Michael Lin
Recent posts
I was reading through some comments on the news stories on the front page when I came across this one. I started typing out a reply along the lines of "I don't mind Vista" but 5 minutes later I was in a deep scathing rant about modern interfaces and how I hate them so. It occurred to me that it probably wasn't the right time...
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Gaming controllers, be it a gamepad, joystick, wheel or mouse, are some of the central defining elements of any gaming experience. Any gamer with a modicum of experience knows how a bad controller or control scheme can completely ruin the experience of playing an otherwise excellent game. Judging from the huge variety of input devices...
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In the last six months we've seen a wide variety of cost effective, yet powerful, video cards hit the market. First came NVIDIA's superb GeForce 8800 GT last October which, despite being introduced at an upper mid-range price point, provided top-notch performance not far off from the best cards of the day at nearly 1/3...
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Dell's XPS branded products have come a long way since they first appeared in 1993. Starting life as a performance trim for the Dimension product line, Dell has nurtured XPS into a well-known and respected premium performance brand. While not all XPS branded products are specifically targeted at gamers, gaming has always been at the core...
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In the last half year, Dell has been busy revamping their entire desktop XPS lineup. First came the XPS 420 late last year, a premium multimedia workstation. Then Dell introduced a new mid-range gaming oriented desktop, the XPS 630 early this year. The 630 is a mid-tower sized gaming desktop styled after the flagship XPS 700 series but with...
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Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of...
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Water cooling has traditionally been considered an extreme solution, pursued by enthusiasts looking for the best cooling performance to squeeze every last drop of performance from their systems. For a long time this wasn't far from the truth and you were unlikely to find a water cooling setup that wasn't hooked up to an overclocked rig. However,...
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For each type of product and in each market, there is usually a specific price segment that will provide the best value proposition for consumers, often known as the 'sweet spot'. For quite some time, the 19" widescreen was the sweet spot of the consumer LCD monitor market. Hovering between the cheaper but aging 17" screens and the...
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If you're the type who wants to make a statement with your notebook, names like Apple, VAIO, and Alienware may come to mind. But what about ASUS? While you may know them best for their motherboards and video cards, ASUS is a seasoned veteran when it comes to manufacturing notebooks, and they definitely make more than just EeePCs. Besides...
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Dell's XPS brand is instantly recognizable in computer hardware and gaming circles. Whether you've owned one or not, there is no debate that XPS branded machines, desktops and notebooks alike, are serious competitors in the high-end and ultra high-end performance markets. While the XPS brand is over fourteen years old, it didn't receive acceptance...
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When we first looked at the NVIDIA GeForce 8M series of mobile graphics chips, over six months ago in early May, the series had just been announced. At the time, the lineup only consisted of the 8400M mainstream series and the 8600M mid-range series. Although rumors had been circulating about the possibility of a high-end, G80-based enthusiast...
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DirectX 10 (DX10) has been one of the hottest topics for discussion and news coverage since the first DX10 compliant hardware appeared in the second half of last year. Touted as the biggest milestone in games development since programmable shaders were introduced with DirectX 8, nearly seven years ago, DX10 has generated a lot of buzz. Unlike...
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We first reported on a possible new addition to AMD's Athlon 64 X2 line-up back in July. The rumored chip was somewhat of a surprise, since official AMD roadmaps clearly pegged the 6000+ as the last member of the Athlon 64 X2 family as we currently know it, with no further additions until the Phenom was out in force. The rumors have turned...
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We first took a look at Intel's P35 Express chipset back in May, when it was released into the wild to supplant the still relatively youthful P965 and usher in the era of DDR3 memory and 1333MHz FSB Intel processors. The P965 is a tough act to follow. Despite its intended mid-range market placement, Intel didn't hamper the P965 in any way...
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Online compensation company Salary.com recently conducted its third annual online survey on slacking at work. 2,057 people participated in the survey which found that 60 percent of those surveyed admitted to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day. The leading time wasting...
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Alienware is now offering solid-state hard drives as an option for three of their notebook models, the Area-51 m5550, Area-51 m9750 and the Aurora m9700. While the addition of solid-state drives as an option isn't anything special since several other notebook manufacturers already offer SSDs, what is special is that Alienware will offer them...
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The 6000+ isn't the end of the line for AMD Athlon 64 X2 after all. Dispite AMD roadmaps long foretelling that the Athlon 64 X2 product line as we currently know it would end with the 6000+, Digitimes is reporting that AMD is planning to release a new addition to the line-up. The new part will be badged as the 6400+ and will clock in at 3.2GHz...
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July 22 has come and gone and just as anticipated, the Intel price cut is finally here. Unless you've been on vacation in the African plains for the last couple months, living the disconnected life with the local tribes and learning their ways, you've probably heard about this widely reported price cut. The price cuts effect Intel's quad core...
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The nominations for the 59th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, to be held on Sept. 16 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, were announced yesterday. The South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" was nominated in the Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour) category, along with other hit shows like SpongeBob, The...
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Details about Intel's upcoming update to Conroe have been slowly leaking out to the public all week. The "Penryn" family of processors is set to succeed the Conroe family at the end of this year. Penryn will introduce SSE4 and take the Core 2 family of processors to 45nm. Digitimes is now reporting that their sources have told them that the...
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Steam, Valve Corp's online game distribution system, just added THQ to its roster of big-name developers further expanding the impressive list of games being distributed through its Steam client. THQ is a major game developer and publisher responsible for several recent blockbuster hits such as Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:...
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AMD slashed prices on it's dual-core offerings early last week, lowering prices on its Athlon 64 X2 and FX processors by as much as 33 percent. Intel is expected to drop prices on their quad-core desktop processors on July 22nd and its server processors on July 29th, likely in response to AMD's price drops. These prices cuts have sparked widespread...
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