SOYO unveils SY-K8USA DRAGON Ultra and SY-CK8 DRAGON Plus notherboards for Athlon 64
Jenoptik JD 4,1 Z8: a new 4Mp camera with 8x zoom
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy LS: a new internal 5.1 soundcard
NVIDIA attacks: inexpensive Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH LX on GeForce FX5900
SOYO unveils SY-K8USA DRAGON Ultra and SY-CK8 DRAGON Plus notherboards for Athlon 64
SOYO unveiled two Athlon 64 motherboards, SY-K8USA DRAGON Ultra and SY-CK8 DRAGON Plus. SY-K8USA bases on AMD 8151 chipset supporting HyperTransport. It supports up to 2Gb DDR266/333/400 SDRAM (3 x 184-pin DIMM sockets).
The board features 5 x 32-bit PCI slots, AGP PRO slot, 6 x USB2.0 connectors (4 back-panel and 2 headers), 3 x IEEE1394 Firewire (1 back-panel and 2 headers). Other features include Surround Sound (CMI 9739), Gigabit LAN (VT6120 Giga LAN), ALi M5283 RAID, 2 x Serial ATA channels, 1 x PATA channel (RAID Level 0/1). The MRSP is $189.
The second board, SY-CK8 DRAGON Plus bases on nForce3 150 chipset supporting RAID 0/1, 2 x Serial ATA channels, 1 x PATA channel. It also supports up to 3Gb RAM in 3 sockets, has 3 x Bus Mastering ATA E-IDE PCI slots, 3 channels for 6 IDE devices, AGP Pro slot, and the same CMI 9739 AC97 audio controller. Interfaces include PS/2 mouse and keyboard 2 x RS-232, 1 x LPT, Serial ATA, 6 x USB (4 back-panel and 2 headers). The MSRP is $139.
Jenoptik JD 4,1 Z8: a new 4Mp camera with 8x zoom
Jenoptik introduced a new digital camera for the JENDIGITAL (JD) family — 4,1 Z8. 4,1 naturally stands for 4 megapixels and Z8 – for digital + optical zoom. JD 4,1 Z8 is to arrive to Europe soon for about 400 euros.
JD 4,1 Z8 specs:
- CCD: 1/2.5" 4.07 pixels (3.98 million effective)
- Zoom: 8x optical + digital
- Resolutions: 640x480, 1600x1200, 2304x1728
- Focal length: 6-48mm (36-288 mm in 35mm equiv.)
- Aperture: F/3.2-4.8-8.0
- Design: 11 elements in 9 groups
- Min. focusing distance: 0.6m (Normal) or 0.1m (Macro)
- Exposures: 2-1/1000, 1, 2, 4, and 8 s
- ISO: 100, 200
- Exposure correction: Auto, Manual +/- 2.0 EV
- AF: point
- LCD: 1.6" TFT (about 70,000 pixels)
- VF: electronic
- Media: Secure Digital
- Movies: AVI, 320x240, up to 120s at 15fps with sound
- Formats: DCF v. 1.0 (Exif v. 2.2), DPOF v. 1.0/4:3
- Timer: 3 or 10s
- Power: 4xŔŔ batteries
- Size: 123x64x47mm
- Weight: 270g
Source: DC Views
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy LS: a new internal 5.1 soundcard
Creative extended its family of internal soundcards with 5.1-channel Sound Blaster Audigy LS.
According to the company, its brief specs are:
- Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted) = 100 dB (2V)
- Crosstalk (Left/Right and vice versa) = —100 dB
- Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (A-Weighted) = 0.004 %
- Frequency Response at —3 dBr = <10 Hz to 22 kHz
- 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
- 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 5.1 speaker output
- 16-bit recording with sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, and 48kHz
- Supports SPDIF input signal of up to 24-bit/96kHz quality
- User-selectable EAX ADVANCED HD MUSIC presets, pre-configurable DSP modes simulating various acoustic environments
- Creative Multi Speaker Surround™ (CMSS®) technology transforms all stereo audio into 5.1 multi-channel playback
- 1024-voice polyphony and multi-timbral capability
- 16 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS compatible instruments and 10 drum kits
- Works under Windows 98SE, 2000, Me č XP
- Price estimated about $60
NVIDIA attacks: inexpensive Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH LX on GeForce FX5900
A new model from Leadtek that we obtained for our lab tests — WinFast A350 TDH LX — excited our keen interest due to its rather nice features at the relatively low price. Priced $100 less than usual FX5900 products, i.e. about $300 just has some slower memory, but the same 5900 GPU! Our tests indicated that overclocking can provide you speed comparable with GeForce FX5900 cards.
Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH LX has 128Mb of Hynix 256-bit 2.8ns (vs. 2.2ns of usual cards), GPU/memory clock speeds are 400/350 (700) MHz. Unlike most GeForce FX5900SE models with specially designed PCB, Leadtek decided to base its product on usual GeForce FX5900 circuit board, you can see this on photos.
As we´ve said in our previous reviews, Leadtek cards´ "armor" is not a very successful engineering solution. For example, such cards are not comfortable to install into DFI LanParty 875P because card´s cooling sets against an onboard capacitor. You can just bend it slightly, but this solution is not the best, I guess.
Initial situation
Capacitor bended
Before the review is out, I can say that Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH LX might become an interesting variant for buyers, as ATI has only Radeon 9800 in this segment that has lower clock speeds of both GPU, and memory comparing to 5900LX. Of course, I don´t mean Pixel Shaders 2.0 games where FX5900 loses much...
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