Thursday Hardware Reviews

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At first glance, the AOpen i945Ga-PHS socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 motherboard is a pretty well rounded platform, it even supports HDTV component output (Y, Pb, Pr) by default! Based on the Intel's i945G Northbridge, the AOpen i945Ga-PHS motherboard supports Socket 775 Pentium 4/D/XE and Celeron processors running with a 533/800/1066 MHz FSB. The four DDR2 memory slots can accommodate up to 4GB of PC2-6400 unbuffered DDR-2 RAM, while running in a dual channel configuration.

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Gigabyte's GV-RX18L256V-B Radeon X1800 XL videocard is a pretty nice single-slot PCI Express x16 videocard! The Radeon X1800 XL GPU is clocked at 500 MHz, and backed by 256MB of Samsung GDDR3 memory that hums away at 1 GHz. The videocard supports video In/Video Out (VIVO) and High Definition Television (HDTV) output. Other goodies included with the package are a DVI-to-analog converter, an S-Video cable, a VIVO cable, a Component output cable and for some reason, a molex splitter cable. The software bundle consists of Xpand Rally, Counter Strike Condition Zero, Power Director and PowerDVD.

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If you have seen the massive, heatpipe-based cooler on the 7800 GTX 512 cards, then the cooling solution on the WinFast PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme is nothing new to you. Leadtek's WinFast PX7800 GTX Extreme was actually the first non-Quadro card to use this cooler, as this card was out weeks before the GTX 512s hit the shelves. The cooler was first seen on NVIDIA's Quadro FX.

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The AOpen i945Ga-PHS is a very good all round board. The problems with it all center around the PCI-E 16x slot and use of a video card. Using the onboard video takes the layout and jumper issue out of the equation making the board have very few flaws. The reality of the issue is that most folks do use add in cards, especially on HTPCs or gaming PCs which brings these issues to the front of the line for an Excedrin headache.

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Officially, the Corsair TwinX1024-4000PT is designed to run mainly on highly overclocked systems and is rated for up to 250 MHz with 3-4-4-8 timings (at a voltage of 2.8V). If you are running with lower latencies, we can tell you that the TwinX2048-4000PT will only run as tight as 2.5-3-3-6. The 2GB TwinX2048-4000PT DDR500 RAM kit is rated to run at speeds of up to 250 MHz, who says you had to sacrifice speed for higher capacity?

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We have reviewed product from SuperTalent in the recent past and it has proven to be a quality product that won't break the bank. Today we are looking at a kit of DDR500 ram with nice timings of Cas 2.5. It's hard to compete for the enthusiast dollar these days and making overclockable ram with tight timings is a great place to start. Let's find out if SuperTalent's latest enthusiast offering can keep up with some high quality well established memory...

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The Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard looks like the perfect workstation/HTPC motherboard at first glance; onboard graphics with analog and DVI-D monitor outputs, and nVidia PureVideo High Definition MPEG-2/WMV9 Playback acceleration. The A8N-VM CSM supports all Socket 939 AMD Athlon64/FX/X2 processors on the market, and is built around two recent nVidia chipsets, the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 & nForce 430. Onboard features include IEEE 1394a, a 5.1 channel HDA (Azalia)/AC97 audio controller, Gigabit LAN and of course analog and DVI-D Geforce 6-series onboard video. Expansion is possible through PCI Express x16 and PCI Express x1 slots for high bandwidth devices and two 32 bit PCI slots for legacy devices.

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The Gigabyte GV-NX66T256DE videocard is not just another run of the mill GeForce 6600GT with 256MB of DDR2 memory, this card is unique. The GV-NX66T256DE is cooled by fully passive means, and incorporates a couple of unique attributes to lower ambient case temperatures too. The 'Silent-Pipe II' cooler, as it is called, bridges the GPU to two separate heat exchangers. The videocard also supports both S-Video and component output via a break-out box, and comes with a DVI-to-analog converter for good measure.

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A bleeding edge part like the MSI 512MB Geforce NX7800GTX has an equally shocking enthusiast-level price tag... equivalent to the cost of a pretty decent Dell PC in fact. At the moment there are only a handful of manufacturers offering retail 512MB version Geforce 7800GTX videocards for sale. MSI Computer is one vendor with a card out in time for X-mas, and it has put together a good package that includes a full copy of the game "Colin Mcrae Rally 2005." Luckily for you, PCSTATS has managed to bring this monster 512MB card into the labs so you can see first hand what to expect!

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A lot of people, and manufacturers (AMD) have steered clear of DDR2 due to the high latency, regardless of speeds the latency canceled out any performance gain so it just wasn't worth it to switch to DDR2. That is all starting to change with much higher speeds and latency dropping with each new product DDR2 is finally coming into it's own.

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The driver was also a pain, especially when learning the rules about turning Crossfire on and off the easiest ways. If you always want it on, no worries. Otherwise it's not always tick the box and hit Apply. The reviewer's guide even says (and we paraphrase), "please check benchmark results to be sure it's on". With no indication that it's on other than experienced performance, HEXUS learned early on not to trust the checkbox too much. The ATI driver team will work on that I'm sure, but it frustrated. Comparatively, we've never had any such issues with SLI, although it's had longer to mature.

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Gigabyte, purveyor of high-quality motherboards and recognised partner for both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards, was keen to jump on the X1800 XL bandwagon. Without further ado, then, let's take a look at the company's GV-RX18L256V-B graphics card. Better known to you as an ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB, does it have what it takes to be a consideration for purchase?, and, more importantly, is it the must-have PCI-Express graphics accelerator this side of £300? Let's find out.

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While Nvidia have been enjoying the success that is the 7800GTX and 7800GT, ATI were left with their older generation X800 series as their prime offering, and while the X800 was a quality series of chips (and still is), the power of Nvidia's latest efforts could not be ignored. If you were looking for a high end videocard in the past month or two, it would have been hard to deny Nvidia's 7800GTX. Much to the ATI fanbase's approval, however, it wasn't too long after that ATI finally let loose their latest series, that of course being the Radeon X1K series. Today, we check out two revisions from the X1K series, the X1800XT and X1800XL, from ATI vendor HIS.

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To make the long story short, it would't be wise of me not to recommend this card. Everyone who is seeking a cheap upgrade yet wants decent performance should give PowerColor X800 GTO16 a considerate and detailed look. Whether you're a gamer, enthusiast or graphics editor you should not look beyond what Tul offers with this rebranded XL video card. This board is packed with features (including dual DVI links) and great performance. At $179 USD it's simply a steal. The only gripe I have is lack of VIVO capability -- only TV out.

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In recent reviews at Bigbruin.com we have taken a look at Corsair DDR rated at PC4000 and PC4400 speeds, but this time we're going to take things down a little and look at some PC3500. The Corsair 2048MB XMS PC3500LL Pro Dual Channel DDR Kit provides a nice, big 2GB of dual channel DDR rated to run at 438 MHz DDR with timings of 2-3-2-6 1T.

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We haven’t seen anything from GeCube around the labs in a while but now that a new card has made its way to our door step, we are glad to find that it’s a brand spanking new X1800XT. As we’re in the holiday season, we have to say... "Hang on, I deserve something for myself..." We don’t doubt that the X1800XT is going to make its way on to a lot of wish lists and the question is which one is right for you.