Hardware Roundup Our daily wibbling
THE REVIEW might not be that fresh but the product is unique. The Canadian website BCCHardware has what I believe is the only review of a
Wireless projector adaptor from Optical Drive specialist, Plextor. The PX-PA15AW is the one of the first products which heralds the era of the monocord PC. No wires except the power supply. The adaptor ressembles a wireless router and is configured in a similar way. Performance is as good a it can get, especially over 802.11g. A maximum of 15fps at SVGA with 16bit will make game playing slightly problematic.
Nordichardware checks the
Abit AW9D-Max motherboard and overclocks it till it cries. The board marks the return of Abit on the forefront of the motherboard scene. Based on the i975x chipset, it supports Core2 Duo, has two GbE ports, 8-channel HD, eight SATA and 10 USB ports. It is compatible with Crossfire and SLI and it comes with Abit's patented features like the Audio Max expansion card, Silent OTES2 cooling solution and the uGuru overclocking solution. Apart from the capacitors being somewhat close to the socket, hence forfeiting the use of large coolers, Abit should also get a better cooler for the chipset.
French website
Cowcotland introduces the Zeptop Znote 6615WD. Z like Zorro. It is a brand unknown to me and it actually comes from Denmark and positions itself in the same category as Rock Laptops in the UK. Anyway, that review is the perfect excuse for loads of photos. Comes with a Core Duo T2400 with 1GB memory, a Geforce Go 7600, 80GB HDD and a big screen. A good laptop but far from being exceptional.
CGOnline.com sends a
small report of the Kensington PilotMouse Optical Wireless Mouse. This entry level rodent from the laptop accessories specialist might not suit everyone especially if you dislike rubber. It uses AA batteries which should help it last for long. It has only two buttons, which is enough for most, although gamers might be looking for more. That said it is safe and works well on all surfaces.
IGN reviewed the
Killer NIC a few days ago and this yielded a few surprising results. Killer NIC is basically an enhanced, hardware gamer oriented NIC which is a U-turn from integrated NICs that are so common on mobos. The nearest analogy that IGN used was with the Winmodem of yesteryear as compared to real modems. In real life testing, it performs quite well with some major improvement in PING times and FPS. But you will have to cough a few hundred dollars to get it. Tweaktown presents a roundup of
Mega DDR2 Memory Roundup, pulling together models from Corsair, G.Skill, Kingston, OCZ, A-Data, SyncMax, Super Talent and Twinmos; they've been brought to find out who is the overclocking champion. The biggest surprise was how disappointing the Kingston HyperX memory modules was. Mind you they used an Athlon AM2 module to test it, which might have explained why. For now, Corsair grabs the top brownies.
The INQuirer