Reviews

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After adding the coolbits registry hack to my system I started overclocking the card from its stock speed of 425MHz/500MHz. This is the first time I have used the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" button which worked really well. After it finished testing different speeds it overclocked the card to 495Mhz/630Mhz. I then tried to push the card farther than what it set it to but running it any faster would cause artifacts to appear or the system to lock up. This overclock is quite nice and will give you some extra power which will make gaming less choppy and more enjoyable

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DFI's LANParty 875P-T is a very interesting motherboard, and one of only a few in its class. It allows users to upgrade to a Socket 775 Intel Pentium4 processor, while at the same time allowing them to keep all of their old hardware since. This is possible because the DFI LanParty 875P-T is based on the Intel i875P chipset. Of course, this also means that there is no PCI Express x16 or DDR-2 RAM support. However, with the imminent replacement of the 925X by the 925XE, and little in the way of high end PCI Express videocards to choose from, the DFI 875P-T is a good alternative right now.

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Any and every GeForce 6800 Ultra is an excellent gamers' card. BFG's effort is above average, as the company offers a pre-overclocked core at default core prices. BFG's popularity is on the rise and it's easy to see why. If BFG can beef up the entire bundle, add, say, basic VIVO, and keep a keen price, its range of 6800-series cards will be hard to beat. As it is, you can literally place the names of NVIDIA's AIBs into a hat and pick any one. Most cards keep to the reference design and most range between 400-450MHz core

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Corsair has earned a reputation as makers of fast and reliable ram, and this tradition continues from past ram formats and into DDR-2. While not earth shattering, performance-wise today, DDR-2 is forward thinking as Intel scales their clock speeds, and the TWIN2X Pro Series is up to the task.

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Of course, companies like Gigabyte like to get in on the action in the enthusiast market. It's the area where margins are higher and where a company can really get noticed. To that end, Gigabyte developed its flagship 8Sigma line of motherboards. This family of motherboards is billed by Gigabyte as a 'Fusion of Top Innovations', and it features support for Intel's LGA775 Pentium 4 processor, DDR and DDR2 memory, Intel's High Definition Audio, dual gigabit ethernet, and Gigabyte's patented U-Plus D.P.S. eight-phase power circuit. I have been fortunate enough to get my hands on the GA-8GPNXP Duo from the 8Sigma line, and that is what we will be taking a look at in this review.

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Knowing Abit and how innovative they are with new technology I had high expectations for this motherboard. Of course being Abit they had no problem surpassing what I expected and just blowing me away. I don't think that any overclocker could really ask much more from a motherboard when it comes to the BIOS, voltages, dividers, and stability. With this motherboard I was easily able to overclock my 2.8GHz to almost 3.8GHz while running the memory at 360MHz. The onboard features such as firewire, gigabit LAN, 8-channel audio, and four USB 2.0 make it basically unnecessary to buy anything but a video card. µGuru is something Abit really did a great job on and I can't stress enough how useful and powerful this suite of applications is within the BIOS and Windows. Finally to top it all off Abit throws in their new µGuru clock which is such a simple idea but so very useful and helpful.

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The Epox EP-5EGA+ is a next generation board which is based on the new Intel 915G and ICH6R chipsets. The standard flavour is the 915P, but as you guessed it, the 915G boasts its own Intel GMA900 integrated video package. It also comes with the high bandwidth PCI Express x16 slot for graphics cards, so there are couple options video-wise. If your computing requirements include high bandwidth peripherals like SCSI controllers or standalone Gigabit Ethernet NICs, there are two PCI Express x1 slots that have an amazing 250MB/s worth of bandwidth just waiting to be tapped! That is almost twice the regular PCI bus bandwidth! Of course, there are still four PCI v2.3 slots for your legacy devices, like sound cards, wireless LAN cards, or what have you.

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X800 PRO pricing sits around the £280 mark in the U.K. at the time of writing and GeCube promise us that if you find the X800 PRO CS:CZ Limited Edition in the U.K. or indeed elsewhere, it'll be competitive with any and all X800 PRO pricing from other manufacturers.