News archives from August, 2004

Snag yourself a free copy of Half Life 2 when it comes out!

Data protection is one of the most important aspects concerning a secure datacenter and network. Though I do own and operate OCModShop that isn''t my full time job. I currently work as network analyst and know how essential a reliable backup system is. Veritas is the leader in data protection and has been for quiet a while, so needless to say they know what they are doing when it comes to designing backup software. Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 for Windows servers is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems including Windows Server 2003.

The box itself isn''t something flashy and I don''t think that with software like this it has to be. The back of the box has a lot of good information on it which will let you know if it is compatible with your operating system and hardware.

Two days ago we told you about Zalman''s awesome Reserator 1 fanless water cooler. To put it simply, we LOVED it, giving it the coveted "I AM HARDCORE" award.

Unfortunately, while it is a great step towards a truly silent PC, it is not the end-all solution. In fact, there are many components you have to address before attaining the silent goal. One such component that many people might overlook when attempting this goal: the Power Supply.

Running a ''silent'' power supply is all good if you have adequate airflow to keep case temperatures down. Of course, if you''re going for a 100% fanless system, you won''t have that luxury. Most silent PSU''s operate in ''silent'' mode up to a certain level (usually around 60 degrees). Once the temperature goes past that point, the fans spin up to incredible levels, rendering them ANYTHING but silent.

That is why some PSU manufacturers are starting to come out with FANLESS power supplies. SilverStone is one of them, and we have their SST-30NF to review today!

The Athlon 64 processor has become more of a mainstream product as its MSRP slowly dissolves. What was only in Alienware and Voodoo''s high-end boutique box is now available to Not-Too-Average Joe with a little bit more money in their pocket than his younger brother, Average Joe.

Of course, the question that will always inevitably come up is "What should I spend the money I earned working at Wal-Mart on? AMD or Intel?" If that''s what you''re going to ask me, then you''re going to be sorely disappointed as I''m going to stay the hell away from that subject. That''s not what I''m doing here today.

We are, however, going to be looking at three AMD 64 motherboards to see which ones are hot and which are not. Oh, and let me point out that all three are from VIA. The latest version of nVidia''s nForce3 will be represented at a later date (once we round up some Socket 939 processors). Someone grab me my green laser pointer...

Having tested the graphics cards in the new Doom III we thought it would also be interesting to measure the performance of the contemporary CPUs in this game. We used a preliminarily recorded demo as well as the actual gameplay. The results turned out very unexpected. Read more about it now!

Water cooling today is relatively safe and easy to handle. The perfect thing is that it s not like an aquarium that needs to be cleaned ever week or so. I ve been running water cooling for 1,5 year now and I ve been running the same system for at least 6 months.

It could however be a little bit difficult to install a water cooling kit as it needs space, holes and more to start working in your case in order to get the best performance.

Xice has released a product that helps everyone to run a water cooled computer.
It s easy to install, looks really nice and its name is External Cool 900.

The EC900 is totally silent when running in 12V mode, this because it doesn t use any fans to cool the water as normal radiators do. It can also run in 24V mode, but for that you need a power source that can give you that voltage.

The Crucial name has become synonymous with high quality system memory, as well as a prime source for flash memory products and Radeon chipset video cards. Although their system memory has always been top notch for reliability and mainstream performance, one thing the Crucial memory line up was missing was something to appeal to the overclockers and high performance enthusiasts out there.

An interview conducted with a Crucial representative just last year made it clear that, at that time, Crucial had no plans to launch any memory products outside the JEDEC standards, that included heat spreaders, or in any way promoted overclocking. How things have changed in such a short period of time, and am I glad to see they adjusted their stance on these issues.

Roughly one third of U.S. voters will cast their ballots this November on touchscreen voting machines. Controversy has surrounded the reliability of these machines since their introduction, and accusations of tampering have abounded. Now a new argument has arisen over the secrecy surrounding the testing processes for these machines. The three companies charged with certifying the voting machines have refused to disclose their test results, stating that they are bound to secrecy by the terms of their contracts with the voting machine manufacturers.

Recently, we covered the performance differences between Athlon 64 chipsets and found performance differences to be negligible, which is why this motherboard round up doesn''t contain a single benchmark. If you would like information on performance, we recommend reading the chipset performance analysis article.

All of the motherboards in this round up are good boards and will suit anyone building a new machine, or upgrading an old one. The question, is finding the one that suits your needs and budget the best. We have awarded a few choice motherboards, which can be seen below marked with an asterisk. This may help in your decision making process.

It''s been a good while now since the dust settled over the Athlon 64 launch. At release, the only chipset available to buyers was Via''s K8T800 which, whilst being a good chipset, was plagued by the lack of a PCI/AGP lock for overclocking. Performance was good, and it needed to be, since it was the only tenable chipset solution at launch.

NForce 3 made its first appearance in its 150 guise, supporting the original FX 51 / 53 CPU''s based on the 940 pin socket. Boards such as the Asus SK8N Deluxe were first to market and looked set to be more popular than their Via counterparts, but it took some time for the first NForce 3 boards to appear on the cheaper, more readily available socket 754 platform. Perhaps the earliest to hit the shelves was another NForce 3 150 chipset utilised in Shuttle''s SN85G4. Unlike the 940 pin CPU''s it didn''t benefit from using dual channel memory, nor did it require the use of Registered DDR RAM. Performance, however, wasn''t up to scratch, with some companies, like Abit, simply not making a board with the chipset on.

Soltek has made a reputation for itself with high performance, low cost parts but surprisingly, they remain under the radar for the most part in the enthusiast circles. We recently took a look at their 865G-based Qbic 3401a SFF system which impressed us a lot for its robust expandability (two optical drive bays in a SFF!) and low noise levels. Today we take a look at what certainly is two conflicting schools of thought, a high end chipset in a low cost package. Soltek drives straight towards the enthusiast but budget conscious community with its Socket 754 NForce 3 250Gb based K8AN2E-GR.

Who would have imagined back when the Shuttle SV24 barebone system was released, that it would be the beginning of such a successful product line? What is now known as the XPC range has virtually changed the whole direction of the company. Back around the time when the SV24 became available Shuttle motherboards were an extremely popular review item here at Legion Hardware. Since then I have not laid eyes on another Shuttle brand motherboard that didn t come inside an XPC. In fact it would almost appear that Shuttle is almost shutting this side of their business down, making way for more XPC systems.

In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities, Apple is voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion rechargeable batteries that were sold worldwide from January 2004 through August 2004 for use with 15-inch PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) notebook computers. These batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea.

Today we would like to introduce to you a really unique product: Zalman PC case, which is none other but twenty-five kilograms of aluminum, heat pipes, electronics and wires and no fans! Want to learn more about this extraordinary solution, read our new review now!

AT ABOUT 10PM CENTRAL TIME on Wednesday night, a beta version of Counter-Strike based on the new Source game engine became available to those holding an ATI Half-Life 2 voucher and a subscription to Valve''s Steam content delivery system. Counter-Strike: Source is basically just a port of the mega-popular team-based shooter to Half-Life 2''s Source engine. The beta version of CS: Source, though, includes another feature that''s very interesting: a video card benchmark. This benchmark, which Valve has dubbed the "video stress test," uses the same test level that we saw in our early Half-Life 2 benchmarks nearly a year ago. Of course, this time around, Half-Life 2 is very close to release--rumors abound about the game going gold very shortly.

Based on everything we know, we can only conclude that the CS: Source video stress test is essentially a Half-Life 2 benchmark that''s available to the public right now. Naturally, that piques our curiosity, especially since last time around, the ATI cards were absolutely trouncing the NVIDIA cards in Half-Life 2 benchmarks. There was only one thing to do: we rounded up thirteen different DirectX 9-class video cards for a Source engine benchmarking bonanza.

Has ATI maintained its monstrous lead in Half-Life 2 performance over NVIDIA, or have the events of the past year allowed NVIDIA to catch up? Read on to find out.

The world has long been used to seeing desktop performance and graphics capabilities increase at incredibly high rates. We have also borne witness to the fact that integrated and mobile graphics have lagged desktop performance by a significant amount. While integrated graphics still trail modular graphics performance by at least a generation in features (and closer to 2 generations in performance), summer ''04 sees the introduction of a mobile graphics part from ATI that will change the face of notebook graphics as we know it.

The ATI Mobility Radeon 9800 GPU marks the first time bleeding edge desktop technology has pushed its way into the mobile market only one quarter after its desktop R420 counterpart. In fact, the MR9800 debuts even before we see reasonable availability of the X800 line, but that''s a whole other article.

At the weekend we published our preview of Counter-Strike: Source, the latest game to be released by Valve. Counter-Strike: Source runs on the excellent Source engine which also powers Half-Life 2. We noted in our preview that even at high settings the engine ran well and performance was excellent however as with other new engines there is always a lot of questions around what card is faster. Luckily Valve have provided a tool in the latest build of CSS which answers that very question and we at Driverheaven have been lucky enough to have access to it.

So today we will be running ATI and Nvidia''s high end cards through some Source benchmarks and reporting to you which card you''ll want to invest in if your looking for the best performance from the Source engine.

According to the researchers, an unpatched Windows PC connected to the Internet will last for only about 20 minutes before it''s compromised by malware, on average. That figure is down from around 40 minutes, the group''s estimate in 2003.

The Internet Storm Center, which is part of the SANS Institute, calculated the 20-minute "survival time" by listening on vacant Internet Protocol addresses and timing the frequency of reports received there.

A Chinese web-site has published brief technical details about ATI s future mainstream visual processing unit that should be announced in short-term future and be opposed to NVIDIA s GeForce 6600-series GPUs unveiled last week.

Rather unexpectedly, ATI s code-named RV410 graphics processor is said to resemble NVIDIA s higher-end flavour of the GeForce 6600 family in terms of specifications. The new mainstream chip from ATI will have 8 pixel pipelines, 6 vertex pipelines and native support for PCI Express x16 bus. The technology will inherit feature-set of the RADEON X800-series products and will sport such technologies as Shader Model 2.0b, 3Dc and other, according to a report from HKEPC.com web-site.

Two of the world s well-known developers of central processing units makers, Advanced Micro Devices and Freescale, a subsidiary of Motorola, are expected to detail their dual-core AMD64 and PowerPC processors at Fall Processor Forum in early October.

A few days ago, we published our report on the new blockbuster game from id Software, the long-anticipated Doom 3. Besides clearing out some gameplay issues, we carried out tests with top-end graphics cards (you can view the results in our article called Be Doomed: Performance Preview of the Doom III Game).

This article is in fact a sequel to our first report, but we re now going to examine the speed of Doom 3 its various graphics quality modes, from Medium to Ultra High Quality. We will also reveal the differences between these modes.

Arctic Silver, manufacturer of Ceramique and AS5 (arguably the finest thermal compounds available), in cooperation with ESG Associates, also known as Nanotherm, have come together to release a unique thermal surface cleaning, preparation formula. It also dissolves those annoying thermal pads, and the pink paste used by manufacturers on many North Bridge heatsinks.

Occasionally a product is so innovative, or becomes so popular that its brand name is synonymous with the product itself. The best examples of these are Frisbee for a flying disk, Kleenex for a tissue, or Coke for cola-flavored soda. Today, this situation just about holds true in the thermal compound market. When people talk about ''Arctic Silver'' they are very often referring to aftermarket thermal compounds. Don''t get me wrong, Arctic Silver makes fine products but everyone knows that a little competition is good for an industry.

Having a high power PSU can be very important to optimizing your system and achieving the level of performance you desire. In fact, a good power supply really gives you options when it comes to what you want for your system.
Some of the recent graphic cards from ATI and Nvidia require a certain level of power in order to function properly, so choosing a PSU is no longer a decision that takes almost no consideration. After all, the computer industry is rapidly evolving, and as you have probably noticed there is a growing trend toward increasingly power consuming products.

WE''VE ALREADY examined DOOM 3''s performance on the newest generation of high-end graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA, but we''re not done with the game just yet. While DOOM 3 is obviously most comfortable running on the latest high-end graphics hardware (especially NVIDIA''s GeForce 6800 series) the vast majority of gamers are equipped with older and more mainstream graphics cards. These cards may not have the features or horsepower necessary to churn out playable frame rates with the resolution and detail level cranked, but they''ll still run the game. The question is how well.

To find the answer, I''ve assembled an eclectic collection of 17 low-end, mid-range, and former high-end graphics cards and run them through a gauntlet of DOOM 3 performance and image quality tests. I scoured the Benchmarking Sweatshop for cards, and with a little digging and dusting, I was able to come up with two GeForce4 Titaniums, two Radeon 8500 series cards, five GeForce FXs, six Radeon 9000-series cards, one Dustbuster, and even a Parhelia. How do these cards compare in DOOM 3? Read on to find out.