Thursday Reviews

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Honeywell makes products that fit nearly every market. Since they have a partnership with SOYO, they have also entered the computer peripheral consumer space. One of their first products to be released is the SecuraDrive. It is a 1.8" USB hard drive built for the security conscious.

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This is an editorial about my experiences with the Intel DX38BT motherboard. It is not a review, so please do not take it as such. There are no benchmarks and no testing. There was just annoyance. If you are looking for a review of the DX38BT, search on the web. ASE Labs will not be reviewing this board.

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Flash drives are really ubiquitous. If you look around your computer desk, you will probably find a few USB mass storage devices near your work area. They are a boon for taking documents from one computer to the next and are fast and simple to use. They replaced the floppy that the ZIP disk could not supplant. The one area that USB flash drives are lacking is the ability to boot. Even though many computer motherboards support USB booting, it is difficult to get the right combination. Using this guide, you will be able to make a bootable USB "hard drive."

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Since 1986, Antec has been providing the computer hardware community with grade A cases and power supplies. Their tradition continues on to this day with their power supplies being the best in the business. Antec's cases are equally well known for quality. Today, ASE Labs looks at the Antec 900 which is one of Antec's premier cases.

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Accessories for the iPod come in all shapes and sizes. Today I will be looking at the uniquely shaped mStation 2.1 Stereo Orb. This speaker is designed to work with any iPod ranging from the first generation to current iPod models. Besides acting as a set of speakers, the Stereo Orb can function as a charging/syncing dock and includes a stereo mini jack which allows the ability to hook up other devices such as other MP3 and CD players. Plus with the 10 key remote, you can control basic functions on your mStation.

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The sticker on one side of each module contains the full specs of the memory modules; these are rated for PC2-9200 or 1150MHz with timings of 5-5-5-12 and a maximum voltage rating of 2.3v. Our test system is identical to the one used in the PC2-6400 test setup, this time however we are using the PC2-9200 memory and the Geil. For our stock setup we used 800MHz memory dividers.

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The driver is out that does it all. Crossfire X; we've wanted it, we've asked for it, we've (finally) got it. Crossfire X is the next generation of Crossfire technology for Radeon based graphics cards. With a pair of HD 3870 X2 cards in hand it's time to check out what Crossfire X is capable of. For comparisons sake we've also included a single HD 3870 and a single HD 3870 X2.

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Quote: If you happen to have a device that needs a CompactFlash card, there is no reason not to look at the ATP Electronics ProMax II line. Transferring large amounts of data is best done at high speed, and a UDMA capable card provides the best transfer rates you are going to get at this time . If you do get a ProMax II CompactFlash card, be sure to pick up the ATP Electronics ProMax UDMA card reader.

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On the run all the time? Transferring large documents through silly USB sticks? The Honeywell SecuraDrive has the perfect solution for you. Available in three different capacities: 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB, the SecuraDrive offers security and portability for all of your files. The included software allows you to partition the external drive into two different partitions: public and private. Keeping your friends and co-workers away from your personal files has never been so easy. Read on to see what other features the SecuraDrive has to offer.

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The main purpose of this review is to see how each product performs in the game Crysis. The BFG 8800 GTX Video Card has a slight advantage in all Crysis tests. This is no real surprise considering the drivers for the 3870 X2 are immature and not yet tweaked for Crysis. With more mature drivers for the 3870 X2 I suspect it would pull into the lead, but I'm just guessing. Also consider that Crysis has its issues and is coded to work best with NVIDIA video cards. For fun I ran a few 3DMark tests and it's very clear who the winner is. The 3870 X2 is much faster than.

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Intel's Open-Source Technology Center is involved with a number of open-source Linux projects such as Threading Building Blocks, Moblin, PowerTOP, and the X.Org graphics driver. Intel also has vested interests in numerous other projects such as Xen and KVM. One of Intel's lesser-known projects, however, is the Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit. The Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit is a bootable CD that analyzes the BIOS or EFI on the test system to see how well it's able to work with Linux and what features are supported via the firmware. The primary purpose of this kit is for use by firmware developers, but it's also able to aide end-users in determining what BIOS features on their system will work with Linux.