Dual Chipset AMD board tested

IT HAS created a monster - this is how Lostcircuits describes the Foxconn Winfast NFPIK8AA-8KERS motherboard. This ain't your usual run-of-mill board. It is a server class motherboard with two chipsets and two PCI-e x16 slots. You have GbE ports and RAID. This is a socket 940 socket, requires ECC emmory and has ten PATA/SATA ports. The finish of that product is simply superb and while Foxconn is not well known, its products can compete easily with the best from Tyan or Supermicro. As Lost Circuits says, it is a mouth watering dream of professional motherboard.

Nathan of 3Davenue.com tests two Geforce 7300GS video cards; one from Asus and one from Gigabyte. The models tested both come with 128MB DDR2 memory PCI-e models. The Gigabyte was the one we viewed at HKEPC. Both cards have Turbo cache onboard. Their core/memory speed is 550MHz/810MHz respectively. Unfortunately, the bus size is only 64-bit which is a real bottleneck. Asus is half size and comes with an active fan whereas GB is a passive model. No comparison with other cards here, unfortunately.

There's a guide to show how to make Windows XP shut down faster - all in five steps. Stop as many services as possible, automatically kill tasks on shutdown, reduce the wait taime to kill open applications, reduce the wait time for services to be shut down and get the one click shutdown. That's all. Now go on the site to know exactly how to get those steps right.

Think computers reviews the Altec Lansing iM616 headphones which are in-the-ear earphones. Altec Lansing is well known for their affordable yet performing speaker range. It comes with a bluish carrying and case and the reviewer appears to love it quite a lot. Although there is no built-in volume control, there is an extra sets of earbuds included and it is comfortable which means that you would probably be able to use it for a long period. 2GB DDR memory kits. That's not a bad thing, far from that and more memory is better in everyday life and is one of the cheaper way to improve performance in an easy way. Nine 2GB kits are tested in all; from well known - Corsair, Crucial, to lesser known like Teasm Xtream or Gigaram. The Crucial Ballistix kit is the best buy, if you can get it. Else choose Mushkin or ECZ. But should you buy DDR when DDR2 platforms are about to flood the market?

The fourth generation of Libretto is here. The Toshiba U100-S213 laptop is one of the smallest laptop out there, at just around 1Kg. Its small size means that you will have to use a pointing device rather than a touch pad and I still wonder why the Libretto does not have a much larger screen - why the heck all that lose frame space around the screen. It is based on the Pentium M 753 ULV processor, 512MB memory and a 60GB HDD. The optical drive though is separate and Mobileguru also gives some advices on other microlaptops like the Latitude X1, the Fujitsu lifebbook or the Vaio TX670P. µ