"Throughout the review process the general impression of this board has been very favorable. Soltek has made quite a few improvements with the SL-K890Pro-939 that compliment the new chipset and make the motherboard very enthusiast friendly."

Long-standing partnership between VIA and AMD achieves historic milestone, looks to the next 100 million with the advancement of technologies on the AMD64 platform and beyond.

Taipei, Taiwan, 23 February 2005 - VIA Technologies, Inc, the leading supplier of core-logic chipsets for AMD (NYSE: AMD) processor platforms, today announced the unique achievement of 100 million core-logic chipsets for AMD AthlonT processors. The 100 millionth chipset, a VIA K8T890, will be presented to AMD by VIA President and CEO Wenchi Chen at a ceremony to be held in San Francisco on Thursday 24th February.

The VIA K8T890 is an advanced PCI ExpressT chipset for the very latest AMD64 processors with support for a 1GHz/16-bit HyperTransportT technology bus and a multi-peripheral PCI Express implementation, representing the foundation stone for the next hundred million chipset milestone. Offering a comprehensive range of chipsets covering all market segments, including desktop, mobile, workstation and server, VIA is well positioned to continue to drive the advancement of the AMD platform market.

"VIA's support has been vital in the evolution and growth of AMD, from the introduction of early AMD processors all the way through to today's powerful AMD64 processors," said Dirk Meyer, executive vice president, Computation Products Group, AMD. "AMD's close partnering with industry leaders such as VIA has set the standard of offering the best solutions to meet customer's individual needs. This incredible milestone is a testament to that strategy, and we look forward to seeing the next 100 million VIA chipsets power future generations of AMD processors."

"We are proud to have played such a prominent role in the amazing journey of the AMD platform. Systems featuring the powerful combination of a VIA chipset and AMD processor have met the needs of countless professionals, enthusiasts and everyday computer users all over the world," commented Wenchi Chen, President and CEO, VIA Technologies, Inc. "VIA will continue to work closely with AMD to offer innovative, high performance products, ensuring many more significant milestones in the years to come."

VIA first joined forces with AMD in 1994 with chipset support for the Am486DX2 running at 40MHz. This successful partnership resulted in leading chipset support for the AMD AthlonT processor family and, as AMD processors continued to gain momentum in consumer and enterprise markets, the AMD64 platform, which was launched in 2003 for 32- and 64-bit computing. With successive generations of chipsets, VIA has delivered innovative features and rock-solid stability to enable the AMD platform to maintain its performance crown.

Throughout this time span, from the introduction of the acclaimed VIA KX133 chipset in 1999, to the recently announced VIA K8T890 PCI Express chipset, VIA chipsets have consistently introduced numerous advanced technologies to the AMD platform. While other vendors were promoting the benefits of alternative RAMBUS RDRAM memory, VIA pioneered the introduction of PC133 SDRAM memory, then DDR SDRAM memory for the AMD processor platform, realizing these standards had the performance levels and cost benefits to effectively meet the needs of the market. More recently, VIA chipsets have continued this trend with introduction of new technologies such as PCI Express, Serial ATA and integrated V-RAID storage.

The core-logic chipset can be described as the central nervous system of a computer, typically handling communications between the system's processor, memory, graphics ports, storage devices and other I/O connections. Being responsible for all communication between the system's key components, the quality of the chipset design is a major factor in determining system performance and reliability.

My experiences with the 660 CPU and with the 3.73 GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition has for the most part been pleasant. No abnormal temperature readings or crashes were noticed during testing. Performance compared to the 3.4 GHz Extreme Edition I use in motherboard testing is nothing to write home about. In gaming, the 3.73 GHz sometimes trails the 3.4 GHz in my testing by a small amount, but mostly leads it. Office applications seem to get a boost compared to the 3.4 GHz EE, as shown by Sysmark 2004 and PCMark04.

WITH EXPANSIVE INTERNALS that can accommodate up to three hard drives, a trio of temperature-controlled cooling zones, tool-free drive rails, and a robust 350W power supply, the P series is undoubtedly the pinnacle of Shuttle's XPC chassis line. Enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting a P-series XPC for the Athlon 64, but in the seven months since the chassis' introduction, the P series has been a Pentium 4-only affair. That all changes today with the arrival of Shuttle's XPC SN25P.

"As AMD introduced the Athlon64, Abit introduced their first Socket 754 motherboard. The first one, version 1.0, came with one huge bug--no AGP/PCI locks. Everyone looked down on Abit for not providing working AGP/PCI locks and turned away for quite some time. Fortunately, Abit was quick with their revisions and came up with the current version--v1.1. It provides working AGP/PCI locks to allow for potentially great overclocking results. While many consider Socket 754 an aging socket, it should still stick around for a while. Heck, Socket A is still around, so why not Socket 754?"

"Intel has made several key changes to the IA-32 architecture to allow for these 64-bit applications, such as adding support for 64-bit linear addressing. Variations of the IA-32 architecture may not offer full 64-bit linear addressing, such as the processors we'll be looking at today which offer support for 48-bit linear addressing. This issue will be covered in a more detailed nature when we discuss the memory organization under 64-bit mode."

"Today we see the launch of the first 64-bit processor from Intel in the flavor of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition with EM64T which is clocked at 3.73GHz. In this article we cover the changes in the new CPU and how it performs against previous processors from Intel. Read on for your first taste of 64-bit from Intel."

"While we give Intel a lot of credit for the new features, at the same time we're left thinking is that it? AMD owners have been sitting on similar technologies for almost two years now. While the names differ, for all intents and purposes they do the same thing. Basically, Intel hasn't brought anything new to the table for computing in general."

Good morning folks. We sleepily bring you our Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and 3.73GHz Extreme Edition Processor showcase today, as the NDA embargo lifts at 3AM EST / 12AM PST. With EM64T extensions for 64-bit computing, 2MB of L2 cache, Execute Disable Bit for virus - buffer overflow protection and advanced SpeedStep power saving technology, we certainly have plenty to cover, so you better fire up a bit more Joe if you're up and around at this wee hour.

A LITTLE OVER A YEAR ago, while media attention was affixed firmly on the Superbowl, Intel discreetly let slip a brand-new, vastly rearchitected CPU core that, by all rights, should have been called the Pentium 5. The "Prescott" CPU core, as we now know, became somewhat infamous for its particular combination of tepid performance and gluttonous appetite for power (and corresponding prodigious heat production). This was the processor that supposed to make it to 4GHz and never did, the CPU that convinced Intel that the future was in dual-core designs and "platformization." It may not have been a resounding success or a complete failure, but it was certainly consequential, despite its quiet introduction.

We've just posted a new review on HotHardware of Abit's innovative Fatal1ty AA8XE. This motherboard, based on the i925XE chipset for LGA775 Pentium 4 processors, has a very complete feature set and an excellent array of overclocking options. Head on over to the site and check it out.

"The Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 proved to be a solid and high performing board across all our testing and is a nice entry on Soltek's part for VIA's new PCI Express enabled K8T890. Overall, we were quite pleased with the motherboard and if you're looking for an alternative to NVIDIA for your Athlon PCI Express needs, the Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 is certainly worthy of consideration."

"PCStats will be focusing in on the AOpen n250a-FR Socket 754 nForce3-250 motherboard in this review. This board supports any Socket 754 AMD Athlon64 or any of AMD's new budget 32-bit AMD Sempron processors. Three DDR memory slots accommodate up to 3GB of non ECC unbuffered PC3200 DDR RAM. Both the socket 754 Athlon64 and Sempron processors run with single channel DDR, as does the nForce3-250 chipset. The nVidia nForce 3 chipset does not support PCI Express, so graphics are provided by a standard AGP8x slot. In terms of onboard features, the n250a-FR motherboard includes an additional Silicon Image Sil3114 Serial ATA/RAID controller, an onboard 5.1 audio codec, a Realtek Gigabit NIC, IEEE 1394 and a dual BIOS feature."

Today we have a look at the XFX 6600GT. This is one of the few mainstream video cards that can handle all the current game titles without taking all the money from your bank account!

"The card itself is built upon an attractive blue PCB and looks like your typical PCI-E video card. Something I noticed was how "clean" or uncluttered this card is. The 6600GT core runs at 500MHz, so no special cooling is needed. You should also be able to make out the lack of a 4 pin power connector. Pretty sweet card with a very clean and simple layout?"

FOXCONN'S WINFAST NF4UK8AA is the least expensive nForce4 Ultra motherboard on the market. With a street price hovering under $110, the board costs $30-40 less than other nForce4 Ultras. That's quite a savings when you consider that the $110 price point is largely occupied by nForce4 "4x" motherboards that don't officially support a 1GHz HyperTransport link.

The prospect of a less expensive nForce4 Ultra implementation is certainly tempting, especially when the chipset generally dictate's a motherboard's feature set and performance. Still, enthusiasts look beyond performance benchmarks and spec sheets. We crave intelligent layouts, ample overclocking options, and robust BIOSes filled with tweaking options.

With an nForce4 Ultra at its core, the WinFast NF4UK8AA should have the features and performance that enthusiasts want. Read on to see if Foxconn gets the rest of the board right.

There are four options available; Performance, Normal, Automatic and Silent. Power Master will also control the smart fan speed allowing for increased/decreased fan speed depending on the actual CPU usage at the time. It's quite a nifty feature, and it does work very well. For our testing purposes, we will provide results with the Power Master set to Normal as well as Performance to give you an idea of how well this feature works.

We've just posted a review of a feature laden i925XE based motherboard from Foxconn, the 925XE7AA-8EKRS2. Unlike some of Foxconn's previous offerings, the 925XE7AA-8EKRS2 is targeted squarely at enthusiasts and offers a host of overclocking tools and drive connectivity options. Head on over to the site and check it out.

"In this first part of PCstats two-part guide to basic Linux use and installation, we aim to familiarize you with using Linux for everyday computing purposes by means of the most popular Linux desktop environment, KDE. Since we realize that many users will not be willing to take the plunge and install Linux onto their systems to test it, we will use a 'live CD' Linux distribution, which can run entirely off a single CD."

"DFI was fairly small and quiet back in the early days. It was not until a year or so ago that people started recognizing the company. They broke out into the enthusiast community with their first LANParty motherboard, based on VIA's KT400A chipset. They quickly continued the LANParty line with Nvidia's nForce2 chipset and eventually branched into Intel motherboards. The LANParty was a huge hit, not only because it provided possibly the best overclocking results on an overall basis, but because the motherboard offered great voltage options. It was certainly a huge plus since enthusiasts no longer needed to perform voltage modifications. The LANParty motherboards were also the first to provide a stunningly high 3.3v to VDIMM. Everyone, including myself, jumped on the DFI wagon."

"Throughout all the testing the Albatron PX925X Pro didn't falter once, and let's face it, if your motherboard isn't stable, then nothing you do will make the whole system stable. Standard performance was up there with all the other 925 based boards we have seen, and even put in a few impressive memory and content creation scores higher than expected (nothing you would see except in a benchmark but higher none the less)."

Have you heard the rumor about the lack of Samsung TCCD IC's on the market? We sure have! Today we get to the bottom of things and contact the people that are in the know for the answers and not just the rumors. This is a must read for any overclocker, gamer, enthusiast that cares about memory timings.

"From what we found out today from Corsair, Kingston, and Mushkin is that the memory industry is not worried about the recent concerns dealing with Samsung ending production on the TCCD IC's. To be honest not once were the words discontinued or EOL (End of Life) used in our conversations. If you were one of the people this morning running around telling all your friends to buy TCCD based memory today you now know that is not the case."

If the buzz and excitement over the new nForce4 boards coming out is any indication of how successful NVIDIA's new chipset will be, then we just might have another nForce2 on our hands. If you wanted the best in Athlon XP performance and overclocking, you looked towards NVIDIA and one of its partner's nForce2 solutions. It's a safe bet that NVIDIA and its partners hope the same happens with the Athlon 64 and its nForce4. No doubt, many enthusiasts are pumped up about SLI, but there's a lot more than SLI to be excited about, including NVIDIA Firewall and RAID.

"Most of the dual-channel DDR memory kits on the marketplace are aimed at hardcore enthusiasts and overclockers; users with money to burn. Agressive timings, shiny heatspreaders and even banks of LED lights are the order of the day. You have to wonder how many high-end products this market can possibly support though, with all these 'extreme' memory products competing for a sparse amount of performance users. This mainstream DDR dual channel kit features a pair of PC3200 512MB DDR modules with CAS timings of 2.5-3-3-8. Though not aimed at the extreme overclocker or performance enthusiast, this package looks to offer decent dual-channel performance at a price that won't cause pain."

GIGABYTE Technology Co. announces the release of its new blockbuster graphics accelerator, the GV-RX85X256V-B. The release of Gigabyte's latest ATI based VGA card occurs as the top-of-the-line ATI RADEON 850XT Platinum VPU becomes available. The GV-RX85X256V-B features the most advanced ATI VPU to date that sports impressive enhancements such as SMARTSHADER HD, SMOOTHVISION HD and the revolutionary 3Dc engine.

THOSE OF YOU who have been hanging around here for a while know that I tend to get rather excited about a really good mid-range graphics card. Sure, the more expensive models are nice, and it's one of the perks of the job that I get to play around with them now and then. But when a GPU maker takes all of the technology built into a $500 luxury toy and crams it into a $200-ish package that offers decent performance, that's serious business. For many of us, NewEgg and the ol' credit are about to have a rendezvous.

That's why we were excited when the new generation of eight-pipe graphics cards arrived this past fall, including the GeForce 6600 series and ATI's answer, the Radeon X700 line. The GeForce 6600 GT, in particular, was an excellent newcomer, and ATI countered by announcing the Radeon X700 XT, which we promptly reviewed. ATI's new mid-range card was a little slower than the GeForce 6600 GT, but the Radeon X700 XT wasn't a bad option, save for one thing: you couldn't buy one. ATI kept promising that we'd see them soon, but very few cards ever materialized. In the end, the Radeon X700 XT was stillborn, and ATI announced a replacement with better performance at the same price: the Radeon X800.

The Sapphire Radeon X800 card that we're reviewing today is one of the very first Radeon X800 cards available on the market, and it promises to be stiff competition for the GeForce 6600 GT. In fact, given the Radeon X800's 12-pipeline design, this shouldn't be a fair fight. But it should be fun to watch.

"For a mid range card with 128mb, I was expecting Doom 3 and Far Cry to require an 800x600 resolution for acceptable frame rates, but this wasn't the case; all the games tested ran at 1024x768 with some FSAA and AF without issue, and in some cases a few even broke into playable at 1280x1024 (albeit without FSAA or AF)."

"Mike takes a close look at the EPoX 9NDA3+ Socket 939 motherboard today which is based around nVidia's nForce3 Ultra chipset. The motherboard makes use of an AGP port instead of the newer PCI-Express version which makes it a good option for users wanting to keep their old yet workable AGP graphics card and upgrade to the new Socket 939 Athlon 64 platform. Read on as we compare the EPoX 9NDA3+ against other solutions in its league and work out which is best for your needs as a gamer."

"Contest is really simple and is WORLDWIDE.

At the end of February, I will be giving away four Corsair 1Gig 3200XL Low Latency Memory kits to who have followed the rules outlined and have become or have been contributing members of the Tweaknews.net forums."

We've just posted a new review on HotHardware of Asus' excellent P5AD2-E i925XE based motherboard. This board comes loaded with an impressive array of bundled accessories, and has a full compliment of overclocking tools available via its BIOS. Head on over and check it out.

We've just posted a new preview at HotHardware of VIA's PT894 and PT880 Pro chipsets for Intel's LGA775 processors. We've got information regarding VIA's plans for these chipsets, along with some benchmarks from a pair of reference motherboards powered by the PT894 and PT880 Pro. Head on over and take a look...

INTEL'S 915 and 925X CHIPSETS made their debut last June, bringing with them a whole raft of new technologies all at once. Since then, Intel has had the P4 chipset market nearly all to itself. VIA is aiming to change that with the introduction of three new chipsets for the Pentium 4 sporting a wealth of new features, including PCI Express, that should finally give VIA chipsets feature parity with Intel. Not only that, but VIA's PT880 Pro looks like an upgrader's best friend, with simultaneous support for AGP and PCI Express graphics cards. Some of the first PT880 Pro boards will even feature multiple DIMM slot types, with support for DDR and DDR2 memory.

Solid-state disks (SSDs) were originally designed in the 1980s for use as cache in real-time performance hungry applications, as well as mass storage in industrial and military systems, where immunity against shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures was required. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, SSDs remained a relatively expensive niche product - a high-cost technology only justified for mission-critical applications such as those found in the avionics and defense industries, with few and far-in-between deployments in the IT arena.

Futuremark Corporation announced today the immediate availability of updates to its 3DMark03, 3DMark05 and PCMark04 suites of benchmark software. 3DMark is the worldwide standard tool for easily and objectively measuring and comparing DirectX 3D performance of Windows based PCs. PCMark04 is a state-of-the-art home user performance analysis tool and has been widely adopted; over 2 million copies have been distributed since launched in November 2003.

Available immediately, free downloadable software updates provide the only valid versions 3.6.0 of 3DMark03, version 1.2.0 of 3DMark05 and version 1.3.0 of PCMark04. Only scores obtained through the new versions and with approved drivers will be used in official statistics, comparisons and services provided by Futuremark.

"Are you tired of having to search around the web, looking over countless reviews of motherboards to decide which seems the best for overclocking? Sick of trying to figure out what board will be the best for your setup? Then you've come to the right place. The purpose of this database is to allow you, the overclocking enthusiast, to gain a better idea as to the overclocking capabilities of the motherboard that you're currently interested in."

"When reviewing a product like the X600XT, it's important to keep in mind what the product's purpose is - in the case of the X600XT, it is to provide a budget/mid-range PCI-Express solution. In this respect, ATI has definitely succeeded - the X600XT is within the boundaries of mid-range cards, and performs well."

Today at HotHardware.com we've posted our review of ATI's All-In-Wonder X600 Pro. This is the first All-In-Wonder based on PCI Express, but that's not all that's new. ATI revamped the design with a much smaller tuner and came up with an innovative approach to cable management too. Check the link below for the full story!

"We've got yet another Shuttle small form factor system under the spotlight today, this time it's the SB77G5 XPC. It makes use of the Intel Canterwood chipset supporting AGP and DDR memory but supports the newer Socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 processors. Today we take a look at the XPC and what has changed (if any) as well as see what type of overclocking performance we can get from the unit."

"We have an update from SilverStone regarding the potentiometers. Apparently I was blind and did not see it, but in fact, the potentiometers are there. Extreme enthusiasts, rest assure that you'll have access to manipulate the voltage rails as you please. But remember, tampering with the potentiometers will result in a voided warranty. SilverStone and InsaneTek are not responsible for any of your mishaps."

"If the application is not threaded, it will not see benefits from Dual Core. However, if the OS is threaded and it's running two non-threaded applications, we'll see some improvements as compared to a single core design. Say you have a virus scanner running and you open a 20MB PowerPoint presentation, a dual core CPU will do so much more efficiently."

"The big issue many users have with flash drives is the typically the device itself since they tend to fall apart with minimal use. Corsair has tried to solve this by wrapping the entire drive in a durable rubber shell."

The new CMFUSB2.0-2GB card offers a great amount of storage capacity in an extremely small package. Corsair's new Flash Voyager products are as highly acclaimed for their durability as they are for performance. Their soft rubber shock resistant, water resistant casing protects valuable data from the elements better than any other USB drive on the market. Supporting read speeds of up to 19MB per second, this drive also offers award-winning performance.

According to Corsair Product Manager, Eric Ackerson, "This product is the result of Corsair's considerable effort to constantly drive performance and capacity to new levels. It shows Corsair's commitment to the Flash market."

"It's not surprising that over the last couple years we have seen some crazy-looking gaming cases. Cases made by companies such as Raidmax, Logisys, and Thermaltake have become more creative and innovative. While these cases are too flashy for my tastes, the fact that these cases still exist signifies a large user base for these types of cases. I browsed around several forums and noticed that a good amount of people purchased these cases for cooling potential. These cases typically have more fans than standard cases. Today, NZXT has given us the honor of reviewing their latest gaming case - the Nemesis Elite Edition."

THE BIGGEST PROMISE of NVIDIA's new SLI GPU-teaming capability may be the ability to upgrade on an installment plan. By building an SLI-capable system with a single graphics card now, users give themselves the option of adding a second card later for nearly two times the rendering power. For most of us, the most realistic and affordable means of building such a system is NVIDIA's GeForce 6600 GT GPU. At around $200, the 6600 GT seems ideal for SLI.

But does a multi-GPU solution with $200 cards make sense in the age of killer $400 cards and eBay? Tough question. In order to answer it, we've tested a pair of Asus's sweet GeForce 6600 GT cards in SLI, and we've compared them to thirteen different competitors, ranging from a single GeForce 6600 GT to ATI's impressive new Radeon X800 XL. Keep reading to see what we found.

" ATI's All-In-Wonder X600 Pro improves upon its predecessors in many ways and falls short in others. By combining gaming and multimedia benefits into a single card, owners of PCI-Express based systems can have the best of both worlds for an affordable price. ATI has improved the dongle which you use for audio/video connections by allowing it to physically screw into the card to make it more secure. There are also plenty of audio and video connections to make the casual user very happy. Hardcore gamers or multimedia buffs will want to upgrade to the X800 XT All-In-Wonder card which includes support for component video output, a faster processor and their Remote Wonder remote control."

"The X800 Pro is definitely no slouch. Smooth performance in most games with the image quality turned up and the resolution maxed is something to be proud of. Based on our results, we have no problems recommending this card to our readers. While some benchmarks have shown the 6800 GT to be faster, the actual gaming experiences with the X800 Pro were positive."

INTEL'S LOWEST PENTIUM 4 speed grades have traditionally had excellent overclocking potential, perhaps because of the company's undeniable fabrication prowess. However, Intel has never been a big fan of overclocking, and they've gone to great lengths to limit the practice over the years. Recently, Intel went as far as to implement hardware limitations on overclocking with its 900-series chipsets, whose front-side bus can generally only be increased by 10% without creating problems.

A handful of motherboard manufacturers have found ways to hack around Intel's 900-series overclocking lock, but there's a better solution: Intel's new 925XE chipset. Designed as a companion for pricey Extreme Edition chips, the 925XE natively supports a 1066MHz front-side bus and all the proper bus dividers needed to run at that speed. Best of all, you don't need to drop a grand on an Extreme Edition processor to take advantage of the chipset; it works just fine with LGA775 Pentium 4 processors designed for an 800MHz front-side bus.

Given its penchant for producing overclocking-friendly boards, it was only a matter of time before Abit tackled the 925XE chipset. They've wrapped Intel's latest core logic up in a new Fatal1ty-branded motherboard build with gamers and enthusiasts in mind. Is the Fatal1ty-AA8XE the ultimate Pentium 4 overclocking board? Read on to find out.

"Arctic-Cooling has been known mostly for their dominating VGA Silencers, which combined efficient cooling and minimal noise. We reviewed their latest update of VGA silencers months ago and awarded them the "MUST HAVE" award. Today, we will be looking at their latest innovation. The Freezer 64 utilizes a patented fan that creates almost no noise. Hopefully, this heatsink will be just as effective as their VGA Silencers were."

The 6600GT chipset is probably the best mid-range solution that nVidia has ever produced, and Albatron has done a fine job manufacturing their version of it. With the oversized gold heatsink on the blue PCB, it's got the looks. And with very nice frame rates in all of our benchmarks it's got the horsepower under the hood as well.

"MSI's new NX6600GT-VTD128 AGP videocard is compatible with 8x/4x AGP motherboards only, and will not physically fit in AGP 2X or earlier slots. It comes equipped with 128MB of Samsung GDDR3 BGA memory on a 128-bit memory bus. At 900MHz, the MSI NX6600GT-VTD12's memory is clocked 50 Mhz slower than the Albatron Trinity 6600GT AGP card we reviewed recently, and a full 100Mhz slower than the Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D's memory. We'll see later if this has any impact on benchmark performance. For the multimedia enthusiasts out there, the NX6600GT-VTD128 is fully VIVO compatible."

"Welcome to part two of our 2005 CES coverage. In our part one coverage of this fantastic show, we featured products which fell into three basic categories: displays, media devices such as Media Center PC's and streaming media devices, and IPTV based products, not to mention a few products which simply stood out among others. Part two has a very strong showing of home audio products as well as a few miscellaneous products which were just too cool not to show off."

"The benchmarks really didn't give us any surprises as higher frequencies equals better performance. The focus of the review today was simply the overclocking, and the new TWINX1024-3200XL v1.2 brought it in spades. The new PCB was the deciding factor here as we've reached overclocks that were unattainable with Corsair's earlier XL kit."

"Thermaltake, a leader in heatsink technology for PC's has introduced a new cooler for Socket-478, AMD K7, and K8. The POLO-735 Extreme 3 in 1 Cooler is a powerful all copper thin-finned unit. Mated with a powerful 80mm smart-fan, thermistor, and rheostat, all in an ergonomically friendly package"

"Weren't we all supposed to be using BTX by now? When this radical form-factor change for motherboards and PC cases was first proposed by Intel in 2003, its introduction was supposed to coincide with the birth of the Alderwood and Grantsdale chipsets we now know as the Intel 915P and 925X. Instead, the standard took until just recently to get off the ground with manufacturers in Taiwan, resulting in Intel bumping the official introduction of the BTX form factor to their upcoming chipset generation, Glenwood and Lakeport."

The Overclocker Cafe' ran into a fluke with the NVidia GeForce 6600 GT GPUs where in certain situations higher screen resolution equaled higher frame rates. Not only were we stumped but so were the manufactures. After a bug report circulated around NVidia for we did get an answer to the riddle. The 6600 GT GPUs actually scale their settings back in some situations. Here's a snip of their one page editorial on it.

While this is not exactly an earth shattering issue, we did find it interesting all the same. This was especially the case in the context of every VGA card we've had pass through here before, never scaled its settings back. Is this a good or bad thing depends on the perspective of Joe User. Personally, I see this as an good thing. At a certain point, instead of making your gameplay d--r--a--g along, the scaling back tries to keep things as playable as possible which is really what its all about anyway.

IF WE LEARNED anything from the Consumer Electronic Show's 2005 edition, it's that PCs will be gaining TiVo-like functionality as a standard feature this year. Not only that, but this new capability will apparently come courtesy of Microsoft. Seemingly every motherboard maker, system builder, graphics card company, and widget manufacturer at the show had a box running Windows XP Media Center Edition. Windows MCE was easily the story of the show as far as PCs are concerned.

For us, however, adding a TV Tuner card, a remote, and a new software layer to a PC wasn't quite as impressive as it might have been for others. We've seen it all before, and for quite some time. There were, however, other interesting bits of hardware and info lurking at CES 2005, and we concentrated our efforts on digging up, documenting, and photographing them. Read on to get our company-by-company take on the hardware side of CES 2005.

We looked at Gigabyte's nForce4 SLI solution recently and were generally happy with it. Today, we have their non SLI nForce4 Ultra board- the K8NXP-9.

"Today we take a look at the first retail Intel 925XE based motherboard to hit our labs and it comes from ASUS. The newest Pentium 4 chipset from Intel increases FSB to 1066MHz and removes ECC memory support. The ASUS P5AD2-E Premium motherboard provides a stack of features but how does it perform against the Intel reference board? Read on as we investigate this 925XE retail board and what it's all about."

Taipei, Taiwan, Jan 2005 - GIGABYTE Technology Co. formally announces the release of its TurboForce edition X800 graphics accelerators, the GV-RX80256D. The release of the GV-RX80 series is concurrent with the recent launch of ATI top-of-the-line RADEON X800 VPU. The GV-RX80 series applies the advanced level of VPU introduced by ATi, and with the extreme enhancement from SMARTSHADER HD, SMOOTHVISION HD and revolutionary 3Dc engine.

Powered by the ATI RADEON 800 chipset, the GV-RX80 series graphics card uses high-level 0.11 micrometer processing and includes a 16x PCI-Express interface. The GV-RX80 series graphics cards offer power and performance with 12 pixel pipelines and with 6 vertex pipelines, with a clock speed of up to 392 MHz, and GDDR3 with clock speed up to 700 MHz. Above all, exciting enhancement has been brought by GIGA-BYTE exclusive TurboForce technology with up to 11% tweaked performance and with SilentPipe to make possible amazing performance with absolute silence.

The GV-RX80 series has market leading spec - it supports DirectX9.0c, providing gamers with platform efficiency and the best picture quality with sharp and accurate colors, delivering a 3D Benchmark value up to 10,198 and a superb gaming performance guaranteed. For supreme video experience, RX80 series fully supports HDTV function up to 2048x1536 dpi, and with VEDIOSHADER, seamless integration of pixel shaders and real-time video will present users a visual experience of tomorrow.

Like some other MSI boards, the Diamond features an MSI "Communication Slot" which is basically an orange colored PCI slot and inside the Diamond's packaging, you'll find the PCI card that supports both Bluetooth and WiFi forms of connectivity that makes use of the Communication slot.

Just wanted to let everyone know that we posted an article on the new series of memory from Corsair. Corsair XMS Xpert has arrived! "You better believe it! Corsair pulls out all the stops and has already launched their first product for 2005! We take a look at the modules and see what all makes these Xpert modules different from the Pro series."

Today on HotHardware, we've taken a look at a motherboard powered by the SiS755FX chipset, the inexpensive Foxconn WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS. With the 755FX, SiS has added support for Socket 939 Athlon 64 processors, dual-channel memory, and a 1GHz HyperTransport clock. Head on over and see how she compared to a couple of nForce 3 Ultras and a K8T800 Pro.

With their AMD CPU based boards, Epox hasn't normally target the mainstream user. Instead, they focus on the enthusiasts by generally providing better options for overclocking. With that philosophy in mind, they're releasing their nForce4 based 9NPA+ motherboard and we test drive it today and find out how fast this baby goes.

"I'd have to say this is one of the better packages I've dealt with on an i915G offering. Given that these boards are meant more for budgeted users looking to upgrade to the latest processor, it isn't too surprising to see less hardware or cabling inclusions with the package, but Soltek has chosen to supply everything the end user would need."

We've taken a long hard look at Pentium M "Dothan" CPU core performance tonight on DFI's new 855GME-MGF motherboard. Based on Intel's Pentium M embedded chipset architecture that utilizes their mobile i855GME Northbridge and the i6300ESB Southbridge, this combination actually gives the fastest Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPUs a run for their money in many applications, especially gaming. Check it

We're closing out 2004 with a couple of motherboards from DFI. Today on HotHardware, we've taken a look at DFI's flagship LANPARTY boards designed for Intel's LGA775 Pentium 4 processors, the 925X-T2 and the 875P-T. Both of these boards are built with hardcore PC enthusiasts in mind, and have a full compliment of overclocking tools and useful integrated peripherals. Head on over and check them out...

"The P4M-RS350 itself is a complete package that gives you the ability to upgrade the graphics when you have the money to do so. It carries competent performance and enough onboard solutions that voids the fact there is only 3 PCI slots available."

The GN-BTD02 is GIGABYTE's second generation Bluetooth USB adapter featuring beefed up wireless range, now up to 100 meters and an eye-catching silver finish casing with deep wine colored accents. Simply connect the GN-BTD02 Bluetooth USB Adapter to the USB port of your Desktop or Laptop PC and enjoy the freedom and convenience of Bluetooth wireless technology.

Good afternoon all! JeffB took MSI's new i915 based motherboard for a spin today and gives us his impressions of the product after spending some quality time with it on the bench. Learn why this new PCI Express enabled P4 mobo steals the HH Editor's Choice Award versus other i915 boards in its class.

"The leader in producing highend video cards teams up with Gigbyte to produce a chipset to perform. The leader in chipsets for Intel processors the past few years has been Intel. So to have a video card company compete is an attention getter. The main factor in the performance of a system is the chipset of the motherboard, (the traffic cop if you will of the system)."

VIA Arena has just published an article about the benefit of dual PCI Express Graphics for 3D Editing software - allowing for 4 monitors. This features the K8T890Pro chipset.

Well here it is, to wrap up our CATALYST updates of the year we present the final update in the 4.xx series of CATALYST software. Next month we will kick off the 5.xx series (since our numbering scheme is based on calendar notation) with CATALYST 5.1.

Albatron Technology recently announced two new Athlon 64 based mainboards, the K8Ultra-U standard version and the K8Ultra-U Pro. These powerful 64-bitters will be accommodating cost-conscious power users who plan to quickly upgrade to the upcoming Windows XP 64-bit operating system.

Judging from the system load increase from recent Windows XP Service Pack upgrades, industry experts are predicting an even more massive impact when the Windows XP 64-bit operating system finally arrives (64-bit customer preview editions already available). Without an adequate mainboard and CPU, some systems may become burdened to the point that they will not be able to sufficiently accommodate the new operating system.

"For those who have had an interest in performance computing for several years, you'll remember the name EPoX as being one of the several companies who really pushed overclocking in the beginning stages and worked hard on competing with the best in the motherboard business. Today we are taking a look at their 5EPA+ board which is based around Intel's 915P chipset with DDR memory support. Does the overclocking trend still exist today or does EPoX have a little more work to do? Read on and find out as we take a closer look!"

"What was needed was a motherboard solution that provided a bridge between the affordable Socket 754 Athlon64 chips and the future of the Athlon 64, Socket 939. ASRock has provided us with just such a solution, and we're going to see how the K8 Combo-Z/ASR handles it task. This could be the perfect board for those of you who want to go Athlon64 on the cheap, but don't want to be stuck without an upgrade path to newer socket 939 processors. Based on the ALi M1689 chipset which we'll cover in more detail later in the review, the K8 Combo-Z/ASR can be used with both Socket 754 and Socket 939 Athlon processors! Although not at the same time."

"This time around Intel has implanted a number of new technologies into their most recent motherboard chipsets, the i915 and i925. These new technologies require an upgrade of a variety of key system components other than the motherboard itself. A totally new approach has been taken with the CPU socket for the new LGA 775 socket. Gone is the AGP port, which has been replaced with the highly anticipated PCI-Express bus. And on most boards, even the fairly recent adoption of DDR memory support by the Pentium lineup, has been dropped in favor of DDR2 support."

"A few motherboard makers have released boards that bridge this gap in the 865 chipset, these "budget boards" allow users to upgrade their CPU to the new LGA 775 while continuing to use their AGP and PCI based hardware, but none of these boards really stand out performance wise. With the release of the 875P-T, DFI became the first motherboard maker to mix the high performance 875 chipset with Intels newest processor line, the LGA 775. The DFI 875P-T allows users to realize the full potential of the LGA 775 processor while still using their current AGP video card and DDR 1 memory. This allows users to upgrade incrementally instead of replacing their whole system at once."

"The new ATI RX330 chipset looks to be full of potential, its memory compatibility is even being validated by the company. Currently Gigabyte has exclusive manufacturing rights to this chipset, so if you want an ATi Radeon RX330 based motherboard, the only vendor that can currently supply it is Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GA-8TRX330-L is really a no frills Socket 478 Pentium 4 motherboard. It supports 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors with a maximum of 4GB of dual-channel DDR memory, and uses a standard AGP 8X video slot. The motherboard features an onboard 5.1 audio codec and a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet network adaptor, but nothing much else."

New, advanced cooling technology allows higher speeds and optimized stability Albatron's speedy PC6600U employs new Heatpipe Technology!

Albatron Technology recently released its new PC6600U Graphics Card on the heels of nVIDIA's GeForce 6600 graphics chipsets. The PC6600U is a PCI-Express (x16) based card which employs the new Heatpipe Technology, one of the latest advancement in cooling strategies. Along with high speed BGA packaged memory, this new graphics card hits the market touting excellent performance features and attractive pricing advantages.

Albatron chose to employ the standard version GeForce 6600 chipset on the PC6600U over the high-performing, luxury GeForce 6600GT chipset. The strategy was to take the low cost road and then boost performance, providing customers a powerful VGA card with a reasonable price tag. The result was a 6600 based card whose performance was almost comparable to 6600GT based cards and significantly more powerful than other standard 6600 cards on the market.

The Heatpipe cooling technology that is used with the card improves on traditional cooling strategies providing more efficient heat dissipation capabilities. The heat-conductive copper heatpipes absorb heat from the GPU and dissipates the heat through attached aluminum heat sinks. Within the heatpipe itself is a liquid that is vaporized at the end closest to the GPU (the hot end). The vapor moves to the cool end of the pipe where it is condensed back into a liquid and wicked back to the front of the pipe to start the process again.

Albatron chose to match its 350 MHz chipset with high-speed BGA packaged, 128M, 2.8 ns memory. The high speed BGA packaged memory provides much higher overclocking potential than the more traditional TSOP (Thin Small Outline Package) packaged memory, which is good news for gamers. Albatron used 3Dmark benchmark utilities to test PC6600U performance. As mentioned, the scores were very close to 6600GT based graphics cards. Scores also exceeded other standard 6600 cards by 24% (note).

The PC6600U uses the PCI-Express x16 interface and supports Microsoft DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 3.0 providing the optimal environment for the 3D gamer and graphic designers. The accessories include an HDTV cable which supports S interfaces and AV interfaces as well as HDTV. The software bundle includes WinDVD creator and the ARX FATALIS 3D game and a 5-in-1 game pack.

The PC6600U is ready to hit the market with force with one of nVIDIA's most recent GPUs, high overclocking potential, high-speed memory and advanced cooling technology. Consumers will also be able to obtain a high performance card at reasonable prices making the PC6600U a card to keep an eye on.

Just added side by side motherboard spec comparisons to MOBOT. Check it out.

"Reaching $2 Billion is an incredible milestone for us," said John Tu, co-founder, Kingston. "It's a testament to our basic philosophy of empowering employees to do their best and this belief continues to be the foundation of our success. By developing close partnerships with memory suppliers and our customers, we have introduced new levels of product quality and service to the memory market," continued Tu.

"Built for Intel's new Socket 775 Pentium 4 'Prescott' processor (533/800MHz FSB), the ASRock 775V88 is a no frills motherboard and does not come with many features. With a retail price of just $76 CDN though, pretty much all can be forgiven. The only onboard components included are built-in 5.1 audio, two Serial ATA ports, and a VIA 10/100 Ethernet adaptor. Not a lot, but really quite perfect for building office PCs."

"The new Soltek SL-K8TPro-939 motherboard is based on the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset, and with a sticker price of $135CDN is quite a steal next to the competition. Like most Athlon64 motherboards these days, the SL-K8TPro-939 is very nicely equipped with IEEE 1394, 7.1-channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, a Promise PDC20579 SATA/IDE RAID controller and the always useful Port 80 diagnostics card. There are five 32bit PCI slots, four 184-pin DDR slots, as well as a standard 8XAGP port. The Soltek SL-K8TPro-939 is probably a case modder's dream motherboard to work on. Its midnight black PCB and colourful expansion slots, IDE/Floppy connectors, DIMMs and CPU retention bracket give it a distinctive appearance."

Crucial has just released an interesting twist on memory. Flashing LEDs that show actual memory access on chips.

Looks to be a great addition for those who enjoy modding their systems for a little extra street cred.

SOYO Group, Inc. www.soyousa.com headquartered in Ontario, California and SOYO Taiwan www.soyo.com.tw are separate companies. SOYO Taiwan's decision to exit motherboard manufacturing does not affect SOYO Group. SOYO will continue to introduce new products including motherboards to the market. Our current rebate and warranty programs remain in place and will be honored.

The SOYO USA operation remains unchanged, and we will continue selling motherboards, as well as peripherals, consumer electronics, portable storage, networking, and broadband telecommunications products and services.

In fact, the SOYO, VoIP group. SOYO Broadband Telephony, http://phone.soyo.com is now a division of SOYO Group, Inc. and has entered the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) market with the introduction of "Z-Connect," a complete line of hardware solutions and connection services that deliver instant broadband telephone capabilities. With the SOYO solution all users need to do is plug SOYO's Z-Connect telephone, router or gateway into a broadband connection and immediately begin saving money on telephone bills. With the Z-Connect service, there are no set-up fees, monthly fees, service contracts, software set-up or hidden charges.

The first two products that SOYO is introducing are SOYO Z-Connect AVRO 3001 VoIP Router and the SOYO Z-Connect G668 IP Phone. New motherboards will be introduced in the 4th quarter of 2004.

"Based on the nForce3 Ultra chipset, the Epox 9NDA3+ Socket 939 motherboard comes with onboard IEEE 1394a Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, 8 USB2.0 jacks, an additional 2-channel SATA controller, a 7.1-channel audio and Epox's awesome Port 80 diagnostics card. The Epox 9NDA3+ offers users five PCI slots, and one 8X AGP slot for expansion purposes. The four dual channel DDR sockets will support up to 4GB of DDR-266/333/400 RAM, in sizes of up to 512MB per DIMM. The processor socket supports 939-pin Athlon64 and AthlonFX CPUs, and maintains a 2GHz (1GHz upstream, 1GHz downstream) Hypertransport link with the nVidia nForce 3 Ultra chipset."

"I believe that this board fits well within the market space it is aimed at, mainly the budget builder market. While not a stellar performer, it does support many of the newer technologies that many older boards with similar prices may not. The ability to use the 400MHz front side bus Athlons is a big plus, as is support for PC3200 memory. I would recommend this board to someone looking to build an entry to mid level gaming PC, but not to the budget overclocker as the lack of overclocking options make it a very poor performer in that respect."

Second-tier motherboard maker Soyo Computer plans to phase out production of its motherboards and instead focus on development and distribution of computer-related upstream components and plastic materials, according to company spokesperson Dave Liu.

Soyo will also change its corporate name to Hao Teng Technology (translated directly from its Chinese name), Liu noted.

The shift of business came following last week's reshuffle of the company's board of directors and board of supervisors.

The company held a provisional shareholders meeting last week to elect new directors and supervisors, after it recently completed the issuance of 39 million new shares through a private placement. The shares, which have a book value of NT$10, were sold to an investment firm at a discount of 70.1% (NT$2.99).

Liu also stated that Soyo is now in talks with at least three China-based companies to establish partnerships that would explore business opportunities in China.

The company currently has registered capital of NT$1.367 billion and plans to cut its capital by 28% in the first quarter of 2005, Liu noted.

"Over the course of this review, PCstats will explain the attributes of nVidia's hot new nForce 4 Ultra chipset, the benefits of this technology, and how it application on the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 motherboard performs. The Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 is bound to be a favourite solution, for not only does it incorporate the all important PCI Express x16 slot alongside an Athlon64 64-bit processor, but it also features a remarkable array of goodies. For starters the GA-K8NXP-9 includes an additional Silicon Image Sil3114CT176 SATA I/RAID controller, IEEE 1394b Firewire, 7.1-channel audio, Gigabyte's DPS2 power system, dual Gigabit NICs as well as a full PCI 802.11g wireless network PCI card, and even a dual BIOS!"

An updated version of the Overclockulator is now online for your downloading pleasure. This new version includes a revised interface with new clock detection features. In case you passed up the previous releases this utility includes some handy little apps including a CFM calculator, FSB/Multiplier Calc., a required PSU Wattage Calc. and more. As always this utility is available for free - NO MEMBER SIGN UP REQUIRED!

ATI Technologies today announced the availability of its new Radeon Xpress 200 series of core logic chipsets for the AMD K8 desktop platform.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) yesterday cut the prices of its Athlon 64 CPUs, with the aim of boosting sales of its 64-bit processors in the channel, according to sources at AMD Taiwan. AMD had previously lowered its CPU prices in mid-October.

In addition, AMD slightly lowered the prices of its Sempron CPUs, as the company started to offer boxed models, while discontinuing the delivery of the bulk-packs, the sources noted.

"This board brought me a lot of satisfaction! Once I got the ABIT AV8 set up and running, it was fast and enjoyable to work with. ABIT has built another quality board that is a great performer! The board overclocked very well, and with faster ram, I am sure we could have even pushed it higher with the memory at 1:1..."

EPoX have been one of my favoured motherboard manufacturers for some time now, mainly down to a favourable price / performance ratio. Today we have their latest (and quite possibly last) Socket A (Athlon XP) motherboard, the EP-8RDA6+ PRO.