Wednesday *7 months DV Hardware!* Edition

ABIT, a company well known for the overclockability of their motherboard products via SoftMenu™ Technology have brought us jumperless mobo's since the days of the Celeron 300A and have long been the leaders of innovation and quality. Today we take a look at a Geforce4 Ti4200 with 2 unique features: the Outside Thermal exhaust System and 8X AGP. Oddly enough, the ABIT OTES appears to be the forerunner in cooling design for the new nVidia GeForce FX Video Card. Incorporating some intriguing technology for cooling down those hot GPU's.

Whether you use an optical or old-school ball mouse, this pad has what it takes to make it on to your "must have list". It has a rather large surface area that is about 30x20cm. The pad is made of a plastic polymer with 9 small penny size rubber standoffs on the bottom of the pad to keep the pad from sliding around your desk..

This is our second look at the GeForce 4 MX440 AGP8x part, but this one differs from past cards as it's designed to fit in tight spaces. The card is half the height, but how's the performance? We're also giving the card away to a lucky reader...

"The card is not expensive, ringing in at about 68$, but as an enthusiast, it's not one I can fully recommend. The Ti4200 is only about 60$ more, and if that's too much, the Radeon 8500 or 9000 would be better choices. If 68$ is too rich for you, we're giving away this card, free of charge."

To be honest, when I first saw these speakers I wasn't expecting anything great out of them, but to my surprise the sound produced by the 621's is absolutely breath taking! The highs were high, low notes were thumped out beautifully by the subwoofer, and mid range was crystal clear. As this system is rated at 143W RMS, just for fun I cranked it up as lound as it would go...Can you say hearing damage!? These speakers are louder than anyone will ever need, and the only distortion I noticed was when the volume was at the very last notch up. Playing games on these speakers was great. You could really hear every little thing in UT 2003.

Installation was quite simple. The 3 pin connectors are clearly labeled Fan 1, Fan 2, Fan 3, and Fan 4. There were two 3 pin extension wires and two extensions with 3 to 4 Pin connectors included. I connected the fan extensions and fed them through the open 5.25 bay where I intended to install the NXP-201. *Note* When installing the NXP-201 it would be better to install it directly above a CD or DVD drive or between the two if you have both. This provides a convenient spot to hide excess wire and provides support to keep wire tension of the 3 pin connections.

When I got the Cold Cathode Light Kit in the mail it was in great condition, it had been well packaged so that nothing was broken from going through the mail. The only thing that I found wrong was that the second light would not work very well. It looked like the problem was not being caused by the inverter and that it was light itself because there was a small cut in the wire. This must have happened at the factory and they would probably replace it with no problems.