Saturday Buys

COUPLE ONE of the Aopen K-89-L from Newegg at only $48 with the AMD Sempron 3100+ Socket A 754pin Retail Box from - therefore carrying a three year warranty - Xtremegear at $124 and you will have a 64-bit-like Rig for only $172, one which can rival an Athlon64 3200+ via overclocking. The MK89-L is a micro-ATX motherboard featuring the nForce3 150 chipset and two DIMM modules. Aopen has successfully been able to integrate quite a number of interesting features including six USB 2.0 ports as well as one AGP port and three PCI slots. On top of that a Gigabit PCI LAN chip is provided as well as a six channel sound module. Oddly and sadly, the Aopen does not include SATA ports, which makes it lose some points. It does however have 1MHz stepping CPU overclocking but no CPU Vcore, CPU Ratio or AGP voltage options. A new BIOS is available from their website which solves some problem and might even improve your performance. The 3100+ is the only socket-754 member of the Sempron Family. It boosts a 1.8GHz clock speed as well as 256K cache as well as the integrated memory controller. The Sempron 3100+ though may not prove to be an exceptional overclocker. Sharkyextreme reached only 2.15GHz, a 18% overclock. Overall, the bundle should prove to be an exceptional bargain, besting the Pentium 4 2.8GHz while costing the price of that single CPU.

UK
Dabs has the "cheapest" LCD in Britain. The Teco VL-1410 might feature a smallish 14" screen - way better than a 15" CRT but you might buy two second hand 21" monitors for that price - but if you really want to buy a very cheap LCD monitor and don't really care abou the size, this is the one to go for. Built around a Hyundai panel, it has a modest 300:1 contrast ratio, a 25mS response time and a smallish 70 degree viewing angle. Hence the VL-1410 seems to be suited for office work and the likes. It can go up to 1024x768 resolution while offering a standard D-Sub connection. The same monitor is on sale at ebay for £150 while it costs £7 cheaper to buy it from Dabs. But if you want to go supersize, then for slightly more than twice the price, you can get a screen three time its size. The Acer AL1912 from ebuyer costs only £318.97, cheaper than any offers from ebay for example. Its 19" screen is a real treat for the eyes and it offers excellent pixel response time - 16mS - as well as above average contrast at 500:1. Gamers reveal that the screen is actually perfect for plying games with no ghosting.

Singapore Starting today and until Sunday, Creative Labs is hosting a CreativeX Fest, a warehouse sale where everything goes at fantastic prices. For the next three days, we'll discover together the best deals from there. Tomorrow, Creative Labs is offering a bundle comprising of the acclaimed Creative SLiX MPC51C3 and the SB Audigy 2 for only S$99 down from S$ 499, the SB Audigy 2ZS plus the Creative Inspire 7.1 T7700 speaker bundle for S$ 199 down from S$ 468 while the Nomad Jukebox 2 with 10GB memory will go for only S$ 99. Note that stocks on these products are very limited. The Slix bundle for example is available for the first ten buyers only. From it looks, it seems that it mighy have been designed as the Son of Apple's defunct Cube. Built around a SIS 651B, it is therefore compatible with Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron Only. It supports two DIMM sockets and comes with the SB Audigy 2 card stuck in its only PCI slot. Instead of relying on the SIS315 obsolete core, you can always add an external graphic card. Four USB 2.0 ports, three Firewire ports, obboard LAN as well as SPDIF I/O are provided. The casing itself is made up of aluminium and together with the ICT - Integrated Coolant technology, makes it altogether cooler. The MPC51C3 has three bays, only one though - the 5.25" one - is externally accessible. At 2.85Kg, it will be easily carried if you have to move around.

France
E-soph is proposing some very good casings for decent prices. Even if it is quite expensive at €105, the PowerX2 is one of the more stylish. Mimicking the looks of Apple G3/G4 series, it offers a grey tower with four handles at the corners. It also comes with a 420W power supply which should keep it running for some time. The casing itself is made up of aluminium so that it will cool down. At 6.6KG, it will not be a pain to move around. It provides with four external 5.25" bays and six 3.5" bays - three external. It coes with an LCD screen which displays the time and temperature while two USB ports, one Firewire and line in/line out are provided. For thalf the price, you can get the Heden 98804CA which proposes a more traditional casing with four 5.25" and six 3.5-inch bays with Firewire, USB and audio ports. The blue LCD panel will be the one attraction. It will give you internal temperature as well as other worthy information directly to you. However, it will be a good thing if one of those days.