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Doom III is officially shipping, and mine was shipped too :) Can't buy in local stores anyway, all sold out.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004 00:00:00
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Final pieces arrived. Installed Zalman ZM80D-HP with optional fan, dropped temps by 5-7C on idle and 15-18C under load. Plus 512mb extra ram. Now all I am missing is Doom III.
Saturday, July 31, 2004 00:00:00
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Finally ordered GPU cooler for X800XT :) Since the new stuff from Artic Cooling is not available for unknown time I went for Zalman ZM80D-HP with optional fan. Should to the trick. For now while playing FarCry temps went to 74 C. Kindda high. I hope this will drop between 40-50C. We'll see.
Getting 512Mb more dual channel ram for my rig. 1.5 should be enough for Dooming :) W/o swapping it's necessary anyways.
Monday, July 26, 2004 00:00:00
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Flashed ATI XT BIOS as per friend's advice. Pipelines are enabled anyway. Worked fine. Gained another 10%-15% :) 3dmark 03 score - 12645. After that I have flashed Giga-Byte bios with their tool, then read it back with flashrom.exe. Now I can flash Giga-Byte bios using flashrom.exe. Might become handy some day. Although for now I have it on ATI XT BIOS and @ 520mhz core speed. Once the cooler comes in I'll OC.
Sunday, July 25, 2004 00:00:00
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Surprise #2 - Giga-Byte VGA BIOS flash tool refuses to flash their XT bios to the card :( Complains it is not the right card. Stupid gfv11.exe doesn't recognize -f switch I guess.
Saturday, July 24, 2004 00:00:00
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Finally! Got the card. Can't say I got best bang for the buck, but the card is kewl and a must to experience Doom III in full :)
Surprise #1 - Giga-Byte X800 Pro VIVO came in with 16 pipelines enabled instead of 12. Although device settings info still shows it has X800 Pro bios. Apparently someone flashed to enable 4 additional pipelines, then flashed it back to Pro BIOS. And returned? Whatever, works fine. Twice as fast at stock clocks 475mhz core compared to 9800XT.
Friday, July 23, 2004 00:00:00
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Shizz. This is insane. In the morning checked my X800Pro VIVO order. Still "To be Shipped". Called vendor, turns out they're out of stock. Promised to call me back with ETA. Now, go and explain to him that I need this card by Aug. 3. because that's when Doom III comes out. Didn't call back anyway. Had to call around, only 3 vendors have the card listed in stock. Bear in mind that thing costs 460$+. And still almost impossibel to get. What the hell is going on. Finaly placed an order with antares.com. They swore it'll be in my hands in 2 days. Canceled the other order. Lotsa fun... What's wrong with this manufacturers, can't they plan the damn thing?
Wednesday, July 21, 2004 00:00:00
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Minor reorg on Fixed Blades page.
Updated Elektrolumens XM2 and Nuwai S1704 reviews.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004 00:00:00
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Received TnC custom Key-Lux, CPF edition, AA version. Light rulez :) Kindda big, but still pocketable. Very neat design. Review in progress.
Completed Elektrolumens XM2 review. With pictures and all. Sorry no beamshots again ;). Cool, small flashlight, was a trouble a bit to get a working version, but all fine now. Read details in the review.
Converted flashlight pages to reflect OAL in metric and English system. I'll be converting the rest of the site to metric system in background.
Monday, July 19, 2004 00:00:00
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Nuclear Tests image gallery updated, the last unidentified photo was ID-ed by Los Alamos guys as Fox shot in operation Ranger. Details here.
Completed Fire~Fly II review. With pictures and all. Sorry no beamshots ;) In short nice EDC. Though I was hoping for more complicated switch. Minor fixes and reference updates in Longbow Micra, and Tri-Star Phazer reviews.
Sunday, July 18, 2004 00:00:00