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A large display is not a component I'd roll the dice on. There can be a lot of issues beyond just stuck or dead pixels. The lowest CCFL tube on my 2707 dimmed dramatically after just 2yrs in service. No replacement tubes available anywhere let alone from Dell. Without a replacement monitor (an...

Agreed, latency is a killer, and that's why my first SSD was an X-25M, but a lot has happened since I bought that first one and Linus wrote that last spring. The SSD's with JMicron controllers he refers to that had the high latency/stutter issues are all but gone from the market and the SSD's...

The X-25 G2 remains the best drive in real world use though the margins are getting closer. The only aspect of performance where it doesn't lead the pack is sequential writes which has a lot less impact on the "feel" of the computer that random reads does. As you say, you want to boot quickly...

You want the SSD for your boot drive. It will be the biggest single upgrade you've ever made. I have an Intel SX-25 M as my boot drive and a WD Black 1TB as a data drive. I also have an old 74GB Raptor like yours that used to be a boot drive years ago that I use occasionally in an eSATA docking...

Storage Review has the largest reliability database I know about from actual users. You gotta register. Storage Review survey I've owned a half dozen of the Raptors starting with the 36GB and haven't lost a single one. FWIW the difference between buying OEM drives that are repackaged for...

Avoid the 2709 unless you want a 107 watt space heater that needs periodic CCFL tube replacement. I've had a 2708 for around 3yrs and while it's a decent monitor the heat dissipation and light tube failures have made it a lot less enjoyable. I would not buy another monitor that didn't have...

Balmer may want to focus on his own company. MS has a business model that is in dire need of an update. iPod vs Zune...? iPhone/iTouch vs Win CE...? OSX vs Vista...? He's also comparing specs not the finished products. Nobody that buys a Macbook is going to seriously look at as some generic...

From where I sit the new Mac Pro makes a compelling argument against building or buying another PC. As other have pointed out, nobody with a working brain orders memory and drives with the system anyway. Those bitching about price aren't looking at other quad core Xeon systems I think. My only...

Nonsense, Philips participation was to bring the core science to the partnership and the only means they have to profit from that investment is to sell their stake in the business. The alternative would be to wait for the profits to trickle in over time, subject to the variables of the market...

Exactly right, and that is the most optimistic timeline. In reality we're probably more like 30 months out on the very first monitors and 3.5-4 yrs until 2nd gen units appear, the bugs get worked out and prices settle. It's gonna be a long wait for the SED holdouts. oc

There were threads saying that OLED and SED were just around the corner 18 months ago when I got my HP 23" along with many others. There is little doubt that some vastly superior technology will eventually arrive to displace LCD, but there's no evidence it is imminent. In the mean time there are...

Word. Stuff is stuff. This guy made sure he ordered all the "best" stuff at the same time, right down to the Canon L series glass, which says trust fund, legal settlement or insurance payout rather than professional tools. People's tools are invariably of different age, this stuff was all bought...

The response time is 8ms, so it's fast enough, but it's a waste of money for games. Get a 2405 and knock yourself out. Unless you plan on calibrating your monitor and have a requirement for absolute color accuracy, why spend nearly $1000 more? Bragging rights is about all you'll get for your...

Agreed, the monitor is farqed. Return for replacement or refund is the only choice. I hadn't heard about NEC ceasing production of CRT monitors recently. If they did, they must have made a boatload of them at the end, because they are still in stock everwhere. The folks at Monitors Outlet and...

The Asus P5WD2 Premium Intel 955X showed up on a couple e-tailers sites this morning. Retail price is $265. One site says the boards should be shipping by May 9th. Tom's Hardware reviewed the D840 and the bottom line is that for applicaitons that are not thread optimized (games) the higher...

It's not always a matter of being able to afford them. Some of us would simply prefer not to subsidize their massive retail advertising budget. A Zippy/Emacs is every bit as good a supply. I've owned both. I applaud PCP&P for doing the missionary work to raise awareness in the market...

Unlikely. Both the P5AD2 Premum and Deluxe have had stability issues since they were released last fall. I wrestled with one for nearly a month before I sent it back and went to a different board. Some people don't have problems, but there continue to be enough that do so that it's definitely...

It may be that both your Coolergiant and Noisetaker were stuck on high, but unlikely. The fact of the matter is that the Noisetakers are not the quietest supplies around. I've got an EG-701 and SilentPC review rates noise as 23-27db up ranging up to 45db at 600W. The average modern system would...

No, the PSU fan speed indicator is only there so you can monitor PSU fan speed and temp through your motherboard mfg's utility, assuming they have on. Some of those utility programs also allow you to control the fan speed in the PSU. If you never plugged that in at all you would never know...

Update: After some searching I have located some fans with 4 pin motherboard connectors that are capable of PWM (pulse width modulatio) speed control. Seems incredible to me that so may people would be adding heat sinks with fans having 3 pin connectors and running them at a constant speed. oc

Rather than debate bandwidth saturation and benchmarks, I can offer some comments about the subjective "feel" between the SCSI and SATA alternative. I ran nothing but SCSI from 1989 until last fall. In later years I ran my drives in a CRU four drawer LVD external case so the heat wouldn't impact...

I'm getting ready to install a XP-90 on an Intel board with a 4 pin CPU header. The fan is a Panaflo BX with Rpm feedback. I'd like to have the fan speed controlled automatically by the chipset. Intel says that 3 pin connections on 4 pin headers prevents automatic fan control. True? If so, are...

Yep, and the power transformers necessary for tubes are a bit daunting for those used to low voltage quipment. My tube equipment runs plate voltages of 350V - 565V. That's enough to kill you if you don't know what you are doing. Getting dead has a very low "cool" factor. ;) oc

Getting into a usable system now would seem to be a lot more important than what might happen nine months down the line. There is always something faster coming along. The thing to bear in mind is that this upgrade will be huge from your current system, and the X850 will play every game out...

Stock clocks. I rarely/never clock anything on my box because I make my living with it. A lost day costs me the price of a couple of X850 cards. I did check the X800XT on my last box just for giggles, and it clocked like crazy, but I haven't taken the time to check the X850 PE. oc

Nice card as long as you don't need dual DVI, but I do. I picked up the Sapphire X850XT-PE w/ dual DVI for $564 from Allstar Micro, and am very happy with it. I put my Asus X800XT that I got last summer in another system. It was the first dual DVI card for the PCIe bus I could get my hands on...

Chipset. I make my living with these things and I have zero patience for BS. However, Intel has made it harder in recent years though due to what I have to conclude are bad product decisions from a lesser senior management team than in the past. It's their game to lose. Since 1989 I've built...

Enermax specifically states what connectors and how many of each the EG701AX has on their site. They even show a picture of each to remove any doubt. Edit: We may not have any reviews, but this is the power supply Falcon Northwest is shipping with their SLI systems. Considering their history...

If there are any companies selling power supplies in North America that actually own factories making power supplies, I'm not aware of it. None of the marketing companies and marketing/engineering companies behind the recognized brands actual make them, including PCP&P and Seasonic. The PCP&C...

If you are talking about the total market, and not just the geek market, that's a low number. Dell and the other big volume box builders have been PCIe only on their Intel systems since last summer. The market turns over at roughly 33% a year and January is history, so roughly half a year of...

Bad idea. It introduces additional potential failure points and increases resistance. Interior designers will love them, but people interested only in function will look elsewhere. oc

Since I'm not aware of a single company that markets power supplies in North America that actually makes them in a factory that they own and operate, it's safe to say that you can count on the fact that it's made to order by one of a half dozen manufacturing companies in China or Taiwan. The...

Funny stuff LoneWolf, thanks for posting it, I had a good laugh. Yet another computer that features "tech" articles by people more suited to be interior designers or hair dressers than bench techs. When did we suddenly start caring about what power supplies look like? When I want something nice...

Something is not right. Sparkle makes a good supply and this thing as 36A of 12V. It would seem like it should run your system without breathing hard. So... What motherboard, processor and vid card are you running and how much memory? Are you by any chance trying to run a 24 pin motherboard...

Don't look now, buy they've been in stock since the first of the week. They make a 600W SLI version as well if you need it. Either way, have fun. Enermax 535W SLI oc

None of the marketing companies or engineering/marketing companies that market power supplies actually make them. The are all manufactured in China by a very few manufacturing companies that don't actually market to end users. Private labeling alone isn't a sin. The difference is that different...

The Enermax 600W you have will do fine. You will only have 1 six pin video card connector, but you can use a Molex to 6pin adapter for the 2nd card. Dual 12v rails is part of the ATX 2.0 spec and is designed to better power modern CPU's, mother boards and video cards. You have well more than...

So Ice, how much did you pay for that BP Ferrups...? My recollection was that back in the day they cost fortune. My other recollection is that there was nothing in the mountain of Best literature that specifically warned the user about ferroresonant "ringing" when used with the (then) single...

If it were me, and I was looking to accomplish the same thing, I would be looking at a Zippy/Emacs. For $5 more than the Enermax, and $40 less than a PC&C 510, you can get the Zippy PSM-6600P-SATA. It's way more supply than you need, but there it is. Zippy also has their 400W HG2-6400P-SATA...

The fans are very nearly totally silent. What little sound you hear is sound of the air moving. I'm currently using the non-SLI variant of the EG701AX 600W (yes, there is an SLI version that is shipping), and it is very quiet indeed. It also has a manual fan speed control in the event you wish...