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VIAHardware reviews the lesser R8500 from Soyo.

The Soyo Radeon 8500LE-D performs well and at a very reasonable price. Improving on the normal 8500LE chip, Soyo adds their own heatsinks and offers an overclocked version of the card, as well as the normal version. Being new to the video card market, Soyo seems to have done well with this card, and hopefully we will see more from them in the future.

The Tech Zone reviews an Abit AT7.

Without a doubt the Abit AT7 is the best AMD motherboard I have ever used. Abit has shown a lot of guts to create this motherboard. The ditching of all the legacy items couldn't have been made without a lot of thought. Abit was normally never the first to market with latest in terms of chipset and features. They normally wait and work on tweaking the product for best performance possible before releasing it. The AT7 is bold leap to be the first legacy-free board. Whether other motherboard makers will follow remains to be seen.

Hard revisits the SiS Xabre 400.

As for these new drivers, they have helped in performance in certain areas. OpenGL shows some nice improvements depending on the game. Direct3D has shown a slight improvement as well. Still I feel they could be ironed out a bit more, especially if we had some tweaking options with D3D and OGL control panels. I honestly do think the Xabre can be a GeForce4 MX killer. It definitely has the potential on paper. But with current hardware and software problems it is difficult to recommend it to anyone right now. Future support with this card will definitely be better then the GF4 MX simply because of the pixel shader support. If SiS can fix these major problems with newer drivers then the Xabre 400 just may be that GF4 MX killer.

AMDZone's Chris Tom requests to see the highly overclockable cpu that AMDmb has. Should be interesting to see if they accept because their claims are that the CPU got all the way to 2.1ghz :\.

I'll gladly test the 'golden' CPU that this copycat site has that has the miracle overclock that reaches far beyond what other sites test samples have done. In fact I'll have Van Smith of Van's Hardware and Damon at AMD look on as we overclock this magical CPU with the same test setup as they used. Hell, I'll even pay for shipping here and back, and I will wait until Van is here with me to open the package. All I want is the truth, is that so much to ask?

EX reviews an Abit nForce motherboard.

ABIT made a good attempt with the ABIT NV7-133R but we believe there is still for improvement. Performance wise, there isn't much to shout about but then again, the performance isn't too shabby either as it still compared pretty well against the MSI and Gigabyte KT333 boards. The lack of more tweaking options such as 1MHz FSB increments as well as more extensive memory tweaking options would have been a welcome addition as well. The NV7-133R also lacks PC2700 support which means you're pretty much limited to running your memory at PC2100 spec. In view of all these issues, why would anybody want the ABIT NV7-133R or any other nForce motherboard for that matter?

AMDZone reviews a Soyo R8500.

Outscoring the ATI Retail Radeon8500 is no easy feat for an OEM product, but the upped clock speeds of the Soyo Radeon8500 easily accomplishes that goal. With the promise of a clockspeed of 290/290 in their shipping product, the scores only promise to edge higher. Obviously a great software package will help to sweeten the deal, but this card in and of itself is a great prouct. HOpefully Soyo will diversify their Powered by ATI line of video cards, since they are already turning out such high quality products at the initialization of their production. Soyo continues to build upon their great reputation with this card. I'm looking forward to the new cards that Soyo might choose to produce in the future.

In this article at got apex? (no), the talk is about the new Huge linux... err, Unitedlinux.

Imagine this: With UnitedLinux, an IT manager will be able to go to the store, pick up a piece of software that has been marked as conforming to the UnitedLinux standard, and then take it back to work and install it, confidently and without problems, on all the machines. This is something Windows and Mac users take for granted but that Linux users have learned to live without. UnitedLinux already has Red Hat's (the leading Linux distribution) blessing, and with support from such powerful companies as AMD, IBM, Intel, and NEC, it is sure to make the splash intended.

That is the hardest part about linux IMO. I want a piece of software to work when I install it, and I want an easy way to INSTALL IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Overclockers gives their opinion on this overclocking situation.

Palomino
64.3 watts/128 sq. mm = .502 watts per square millimeter
Thoroughbred
56.4 watts/80 sq. mm = .705 watts per square millimeter
40% more heat to be dissipated per square millimeter.

In a great move by Earthlink, they buy PeoplePC. Remember those stupid ads? Now they can bundle their own internet access with leasable cheap PCs or offer free internet with some cheap PCs, there are many possibilities to make money off this.

EarthLink said that PeoplePC will give it 60,000 paying monthly subscribers and about 500,000 prepaid, bundled subscribers. EarthLink has about 4.9 million subscribers, the company said. And they get those peeps as Earthlink users.

EXHardware reviews some nice looking BGA ramsinks.

Without the RAMsinks, our Visiontek GeForce4 Ti 4400 could be overclocked up to a maximum 310/660 but after the RAMsinks were installed, I was able to push the memory 15MHz faster for an effective maximum overclock of 310/375 which is excellent for a GeForce4 Ti 4400 graphics card! Besides helping increase the memory overclock, the RAMsinks also help to cool the memory down and it also adds that custom touch to your GeForce4 card making it look as awesome as it performs. Highly recommended!

Heh, I don't think so.

MAKE OF THIS AS YOU WILL, but we heard from normally highly reliable sources at Computex last week that as recently as this time last year Via was seriously considering buying AMD.

CNet has a write up on the Tbred and new Celeron lines.

A dual-processor version of Thoroughbred for servers and workstations, however, has been delayed until the second half of the year, said an AMD representative. It had been expected this quarter.

Intel, meanwhile, is releasing a 1.8GHz Celeron for inexpensive computers.

AMD is up about 11 cents with the release. Intel is down a few cents.

I woke up and saw tons of XP 2200+ reviews meaning the NDA has been lifted today...

HardOCP

Looking at it realistically, the TBred is just another speed bump on the Athlon roadmap. The changes you see here today on the TBred have been anticipated for a long time now. The shift from 0.18 to 0.13 micron and the accompanying drop in voltage have all been “on the way” for a long time now.

Anandtech

The lack of overclocking headroom in these 0.13-micron parts make us question exactly how well AMD's 0.13-micron process is doing at this point. If yields are currently low and set to improve over time then AMD's 0.13-micron process is at fault currently, however if the process is sound and 1.8GHz is the max we're getting out of these cores then that points to architectural limitations that are holding the Athlon XP back. We will be keeping a very close eye on how AMD is able to scale their 0.13-micron processors over the coming months, if they are unable to hit above 1.8GHz today it may be a struggle between now and the end of the year to remain competitive with the Pentium 4.

AMDZone

The Athlon XP 2200+ is another bump in the speed grade of the Athlon. The transition to the .13 micron process will allow AMD to save money and increase volumes as well as lower power requirements for the Athlon line. It is only a 66MHz increase over the past 3 months, and that may lead to Intel gaining more marketshare during the slow time of the year. It appears AMD strategy remains to hold off Intel as best they can with a more cost effective, but architecturally unchanged Athlon while they use their SOI technnology for Clawhammer's release later this year.

Hexus

AMD had the opportunity to give the processor a welcome boost in performance with a jump in front side bus speed but they declined. As mentioned earlier, they are somewhat crippling the CPU at 133MHz FSB as the multiplier gets bigger and it seems that only overclockers and tweakers with the ability to drop the multiplier and up the FSB will get the real benefits from the increase in CPU clock speed over XP2100+.

Lost Circuits

Whoever expected new horizons in performance of the Thoroughbred core will be somewhat disapppointed, particularly by the lack of overclocking capabilities. In fact, the XP2100 in my hands clocks higher than the TBred and with the higher FSB and associated memory banddwidth gain, there is not much to be gained for the overclockers community with going for a TBred.

I think we can see a trend here. The new Athlon XP may be smaller and faster, but without any new core enhancements, it is just another speed upgrad

AMD3D has reviewed the Abit KX7-333.

I like the KX7333R a lot. It didn't complain at all during the time it has been with me. Its performance and stability are excellent. If I were a member of the team that produced this board I would be very happy with the results.

Spybot is an adware removal tool similar in nature to the Adaware spy removal tool many of you are familiar with. This one goes further in that it includes additional steps to rid your system of spyware. Check it out over at PepiMK Software.[PAGEBREAK]
What does SpyBot-Search & Destroy?

SpyBot-S&D searches your harddisk for so-called spy- or adbots; little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs show. But many of these modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.
If SpyBot-S&D finds such modules, it can remove them - or replace them with empty dummies in case their host won't work any more with its bot removed. In most cases, the host software still runs after removing the bot.
For a list of 'supported' bots see the feature lists below. Spybot-S&D works with an easy interface that allows updates by just replacing a file of about 1k size. Those updates come by my software mailinglist.

Another feature of Spybot S&D is the removal of usage tracks, which makes it more complicated for unknown spybots to transmit useful data. The list of last visited websites, opened files, started programs, cookies, all that and more can be cleaned. Supported are the three mahjor browsers Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator and Opera.

Last but not least Spybot-S&D contains some routines to find and correct invalid entries into the registry.

Warning

Depending on the license agreement of some software that uses spy/adbots, the usage of the software itself is no longer allowed after removal. Please read those license agreements fist!

And remember: the best way to remove ads is to pay the shareware fee!

Hardware Extreme has compared the Raedon 8500LE card with the Raedon8500, the GeForce3 Ti500, and the GeForce4 MX440. I would've like to have seen it compared to a card in the GeForce 4 Ti series, but you can't have it all Read the entire review.

Based on benchmark scores, the ATi Radeon 8500 LE offers performance incredibly close to, if not better than, that of a regular ATi Radeon 8500. Moreover, this low-end Radeon 8500 can outperform a high-end GeForce3 Ti500 too. It also puts up an impressive fight in NVIDIA optimized benchmarks.

GamePC has a very informative article on the next gen Rambus memory.

In our short time with Rambus's RIMM 4200, we can without a doubt say that it's a fantastic memory solution for the Pentium 4. It provides the most bandwidth and best overall system performance in comparison to any other memory solution on the market. The single module design will make installing and upgrading RDRAM systems much easier as well. Beyond the fact that these modules aren't out on the market yet, we see a lot of potential for this new Rambus technology.

OnePC.Net reviews a Samsung 151MP TFT display. Popups are gay.

Well, what can we say? We have been working with the SyncMaster 151MP for quite a while now, and we have been very impressed by its looks and features, as well as its improvements over its previous version, the SyncMaster 150MP; the TV tuner function is great, as well as the included remote control. We have everything from a Playstation gaming console to cable TV hooked up to this thing, and it has constantly delivered. The quality of VGA signals was excellent, and no dysfunctional pixels were present. The quality of the TV tuner was also quite good, though it’s still not near the quality of watching cable directly on a dedicated CRT television; however watching TV using the picture-in-picture feature was great as you could watch TV while “working” on your computer. Aside from being able to watch TV and work on your PC at the same time, it also has support for a wide variety of other simultaneous video input display combinations. The only combination that we missed was having the PC in the picture-and-picture while watching TV on the main screen. Overall the SyncMaster 151MP is another great monitor by Samsung.

AMDmb reviews KT333 from Epox.

The performance numbers on the 8K3A were not the best we have seen, but their differentiation from the faster boards was very small. As I mentioned at the end of my Shuttle AK35GT2R review, all of the KT333 motherboards are performing the same, and it is the features, overclocking and price that will help you decide which of the many boards is the right choice for you. And while Shuttle wins in the battle of costs, the Epox board isn’t nearly as expensive as its MSI counterpart.