Category Archives: Hardware

Review of Computer Hardwares

Belkin N1 Vision : Bringing Style To Routers

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Belkin N1 Vision

Belkin N1 Vision

Belkin has entered the Indian market with one of the first products-the N1 Vision router. It might be a utility, but belkinhas managed to make it look like a lifestyle product. the design is very good and stands out amongst all the routers you might come across today. Unilink most routers, the N1 stands vertically, but the stand is stable and has rubber padding at the base the stop it from sliding around. There is a small screen on the front, which show data speeds of all the users connected to the router, both wired and wirelessly. There are buttons that can be used to navigate through the interface and the display can also used as a clock as well.

When it’s come to performance, it works pretty well on the wired ports. We recorded speeds of 7.36 Mbps for a single large file. For random files, the speeds were around 6.92 Mbps. The wireless tests revealed the weakness of the N1 Vision. The wireless performance was pretty appalling-2Mbps is the best it could do over a distance of some 10 feet. The software interface has all the features that a router firmware should have-Internet connectivity configuration, VPN, security, etc. The interface is more user-friendly then those on most well known routers. One thing you notice is the long waiting period for the router to restart every time you change a setting.
The price for the Belkin N1 Vision-Rs 11,699-is much higher then mainstream home routers. Although this router will look nice in your living room, it’s definitely not something you can rely on for performance.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Zotac GeForce GTX280 AMP!

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The Geforce 9 had really short stay and NVIDIA has released the GTX 280, around the same time that ATI launched there first card. Zotac was the first to send us their over-clocked version of the GTX 280 that they proudly call the GTX 280 AMP! These new cards are crossing uncharted territories. the Zotac Gtx 280 AMP! runs at a core speed of 700 MHz instead of the default 602 MHz. Most numbers on the new card have been doubled from what was on the last 9800GTX. The memory bandwidth has been increased to 512 bit and there is 1 GB of memory on the card. An 8pin abd 6-pin power connector is required to power the GTX 280 AMP!
Zotac GeForce GTX280 AMPIt’s just not all about the numbers. The GTX 280 absolutely destroys all previous records held by single cards. To give you an idea. the Zotac GTX 280 AMP! is about 50 to 75 per cent faster than the colossal 8800 Ultra in most benchmarks. For example, in one of our tests, the 8800 Ultra scores around 100 fps in prey at 1920 x 1200 with maximum detail and 4x anti-aliasing and 8x antistrophic filtering turned on. The GTX 280 AMP! beat it with a score of 173 fps. Even Unreal Tournament 3 with all the settings turned up gave scores of 119 fps on the Shangrila map at 1920 x 1200. 3DMark 2005 and 2006 scores increased as well, but not to the extent of the real world gaming benchmarks.

The card, in comparison, runs cooler then the 8800 GTXs, more so when compared to the 8800 Ultras. The cooling solution on the Zotac card is stock NVIDIA Design. The card is a little less compact then the 9800GX2. It is lighter, but consumes over 300 W when on load. In idle, it drops to as little or lower then a 9800GTX card. A power supply of at least 600 W is highly recommended to any future owners.
The Zotac GTX 280 AMP! is a great card and we’re sure some of the non over-clocked versions are rally good as well. It would be terribly wrong to say that the GTX280 is not a good card. There’s significant improvement in performance. There’s one major problem right now , other then the high power demands-the price. The current price for the Zotac GTX280 AMP! is a whopping $1200, which makes it way over the top in terms of pricing.
As things stand today, the prices are exorbitant and with ATI releasing cards of their own priced at much lower prices offering better value for money, it’s only a matter of time before the prices for the GTX 280 drop. GTX260s as expected to hit the markets soon, so a little caution at the moment is recommended to look out for some extreme price drops.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Linksys WRT310N – Wireless-N Gigabit Router

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The Wireless-N Gigabit Router is really three devices in one box. First, there’s the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There’s also a built-in 4-port full-duplex Gigabit Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection.

Linksys WRT310N

The Access Point built into the Router uses the very latest wireless networking technology, Wireless-N (draft 802.11n). By overlaying the signals of multiple radios, Wireless-N’s “Multiple In, Multiple Out” (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate. Unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase the range and reduce “dead spots” in the wireless coverage area. The robust signal travels farther, maintaining wireless connections much farther than standard Wireless-G.

With Wireless-N, the farther away you are, the more speed advantage you get. It works great with standard Wireless-G and -B equipment, but when both ends of the wireless link are Wireless-N, the router can increase the throughput even more by using twice as much radio band, yielding speeds far faster than standard Wireless-G. But unlike other speed-enhanced technologies, Wireless-N can dynamically enable this double-speed mode for Wireless-N devices, while still connecting to other wireless devices at their respective fastest speeds. In congested areas, the “good neighbor” mode ensures that the Router checks for other wireless devices in the area before gobbling up the radio band.

To help protect your data and privacy, the Router can encode all wireless transmissions with industrial-strength 256-bit encryption. It can serve as your network’s DHCP Server, has a powerful SPI firewall to protect your PCs against intruders and most known Internet attacks, and supports VPN pass-through. Configuration is a snap with the web browser-based configuration utility.

The incredible speed of Wireless-N makes it ideal for media-centric applications like streaming video, gaming, and Voice over IP telephony, and gives you plenty of headroom to run multiple media-intense data streams through the network at the same time, with no degradation in performance. With the Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router at the center of your home or office network, you can share a high-speed Internet connection, files, printers, and multi-player games, and run media-intensive applications at faster than 10/100 wired network speeds, without the hassle of stringing wires!

Popularity: 8% [?]