In This Issue...

.Flagship 925X .ATI 9100IGP Mobo .Guide to File Synch'n .Albatron PX915G Pro .Guide to BSOD .WinXP Safe Mode .Epox 8RDA6 Mobo .Asus V9999GE GFX .PCstats Weekly Tips

Hello,
With the Socket 775 Intel processor introducing so many legacy-free technologies all at once, consumers hare really been forced to swallow the bullet and upgrade just about everything in their PCs. It's a bit like peeling a Band-Aid off a hairy arm though; the faster you pull it off, the less it hurts in the long run. It's with this in mind that we as consumers are quickly being introduced to terminology like 'DDR-2,' 'BTX,' and of course 'PCI-Express.' PCstats has tested two PCI Express LGA775 motherboards for this edition, the first is the award winning Gigabyte GA-8ANXP-D, and the second the excellent little PX915G-Pro from Albatron. I recommend reading both reviews if you are considering a platform which supports PCI Express videocards.

Next up on our list of hot reviews is the Radeon 9100IGP-based Gigabyte 8TRS350MT motherboard. While its ATI Northbridge is more of a mainstream solution, it is the first board we've come across to feature a TV-out. Also worth checking out is PCstats Guide to File Synchronizing. Okay, this isn't as cool as a shiny new videocard, or mouth watering as a CPU review, but if you work on more than one PC throughout the day, it is full of really handy info.

Don't forget to check out PCstats Weekly Tech Tips, and the rest of the reviews assembled in this issue... especially Colin's look at the ASUS V9999GE 6800 videocard! If you have any comments or suggestions for the PCstats Team, let us know.

Gigabyte GA-8ANXP-D Motherboard Review

In this review, PCstats.com is testing out Gigabyte's new Intel Pentium 4 flagship motherboard, the GA-8ANXP-D. Based on the 925X chipset, the Gigabyte GA-8ANXP-D supports the new Socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 processor formfactor, and can be run with up to 4GB of DDR-2 memory. This is a fully loaded ATX motherboard, with PCI Express videocard and peripheral support. The GA-8ANXP-D includes a grand total of eight Serial ATA headers (four from the Intel ICH6R Southbridge, and four from a Silicon Image controller), IEEE 1394b Firewire, one PCI Express Broadcom 5751 Gigabit NIC and one Marvel 8001 PCI Gigabit NIC, a PCI 802.11g wireless card, 7.1 channel Intel 'High Definition Audio' and dual BIOS'. It also has its very own heatpipe cooled 8-phase power supply, which we'll get to in a moment. Continue Here>>

Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT Radeon 9100 IGP PRO Review

ATI's first attempt at creating its own core logic chipset was called the 'RS300' Radeon 9100 IGP. The RS300 core logic supported the Pentium 4 platform, and its performance was good for system integrators, but a little lacking compared to the competition. Like the nVidia nForce chipsets before it, being bread by a videocard card company endowed the ATI RS300 with a couple of cool features not normally associated with motherboards; like SurroundView, DX8 integrated graphics, and support for 16X AF and 4X FSAA. The ATI Radeon 9100 IGP Pro as it is called, is essentially a tweaked version of the RS300, and so the big question on all our minds is whether or not it can really stand up in the benchmarks... Continue Here>>

Sexy topic huh? Well if you have a laptop or a work computer as well as your home desktop, you should know about file synchronization. It can make your life a heck of a lot easier if you do work on more than one system during the week. In this article we will explain the process of file synchronization and show you the two major methods of synchronization within Windows XP. New files created on one system are replicated to the other, as are changes made to existing documents. Continue Here>>

The small blue PCI Express x1 slots on the Albatron PX915G Pro on the review bench today offer more bandwidth than the entire PCI bus. That's 500MB/s at full duplex mode folks! To remedy the shared bandwidth issue, each PCI Express slot has its own direct pipeline to the ICH6 southbridge. Individual PCI Express devices can no longer steal bandwidth away from other peripherals. Of course there's more to the Albatron Mars PX915G Pro than PCI Express, and we'll be getting to those other features in a bit.Continue Here>>

	Beginners Guides: Crash Recovery: The Blue Screen of Death If you've ever used Windows, chances are you've experienced the lovely shade of blue associated with the famous Windows Stop Error or 'Blue Screen of Death.' This frequent, although less so in newer operating systems, error occurs whenever Windows senses a software, hardware or driver error which will not allow it to continue operating properly. In other words, it happens all the time, for all sorts of reasons. In this article we'll provide you with a set of tools for troubleshooting that you can use to get around any Blue Screen Of Death.Continue Here>>	Beginners Guides: Windows XP Safe Mode Explained Hit F8 to boot your PC in to Safe Mode, and from there..... what? Safe Mode is a powerful tool for fixing problems in Windows, and finally PCstats explains how to actually use it In this article, PCstats will explain how Windows XP's various 'Safe Modes' work, how you access them and how they can help you troubleshoot various software and operating system issues. Now, isn't this a handy topic!? Windows XP safe mode provides you with a basic graphics driver (enough to display the user interface), access to your drives and windows configuration, and very little else.Continue Here>>

Epox 8RDA6+ PRO Socket A Motherboard Review

The Epox 8RDA6+ PRO motherboard supports any Socket 462/A Athlon or AthlonXP processor, and its three DIMM slots can handle up to 3GB of PC3200 unbuffered DDR memory. In terms of onboard goodies, there's an additional Serial ATA RAID controller, IEEE 1394a Firewire, 7.1-channel AC'97 audio and of course the ever useful Port 80 diagnostics card. As a bonus, Epox have tossed in a set of nice rounded IDE cables with the 8RDA6+ PRO motherboard. with their boards. These big purple cables are nice and moldable, and in addition to this, the 8RDA6+ PRO even comes with a small phillips / slot screw driver, and set of blue MOSFET heatsinks. Continue Here>>

Asus V9999 Gamer Edition Videocard Review

Ahh, I remember the days when my trusty old Pentium 100 could handle any game I threw at it..... Over the next several pages, PCstats.com will be testing the brand new, nVidia-based Asus V9999 Gamer Edition videocard! This baby is a beast, and behind its shinny exterior rests the precious nVidia GeForce 6800 GPU. Like many GeForce 6800's, the Asus V9999 Gamer Edition is equipped with 256MB of DDR3 memory. Oh, I can almost hear those Quake 3 pixels shaking with terror.Continue Here>>

PCstats Weekly Tech Tips: Parental Controls This tip is good for those parents who's kids spend too much time on the PC. Get them to make themselves their own user account (or make it yourself) and include a password. Once that's done whenever you don't want them to use the PC simply disable their user account so they can't log in. Only enable when you want to allow them to use the PC. =) To do all this, you must be logged into the OS with an account with administrative access. From there right click on the My Computer icon and select Manage. That will open up the Computer Management window, Expand the Local Users and Groups option and click on the users folder. On the right you should see all the accounts available on the PC, right click on the appropriate one go to properties, check the Account is disabled box and click ok. Now that account is disabled till you re-enable it (to enable an account, follow the steps above and uncheck the Account is disabled box). Hey if you visit the PCStats forums, why not post your picture so we can see who we're talking to? [Editor's Note: If you see Colin on the street be sure to say 'hi', as for me, I'll just sit this one out! ;-) ] Search Dealtime ABIT ASUS Gigabyte Intel Epox Aopen Shuttle More... AMD Intel More... SDRAM DDR-2 RAM DDR RAM More... Albatron ATI BFG Sapphire More... Join the PCstats Forums Today @ Forum.PCstats.com!

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