I made an HD 4870 for dinner!
I was recently granted custody of an ATI HD 4870 1GB video card. A client’s PC was refusing to POST and the culprit was one of her HD 4870s. Because the card was very out of warranty, she let me have it.
Now the last thing on my list of crap to replace in my PC is the video card. At this point I’ve updated everything except the video card. I’ve been saving up for an ATI HD 5870 to replace my ancient ATI HD 3870.
And now this HD 4870 falls into my lap. It’s more than twice as fast as the HD 3870. Fate must be playing tricks on me again.
ICY DOCK MB663UR-1S Review
First, the finished product.
It took 2½ hours to install because, while very pretty and functional enough for my needs (WHS internal/external backup drive), the entire docking frame was very, very poorly assembled and insufficiently documented.
DFI’s LANParty Division Going Away?
Rumor has it that DFI is shutting down its LANParty line of products, mainly since there haven't been any significant updates to their product line in over half a year and they're only focusing on their industrial products at Computex, unlike previous years where the LANParty products were emphasized.
Also, they seemed hesitant to answer any questions on the LANParty Division's status when a reporter from Bit-Tech visited their offices in Taiwan.
DFI's LANParty division brought us a number of products aimed at the PC ethusiast including the bizzare hybrid LGA 775 + ION dual system on one ATX board (complete with integrated gigabit ethernet switch connecting the two systems' independent gigabit NICs into a single port).
iPad Users Confused by Inconsistency
So… there was a study conducted which covered the usability of Apple’s fancy iPad. So it turns out that, according to the study, UI inconsistency between apps is a major source of confusion among users of the device.
Holy crap. You mean Apple users might start appreciating the downside to having so many different app developers? Welcome to having a popular software platform.
Source: Yahoo! News
HP ZR24w: Thoughts, Review, and Proof
I finally decided that I needed to stop focusing on only upgrading the hardware inside my computer and buy a new monitor. After all, it wouldn’t be worth it to potentially spend $400 on a video card if I were only going to use it with an old 1600x1200 display, right?
Well, after about a month of going back and forth between cheap giant TN panels and prohibitively expensive professional IPS panels, I finally decided on HP’s new ZR24w.
Thermaltake 10 Review
Not water cooling friendly, apparently--and an $800 price tag--just for a case. Hmmm
ATI Catalyst 10.3a Preview Available Tomorrow
The much anticipated WHQL 10.3 Catalyst drivers will be coming March 24th, but version 10.3a (non-WHQL) will be hitting underground.amd.com tomorrow and not only includes everything the official 10.3 driver promised, it also includes some pretty significant performance increases for the 5000 and 4000 series GPUs across a number of games.
By the sounds of it, these performance improvements won’t make it into the official WHQL 10.3 driver being released later this month. So, if you’re using a 4800 or 5000 series AMD GPU, tomorrow looks exciting!
Source: HardOCP
AMD Phenom II X6
Just read it---here's a quote
Phenom II X6 1000 series will most likely not be able to match Intel here, but we still look forward to the first benchmarks and not the least prices of AMD's first hexa-core processors.
Intel Core i7 980X: 12 Logical Cores
It took them 15 months, but Intel’s first real update to the LGA 1366 product line is starting to materialize. The folks at Anandtech have their hands on the latest addition to the Extremely Expensive series, the “Gulftown” 6-core behemoth. Its performance is impressive, but I was particularly amused at the following in their conclusion:
“If you're the type of user who always buys the Extreme Edition knowing that you can get better bang for your buck further down the lineup, this time you're actually getting your money's worth.”
The new flagship CPU also sports a new tower-style OEM heatsink/fan.
Anandtech.com - The Core i7 980X Review: Intel's First 6-Core CPU
So I says to the woman…
I woke up today at 8:21 in the morning to the magical sound of technology.
I decided to ignore the damn phone and go back to sleep.
“Who the hell would be calling me at 8:30 in the morning,” I thought, rolling back over and applying more magic deadening pillows until the sounds stopped. “Surely whoever that was can wait.”
My curiosity pulled me out of bed a minute later.