Advantages: Quality Build, No messing inside your PC, Bundled Software Disadvantages: Maybe a bit pricey.
Having only a 52xCD rom in my rather dull (but quite adequate) IBM workstation I was missing the ability to burn cd?s backing up data important data that I could with previous machines.
Not fancying taking the lid of, and removing fiddly blanking plates - scraping skin off my thumbs, I decided upon the external USB approach, since like most, the PC is equipped with a fast USB2.0 interface.
The Iomega CD-RW 48x24x48x USB 2.0 drive appeared to be a good choice, Iomega being a well trusted and reliable manufacturer. I paid around £60 , but you may find it cheaper if you shop around. I did come across lesser brands with a similar spec at lower prices, but I felt they would lack the quality.
Upon opening, I was presented with a very solid piece of kit in a jet black finish. The box also contained a suitable USB cable, a figure ...
Advantages: Cheap and up to date, Takes new gfx card Disadvantages: built in graphics are basic
FOXCONN MOTHERBOARD
The Foxconn K8M890M2MA-R2SH is a really cheap and cheerfull Socket AM2 motherboard. There's only one way that a manufacturer can come up with a motherboard that sells for such a low price, and that's by using every feature that the chipset has to offer without bolting on any extra gadgets.
The chipset in on this board is the VIA K8M890 which includes VIA/S3G DeltaChrome graphics (cheap and nasty) and a VT8237R Plus Southbridge.
There are two DDR2 memory slots so you get dual channel memory support, and if your a gamer and the integrated graphics aren't sufficient you can plug a proper graphics card into the PCI-E x16 slot provided.
There is also a PCI-E x1 slot and two PCI slots. The Southbridge supports RAID 0 or 1 for the pair of SATA connectors and there are four USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel ...
Advantages: Great for overclocking, compatible with all current Intel 775 cpus Disadvantages: Heatpipe foul most large heatsinks.
The X48 chipset is one of the last to be released before Intel launches its new Nehalem processor later this year. The current Core2 processors have priven themselves in being very fast as standard but to show their real worth you have to overclock them. If you haven't heard of overclocking then it will be best to google the term but essentially it's about increasing a processor's speed rating by tweaking the motherboard's BIOS. Something that Core2's have been pretty happy to do, even doubling their speed in some cases!
Of course to do this you also need a highly tweakable motherboard and the JW-X48D2 Extreme-P is certainly a high end feature packed one at that. Compatible with all current LGA775 Intel processors (Celeron, P4, Core2 Duo, Core2 Quad) it also sports the X48 chipset. This is well known for being good at overclocking ...
Blackops is based on the forthcoming Intel X48 chipset, have three PCI Express x16 slots, a myriad of overclocking options and a cooler that refrigerates the chipset and the transistors from the voltage regulator circuit that can operate as a simple passive cooler, as a water cooler or adapted to accept dry ice or liquid nitrogen.
