Thursday's Daily Hardware Buys

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (auctions, rebates, one-off, clearance, surplus, classified ads) going around in the United Kingdom, France, USA or Singapore, don't hesitate to contact me, at least 24 hours before the sales end.

USA
Gamepc has produced a first in Gaming history. This small outfit, which is renowned in the Geek world for their astute reviews, has recently launched a Gaming Rig based on the now almost legendary Pentium M. For $2190 - excluding shipping, discounts and taxes, you get a Pentium M 755 running at 2.0GHz combined with an Aopen i855GMEm-LFS motherboard, one of the rare birds capable of running this baby. The motherboard comes with three PCI slots, one Serial ATA II Raid controller as well as two Marvel Gigabit ethernet, two Firewire and six USB 2.0 ports, all on a mATX format. As for the sound, there is Realtek ALC655 5.1 audio controller with SPDIF. The processor is a Dothan Core Pentium M with a 400MHz FSB speed and 2MB L2 cache - what makes the processor a favourite amongst many is its minute thermal design power at only 21w, nearly a fifth of the P4 EE. Obviously, one of the first things that this processor would excel at is overclocking. At only 300MHz over its stock speed and with other components being equal, it manages to outclass the fastest x86 processor in the world, the FX55 on a number of games. The FX55 itself costs more than the Pentium M and its motherboard plus memory. This is performance speaking for itself.
Next components on the list, two Samsung 512MB PC3200 DDR memory modules, a 120GB Seagate Barracuda hard disk plus a superb Dual Layer Black Sony DVD 16x Writer. Graphics are handled by a Gigabyte GV-R80X256V video card featuring the Radeon X800XT with VIVO capabilities and 256MB memory - enough to make Half Life 2 really bubbly. Everything is housed in an absolutely first class Antec Aria MicroATX casing with a 300W PSU - capable of handling even the mighty Geforce 6800 Ultra - it has a front panel eight-in one memory card reader, two USB ports and one Firewire one as well as analog audio front panel ports. It comes complete with its own 300W low noise power supply as well as a single 120mm low noise heat exhaust cooling fan plus a Cyclone slot blower fan and assorted rounded IDE cable to ease air flow. The case is slightly larger than the usual SFF but provides with much more internal capacity - one 5.25-inch external and three internal 3.5-inch bays. The rest is fairly standard with MS Windows XP SP2 Home Edition, a standard one year parts and labour warranty. Game PC will assemble, benchmark, burn in and install drivers as well as the Mozilla's 1.73 Web Software suite. Other delicacies included are optimized cabling for maximym airflow, online build propgres status checking, personal online tech support interface and the knowledge that these guys won't fold overnight. Note however that there is no floppy drive, no keyboard, mouse or monitor or speakers. Can't wait for the Alviso Chipset.

UK
Retekdirect continues to baffle me. Jonathan Cox has a theory about the R9500 AIW - "With a complete guess i think ATi had a nasty batch of 9700 AIW's that couldn't make the grade, so instead of dumping them, they just disabled some of the pipelines and lowered the clock speed. Not sure whether they can be soft modded to 9700 standards though". Fortunately someone will buy one and sort this mystery out for us. After the R9500 AIW card, how about a £20 R9500 graphic card? It might only be a 64MB but at the same price you would not even get a Radeon 9200SE, let alone a PCI version of a Radeon 7000, basically, a reworked version of the first Radeon. As with most RetekDirect graphics card, this one comes without any cable or software. Only a nude, refurbished card with a 30 days RTB warranty. The Radeon 9500 GPU has four pipelines and a 128 bit data width. Other details include a 64MB onboard memory and from the photo attached, one can guess that there is a DVI, a DSub and an SVideo connection. Point your cursor here. Tomshardware suggests that the Radeon 9500 should run at 275MHz/540MHz for the core and the memory respectively. The R9500 scores better than the FX5600 or the 9600SE in most benchmarks.
From the same vendor, we have the cheapest new Wireless Network adaptor in the UK. The Netgear MA521 is one of the last of a dying bread as more chipset vendors rush to integrate wireless connectivity to notebooks. For those without wireless connectivity, this card costs only £7.50+VAT and supports 802.11b, largely sufficient if you are planning to transfer files or surf the internet from an old laptop connected wirelessly to your computer. The card has a small-sized antenna and even its smallish 11Mbps should keep most home users happy. It is secured by a 128-bit WEP encryption and copmes with a three year warranty. You'll need a PCMCIA Type II slot to use it. Reviewers at broadbandbuyers gave it good marks especially since it is compatible with Linux and is very easy to setup and provides with good signal strength.

Singapore
Fonny computers promises to break new barriers as it plans to sell 15-inch LCD monitor and 17in LCD monitors at break neck prices durin the SITEX 2004 exhibition. The Maxview CL-150G and the CL-170EA will be on sale at S$325 and S$399 respectively. They are both covered by a three year local warranty with the first two years onsite and are the first of a new breed of Chinese LCD monitors that are meant to replicate what their forefathers did in the early 90's. Conquer the lounge. Both prices are of course, the cheapest in Singapore. The 17-in LCD TFT undercuts its nearest rival by a full S$40. It has a standard resolution of 1024x1280 and a contrast ratio of 400:1 plus a D-Sub connector instead of the usual DVI. The 15-inch edition boosts a larger 0.3mm pitch compared to its elder brother 0.26mm as well as a smaller XGA resolution plus a lower contrast ratio at 350:1. It has never been a better time to buy a LCD in Singapore.