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Asus A8V and PCI-Express ATI X600 XT
Hello,
The Asus A8V
is an Athlon64 motherboard for the socket 939 processor, and it's a fast
one at that! Based on the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset, the A8V earned high
marks from us, so be sure to read the full review for the low down. Next
up, we test out a PCI Express
x16 videocard from Gigabyte. The Radeon X600 XT based Gigabyte
RX60X128V is a mainstream videocard that easily outperforms the
nearest PCI-E equivalent from nVidia. See the review for full
details, and a taste of what PCI Express has to offer i915p/i925x
motherboard owners.
nVidia's nForce3-250GB chipset powers the Gigabyte
K8NSNXP into the Athlon64 socket 754 world, while a little further
down in today's newsletter we look at a 52x CD-R/RW
drive from AOpen. PCstats Guides you though the process of
networking a home printer, while our Industry Insights column focuses
on the new AMD Semperon CPU. Check out the Weekly
Tech Tips, our Readers Q & A section, and of course don't
forget to stop by the PCstats
Forums and tell us what you think!
 The Gigabyte
GV-RX60X128V is equipped with 128MB of Hynix 2.5ns DDR DRAM, a nice
little heatsink, and Video in / Video out. Gigabyte has bundled in a few
extra's, such as a DVI-to-analog
converter (for dual monitors), a full version of PowerDVD 5 and
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. The VIVO cable is about 120cm in length, so
its easy to hook up the
PC to a TV. It's a much better option than having those
small VIVO boxes that stick out only a few cm from the
computer. Now, time for a little
overclocking!Continue
Here>>
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 VIA's K8T800 Pro follows in the
footsteps of the K8T800 chipset, while increasing its repertoire by
supporting socket 939 AMD Athlon64 and AthlonFX processors, as well as up
to 4GB of regular unbuffered DDR PC3200 memory. When paired with the Asus A8V
motherboard, standard onboard goodies consist of 7.1 channel audio,
IEEE 1394, Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA RAID, not to mention a PCI/AGP lock and
HyperTransport links at 1000MHz. Round back at the I/O port we find an
optical and Coaxial S/PDIF connection for home
theatre systems, and a set of 6 universal audio jacks. Speaking of which, let's look a little closer at the Asus A8V motherboard.
Continue
Here>>
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|  For
any consumer interested in a fast motherboard that is fully featured, pay
close attention to the Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP PCstats is testing today. Based on
the nForce3-250Gb chipset, this Socket 754 Athlon64 motherboard is
literally filled to the gills with virtually every option under the sun.
It has on board native Serial ATA RAID care of the NF3-250Gb chipset, and
if that doesn't satisfy your storage needs, an additionally Silicon Image
SiI3512CT128 Serial ATA RAID controller, for a total of four SATA
headers!Continue
Here>>
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A Reader Asks... |
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Q: I've been experiencing some problems with Windows XP. I have tried to format my hard drive, but XP doesn't let me do it from my own PC. So the next thing I tried was formatting my hard drive (NTFS format) from another machine, but this other machine does not recognize my drive, so I cannot format it. This other machines uses Windows 98 SE Operating System. What can I do to format my hard drive?
A: If you want to erase the drive and start again, the easiest thing to do would be to use the Windows XP CD to erase the partition(s) on the disk and start again. To do this: Boot your PC from the
Windows XP CD. When prompted, press ENTER to install Windows
XP again. Pass through the licensing agreement, then press ESC
to begin a fresh install of the operating system. This will
bring you to the disk-partitioning screen. From here you can
highlight any existing partitions and delete them with the D
key. Once you have erased all the partitions, your disk is
effectively blank. If you have multiple hard drives in your
PC, be careful that you do not accidentally erase partitions that have data you wish to keep. Pay attention to the disk information shown before the list of partitions on each drive.
Now you can create one or more new partitions and continue with the Windows XP install, or exit out if you wish to use a different operating system. Next week, saving your PC from the Blue Screen Of Death.
| | | -Join us - Beginners Q and A in the PCstats Forums | |
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A
quick and easy guide to networking your printer at home without buying
any extra hardware.
In this short but sweet guide, PCstats will
look at how to make a printer
available over your home network using Windows XP's built-in sharing
abilities. Since most of us use USB or parallel connected printers, we are
going to assume that this is the same for you. This article assumes that
you have a printer correctly installed on a Windows XP
computer and a working network connection to at least one
other computer. If you need help in setting up your home network, be sure
to read PCstats in depth guide to Home Networking and Wireless Networking before getting started here.Continue
Here>>
 The AOpen COM5252 is capable of
burning CD-R media at 52x speeds and CD-RW media at 32x. Reading CD-ROM material hums
along at 52x, and the drive can also read DVD's at 16x. Combo drives
are generally great for those who need the storage capacity of a CD burner
and the ability to read DVD's at the same time. As a bonus, the AOpen
com5232 also comes with removeable face plates so you can mix with
your case. The AOpen 5232 combo
drive is rather plain looking, but I like it because it's not gimmicky
(no flashing lights!). For those of you with a nice old beige or black
case, AOpen include
three face plates with combo drive. The first is
shown above, snow white in colour, the next is beige, which great for old
PC's and there is also one that is jet black. Continue
Here>>
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PCstats
Weekly Tech Tips |
Protecting ZIP Files | |
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Today we're going to talk about password protecting ZIP files created via Windows. This is a basic tip, but I've had a few people e-mailing me asking how to do this so here we go...
First create your zip file by using the "Send to" feature. Once that's done open up the zip file and click on the File Menu and select "Add a Password...", that will pop open a new window. Now simply enter the password you'd like, confirm it and you're set. When someone opens up that zip file to recover data they'll now have to enter a password first before they can copy anything over.
Make sure you're folding for team PCStats with your spare CPU cycles. | |
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PCstats Issue
No.144
Circulation: 261,197
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| Industry Insights |
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The upcoming AMD Semperon processor should be here in a couple of weeks, intended to combat the value appeal of Intel's Celeron lineup, which was recently bolstered by a move to 90nm manufacturing, a 16KB L1 cache (compared to last generation's 8KB), a 256KB L2 cache (compared to 128KB), support for the SSE3 instruction set, a 533MHz front side bus, and clock frequencies up to 3.2GHz.
Expect the Semperon family to ship in a couple of configurations: one for the established Socket A infrastructure and another for the Socket 754 interface later this year. Perhaps you noticed that AMD's former value champ, Duron, no longer exists. Semperon is to be its successor, based largely on the existing Athlon XP 'Thoroughbred' core, including a 333MHz front-side bus, and 256KB of L2 cache. There's also a new model number scheme based on office
productivity benchmarks. AMD anticipates that most Semperon
processors will find their way into general-use systems.
Consequently, a Semperon rated at 2400+ might only compare to an
Athlon XP at 2000+, despite similar clock frequencies. Eventually,
Semperon will transition onto the Socket 754 interface, where it
will also include 256KB of cache, yet lack 64-bit support.
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| Written By |
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Editor-in-Chief
. M. Page
A Reader Asks...
. M. Dowler
Weekly Tips
. C. Sun
I.I. Columnist
. C. Angelini
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