|
Silent Computers
and SFF PC's
Hello,
I've
been playing around with a program lately that let's you write on the
computer in your own handwriting called Windows Journal.
This is another one of those features that make the
Tablet PC we have in the Lab right now
so interesting; handwriting apps always seem dodgy at best, but this one is so
far getting most of my written words right. I don't want
to go into too much detail before you have a chance to
read the full review, but I would like to know how many of you have had
luck using voice recognition software? Maybe its me, maybe it's the microphone, but it never seems
to get anything I say correct... "green chicken road is to crossing" is a good Haiku, but that's
about it.
As
the title of this weeks newsletter suggests, I've put together a small
assortment of hardware which is easy on the ears. For
starters you'll find the rather cool Hush
Technologies computer mentioned in today's TechWatch; it was
only just announced at CeBit 2003 so it may still be awhile before anyone gets their hands on it.
Following Techwatch we have MSI's answer to the Small Form Factor PC craze;
the Metis 266. We ran the rather stylish barebones through the benchmarks
with the help of a half-height MSI GF4 MX440 card (which uses no fan). Also
worth reading about is the Antec Truepower 430W powersupply which is a good replacement to
consider if you have a standard
desktop PC with a noisy PSU... or dieing PSU fan for that matter.
For good luck, and for some serious desktop space
saving an 18.1" LCD monitor can often do the trick. Last
but not least we have a look back at the impressive P4 1.6GHz Northwood -
an older chip by current standards, but one Colin and I have been
overclocking pretty high lately.
Remember to check out Colin's Weekly Tech Tips, and if you use
voice recognition on a day-to-day basis I'd like to hear how it
works for you. To those PCstats.com Newsletter subscribers who have
bumped into Colin on the street and said "hi", we're glad to
have you with us, and thanks for reading each week. :)
 While ATi and
nVIDIA battle it out for the performance crown it's actually their
mainstream/budget videocards that bring in most of the money. Win the
mainstream battle and you'll win the war as they say. To this effect,
nVIDIA know that their TNT2 M64, GeForce2 MX and GeForce4 MX line of
videocards have long been popular with manufacturers and OEM's. It's not
that ATi cannot offer the same type of product, it's just that until
recently ATi has been focusing more on being a performance leader and
offering competitive pricing on their flagship line of cards only. Based on a standard PCB, the MSI
G4MX440-T8X is quite a small videocard, and could be useful for servers as small
as 2U who are without on board video options. The black aluminum heatsink on the other hand got extremely
hot at stock, but we were still able to get a good overclock. Read the
Rest...
Power supplies are one of the most basic
building blocks of a computer system, and they are also one of the
most important . We've generally had pretty good experiences with
Antec's power supplies around here, so today we'll be looking their
TruePower 430W model. I'm sure from your
perspective a power supply looks like is a pretty bland thing - after all,
it's really just a metal box with some circuitry inside that you install
once, and forget about. Apart from the odd noisy fan, or a motor seizure
which causes overheating, there really isn't much to worry about, or is
there? Read the
Rest...
| TechWatch German Engineering - Sexy, Silent and Fast? |
| By: M. Page |
|
 Raise your hands if you want a computer that
sounds as loud as vacuum cleaner, or that old 1974 Volkswagon Bug
down the street that hasn't has a muffler since 1984. Not many
takers eh? The Hush Technologies Mini-ITX PC is a fine example of
German engineering, designed and built in Stuttgart, home of
Mercedes and Porsche.The computer is not much larger than a good
piece of stereo equipment, or DVD player, and is essentially silent.
The only moving parts in the entire computer are
the slim line optical drive which hides behind a custom machined
aluminum plate, and the hard drive which is nestled away inside behind thick
aluminum walls. Under the hood is a VIA EPIA
platform with C3 E-Series processor, but there are no fans
for cooling so what gives?
VIA's C3 processor
does not run as hot, or fast as an Intel Pentium 4, but
the CPU still requires a heatsink of some sort. Hush Technologies
have gotten around this noise creating limitation by placing the
heatsink on the outside of the computer, as part of the chassis
in fact. A specially engineered device called a heatpipe transfers the heat from the
processor to this external heatsink which is large enough to be
cooled without the need for any noisy
fans. There is a little more to it then that,
but as someone who works around computers almost 24x7, I can really appreciate
any efforts to make these machines less noisy. For more information on the specifics
of the Hush Technologies Mini-ITX PC, please check the Industry
News section at PCstats.com right here.
|
 |
The MSI Metis 266 SlimPC
AMD AthlonXP bare bones system. Sleek, black, and packed full of
features like video, audio, and
networking. | It seems the Small Form Factor
PC craze that started early last year by an obscure Taiwanese mainboard
manufacturer looking to diversify is really taking off. With several
smaller manufacturers already jumping on the SFF bandwagon, it was only a
matter of time before the "big guns" introduced their own take on SFF type
systems - coined the SlimPC, or 'book size' PC, this system from MSI is
just one such example.MSI Computer have named this
very sleek, very clean looking black & grey slim PC system the
Metis 266. Based around MSI's
very own Socket A Micro ATX MS-6390 (VIA KM266) motherboard,
the system supports any 200/266 MHz FSB Athlon based processors. For those of
you who might be wondering what exactly a Barebones system is, it might
help you to know that the term "Barebones" is used by the
industry to describe a prebuilt computer which generally consists of a
preinstalled motherboard, case, power supply and
heatsink - and that's about it.Read the Rest...
Visit the PCstats.com
ShoppingList Page for the March 2003 Budget
$599 System, $1500 Mainstream System and
$2500 High-End Performance System hardware recommendations.
 |
| Intel Pentium 4 1.6A GHz Review
|
|
Hitachi CML181SXW 18.1 inch TFT
LCD Display |
|
Overclockers and enthusiasts have
really taken a liking to Intel's Pentium 4 1.6A. The gem of a
processor operates at 1.6GHz and is based on the newer "Northwood"
core which takes advantage of the 0.13 micron manufacturing process.
The small die size enables Intel to build much faster P4's running
at 2.4GHz and even 2.53GHz. With that in mind, you have to wonder
just how high the lower ranks of Northwood P4's can be pushed... the
potential is definitely there! Read the
Rest...
|
|
Hitachi are firmly entrenched with the
corporate markets who need cost effective displays with the best
amount of features to keep the workers happy. At just over $900USD,
for a 18.1" TFT LCD the CML181SXW has to be one of the most aggressive
priced LCD's on the market today. The
CML181SXW series uses a 18.1" active matrix TFT LCD with
a 1280x1024 resolution screen. That is comparable to a 19"
CRT display. The LCD monitor is capable of displaying 16.7
Million colors and features a 0.280mm dot pitch, contrast ratio of 350:1,
brightness of 235 cd/m2, pixel response time of somewhere around
30-35ms.Read the
Rest...
| |
|
|
Colin's Weekly Tech Tips |
By:
Colin
Sun |
Today: Sorting out the mess |
In real life I'm a messy person;
papers and computer parts sit around me like a giant technological
campfire of sorts. However, when it comes to my computer programs,
folders and files, I like things clean and well sorted. One
really cool feature in Windows XP is the ability to
do a mass renaming of files or folders - especially useful if you
have a bunch of .chk files!Select all the files you'd wish to
rename and simply press the F2 key. After you rename the first file,
you'll notice that all the rest of the highlighted files have a (*)
where the * represents a number. This sounds easy, but it does take a
few tries to get it right, so don't get discouraged if have to
try again. Note to all the PCstats.com Newsletter subscribers... While
I really enjoy receiving e-mail from all of you, I simply cannot
reply to everything that is sent to me. If you're looking for
some good educated computer advice make sure you drop by the PCstats.com forums. I'm in
there, and the other members are just as knowledgeable! Hope to see
you there! =) |
| Colin's Tips Archives | PCStats.com Forums |
The Last Word: PCstats.com Folding @ Home - Does your computer
sit idle during the day, or overnight? Why not use put those spare CPU
cycles to good use and join the PCStats Folding @ Home Team! It's for a good scientific cause
and it's also a lot of fun. Folding @ Home is a Stanford University
distributed computing project. The project uses a screen saver that makes
use of idle computer time to study protein folding related diseases such
as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson's. For more information, and to download the
necessary files, please visit the Team PCStats Folding@Home forum
discussion. You can make a difference, and all you have to do is support
this worthwhile cause. Tell your friends to sign up for their own weekly
PCstats.com Newsletter
here .
|
 |
PCstats Issue
No.79
Circulation: 185,940
|
|
The High Tech Low Down |
| By: Chris
Angelini |
|
The anticipated announcement of ATI's RADEON 9800 Pro has come and gone. For those who were expecting performance improvements, it may have been a disappointment. But in all reality, the 9800 Pro is all that ATI needs to maintain an advantage over NVIDIA's GeForce FX, which is fundamentally unavailable anyway. Both graphics companies also announced mainstream cards - the RADEON 9600 and 9200 families for ATI and the FX 5600 and 5200 lines for NVIDIA. Soon after, NVIDIA proclaimed itself to be the first company offering top-to-bottom (enthusiast to mainstream) DirectX 9-compliant hardware. Apparently, someone at NVIDIA has a sense of humor. I've heard rumors, though, from several sources that claim NVIDIA's NV35 won't roll over as easily. In fact, it has taped out already and is running in NVIDIA's lab. For now I'll abide by the saying, "Once burned, twice shy," but don't be surprised if NVIDIA regains the ground it previously lost, and then some. In fact, we may be seeing NV35 cards as soon as June or July. Even less is known about the next thing to emerge from ATI, but early rumblings place R400 late this year or early 2004. Regardless, it's a long ways off and many things can change between then and now.
|
|
PCstats Polls! |
|
Leaking Capacitors
Poll:
Have you ever had a
computer fail because of leaking or blown capacitors on the
motherboard?
|
Submit a product for Review
Ad Enquiries |
RSS Newsletter
