Daily hardware bargains

USA
Pcsurplusonline has a last pulled second hand bare video card from Visiontek at US$69.99. The aptly Xtasy Geforce 4 Ti4600 comes with 128Mb memory running at 650Mhz and a core clocked at 300Mhz. Launched in March 2002 at a retail price near US$ 400, the Ti4600 aka NV25 features dual programmable vertex shaders, faster pixel shaders and more than twice the memory bandwidth of the Geforce 3 at 10.4GB/S, thanks for Lightspeed Memory Architecture II. With all this particulars, it is not surprising that it should trounce the competition especially at this price. Overclockability is good reaching 315Mhz/710Mhz with ease. Priced at a Radeon 9100 level, it easily matches the performance of a Geforce FX 5700 depending on benchmarks. Hothardware gave it 9/10 based on its"Based on it's exemplary performance and top-notch build quality" while Viperlair says that its "3D Quality is excellent, 4XS AA, nice hardware features, more than enough 3D power for all games upcoming, and those currently available". This particular card comes with DVI, TVO and D-Sub. The card comes from a working PC and carries a 30 day warranty. It is a bare one and does not come with any cable, boxes or CDs. A new Ti4600 carries a new price of USD$ 119. The card is available here. µ

UK
If you are not too fussy in life, then this one-off deal might interest you. Chuckaduck is selling 15" TFT monitors using buy-it-now for £75 on ebay. Mind you, packing, postage and insurance will add £20 to the price, but you will still be paying a fraction for a normally constituted TFT monitor. Four are available at time of writing. They are all NEC Multisync LCD 1510+ and they all have surface marks and scratches. The 1510+ is a first class product from NEC capable of 24 bit color and XGA resolution. VAT is inclusive and they all come with PSU, D-sub cable and stand. Back in 1999 at its launch, it was sold for around $ 1600. Also on ebay, I have singled out this stunning Compaq Novell Server with loads of stuff bundled with it. The server itself is a Prosigna with 2 4.3Gb SCSI Hard drives, DAT drive and 128Mb RAM. Software included is Novell 3.12 50-user and Windows NT4 with Service Pack 6. But that's not all, literally dozens of components ranging from antique 486 motherboards to a transceiver are included. Seller will post for £20, local delivery and collection apply, bidding has already started at £1 and there is apparently no reserve. µ

Singapore
Convergent is offering the Gainward FX5900XT 128MB Ultra/1100 DVI/TV/VGA for only SG$ 331. The 5900XT is our current best-value card, ousting the FX5700Ultra, the Radeon 9600pro and the Radeon 9800SE. Formerly known as the NV35, the 5900XT is a souped-down version of the 5900 running at 390Mhz core speed and 400Mhz memory speed. With a 256-bit memory width, DVI, TVO and d-sub as well as a host of utilities and software, it arrives on top of our list of preferred 5900XT cards. Unfortunately, Gainward website does not offer that much information about that particular video card. However, using the latest Detonator drivers should bring you the best out of the Ultra 1100. Overclocking could not be better with 461Mhz/843Mhz being reached by some. The modfathers gave this particular card a Silver award and an editors choice describing it as "the best card in the middle market at the moment" and hexus give its an almost perfect 9/10 and says of it that it is "a solid gamers GPU, with some architectural shortcomings that may affect image quality and speed in the games you play, but on the whole it's fine". Want two good reasons to buy it. The 5900XT can be modded to a FX5950Ultra with a 128Mb memory and ExpertTool, their custom made overcloking and tweaking utility is a little gem in itself. µ

France
Topachat and Clust brings French readers a SCSI Hard disk for under 100 euros at € 99.90. The Hitachi 73LZX Ultra 160 hard disk drive might not be one of the best in its category but it is much faster than anything in the IDE world. With a 10,000 RPM speed, a 4.9ms access time and a 4 MB cache, it would nicely fit into any power hungry desktop user, especially if you have a couple of those nice birds in your computer configured in a RAID-0 mode on a budget. You should however be lucky enough to have a compatible SCSI controller supporting 68pin Ultra160 mode. Bear in mind however that at 18Gb, it is only a fraction of the size of today's entry level IDE hard disks. The ideal rig would probably have them as booting hard drives and a large slow ide as storage device. Unlike refurbished SCSI hard disks that you may find, this one comes with a one year warranty. If you can live with its humming noise and slightly underpar SCSI performance, then the 73LZX is for you. Available at clust . Storagereview says of the 73LZX that "when it comes to high-performance desktop situations, the Ultrastar performs as expected from a 10k drive". The product's webpage is here. µ

If you do know about any special offers in any of these countries, please let me know.