CREATIVE X-Figo

Over the last few years the market for soundcards has all but flatlined. This once-vibrant segment was dominated by creative for so long that other solutions gradually disappeared. However, creative itself was ultimately undone. Motherboards started sporting onboard solutions that offered virtually all the functionally normal PC users needed, making external sound cards redundant.Despite this, creative continued to thrive with its X-Fi series brand, offering great functionally and a good set of feature that could be scarcely found on onboard solutions. With the recent advent of netbooks and mobility computing becoming common, creative released its X-Fig go USB solution that offers a lot of the features found in its PCI- based solutions. How does it fare? Let’s find out. In terms of design, the X-Fi does not look like anything more than a normal flash drive. The unit comes in a basic black design and offers 1GB of flash memory. This makes the unit useful as the drivers for the sound functionality come stored on the unit itself. In terms of its bundle, the X-Fi does not offer much beyond a USB extender and a well designed pair of headphone/mic. Software-wise the X-FI is pretty strong. The unit supporters creative’s X-Fi headphone surround, EAX 4.0, the much maligned crative alchemy software package that promises to restore surround sound for older games under windows vista, and creative’s wave studio software that allows causal users to tinker with audio features sucha as cleaning up hissy tracks, add special FX to music, tec.Transcend Introduces a XeRam DD3-1066Transcend information has released its retiail-packaged DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333 240-pin DIMMs. DDR3 is the successor to DDR2 memory, and will soon become the industry standard for Pc memory modules. Compared to DDR2, it offers faster transfer speeds and better bandwidth with an 8 bit as opposed to 4-bit prefect buffer, and is a perfect match for modern systems using dual or quad-core process. Moreover, the operating voltage of DDR3 memory modules has been decreased from 1.8V to 1.5v, thus reducing actual memory power consumption by 20-30% compared to systems with DDR2 memory. Transcends DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333DIMMs are currently available in 1GB and 2GB capacities respectively.Austain Huang, Regional Head – sales, SAARC and APAC, Trancend, said “we are extremely delighted to introduce our DD3 memory resulting in enhanced performance for Desktop PC users.Transcend’S aXeRam memory.Will deliver amazing overocking performances while maintaining rock-solid systems stability.Transcend’s DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333 DIMMs are made of high quality 128Mx8 DDR3 DRAM chips and use robust PCBs that meet JEDEC (the joint electron device Engineering Council) standards. Each chip is selected with strictest quality and performance standards and is manufactured using small Fine-Pitch Ball Gried Array (FBGA) packages with extra contacts to assure better thermal dissipation, electrical efficiency and reliable computing quality at high clock frequencies. In addition, DDR3 memory modules incorporate all new “fly-by” architecture that provides more efficient direct communication between the controller and each DRAM chip, includes dynamic on-DIMM Termination to minimize signal reflections at higher speeds.