Er is ook alweer een nieuwe versie uit van de Voodoo3 Tweaker, nu op versie 2.0. Nieuw in deze versie:

Added the "Windows - Desktop" Tab.
Added Gamma Settings for DirectX/D3D, Glide/OpenGL, Windows/Desktop (with "lock" option)
Better Uninstall (I forgot a key in the registry...)
Added the "Check clock at startup" option in the "Overclocking" Tab. (latest driver NEEDED)
If you quit the prog without saving, the prog will now ask you if you want to save it (only if something have changed)

Download hem hier. (83kB)

Ik lees bij Beta News dat de final versie van NeoPlanet 5.0 uit is. Als je niet weer wat NeoPlanet is, met dit programma kun je de "look en feel" van Internet Explorer en Netscape aanpassen. Voor meer info, zie de NeoPlanet website. NeoPlanet 5.0 kun je hier downloaden.

Computers R Us heeft het tweede deel van hun NV10 gepost. Eerder zeiden ze al dat er een kaart met de NV10 in september zal verschijnen, en dit keer garanderen ze dat weer! Guillemot zal half september met zo'n kaart op de markt komen. Check het artikel snel hier!

I have received several mails from people that said that I was lying about the release date but it is real. I mailed Guillemot one more time to get it confirmed a second time and I know that there have been people phoning Guillemot and they also got it confirmed that there will be a NV10 card on the market in September. I got a bit more exact date today and the latest from Guillemot is that we will be seeing the NV10 in the stores in mid September this year.

If I was going to get a new graphic card I should actually hold on to my money and go out and get a new NV10 graphic card in September instead. The release of the NV10 graphic card already might also mean that we will see a card from 3dfx or another manufacturer soon. Wouldn’t it be great if both a NV10 and a Voodoo 4 hits the market in September / October?

ThrustMaster is voor 15 miljoen dollar verkocht aan Guillemot Corporation of Carentoir. Ze zullen wel onder een nieuwe naam verder gaan:

ThrustMaster today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the assets of the ThrustMaster game controller hardware business to the Guillemot Corporation of Carentoir, France for $15 million in cash. The transaction is subject to formal ThrustMaster shareholder approval and is expected to close in early to mid-September 1999.

The ThrustMaster name is included in the assets being sold. The Company will announce its new name before the transaction closes in September. The new name will reflect the new strategic direction of the Company in Internet community and communications and will be determined by the outcome of other near-term strategic initiatives. "Our strategy is to grow and leverage our technological capabilities, product offerings and partner/customer relationships through make, license or buy arrangements where appropriate," stated David Mcfeeters-Krone, Vice President of Strategic Planning for ThrustMaster, Inc.

Extreme Hardware heeft een nogal groot interview gepost met AMD, over de Athlon natuurlijk. Ik heb er een paar uitgeplukt, de rest kun je hier vinden.

EH: What will the initial clockspeeds and L2 cache configurations be for the Athlon? What will be the L2 cache speed?

AMD: The AMD Athlon is already shipping to OEMs in speeds of 500, 550, and 600Mhz. The initial L2 cache size is 512Kb, operating at œ the core speed.

Pricing:
AMD Athlon 500=$324
AMD Athlon 550=$479
AMD Athlon 600=$699
All these prices are in 1K lots.

EH: If Intel were to lower Pentium-III prices so that P-IIIs would be cheaper than competing Athlons (at the same clockspeed), would AMD respond by equaling or beating Intel's Pentium-III prices?

AMD: You know our strategy. Superior products at all price points. However we get there, we plan to enable this.

Doh! Ik lees op Coolinfo dat Micron de prijzen weer omhoog gaat RAMmen, vanaf begin augustus.

Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of computer memory chips, expects memory chip prices to rise slightly starting next month due to an acceleration of demand and lower inventory levels, a Micron executive said today.

Micron's vice president of corporate affairs, Kipp Bedard, told a BancBoston Robertson Stephens semiconductor conference that memory chip prices climbed during July and have been gradually moving up from a price range of $4.50 to $4.75 for a 64-megabit chip. He said he expected prices to rise to about $5.00 to $5.25 starting around Aug. 1.

"You will hear us talk more about shortages here and there,'' Bedard said. He cited healthy personal computer demand as well as an incentive program that Micron started for low-cost PC makers to get them to use more memory.

In midafternoon trade, Micron shares were up $4.25 at $62, after trading as high as 63.25.

Beyond 3D heeft een review van de Diamond Stealth III S540 online gegooid. Dit (niet al te rap) videokaartje heeft een Savage4 Pro chippie, dus met de hele coole S3TC feature:

One of the Savage4's most talked-about features is S3TC, which stands for S3 Texture Compression. It allows up to a 6:1 compression ratio, or in other words, allows you to store up to 6 times the amount of textures you normally could within a given space. This is an extremely awesome feature for several reasons. First, it can give a serious performance increase. These days many of the new games have more textures than the frame buffer can hold. After the frame-buffer runs out of space, you start relying on AGP texturing. Well even though AGP texturing is quick, it isn't nearly fast enough, and a drop in framerate is almost certainly expected. With S3TC, you can either pack all of the textures in the frame buffer, or at least reduce the overall amount of textures being executed from system memory. Another cool option is the ability to use extremely high resolution textures. Without compression, no 3D accelerator will be able to go over a 512x512 resolution for textures and still deliver great performance (when many textures are used, such as Quake III Arena does). Well with S3TC you can get to 1024x1024 and still keep the same level of performance. It's a very cool feature indeed.

The Adrenaline Vault doet het met 2 tegelijk. Ze hebben namelijk twee nieuwe processors van Intel getest, de P3-600 en de Celeron 500. De review bestaat vrijwel geheel uit benchmarks, check het zaakie hier.

Both processors continue the proven Intel P6 processor core. The Pentium III adds the MMX and SIMD Streaming Extensions (SSE) instructions; the Celeron adds only the MMX instructions. The Pentium III has a 512KB L2 cache in the processor module; the Celeron has a 128KB cache (but runs the cache at full speed). We covered the performance payoff you can expect from a Pentium III using SSE versus a processor without those extensions (like the Celeron) in our earlier Pentium III review, so we won't retread that ground here.

Panasonic komt als eerste met twee audio-DVD spelers. Ze hebben de DVD-A7 ($1000) en een DVD-A10 ($2000). Naast de nieuwe high-quality DVD-audio CD's kun je er ook standaard audio cd's op afspelen.

Beginning this October, both models will be shipped to dealers nationwide. The Panasonic DVD-A7 has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $999.95. The Technics DVD-A10 carries a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $1,199.95.

These next generation audio players can be easily incorporated into your home entertainment system. But while the players will accept and play conventional CDs, future DVD-Audio discs will be reproduced with far greater fidelity then presently available. And DVD-Audio is capable of much more. Attached to a home entertainment's television or projection TV, a DVD-Audio player can also reproduce video: graphics, text, music videos, and more can be shown. Additionally, since the player is compatible with DVD Video discs, your favorite DVD movies can be played as well -- along with up to 5.1 channels of Dolby Digital(R) and dts(TM) multi-channel sound.

Want more? Future DVD-Audio discs could even contain URL addresses for instant access to relevant Web sites as you listen -- or watch -- a DVD-Audio disc.

"DVD-Audio not only far exceeds the audio quality of conventional CD reproduction, but provides new enhancements that can combine listening with a truly interactive experience," says Gene Kelsey, vice president and general manager of Panasonic's Audio Group. "A DVD-Audio/Video player will be the cornerstone component of all home entertainment systems of the near future."

The true acceptance of a new audio format means equal enthusiasm from the software industry as well. And that is already happening. "Universal Music Group is looking forward to supporting the first new audiophile standard since the introduction of CDs almost twenty years ago," says Lisa Farris, vice president of marketing for Universal Music Group - eCAT. "By providing recording artists with an expanded aural palette, DVD-Audio's better than CD quality stereo and multi-channel surround sound showcases a whole new listening experience for the consumer. Universal Music Group is preparing releases from a wide range of artists covering every genre in conjunction with launch of the DVD-Audio player."

Conforming to the newly established DVD-Audio standard, and containing an encryption system to prevent unauthorized disc duplication, DVD-Audio takes advantage of the digital technology originally developed for DVD-Video. It uses the advanced format's vast data storage potential to deliver astounding sound enriched with the nuance, warmth and subtle overtones of a live musical performance.

To accomplish this, 2-channel DVD-Audio uses a sampling frequency of 192kHz -- more than four times that of CD -- to extend the playback high-frequency response to an incredible 96kHz. The higher frequency reproduction gives live instruments their timbre or resonance, which is often lost on a compact disc. The crash of cymbals, for instance, produces frequencies well above 20kHz -- inaudible to the ear but important to retaining the instrument's distinct expression and the integrity of the music.

In addition, a new Digital-To-Analog Converter (DAC), based on MASH* technology and refined by Matsushita for 192kHz/24-bit DVD-Audio use, gives these players the ability to distinguish levels of sound using 24-bit quantization (vs. 16-bit maximum for CD). This reduces background noise to imperceptible levels. The new DAC is also combined with a DIGITAL RE-MASTER PROCESSING circuit, which uses audio dithering techniques to increase the frequency response and dynamic range of conventional CDs as well.

Yup, ze komen nog steeds, de TNT2 reviews. Hier heb je er eentje van de Xentor 32 Ultra van Guillemot.

I was stunned, after running several benchmarks it, that the card was not faster then the previously tested TNT2 card from Gigabyte, which is NOT an ultra version. All results where below the average TNT2 card. I was frustrated and thinking 'this cannot be possible'. I grabbed the latest 2.08 drivers from Guillemot's website in the hope that this would solve the problem. It didn't !

After this frustration (I knew that the card had to be faster then the results I had gotten) I decided to flush the Guillemot drivers and install 1.88 reference drivers from nVIDIA. (I used older 1.88 drivers for objective comparisation reasons). tataa ... I was smiling again. The performance was then outstanding and on several occasions even faster then a Voodoo3 3000.

I looped a benchmark, and have configured the card in a 175/198 configuration. It ran 24Hrs straight without any lockups or malfunctioning graphics.

The High-Performance PC Guide heeft een review geschreven van de ECS P6BXT-A+, revision 1.3B moederbord. Nou het leuke aan deze plank is dat ie zowel een Slot-1 als Socket 370 heeft. Verder is ie gewoon gebaseerd op de BX chipset. Check de review hier.

Using a truly Jumperless design, the P6BXT-A+ rev 1.3B gives you total control of your processor configuration within the BIOS under the "BIOS Features Setup" menu. First of all, the clock frequency can be selected from a choice of frequencies ranging from 66Mhz to 133Mhz including: 66Mhz, 75Mhz, 83Mhz, 100Mhz, 103Mhz, 112Mhz,and 133Mhz. Next, the clock multiplier can be selected from a choice ranging from 2.5X to 8X in steps of .5X. Finally, the processor core voltage can be adjusted between 1.5 to 2.1 volts in steps of .05 volts and from 2.1 to 3.0 vdc in steps of .1 volt. As a fact, the processor core voltage adjustment is the big difference between the two boards as the original P6BXT-A+ was not coming with this feature. To sum it all, I am really regretting that while they had to rework this motherboard, ECS has not given more clock frequencies to it, a feature to adjust the AGP and PCI bus frequencies upon the clock frequency chosen and a setting to disable the processor lock multiplier. These missing features would have make a hell of a difference and would have turned this motherboard into a real Overclockers dream...

Bij Explosive 3D is een review te vinden van de Aureal SuperQuad Vortex2 geluidskaart.

In conclusion, the SuperQuad is a great Vortex2 soundcard for its price. Mirroring such similar cards as Xitel's Storm, and Videologic's Sonic Vortex2; the SuperQuad is a steal! Though poor MIDI, and CPU utilization (when optimized in A3D 2.0) cripple it when competing with the Sound Blaster Live, and other great cards. Priced at $49.00, I recommend anyone that is building a system to include this card. As for those wanting to upgrade, the Aureal SuperQuad is good (based on the outstanding technology), but not worth it for better 'all-around' sound... My old Soundblaster AWE 64 does great, an the Yamaha DS-XG on my old motherboard was good enough for my needs. If you are interested in boosting your audio experience with the PC, I recommend you go out and buy some nice speakers, or hook up the soundcard to your stereo... It's a lot cheaper, and you won't be disappointed.

Finally, for those 3D Sound freaks, the Aureal SuperQuad is for you. With support of the A3D technology and support for surround sound (quad speakers) you can't go wrong! It is really your choice, in the Aureal family, the SuperQuad is definitely the Alpha. What would you expect coming from the company who made Aureal3D themselves??

Hoewel deze soundkaart er al een hele tijd is heeft 3D Unlimited er nog een korte review van gemaakt. Check hem hier.

Sound Blaster Live! provides a professional-quality synthesizer and digital input and output for audio fidelity with digital sound. The Sound Blaster Live! uses the EMU10K1 audio processor provides digital signal processing at 32-bit, 48kHz using a patented 8-point interpolation that instantly improves any audio source. This powerful engine has the capability of real-time special effects like echo, flanger, auto-wah, distortion, pitch-shifting, reverb and chorus. Overall, the engine technology of the Sound Blaster Live! is phenomenal.

This is a top-of-line sound card. Designed for the serious gamer or designer. Using all top-of-line components and the best software with the easiest use. If you are in the market for a great card a good price, this is the card to go with. I feel it is better then the Monster MX300, provides more features and uses better technology. They are both great cards, but this card is just a little bit better I feel. Even with a price of around $150-$200 it's still a great card for the money. It comes with not only the sound card, but the Digital I/O card for better sound processing.

Sharky Extreme heeft een review gepost van de Fujitsu 18.2GB MAG3182LP harde schijf. Dit is een Ultra2Wide SCSI schijf die op 10.000 RPM best vooruit wil.

The MAG3182LP certainly has some impressive specs, including a 3 millisecond average latency, a 2MB cache, and a remarkable areal density allowing up to 3.6Gigabytes on a single platter. All this in addition to its 10,000RPM (revolutions per minute) rotational speed -- the MAG3182LP definitely stands up to its competitors. As usual we did a bit of research to see where it stands with some industry leaders.

The Fujitsu drive has slightly better advertised average seek times than the Cheetah 18, and its 2 MB cache is double that of the Cheetah, but the biggest difference comes in with the areal density. Where the MAG3182LP has a recording density of 275,000 bits/inch, the Cheetah 18 has only 188,000. As a result, the Fujitsu only has 5 platters while the Seagate has 12.

What you won't see on any spec sheet is that this drive runs cool and quiet -- much more so than any competitor we have seen. Only mildly warm to the touch, compared to the Cheetah's scalding temperatures, this drive is certainly not in need of any active cooling. The drive is also quiet as can be - nothing like the racket made by the Cheetah.

Thresh's FiringSquad heeft een handige guide gebakken om je te helpen je P3-450, 500 of 550 over te klokken. Check de info hier.

It looks like the P3-450 offers the largest gains at the lowest price. For only $250, you can get a processor that has a very good shot at 558MHz with a chance for 581MHz and 600MHz.

The P3-500 processors we tested were only able to reach 560 with a standard heatsink and fan -a modest gain, but not as impressive as the P3-450.

The 616MHz target for the P3-550 looks tempting because it breaks the 600MHz barrier, but the cost is still a little too high for the average overclocker.

By nature, most overclockers are bargain hunters looking for the most bang for the buck. Of all the P3 processors, the P3-450 would be the most promising CPU. At its most common overclocked speed of 558MHz, the P3-450 offers a 24% gain while the P3-500 and P3-550 processors only post 12% gains at their most likely overclocked speeds of 560MHz and 616MHz respectively.

Via BxBoards kwam ik bij de site van Forbes Magazine terecht (een groot zakenblad) waar ze een artikeltje hebben over de komende Intel prijsverlagingen.
Om met AMD te concurreren gaat de prijs van een PIII 500 omlaag van $ 435 naar $ 265. Dat is bijna 40%!!!

Come August, Intel is going to launch the next salvo, this time targeting AMD’s next hot chip, the K-7, also known as "Athlon." Sources familiar with Intel say that by mid-August the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant will slash the price on its 500 MHz Pentium III chip to about $265 a chip. At present the Pentium III 500 MHz chip is trading at $435 a chip in the open market, down from an all-time high of $745 a chip, according to American IC Exchange, a semiconductor exchange. The prices for the slower Pentium IIIs will fall even further, according to sources familiar with Intel. [break]Ook hebben ze nog een stukje over DRAM-prijzen, die na 3 weken stabiliteit weer hard omlaag gaan[/break] DRAM trading in the open market is vigorous, memory chip traders say. According to Paul Meyers, who trades DRAM chips at the American IC Exchange, the prices of 64 Meg PC 100 (8x8 configuration) DRAM chips are now touching $5.60 per 8 megabits. As recently as last week the prices had inched up to $6.25 per 8 megabits, from their 1999 lows of $4 per 8 megabits.

Volg deze link voor het hele artikeltje

Over bij CNET's Gamecenter kwam ik deze review tegen van Intels nieuwste krachtpatser, de Pentium 3 600MHz.

The 600-MHz Pentium III is nearly identical to the other members of the Pentium III family; the exception is that it's clocked a little higher. Built on a .25-micron process, it has 32K of internal L1 cache and 512K of external L2 cache running at half the system clock speed (300 MHz). The chip runs on the same 440BX core-logic chipset and 100-MHz system bus that was introduced with the 350-MHz Pentium II. Like all other Pentium IIIs, the 600-MHz chip incorporates Intel's SSE SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instruction set, which speeds up 3D graphics and some other multimedia applications, such as voice recognition and video encoding. Though the 600-MHz processor shipped on time, it isn't exactly the chip the company had intended to release. Intel had planned to introduce a 600-MHz Pentium III built on the more advanced .18-micron process. This chip, like AMD's K6-III and Intel's own mobile Pentium II, would have incorporated 256K of internal L2 cache running at full clock speed. Even at half the cache size of earlier Pentium IIIs, this internal cache would have provided a welcome performance boost.

Check de review voor de performance chart, getest met een TNT2 Ultra op 175/200MHz.

CPU Review heeft een guide in elkaar gezet over hoe je je Celeron 366MHz kan opvoeren naar 550MHz. Het artikel helpt je stap voor stap, alleen jammer dat het hun niet is gelukt om hem succesvol op 550MHz te zetten...

My guess is that 550Mhz is attainable on a small fraction of processors; with my limited sample size (two processors) I would hesitate to guess what fraction would run at 550. Someone I know that works for a computer store says he tested six processors and none would run reliably at 550Mhz, and all of them produced excessive amounts of heat when they tried to run them at 550Mhz.

If you are lucky enough to get a processor that seems to run without problems at 550Mhz for the ten minutes or so it takes to heat up the heatsink to undesired levels you may be able to keep running at 550 if you use exotic cooling techniques such as liquid cooling or a Kryotech cooling kit. An unusually large heatsink with a very high CFM fan may be sufficient; I would suggest at least twice the normal heat dissipation capacity of normal ball bearing heatsink/fan combinations.

FPS3D heeft de Hot Rod 66 adapter card van Abit getest. Goed voor snelle ATA/66 support in je systeem. Check de 9 pagina tellende review hier.

99% of you out there do not have an ATA/66 compliant motherboard, and chances are, you won't until Intel releases it's i820 chipset. If you have an ATA/66 drive and have been dying to take advantage of the extra benefits, look no further than the Hot Rod 66. Even if you are just planning on buying a new drive, you should bring this adapter home with it. The Hot Rod 66 is yet another product in the continuous stream of awesome Abit products. If you've been considering the Promise Ultra66 card, all I can say is that the Hot Rod 66 offers everything it has and more for the same price. There is simply not a reason in the world to buy the Ultra66 controller anymore.

Hoewel Socket 7 processors bijna in het graf liggen, The upgrade Center heeft er toch nog effe een paar getest. In het artikel zijn opgenomen de Cyrix MII PR433, de AMD K6-2 450 en de K6-3 450. Check het volledige artikel hier.

Luckily for the consumer, the price pressure from Intel on AMD and the rest of the industry has made AMD drop their prices right alongside Intel. This has made the AMD K6-2 450MHz (at around $75 to 80) a solid choice for best bang for your buck Super 7 processor. At 2X the cost, the K6 III is the better performer but the added cost does not match the performance difference. Don't get me wrong, given the choice I'd run the K6 III over the K6-2 anyday, but for most users the price difference is better spent upgrading memory or video cards.

Cyrix has obviously found it tough going with a processor based on the same old MII platform. Higher clock speeds and marketing PR numbers aside, there are too many good business app processors that also excel in gaming for Cyrix to last much longer with this design. With faster Celerons/PIIIs and the K7/Athlon about to make an assault on the market, Cyrix needs to right their ship and move toward releasing their much anticipated Jalapeno core if they have any hope of recapturing market share in the future. It's good to see Cyrix is still surviving, but ultimately newer, innovative products are needed to save them over the long term.

Op BxBoards hebben ze een Socket 370 cooler comparision geplaatst.
Er worden 4 heatsinks en 3 Fans getest op een Abit BM6 mobo en een Celeron 466 die op 7 x 83 loopt.

Hier de intro:

Here I look at 4 of the most popular Socket 370 compatible cooling solutions in an effort to determine how well they work and whether the more expensive after-market coolers are necessary or just hype.

The heatsink lineup includes the Socket 370 version of the Alpha cooler and Global Win's newest FDP32. As well as the lower end Global Win CPM25603 and VDP-12 which could be considered equivalent to a retail type cooling setup.

The system is based on a 300W Enlight 7237 mid tower, the Abit BM6 motherboard with a Celeron 466 running 7 x 83 for 583mhz with 256meg of PC100 SDRAM.

Incidentally, the components which perform admirably for me on the 83mhz bus are;

Leadtek's S320 II-Ultra (AGP TNT2 Ultra set at 173 core and 205 mem)

Western Digital 18gig 7200RPM ATA66 HDD

Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (A3D PCI sound card)

Creative Encore 6X PC-DVD ROM with PCI Decoder

SOHOware 10/100 PCI Ethernet card

3COM/U.S. Robotics 56k ISA modem

The Microsoft USB IntelliMouse

Each cooler was used for at least 48 operating hours (so I could get a good feel for them) and the tests were conducted consecutively in a time rotation, 4 times on 4 different days with different temperature and climate conditions. The results to follow were from the warmest day of testing and therefore most accurately display how each cooler preformed.

I most definitely had times when the CPU failed due to overheating. Read on to find out which coolers didn't make the grade and under what circumstances.

Lees hier de rest.

Op CGO hebben ze een Preview van Novalogic's Delta Force 2.
Dit is een 1e persoons schieter die afspeelt in verschillende omgevingen.
Nadeel van het spel is dat het de door Novalogic zelf ontworpen Voxel Space 3 graphics engine en dat je Voodoo, TNT(2) het dus niet versnellen, behalve de boompjes en huisjes dan want dat zijn wel polygonen.
Voor de rest ziet het er leuk uit, en ik zal het spel ook zeker kopen aangezien ik(en wat vrienden) de eerst versie helemaal suf geplayed hebben.

Hier een stukkie uit de preview:

A number of new weapons and items will be available in the game, with the M-4/Shotgun combo topping the list. The weapon of choice among real Delta Force operatives, it will allow players to clear rooms with lethal effectiveness. Other new weapons include the .45 USSOCOM (silenced), the Heckler & Koch underwater pistol, an underwater rifle, and time delay grenades. Some weapons will be able to fire tracer rounds (an excellent way to advertise your position to enemy snipers) or laser designators. Less aggressive equipment will include kevlar vests, an LAR V rebreather (without it, players will now run out of breath underwater), and a field surveillance video camera that can be used to watch for enemies attempting to mount a sneak attack. As in the original game, weapons and equipment must be selected before the mission begins—players expecting Quake-style powerups such as the BFG or the Quad Damage will likely be a bit disappointed. A number of fixed weapon emplacements such as machine gun nests and grenade launchers will be scattered throughout the game, however.

Lijkt mij een errug tof spel.
Lees hier de rest.