Wed Reviews

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As readers of ASE Labs, you know that I have always said that it is very important to have proper backups and have redundant storage. While we have seen the MS2UTN+ from Sans Digital, this new model contains a LCD screen to easily setup and manage the unit. It is really amazing what a two line LCD can give you in terms of piece of mind.

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DDR3 is finally coming to a price where many mainstream system builders will be willing to pay. Manufacturers must provide mainstream DDR3 solutions to fill in the gap between the high end (and inexpensive) DDR2 and the very expensive, high speed DDR3 modules. While the HyperX line from Kingston may not be the mainstream product, the KHX12800D3K2/2G kit is described as the mainstream overclocking kit. It is far cheaper than speedier kits but lacks the tight timings as well. This could be the kit that kicks off DDR3.

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The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 retail box is black with red accents. This is the case it should be since ATI graphics are known to be red. Also, red and black are my favorite colors. While the box says it supports some stuff, there is no mention of Linux support even though AMD has said it wants its partners to include a penguin or other open sourcey stuff on the box. The Catalyst 8.6 drivers for Linux support this GPU and were released last month.

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Western Digital is well known to system builders and end users for providing excellent storage solutions matched with a good warranty and support. I only recommend two hard drive manufactures to people, Western Digital is one of them (the other being Seagate). The latest and greatest things in terms of technology have moved out of the computer case and into portable storage. The My Passport Studio comes in at 250GB and this one is preformatted for Mac. Don't let that scare you, though.

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Besides functioning as an FM transmitter, the Monster iCarPlay Wireless 250 also works as a USB charger. The USB cord detaches from the Cigarette Lighter Adapter and can be used as a transmitter around any FM radio/device. Plus the USB cable can be used as a charger via any USB 2.0 enabled port or with a Monster iSlimCharger or iCharger Travel USB wall charger.

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You'd think we would have looked at all 9600GT cards on the market, but I can guarantee there are more out there. The particular one we're looking at today comes from ASUS and carries with it a silent cooler. We've seen GIGABYTE offer the 9600GT in silent form, sporting both 512MB and 1GB of GDDR3. MSI also has a card where the fan only spins when the card needs it. During our testing, however, the fan never actually spun. Silent cards are becoming quite the rage and everyone wants good performance without any noise. In the past, the design used to be reserved for low-end cards, but these days we seem to be able to get a good performing card that outputs not a single dB. In the highly competitive market that is the 9600GT, we will today see if ASUS are able to do anything that helps them stand out from the pack and if it's a card worth looking at.

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Today I will be looking at a DDR2 4GB kit marketed towards gamers, the A-DATA Gaming Series DDR2-800 5-5-5-12. A-DATA probably isn't your first choice for high-performance memory, but in a mere 7 years, they have become the second largest vendor of memory modules in the world. Will the Gaming Series memory impress? Read on to see.

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A few short weeks ago NVIDIA released to the masses a GPU that redfined high-end gaming. The GTX 260 and GTX 280 has taken gamers to new levels of performance that were out of reach only eight short months ago. Of course, this level of performance doesn't come cheap and many people have a hard time swallowing the cost of these cards that ranged anywhere from $400 USD all the way up to $650 USD. Thankfully in the past few days we have seen substantial price reductions bringing the GTX 280 within the reach of many more gamers. With 240 unified stream processors and a 512-bit wide memory bus there is a lot to like about this card. When a company like Leadtek jumps in and starts offering this card then that becomes the icing on the cake. With lots of accessories and a free game, Leadtek is positioning themselves to offer a top notch product with all the extras we've come to expect from the high end.

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* *Just recently OCZ released a new and improved version of their award winning Vendetta CPU cooling solution aptly named the Vendetta 2. While this name is not what you would call imaginative, we certainly understand why they would want to keep such a distinguished brand name alive. Unlike the original model which also had an exposed heatpipe base but was only sized for a 92mm fan, the Vendetta 2 is a full size 120mm design but it has kept the unique double V look and feel of the original.*

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The Sprint Instinct from Samsung is one of the hottest new phones on the market, thanks to its slim profile, vibrating touchscreen, and standard headphone jack. It also has features that are now standard fare on midrange phones, like GPS, a Web browser, and a microSD slot. The Instinct's lack of built-in WiFi means prospective iPhone buyers probably won't be swayed, and its live TV streaming pales in comparison to that of the LG Voyager. But Samsung has clearly been listening to consumer complaints about the competition (and its own Glyde) and has made a reliable, satisfying handset with a stellar accessory bundle.

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If you're spending your hard earned cash on the new DDR3 standard, then you expect nothing short of stable, dependable performance whether you're using a 32-bit or 64-bit system. The memory must be reliable if you just play games or if your system is a serious number crunching SETI beast. The Patriot Viper 4GB PC3-12800 Dual Channel Memory Kit thoroughly tested here offered nothing short of those expectations. The memory is fully backward compatible with your 1066 MHz and 1333 MHz Core 2 series Intel processors. The extra performance gained from the memory's timings at lower 6-6-6-18 setting should be a pleasant bonus which also equates to plenty of bandwidth.

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* With the need for a steady and stable supply of power to fuel the most power hungry of PCs nowadays, we are starting to see an increasing number of power supplies with high wattages that claim stability and silence as well. One such product is the Tuniq Miniplant, which boasts an impressive 950W of power and was for a time the highest wattage PSU in the 80+ category of standard PS2 sized units. Today I will be taking this one for a spin to see just how efficient and quiet it really is.

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The curtain of Computex 2008 has fallen and with the show ended, we are going to see many product showcased products start to appear in the market. The show brought many interesting products and one of such products are motherboards for AMD processors based on NVIDIA's new chipsets that feature an integrated graphics processor. Motherboards with integrated processor is nothing new to the computer world but NVIDIA's latest implementation is something new which they brand as HybridSLI. NVIDIA is planning to implement this feature in all of their future chipsets and we have seen motherboards with such feature with nForce 780a chipset. NVIDIA has just released two new chipsets, nForce 750a and GeForce 8300, which also features HybridSLI. Starting with this review, we will have more AMD motherboard reviews coming that features either one of the two chipsets. To start things off, we will be looking at the XFX nForce 750a motherboard.