System Builder's Portal

A new sandy bridge design from ASRock

"The ASRock P67 Extreme4 shows a lot of potential. With this being our first Sandy Bridge motherboard review, there’s a very fine line of being wowed by Sandy Bridge, and deciding whether this motherboard is something people will want to buy. There will be a lot of choices on offer on release day, and ASRock is obviously competing to be the best board out there."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: April 27, 2011.

VIA's new processor, targeting thin and light notebooks and all-in-one desktop PCs

"With the VIA Nano 3000 Series, we are launching our fastest and most power-efficient processors yet," commented Richard Brown, VP International Marketing, VIA Technologies. "Coupled with our market-leading digital media chipsets, they enable the richest experience across a broad range of mobile and all-in-one system designs."

Source: Tcmagazine | Date posted: November 3, 2009.

A new quadcore Athlon II 620 X4 designed to compete i5

"If you have an AMD motherboard or are looking to build a system on a budget, this processor is highly recommended. It's got enough grunt to power some heavyweight applications and yet still provide good gaming performance. In fact the money you save basing your system on this great value chip could easily be spent on a 5850 or similar and we are in no doubt that the AMD Athlon II 620 X4 could provide the required grunt to make it sweat. Highly recommended and I have absolutely no qualms about giving it the OC3D Value For Money Award. A 3.25GHz Quad Core for around £80 seems to good to be true, and yet isn't. Congratulations to AMD."

Source: Overclock3d | Date posted: November 3, 2009.

"The DROID is an excellent smartphone with many (if not all) of the features that a modern user would expect."

Source: Engadget | Date posted: Oct 30, 2009.

Crunchgear has straight review of the latest Zune HD

"Seriously, people — this is a fantastic media player. Don’t take my word for it, though. Go to your local electronics store and see for yourself how good the screen is, how intuitive the interface is, and how right it feels in your pocket — you may not want to put it back when you’re done."

Source: Crunchgear | Date posted: September 18, 2009.

Here's a new gaming rig configuration by Toms Hardware in both Intel and AMD platform. It will play most of the latest DirectX 10 games.

"Both $500 Gaming Rig system suggestions based on AMD or Intel platforms are powerful enough run the vast majority of software and games at mainstream resolutions. You shouldn't expect wonders at resolutions above 1280x1024, or at maximum quality settings, but the power of an Athlon X2 BE-2350 or a Pentium Dual Core E2160 together with a Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics board is at least sufficient for most computing tasks, including gaming. And once again, we are only talking about a $500 price tag for the entire system."

Source: TomsHardware | Date posted: September 10, 2007.

Once again Intel's plan is to shift Celeron processors into core-micro architecture. Check this preview that will give you a new level of celeron 4xx processors compared to 3xx series

"Xbitlabs says: When new processors codenamed Conroe-L come out this June, Intel will drive Core micro-architecture into the last untouched sphere - low-cost single-core CPUs. This is a pretty remarkable event, because this micro-architecture differs positively from the preceding NetBurst from multiple standpoints. The launch of Celeron processors on Conroe-L core will result into significant performance increase of the budget CPUs and simultaneous reduction of their TDP and power consumption."

Source: Xbitlabs | Date posted: April 03, 2007.

This new baby from Intel will prove to be the best budget core 2 duo.

"Anandtech says: At default speeds, the E4300 isn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things; it's effectively a slightly cheaper, slightly slower E6300. But much like the E6300, much of the appeal of the E4300 comes from overclocking - and overclock it does. Compared to other Core 2 CPUs, the E4300 doesn't set any new overclocking records but at the price it's a true bargain."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: January 10, 2007.

For those who are looking for a budget cost but still powerful enough for most office and workstation applications, you may need to look at this detailed review by PCStats for a new entry level market Biostar P4M890-M7 motherboard.

"For just only US$ 46, benchmark for this tiny motherboard set to run behind among other Intel 900 series mobos very closely. Even with the single channel memory controller and DDR2 memory running at 533 MHz, the P4M890-M7 motherboard and an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor performed quite well in the benchmark tests, and still however faster than Intel Pentium D and AMD Athlon64 processors."

Source: PCStats | Date posted: December 28, 2006.

ATI has delivered X1950 pro that matches the Geforce 7900 GS with the same $199 price tag. As you are aware, ATI's theme is more on Visual performance issue which you will not regret if your concerns is more on image quality of gaming. Check out this review from techreport which will give you the whole idea.

"At last, ATI nails a mid-range GPU and CrossFire goes native"

Source: Techreport | Date posted: October 17, 2006.

"Probably you cannot afford such expensive cards when need to play latest games. Perphaps, this link will help you. Let us see this two powerful low-cost graphic cards from ATI and Nvidia and find out which of the two will be the best alternative for best price performance card."

Source: Techspot.com | Date posted: July 26, 2006.

For those who are having high performance AGP Graphic cards, this motherboard will give you a sweet price performance spot which you will still maximize the use of your existing AGP cards.

"Our results confirm that there is not a throughput performance penalty for using AGP over PCI Express on the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA. In fact, just the opposite is true in this case as our AGP graphics cards consistently scored better than their PCI-E counterparts. This is attributable to the PCI Express Graphics slot being limited to X4 operation at the upper resolutions and the slight overhead penalty incurred due to the VIA chipset design. However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: August 18, 2006.

Madshimps showed up four 7900 GT cards with competitive prices. This review will give you gamers an option to maximize your gaming experience.

"We compare four 7900 GT video cards ranging from the price competitive Club 3D to the outrageously overclocked EVGA version; between those two extremes there are interesting products from Sparkle and MSI which also sport factory overclocked speeds. Read on to find out how they perform in games, how high they overclock and if their cooling is effective and quiet"

Source: MadShimps | Date posted: July 17, 2006.

Vr-Zone has reviewed a worthy budget performance motherboard for the up-coming core duo processors.

"ASRock delivers a simple but easy to digest upgrade path for the consumers looking to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo processor soon to be launched in a few days. Performance you can get for the cash you have to fork out- USD$85 (SGD$140) and you get a full featured motherboard, eSATA2, Conroe Core 2 Duo support, and even ATi Cross-Fire support.... how can anyone complain. It's probably an offer many can't refuse. Sure, it lags behind a i975X chipset board a little, and it's probably not an overclocker's choice, but the cash you save can be spilled over to other components such as CPU or graphics card. I welcome this straight-to-the-point/get-all-you-can bargain approach ASRock is taking for sure!"

Source: Vr-Zone | Date posted: July 17, 2006.

Truly Intel D 805 CPU is the bargain of the century as stated by AMD3D.

"Today ... Intel's PentiumD 805 processor is the bargain of the century. For as little as GBP 80.00 ($130) you can hit 4.0Ghz with minimal effort. The performance may not match an Extreme Edition but what do you expect? Still, the benefits are too many to list ..."

Source: AMD3d | Date posted: June 14, 2006.

"In-Win began over ten years ago in 1985 fabricating PC-chassis, today were testing their 460W PSU solution which uses a 12cm lighted fan for cooling. At 150x86x140mm (W/H/L) the unit is diminutive and will fit any ATX case. Stay with us as we discover if the In-Win 460W packs a performance punch."

Source: MadShrimps | Date posted: May 31, 2006.

"Selling at this time for approximately $85 USD, the performance-to-cost ratio for the ECS C19-A SLI v1.0A is among the best in the industry for Intel LGA-775 SLI motherboards. The motherboard is value-packed, and while it does not come with all of the bells and whistles that diehard enthusiasts would be after, such as IEEE-1394 Firewire, it does come with the necessary components to get the motherboard up and running. The destiny of the C19XE Chipset is to bring SLI to Intel users without spending excessive amounts on the motherboard, and the ECS C19-A SLI does just that. All in all, the C19-A SLI is a first-rate value motherboard from ECS with manageable overclocking abilities, and it definitely should be worth considering for your next Intel upgrade."

Source: Phoronix | Date posted: May 15, 2006.

ASUS made two silent graphic cards namely EN7600 GS Silent and EN7800 GT TOP Silent. This fanless configuration is well suited for those who targets noiceless configuration pc.

"Overall these cards adequately fulfill their job of providing a level of graphics acceleration while making no sound at all, so for those interested in this aspect of the cards, you won't be disappointed. Which one is better for you depends mostly on your budget, and most likely the ASUS EN7600 GS Silent will be a more reasonable purchase for the consumer in the market for a card of this type. There are other low-noise solutions available, but none quite as fast as the EN7800 GT TOP Silent which makes it unique, and the likely choice for those interested in maximum performance with lowest noise levels. With NVIDIA's "slimming-down" of their most recent line of cards, we can imagine more powerful silent-operation will be easier and cheaper to achieve in the future, and we'll be interested to see what advancements are in store for us in this area."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: May 12, 2006.

"The Foxconn 975X7AA was a real joy to have in the Ninjalane Labs, actually this is one of the few boards that we have reviewed that didn't give us a single issue during the entire benchmarking process. All of the benchmarks ran cleanly with very repeatable results even after the system was completely torn down and reassembled on a different test bench."

Source: Ninjalane | Date posted: May 11, 2006.

A clear detailed review for New Budget Processor from Intel which shows the highest overclocking rate @ 4.1 Ghz with a budget price of U$130. See the astonishing result reviewed by Toms Hardware.

"We bought an Intel Pentium D 805 from a local retail outlet and overclocked it up to 4.1 GHz, even though this part runs by default at just 2.66 GHz. This represents a heretofore unattained clock rate increase of just over 54 %, for which only some additional cooling is required. The secret is in the FSB clock rate, which is raised from 133 MHz to over 200 MHz; the system remains completely stable, because modern motherboards with Intel 9xx chipsets are laid out to handle FSB clock rates of up to 266 MHz. In language that overclocking enthusiasts will love to hear, the Pentium D 805 ascends to the throne as the new King of overclocking, knocking out the AMD Opteron 144."

Source: Tomshardware | Date posted: May 10, 2006.

For those who want to have an HTPC built with a great Core Duo Mobile combined with AOpen's i975Xa-YDG, truly a high performance PC, you may need to see this...

"AOpen has been at the forefront of offering Mobile on Desktop products and continues to be a technology leader in this market sector. Their ability to design and produce a board based upon a desktop chipset that fully extracts the performance potential of the Core Duo processor is nothing short of exceptional. We are very impressed with the AOpen i975Xa-YDG as it offers the perfect blend of performance and stability in a motherboard. If you are considering a change in systems at this time, do not want to wait for Conroe or Merom, and can live with the feature set and pricing, then we seriously recommend pairing a Core Duo processor with the AOpen i975Xa-YDG. You will not regret it."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: May 4, 2006.

"How does the Athlon 64 architecture, known as "Hammer" or "K8", compare with the newly announced Intel Core architecture? Does AMD have a chance to compete with the latest state of the art Intel technology? What tricks make the Core architecture more capable than the current CPUs? Will Intel gets the crown again? Read on."

Source: Anandtech | Date posted: May 1, 2006.

"While everybody is waiting for Intel to release the next big thing, Conroe, the release of two new processors almost caught the enthusiast and media off-guard. The Pentium D 805 and Celeron D 356 are priced lower than the competition so are they interesting for the budget friendly overclockers out there? Let's take a closer look and find out."

Source: MadShrimps | Date posted: April 29, 2006.

"When looking at some of ASRock's recent motherboard offerings, we at Phoronix have been stunned by their budget yet creative products. These motherboards range from the 939SLI32-eSATA2 to the 775XFire-eSATA2. Here at Phoronix we have the 939NF4G-SATA2 motherboard. The ASRock 939NF4G-SATA2 motherboard uses NVIDIA's GeForce 6100 and nForce 410 MCP Chipset."

Source: Phoronix.com | Date posted: April 27, 2006.

"6 different VGA coolers are tested by MadShrimps as their latest roundup which covers products from Arctic Cooling, Sytrin and Zalman stressed using an XFX 7800GT running at default and overclocked speeds. Each heatsink is tested at different fan speeds and GPU temperature and noise readings are recorded. Click the above link and find out what cooler will suite you best."

Source: MadShrimps | Date posted: April 25, 2006.

"Finer 90nm production technology allowed Nvidia not just to improve the technical specs of its flagship product dramatically. They also managed speed up its younger brother, which has eventually become even faster than the legendary GeForce 7800 GTX. And the latter is famous for having arrived at the right time and into the right market segment and thus turning into a great success. Today we are going to find out whether the $299 graphics solution will be able to win the leader's title from the 10-month old buddy."

Source: XbitLabs.com | Date posted: April 24, 2006.

"The GameBridge is an absolute solution because of its capability to turn your PC into a fully functional home theater PC. It is also great for novice gamers who are not concerned about the absolute best PC graphics, or those who want a home theater PC without the fuss of actually building one. Because of its small dimensions, it is also a useful device for places with limited space, where you cannot have a normal TV set. A recommended device for those who want to convert their PC into a home entertainment system."

Source: TomsHardware.com | Date posted: April 21, 2006.

"Everglide's S-500 is giving the best quality of it's kind. A high-end choice certainly capable of competing with other famous headphone manufacturers such as Icemat Siberia headphones. The audio quality was fantastic and the headphones had done a viable job at reproducing the high, middle and low frequencies, as well as it was tested in gaming environments which has certainly a top-notch outcome."

Source: Phoronix.com | Date posted: April 16, 2006.

"iRiver will ship its latest hard drive-based MP3 players, dubbed the E10, into the South Korean market later this month, pitching the machine's 6GB capacity, 1.5in colour screen and 32-hour playback period against Apple's iPod Nano. It's claimed the device also operates as a TV remote control."

Source: Vr-Zone.com | Date posted: April 16, 2006.

"The 805 also does a good job of staying competitive with the Pentium D 820 and 920. In most cases, the 805 offers within 5% of the performance of the Pentium D 820 despite its lower clock speed and 533MHz FSB. For the budget conscious, or if you're planning another more serious upgrade later this year to Socket-AM2 or Conroe, a Pentium D 805 coupled with a cheap 945 motherboard can't be beat."

"For a little over $130 you can now buy a dual core processor but the question is, is it any good? We answer that question and a few more in the process in our first ever cheap dual core shootout."

Source: Anandtech.com | Date posted: April 7, 2006.

"VIA today announced the VIA CX700 digital media IGP chipset for the VIA C7 and Eden processor platforms, the most advanced x86 embedded chipset that integrates all the cutting-edge features of a modern chipset's North and South bridges, including rich video graphics, HD audio, and DDR2 and SATA II support, into a single, compact and highly power-efficient package. Enhanced video quality is provided through the proven VIA UniChrome Pro IGP core with its 128-bit 2D/3D graphics, acclaimed hardware MPEG-2 video decoding acceleration and intelligent video rendering technology of the Chromotion CE video display engine; this is complemented by the VIA Vinyl HD Audio controller supporting up to eight high definition channels delivering a richer all-round digital media experience. The VIA CX700 is expected to be available in volume quantities later in Q2 2006."

Source: Vr-Zone.com | Date posted: April 4, 2006.

"Today we bring two PC2-6400 heavyweights into the Sumo dohyo, Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 and Super Talent T800UX2GC4. If you're unfamiliar with DDR2 overclocking, DDR2 confutes the axiom smaller modules scale much higher then their larger brethren. Just how well are current BGA IC's scaling these days?"

Source: MadShrimps | Date posted: April 2, 2006.