Ja, was te verwachten, ook Ome Tom heeft van ATi een Rage Fury MAXX ontvangen. De benchmarks zijn nu gedraaid op een Pentium 550 systeem, en je ziet meteen dat hier de GeForce niet onder doet voor de ATi kaart. Hieronder een hap uit de conlusie, de complete review staat hier.

ATI promises to have a product out early next year that's basically a Fury MAXX with T&L, but that's in a few months when we might see a faster GeForce product released as well as the latest offerings from S3 that has T&L. I'm also not too impressed with the release price I'm hearing. The price is said to be that of the SDR GeForce boards. While the board is in the same ballpark as the SDR board in many cases, you get SDR like performance without the benefit of T&L. In extreme situations Fury MAXX managed to pull near the lead but not nearly fast enough to actually use to play. At that price range, I expect to have the T&L to match with my great fill-rate performance to be able to play with upcoming leading edge software titles. It will come down to the final pricing of the product, the performance of the released drivers and how much you value DVD performance. We'll have to wait and see what ATI offers in the coming weeks when the Fury MAXX is officially released and you can be sure that we haven't said the last word about Fury MAXX yet. A much more thorough test will follow soon.

Naast Thresh's FiringSquad heeft ook Sharky Extreme vandaag een hands-on preview van de ATI Rage Fury MAXX gepost. Ook hier hebben ze hem vergeleken met de GeForce en de TNT2 Ultra. Als testsysteem hebben ze een overgeklokte Coppermine 800 gebruikt waardoor de ATi kaart bijna overal boven de GeForce eindigt. Check de hele preview hier.

It doesn't take us long does it? Here we're presented with one of the fastest, if not THE fastest 3D accelerator we've seen this year, and we're thinking "Hmmm…I wonder if we can overclock the two graphics processors beyond their stock 125MHz core speed…"

Curiosity soon turned to reality, as we pushed the 125MHz core speed of our beta Rage Fury MAXX to 137MHz, and the ram speed from 143MHz to approximately 166MHz.

This 10% improvement in core/memory speeds netted a 4 to 6% frame rate improvement in the same tests we used with the default clocked MAXX card for this piece.

You'd expect that doubling the chance for errors due to overclocking by including 2 x 32MB ram banks and 2 x graphics processors versus a standard video card would have been a strong impediment to any overclocking at all, but in our experiences with just a single beta MAXX card we didn't find that to be the case.

We didn't concentrate long on the overclocking potential of the MAXX for this particular article, simply because of its early status. Once we review a retail board in December, you can bet we'll be whipping out dual-peltier elements to supercool the two MAXX chips and really go for some numbers.

Realnetworks heeft versie 7 van Realplayer gereleased. De basic en Plus versie mag je hier neerhalen.

Ars Technica heeft een review van de erg interessante Promise FastTrak 66 neer gemikt. Met deze EIDE RAID controller kun je simpel & goedkoop een snel (striping) of safe (mirroring) RAID array bouwen. Voor ons tweakers zal de Raid 0 / Striping mode waarschijnlijk de beste optie zijn. Ars Technica heeft véél benchmarks gedraaid, waaruit blijkt dat het snelheidsvoordeel bij gebruik van 4 drives kan oplopen tot meer dan 200%:

In my mind, the performance of RAID 0 arrays in NT4 really stole the show. Being able to double and even triple I/O performance for disk intensive progs simply rocks my world. And surprisingly, the 2-drive software RAID arrays really shone, to the point where I have a really hard time suggesting that anyone buy this product for a 2-drive only array in NT. Of course, having used them all for quite some time over the past month, I can honestly say there's nothing like that 4-drive striped action... oooh ahhh, and bag of hoo-chows! As for the RAID in Win98, it was certainly less spectacular, but I wouldn't call it disappointing.

Oftewel: voor de prijs van een U2W SCSI setup met snelle 10.000rpm drive heb je een nog snellere FastTrak66 config, alleen dan met veel meer diskspace.

Maxtor heeft een nieuwe 7200rpm ATA66 schijf met een capaciteit van 40,9Gb aangekondigd. De DiamondMax Plus 40 heeft een cache van 2Mb, toegangstijd van 9ms en zal vanaf begin volgend jaar leverbaar zijn. Hier de press release:

Maxtor® announces 7200 RPM DiamondMax® plus 40

Fast 7200 RPM spin speed and high 40.9 GB capacity makes the New DiamondMax Plus 40 ideally suited for server and entry-level RAID applications MILPITAS, Calif., Nov. 8, 1999 — Maxtor Corporation (NASDAQ:MXTR) today introduced its high performance DiamondMax Plus 40 hard drives. With a 7200 RPM spin speed and other performance features, these new IDE drives provide the superior performance required for multimedia, Internet, video, and audio applications on high-end desktop systems; as well as for traditionally SCSI applications such as servers and entry-level RAID systems. These drives, available in capacities up to 40.9 GB, will begin volume production in January 2000.

"The DiamondMax Plus 40 drives continue Maxtor’s leadership in the important 7200 RPM IDE product category," said Mike Cannon, Maxtor’s president and CEO. "These new drives offer the quality, reliability and sustained throughput needed in high-end graphic and video applications such as online video editing. As we continue to set new standards for performance with 7200 RPM IDE drives, we enable our customers to use IDE products in traditionally SCSI applications."

"The performance of Maxtor’s 7200 RPM IDE drives has meant significant value for our customers that demand superior drive performance," said Mark Vena, Director, Consumer Desktop Product Marketing at Compaq Computer Corporation. "Maxtor’s 7200 RPM drives allow us to provide our customers performance, quality and industry leading capacity points."

The new DiamondMax Plus 40 drives feature a sub-9.0 ms average seek time, a 2 MB cache buffer incorporating a high-speed 100 MHz SDRAM memory for high sustained transfer rate, Maxtor’s proprietary DualWave® processor, and UltraDMA 66 for up to 66 MB per second transfer rates.

"The demand for 7200 RPM IDE drives is increasing dramatically as purchasers of high-end desktop systems look for faster storage solutions and as they are recognized as viable alternatives to SCSI products in many high-end applications," said John Donovan, vice president of TrendFocus. "The performance generated by 7200 RPM IDE drives is ideal for entry-level RAID subsystems and audio/video applications." TrendFocus estimates that the worldwide shipment of 7200 RPM drives will increase from approximately 14% in Q3 of this year to approximately 41% by the end of the next year.

"By incorporating Maxtor’s DiamondMax Plus 7200 RPM drives in our RAIDZONE® disk arrays, we are able to achieve a RAID level 5 configuration, providing full redundancy capability to our customers with IDE drives," said Bob Ripley, Consensys’ vice president of marketing. "Our RAIDZONE customers receive all the benefits of SCSI, such as fast sustained throughput rates, at an IDE price."

The DiamondMax Plus 40 drives include Maxtor’s ShockBlock® and MaxSafe® feature sets, providing one of the most comprehensive reliability packages in the industry. Designed to protect the drive from damage caused by improper handling, the ShockBlock design has demonstrated the ability to withstand up to 1,000G short-duration shock loads without drive failure.

"Online digital video creation is extremely storage intensive: 1 GB of storage holds approximately 1 minute of uncompressed video," said Brad Giotes, director of marketing for New Tek. "Maxtor’s high performance IDE drives provide the required capacity, extreme reliability, and high levels of sustained throughput for this video application. 7200 RPM IDE drives from Maxtor in conjunction with our Video Toaster NT product can achieve full uncompressed video quality."

Availability and Pricing

Volume production of the DiamondMax Plus 40 will begin in January. Qualifications will begin next month at leading PC manufacturers worldwide. Estimated retail pricing for the 40.9 GB DiamondMax Plus is $349.

Interessante posting bij JC, die kreeg een mailtje van iemand die z'n Athlon 500 heeft opengebroken en tot de ontdekking kwam dat daar een Athlon 650 core huisde:

"Sorry to disturb you .... but i just picked up my Athlon 500. I cracked open the case and on the core cap it reads K7650CURAFC. Interesting .... some of the 500's have been read 600's on the core.... this reads 650. (casing code: AMD-K7500MTR51B C 219942014814)".

Dus nu hebben we niet alleen Athlon 500's met 600 core, maar ook al exemplaren die op minimaal 650MHz zouden moeten kunnen lopen . Nu nog nog een goede plank en zo'n Goldfinger dipswitch dingetje.

Ik lees bij Ace's Hardware dat Acer Labs nieuwe AGP drivers voor de Aladdin V super socket7 chipset heeft gereleased.

- Add support for Matrox G400
- Add support for 3DLabs Permedia3
- Fix some texture corruption syndrome seen on M1541 and TNT2 Model 64 based system
- Fix M1541 system instability after resuming from suspend in Windows 98SE ACPI mode
- Improve system stability with some TNT2 cards
- Improve system stability with some Savage4 cards

You can obtain the driver at the following sites:
- ALI Taiwan
- ALI Mirror Site 1
- ALI Mirror Site 2
- Ace's Hardware

Een Anonieme Haagsche Harry stuurde deze link naar een nieuwsbericht van de Haagsche Courant. AH gaat naast doppertjes en bruine bonen nu ook PC's aan de man brengen (hmm, ze beginnen steeds meer op die grote engelse megamarkten zoals Tesco te lijken):

ZAANDAM (ANP) - 's Lands grootste kruidenier gaat steeds minder op een kruidenier lijken. De supermarktketen ontwikkelt al foto's, verkoopt boeken en biedt financiële diensten aan. Daarnaast gaat Albert Heijn ook in computers. Woensdag begint de keten met de verkoop in de grotere winkels van een multimediacomputer. De Myrica is voor Albert Heijn samengesteld door het nieuwe Europese computerbedrijf Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

Verder mogen we binnenkort ook CD's bij de Albert Heijn verwachten. Het groeiende aanbod van CD's zal als prettige bijweking hebben dat de CD prijzen in Nederland waarschijnlijk omlaag gaan (zie FOK!zine).

Het gebruik van internet door bedrijven en overheidsinstellingen is de afgelopen 2 jaar met 40% toegenomen. Een sterke groei, zo concludeert het CBS:

Het gebruik van het Internet neemt sterk toe, vindt het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Ze leidt dat af uit een toename met 40 procent in 2 jaar tijd. Eind 1999 zal 50 procent van de bedrijven met automatisering (75 procent van het totaal) naar verwachting een Internetaansluiting hebben.

Twee jaar eerder was dat nog ongeveer 33 procent, en het CBS vindt de groei snel. Het is maar de vraag of dat een juist oordeel is. De helft van de bedrijven met tenminste 1 pc in huis is bij het ingaan van de volgende eeuw nog niet op Internet aangesloten.

Check Planet Multimedia voor het complete nieuwsartikel.

Als gevolg van de uitspraak van de rechter in de antitrust rechtszaak tegen Bill & co zijn de Microsoft aandelen vandaag hard gekelderd. Concurrenten Red Hat, Sun en Oracle maakten een blije dag mee, zo bericht News.com:

Shares of Microsoft fell 3.88 in morning trading, down 4.23 percent, at 87.69, although it was making up ground after a weak opening. At the open, the software giant shed 6.81 points, dropping nearly 8 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was also hard hit at the open when it lost more than 40 points, regained earlier losses. The Dow rebounded 39.9 points at 10,744.47 in early trading.

Meanwhile, shares of Red Hat, a leading seller of the Linux operating system, surged, jumping more than 18 percent. In early trading, Red Hat gained 15.47 and was trading at 101.41. Other Microsoft competitors, including Sun Microsystems and database software maker Oracle, continued their gains in early trading following the news. Shares of Sun were ahead 6.10 at 115.87, and Oracle rose 1.44 at 60.12.

Silicon Insider heeft een erg goed Put Your Ass in the Known artikel over de Rambus technologie gepost. Hier een stukje:

The good news about Direct Rambus is that it is faster than current memory technology, but the bad news about Direct Rambus is it is slower than current memory technology. How can something be both faster and slower? Because there are different aspects to memory speed.

Think of the data flow out of a memory system as being similar to the baggage carrousel at an airport. The delay between the start up of the carrousel and the appearance of the first suitcase is analogous to memory latency, while the rate at which subsequent items appear out of the chute is equivalent to memory bandwidth. Direct Rambus is strong on bandwidth. In fact, data can flow in or out of each DRDRAM data pin at up to 800 million bits per second (Mbps), a rate eight times faster than today's memory standard bearer, the PC100 synchronous DRAM (SDRAM).

The bad aspect of Direct Rambus is latency. Rambus Inc. likes to say that its fastest DRDRAMs have the same 20 ns page access latency as the fastest PC100 SDRAMs. This is technically true when you consider the memory chip in isolation. But DRDRAM-based memory systems differ from SDRAM-based systems in several significant ways in how the chips are wired together and communicate with the memory controller ASIC which add tens of ns to the effective latency.

Deze moet je lezen, erg handige info!

Skippie schrijft: "Er is eindelijk een socket 370 naar Slot 1 converter voor de Coppermines":

Processor
- Intel(R) Socket 370 PPGA Celeron processor
- Intel(R) Socket 370 FC-PGA Coppermine processor
Function
- Socket 370 to Slot1 Adapter
Features
- Converts Intel(R) FC-PGA Coppermine & PPGA Celeron processor to Slot 1
- 32 CPU Vcore settings by jumper (from 1.3V to 3.5V)
- Support Dual PPGA Celeron Processing
- FSB setting (66/100/133 MHz)
- Ourter case to firmly fit in the Retention Mechanism of a Slot1 mainboard

Arjan gaf me een link naar deze page van BigCharts waar bekend wordt gemaakt dat AMD een TV spotje gaat uitzenden om aan te tonen dat hun Athlon lekker puh veel sneller is dan de Pentium III. Dit willen ze op een komische manier naar voren brengen:

Developed by Hill, Holliday, a premier high-tech and financial advertising agency based in Boston, the commercial takes a lighter approach with humor and special effects. It uses a comical situation to show the performance comparison between a PC based on the AMD Athlon processor and one based on Intel's Pentium(R) III processor.

The commercial was directed by Sam Bayer, who has directed music videos for rock groups such as Nirvana and the Rolling Stones, and television commercials for Coca-Cola and Nike.

"The message we want to communicate is the AMD Athlon processor is faster than Pentium III at any clockspeed," said Jill Lindstedt, vice president of communications at AMD. "The AMD Athlon processor is targeted at end users who are looking for superior power and performance, whether running standard productivity software or the latest cutting-edge consumer, business, and scientific applications."

The new commercial will run through the holiday season, nationwide on the ABC network and ESPN. It will appear on prime-time shows like Monday Night Football, Spin City, The Practice, The Drew Carey Show and during ABC's Thanksgiving-night movie, Forest Gump.

Klik hier voor de rest van het bericht.

Bill heeft een NL versie van NT4 SP6 gereleased, schrijft Melt_Down. Je kunt 'm hier neer gaan halen.

3D SoundSurge heeft een flinke review gepost van de Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital speakerset. Check alle info hier.

The DTT2500 comes with a box that has the amplifier and the Dolby Digital decoder that features a 24 bit Digital to Analog Converter (DAC). This DAC is also used when connecting the box to a Sound Blaster Live card with Creative’s proprietary DIN connector. The box offers options for setting the volume of the subwoofer, rear and center speakers in addition to the master volume control. This allows you to have significantly louder or weaker sound from the rear and/or center than from the front or even make the rear and/or center speaker completely silent. However, it's not possible to make the front speakers silent without also making the rear and center speaker silent. The box is also used to select one of the several modes these speakers can be in.

The modes that are possible when using the analog connections are Dolby Prologic, Music, Movie, FourPoint, stereo, left or right channel. The option of only hearing the left or right channel is intended for Video CD discs where the two channels are used as an easy way of having two languages on the same CD. The FourPoint mode makes the speaker work just like Cambridge SoundWorks' FPS2000 system. That is, the two front speakers get the input from the soundcards first line out and the two rear speakers from the soundcards second line-out (or whatever you connected to the line-in and rear-in on the Decoder Amplifier box) while the center speaker is silent. If you only have connection to the Line-in you'll only hear sound from the two front satellites in this mode (I've seen other reviews saying it will copy the front sound to the rear channels but that's not true). If you choose stereo mode you will only hear sound from your 2 front speakers even if you have some input to the rear in.

iXBT Labs heeft een uitgebreide review online gezet van de Intel 810E chipset. Ook al wordt 133MHz busspeed ondersteund blijft het een low-end solution met brakke integrated graphics.

Although i810E chipsets support 133MHz bus frequency, we can hardly call them an efficient step forward. It is none other than an i810 version well adjusted for modern conditions, which has no chance to win a position among mainstream systems. However, i810E as well as i810, perfectly suits as a solution for Low-End systems providing good performance and image quality in 2D-applications together with an acceptable performance in today's 3D-games, as well as hardware DVD and digital LCD-monitors support.

And as for the future of i810-like chipsets in the mainstream sector, Solano coming out in January seems more fit for that. It will be the same i810 core but provided with the so long awaited PC133 SDRAM support and the possibility to upgrade the graphics system, which can be carried out in two ways. First, you can install special AIMM modules (AGP Inline Memory Module) increasing the display cache size. And second, you can install an external graphics card into a external AGP-port supporting AGP 4x, which will be an indispensable attribute of Solano based mainboards. It looks as if only Solano could become a worthy successor of good old i440BX.

The Register meldt dat VIA haar KX-133 Athlon chipset gaat showen op de Comdex beurs deze maand. Ook DDR Ram voor desktops krijgt aandacht:

Publicly, Via will unveil its long-awaited support for the AMD Athlon processor, a move that will further put heat on Intel. And sources close to the company say that Via will unveil a DDR (double data rate) synchronous memory strategy aimed at desktop PCs, rather than servers. This might be behind closed doors but Via doesn't seem to get scared very easily, so may well go public on the whole shebang. Sources added that Via, which has a stand in the Sands exhibition centre, is also likely to demonstrate its KX-133 chipset running with some fast Athlon processors. [break]Verder meldt Voodoo Extreme dat Abit in de videokaarten markt duikt:[/break] ABIT would like to invite you to visit us this year at Comdex '99. Our booth will be: S2717A. We will be announcing new mainboards based on Intel next generation chipset technology. We will also be announcing new graphics cards, indicating a new direction for us.

Meer ATi Rage Fury MAXX actie op deze maandag. Bij Thresh's FiringSquad hebben ze namelijk een hands-on preview gepost van deze videokaart. Uit de benchmark resultaten blijkt dat de MAXX vooral op hoge resoluties, 32-bit en alle details aan goed presteert t.o.v. de GeForce en TNT2 Ultra. Hieronder een gedeelte uit de test:

The ATI Rage Fury MAXX does very well at high resolutions, but you definitely need a fast processor to get all the performance out of this card. If you were paying attention to how the MAXX scored against the SDR GeForce, you would have noticed that the MAXX performed well against the GeForce on the P3-600 at 1024 and higher resolutions.

The MAXX still has a couple glaring faults. Most notable is the less than spectacular performance on low end CPUs. This shouldn't be much of a problem if you consider that anyone willing to spend $250+ on a graphics card probably already has a powerful processor. Of course, if you have $250 to spend on an upgrade and you're still running on a Celeron 300A or a similar speed processor, you should upgrade your CPU/Mobo before the video card (unless you're still running a virge).

The MAXX also needs a little help at low resolutions. Those of you interested only in frame rates (read: don't care about high resolutions) might want to pass on this card, but the MAXX is a viable option for those of you who like running high resolutions with all the eye candy enabled. For these high-res, eye-candy people, the choice between the SDR GeForce and Rage Fury MAXX is going to be a difficult one to make. Especially when you consider that no other next generation video card can beat ATI's hardware DVD support.

ShugaShack heeft het volgende plaatje van een chick uit Quake 3 gepost. Hier staat ie in het groot .

Verder heeft 360 Degrees ook een buttload aan Quake 3 images gepost. Klik hier om ze te bekijken.

Nog meer Quake 3 info: bij HardOCP zijn ze naar id Software gefietst om daar voor 3 uurtjes Quake 3 te spelen. Volgens hun heeft de game erg veel vooruitgang geboekt sinds de test versie. Het verslag van de trip staat hier.

JanKees schrijft: "ATI heeft een licentie voor het gebruik van S3TC van S3 gekregen voor hun Rage Fury Pro. Dit is de eerste niet-S3 fabrikant met texture compressie onder OpenGL. Dit lijkt me ook van toepassing voor hun MAXX kaart, aangezien die twee Fury Pro chipjes heeft met hardware-matige texture (de)compressie.":

S3 is no more a sole supplier of chips with the S3TC texture compression under the OpenGL. As you know, the S3TC can be freely licensed for the Direct3D and is called DXTC there. Besides the chips from S3 (Savage3D and Savage4) that type of texture compression is also implemented in the Rage Fury Pro, GeForce, and the Blade3D. Neither one of manufacturers of those chips can use the compression under the OpenGL without a license from S3. According to certain sources, ATI does have such a license. In the OpenGL driver for the Rage 128 Pro there is an extension called GL_S3_S3TC that works, for example, with the Quake 3 Arena Test.

Snuffel schrijft: "Snel overstappen naar Word 2000 dus...":

Er is een nieuw Word 97 macrovirus ontdekt en gaat door het leven onder de naam W97.BMH of BMH. Het infecteert het normal.dot-sjabloon van Word 97 en vervolgens elk ander Word-document. Het unieke van het

nieuwe virus is dat het daarnaast een bestand met de naam SNrml.dot in de \Office\STARTUP directory maakt. Zodra het virus een pc heeft besmet, zet het ook het macrovirus-waarschuwingssysteem binnen Office naar de laagste prioriteit, waardoor toekomstige virusbesmettingen mogelijk worden.

The Register meldt in dit nieuwsbericht dat Asus ontkend dat de Asus K7M Athlon plank zal verdwijnen. Zie ook dit bericht.

Sources at Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Asus have denied rumours that the company will withdraw its Athlon CPU motherboard, the K7M, from the market, as a result of pressure from Intel.

Product manager Joe Hsieh said he personally dealt with Intel-CPU motherboards and did not handle the K7M, but said: "The answer should be, we are still making K7 products for OEM customers... I think perhaps you should just ignore that [rumour]... nothing has changed at all."

Hsieh expressed curiosity about the source of the rumours, and suggested company spokesman Alex Lee could also comment on the matter. Lee, unfortunately, is out of the country.

A marketing representative, who did not wish to be named, also said Asus was ready to ship the K7M, but would send it to systems customers first. [break]Tsja, en van het volgende verhaal wordt Sinterklaas ook niet vrolijk:[/break] Other Taiwanese manufacturers admit they downplay products that they see as unpopular with Intel. These include products which use AMD's Athlon CPU or VIA's PC133 chipsets.

Motherboard makers depend on supplies of chipsets and technical data from Intel to meet market demand and develop new products on time.

A high-ranking Asus executive, who requested anonymity, said: "I have no comment about that [the K7M]."

He continued: "Nobody can talk about the K7. It's a very sensitive topic, we don't want any employee to release any K7-related information to anybody."

Thanks Arjan voor de tip.

Weefselkweekje schrijft: "Gamers Depot heeft de CL Annihilator en de ATI Rage Fury MAXX tegen elkaar getest, en het lijkt erop dat de GeForce er een echte concurrent bij heeft... (of eigenlijk 2?)":

Wow! We were absolutely blown away by the performance of both cards. This round proved to be a tough one indeed. On the high-end Athlon 700 the ATI Rage Fury Maxx, under 32bit mode, absolutely raped the GeForce, and sent it away carrying a jar of Vaseline. We did the 16bit benchmarks, however it's doubtful that anyone would want to spend $2K+ on a high-end gaming system, then an additional $250.00 for a graphics card just to run it at 640x480 @ 16bit.

What I can't understand, is why NVIDIA hasn't looked in their own backyard instead of worrying about other companies like 3dfx not supporting 32bit rendering with their Voodoo3 part, when it's obvious that their own chip falls apart when switching to 32bit mode. Sometimes even losing up to 50% framerate. Perhaps they should've called it the GeFARCE? Hopefully those scores will improve as they release newer drivers in the future.

The GeForce, in my opinion only really shines on the lower-end Celeron 500 system, as it completely pulls away from the more CPU-dependant ATI Rage Fury Maxx in all of our testing. This, however, seems to be kind of like shooting themselves in the foot. "Hey, let's design a card, and price it so that only high-end gamers would/could afford it, and then not have it perform well under 32bit, which is the color mode we've been preaching to other companies *cough* 3dfx *cough* for the last 6 months." duh..

Check deze page voor de Athlon 700 benchmarks. De GeForce kaart wordt hard onderuit gehaald!

Koen Crijns van Hardwareinfo.net heeft de MSI 6163 Pro moederplank eens getest. Vanwege de rijke features en veel meegeleverde software is Koen er erg te spreken over en bekroond hem met het beste BX mobo op de markt. Lees de review hier.

Ik had het niet verwacht, maar we ontvingen op de valreep voor de introductie van de 820-chipset toch nog ineens het beste BX-moederbord dat op de markt verkrijgbaar is. De MSI 6163 Pro heeft niet alleen de specificaties waar andere fabrikanten erg trots op zijn, maar biedt zelf ook een aantal zeer unieke zaken. Of je nu een moederbord speciaal voor stabiliteit en betrouwbaarheid of juist een moederbord dat zeer geschikt is voor overklokken zoekt: in beide gevallen biedt de MSI 66163 Pro precies wat je zoekt. Elk van de extra's op het moederbord (SafeBIOS, het D-LED, het CPU Plug & Play III, het PC Alert III of het BUSRacing) is zeer goed uitgewerkt en functioneert perfect.

Aangezien Intel maar blijft aanprutsen met de introductie van de 820-chipset, blijft de BX-moederborden markt nog steeds erg groot. Er zijn nog steeds genoeg personen die op dit moment op zoek zijn naar een nieuw, goed BX-moederbord. Om hen allen te verplichten het MSI 6163 Pro moederbord te kopen gaat wellicht wat ver, maar je krijgt er spijt van als je dit prachtige moederbord niet in overweging neemt.

SysOpt.com heeft een vrij uitgebreide review van de Athlon 700 neer gemikt, met prestatie en price/performance vergelijkingen met de Celeron en PIII. Hier een hap uit de conclusie:

In the end, you have to be the one to decide whether the Athlon is right for you or your company. But do yourself a big favor and realize this: AMD has caught Intel in the processor war, in every way possible, and they have produced a product that is every bit as good, and in my opinion superior, to the Pentium III. Even if the Coppermine somehow manages to regain Intel's standing, which would, dollar for dollar, Megahertz for Megahertz, be a neat trick, you can be pretty sure that AMD will manage to surpass them once again (at the very least, you'll be able to buy the Kryotech SuperG 1GHz Athlon system in December). If you're an IS manager, at least consider evaluating the Athlon in a single system. If you're an enthusiast and/or IT pro, consider making the Athlon your next upgrade. The Athlon 700 is truely the finest product produced by AMD to date.

TargetPC heeft een review van de Epson Stylus Color 900, een kleuren inktjet met 1440x720 dpi resolutie, online gezet:

To recap, the 900 has great print quality, speed, and reliability. This printer is so powerful; it has its own power supply fan. Just yesterday, I managed to print continuous banners that were 44" long--with tractor paper! Not to shabby for an ink jet. Don't worry about expensive ink cartridges either. In its price class, the black one is about $30 and the color one is about $35. HP cartridges were the same price locally, and ink life is no longer an issue as well. My wide-variety printing jobs (mostly at 360 dpi) netted approximately 700 pages before I had to replace the black cartridge and about 1000 pages before I had to replace the color cartridge. Pricewatch.Com has the 900 for around $315, so if you're considering any ink jet in that price range, give the Epson a try, you'll be glad you did.

Ik kreeg een mailtje van Battlax dat Bunny Workshop een PIII-600E op 1018MHz heeft draaien met 170MHz busspeed en een voltage van 1,9V:

Power Gamerz heeft een review van de Yamaha CRW6416SZ op het net gezet. Deze SCSI rewriter bakt op 6-voudige snelheid en reclyced op 4-speed:

One very important thing to note, is that since the CRW6416SZ is using a SCSI bus to write CDs, that this takes a huge load off of the processor and the IDE bus. You should no longer have to shut down all other programs, log of the net, and sit and watch as you burn a CD. As I type this, I am burning an audio CD out of MP3s. This can be very useful, and increases the speed difference, ontop of the general write speed of CD-RW.

Jeremy Allford van AGN 3D heeft, in afwachting van de volledige review, alvast wat info over de ATi Rage MAXX gepost. Dit kaartje heeft twee Rage 128 Pro processors met ieder 32Mb geheugen:

ATI was kind enough to send us one of their new ATI Rage 128 MAXX video cards, with dual Rage 128 Pro graphics processors onboard. Each processor has 32MB of memory, for a total of 64MB for the card. The combination of dual-processors and memory allows the card to have an advantage over SLI and other multiprocessor technology types by allowing the card to cover screens 1 at a time rather then covering parts of a screen. This approach allows for better image quality and faster framerates, a true benefit for those of you needing the most.

Check AGN 3D voor voorlopige benchmarks van de Rage Maxx.