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Corsair Rocks the Memory World!
Hello,
It's somewhat remarkable the effect that little
blinking lights can have... but none the less, Corsair have just released
some memory that is too nifty for words. Paced at 500MHz, this dual
channel DDR is optimized for i875P or i865PE chipsets (in other words
Intel Pentium 4 systems) and features something you've never seen on a
stick of memory before. Think of a realtime tachometer for
memory usage, in the form of 18 multicoloured LED's! PCstats' review of
this brand new Corsair DDR is right here. If you aren't a performance user
and just need DDR that works, and works reliably, then make your way
to our sponsor Crucial.com.
For
your reading pleasure
today, we have a look at the TwinX1024-4000Pro memory kit from Corsair,
a review of the Aopen AK77-600 Max mainboard that comes with more
onboard features then you can shake a stick at, a look at the Albatron
KX18D Rev2 which is based on the venerable nForce2 chipset, and
a few other tasty items.
Mike is back with a
really helpful guide on how to back up and restore data in WindowsXP (you
know, just in case that grinding hard drive finally dies),
and the High Tech Low Down has some further insight into the upcoming
Athlon64 launch. Also on the table is a massive nForce 2 motherboard
roundup because even though the A64 is coming, the AthlonXP
still has a lot to offer.
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Appearances play an ever increasing role in
today's computer purchases. From case windows to cold cathodes and LED
fans, even novice computer users are adopting tricked-out components to
bring a little life into their drab computers. When it comes to memory,
you can only do so much though; manufacturers have tried changing the
colour of the PCB, adding colourful heat spreaders, or just about anything
else to sway our purchasing decisions. Corsair have earned a reputation of being a very innovative
company, they were the first to adopt RAMsinks, and now they've
revolutionized the memory market yet again. Enter Corsair's
brand-spanking-new Pro Series DDR memory! Eighteen red, orange and green LED's pepper the outer edge of
the DIMM and blink on and off something to the effect
of a memory-level tachometer. The two rows of LED's represent each bank of
the memory module independently, and as the individual DRAMs are accessed the lights
reflect the 1GB of memory being used.Continue -- Click
Here>>
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|  Tired of reinstalling WinXP after a nasty virus strikes? Create a
drive image and save your data, and your time.
Sure, if you've read our article on hard drive
restoration you know that there are
ways to recover lost data cheaply and easily, but this can lead to a false
sense of security. What happens when a hard drive dies completely? It will
die eventually... make no mistake. I've seen hard drives dropped, catch fire, make excruciating noises and simply
stop for no apparent reason. You have got to back up your essential data.
Catastrophic hard drive failures happen, and when they do, even if you
still have warranty support for the drive you're out of luck; no disk
manufacturer warranties the data on the drive. Your only recourse is
data recovery services, and they can charge enormous amounts for their
services, though often only if they are able to recover the data. In the
face of all this potential trouble, $100 for a new drive doesn't seem so
bad, does it? Continue -- Click
Here>>
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VIA's latest chipset is currently the KT600,
a chipset that in all honesty is about one year too late.
VIA should have released the KT600 last year in place of the KT400/KT400A
chipsets. Had they done this it would probably have been enough for VIA to
keep most of their AMD market share. Amazing as it seems, the year old
nForce2 is still faster and more advanced then the KT600. All is not lost of course. VIA realized
that while they cannot compete with nVIDIA's nForce2 in terms of performance, when
it comes to pricing it's a whole other ball game. If you're
computer currently uses the pricy nvidia GeForceFX's that are longer than
a subway train at rush hour, you'll find that with the AK77-600 Max it has
to be pulled out of the 8X AGP slot before you can install any memory
modules. Of course, that's a small price to pay for a board with six PCI
slots. Continue -- Click
Here>>
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| While nVIDIA is losing its position as
graphic core market leader, the nForce2 has held top spot in the AMD
chipset world for the last year without much effort. The competition has
simply been unable to mount any sort of counter, even after so long a
time... one has to be wondering why VIA lost their magic?
VIA, nVIDIA's arch rival in the world of AMD
chipsets have released two models since the nForce2 launch. In each
instance VIA's chipsets failed to match nForce2 performance and stability
levels. Perhaps the upcoming VIA KT800 (the third attempt) will once and
for all retire the nForce2, but by that time will any consumer even be
paying attention? The Albatron KX18D Pro
II has quite a few on board goodies, including the rather special nVIDIA
SoundStorm 5.1 audio hardware-based sound card which is built right into the core
logic. Also on board the KX18D Pro II are; 10/100 LAN, Serial ATA
RAID, IEEE 1394 and dual BIOS's.Continue -- Click
Here>>
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Make Boot Ups Go Faster | |
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For users of Windows98SE you can decrease the boot time of your system a bit with a few simple tweaks to the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory of your hard drive. The first thing you want to do is remove the write protection on the file.
Load up your Windows Explorer and go to the "Tools" menu. Inside select "Folder Options...", a window should pop up. Click the "View" tab and in the lower 2/3rd of the pop up menu you should see "Advanced settings." From there scroll down and find the radio button "Show hidden files and folders." Make sure it's selected then press the "OK" button. Now all the hidden files and folders on your hard drive will be shown. Now use Notepad to open up your MSDOS.SYS file and add/edit the lines to look like this.
Logo=0
Bootdelay=0
Doublebuffer=1
Dblspace=0
Drvspace=0
After you've made the changes save and exit. From now on when you boot your Windows98SE system you should notice it boots just a tad faster now!
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|  There are many reasons why nVidia's nForce2 chipset has proven
successful so far; it delivers excellent performance, it's aggressively
priced and most importantly it's an extremely stable and reliable
platform. The only hiccup has been a brief issue with some recent drivers,
but that looks like a one off. There
are many reasons why the nForce2 chipset has put up such stiff
competition. First off, the chipset has a very powerful memory controller
which supports dual channel DDR memory - which in theory doubles the
available memory bandwidth to the processor. nVIDIA also implemented a
more advanced DASP (Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Pre-Processor) on the
nForce2 which acts like the prefetch logic built into a Pentium 4 or
AthlonXP processor. Continue -- Click
Here>>
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PCstats Issue
No.103
Circulation: 269,340
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The High Tech
Low Down |
| AMD's Athlon 64 is right around the corner, and if you were planning to purchase one of the high-end, flagship processors, it would certainly be a good idea to consider a motherboard for the chip. NVIDIA's nForce3 chipset is a likely platform, as is AMD's own 8000 series chipset. The talk of the town is coming from VIA, though. We haven't heard much from the firm as of late - its KT600 and PT800 chipsets (for the Athlon XP and Pentium 4 processors, respectively) emerged behind the nForce2 and 875P products, relegating both of VIA's latest platforms to the bargain bin.
However, the upcoming K8T800 promises to be the belle of AMD's Athlon 64 ball. To begin, it can be paired with the new VT8237 South Bridge, featuring 7.1-channel audio capabilities, support for a Gigabit Ethernet companion controller, and two integrated Serial ATA channels. Like Intel's ICH5, the VIA South Bridge also sports eight USB 2.0 ports. The most exciting
news is independent of spec sheets and speculation - reliable
sources that have spent time with K8T800 indicate that the platform
will actually be faster than competing nForce3 boards. Superior
performance and a longer list of features may very well catapult
VIA's first Athlon 64 chipset to the top of your upgrade list. Keep
an eye out for it.
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| Written By |
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Editor-in-Chief
. M. Page
Weekly Tips
. C. Sun
HTLD Columnist
. C. Angelini |
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