We here at the HWZ labs have been gifted with a number of mid/high range cards in recent weeks, and out of the throng we picked a few choice plums – the latest and 55-nm based cards from Nvida, the 9800 GTX+, here represented by three cards: Zotac 9800 GTX+, Zotac 9800 GTX+ Zone, and the XFX 9800 GTX+.

                                             The three 9800 GTX+ cards - the one with the radiator connected to it is the Zone edition from Zotac.

Greetings to all the intrepid PC enthusiasts in the country! If you’ve been wondering what else you can get out of your uber-clocked PC other than higher FPS and better general performance, then wonder no more. MSI and many more sponsors, plus the HardwareZone network, is bringing you the chance to show off the performance of your overclocked creations, display your build, overclock, and tweaking skills, and also the chance to win great prizes in the Iron Tech 2008 competition!

Nvidia’s  forte has always been on the graphics side of the business, and truth be told, while it has had a lot of hits with its chipset releases, such as the 680i and the more recent 780i, Nvidia cannot achieve the same market coverage as other competitors with their larger pool of resources.

Who hasn’t played with Lego blocks in the old, old days of their childhood? Certainly most anyone will have a block or two (or a box or two) at home, and have tried to build upon grandiose plans that may have included castles, walls, houses and boxes. In the case of this one special modder, he took the concept of an “enclosure” and applied it to his own set of lego blocks – coming out with a computer mod as classic as case modding itself.

                                              After laying out everything in a CAD program, the parts are prepared for eventual construction.

It shouldn’t matter all that much here in the Philippines but the fact is, electric vehicles are becoming more commonplace and practical. Out of this increasing popularity there rose a quirky little problem that plagued the safety concerns of pedestrians, bicyclists, and pet owners everywhere – the plague of the silent car.

For most products reviewed here online or blogged about in the zone, the first question asked of a product is “how much better is it than a similar but older product?” In the case of HP’s Indigo line of Printing presses however, there was no basis for comparison for this writer, and I had to fall back to the most-asked question by befuddled tech-writers and clueless editors alike – what does it do?

                                              Mr. Alon Bar-Shany, VP & GM of HP Indigo Digital Press Division was at hand to update the press of the Indigo line's status.

There’s nothing as disappointing as missed opportunity. This is especially true with tech products, with all the possible capabilities compounded by all of the different formats, methods, and flavors of media and the hardware behind it. In this case, the Emtec Movie Cube Q120 isn’t what I’d call an exemplary product, but it is disappointing in how high it could have reached, especially with this reviewer’s high expectations, given a more polished approach to this product’s development.

                                              Three indicator lights - power, hard disk activity, and music - hide behind the black plastic.
 

In the “cool” department, this UGV (Unnamed Gravy Van? Actually, it’s Unmanned Ground Vehicle) named “Guardian” and made by G-nius of the US makes its rounds in areas with the need for perimeter security. The fun thing about this autonomous robot is that it can actually go off-road when the need arises, unlike other delicate, straight-from-the-lab robots.

Toyota’s flair for solid, usually staid but ultimately dependable modes of transportation is taking a twist in their latest introduction of some 2-wheeled transportation options. Not a motorcycle, more like uhh – “personal transportation machine” as popularized by a certain American manufacturer. (Thanks to Akihabara News for all pictures)

As always with Zotac, they were one of the first to come up with a sample of the hotly anticipated Nvidia 9500 GT based videocard, and not just a run-of-the-mill model; they had an AMP! edition ready for us to torture and feed into our test bench. We take a look at the budget card based on the latest Nvidia 9000 series architecture.

Asus has reached a turning point, or perhaps point of realization, with their release of the Eee PC 1000(H) Netbook. With this release Asus has breached the middle-range baseline of the netbook market and once again attained breakthrough specs for the market’s first and favorite netbook PC.

Significant releases of large displays are fewer and farther in between than say, cellular phones or cameras, and when a new display series is released, it’s usually a simple “refresh” or some minor tweaks or changes in the looks department rather than anything momentous, which makes it much more of a surprise that we were able to witness a launch of something truly spectacular, or at least is aiming to be something more than a refresh of current product lines.

Have you ever seen a tricycle and gone “wow”? Or perhaps given a thumbs-up to the driver for the sweet ride they have. Well you probably have not; after all “tricycles” here mean “basic transportation” with 125cc motorcycles welded onto steel sidecars. Now then - this is your chance to do exactly so and proclaim your approval of a tricycle – specifically with the Aptera Typ-1 electric or hybrid car.

                                              Not your typical tricycle dashboard.
 

Think you got the best deal when you got your 2G Eee PC? Or perhaps your Astone-with-a-cellphone netbook? Well prepare to have your smugness dashed against the reality of China’s ever inventive PC manufacturers: the Jointech JL7100 is but a third of the price of the original price champ the 2G "Surf" Eee PC.

The Asus Extreme Rampage first tickled my fancy with its cheesy, toys-for-boys name, but that impression soon dissolved when I laid eyes on the slick heatpipe system and menacing black visage of the demo unit sent to us for review and testing. And I don’t mind saying, this is the first in a long while that we tested the overclocking capabilities of a motherboard to any great length – the features, technologies, the sheer number of marketing catch-phrases and even the “Designed for Overclocking” imprinted all around its box will make it a crime to not spend some quality time trying to burn down our test bench’s components.