• VIA raises wafer orders to meet demand for low-end P4 chipsets
• ATI enjoys 34.5% sales growth in 1Q fiscal 2003
• MP3 bug in Windows XP desktop affects security - critically
• Broadband supplier puts limits on peer-to-peer services
• Intel ramps up vice president production line
• Feds Seek to Identify People by Odor

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The ASUS A7N8X Delux nForce2 motherboard is similar to the ASUS A7N8X which does not have Serial-ATA, dual-LAN, SoundStorm or FireWire. Both us the NVIDIA nForce2 chipset, see our NVIDIA nForce2 chipset review for full details. With the AMD Athlon XP processor bus at 133MHz (266MHz DDR) there are no real gains by using PC2700 (DDR333) as the processor bus with only a peak bandwidth of 2.1GB/s (or PC2100) is the bottleneck

Average seek is exactly what it sounds like. The average time it takes for the head to seek out requested data. Typical ATA drives are around the 9ms (milliseconds) mark, whereas SCSI drives are as low as 3.6ms (which has obvious repercussions on performance). When a disk is used as the system drive the average seek time has a direct bearing on how system response times where disk access is involved.

The press package came with PC1066 RDRAM, an awesome combination but also a very expensive one. We did it a bit different though, as I knew this processor would be submitted to us I asked the guys from Albatron to send in their best Pentium mainboard and they did. Combined with DDR400 memory we manage to produce breathtaking numbers for a very reasonable price with 100% stability.

Asus has a pretty comprehensive package for the A7N8X Deluxe. It has everything one needs to setup a PC, from SATA cables to driver CD. The included case sticker clearly indicates the location of various jumpers/connectors which makes installation so much easier.

There are many GeForce 4 video cards out there. Abit has recently released a GeForce 4 Ti4200 that attempts to stand out from the rest, and that it does. What sets this card apart from the others is its support for 8X AGP and the Abit patented OTES (Outside Thermal Exhaust System) cooling unit. Let's take a look at the card....

Welcome to the extensively updated Tom's Hardware Guide VGA Charts. In the first part of the article, we look at the performance from 29 graphics cards on very fast PC systems. In the second part (look out for it in the next few weeks), we'll also give you an overview of performance on slower systems.

ATi Sez: "Thou Shalt Not OC 9500 Pro!" - The Hardcore Enthusiast Sez: "Yeah, whatever." Sadly, the rest of us are pretty much hosed when it comes to tweaking the 9500 Pro from ATI.

Since the rocky inception of Intel's Pentium 4 processor, we have seen a lot of solid chipsets and products from most manufacturers who have extracted everything out of the processor and given us an array of wonderful workings. The newest chipset to come from Intel is the codename Granite Bay E7205 which adds AGP 8x and dual channel DDR to an already very workable platform. Come join TweakTown as they take a look at Gigabyte's 8INXP motherboard which is based on this very chipset.

Is it worth the $29 they advertise it for on the LIUtilities website? Yeah I think so, competing products range from twice to four times a much. Easy to use? Yup. Cost effective? How much is your data worth if you don't back it up and your hard drive dies a premature death?

The popularity of CCFL's is very evident if you read the GideonTech reviews on a regular basis. We started out with just an inverter and a lamp with bare wires and over time, acrylic tubes were added, then wire extensions and so forth and so on. Now the latest trend is to have a CCFL that can be triggered off a sound source giving you a lightning like effect. ICEe Computers has been kind enough to provide one of these sound activated units for review so let's take a look at what they are all about.

So far we have a case that is made of Aluminum, features a factory installed Window Kit of the Enermax logo with an intake fan. We also have support for two USB, Audio and mic inputs at the front of the case and a top mounted exhaust fan. There is support for a 120 mm fan (not included) in the front for additional intake and dual 80 mm fans at the rear for exhaust. The Enermax CS-3171L also comes with a 350 Watt Power Supply and a Sound Activated Neon Light. All this for only $74.

The rack has programmable alarms so that you can set your computer to alert you whenever your drive is getting too hot. The rack also has a fan alert alarm that lets you know if the fan stops working. I find both of these features to be quite useful. Some might consider it overkill but if you have ever had a drive crash and burn while full of data, anything that might help your current drives not to crash gains value quite rapidly.