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Reviews Around The Web
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Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
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Saturday, October 3, 2009
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In our 2009 Notebook Buyer's Guide, we discussed the merits and perils of CULV based notebooks. This suddenly popular and quickly growing sector looks to bridge the gap between the bargain basement netbook and the full-size notebook. It makes sense to think that a swath of 13.3" to 14" machines would be needed for those who find 10.1" netbook displays too tiny and 15.4" rigs too large, and that's exactly the sweet spot that Asus is attempting to hit with its new UL30 range. The particular model that we're looking at today is the UL30A-A1, though a handful of other configurations will be available as well. This 13.3" machine looks to offer more power than a typical netbook, yet provide nearly the same level of portability and battery life.
The UL30 was just introduced last week along with a few other CULV machines, which stands for Consumer Ultra Low Voltage. This moniker refers to the Intel processor within, which is a more powerful chip than the Atom options found in most netbooks, yet isn't quite as potent as the full-fledged Core 2 Duo CPUs found in most full-size notebooks. Again, this whole machine is about splitting the difference, and we have to admit, it's a fine line to walk...
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Friday, September 18, 2009
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"Although typically known for their motherboards and graphics cards, ASUS also has produced a line of sound cards as well. Today, we will be looking at one of their high end offerings, the ASUS Xonar D2X to find out whether ASUS has been able bring the quality their name is known for to the sound card market as well."
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Thursday, September 17, 2009
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ASUS launched nothing less than nine different socket 1156 motherboard models based on the new Intel P55 chipset. Today we are going to take a look on one that is currently being sold on the USD 170 range, called P7P55D PRO, which has lots of unique features and includes support for SLI."
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
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"When news of this product hit the Internet a few months back, it was met with a lot of high expectations from consumers looking at streaming HD content to their lounge room HDTV. We intend to see how much of this expectation and hype the product actually includes, as we take a close look at it today.
The O!Play HDP-R1 is actually very similar to the Astone Media Gear AP-100 1080p Media Player that we video reviewed last month. Physically on the outside they look entirely different, but internally the hardware and chips used are basically identical. We weren?t terribly impressed with the Astone AP-100; can ASUS do a better job at impressing us with the HDP-R1?"
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"With the release of the X58 chipset around 10 months ago, a lot has changed in the world of computer hardware. Suddenly, gamers and hardcore enthusiasts were able to purchase a motherboard which supported both SLI and CrossFire, were able to run memory in an all-new triple-channel scenario and last but not least, make use of the awesome performance the i7 series processor offered. Although many would have liked to upgrade to the X58/i7 platform, doing it inexpensively was one of the largest roadblocks caused by this new technology.
Fortunately, ASUS and a few other motherboard manufacturers cottoned onto the crisis hardware enthusiasts were experiencing and decided to shred features that many users didn?t need from their top-end motherboards in order to make more affordable versions. This opened a new window of opportunity for enthusiasts to migrate from their current systems to the performance driven i7/X58 combinations without breaking the bank.
One of the most popular X58 motherboard which supports the i7 processor series is the ASUS P6T board. In many reviews and tests it has delivered outstanding performance and has proven to be a favourite amongst overclockers. ASUS immediately became aware of this success and developed the ASUS P6T SE (Second Edition). The SE was designed to be a cheaper alternative to the original P6T and was made possible by removing SLI support (so CrossFire only), downgrading the capacitors and removing a couple of needless features. Today we hope to find out if the £25 price difference between the P6T SE and its elder brother is money worth saving. Let?s see how the sibling performs?"
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
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ASUS motherboards have always been a favorite among the enthusiast crowd and us reviewers here at motherboards.org as they offer a high degree of overclocking features and the ability to tweak their boards that is second to none. In terms of features the ASUS Maximus III Formula board delivers with their CPU Level Up and MemPerfect features setting them apart from the competition. The Maximus III Formula is a solid Editors Choice as the performance is there as well as great features. Also with so many new boards on the market, I am sure we will see even better boards by ASUS and the other manufactures as time rolls by.
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Friday, September 11, 2009
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It's OK to arrive fashionably late to a party, as long as you have something to add. ASUS has been offering their MATRIX branded video cards to the public well after the initial buzz has died down, for each GPU launch. The 9800GT and 4870 MATRIXcards were released in 2008, followed by the GTX260 MATRIX in early 2009. ASUS now releases the GTX285 MATRIX featuring the fastest single GPU available, supplied by NVIDIA. Benchmark Reviews looked at the ASUS ENGTX285 TOP back in January, which drew heavily from the NVIDIA reference design. Let's take a closer look at how they've stretched the limits on their latest offering, which is anything BUT a standard design.
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Thursday, March 26, 2009
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The ASUS SDRW-08D1S-U Diamond slim USB DVD drive was incredibly easy to use straight out of the box. All I had to do was plug the cable into the drive and the other 2 ends into the computer, and voila! It works. There was no installation necessary, which is nice. The stylish and attractive DVD burner utilizes the high-speed USB 2.0 interface with the ability to record on 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-R (DL) and 5X DVD-RAM...
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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Positioning a product in the "audiophile" category automatically opens it up for scrutiny of the highest order. The new Asus Xonar Essence STX "headphone amp card for audiophiles" is Asus' latest in a line of audio card offerings that pretty much cover the spectrum of PC audio applications. Asus now offers audio cards designed for gaming to Home Theater PC applications. Today we're looking at the latest iteration of the product, targeted at those of us with a more discerning ear--The Xonar Essence STX.
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The Intel Core i7 is still the most powerful desktop processor money can buy and it should come as no surprise that it's also the most expensive. Yet it's possible to get together the guts of a basic Core i7 system for $600 if you choose the still very speedy Core i7 920. This got me thinking about building a microATX gaming system around the Core i7 platform as it seemed like a feasible thing to do, except for the lack of X58 motherboards using this form factor. And then the Asus Rampage II GENE arrived, which is one of only two microATX motherboards currently available that support the Core i7. While microATX motherboards usually lack the support and features of a standard ATX board, Asus has evidently worked against that establishment making sure that the Rampage II GENE includes everything today's gamer might need along with overclocking support.
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Monday, March 23, 2009
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The ASUS Rampage 2 Extreme is the most advanced motherboard I have ever tested. Having owned many "enthusiast" motherboards over the years, I was floored with the number of overclocking features and how incredibly stable this board is. At the time this article was written, there have been 10 BIOS revisions since it first launched, so you can see it has taken a bit to get it to where it is today. That should not take away anything from this motherboard but should go to show that ASUS is dedicated to supporting its customers...
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Friday, March 20, 2009
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The ASUS Eee Top was designed with usefulness and convenience in mind. It is an excellent solution for networking, as an educational tool in small meetings or classrooms, leaving memos without the paper waste, or even for using at home for something as simple as looking up recipes online without taking up hardly any counter space!...
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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Today we're going to take the time to look at the ASUS version and while the card itself might not carry anything that we haven't already seen, we will see how the card is performing with a driver refreshment while also putting it up against its little brother, the single GPU GTX 285. Before we get stuck into all that, though, we first need to see what ASUS has done to the package and bundle and see if it can stand out from the pack that way. From there we will have a closer look at the card itself before we get stuck into our testbed and have a look at just what kind of numbers the GTX 295 is dishing out.
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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If there's one problem plaguing just about every netbook out on the market right now, it's that cheap, toy-like feel. Manufacturers just can't seem to escape it when they're having their devices manufactured thousands of miles away in factories that seemingly just switched over just last month from building olive-green plastic army men. Asus attempted to remedy the netbook's image problem with the high-end S101, but price followed suit, and the $800 price tag made us question whether you call it a netbook at all. The Eee 1002HA stands as a compromise between the two, adopting the luxurious look of the latter within the price range ($499 MSRP) of a true netbook.
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Last year at COMPUTEX, I came across a product at the ASUS booth known as the ?Stereo X?. My interest in this product led to an enthusiastic conversation with one of the project team members about how excited they were to have a chance to make things right for those of us interested only in using headphones with their systems.
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