Posts in the 'Reviews' Category

I’ve compared three AMD’s Socket AM2 processors with prices below $50 in the US market. These are the AMD Sempron LE-1250 and LE-1300, clocked at 2.2 and 2.3GHz respectively, and the 2.7GHz AMD Athlon LE-1640. All CPUs are single core units and come in retail packages with coolers included.

The tested 64-bit chips have 512KB of L2 cache and a 45W power consumption. They are built using the 65nm production technology. The Semprons have an 800MHz HyperTransport link, whereas the Athlon LE-1640 uses a 1000Mhz HT. Supported instruction sets include MMX, 3DNow, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and x86-64. In addition, the 1640 supports virtualization.

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The Chieftec Aegis CH-05SL-B-OP is a silver & black ATX mid-tower steel computer case, advertised as an “Extreme Workstation Tower”. The case includes front door, a side panel with a window, three 5.25″ drive bays, six 3.5″ HDD bays, a 3.5″ Floppy drive bay, and seven expansion slots. Mounting of 5.25″ and 3.5″ devices, as well as PCIe/PCI cards, is screwless.

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Select netbooks in the market now feature the Intel Atom N280 processor instead of its precursor, the Atom N270. I have compared the N280 vs N270, clocked at 1.66GHz and 1.60GHz respectively.

Besides a clock speed increase of only 0.06GHz, the N280 features a faster front side bus. It’s 667MHz, which is up from 533MHz in the N270.

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In this review, I’ll try to show what you can expect from a laptop with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, in terms of gaming performance and high-definition video playback.

The Mobility Radeon HD 3200 (RS780M) is a part of AMD’s “Puma” mobile platform that also includes dual core Turion and Athlon processors. The DirectX 10-compatible integrated graphics chip features 4 ROPs, 40 unified shaders, and a 32-bit bus width. The HD 3200 in the tested HP Compaq 6735s laptop has a GPU clock speed of 500MHz and a 500MHz memory clock. The amount of shared video memory was 256MB (default) during the benchmarks.

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The Acer Aspire 5315 is a 15.4-inch notebook PC, aimed at lower-cost consumer market. The Aspire 5315 features Acer’s Gemstone chassis design. It includes an Intel Celeron 540 or 550 processor, and comes with a 80GB or 120GB hard drive, as well as with Combo optical drive or DVD burner. All of the Aspire 5315 models listed on the company’s website have 1GB of DDR2 memory, the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, an 802.11b/g wireless module, and built-in stereo speakers. The laptop has a 1280×800 15.4″ widescreen display. In addition, select models come with a built-in web camera.

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The Asus EAH3850/G/HTDI/512M, a video card based on the ATI Radeon 3850 “RV670 Pro” GPU, is a sub-$200 mainstream graphics solution for desktop PCs with the PCI Express slot.

The EAH3850/G/HTDI/512M has 512MB of GDDR3 video memory, a 256-bit memory interface, and 320 stream processing units. Its core and memory are clocked at 668MHz and 1650MHz respectively. These are stock speeds for the 3850 GPU, which is based on 55-nanometer production technology. The card is DirectX 10.1, PCI Express 2.0, and ATI Crossfire compatible.

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The Intel Celeron E1200 is the company’s cheapest dual core processor currently. The latest Socket 775 low cost CPU has a clock speed of 1.6GHz, 512KB of L2 cache, an 800MHz front side bus, and a thermal power of 65W. The E1200 chip is produced using 65-nanometer technology, although Intel nowadays makes 45nm processors.

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The AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+, the fastest processor among dual core Athlons, is clocked at 3.2GHz. This Socket AM2 64-bit CPU has a total of 2MB of L2 cache and a 125W thermal design power. It is produced using older 90-nanometer technology, although AMD also makes some less power-hungry and cooler 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips.

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The XFX GeForce 8600 GT 256MB Fatal1ty Professional Edition is a passively cooled and overclocked PCIe video card, which features 256MB of DDR3 memory, a 128-bit memory interface, and 32 stream processors.

The card has a core clock speed of 620Mhz and 1700Mhz memory clock, which is higher than 540Mhz and 1400MHz respectively in the GeForce 8600 GT reference model.

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The MSI K9AGM2-FIH is an affordable Micro ATX motherboard, designed for use with AMD’s Socket AM2 processors. It is based on the AMD 690G Northbridge, with the ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics, and the SB600 Southbridge.

Although it is small and low-priced, the MSI K9AGM2-FIH provides users with all features found in a decent Home Theater PC system. Its HDMI port, which is HDCP-compliant, enables an easy one-cable audio/video connection to HD TVs and monitors, while the Realtek ALC888 chip manages the 8-channel sound system.

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The XFX GeForce 8500GT 256MB PCI-E (PV-T86J-UAHG) video card is a mainstream sub-$100 graphics solution, providing users with a DirectX 10 support, a hardware decoded high-definition video playback with HDCP, and a silent operation.

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The MSI RX2600PRO-T2D256EZ/D3, a passive-cooled video card for under $100, is based on the mainstream ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics chip. It offers a support for DirectX 10 games, as well as a hardware processed high-definition 1080p video playback, using its UVD chip for HD acceleration. Other great features of the utilized ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO are its built-in HDMI for one-cable audio and video connectivity with a 5.1 surround sound, and a HDCP support.

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Samsung SyncMaster 720N is an affordable 17-inch XGA (non-widescreen) LCD display. It features a 600:1 contrast ratio, a 300cd/m2 brightness, a 1280×1024 screen resolution, a viewing angle of 160/160 degrees and a response time of 8ms.

The 720N has a 0.264mm pixel pitch. It features a horizontal scanning frequency of 30-81 kHz and 56-75 Hz vertical frequency. This monitor connects to a computer’s video card via an analog VGA interface. The manufacturer provides a three-year warranty for this monitor.

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