Month: October 2008

Signature 650 PSU: Antec’s Challenge

Antec’s Signature series power supplies exude class, starting with the understated, elegant retail box. Is there substance behind the slick image and fat price tags? We examine the Signature 650… and find there is indeed a great deal of solid substance that makes this product a clear standout and a challenge to Antec’s competitors.

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SilverStone Decathlon DA700 power supply

SilverStone, despite its image mostly as a high-end case brand, offers an amazing number of power supplies, probably many more than you might think. The 700W DA700 is part of its Decathlon line, geared to “power users”, but they want to pit it against the quietest PSUs tested by SPCR. Naturally, we’re happy to comply.

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Filling the Gap: ATI Radeon HD 4830

The 4000 series video cards is one of ATI’s most successful, and also one of the most wide-ranging. There’s the HD 4870 X2 at the top — widely lauded as the current performance graphics champ — followed by the 4870 and 4850. With the HD 4670 at $80 and the HD 4850 at $170, it

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Asus M3A78-T: AMD’s IGP Gets Another Boost

The oddly named M3A78-T is yet another in a recent line of ATX boards from Asus with onboard graphics. Along with the 790GX northbridge chip, the M3A78-T also features the improved SB750 southbridge that brings RAID-5 support to AMD’s SATA controller for the first time. The board also has a whack of other features including

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An Anechoic Chamber for SPCR

It’s a hemi-anechoic chamber, to be precise. A silent, echo-free room for measuring computer gear that’s been an impossible dream for nearly seven years: We made it happen with the great support of the SPCR community, and it works… to the tune of 11 dBA! Settle down for a long and winding story…

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New Audio Test Gear 2008

The 2008 initiative to improve SPCR’s audio testing process involved the construction of an anechoic chamber and upgrades of test equipment to take advantage of the lower noise floor in the chamber. The chamber development will be detailed elsewhere; this article covers the new equipment details.

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Redefining Budget Gaming Graphics: ATI’s HD 4670

The recently released HD 4670 graphics card offers a modern gaming experience with good eye candy support even at high resolution. We examine a reference card straight from ATI, one equipped with dual DisplayPorts.

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