Jeff Bouton
Recent posts
When it comes time for a new rig, there are those who want the power of a full-sized system but without the footprint of a mid or full sized case. Today, we're going to take a look at a barebones kit that promises full-sized performance in a footprint no bigger than a shoebox. Enter the Shuttle SDXi Barebones Kit. The SDXi Barebone...
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Although they're hard at work on Barcelona and plan to release a new high-end, native quad-core CPU in the coming months, AMD has turned a good part of their attention to a different segment of the market, the low power segment. Back in August of 2006, AMD released several low power CPUs that aimed to balance performance and power consumption....
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The premium graphics card market is in a lopsided state. NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 series is still relatively unchallenged in the high-end space, a position which has been futher solidified with the addition of the 8800 Ultra. By giving the GeForce 8800GTX a nominal speed bump, NVIDIA continues to maintain its lead. ATI, on the otherhand, is...
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At the end of February '07, AMD released their first new chipset since the AMD/ATI merger. The goal with the new 690G/V series was to bring improved integrated graphics to the market, with better performance and broader compatibility. Initial impressions were generally positive; with an integrated Radeon XPress 1250, support for two monitors...
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When you work with computer hardware virtually everyday for years on end, it's easy to become desensitized as to how much technology really has changed. Take my history here at Hothardware.com as an example. It was October of 2000 when I submitted my first article and since that day, my artilce tally has reach triple digit status. Back...
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When going to a party, it's customary to not show up empty handed. Depending on the type of party, a cake, pastries, a bottle of wine or maybe even your favorite beer are all acceptable items to bring as a gesture to the host, thanking them for the invitation. When it comes to a LAN party, however, the term 'customary'...
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Hey folks, JeffB dropping in for a spell to share a little triple monitor gaming with ya! This is a bit of a personal triumph getting this set up to work with Vista and NVIDIA's current drivers. Two 20" monitors are driven by a GeForce 8800GTX and the third by a GeForce 7600GT. It's hard to get these two cards...
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With no major processor architecture updates in the immediate future and their DX10-capable graphics solutions still a few months away, the new AMD seems to be slowly picking up slack as we roll through the first two thirds of Q1 '07. Today, AMD is officially introducing their first new chipset since the ATI acquisition,...
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With Microsoft Vista and DirectX 10 poised to flood the mainstream market, those looking to take advantage of all of the new OS's capabilities will need a quality graphics solution to appreciate new graphical features and eventually next generation gaming. Currently, the only DX10 ready graphics cards available come in the form...
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At the end of 2006, AMD announced the availability of processors built using the company's 65nm manufacturing process, which is first being implemented with the Athlon 64 X2 product line. The move to 65nm brings a number of advantages for both AMD and consumers. From AMD's standpoint, the more advanced manufacturing process...
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While NVIDIA is marching forward with its DirectX 10 capable GeForce 8800 series, ATI is still mum on their next generation graphics cards. Which is somewhat surprising, as one would think this time of year would be ideal for new product announcements. But while Vista is due for a broad release in January '07, games that fully exploit...
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Home users and Small Business owners can often benefit from technologies that are normally out of reach for some general consumers. Home users may benefit from having a file server for sharing media, transferring large files between PCs, or even remote access while away. Small Office users can utilize the same features...
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Power -- It's one of the most important factors for peak system performance and stability. Yet, the PSU is still an often overlooked PC component. While not as sexy as a high-end motherboard, video card or RAM, the power supplying these components is just as important as the components themselves. With the...
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Not long ago, when we reviewed MSI's GeForce 7600 GT, the closest ATI-based competitor available was the Radeon X1600 Pro. It was far from an apples-to-apples comparison from a technical standpoint, however. While both models sported the same number of Pixel and Vertex Shaders and had similar prices, the X1600 Pro's...
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Stepping back to look at who has the largest market share in the chipset sector for AMD socket AM2 processors, it's clear who is on top and who is not. Take virtually any major motherboard manufacturer and see what they have to offer and in most cases, NVIDIA chipset solutions are going to dominate the...
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With the release of NVIDIA's nForce 500 Series, NVIDIA opened the door to a broad range of features tailored to both AMD and Intel based architectures. Today, we have a line up of three motherboards outfitted with the nForce 590 SLI chipset for AMD, offering the best the 500 series has to offer. Before...
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What's in a name? So often hardware companies name their products to paint a mental picture, or set the tone for how they want potential customers to view their particular component. The names chosen are meant to invoke feelings of speed, performance, size or perhaps the supposed exhilaration you will experience...
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In recent months, we've seen a major step forward in the image quality of TV Tuner cards on the PC. As we recently saw with our review of NVIDIA's DualTV, an analog signal can now be cleaned up nicely with finely tuned comb filters and other technologies to bring clarity not seen with previous products. ...
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Apple has been hard at work devising agreements with major auto manufacturers to integrate IPOD compatibility into their new product line. In the end, the estimate is over 70% of new models will be IPOD ready. Surely, Microsoft has their work cut out for them if Zune is to be a viable IPOD competitor....
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AMDZone has a summary of Carmack's two hour heart-to-heart at Quakecon. In that time he gave his thoughts on a broad range of industry topics, from Physics Cards, Multi-Core CPUs and the ATI/AMD merger to name a few. "Multicore/multithreading he does believe that there is more benefit to it than widening SIMD. He...
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Due to the fact that we're an on-line PC hardware enthusiast and technology news publication, the majority of our readers tend to be the do-it-yourself type that build their own custom systems. We cover the gamut of PC hardware, from high-end motherboards and graphics cards, to optical drives and speakers. And while...
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It's hard to believe that the first time we set eyes on a Small Form Factor PC was back in December of 2001. Back then, Shuttle was breaking new ground with several new products that helped give birth to a whole new sector in the PC industry. As Shuttle's successes mounted with each new release, other manufacturers...
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