Asus Maximus Formula

Crossfire Compadre

This one comes as an overclocker’s delight. The ASUS Maximus Formula is based on Intel’s new X38 chipset, sporting an ICH9R Southbridge. This is a limited edition, and features hand-picked components for extreme overclockability.

There is support for Penryn and 1600 MHz FSB, and dual x16 slots that officially support CrossFire. Incidentally, the PCI-E slots support the new PCI-E 2.0 standard too—more future-proofing for you. ASUS drops in their fusion block system as well—basically a heat-pipe solution that integrates a water block on the Northbridge chipset for proper cooling. The entire board has a very intricate heat-pipe system that remained cool no matter how hard we thrashed it.

Some nifty little additions will appeal to overclockers: the CMOS, Power and Reset buttons, and colour-coded LEDs on the PCB that will display the status (whether overvolted or not) of components including CPU, memory, Northbridge, and FSB. There’s also an inbuilt sensor that will warn you if GPU temperatures exceed a set threshold—a boon for users with the latest thermal monsters from NVIDIA and ATI. ASUS has also incorporated a 2-phase memory voltage termination for better voltage regulation even while overclocking—this should filter noise and RF interference for better performance under stress. The BIOS is full of overclocking options and tweaks—newbies and enthusiasts alike will feel
at home.

The Maximus Formula SE also has a more-than-sufficient number of SATA, and USB ports.

With a PC Mark 2005 score of 10,572, the Maximus Formula isn’t bottlenecking the QX6850 (3.0 GHz) in any way. With a graphics score of 18,299 in 3D Mark 2005 (using an 8800GTX), this board is definitely free of the early hiccups that plague most platforms. We did get our E6550 (2.33 GHz) to run along happily at 3.15 GHz (the FSB being overclocked from a default 333 MHz to 450 MHz)—a very good result.

Rs 16,800 may seem high, but it’s plenty of board for that much. ASUS includes a rich bundle too. Highly recommended for those looking at a high-end, stable platform in general, or CrossFire in particular.

ASUS Eee PC 1000H

Not Just Another Netbook

The Eee PC 1000H impresses with its superior performance and its gorgeous looks altogether making it all the more perfect companion for the road warrior. We’ve noticed a trend from ASUS with the Eee PC — they improve on the older versions of this mini laptop, but keep the older ones around.

The latest, and the largest of these netbooks is the Eee PC 1000H, which shares many of the same features of its predecessor the Eee PC 901 including a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 1GB of RAM and the same gorgeous drop dead looks. However, it has some differences like a larger 10-inch screen, more spacious keyboard, 160 GB hard disc drive and no more Linux — just plain old Windows XP; our favourite.

The Eee PC 1000H comes in different colours like Red, Green, Pearl White, Fine Ebony, and all have the same glossy lid that’s a fingerprint magnet. It’s a good thing ASUS includes a complimentary cleaning cloth, because it’s bound to be used often.

We got the Fine Ebony version for review, the glossy black lid has the new Eee PC logo in cursive on top. Its improved silver hinges give it a fashionable look.

The display, unlike the older 7-inch Eee PC, is a bigger 10 inches, with a native resolution of 1024 x 600. The display is quite bright and vibrant. The matte display screen looks good at various viewing angles. In comparison to the Acer One, the Eee PC’s display seemed crisp and vivid, and it’s something movie fanatics would love. The display controller is an onboard Intel GMA x3100, so don’t get your hopes up about playing games or doing 3D intensive work.

The Glossy black bezel comprises of an inbuilt 1.3 megapixel webcam that is good for video conferencing, and the onboard Digital array microphones. The onboard speakers are Dolby Sound Room Certified, and despite being positioned underneath the laptop, they reproduce clear (but not powerful) sound. They’re still good enough to cover a small room.

The Eee PC 1000H gets a bigger and better keyboard than its ancestors, the keyboard is about 92 per cent of the original Eee, will pose no problems for speedy typists and is comfortable to use.

The touchpad, however, is a bit of disappointment. Unlike the keyboard, it isn’t comfortable to use, and the two click buttons are very hard on the fingers. The touchpad does support multi-touch, and the iPeople amongst you are sure to love it.

The heart of this Netbook is an Intel Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6 GHz. This processor, as you probably know, is designed for low-end computing, but it will not disappoint those looking to mainly work online and on some office documents. Overall, the Eee PC 1000H can handle most basic computing tasks easily with some mid-range tasks to boot.

The Eee PC 1000H comes with 1GB of RAM, for the Windows version and 2 GB for the Linux version — which is strange, because most Windows users would prefer 2 GB of RAM. The disc drive is the biggest plus here — a whopping 160 GB. Although the drive is a slower 5400 rpm model, we were quite happy to not be running Windows Vista.

The Eee PC 1000H comes with a six cell battery. The battery lasted for 3hrs and 23 minutes under test conditions. The large battery and the power-saving Atom processor are to be thanked for the impressive battery life.

Despite the bigger screen and bigger battery, ASUS has tried to keep the weight as low as possible. At 1.45 kg, this Netbook shouldn’t be hard to lug around. Those looking for an extremely portable Netbook should definitely pay close attention to this latest model of the Eee PC. Now that the HDD is bigger, as is the screen, there’s not much else once could ask for in a Netbook. However, you do have to consider the price, which is fast approaching the realm of full-fledged, entry level or mid-range notebooks. You may want to keep in mind that the Eee PC comes without an internal optical drive, as this might
change your buying decisions.

Specifications
Intel Atom processor N270, 1GB Ram, 160 GB HDD, 10-inch display, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LAN, Windows XP.

Courtesy:Digit