CeBIT is a huge week-long trade show that takes place in Hannover, Germany. Aside from it being a yearly event, CeBIT serves as a natural platform for companies such as Intel and ATI to demo new technologies. This year CeBIT starts on March 13th, a day when you can expect to hear about a few things currently cloaked under tight secrecy. We'd tell you, but then you know... 007 and all that. What we do know so far is that motherboard manufacturers should be showing off quite a lot. For starters, there will be Intel i865PE "Springdale" chipsets tag-teamed with the new ICH5 southbridge. The i865PE chipset supports the upcoming 800MHz FSB 3.2GHz "Prescott" core Pentium 4 processors along with DDR400 memory among other things. The i865G chipset will also be shown, and this chipset offers similar features as that of the i865PE with the inclusion of onboard graphics. The chipset to avoid however will be the i865P because it is limited to the (aging) 400MHz and (current) 533MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors. Intel's i875P "Canterwood" supports both 533MHz and 800MHz FSB Pentium 4's, and various motherboards are expected to be displayed by the major mainboard manufacturers. FIC for example, have already released the specs on their i875P VW11 mainboard and it does look appealing.

On the graphics front, CeBIT attendies should be greeted with a small army of nVidia GeForce FX 5800 videocards from companies like Albatron, MSI, Abit and Asus. The Albatron model is much anticipated considering the impressive results of the Ti4200P-Turbo we witnessed previously. That said, I'd expect the real draw on the graphics front to be the new ATI Radeon 9800 and 9800 Pro graphics cards which will include a 400MHz RAMDAC, 8 pipeline architecture, 256 bit data width, AGP 8X and DirectX 9.0/OpenGL support. Not to be left out, VIA is expected to display mainboards supporting the VIA PT400, K8T400M (hammer) and KT400A chipsets. Start looking for KT400A mainboards as early as April incidently.

What does all this mean for you and I? Well, for starters if you are considering building yourself a new PC right now it might be a good idea to wait a little while till some of these new chipsets start surfacing. On the other hand, if you are looking for some good hardware right now be sure to check out the PCstats ShoppingList for little assistance. Last but not least, please check out our review of the integrated graphics bearing MSI K7N2G-ILSR nForce2 Motherboard, Belkin USB2.0 hub and venerable Shuttle SS50 SFF system.

Last week's PCstats.com Newsletter discussion about the problem of Blown and Leaking mainboard Capacitors has struck a chord with many of you, illustrating just how widespread this issue seems to be. The discussion continues in the PCstats Forums, so if you know of a good place to find replacement Low ESR Capacitors, or have tips on replacing them, feel free to share your insight.

PCstats.com ShoppingList Assistance

We know how confusing it can be choosing the right components for a new computer system, or an upgrade to an existing one. That's why every month we assemble the PCstats.com ShoppingList as a guide to help you get good gear. We cover the basic components needed to assemble a full system, with monitor, and list the average $USD price each part retails for so you can print it out and take it with you. Use the ShoppingList as a guide to build a better "white box" system, or follow our recommendations to the letter - it's totally up to you.

The ShoppingList is updated on the 1st of each month, however just because something newer and faster may have come to market doesn't mean it's worth getting right away! Be sure to read the "Notes:" section at the base of each PCstats.com ShoppingList for a brief explanation of why some hardware made it onto the list, and why other gear didn't.

Visit the PCstats.com ShoppingList Page for the March 2003 Budget $599 System, $1500 Mainstream System and $2500 High-End Performance System hardware recommendations.

MSI K7N2G-ILSR nForce2 Motherboard Review

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Belkin USB 2.0 Hub Review		Shuttle SS50 Pentium 4 Cube System Review
USB 2.0 devices really haven't reached a high saturation point yet, but when they do it will be good to know that there are already a host of peripherals out that will let you expand the number of ports you have. One such USB2.0 comes from the folks at Belkin, and besides adding four backwards compatible USB 2.0 ports to a computer, also attempts to breach the design limits with a funky spaceship like look. The Belkin 2.0 USB Hub runs for about $70CDN. Of course if you already have the Belkin USB 2.0 Hi-Speed PCI card you will be set. But in any case, if you have been looking around the market place it may be wise decision to spend a little extra at this time and set yourself up with a USB2.0 compatible hub instead of a simple USB1.1 hub. Consider it future proofing or looking ahead, USB2.0 is arriving quickly, and there isn't much point in getting outdated technology now is there? With USB 2.0 devices are no longer restricted to the lowly 11Mb/s USB 1.1 had to offer, 480Mb/s now opens up the use of USB to external harddrives, CD-RW's, video cameras and like devices. Read the Rest...		There is a growing trend in North America towards making a personal computer small and powerful. Large cases are good for some applications, but sometimes it is more desirable to have the smallest possible formfactor you can manage without the expense of a laptop. To this end several companies have produced small formfactor Cube computers. These computers, like Shuttle's SS50 use special motherboards and standard components to maximize features and lesson space requirements. Things which are normally the product of an expansion card or two are integrated into the motherboard and the result is something that if tuned right can be extremely quiet. What is very new about the SS50 is that it is a socket 478 Pentium 4 DDR based computer. There are expansion slots for AGP cards, but video comes rather from the SIS 650 chipset. With two DIMM slots capable of supporting up to 2GB of PC2100 DDR, onboard 10/100 NIC, Firewire, 6-channel AC'97 audio and TV-out capabilities there isn't a whole lot this small aluminum cube couldn't be tasked to. Read the Rest...

Colin's Weekly Tech Tips
By: Colin Sun	Today: Load Windows into RAM
	While Windows2k and WInXP manage its memory much better then the Win9x based operating systems, you can make both the actual Win2k or XP OS run more efficiently by keeping all of its code in system memory (since it's the most used program) rather than in a HDD swap file. Go to Start -> Run and type regedit. From there follow this path. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Session Manager -> Memory Management. Right click on the DisablePagingExecutive DWORD value, change its value to 1, save and reboot. Now Win2k and WinXP will stay in your system memory instead of going into the HDD swap file. Please note, you must have at least 512MB of system memory otherwise you'll notice a slowdown in performance!
Colin's Tips Archives | PCStats.com Forums

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