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- Intel P4-D 840
- Gigabyte GA-8I945P
- Foxconn NF4-SLI
- Foxconn 955X Mobo
- Akasa 550W SLI PSU
- Asus A8N-SLI Mobo
- Ballistix PC2-4200
- PCstats Weekly Tips |
Intel Pentium D-840 Dual Core CPU
Hello,
In a
recent meeting Samsung, PCSTATS was briefed about a new kind of LCD display. What
was interesting wasn't that the 17" display had 8ms pixel times,
or wildly high screen properties... but rather that it emitted Anions; 50,000 EA/cc within 30cm of the display to be exact. Anions are negatively charged
ions which have several beneficial health properties for
humans when breathed in; it's a sort of 'healthy air' technology if
you will. It's an interesting inclusion into monitors for sure,
but what's your opinion on computer hardware designed to be "healthy?"
In this issue of the PCSTATS newsletter we
have a review of the 3.2GHz dual core Intel Pentium
D-840 CPU. The 19-page report a good read, and I think
you'll find the
differences between this CPU and the Athlon64
X2 4800+ are... Moving right along, on the motherboard front
we have two systems from Foxconn to tell you about; the first is the Foxconn
NF4SK8AN (NF4-SLI AMD) and the second the Foxconn
955X7AA (955X Intel). The Gigabyte
GA-8I945P follows right along with the powerful Asus A8N-SLI
Premium which features a neat heatpipe-based cooling system. Rounding
out the list this week is the 550W Akasa AK-P550FF
powersupply with dual SLI power connectors, and a pair of Crucial Ballistix
PC2-4200 DDR-2 RAM.
The next few weeks are looking pretty exciting; ATI
is releasing "CrossFire" on or about the second week of September, Intel
is adding SLI-like support to its chipset, and nVidia are quietly bringing
out the nForce4-SLI x16 chipset.
The flagship Intel Pentium
D 840 processor, clocked at a respectable 3.2GHz and built on the
90nm process uses a pair of Prescott cores running at 16 x
200MHz to bring multi-processing to the desktop in a LGA775 pinless package. The Intel Pentium D 840 has a maximum power requirement of 130Watts (as opposed
to 169million transistors and 115W for the 3.8GHz P4 670). Each
core has access to its own L1 and L2 cache memory, 16KB
and 1MB respectively. Continue Here>>
Gigabyte's GA-8I945P Pro pairs up the Intel 945P chipset with the Intel ICH7R Southbridge, and supports Intel's new Pentium
D dual core processors as well as any other recent LGA775 Intel
Pentium 4 processor or Celeron. The motherboard can run at
533MHz, 800MHz and 1066MHZ FSB speed with up to 4GB of dual channel DDR II
memory installed. A single PCI Express x16 slot provides the graphical
interface. It's always
good to see a motherboard that includes just about everything a user would
need from the get-go.Continue Here>>
If you want to
go with a dual videocard system, the only game in town right
now is nVIDIA and its nForce4-SLI chipset. The WinFast NF4SK8AA-8KRS is a no-frills AMD Athlon64 socket 939, nVidia nForce4
SLI chipset based motherboard. Standard features are limited to a 7.1
channel audio controller and Gigabit LAN but there's plenty of expansion room if you
need more, with three PCI slots and a single PCI Express x1 slot. To enable SLI mode on the motherboard, one must flip
the selector switch which resides just between the two PCI Express x16 slots.
Continue Here>>
This 550Watt peak power supply uses Active
Power Factor Correction (Active PFC) to increase efficiency, resulting in less wasted
power for a given workload. We've tested several Active PFC supplies from
other companies and found that to a unit, they decrease wasted
power considerably. The Akasa PowerPlus AK-P550FF is advertised as a
"server power supply" and splits its 12V delivery into four discrete
rails, which should lead to more efficient and stable delivery of power.
Dual-PCI Express video card power connectors are also featured, making
this PSU certainly suitable for SLI (or Crossfire) systems.
Continue Here>>
Looking at the specs of its flagship Intel 955X
chipset based solution, the Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2, we're left quite
impressed. The board supports up to 8GB of PC5300 DDR2 memory as well as
800/1066MHz FSB Intel Pentium 4/D/EE processors. Network connectivity comes care of two
Broadcom Gigabit NICs, 7.1-channel audio is the work of Intel's 'High
Definition' Azalia audio controller. If you need to upgrade, there
is the standard PCI Express x16 videocard slot among others. Continue Here>>
Asus has introduced an innovative heatpipe cooling solution
on the NF4 SLI Northbridge for its newly re-spun Asus A8N-SLI Premium (rev
1.02) motherboard. The 6mm diameter copper heatpipe draws
heat away from the nVidia NF4-SLI chipset to a section of fins which are
also used to cool the power MOSFETs. Moving on, the board can be used
with any Socket 939 AMD Athlon64/FX CPU currently on the market, up to 4GB of
PC3200 DDR-RAM and of course two PCI Express x16 videocards in SLI! Continue Here>>
In
this review, we'll benchmark and overclocking a 1GB set of Crucial
Ballistix PC2-4200 DDR2 memory (2x 512MB) which come packed in bright
yellow/orange aluminum heatspreaders. By default Crucial's Ballistix PC2-4200 runs at DDR2-533 speeds with memory timings of 4-4-4-10, at a voltage of 1.8V. Crucial has always been
on the conservative side of 'enthusiast' level gear, but we're hoping that
this Ballistix DDR2 RAM will still be up to the overclocking challenge.
Continue
Here>>
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PCstats Weekly Tech Tips: Network Security Settings |
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Networking PCs is great however what do you do if you do not want a certain class of user to access your computer through the network? If you have administrative access, you can remove whole groups of users through the Local Security Settings section. To access that, click Start then Run and type secpol.msc and press the OK button.
That will pop open the Local Security Settings window and from there expand the Local Policies folder then select the User Rights Assignment folder. In the right hand window find the "Access this computer from the network" option and double click on it. From here you can add/remove users or whole groups. Once you've done your changes, click the OK button everything is set.
All of the PCstats Weekly Tech Tips have been archived in the Forums for your reference.
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PCstats Issue
No.187
Circulation: 195,205
| This Issue By |
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Editor-in-Chief
. M. Page
Weekly Tips
. C. Sun
. M. Dowler
|
PCSTATS Q & A:
Send in your tough tech
questions today! |
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