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Oh really?

Not sure if they make any now, but Aopen used to make a motherboard with vacuum tubes for sound:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Artic...

And YOU sir might not sound so naive and clueless if you knew that this wouldn't be the first time a honeypot was set up to catch P2P users. Personally I'd trust this about as much as I trust the NSA right now, which is zero. Hell the head of Demonoid said last year the odds of coming back were zip, they had cops all over their asses, then suddenly out of the blue they are back, fulled loaded, plenty of bandwidth? Yeah and if you pull the right leg it plays jingle bells.

That idiot John Romero. He's making shitty casual games with a group of nitwits at Loot Drop. Perhaps you're thinking of that Canadian guy (article about the glove)

Now I can have a tube amp in my mp3 player.

Well, they released a motherboard around a decade back with integrated vacuum tube based audio.

I remembered this as being a separate soundcard, but I couldn't find reference to anything like that online, so I might have been wrong. Still, given that onboard audio isn't- or at least wasn't back then- generally considered to be the best (i.e. not what the audiophiles would have gone for), this seems like a strange mix. As if the valve/tube-based PCI card wouldn't have been weird enough, mind you. :-)

AFAIK, the things the Wii has added:
- one or two channels (never gave a crap about them really). Not sure if channels qualify as "OS" since they are just apps like any Wii Store game.
- SDHC memory card support... sorta.
- "Play game from memory card"... works sorta, only if you keep enough of your Wii's tiny 512MB internal storage free to allow for swap space.
- Control drivers for the "Wii MotionPlus", which is the cheapest, chintziest way of adding gravity sensing using a tuning fork gyroscope... I mean seriously, would a couple accelerometers with decent sensitivity be too much to ask? I've got a joystick from the year 2000 that has better motion sensitivity than a Wiimote + Motionplus working together. Sheesh.

What else did I miss? Anything? Bueller? Bueller?

• Overclockers
• pcperspective
• Hardware canucks
• hardocp
• neoseeker
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• hexus

By the way, my box uses an Intel mini itx board with i950 graphics.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/D945GCLF2_atom_330/

It was this motherboard: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/aopenax4btube/ And it wasn't anything to write home about. Sure it looks impressive, but it used an AC'97 chipset for the D/A conversion stage, and it used a cheap russian tube (Model number: 6922 Google for "6922 datasheet" for more info.) To top it off it was driven in Class-C mode, not Class-B, not Class-A, but C, which for anyone not in the know, adds to the signal a rather pungent smell to anything you feed into it. So to top it all off, you've got a woefully underpowered vacuum tube, running on a motherboard that is rife with computer generated RFI noise (real-time clock, oscillators, PCI Bus noise, PS/2 bus noise, CPU noise, Memory noise, Graphics card noise, etc, etc I could go on..) AND to top it all off, its powered by an AC'97 audio codec from the dark ages. What really ticks me off though is that everybody believed the marketing hype, hook, line, and sinker... I quote: "So really, why a Vacuum Tube? Aside from looking mighty cool, AOpen and many audiophiles believe that music is... well more musical, more breathtaking, and more soulful. Yes, the harmonic distortion is higher with a Tube system then with a solid state amplifier, but many many people will pick the higher distortion Tube amplifier because they feel the music just sounds BETTER." GIVE ME A BREAK! "I thought I would give you some information about AOpen's vacuum tube, to curb the curious audiophiles and hardcore enthusiasts alike. AOpen didn't just go and stuff a tube onto the motherboard and push it out the door, they wanted something that would stand up to some scrutiny. In fact, they think they've succeeded in making the the AX4B a pretty good product: "Yes, the AX4B-533 Tube is not quite a true "Stereophile" C-class recommended group of components. Yet, given its original fusion idea and meticulous journey to fruition, we believe it is Class-A for certain." AOpen's "meticulous journey" to bring this fusion to fruition involved carefully choosing components. They use a 24K plated ceramic 9 pin socket for the tube, Cardas Audi cable, Vishay resistors, and a Maxim 668 DC-DC power supply for the tube." Even the manufacturer knew the design was crap (Class-C = Crap), but in the exact same sentence they state that "We believe it is Class-A for certian." almost as if Class-A means that you buy $4,000 cigars and sip fine expensive wine, THIS IS NOT AUDIOPHILE! This is just marketing BS!, Audiophile sound quality can come from anyone with the knowledge to build their own audio system, MONEY DOES NOT MATTER AS MUCH AS YOU THINK IT DOES!

Agreed! The more people read about these products the better informed. A couple more:

bit-tech: http://bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/1

Neoseeker: http://neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/Intel_i7_2600K_Intel_i5_2500K

STARRRRRRS!

Sorry for the offtopic message, but Lego Universe is going into Beta, which your kids may enjoy.

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/13104-lego-universe-beta-sign-ups-now-open/

I love how a loved old property from our childhood (Star Wars) is just a pretty facade onto a loved new property from our kids' childhoods (the Lego games).

That's sooooo 2008

IMO, the FTC should look into this to make sure their not dumping. Atleast with main PC CPUs, they charged high prices at first and then ramped the price down as the newer processes started to come online. With these Atoms, they can't charge what they cost and still be competitive.

Hate Intel for their integrated graphics, software packages, chipsets, or CPUs. But you cannot hate on their manufacturing process (which is 1st class). Your comment ignores the fact that Intel is at 32nm, which brings costs way down, and the atom is a TINY cpu compared to the core series (duh). Yield cost is directly related to die size. Looking @ the numbers below I pulled from a simple google search and you'll see that these chips (in the millions) will cost much less to make...

Some interesting numbers:
Atom @ 45nm process: 26mm^2
Corei5 @ 32 nm process: 81mm^2 (or 296mm^2 w/ gfx)

The FTC can investigate for other reasons... but not because they are making smaller chips cheaper than bigger chips.
sources: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/intel_core_i5_661/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Atom_microprocessors

Now I'm stuck in this dilemma of whether or not to watch even just a part of it. Having never seen it, the worst piece of anything I've ever watched was the Sequel to Starship Troopers, which is similar in to how you describe it. It's so bad I had to turn it off, and I can not possibly bring myself to watch it again.

But since I know there is something worse... something so terrible... It's like I have to see it to broaden my perspectives. Maybe it will be a life changing situation for me (Like someone else commented, it drove his friend to drink). Maybe I will reach an ultimate state of enlightenment after seeing the worst piece of recorded entertainment. Just to push the boundaries of what is possible, seems like a goal anyone would set.

But on the other hand, I -LIKE- Star Wars. Like, more than like, but not quite obsessive fan love. See when I was a Kid I owned the entire Star Wars: The Essential Guide collection of books. I had every line memorized and could spew the dialogue back to you without any hesitation. I -WAS- a fanboy. But I've kind of grown out of it, but it still holds a special place in my heart. I still play X-Wing vs Tie Fighter every now and then. I still claim that Dark Forces were the highlight of Lucas Art's first person shooters, and that Battlefront 2 still doesn't reach the entertainment value of Jedi Academy (though Jedi Outcast was a much better storyline by far). And while Force Unleashed was good in it's own right, it never earned an emotional spot like Droid Works.

So what will it be - A gift to perception to help me better understand the world around me, despite how painful it might be to endure...

Or a horrible piece of Malice that will destroy everything my childhood has loved and charished, leaving me a half empty shell of a human being not worth living...

Lots and lots of tests and bechmarks. Looking good.

Intel 'Lynnfield' Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 Performance Testing Introduction :: TweakTown
Intel Core i5 and Core i7: Lynnfield CPUs reviewed - Intel, Core i5, Core i-750, Core i7, Core i7-860, Core i7-870, Lynnfield, Bloomfield, AMD Phenom II X4 - PC Games Hardware
Core i5 750 - Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
HEXUS.net - Review :: Intel Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 CPU review: bombarding the mid-range : Page - 1/12
Legion Hardware
Intel Core i5 750 & i7 870 Review - Page 1 - The Next Nehalem-based CPU lineup
PC Perspective - Intel Lynnfield Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 Processor Review
Introduction - Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 Processors | [H]ard|OCP
In Theory: How Does Lynnfield's On-Die PCI Express Affect Gaming? : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
AnandTech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger[/QUOTE]
Intel Core i5 750 Core i7 870 Review - Overclockers Club
Techgage - Intel Core i7-870 & i5-750 - Nehalem for the Mainstream
Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 Processors Review | Hardware Secrets
Intel Core i5 750 Processor Review - TechSpot News
Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel?s Mainstream Magnum Opus : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review
Intel's Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1
bit-tech.net | Review - Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Lynnfield review
bit-tech.net | Feature - Intel Lynnfield: Details and Architecture
Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express - HotHardware
Intel Core i5-750 Processor BX80605I5750 | Intel Core i5-750,BX80605I5750,Lynnfield,LGA1156,CPU,Proocessor, Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield LGA1156 CPU Benchmark Performance Test Processor Review | Benchmark Reviews Performance Tests
Intel Core i7 870/Core i5 750/P55 Express chipset Review :: Introduction :: Motherboards.org

Ztetris by Jimmy Mardell for TI calculators is, by far, my favorite version of tetris. I have yet to find another version of tetris that has the option in multiplayer to send scrambled lines to your opponent. If anyone is aware of one, please share! The world of assembly compiled TI-85 tetrising is increasingly becoming lonely.

If that were not the case, why would they make cars in various colours?

I dunno, why do they make assorted models of cars? Never said that 'cool' has no value. I own an iPod Touch, and I love the thing, but it makes it damned hard to love at times. Hell, I owned a HipZip with fewer quirks:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/iomegahipzip/

It is a nice product tho, and despite it's odd behavior (does anyone else owning an iPod touch have it just cut to HOME in the middle of some action several times during the day?) it is a good player. I will admit to buying it for the cool factor. That and it lets me rock out to Nightwish and Eluveitie at work...

You don't need a new OS, you need a new motherboard.

Asus has "Express Gate" on their newer mobos that allow you to boot into a web-surfing, email only mini OS in "less than 5 seconds" without having to worry about whether you slept, suspended or hibernated the previous tme you shut down your PC.

Ok, its basically an on-board Linix distro, so you do need a better OS after all.

Because this has NOTHING to do with piracy. I repeat: NOTHING at all to do with piracy. This is a plan by EA to take out the used games market and take away your right to first sale.

And here we have the absolutely classic case explaining how the law is lagging behind technology.

Back when the right to first sale was established in law, the very idea of technology which could prevent you exercising your rights when there was no technical reason why you couldn't (ie. it's not a product which intrinsically loses all its value the moment you open the box) simply didn't exist.

So now we have the faintly absurd scenario where there are a whole bunch of laws which work in the consumer's favour and a whole bunch of companies who are essentially taking advantage of loopholes in those laws (which didn't exist when they were written) to nullify them.

Because this has NOTHING to do with piracy. I repeat: NOTHING at all to do with piracy. This is a plan by EA to take out the used games market and take away your right to first sale. So if you care about your right to sell games you no longer want then DO NOT buy this game or Spore! Until EA removes ALL the limited activation crap and gives us back our right to first sale I will no longer buy ANY EA game. No MoH,No Madden,nothing. And if enough of us do that then we can fight EA where it hurts:in the wallet.

Also be sure to stick bad reviews pointing out the limited activation DRM into Amazon and every review site on the web you can find,because I would have gotten "Spored" if I hadn't noticed the negative reviews and I'm sure I'm not alone. If we don't then every other company will see EA get away with it and think they can do it too. Do you WANT to have to sit on the phone for hours doing a little monkey dance for all the different game companies when Windows borks? But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

No airtight DRM is possible (and Spore's already been cracked). But content producers are so obsessed with absolute control that they'll beg people to take money to sell them snake oil. Of course, this always works. Yeah.

Others speculate the real target of game DRM is to kill the second-hand market. But, of course, that does no good when the competition is the cracked copies. Piracy: The Better Choice.

Sadly, yes, I didn't make that up. For example, at a quick googling: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/aopenax4btube/

Actually, quite the opposite, Microsoft has been very careful about image with respect to Halo. They have had ideas from all over to tie into the game, from toy guns to lingerie link. But with such a huge player base it is better to be careful and conservative about image and keep the merchandising limited. Profit off of a few key items instead of being a merchandising whore.

You could boot up Doom II and type in IDCLIP, but somehow I don't think that would quite have the effect you were looking for.

As good (bad?) as Zero Wing was, it cannot compare with Bangai-O, whose script is so bad, and yet so incredibly funny, that it has to be intentional.

Bangai-O is also one of the better space shooters that I've played; highly recommended, if you get a chance.

Already done.

I have been working on making a map for the Half-Life game mod Natural-Selection (Counter-Strike is a also a mod for based on the Half-Life game) that looks like my office building entrance lobby and first 3 floors (out of a 50 story building). For those not aware of this game, Natrual-Selection is pitted aliens with melee weapons (bite, slash, maul, etc.) vs. marines with ranged weapons (guns and grenades).

Why did I choose my office lobby for this?

1. My house isn't an interesting map setting (too small to say the least)

2. I'm familiar with the floor plan and relative dimensions of the office building lobby

3. The office building lobby has interesting architecture, thus making a map replication interesting

4. It's different from the other maps thus far available

I'm thinking this Texas high school student had similar reasons for creating his map. Now I'm wondering if he had created his map for the Natural-Selection mod, would he have gotten into the same amount trouble?

Results: Tom Nook, The Nookie

Well, that's sort of the joke: they don't have any standing to send takedown notices, or rather, copyright infringement notices. According to their own website, "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry." They are, at best, a partial shareholder in some intellectual property rights. However, they can't issue subpoenas or adjudicate in any way, which is doubly unfortunate for them since Federal courts seem to be ruling against them a lot as reported here and here and here and here.

This level never fucking ends! I love this game, it's great, I've learned how to beat nearly every part of this act, but there's just to damn much of it. It's like running a marathon while being pelted with rocks and having people fresh and pumped mugging you every couple of feet. From the F.A.Q. "Frankly, way too many enemies" The F.A.Q. in no way sums up what you have to do to defeat this act. I bite it once I make it to mission 6, unfortunately you have to beat that to save progress. I've had it shelved for months, I'll resume it eventually, but I just got tired of fighting through the first five missions over and over to bite it on the 6th, mission 4 is an especial pain. No one part of this act is to hard to beat, it just never ends.

Nice try, AMD hasn't been claiming any sort of quad-core processors - that's Intel

Even if the enemy character looks like an anthropomorphized rabbit? Remember this when you run into Bunnie, Dotty, Genji, Pippy, Claude, Gabi, Coco, Gaston, Doc, or Snake in the Crossing.

Well, CNN had reported that Nintendo had shipped 2 million Wii units which is double expected if I remember correctly. Reportedly, The Wii is sold out everywhere. I can certainly attest to this fact. I tried 8 different stores in an 1 hour 30 min driving radius and failed at every turn. The closest I got was at my third try. A Toy 'R Us which I stood in line 90 minutes only to have them run out of tickets 5 people ahead of me...I can't find any solid game sales numbers, but the shelves have been pretty bare and Zelda's missing from most online retailers.

Sony's launch in Japan sold 88,400 units but only 0.98 games per machine...

Sony's US launch doesn't appear to have hit the intended 400,000 units. One group estimates a lowly 100,000 while others guess at closer to 150,000 to 200,000 neither of which are more than half the hoped shipping amount. We can safly say that all of them sold, but who knows how many games are being sold?

While the US launch certainly puts Nintendo in a good position this holiday season, the PS3 has the head start in Japan, since the Wii doesn't launch until December 2nd and even then, it'll only be 400,000 units. Personally, I can't wait to hear when the second US shipments start rolling in...

You could try the bluetake BT500 mouse; it's really really small, ideal for a lappy, made by a thermaltake spinoff company. Nice crisp movement with the 800 dpi laser. You should be able to get one without a bluetooth adapter, which will make it a bit cheaper. Also, it does work on linux - see note 4.

There's also the logitech MX900 if you fancy a more conventionally-sized mouse, and are a right-hander.

A mere 7 watt advantage at the wall despite having started their 65nm transition earlier (AMD waits until they've figured out how to get mature yields before making a rapid switch to the next process node, very unlike Intel) tells me that Intel is going to get leapfrogged big-time in short order.

Intel isn't getting leapfrogged anytime soon, as AMD is a full 1 year behind Intel in the 65nm race. Intel, on the otherhand will be leapfrogging AMD even firther as their 45nm ramp appears to be happening sooner than later http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/4896/

I am a simple man.

I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.

There's no reason to preach to the choir, I have many machines (most of them Linux) that dual boot to many operating systems but you'll always need Windows because it's kind of the 'industry standard' for some people.

But when I look for an operating system the words 'form','function','marriage' & 'perfect' come to mind but not necessarily in that order. What I mean is, there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.

I run Windows XP professional & it works. It works well, which is surprising considering my history with the Windows operating system. It can be cut down to a pretty bare point of functionality and I like it.

So, Mr. Gates, why should I upgrade to Vista? Your "feature list" (the same damn thing I've been seeing for the last year) doesn't entice me at all. In fact, it scares me. You know what else scares me? It might not run the games I currently play ... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware. Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.

Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.

Ironically called "Cell Factor".

Oh, and while you're right about AGP, you're wrong about physics on the PS3, as a sibling poster points out. GPU physics does not necessarily require CPU readback. Both platforms will have impressive physics middleware, PS3's RSX is quite capable of physics calculation, and Cell is in many ways more suited to it than the 360's CPU.

Depends on what you mean by Micro Kernel and Monolithic.

True, the kernel of MacOS/X - Darwin, aka XNU, for performance reasons run the Mach and BSD layer both in superuser space to minimize the lattency.

Maybe this is what you call a hybrid kernel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_kernel

You may call XNU whatever you wish but the fact remains:
- it's not a monolithic kernel by design
- it has Mach in it and Mach is some sort of microkernel. Maybe it does not reach "today's" standards of being called a microkernel but it was a very popular microkernel before.

So maybe the things running on top of Mach ( http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Co nceptual/KernelProgramming/index.html ) are conceptually "different" from what the services of microkernel should be, and they do share indeed the address space, but this is very very very different from the architecture of a traditional monolithic kernel such as Linux

This guy ( http://sekhon.berkeley.edu/macosx/intel.html ) recently tested some stats software on his Mac running OS X and Linux, and found out that indeed MacOS X had performance issues, very likely due to the architecture of the kernel.

There's even a rumor that says that since Avie Tevanian left Apple ( http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/5553/ ), some guys are now working for removing the Mach microkernel and migrate to a full BSD kernel in the next release of the operating system.

And now my personal touch. I agree with Linus when he says that having small components doing simple parts on their sides and putting them together with pipes and so on, is somehow the UNIX way and is attracting (too lazy to find the quote). However as he demonstrates later, distributed computing is not easy, and there's also the boundray crossing issue. I guess he has a point when he says this is a problem for performance and the difficulty on designing the system... So if performance is what you indeed expect from a kernel, then you must stop dreaming of a clean-centralized good software architecture like those we have for our high oo-oriented software.

But the truth is that, although developing a monolithic kernel is an easier task to do from scratch than a microkernel, I guess the entry ticket (learning curve) for a monolithic kernel developes is more expensive. The main reason being, "things ARE NOT separated". Anyone, anywhere in the kernel could be modifying the state of that thing, for non obvious reason, even if there's a comment that says "please don't do that" or it shoulld not be the case etc.... Microkernel can obviouisly provide some kind of protection and introspections to these things, but have always hurt performances to do so.

Now it has everything to do on what you expect. Linux has many many many developpers and obviously can afford having a monolithic design that changes every now and then and you may prefer a kernel that goes fast than one whose code is clearn, well organized and easy to read. But the corrolary of that observation is that for the same reasons, grep, cat, cut, find, sort, or whatever unix tools you use with pipes and redirection are similarly a cleaner but YET INEFFICIANT design. However, it's been proven (with time) to be a good idea..

I think things that are "low level" will be bound to have a poor spagehtti software architecture because performance matters and the code is smaller.. but the higher level you go, the less performance matters, and the more code maintenance and evolutivity matters... Everything is a tradeof: good design practice depends on the type of problems your software tackles.

That said, it does not mean no progress can be made in kernel developments. Linux already uses a somewhat different C lang

Didn't Creative Labs have a Live! Drive brand breakout box for its sound cards that fit in a 5.25" drive slot?

Cold Fusion is real:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/5364/

UCLA got it to work, and then RPI confirmed it.

And all along people were saying it is a crazy idea

Anandtech

Techreport

Neoseeker

Customising the Windows installer is stupid-simple if you get your hands on the right program(s).

Copy the CD to your HD and you can tweak the hell out of Windows, integrate drivers (no more "press F6 for SCSI drivers"), remove extraneous crap, etc etc etc.

I've tried out a few and found that for me, nLite is nice. YMMV, but here's a walkthrough guide to using the prog (not that it isn't fairly self-explanatory)

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/ windowscustomization1/

FYI- There are other unofficial 'distros' of Windows out there, you just have to go looking for them. People have cut Windows down to the bare min, they've made live windows CDs, and so on.

the ascreen you read is an analog hole for information, y'know.

Not anymore

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/5189/

Slashdot users may be far more intereseted in the GeForce 6600 DDR2:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /geforce6600ddr2/

At $99, it's a lot easier to swallow than the $600 GPUs we're now seeing, and it still offers excellent performance and decent Linux support.

What in the blue hell? Someone's going through modding everything troll. Methinks the GNAA got ahold of some modpoints.

Either way, the PS2 does have a lot of reliability issues, the first time mine broke I pulled the ole switcharoo at Wal-Mart. Then I learned more about the PS2 and since then I've opened mine up and used canned air on it several times (and I took some rubbing alcohol to the lens. Fixed it up every time.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/ ps2diy/ looks like a decent guide. It does void your warranty, but IIRC, the PS2s only have a 90 day warranty anyway.

obviously you missed the fact that when gaming at 1600x1200 and are using 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering that the x1800xt beats the shit out of the gf7800.

if you're buying a 500 dollar card, are you seriously worried about benchmarks that are run without aa+af? this card even does HDR (hi dynamic range) plus AA, something that the gf7800 can't.

this card is way more sophisticated and highly refined that the brute force 7800. the 7800 isn't bad but that this card can do with 16 pipelines what the 7800 can't do with 24, says a lot.

and that's just raw performance with todays games. never mind the fact that the 1800xt comes with 512megs of super fast ram... ready for well into the next generation of games, whereas 256meg 7800's are already obsolete for the high end of the next generation. sure 256 will be enough if you pare down the resolution and lower the texture detail. one example is the game F.E.A.R... on the 1800xt it absolutely trounces the 7800 in performance.

my advice... read ALL the reviews you can get your hands on. there are too many discrepencies if you only read one or two. if you want to get a more full picture, get to reading.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r520reviewxvxv /

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1867116 ,00.asp

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x18 00_xt_xl/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/262/

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODIy

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3603

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=734&cid=2

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /ati_radeon_x1800_x1600preview

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=407

http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/8864

and check out the wicked new 3d tech demos... both are very impressive but the toystore demo is jawdropping.

http://www.ati.com/designpartners/media/edudemos/R adeonX1k.html

wmv9 hi def format but plays fine in mplayer or VLC.

Listed alphabetically so no preference to which site is good or not.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r520reviewxvxv /
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/262/
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODIy
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3603
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /ati_radeon_x1800_x1600preview
http://www.noticias3d.com/articulo.asp?idarticulo= 527
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=407
http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/8864

Gigabyte has done one really greate long ago : gv-n68128dh, which is also fanless, and for which it is almost all the time possible to re-activate the disabled pipes. Card's review to be found here. Way better than this 6600 i think !