graphics card which was causing the problems, and after I had changed it to my own ‘Creative labs TNT’ graphics card, it all ran steadily. However, this meant that most of the time I had tested at "only" 560 MHz and therefore most of my results are from this speed. Still, you should have no problems achieving 585 MHz with this system, provided that your other components can run at the slightly increased speed.

Once I had solved these problems, I did not experience any other, and everything ran so well that it was hard to believe that the CPU was overclocked by more than 70 %. Neither did I run in to any trouble when I once again tried to increase the speed to 585 MHz.

Het koelsysteem kost ongeveer 1050 dollar inclusief kast, BX6-II, 64Mg CAS-2 SDRAM en een PII-333. Zie de review voor meer info en foto's.

In de "Joe speaks out" een column van Dimension3D worden deze week de testmethodes van Tom afgezeikt:

f you have frequented our forums over the past year, you'd realize that the general concensus on this site is that Tom's testing methods are sound, which usually yields good data.  You can usually accept his benchmark numbers as valid.   However, Tom has demonstrated that he does not understand 3D accleration as much (technically) as we would like.  This usually leads to Tom to draw some poor conclusions from that data which is otherwise good.

The TNT-Preview was no exception.  When you compound this problem with the fact that the TNT-2 chip hasn't even been announced yet (read: nVidia doesn't even know what the final shipping specs will be), the stage is set for a disaster.   My fears of "bad conclusions based on premature data" were confirmed after reading Tom's subtitle "NVIDIA has finally done it, 3Dfx has lost the crown as the performance leader in 3D!!"

De rest van het artikel borduurt in feite voort op 1 argument, namelijk dat nVidia de TNT2 nog steeds niet officieel gereleased heeft (inmiddels wel) en dat de uiteindelijke kloksnelheid niet bekend is, waardoor Tom's aannames dat het ding op 175MHz gaat draaien fout zouden zijn.

MaximumPC heeft een interview gepost met Dan Vivoli van nVidia, over de TNT2. Hier krijg je een stuk over wat die gozer denkt van 3Dfx:

Maximum PC: How about 3Dfx?

Vivoli: For the most part, 3Dfx builds good products. They have a good feature set, and they have some smart architects there, but they've made some big mistakes in the last few products they've come out with. Voodoo3 felt like a desperate product announcement and it's missing some key features.

Maximum PC: Such as?

Vivoli: 32-bit rendering, 24-bit Z-buffer and stencil buffering to name a few.

Maximum PC: Anything else?

Vivoli: Yea, they announced it earlier than they had to because they probably realized Banshee wasn't going to be the premiere product for the mainstream they hoped it would be. And given that, they didn't have anything to lose by announcing a new product that wasn't shipping yet. Further, I'm surprised that they chose the name "Voodoo" for their product. I always thought Voodoo meant "state-of-the-art, best/most feature-filled product". If Voodoo3 is the most feature-filled state-of-the-art product 3Dfx has, it bodes well for us.

Planet Hardware heeft de HP Photosmart C30 digital camera gereviewed. Het 399 dollar kostende ding is van het 'megapixel' type, wat dus wil zeggen dat-ie meer dan een miljoen pixels (resolutie 1152x872 ) vast weet te leggen. Hier een plak uit de review:

Actual photos from the PhotoSmart are pretty much what you would expect from a semi-pro digital camera, top notch in some aspects, yet lacking in others. The most impressive aspect of the camera would have to be the panoramic shots, which are absolutely top quality, indoor photos and close up are not as top quality as I would have expected from HP. Although the camera auto-senses the environment light levels, the camera seemed to auto-use the flash too quickly for indoor shots, ending up in over-bright shots. Although if you manually turn off the flash the pictures return to top-notch quality.

Ik zie hier via Hardware One een wazige site waarin wordt uitgelegd hoe je een Asus P2B Revisision 1.10 middels het wegslopen van een resistor kunt verbouwen tot een jumperless moederbord. Blijkbaar heeft de Asus al een soort Softmenu maar wordt het alleen niet gebruikt. Die hard tweakers kunnen hier kijken voor de info.

Hardware One heeft een artiekel geplant waarin wordt uitgelegd hoe je een simpel goedkoop huis-tuin-en-keuken netwerkje aangekacheld kunt krijgen. Handige info van beginners niveau.

Andy van BXB heeft een review gepost van de Soyo SY-D6IBA2, dual PII moederplank met een soort Softmenu:

Soyo's Softset BIOS configuration allows the selection of multipliers up to 8x and provides support for bus speeds from 66Mhz up to 133Mhz. 124Mhz support is missing, as are some of the newer speeds like 117Mhz. The board will let you select 100Mhz FSB operation for a 66Mhz so on the surface support for overclockers is good. Be warned however, the AGP Clock ratio is derived from pin b21 meaning that it is necessary to tape this pin if you want to run, say a Celeron 300a @ 450Mhz and use a TNT or other card that will not run at 1/1 ratio. For the overclocker this is a major omission, and from my conversations with Soyo when reviewing their previous dual board, the SY6ILA, there is no hardware support with which a BIOS update can hook up to fix this....

GA-Source heeft een preview van de Matrox G400 videoplank gepost. Matrox huidige video accelerator, de G200, was qua prestaties in feite een 2nd generation kaart en kwam daarmee feitelijk te laat om een serieuze rol van betekenis te spelen. Met de G400 probeert Matrox het opnieuw. Harde specs zijn er nog nauwelijks bekend (GA-Source speculeert dat de performance tussen de Savage4 en TNT2 zal liggen), wel kun je de gebruikelijke kenmerken van een Matrox kaart, zoals de uitmuntende 2D en 3D kwaliteit, verwachten:

Image quality (in both 2D and 3D), will be very clean; perfect in 2D and very nearly perfect in 3D. Environment bump-mapping delivers something very impressive when it is used. The G400 contains almost all of the features necessary to be given the crown of image quality. Why almost? Simply because it doesn't support S3TC (S3's own texture compression algorithm, used in standard in Direct3D); since large textures seem to be the Next Big Thing, omitting this type of support will only hinder this card's performance. DualHead is something else that's very interesting, and I'd be very surprised indeed if another chip offered this feature before the G400 is available. In both quality and speed, the G400 may very well become the new "reference board" for overall 2D performance; the DualBus technology will most likely offer great performance, and Matrox has always been the king of 2D.

Meer info vind je bij Gamer's Alliance.

U-Games heeft een vergelijking in elkaar geknutseld van drie erg vette 3D shooters die deze zomer moeten verschijnen. Ze spreken namelijk over Q3: Arena, Unreal Tournament en Team Fortress 2:

So, we can see that the success of our first pairing seems to rely on the strengths of their AI, afterall, creating the ultimate deathmatch experience would seem to be a 'simpler' case of good level design, good weapon balance etc. While creating realistic human-like opponents to play within this same 'ultimate' deathmatch setting seems a different kettle of fish entirely. Then again if anyone's going to do it, id and Epic seem to be in a position to do so. Perhaps Id Software more so in fact, especially given their greater experience with multiplayer games (was it not them who created benchmark titles for multiplayer gaming such as; Doom, Doom 2, Quake and Quake 2?) and with creating first-person shooters in general, dare I say it.

IGN64 heeft al wat info over Nintendo's nieuwe console die in 2000 of 2001 zal verschijnen. Hier alvast wat over de nieuwe console:

A reliable source close to Nintendo who wishes to remain anonymous recently narrowed the gap even further. "N2000 [tentative] is planned to ship October 2000 in Japan, but I don't think it's going to happen. In fact, from what I hear Nintendo isn't even convinced of this internally.

Bij StorageReview hebben ze een review van de nieuwe Western Digital harde schijf, de Expert AC41800. Deze nieuwe schijf is Western Digital's eerste U-ATA schijf op 7200 rpm en ondersteunt ook de nieuwe ATA/66 interface. Hij is dan ook stukken sneller dan de andere Western Digital schijven en presteert zeker niet slecht:

The Expert, like the 18 gig Ultra2 SCSI WD Enterprise, is the first drive of its class to hit the market. Thus, there are no other second-generation 7200rpm ATA drives with which to compare the Expert. Even so, some of the Expert's performance figures should raise eyebrows. WinBench 98 performance, particularly, are otherworldly! In High-End Disk WinMark 98 tests, for example, the Expert races past the 12,000rpm Hitachi Pegasus. The Expert's Business Disk WinMark 98 results aren't far behind either. In fact, these figures are so lofty that I couldn't help but think about the Caviar AC313000's WinBench 98 performance. Like the Expert, the Caviar posted exceptional scores under WB98, but fell flat in WB99.

So, the question is begged, how does the Expert stack up in WinBench 99? Amazingly well! In the Business Disk WinMark 99 run under Windows 95, for example, the Expert blows past the Maxtor DiamondMax 4320 by a margin of 22%. The gap widens under the High-End WinMark to an incredible 37%! That's very impressive performance for Win95. Under Windows NT, the AC418000 provides admirable, but not stratospheric, performance. Here the 5400rpm Maxtor and 7200rpm WD end up in a dead heat in the Business Disk WinMark. In the High-End tests, the Expert manages to pull ahead, though by a relatively modest 7%.

Deze schijf zou dan wel eens de terugkomst kunnen betekenen van Western Digital op de IDE/U-ATA markt. Het is alleen nog even afwachten hoe de andere schijven die binnenkort uitkomen zullen presteren.

Bij WickedPC hebben ze een review gepost van de 3DfxCool T-Rex cooler met hun bevindingen over het natuurlijk niet al te kleine ding:

Cooling is cool. Literally. We were given the opportunity to take a look at this super-sized jumbo cooling solution, produced by 3DfxCool. It's called the T-Rex. Keep in mind throughout this review, that this fan is only good on CPU's that are Intel Pentium II 333 and under. There is a difference in the 350-MHz CPU's, Celerons, and Pentium III casings so that this solution will not function. Also to keep in mind, this is a custom made cooling solution, and you can't simply find one elsewhere for a cheaper price. It's the only place you'll ever find it, and it's pretty slick.

Als je op zoek bent naar een vette kast moet je maar eens langswippen bij The Techs Network, want die hebben een review van de Enlight 7100 kast:

This case is a great ATX case and is perfect for everybody, even the overclockers. It's got lots of good features, in fact enough to earn the Editor's Choice award. My old ATX case is sitting in the garage gathering dust because this case is extremely well designed and is quite frankly a great case. Bottom line is if your looking for a case to hold your upcoming ATX system then this case is perfect for you.

De BSA opent de jacht in 1999 op kleine zakenmannen.

The computer industry's software police are clamping down on the illegal use of counterfeit software as part of a major new offensive targeted at the UK's 80,000 small businesses. Yes, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has launched another crackdown campaign – Crackdown 99. With more than half of all software in use by small businesses in the UK believed to be illegal, anyone receiving a letter from the BSA should take the gentle reminder seriously. Last year, the BSA took action against 292 organisations -- an increase in of 34 per cent on 1997.

Apple wil Linux gaan gebruiken in hun nieuwe server OS, MacOS X server.

Later today some of the great and good from the open source world are due to join Steve Jobs on-stage for the unveiling of Apple's new operating system, MacOS X Server. Could this be the day Apple sorts out its somewhat equivocal attitude to Linux and open source software? Apple will be pitching OS X Server as cheap, fast, robust and better than NT. It will be sold on the basis of per server licences, as opposed to NT's per user approach, the price tag in itself will be lower than NT, and hardware requirements will be less than NT. But a lot of that and maybe some more applies to Linux, so has Apple missed the boat, as we were saying last week?

Matrox komt nu met de opvolger van de G200, de G400.

In addition to a 128-bit interface to memory and support for a maximum of 32MB of synchronous memory, the Matrox G400 uses a new 3D Rendering Array Processor to deliver up to three times the real-life performance of previous generations. Also unique to the Matrox G400 is Vibrant Color Quality2 rendering (VCQ2), an architecture designed to preserve vibrant color quality for cutting edge multi-textured software applications. Fully DirectX6 and OpenGL compliant, the Matrox G400 is an extremely powerful 3D rendering engine supporting advanced 3D features including single cycle multi-texturing, Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, anisotropic filtering and stencil buffering.

Voor meer informatie moet je effe hier klikken.

Oke oke, ik weet dat niet iedereen dit blad op prijs stelt, maar toch quote ik even de inhoud van de Power Unlimited van april die maandag 22 maart in de winkels ligt.

Lekker veel games, komende maand in Power Unlimited. Lees de onderstaande lijst er maar op na!

PC CD-ROM:

- Delta Force
Een superbe 3D-shooter met een ongekend realiteitsgehalte dat zorgt voor een 'feel' die je zelden zal hebben meegemaakt.

- Silver
Niets dan lof voor Silver; een heerlijke, avonturistische game die speelt als een spannend jongensboek.

- Worms Armageddon
Armageddon is de shit voor alle Worms-lovers. De nieuwe wapens zijn grappiger dan ooit en de deathmatch is dikke fun.

- Rogue Squadron
Kees testte de N64-versie, J.J. deed het op de PC en allebei waren ze even enthousiast. Lucas Arts heeft zich weer eens van z'n beste kant laten zien.

- Rollcage
Psygnosis wil met Rollcage een poging doen WipeOut te doen vergeten, en dat is gelukt. Een steengoede race-game vol aktie met originele gameplay en fantastische graphics.

- Rollercoaster Tycoon
Rollercoaster Tycoon is een snoepje voor de sim-liefhebber. Net zo cute als Themepark en even uitgebreid als Railroad Tycoon.

- Heavy Gear 2
Heavy Gear 2 is in alles beter dan z'n voorganger: mooier, groter, soepeler en bovendien meer aktie in spektaculairdere omgevingen. Zwaar oké dus.

- Aliens Vs Predator
Volgens J.J. is Aliens vs Predator met afstand de beklemmendste, langste en lastigste shooter die hij ooit gespeeld heeft. Alleen geschikt voor gamers met stalen zenuwen.

- Turok 2
- Sanitarium
- South Park
- Tunguska
- Ancient Conquest
- Starshot
- Uprising 2
- Shadow Company
- Asteroids
- Speedbusters
- Liath
- Beavis & Butt-head, Bunghole In One
- Falcon 4
- Luftwaffe Commander
- Eliminator
- Blackstone Chronicles
- Devastator
- Thunder Brigade
- Nascar Revolution