Wed afternoon reviews

Author
Aron Schatz
Posted
December 11, 2002
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1347
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Well, after tomorrow I'll have much more time on my hands. I've got at least two reviews planned for this/next week. Hell, I'm prob ordering the R9500 Pro and will do a review on that. ATI won't respond to my emails so I guess I won't go through them. Actually, not many other companies respond to my emails anyway. Know anyone on the inside? Email me!

Vantec fany thingy @ OCs Club.
A few days ago we took a look at the Vantec Nexus Multi-function Panel which controlled the CPU fan speed, as well as gave us a few temperature read outs on a LCD screen. While it was a great product, it left us a bit lacking as it only controlled one fan. Well, Vantec has given us a new toy to take care of all those other fans; The Vantec Nexus (NXP-201) Fan Controller...

Abit i845PE at PC Hardware.
The memory controller on Intel chipset based motherboards can not be tweaked as much as the memory controller on VIA based boards, that's why these settings may seem disappointing for many enthusiasts. In order to test the motherboard's stability we used the most aggressive memory settings and a higher FSB.

Overclocking on a DFI Granite Bay board.DFI have produced a exceptional motherboard in the NB80-EA, especially when you consider that it is using a brand new Intel chipset. There are reports of instability and problems with the Granite Bay chipset, none were evident on this board which is a real achievement.

HardOCP and the Asus nForce 2.
This is not the first nForce2 board we have had our hands on over the last few months, but it without a doubt the smoothest one we have seen yet. The Asus A7N8X paired with our 2400+ at a tweaked out bus is simply blindingly fast, responding immediately to user commands.

Innotek wet and wild at Nexus Hardware.
The Innovacool is a uniquely designed waterblock. In fact, I have yet to see one on the market like it. There is a copper core, in which there are small channels. The channels help to efficiently transfer heat to the water. As you can see below, the block is anodized black, and is in actuality very simple looking.

Gigabyte R9700 Pro action at Guru 3D.
Overclocking, the results (while remaining stability and image quality) was a very quite 365 MHz for the core and a nice 690 (2x 345) MHz for the memory. What somewhat irritated me was the fact that this card only has ramsinks on the front-side memory chips. But when you look at the backside then you'll notice the naked chips, why are there not ramsinks on the back ?

AMDZone with the big ass Intel ad on the front page still has 4 way R9700 Pro shootout.
This review yields no clear winner. As far as street price, the Sapphire card can be found for the cheapest overall price. As far as overclockability, look at the ATI and Crucial cards. Basically when you're buying a card that is THIS fast, there is no way you can lose.

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