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hello!
Time flies fast for most of us, but
the complete opposite happens when you're stuck in a plane, or traffic. To
alleviate this problem, Samsung have the killer X-mas gift - the DVD-L100
- a portable DVD player for DVD watching movies on the go.
Very cool little device, two thumbs up!
Our report on PCexpo/TechXNY in New York is up and I
hope you'll give it a read as there was some really interesting technology
on display including a computer the size of a deck of cards running a
Crusoe processor.
To wet your whistle this week, we
have a review on the Shuttle DDR33 Ak35GTR motherboard for starters.
This board won
our seal of approval, and if you're an AMD fan it could very
well get yours thanks to its great performance characteristics. Oddly, we haven't
been hearing too much from Shuttle lately so perhaps the
slow down in motherboard sales that Taiwan experienced this spring has had an effect on them. MSI
recently reported it broke the 1.5Million/mo unit mark despite
the slowdown.
On the other hand Albatron have been steadily
making a name for themselves, and their Ti4600 offers a no-frills approach
to fast gaming at a pretty good price. If you're into case modding you may
want to try your hand at a little thing we've nicknamed the "Glowy
GeForce." The details are below, and the pictures tell the whole story.
Last, but not least we have a wireless round up from Belkin that can
put you on the fast track to 802.11b wireless networking.
Remember for the next few weeks we are giving away
MSI Bluetooth Motherboard Prize Packs - keep checking your mail
to see if you've won!
There aren't too
many things that would get me to drop everything on the go... that is until I
saw the aluminum encased DVD-L100 portable DVD player from Samsung which
retails for about $900 USD.
What we have here is a portable DVD drive, a 10"
LCD display (in perfect 16:9 aspect ratio for letter box movies), a Sony
Memory Stick media port (for MP3's), twin headphone jacks and a small
assortment of audio and video outputs. The 10" WVGA 800x480 pixel LCD screen has a contrast ratio of 300:1, and brightness value of 350
cd/m2 which is really impressive. Battery life is listed at 3 hours with
the standard 7.4V 4400mAh Lithium Ion battery, and up to 6 hours
with an optional extended life version
Article Link: https://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1151
 Report on PCExpo / TechXNY 2002
The underlying theme of this years PCexpo was
supposed to be practical uses of technology, but the event was really held
at the mercy of New York City grid lock
where shiny little bits of technology can't really help you out.
The camera is just about the same size as a credit card, and only 11mm
thick. It's impressive to see one single product capture anyone's
attention in a show full of cutting edge technology, but when it also
captures the attention of the other exhibitors you that is even more
impressive.
Article Link: https://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1147
 H'mm.. think you've
seen this motherboard somewhere before because AK35GTR just sounds way too
familiar? Well, why we really like Shuttle
we are not reviewing the same motherboard again,
the Shuttle AK35GTR Version 2.2 is an all new board, and this time
it's based on VIA's KT333 chipset. The new
AK35GTR uses VIA's new VT8233A southbridge which is the same as the older
VT8233 except the new A version has support for Ultra/133 harddrives. The
board also comes with on board Ultra/133
IDE RAID which uses the Highpoint HPT372 chipset and can do RAID's 0, 1
and 0+1. If you don't feel like "RAIDing" your harddrives, then it can
also be used as an IDE controller as well.
Article Link: https://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1039
If Ethernet moving into the home was the first big revolution
in networking, Wireless LAN or IEEE 802.11b, is slated to be the
next. With a range of just over 300 feet indoors at 11Mbps, a
wireless network enables many computers to communicate without the need for wires. Data is sent over
the radio waves at a frequency of between 2400~2483.5 MHz using Direct
Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) technology, and so a few security measures
need to be taken to safeguard yourself.
Article Link: https://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1053
Colin's Weekly Tech Tips
By: Colin
Sun |
 One of the biggest things you can do to boost your overall system performance is to tune your system memory. When your computer is POSTing (when your memory is being counted) you have to get into your BIOS, usually it's as simple as pressing the "Delete" key, on some motherboards you have to press "F1".
After you're in the BIOS you want to go to your "Advanced Chipset Features". Inside that sub menu's look for "DRAM Timing" or "DRAM Control". Once you find that, look for "CAS Latency" or "CL". On the safe side this is usually set to "SPD" (Serial Presence Detect) but you'll find if you can adjust the value to "2" your overall system performance would go up approx. 5-7%!
Basically what this tweak does is, it forces your memory to run a little more aggressively. It no longer waits as long when addressing and transferring data between the bus, CPU, or other peripherals. You should notice the biggest performance differences in games or anything that heavily taxes your system.
For more insight into the world of tweaks, track down Colin in the PCstats forums for some Q & A
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PCstats
Issue No.46
Circulation 120,450
The High Tech Low Down
With C. Angelini |
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It has been a while since the chipset market
saw innovation. Intel has relied on the i850 family
for nearly two years. AMD has purposely steered
clear of manufacturing chipsets to make room for third-party
products. SiS has popped in and out with a couple
of surprises; ALi made a brief stand and
NVIDIA
debuted their rookie sensation, nForce.
Things are about to get a little more
interesting though. To begin with, NVIDIA is set to unveil their next of
kin - Crush 18 (or nForce 2). The first variant will feature AGP 8x
and DDR333/400 support. Another version will follow, sporting
GeForce4 MX-class integrated graphics. The first nForce didn't live
up to the hype so it will be interesting to see how nForce2 is
approached. I'd expect an announcement from NVIDIA
within two weeks. VIA plans to keep
NVIDIA at bay
with the KT400 chipset. Fundamentally a revised KT333,
VIA's latest will support 8x AGP and DDR400 memory,
among other things. Additionally, VIA is also
readying the P4X400 and P4X600 chipsets for the Pentium 4 market.
The success of these products will be contingent largely on
VIA's
ability to obtain a license for the Pentium 4 bus.
Both manufacturers have already demonstrated
systems running AMD
Clawhammer processors. Boards based on these chipsets are expected to debut alongside the Hammer family at the end of this year.
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