RTA UTICA CUE) (estsCYBERPOWER RECOMMENDS WINDOWS VISTA™ HOME PREMIUM CM nie AUR Roa ten Pseatpetaines alti perience ey Paper oanereracttry ea eer eer set eM Coa Cee Se ene Fclagedy {Goebel 5 pemmteper epetcalien) | Ser ack Goce eestor sMorlgites ices tai] Se ad Seca MC, fects ON tans pone Ae rir am Came ot OCC ee Be ST iy dane a0? a fee i (We 800-707- SE Ribak ETNA an i atone eterna Li Ko omepire area eee Pacer reuse cary ernie att) ceca alr eae} Peo rae eerie Per eer ae een es [eaereetemerercenmerond eet Ener iecteneter Payer) SCA Cot]Peet er ed cetera riers ee eae roe aoe reer SSE Te eee Ren catar erie ei oe cere re Ser ae everett separ als eeake Evan bie Siar aes ant prc tS ae ee Pte tine genome a oes Moree narod Pee aren nent Loe ae ee Dea ope es eer anaes eno ad Sprite 13). |a.| ee een Ea esd Een 3] Petree areal prorao rena Aone od Rcloularee acl oral Pescusiie rar retro bier ear areon ce eet ee ood pee eid he aa ear) oeperrtaa am ec oeee eats meee nae ea paver ea ccs Canara aca ete comer omer mney Peete retercetn center Pree nero Phe eens Pema) ee ences ct Coan z Peete oe eaten} ce ecard cone Cer ieee Cre Serre ere Extreme. eC RAED Ra eee) Me eed DO ee ee ue ey cyber POWER...COU COMPUTER POWER USER April 2008 + Vol 8 issue 0¢ ede 6 What’ Happening Pes aes reno Buea a= SeCRET we SSS | es — Spotlight ens esr peer ues rn reas een | core Cee Aah ee ne re raemrertrny Peat es ary res ea Ped ce 7)Wee 8 9 ero ry Se eM ea Boost Your Juice With A Second PSU Cet Breer) eee eee eon oes eari Peace Se aang et eet) Dread Peto cy Intel Core 2 Extreme QX8775 & D5400xS Pee Seer Ree Peston ed eee ne Co) Tar Tit Dae re eee orang The MacBook Air: Good But Pees ras Ded Tips & Tutorials Unleash The Beasts G92 & RVG70 Modded & 0 ‘Mad Reader Mod Can You Digg ‘Advanced QA Corner X-Ray Vision AMD Spider White Paper: Nvidia's Hybr Saving Power One GPU ALA Time Loading Zone 2. The Bleeding Ege Of Software Insige The Werld Of Betas Up ToSpeed Upgrades That Keep You Hamming Along Partition & Boot Managers Dre & Conquer Uniblue ProcssScamer SagelV Media Server For Windows MojaPac Freedom NTI Shadow 3 Dialogue Box 1 Geek Open Sauce (LPC: One Large, Public Css Caught In The Web 85 Stop Following Me Anonymity & The Web 86 The Department Of stulf socialnetworks it Digital Living 88 Road Warrior Polaroids ness Photo Printer, Dost Laptop Bags, Fujitsu's 22 Pound Notebook & More ‘At Your Leisure Games, Gear, Moves & Music The Cutting Edge Electronic nstuments The Telharmonium Tips & Tricks 96 Software Tips & Projects The A Of Black& White 98 Warm Up To Penguins The Zen Of Yen What's Cooking 100 Shavings From The Rumour Mill GGraphies Market Gets Galvanised 101 Wagging The Dog Valve For Window 104 Technically Speaking An interview With Medfee's Dave Marcus, Part 106 Under Development APeek At What's Brewing In The Laboratory Back Door 108 Q&A With Nell Charney Windows Client Team GM On Vi 4 Lessons Learned ho! wget on page 75 ofthe March issue (widgetsyahoo net) was incor The proper URLS widges yahoo cam Strange stats and ater oddball items rom computing’ periphery 85,97, 99A Sandhils Publishing “find your lack ofa Death Star White Paper disturbing.” 0) 7008 capac Peer iber More than a thousand gamers trekked to Goldsboro, N.C, in late Januaty fr the Caro: lina Games Summit, formerly known as the ne Goldsboro Gaming Expo. The third-annual event ‘ho amsas pin (es) was held at Wayne Community College and fea ‘nlnecutomer eae subeton tured afl day of tournaments, guest speakers, ee and rambunctious carryings-on. Our favorite see ‘moment? Watching a dozen members ofthe romans tn ee bis 50st Legion (aka Vader's Fst) ambush people SS oT strolling through the building commons. Ceicccss Epitor's Nore ete ally saw this Microsoft-Vahoo! thing coming. DUW-candorie razy, and I know I'm fr from che only one who can 8521 all me crazy, but 1 (OK, it's aoe relly th has speculared on a posible joining of Microsoft and Yahoo! of some atpannanoeie to the Xbox 360 lan toons kind. Bue think ack fora mom h in 2005; Microsoferan anc of mre than 3,000 X360s oe of whch was gen away every 10 minutes = tie toc pd i ger tr rom tin which cpio a Yabo se ie rnguretome compro and mayb shoud fut oR rgd hand ae tales dy: By remember maring ade inca stu eens cal ‘which has obviously invested a few bucks in its Hotmail and MSN, Web brands ec I oes ice Ye Cage Caney Rann, car of more than a few people a the time, tllng them i wouldn'tbe long before in cles Able up oh Gale aD sending would-be Xbox winners o register for Yahoo! email address! Then Microsoft and Yahoo! ramed up one way or anodhedl Teupoes isnot empleey scone to hacia Mics Yabo! kaos aisoresyay ie ae ee ac Whether Jerry Yang and his pose ae angling fora more wnt rye ire Daas lucrative of or chey genuinely want ro lok the del, acttneta ac nthe Voda hight doubr Micrsafe would go pubic wich an offer a 3s withour being preety confident of pulling eof. sabato ct er ‘Where does thar leave us? Wel, pretty much in the at same spot we're in now, sarch-wise, Even fa Microsoft ici sagen oer ‘aniewAbergie tukcover effectively combines the folks who use MSN . sect ia yyh and Yahoo! search the Web, Google wil il key ‘uch tek indy Abe ase Tomar aly opis ahr Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail currently boast more users “heute en (or areas get fi more his) than Grail, and as Pm ‘dna o> he se Webmail ex preny apt a7 occ chow j ood ence worsen to deliver advertising, ro. a cn anata be the search leader. But what about email? Both sure you've noticed, J Dw Editor, CPUREDEFINING YOUR STANDARDS TUCO T Tel nc ay ee ae Alienware® delivers the best. Claiming the highest benchmarks in the industry, the Area-S1° family of computers dominates any conversation about computer performance and quality. Powered by an Intel® Core” 2 Extreme Processor Reet eee ieee cee ere a ene asa ae a s Sot ean ca " IWARE SeanceCanary Wireless Sings A New Wi-Fi Tune [Another CES has come and gone, giving us more new-product announcements chan an army of tech journalists could give cheie proper due. As usual, the big play- ers grabbed the lion's share ofthe pub, while smaller companies gar- nered les, including Canary Wire less and its second-gen Digital Hossporter HS-20 ($59.95), a Wi-Fi detector/analyzer with a scrollable, backlit LCD (96 x 64) displaying neework ID, encryption status, signal strength, and other details of $02.1 Ib/gin networks The 2-ounce HS-20 runs on ewo AAAs, doesn’t need additional sof ware, and measures just 2x 3.x0.5, inches. Canary also says the use of a true 802.11 engine means t are no false Bluetooth readings ‘The HS-20 is expected to start singing in QU 2008. 6 der008 / wun cemputeponeem Shuttle Gets Cheap With The KPC Remember when geting a low-cost PC meant building ic yoursel® Not so, any- mote. Cheap, prebuile systems are all che rage, and far be it from Shuttle ro be lft ‘out. The company announced plans in January to sell the $199 mini-ITX- based, Linux-running KPC probably staring in QU. Definite specs weren't set a press time, but the KPC reportedly will include a single-core Inte Celeron 420, 945GC chipse, 512MB RAM, and up to 80GB star- age. Sill noe definite isi the KPC wil in- clude a PCI Express slocand optical drive, although early word isie won't A $99 bare bones version is also rumored with 1GB ‘memory and Core 2 Duo options Logitech’s Multimedia Madness centric gear, you're in for good times Among the company’s new products is the Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote (5249.99), which replaces the Harmony 880 and offers revised software and a full-color touchscreen (220 x 176). Elsewhere, the wireless, backlit diNo- vo Mini ($149.99; 5.98 x 3.5 1.08 inches) is pate 63-key, Bluetooth 2.0 keyboard and part TV/home theater wireless re- smote (wich range up to 30 feet) with rechargeable Li-Ton bateries and a four-way CCickPad for alternative navigating from your big, comfy couch. Wane more? Logitech also has a new Squeezebox Duet system ($399.99) with 4 2.4-inch LCD to pump networked music via 802.1 1b/g throughout your house.Nvidia Gets Artsy Dangle a Quadea FX 5500 PCLE card in fone oF an artist, and he'll come up with something like Vaclav Pajkr’s "Growth ofa cubic bactes Society recently named Pajkrv’s work the winner ofthe jointly sponsored NV. "Amazing Creations” challenge. Celebrating the “intersection of art and technology, the contest asked graphic artists to create images that capeured “the essence of some- thing char could only exist inthe virtual world.” What the judges didn’t want was *fancasy creatures, games characters, et.” as those “are to0 common in both digital and traditional fantasy ar.” For winning, Pajkre won twa Nvidia Quadros worth $6,000, a $10,000 trp to San Francisco, and face time with Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Nvidia and the C Huang, Check the entries our ar eventscgsociety.org/NVArt/O1/winnersphy Hardware Mole A Printer That Hangs Out Pringers have come a long way in terms of reducing cheie footprints, but the Hanging Princer is ridiculous. Alchough i's only a concept, as presented by designers Hee Kim, Hyung il Kim, and ‘Woo Sok Park, only the Hanging Printer’ paper feeder and prine head would be visible from the desktop. Using a 90-degree angled design, the Hanging Princer's other components would remain out of sight entirely her hidden under the desk or over its edge. Am LCD embedded in the case would keep you updated on prin jobs, however. Looks like & toney-maker tus, A. How much does Gilbert Arenas, All-Star guard of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, love Halo? Enough co not only sponsor pro ‘online team "Final Boss” but also create his own las-etched, Adidas-manufactured Halo sneaker. Arenas, who has been absent most of the 2007-2008 sea- son witha injury, was to wear the Halo sneaks (one of 20 pairs he's helped de- sign) Feb. B pon thei ting a pair yourself may be harder than ‘eating Final Boss, though, a only 100 pairs were scheduled to be made available. Sill by che looks of the shoes, Are- nas should stick to knocking dovn seys and leave shoe design up to professionals. A. lease. Get- Motus’ Darwin Evolves The Wiimote Expected in time for the holidays, che Darwin conteoller from Morus looks like jewill ake motion-sensing gaming up a considerable notch. Resembling a Hat- tori Hanzo sword handle, che Darwin uses gyroscopes, accelerometers, and a ‘compass to track motion rather than infrared signals, meaning no need for a sensor bar, Wii fans. The Darwin is reportedly based on Morus’ existing iClub golf controler and will work with PCs and multiple consoles. Addivionaly, ‘Motus claims Darwin is faster and more accurate than the Wiimore. To get in ‘on development, kits are available at [email protected], Those interest- ced in early testing can contact Motus at vantonenow@motusgamescom. Ak (Uap 7What's Happening Chip RVZwaD oe Atheros Shrinks Wi-Fi Wireless Networking Chips So They Can Fit In The Tiniest Applications Atheros Communications said in the fll that its tiny Wi-Fi chips would be used in ‘range of exciting new applications. I revealed at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January hac its chips are used in the award-winning Eye-Fi SD ‘memory cards. The catds have a built suromatically upload digital camera images to networked computers or even Inter- ret phota sites such a Flickr. The Atheros ROCm mobile WLAN chips in the Eye-Fi cards are able to get witeless reception even through the metal casing of digital cameras. Eye-Fi cards will be used in a variety of cameras, in wireless networking antenna that lets them including models ftom Nikon. x Experimental Radar Chip Might Algae Could One Day Save Lives By Detecting Road Hazards Become Useful In Nanotechnology (Can a chip warn you if you're about to gee in a car wreck? Researchers a the Universy of Florida and the Semiconductor Research Corp. research consortium say those aren't crazy questions. They announced they've made progress in develop- ing an automotive radae chip that could cos ust $10 to make. Usually, radar sys- ems cost thousands of dollars. Asa result, car makers could add saferyfeacues such as detecting when a driver should slam on the breaks. Curren chips use exotic mate- rials made of gallium arsenide or indium phosphide. By contrast, che university and the SRC created digital silicon chips based on the complimentary metal-oxide semi- conductor process used in most chips. The researchers say that companies such as IBM, Texas Instruments, and Freescale are interested in the technology. Watching The Chips Fall ee ‘Here is pricing information for AMD and intel CPUs. See cecap ere = ee) ee teen eet 8 Aube woncomputsponeseon Chip Production ‘When it comes to manufacturing, you can’t get greener than alg. ‘The single-celled phytoplankton, known as diatoms, account for 2096 ofthe carbon dioxide re- ‘moved from the earth, So scien- tists at NimbleGen Systems in Madison, Wis, are toying with the idea that algae could be wsed ro lay iny patterns down on chips in the Future, The research- crs have identified 75 genes out (of 13,000 thar control the foema- tion of silicon dioxide patterns in diatoms. Michael Susman, founder of NimbleGen and a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madi- son, says that this discovery could bbe used to precisely contro che patterns created by alga, which in turn could be used forthe nanofabrcation of chips. One big help is thatthe tiny animals are so small che could potentially assemble submicron patterns on chips that even the fines pho- rolithography tools cant mimic Diatoms build ther shells by depositing tiny lines of silicon dioxide, the most common inst lator used in making chips.AAA ae) aie M4 Is The Pirate Bay Unsinkable? Peter Kolmisoppi, one of four captains sailing BirTorrent-tacking site The Pirate Bay, sid in casly February the site’ operators have stretched the site's servers globally out of reach of Swedish officals. "The Pirate Bay s nt in Sweden,” : Kolmisoppi sid. A Swedish prosecutor previ- ‘ously charged the foursome with violating copyright law, and in February, a Danish «oust ordered Denmarc ISP Tele? to bloc access ro the site upon a request from the International Federation of the Phonogsaphic Industry. Sil, The Pirate Bay contin- testo salts lag high, claiming in is 100ch blog post ie’ “racking over I million tor rents," has had “over 10 million simultancous peers,” and has "2.5 million registred users.” Argggh. Tough Times For Gangstas ‘Think it’s easy being “connected” in the digital age? Think again. Thanks to Addiopizzo.org, mobsters are Finding ie more difficule squeezing protection money ‘out of Sicilian business own- crs. Addiopizzo.ong began afer several friends consid- cred opening a pub in 2004, ‘only to naturally ask chem- selves, “What if they ask us for the pizzo?"—pizzo being protection money. After forming the Commitee ‘Addiopizzo and slathering Palermo, Sicily, with flees reading, “An Entire People Who Pays The Pizzo Is A People Without Dignity," the committee went online “to createa group of consumers in Palermo and in the region, ready co suppore businesses who stand up against eacker and, overcoming fear, de- ounce their estorters.” Hmm, an offera business owner can’t refuse. Americans Abroad Rock The Online Vote ‘As Super Tuesday came and went, Americans overseas (reportedly 6 million strong) cast absence ballots around the world, including in Indonesia, where presidential hopeful Barack Obama lived as a boy. In addition to voting in person, via fax, and snail mail, Democrats overseas voted online forthe first time ever via Democrats Abroad, an off cial branch of the Democratic Party holding voting in 33 countries. Unfortunately for Republicans the overseas online option wasnt available, as Republicans Abroad oper- ates independently of the Republication Party and can't hold in-person or Internet vor- ing abroad. Gentlemen, Place ‘Your Bets you's che type who scans CNN «com while plying online poksr, Hubdub.com is for you, Instead of “Texas hold em, however, bes center on the outcomes of real news tries in ones categories Technology (°Will Google make an offer for fehoot ee lenge Microsof’s bid?) Busines, Politics, Sports, “nd Entertainment. There's one Po eg pees ss calageneeal ore’ «y-You get 1,000 Hadas upon coer oe el common tds ee ee eee ener ee ere ene eee eae reek Get A Notch Up At NotchUp.com ‘The premise at NotchUp.com is simple: Companies pay you forthe honor of interviewing you for po- tential employment. Why? Notch- Up.com says, “Ir's faster AND less expensive for a company to pay can- didates for interview than ic isto pay 4 recruiter 10 10 30% ofthe candi- dares salary or eo post jobs, then sit back and wait forthe perfect candi- date co come along.” Though sil in beta, NorchUp.com counts Google and Yahoo! among customers. Reg- iseration is re, but there's a pre- screening process based on fairly stringent academic and past employ- mnt qualifications. If you're accept- cd, interested companies will quest an interview, after which NoschUp com cuts you a check or credits your PayPal account. A az 9MEY i ee eee ore Flickr Users Close Their Shutters To Microsoft Gide es went oNe ly mie Tua RNCURS IS 4 ‘Microsoft's $44.6 billion rejected takeover bid of Yahoo! in io Ms cal nal cg wea ub incy ote vee er = ply The you's Mictoate Keep Your Ei Gabby . : Thands Off Ou Fick campaign We, he undersigned, wth you woul js ave Flr lone O10") stem foun, ram the ft that Vato! wn the photo shaing Ie Si ot en tel ke couse leh pls Bos Pcs finest Sve ousted sap. More Love For The Mac Count Google and Crucial among those cozying up ro Apple, sofeware-wise. Crucals nevily released System Scanner rol scans Mac desktops and notebooks, compiles compo- ‘nent information, and delivers potential memory upgrades. Crucial says the too! isthe first online tool from a memory manufac- sure ro provide aselhelp scanning insu ment exclusively for Mac user.” Meanwhile, Google's recent Toolbox for Mac isa “col lection of source from different Google projects thar may be of use ro developers working other Mac project.” Elsewhere, sumored version of IBM's Lotus Notes for the Phone didn't materialize in mid-January as some reports suggested ir would. An IBM spokesman did reportedly say, “les not something that (i) ready t go out and mar- ket of launch,” So, there's still hope. A. Equal Opportunity Hacking At CanSecWest? If you're heading to Vancouver in March forthe ninth annual Can- SecWest conference bring long your Linux and Vista hacking skill. According to organizer Dragos Rui, CanSecWest officials are comtem- plating broadening the hack-a-Mac contest chey ran last year to include Linux and Vista machines to “se which one goes firs.” In 2007, re searcher Dino Dai Zovi discovered a QuickTime law that lr him run - unauthorized software on a Max OS X system, which netted him a Mactiok Pro and $10,000 in exchange for providing 3Com's Tipping = Point deals ofthe bug. Ifthe thre-hackatickdocsnt materialize, i - a tay be because Ruin has hinted he's considering a diferent, cop-secret, searemeteamtinesrics | ligand contest instead. A. 10 Atte / won compSoftware Shoris 0Voo Gives New Vision To Video Chat Look out, Skype; 00Voo is hor on your trail. Although sill in beta, the free ooVoo continued to add goodies co its already impresively handsome video chat app in carly February with its 1.5 release. Among new fea- tutes ae fee calls ro landline and mobile phones, video effets, new Sidebar view, importing contact, and the ability wo record chats to AVI, FLY, of HTML files. Six-person chats are also supported, as are Mac systems, although Linux rigs are out for now. Further, o0Voo doesn’ use your system asa node to help out chose with lese-stealthy rigs, Who needs Skype wien you can ooVoo instead? The beta version released in February lets you make free cals to landline phones and adds a slew of other features, Gartner Predicts Happy Times For Open Source ea - Research frm Gartner looked int its crystal ball Does Google's 20-Year Pledge Add Up? recenly and made 10 prediction concerning events and developments relating to IT and busines, inclad- |" "Maybe it’s us bur Google Chirman Eri Schmidt's ecen admission ing that “by 2012, 80% of al commercial sftvare || thathe and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin pledged wil include clemens of open-source echnoogy, shordy before the company went pubic in 2004 to work rogeer for This forecast is based on open-source technologies —|._ 0 years seems a bit shoddy if allegations from Brian Reid, former being "mature, stable, and well-supporced’ and pen- | decor of operations and engineering are ue. The California source sofeware providing “significant opportunities.) Supreme Court recently ruled it would consider Reid’s 2004 lawsuit for vendors and users to lower their total cose of own- against Google, in which Reid, now 58, says he was fired duc to his ership and increase etns on investment Esowhete, | ag, He also clams colleagues routinely ale him “old man’ and Gartner predicts by 2012 at least one-third of business “fuddy-duddy,” and only 2% of Google's employees in 2004 were 40 application softwar pending Raa wy. Sdn wll eoredhp be 9, Page Sand teri teland rather han fluc [Aliings A BN 3b whenshee DO een caine Fe cee Dee sere dent Here are a few recently released upgrad Erste [ASBck AMANFVSTA 240 ovnloedaurckcombowAMZAMONFSVSTA2AD) 20 ‘As Masini 0007 dev.auscomipuiASUSnbaocelT7SMasenus FomulaQlFO9 29 aera gi ya comFleiBIOSinabboard bos ga sp 20 femse Giontyle GAUSIS SP fe. 20) FC ‘Shute SNGBPTGE Deluxe SNBBSPOI (gota shutecomieenitedownondie 10777 Aptos 11DIGITAL ECONOMY: 2 Compiled by Steve Smith The Job Search 1s spring, and love isin the a Even IT types can do their part to program Cupid's arrow. At Harmony, for instance, you can bea Release Engineer and Man. ager, the go-to person for the dace-making company buile applications, You own the felease process by writing de- ployment scripts launching the ‘new apps, and applying the in vitae patches, You'll manage ‘over 100 servers that are dedicat cd to finding that special some one. This Cupid's quiver must include a strong background in WebLogic, RedHat Linux, and Apache, which we guess is mare romantic than ir sounds, jobs-charmony icimscom jcharmony jobs/iobs/candidace iobjepYiobid=1078&mode=view Ifyou'se more the SQL Server type who relly gets curned on by roubleshooting databases (and who doesn’t), then Match.com is looking for an SQL Database Engineer. Given the millions of love-seckers at Match.com, we have to imagine that running solutions that address the comp- y's busines needs is no small task. You'll nce five yeats of experience with database design and a tack record maintaining 2417 Web environments that (we sess) tend to get hi hard by lonely hears on those dateless Priday nights jobsearch inc-careerscom ob aep?JobI0 =673342048 AVSDM=70088200192016141 BS3ATINGAI2ELogo=O8col declco=xwmvgwmvextxtot 2 Apt 08 / woncomputponeseco 1M% = =—«508 tH. Percent Percent PERIENT OF pikceat decrease tn of US. Auger2ans deciine in active homes WHO RAVE music Mare with a cy album eee digital extent sales in a TV set noes 2007 ves ew Pew) ‘eoumiscan) Hooray For Digital TV! What Is It? Communications Commission mandates that on Feb. 17, 2009, TV ers must stop Sending over algital. For roughly BOX of u te, he switch me over-the-air reception TAM Pulgs survey 19 millon an affected bythe big switchove itis www.tmeneticom usubmit/2007/12/10/3153273 htm, Not There Yet Morihiy Moble Content Consurtin sige ofthe mobile We and cor talking and Watoes Wen as stan Taste 7s ‘oad Web Brovaer ex ‘Sem us ats mss Payot Dowsiouéed Gane an ‘sud bewatee Aneto am ‘SomtiteconasPotastteat Parchasestiagtames ead ema ‘oud Sol atworting Stas (re-month average ening November 2007)TELM COT Ce yes) Web engineers do PLUM OOM ey on their hands?They develop the world’s best fr GMX — Global Mail X-change. V Already over 10,000,000 satisfied users and counting! Vv Huge selection of available names with gmx.us or gmx.com! V Unprecedented spam protection. Up to 98% hit rate. V Maximum virus protection guaranteed! V Bundle your existing e-mail accounts & addresses into one! Why our engineers believe GMX is the world’s best webmail service: eee a Cece miie! aera ug aoe ec] co Oe a eid Sa me ue Nat ee ery in gmxus or gmx.com! ON eeu as ee econ UT Mail Collector (e. 9. Google, Yahoo!, ee eee) Srna See ee Pecans Se eae ag Cero ee t) Sn te a a) Oe) Cdn ee eee rae ce me uni inte ae capitalization of 5 bn US $ and over 3,500 employees. GMX has over 10,000,000 enthusiastic Pee oe eaeee webmail service and call it 100% Free! The wid free e-mail addresses. Sign up now! fie AC eee) GMXTine Seiinis A Tale Of Two Kings CBee ins ht we so prod, powel and impe- sient kings. Each lived ina grat castle atop a high mountain separated by a vas valley where the common folk who lived in cher ‘seo kingdoms farmed and prospered, The ovo kings, King CPU and King GPU, had much in common, foremost of which was a sgreat love for the game of chess. Being proud, however, each king ‘was unwilling to leave che lavish fortifications of his case to make the arduous 32-day jourmey from one mountaintop to vist the ‘other. As such, the kings each appointed a servant from the village below to act asa messenger berwcen ther kingdoms, enabling them to play chess without leaving che comfort oftheir chrone rooms "Thus ie was cha a chessboard was se up in the hal ofeach king, and a chird chess board established inthe village square benwsen their ‘mountains. When it was King CPUs tuen, he would mae a move on the chessboard in his throne room, His dutiful servant would memo- Fize the move and set off down the mountain to the village below ‘where he would meet King GPU's servant to duplicate the king’s ‘move on the common chessboard in the square, Then King GPU's servant would memorize the move and set of on the long journey up the opposite mountainside co return afer many days to the hall of King GPU, where, weary with exhaustion from the lang climb, he ‘would duplicace King CPU’ move on King GPUS chess board. “The brilliant King GPU barely needed to glance at the boaed be fore moving, and without giving his servant a moment of rest, ent him om his way back down the mountain tothe village, Im dis fash- jon, che kings played chess, cach taking a turn once every 64 days as their servans conveyed their moves up and down the steep mountain, Being wholly obsessed with thei games, the kings had lee to ‘occupy them in the intervening days between moves and constant- ly demanded cha dir messengers movefaster. ARex many years of this, King CPU finally lose patience and demanded that his wise men think ofa faster way for him to play chess with King GPU. After ‘many days of careful consideration, hie advisers proposed a solution ro the problem. The wisest of them, whose name was Ince, came ro the king and sid, “Oh King CPU, we propose to remedy this great ineft- ciency by establishing not one but 32 chess boands inthe great halls ‘of your castles and another 32 chess boards in che village square. We shal ell che chess boards in your hall “cache” and the chess boards in town “main memory.” Thiny-owo servants from each kingdom shall be appoineed to convey your moves from each of 32 concurrent chess games. Every other day you shall make one move for one of the 32 games you are playing, and King GPU shall make one move in his, ‘court. Although your respective servants wll stil ake 32 days to con- vey a move, you shall be able to take a turn every other day! “Bravo!” said King CPU, and granted Intel vast lands and tiles in reward for this ingenious solution to his problem. And fora time, the king was happy, for he was now able a play chess with King GPU 32 times faster, although the rulers had to conscric 64 ad lagers ro become messengers for the new scheme. ional vil 16 Het 208 J woman Before lang, however, the luxury of geting to spend afew seconds every other day making a single chess move wore off, and King CPUs patience was again stained, Agsin he summoned his wise men and asked for a speedier way to play. ‘Oh King,” said Intel, che wisest among them, play chess, we have noticed thar there are two stages inthe journey from the village to your court. The first is long, sow climb up and down a sheer mountainside and the second isthe long walk from the foothills ro che village Square and back. We propose that you place 32 more chess boards, of an “L2 cache," a the base ofeach mountain.” “We will then inerease the bus speed from he L2 cache ro the LI cache in your throne roam by stuffing your messengers into barrels and pushing themn off the mountaintop. They will land safly ona pile of hay at the bortom of the mountain and will convey your moves ro the 1 chess board, were other messengers wll memorize them and ride ‘on horscack tothe village to again copy the move ea che appropriate bards in the village square. From there, King GPU's horsemen carry their moves tothe foothills of his mountain and pass them off ro ano- ther group of messengers, who wil in turn be Fired from cannons to the entrance of King GPU’ castle. We will, of course, nced to con- script another 64 villagers for this to work, buc we calculate tha ic wil improve performance 48 times, thereby enabling you to make a chess move every hour instead of once every other day! “Bravo!” said King CPU, and rewarded Intel with more land and tikes, Soon the king was able to play ches fr a few seconds once an hour as one bedraggled messenger afer another arrived exhausted, singed, and smelling of gunpowder with a new chess move from King GPU. Fora brief time, the king’s hunger for chess was sted, but soon the hour he spent admiring the vase Vista fram his throne room be trecen moves grew tedious For although watching it consumed all of his fe time, i was neither entertaining nor the last bi productive Frustrated, che king again summoned his wise men and demanded away to devote all his fice time to the game he loved. “Oh King,” Incl began, “I believe T have found a solution chat will solve your problem once and for all.” “Do tell," replied the king “Ie will require a lor more villagers “Sill stening,” sid the king. “Instead of using 32 chess boards at each cache level, well use 64 “Why nor more asked che king, ‘The wise man shrugged. “Lets make it 256, then; well add an ‘13. cache’ between the horsemen and the village made up of archers who will tke che moves from the messengers dropped off the mountain, in barrels, re them ro arrows and fre chem atthe horsemen, who will have hay-saffedbull’-eyeson thie backs.” “Like il” said the king. “Bue wai, there’ more,” said Ine, "Instead of just deciding on lone move fr each chess game, you will consider all posible responses that King GPU could make to your moves and provide responses for in our labor to design a more efficient way for you to > said lateall of those, then anticipate his possible responses to those moves and |The drunkant staggered ro his fee and, swaying bllously, sid, respond to them, as well Iewill tke thousands of messengers for each “There's no point, majesty. How can I make diference in your game” :move because they're not very bright and each can remember only one “He has a point,” said the king. "Execute him!” ‘move. But inthis fashion, you will nor only be able to make more “Wait” shricked the drunk as the guards seized him, “T have an idea ‘moves, but youll be able o spend more rime calculating all posible "This had beter be good,” growled the king responses to them instead of waiting idle for the nexe messenger. "You havea son, yes? And King GPU has a daughte®? Marry your "Leds doit!” said the king, and again rewarded the wise Intel with heir ro GPUs daughter, uniee the Kingdoms, abdicate your respective ‘more lands and tes for his genius thrones to your son, and retire to play Now ie came to pass that all of the kings’ subjects were conscripted into service to deliver messages between them, and all commerce and farming in the kingdoms came ro a halt. All heir resources were devoted co playing chess, bur the kings were finally able ro play chess with only a few minutes of wasted time between moves and could spend these moments anticipating future pos- sible moves and responding to them, ‘The villagers, of course, were starving, exhausted, and close 1 rebellion, but this was a small concern compared t0 the great satisfaction the kings derived from being nearly able ro satisfy theie all-consuming passion for chess. Since the kingdoms no longer produced their ‘own food, the kings’ coffers were rapidly ‘expended importing all the food from the power supply required ro fed all the _messengers. Ths too was of litle concern to the kings, but the wise men saw the ‘empires declining and came once more ro King CPU's throne. "Oh King, we have a problem,” their wise spokesman sid. “Oh?” replied the king, “How so? "Your empires ar in decline, there is ‘unrest among the villagers and still your appetite for ches isnot fulfilled. This can- ‘not continue, your majesty. Lo finy a seyipiwe The Ling joe opp ls ech oe hoe wie nen Mice eck and eos of Se mnt etn poco chemata at Sipace a ugeaet sey Cana mace Bogie see ha Mic adel ay cr cnr hy sd i kg | of his daughter to CPUS son The prince Es comity autem sed Tis gh caisecd a epee eas 7 Esl rste cor ews mex tious | es tndunypetbne ts ohe Ose | inh wia of he apd he pierre aceboy be ocetug ok patapione iene Saupe oe mee cat li be ppl Res en ws Barren Teens Lng pyar nth ck other tinue Acc, King GPU all is es, ba ay OP sng col oh Wd Sicha amty sai came se Sra doo ro we cheapie Kingdom Fudan we wear? ‘nore We op ee ngs Freee "Tas hnking me Nehalem," he Ser ere a ak lt fy on we fun dain your alr cop iopiat mmr pr Jeans vaste hn eg Laver ieee invan eH | a fo a i ag hese Whatua operas roves, havi That’ a scupid name,” replied the king YYouie fied. Somebody go find tha ft peas ant and give him allthis guy's stuf” ‘The End ‘Send your feedback co [email protected] - - = uaa TT18 fort ame / won cemteponeuecen F reudians are having a heyday with this month's Dream Hardware. With everything geting so much bigger taller, and wider, i's small wonder that nothing else measures up. by Many Sem Penesone Litsecrsen 1804nch ‘Wel, you saw this coming, Right up our alley here at Dream Hardware is this L1- x 6.25-foor mammoth, the world’s largest ar panel HDTV. Striking a blow for plasma eechnol- ogy in a much more daunting way than Pioneers exquisite KURO could, this “quad-1080” procorype addresses 4,096 x 2,160 pixels for an impressive level of detail (wwnwpanason Jccom). Mass production should stare in late 2009, when a new factory being buile specifically for the purpose is com- pleted. Predictably, Panasonic says that the Lifescreen will assail the commercial and digital cinema ramparts before lumbering into (ather affluent) homes. The company won't ven hine at a suggestion of an apocryphal guess at what the price willbe, Prepate ro se los of zeroes ini Wederhi Audio Ininite Wisdom Grande While we're onthe subject of grande, e's pair our 150- inch plasma with speakers guaranteed ro dwarf is, Sit and listen co infinite wisdom, writ large (surf co waew.wiselom audio com/homehtm! co bypass the limited-fanction store- front). The low-frequency assemblies alone would scrape most home ceilings at 8 fet tll, but try ro wrap your mind around planar-magnesic arrays that rower 13 fet above the oor. This low-distortion Stonchenge can push 120dB of sound pressure when driven to it. Enlightenment isn't cheap—$700,000 for the set—but whoever said it should be free? (Just ask Tom Cruise. OK, that was a cheap shor.) More recently, Wisdom announced the new Sage series of in-wall speakers, priced at up to $16,000 per pair. Talk about smare money. Alerwere Curved Mortter Do real gamers have curves? Call this one a fascinating forerunner of awesome things to come, Race gamers, flight simmers, and afew dichard FPSers have long salivated over ttiple-head monitor setups, Alienware and manufacturing partner Ostendo Technologies showed off a “very advanced prototype” of a DLP/LED display thar aims vo change all that. The Curved Monitor (model CRVD-42DWX+) spans 424 inches ina wraparound, double-widescreen view and supports a 2,880 x 900 resolution over one duallink DVI cable. The 900-pixel screen height doesn't exactly sound impressive by PC gamer standards, although ie docs fall smack-dab between the 720 and 1080 high-def stan- dards’ vertical heights. Alienware lists the display's aspect ratio a5 3.2:1, oF 16:5 in more common parlance. The company tells us not to worry abour game support forthe ultra-wide resolution. That said, all we've seen running thus fir has been Crysis, and we were jet-lagged at the time. In any case, Alienware doesn’t expect to even estimate a price until the midalle of the year. (Chai PSU Showdown hen the time comes to purchase a new power supply, many users simply head right to their favorite eerail- cand grab che highest-wattage PSU they can find that also happens to ft their budget. Unforeunately, there are no set standards that all PSU manufac- turers must adhere to, 0 one company’s 1,000-waet unit may be another's 700 wart product—and that's if ther is able to hit ies eeporeed output ratings at all Even worse, some less than scrupulous ‘companies report peak or continuous wwartage ratings using data gathered in uuncealistic testing conditions that will never occur in the real word. “There are a lor of things to be aware of when shopping for a PSU, but no hard-and-fast rules that universally apply to all poser supplies cha will help you pick out a high-quality uni ina sea of mediocre offerings. Ifyou have physical access to the units, though, higher-quali- ty power supplies are typically heavier than cheap units. Additionally, che en- closures won't be flimsy, she cables will be heavier, connectors will be tight, and any sheathing will be installed properly. High-quality units will ypically have beter finishes, a well In the May 2007 issue of CPU} we printed a large PSU roundup and dise ‘cussed the principles behind PSU design and selection. (See pages 58 r0 73.) The informacion in that article explained what makes one power supply better than another and how to determine which PSU is right fora particular build. f you haven't already read the arccle, we suggest ‘going back and taking a look. Some time has passed since that arti- cle, so we thought ic was time to testa few more high-end units to sce which deserve your hard-earned dollars, We cal- lected units ranging from a "meager" 720 watts roa whopping 1,600 watts and tor: tured them with a powertul system that's ‘capable of using more juice chan just about any ypieal PC, How We Tested In liga oF specialized, ulera-expensive, thermally controlled rst equipment, we decided to test the half-dozen PSUs in this roundup in a real-world scenario using a system but from offshe-shelf components, OF course, we used noth- ing bus the most powerful parts: a pair ‘of quad-core Intel Xeon 5365 proces- sors, a workstation-clas Intel S5000XVN motherboard, 4GB of FB-DIMM mem ‘ory, an AMD Radeon HD 3870 X2, an X-Fi sound card, an AVerMedia TV tuner card, a BEG PhysX card, ewo opti- cal drives, and three hard drives—all stuffed into a Gigabyte 3D Aurora case. If a PSU can handle a machine of his caliber, we figueed it would no doubs be sufficient for even the most powerful single-CPU machine. To pura heavy load on the power sup- plies while they were installed in the rest system, we simultaneously looped SiSofe Sandra's multithreaded Processor Ari metic benchmark, played a CD, watched Turbo-Cool 1200 s4ga.99 PG Power & Cooling ‘wun popower.com coco ‘TV in a window, ean the rehdribl (Real- ‘Time High Dynamic Range Image- Based Lighting) graphies demo, and defragged a hard drive. In this scenario, ‘our behemoth test machine consumed ‘over 700 watts sustained. We lefr the power supplies to handle the load for hours on end. PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200 “The massive Turbo- 11200 is PC Power & Cooling’s current lagship SU. As is the case wich all of PCP&C’s high-end PSUs, the Turbo-Cool 1200 utilizes a powerful single-rail design, which, in this case, is capable of contin- uously supplying 90A over its 12V ral, peaking at 115A. And according to PC Power & Cooling, che Turbo-Cool 1200 has an average 83% efficiency rar- ing and a 0.98 Active PFC cating. ‘We found the Turbo-Cool 1200 to have very stable voltage ourpus that did not fluctuate during periods of heavy load. And because this PSU is geared toward the high end, it's outficeed with a multitude of connectors. We should also point out that even though the Turbo-Cool 1200 is Nvidia SLI ‘CPU RANKING © O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | 72.5= ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | © (BSOLUTELY PERFECT Apo 19cettfed should have no trouble wich Cross-Fire configurations, either True to PC Power &¢ Cooling radi sion, the Turho-Coal 1200 inchides the company's signature L4-poine certified test report, s0 you know dl purchased has already been « ed for ‘quality. This is certainly a nice rouch base at about half a grand, the Turbo- Cool 1200 isn's so much a standard pur- ct. This PSU is buile so well and provides so much power tha it should last shrough mult ple upgrade cycles and provide years of trouble-frce service just different in a number of ways, Fest ofall, the Turbo-Cool 860 is physically Alehough it comes from the same al company and has the same industrial, ish, the Turbo-Cool 860 oth than is dard ATX PSU, i cut from adil De De ee ct eee ee eet ee en) itn a home, the cut breakers, wi Se eae) ee ct eer ro cote err the simp ae Bee rr eee ce Ret ee heissen, eae ri Sens Pee eer ee er eee ree at eee are eRe eae rte oe ee ea erty Se Ceo ete) Pee ete ee Ce ca ere Se Curry ee ithe SEs eee te ory Ce ee culs ff the power. This has happened tall of us atone point or ee ne Se) aor Ce eee ass ee pinians meet higher-powered, 1,200-watt counter pare. That's noc co say th 860 is somehow inferior. The 860 is only about long, which is more in line with a stan. As for ies speci the Turbo-Cool 860 sports a slight Turbo-Cool 860, $269.99 PG Power & Cooling wonw-pepower.com eooer better 84 2 0,985 PFC is | complement of com cover the rop asthe 1200's, with fewer Pc 1, but i's still very well appoinced. And like the Turbo-Cool 1200, the 860 is SLI certified ther feature chat ses the Turbo- average efficiency rating and 0's Turbo-Cool The Turbo-Coo This unie ectors isn't quite as E and motherboard power connec- 1,200-was Cool 860 apart from its higher-powered re evies plugged into the circuit a Pt errs eee a! Pot oe 1,50 ew Peg ae) aeerry Sey een ee ary Ee a eee Sere eres ORE aera 00 as the reasonable limit fra des a ere oe ere eee eee ee] Pee eat are, See eee eee et ers Pe te Cee et eat ee eres ca ee ee a eet teem ee td een re ree ent eee ee er et eer auling a home’ electrical wiring. Thankuly, all ofthe major Pee ee ts and performance per wat, and we doubt even the most ha ere ae ee an ai 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | @ @ @ @ @ 5=ABSOLUTELY PERFECT CPU RANKING GO ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @‘ounserpare (and all of che other PSUs in this roundup, for that matter) is its adjustable +3.3V, +5V, and +12V nals. ‘The Turbo-Cool 860 features a tio of adjustable potentiometers that can be used to increase (or decrease) the oueput of the rails for fine-tuning performance, ‘This is a feature that is guaranteed to please hardcore overclackers with the courage to pump tons of voltage inca their components ‘With its relacively high ouspuc rating, high efficiency, quality construction, and adjustable rails t's cay ro like the Turbo- “ool 860. Considering its Fearres, per- formance, and compedtve price, this has to be our favorite PSU of che bunch fal- though we wouldn't mind if PC Power & Cooling offered a quieter cooling fan in a fucure revision. Ultra Products X3 1600-Watt Energy Efficient Modular Power Supply Ulera claims the tle of "Warld’s Highest Advertised Output” fora desktop PSU with i monstrous, 1 600-waeeX3 “This bea ofa PSU is physically about the same sie as the Turo-Cool 1200, bu unlike PC Power 8¢ Cooling’ offer ings the X3 1600 fearures a modular cable configuration. Even the 24-pin [ATX power cable can be removed. In 3160 features Ule's FlexForce cables, which are much easier to manage than eypca, stiff PSU cables. Untn's FlesForce cables are much more pliable than most PSU cables, andthe invidal wires are bonded together, ‘which made routing chem ney through- sad cue mich eter br wx ler aims che X3 1600 i 809% es ficient although the text data on the company’s Web ste suggests an average 0877 to 79% efficiency x more acura “The X3 1600 only achieved its 80% fi ciency at 800 wats, half its advertised peal capac A parca nice fete ofthe X3 1600 ie oversized, 135mm cooling fan. Daring testing, we found that he unis cooling fan moved a good amount of dnd this PSU was one ofthe quieter mod- tle we tested. you cave the kind of out- put the X3 1600 of bue don’ wane addicion, the hear ic working, you'll be pleased with this anit. We also found is voltage out- jpurto be very sable, and it had no trou- ‘le powering our beefy tes system, Arabout $500, the Ultra X3 1600 isn’t cheap, bur you get what you pay for. This power supply i quie, has modular cables, and is powerful enough to handle just about anything you can Enermax Galaxy DXX 850 A fies glance, is immediately evi- dene chat the Galaxy DXX 850 is geared for users of multiple graphics cards. This power supply features five I2V rails, with ehrce &-pin and five 6-pin PCE power connectors, which is more than ‘enough for even the most demanding GPU configurations. Wich this X3 1600-Watt Energy Efficient Modular Power Supply $499.99 Ultra Products ‘uw. ultraproducts.com coe Galaxy DXX 850 $299 Enermax ee setup, the Galaxy DXX 850 is both SLL and CrossFire cert bur Enermax brands che PSUs differently based on the certfications—the DXX 850 SLI and DXX 850 CrossFire, respectively. (Other than its smorgasbord of PC-E povrer connectors, Enermax outfits the Galaxy DX 850 with a multitude of drive and peripheral connectors but takes a conservative approach to the unit's mod- ular cables. The main ATX power lead, ‘other motherboard power leads, and a couple ofthe PCI-E power leads are hard wired to the unit; only a few PCLE and drive/peripheral connections are modular. ‘We're fine with this approach, however, because there's usualy no need to remove those main power leads. The Galaxy DXX 850 also has a diagnostic LED thar can alert usets co porenial problems, ‘CPU RANKING © O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | 72.5= ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | © (BSOLUTELY PERFECT Aptos 212 The E old performer Iss dual Galaxy D} ugh cd PSU hac isco four testing. icvely, oling fans were relatively quit ly peusive, and its glose-black finish | tion for your next Tee ee en ee See en eee ened Sea te eee ee See ee eG Se ee eee rs Pee ee ee ere eet en ee er ta Ore ee eee etsy listing of "Motherboard" means the cables ae closest the mather- Ce ee eer ta Enermax Infiniti 720 100, This isa quality | Enermax’ Infiniy line of modular PSU thy of consi snc quite as prestigious as che Gala line but che are quality units nonetheless. And Oe ec ore Eee encad Dee eet ee] Coo eset ae enn pee ee ee et eee ae eee eee Pe ae ert ee eee Pee ae ore) re tee nie ty en Oe eee er eet Ee) PIE) Paco) ETE) ace) FECA} Ie) 950,600), PCIE) i fain a ne a 5 ES ery Ga i ico ES Ey Ea Ey Fee Sera 25 Ea Eq corey fea) Pera terr) perfec) Por coo See Yea Yas i Yas Cerrar a i Yes Coca ck cr Rd Ta eT feces KS) nid [ag iad arc io) oo [ry 7 or) ere) a Cs cos Cros foe T rT 7 Yea oenrcn ceed Ceo} poe Peer) Fan(a) location io id Ear ES Co Cee Caer) ea eater) 725mm, Simm (Cae 35mm, Bom Eyer) Creo cere arer} Seer aria fees Rus peice ree) creeper EES Seer oer a roe Ces Ea Pr Kaa] ar 3 uN 0 78 ion aac 70 76 ove A A Finish coer oes erry Georg eee) cable bend (in inches) 3 Tos 70 co ry ary roi ec a Bom ok 498.90 au) 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | CPU RANKING & O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS ABSOLUTELY PERFECTthey havea couple of incerestng features to boot, With its rating the Enermax Infiniti 720 technically ce 12V rails and 720-wate has the lowest ouput capacity ofthe units we tested. However, this unit pased our torture tet with fying colors. Infact, even swith our txt machine sucking down almost 740 wate for several hours, the Infiniti 720 dida’e The Infiniti 720's 82 to 8506 efficiency load con- rating spans across 20 ro 100 so this PSU doesn't waste much cenergy during eypical use. Ie also has a fea. ture dubbed CoolGuaed, which will ran the PSU's cooling fan, and any system dito fans connected to the unit, for afew utes afer the system is shus dawn to elim inae residual heat Te may not havea four ing bs trou he Enermax Infiniti 720 had no le powering our octo-core, dual- GPU test machine. Ifyou don’t have the Funds for a 1,000-watt behemoth this PSU should do the trick nicely Although its reported maximum out- pur of 800 wates put the Kingwin ABT- S00MAIS a notch above Enerman’s Infinity 720 in terms of specifications, wwe had some issues with this power sup ply during testing. But firs, le’ rae about the unit's positives, The Kingwin ABT-800MAIS isan affordable, relative ly high Tealso has avery lange, 4 cooling fan and « heavy-duty pur PSU costing abou $175. ‘modular cabling sytem. The unit's me o threaded receptacles, hich makes fora strong, solid connec tion, The ABT-800MAIS black mirzor finish, Disappointingly, che unit coulda's han dle the load our hefty test system pus nit Iso has ance for extended periods of rime. After about ith a consistent load exceeding 40 watts, ou rest system shut dow, W could bring ie back up, and everything ‘worked properly, bur the ABT-SOOMAIS couldn't handle the sustained workload. It seemed to day-to-day use. Ie should be capable of handling a furly powerful system, just rhotone as over the top as ours. bby Marco Chiappets lntinit 720, S199 Enermax ‘ABT-800MAIS si7s inguin kingwin.com ee (CPU RANKING © O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ ¢ 2.5=ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | © @ © @ @ = ABSOLUTELY PERFECT Uj Apa 23ardware Supplemental corebook PCs routinely outsell th desktop cousins these days, but desktops will always have one advantage. e's much easier for them to grow with your needs However, the more components you aud, and the more powerful they ae, the greater che posibilry that your system's existing power supply unit may nat be able to keep up with the additional de- ‘mands. Extea hard drives and an auxiliary optical drive will add to the load, bur their needs ae furly modest compared to, say, a sereaming new quad-core CPU and a high-end graphics card. If you're mov- ing up to an Nvidia SLI or ATI CrossFire configuration with two or more video cards (especially popular with gamers), your power requirements wil spike dra- ‘matically upward, your current PSU can't hack it, you have two options: Replace itor share the load with a supplemental PSU. The ler option may be necessary due wo space limi- ‘ations of your orignal PSU has a propri- cary design Iemay be the cheaper solution, ‘00, especialy ifyour old PSU has plenty of life lef. By installing asupplemenal PSU you should be able fo boost the total watt- Age available to your sytem forless chan the cost of a now primary PSU. We've rounded up five contenders for the job. All urlize the same basic design Each unit its into a spare 5.25-inch drive bay and draws AC power from a cable chat slips chrough a PCI card slot in the back ofthe computer ease. Anoth- er cable is used to syne operation with your main PSU, so che supplemencal tunic runs only when the computer docs. Finally incernal cables deliver power to connected components; most af these tunis are solely intended to power graph- jes cards so your main PSU can breathe caslr on everything else. Power Supply Units ‘One warning: Supplemental PSUs require unobstructed airflow through the unit, so use caution when installing fone in a case with doors or panels that block che drive bays. Unless you can leave the panel open, there could he a risk of overheating, E-Power Technology EP-360 CD UNI Juice ‘The Juice Box juices your systema with an extra 350W using a pair of #12V rails ‘operating a up ro 20 amps each +12V nails area PSU's most valuable playets E-Power Technology EP-350 CD UNI Juice Box | $89 |, wurw.epowertec.com cece poweting the system's high-demand ‘components: the CPU and graphics cards, plus drives, fans, ete. When mult ple ails are used, voltge is often divided brerween chem, with each rail dedicated ro specific connections, For connectivity, the Juice Box: employs a modular cable design, meaning you can use only what you need, rather than leave unused cables tailing to no- where inside your case. Two pairs of PC Express connections are availabe: 6-pin, as well as 6+2, whose cable plugs can be used as 8-pin connectors for newer, high powered cards such as Quad SLI or splic apart for 6-pin use ‘A pair of blue LEDs located behind the faceplate will apprise you of operat- ing searus. Three fans (two in one out) keep it running cool without generating tundue noise. The internal power cables are eassuringly thick, although their stiffness may prove hard to work with if you need ro run chem at tight angles. Ifthe 350W model falls shore of your rnceds, E-Power also offers a 450 ver- sion for $109. FSP Group Boosterx 3 “The SLLcetied Boose 3 can dev ep to 300W to two graphics cards. A single cable azaches o the ear and then splits in two, caring 150W cach, a up £0.25 amps, toa pair of 6-pin PCI Ex- pres connections Ifyou nced to powsr FSP Group Boosterx 3 $89.99 | wav fspgroupusa.com coe only one card, there’s no way to detach the unused cable. “The X3 has beter-than-averageeffcen- cy of 85%, with very stable current and performance. For cooling, i uses two fans (both imake), which can get noisy when the unit is pushed, but not so bad chara reasonably loud game can't drown it out If you need still more power than the BoosterX 3 delivers, the 450W Booster. 5 is scheduled for release in spring 2008 for $99.99, Spire NitroPower VGA Booster SPVGA-AS0W As we go 10 press the NivoPower hasn't yet been released, so we weren't able to testi first-hand. But ie should be four by the time you're reading this, and based on the information we have, it's certainly worth a look, CPU RANKING TAUSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ ¢ 2.5= ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE T SOLUTELY PERFECT 24 spt 08 Fw comptcrpanesecrSpire NioPower VGA Booster SPUGA-¢50W $79.99 | spirecoolers.com eco The model number and the marke ing material we've seen imply that this is a 450W PSU. However, chat spec is actual ly peak power—the maximum wacrage a unie can deliver for short periods of heavy. demand. The NitroPower's continuous power—what a PSU can consistently iver under normal load conditions—is 320W, coming from two +12V rails ac up to 20 amps. Heat shouldn’s bea problem, with 8596 efficiency and three cooling fans (ovo in, one out) The NieroPovier uses modular cabling pin Quad SLI connections pin PCI Express connections ures the most informative ss with dual and dual 6 Iealso tus display in the bunch, with sic blue LEDs, one foreach ourgoing 2s the incoming AC and the 4-pin Molex ‘connection that syncs with the main PSU. Technically, there are two versions of this uni #WOO99RU, which is cerfed coo a Peete at eee ey cic eo coe ‘Thermaltake Purepower Power Express. {$49.99 | thermaltakeusa.com econ for Nvidia SLI, and #W0130RU, certified for ATI CrossFire, Whats the difference? Not a thing, ocr chan their chassis colors (black for the SLI wnt and silver forthe Crossfire, with the same black faceplate on cach). According to Thermaltake, Nvidia simply requires a differen pare number f marketing purposes. Eicher way, ie adds 250W from dual +12V nals at up to 21 amps. You can power one or swo cards from a paieof - pin PCI Express connections, Je uses 4 single fan bus runs cool and quiet. Two LEDs display the satus of the ourpurs For synchronizing withthe main PSU, the Power Express uses a 4p mothe board connector, In some cases—and this can happen with any supplemental PSU— some peculiar voodoo may prevent the secondaty nit fom powering on and off withthe main PSU. In case it's neces the Power Express has the simplest aler- native: a cocker switch on che front panel. The Povwer Express was introduced in 2006 and thus is among the oldest units mo tween Fallures. Spec Pe eee ay Uttra Products Power Partner {$89.99 | vrww.ultraproducs.com eoce here, so it may be underpowered forthe latest bleeding. our lowes cards, But it's easily priced unit, so if you merl rced to power a midle high too steep this che b 1 card oF wo, oF rd cards whose requirements aren't pick. ‘The Power Partner provides the most flexibility here. ts 325W come nor just feom +12V current at up to 26 amps, the highest amperage here; the unit has a +5V in integrated rail, as well (45V is for circuitry and other compo: Tealso sprouts three eypes of com ons: an 8-pin PCI Express and one pait cach of 6-pin PCI Express and 4-pin Molex. The Molex will et you power hard drives and optical de cabling isn't modiulas, however (and xything is combined wich a 24-pin motherboard adapter for syncing with the primary PSU), so anything that goes unused will sil lurk inside your ease ves tc, The Cooling relies on two exhaust fans, both of which are on the back ofthe unit Because they blow hot ar neo your case, you'll wane to be sue your rig runs rea sonably cool 1 begin with, dk (CPU RANKING © = ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ 4 2.5= ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | (© 0.00 §- ABSOLUTELY PERFECT (Uj Apts 25Brother HL-2170W ith the widespread use of wireless home networks, i's nor surprising to se printer manufacturers integrate wireless print servers in printers, but at $149.99, Brother's HL-2170W is the lowest-priced (as of press time) laser printer we've seen with 802. 1 1b/g con: rectivity. Additionally, this compact monochrome laser comes with 32MB of memory to let it quickly handle docu sents or Web pages with graphics. "The HL-2170W is ated at 23ppm and provides a print resolution up co 2,400 x 600dpi. In our tests, both 12- and 8 poin rexe appeared crisp, and the mono- chrome prints displayed graphics wih smooth grayscale gr s. We timed the first page ou (from ready) at 9.8 seconds witha text document and 10.5 seconds fora PowerPoint slide. Our 10-page test text document rook 32 secands ro pring, Buffalo LinkStation Pro. Duo, AS appliances offer you the storage advantages ofa home fle server without the need fora second PC, ideal if you wane an always-on device ro share and back up large collections of videos, ‘music, of photos, The Buffalo Link Station Pro Duo is ITB (wo 500GB, 7.200rpin SATA drives) NAS appliance that supports RAID 0 or 1 configura- tion, Ir features several other networking goodies, including abuil-in Web server with frce remote access from www.buf falonascom, an integrated FTP server, and support for UPS connectivity. ‘The black-clad LinkStation Pro Duo vvcighs in at 6.8 pounds, and a 3.9 inches wide i was easy o find a place for the INAS device near our router, Ie features a GigabicExhesnet por, and Buffalo includes secup software that configures the NAS to your nenwork, After running the configura- tion sofware, you open a Web-based GUI to configure the network features ofthe CPU RANKING ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ ¢_2.5-= ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | and the 10-page PowerPoint test took 36 seconds to print. Besides 802.1 b/g connectivity, you can also connect o the pincer via a USB cor Ethernet cable, but note thatthe wired and wireless neowork ports can't be open acthe same time. Therefore, if you choose the wireless option, computers without an 802.1 tbig nenwork adapter must connect to the printer with a USB cable or through a networked PC. For compatibility, she printer comes with PCL6 emulation ro support a range offonts and symbols. Additionally, Broch- cr includes a printer driver that'-com= patible with Windows (Window 2000 LinkStation Pro Duo. “To set up remote Web acces we only had ro click the Web Access burcony select Service Setup, and choose Enable; che LinkStation Pro Duo then config tured the firewall on our UPaP router and regis: tered itself on the Bulflo Web ste. For remote streaming, the Buffalo Web service has an integrated Flash player to let you stream auc files from the INAS to PCs and mobile phones. ‘The NAS comes with an Auro/Man- tual power switch; when set in Auo ‘mode, the LinkStation Pro Duo senses [Buffalo's NAS Navigator software (in- stalled withthe setup software) co let the unit turn on and off based on che power conditions of che computers in Brother HL-2170W s14a99 Brother vwivu.brother-usa.com coe or later), Mac OS (10.2.4 oF greater, and Linux (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, or Debian). The front-loading, 250. sheet paper tray handles both lecer- and legal-sized paper, and you can feed spe- cialty media, such as envelopes and let terhead, inco che manual bypass slor locaged above the main paper tay. Alltold; we're impressed with the ‘number of features Brother packed into the HL-2170W. Whether you need the ficedom to locate your printer in a conve nent location or just solid text and fase print speeds, the HL-2170W gives you ood results for an affordable price. A. bby Nathan Lake LinkStation Pro Duo S449 Buffalo vv butalotech.com eon your neework, The original LinkStation ro Duo sent ro us couldn't se the Auto power function (Buffalo thought the unit ‘may have been damaged in shipping), 30 Buffalo sent us a second model that re- sponded tothe power status of our PC. ‘Overall, we like the features found in the LinkStation Pro Duo, and its $449 price tg is affordable fora terabyte of networked storage. A. ‘by Nathan Lake SSOLUTELY PERFECT 26 set 08 fw comptcpaneecFROM THE CORSAIR LAB FOR EXTREME POWER REQUIREMENTS, WE HAVE THE GEAR Crea te eC ee ee ea Ceci pea esta So cute son Pee ee eee etter ee ay ‘check out our HX, VX, and TX Series Power Supplies. Corsair. Performance. Reiabilty. Innovation. amazoncomAVA\ VADirect is serious abous gam The Twinsburg, Obio,-based PC build ng corporate and government buyers But its Core 2 Duo SLI Gaming System proves thae AVADirect has a passion for building high-end gaming rigs AVADirect rustled up a brand-new (and, atthe time of this writing, une eme QXI77O clock sp leased) Intel Core 2 Exe np toa speedy 4GH:—with air and then, 3.26 cooling, mind you. A Thermalright Ulera 120 eXtreme heatsinke and 120mm Zal- man ZM-F3GL wick aw the PC's 11 other ZM-F3GLs (that's ight, there are 12 120mm fans in this box) help th air with a vengeance, Tike the Thermaltake SwordM ease, mall, font-panel LCD. {shanks ro AVADirect) that displays media player info and system sats. (You can configure it via the included soft ware) The case's side panel door and open via hydraulics, adding ged prised 10 sce hide th ong the edges of th l's multiple fins, A $300, single-color paint job should be fawles. AVADirect tells me cha it hired a local body shop side pan. to apply this paine job, instead of he custom paint specialist ie normally works wich The Gaming System's QX9770 isn't the only heavy-duty component 1¢ computer has four 150GB Wese cen Digital Raptors, 4GB of Corsair XMS2 Dominator DDR2-1250 mem: and three Evga GeForce 8800 Ultea Superclocked video cards in a 3-Way SLI configuration Tanks to its top-shelf gear, the Gam: System tore up our bench: marks, posting the highest frame rates CPU RANKING G O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ © Direct Core 2 SLI Gaming System has a range of customers, inclad- sd from the heat, and Gaming Syscem exhaust hot oof glitz v0 1 job didn't completely black underneath i in spots, par Duo and fastest scores I've sen. That over: clocked processor helped the PC power through the multithreaded Cinebench 10 benchmark in only 58 seconds, but the computer's eal claim to fame is its gaming capabilities, The system offered 5 fps in World in Conf Company of Heros. Ir also produced tps ia Crysis, topping previous rigs. Importantly, game played them. S.T.ALKER ran flawlessly and looked the best that I've sen it. and 65fps in eat when I looked ge Cleatly, the Core 2 Duo SLI Gamting ct of a gaming PC. It bas top-shelfcomponents, «spits cas, and customizations the average PC re user woulda’tattempe on his oven. The ‘computer's presentation and paintjab fall a litle short of ies luxury price rag, bue the system's performance and AVADirect's pore (which offered prompe and knowledgeable ser ‘or shipping damage) shoulda’t be overlooked, AVADie right by its customers by providing a shece-year parts and labor also offs lifetime phone tc support, A. tech 3 Cees raven aived with does Pern roarersny warranty. It by Joshua Gulick Cran Cree orate 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | @ @ @ @ @ 5=ABSOLUTELY PERFECTGigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 e ecinirbertareniie recent high-end motherboard offer- ings In recent reviews, we were impressed hy its nForce 680i SLI, P35-, and X38- bused motherboards, Gigabytes latest high-end mother- board to hie the CPU test bench, the X48-based GA-X48-DQ6, cakes things a step further than previous offerings by incorporating the company's new DES (Dynamic Energy Saver) echnology DES isa combination of hardvvare and software tha lets the GA-X48-DQG (and few other recent Gigabyte mother- hoards} dynamically chrotde che processor voltage and clock speed and the number ‘of active phases in the motherboards power array (most motherboards can’t dlisabe individual phases in their power circuitry and cun fully engaged a all times) to reduce power consumption and Kingston KHX14400D8K2/2G | site ysint toon ie acre ve printed a DDR3 memory roundup with kts from Corsair, OCZ, Super Talent, and Kingston. (See page 70.) At the time, we asked the participant for theit fastest kits available and ended up with products ranging from 1,375MHz up co a blistering 1,800MHz, Since then, DDR3 memory has continued to ramp up in speed, and the companies that offered the lower-frequency kis in that roundup have expanded cheirline- ups to include 1,800MHz modules. Kingston's KHX14400D3K2/2G kit couldn't be mote differene than the 1,375MHz kits we looked atin our January roundup. The most obvious dif ference is the KHX14400D3K2/2G kit's rated frequency of 1,800MHz, with dlfaule timings of §-8-8-24 ac .9V. Bur the KHX14400D3K2/2G is different from Kingston's air kits. I's equipped heat. When the processor load is low, the GA-X48- DQG reduces the volt- ages, clock speeds, and number of active power phases (and vic versa for aaheavy workload). The Windows-based DES application is included with the motherboard, and its interface shows a visual representation ofthe above-men- tioned data and eacks the amount of power saved over time, “The GA-X48-DQ6*s other features include support for DDR2 memory up to 1,200MHz, JMicron and Intel RAID con- rrollers, and CrossFire suppor, among many others. The board's layout is quite» ‘good, considering its extensive featuts As we've come to expect from Gigabyte, the GA-X48-DQ6's BIOS was brimming ‘with oprions for tweaking performance, withthe companys atest heat spread cer design (Kingston aso ditched the Elpida chips frm ics ealie kis in favor of Micron's) and has plenty of ‘overclocking headroom. Whereas the 1,375MHz KHX11000D3LLK2 and LULK2 kits weren’ capable of hitting the 1L5GHez mark, the KHX14400D3K2/2G soared to 1,940MHe.with a light bump in voltage ro 2V. ‘With an Asus P5E3 Deluxe mother board and a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo £6750 processor, che KHX14400D3K2/2G kit offered just over SGBps of bandwidth according co SiSofe SANDRA XII, when running at its rated Frequency. Once we ‘overclocked the kit ro 1.94GHz, however, the kit's peak bandwidth shor up to 9.2GBps. We also experimented with dif ferent CAS latencies and found that the Kingston kit was capable of hitting slight- ly tightee 7-7-7-24 timings, lke Ce and overclocking was a strong point. With a Core 2 Extreme QX9650, we were able to hit an impres- sive 535MHz FSB without D alrring the chipset voltage. Stock performance with a 333MHz FSB was song, too. At stock speeds, the board tore through our LAME MT and Sony Vegas benchmarks in 30 and 184 seconds, respectively. And it cored 11,805 in the Cinebench multithreaded rest. With ies extensive features, solid perfor mance, and srong overclocking, the GA- X48-DQ6 is worthy of consideration. Add these pluses tothe board's support for ‘much more affondable DDR2 memory and Gigabye's got another winner. ‘by Marco Chiappe Ga-x49-006 239 Gigabyte won gigabyte-usa.com flagship kie, when we cranked its voltage WV. With a strcet price of just under $500 and performance that's on par with ‘competing offerings, the Kingston. KHX14400D3K2/2G looks quite ateac- tive e's sll expensive relative to high speed DDR? memory, bur compared t0 other 1,800MHz DDR3 kris, the KHX14400D3K2/2G isa bargain. A. kixtaaoon3Key26 $525 Kingston wonw-kingston.com (apo 29NVS PC Carbon 82,236.98 (as tested) vs PC ‘wen avouspe.com Lttisstom lsd HVS BCih» | le hrs IGE Tote ose few system builder that wants to | Memory card. pura colorful ewist on your next note- ‘The same features book-—or your existing one. NVS PC's | thar make the Car- claim to fame is its ability to paine just | bon an enticing abour anything onto notebooks. Ircan | choice for business paint any notebook panel (Keypad aside) | travelers help it and has an array of options thar range | meet the needs of from subrle o jaw-dropping. I ordered | on-the-go college students. offers gorgeous paint the Carbon, the builder's top-shelf model, | That said, none of NVS PC's notebooks jabs and because the proces for ordering to sce whether NVS PC's notebooks de- | wil oor sudents who wan high fame | the pane job itso smooth, NVS can paint serve their paint jobs. sates on today’s games at high sexcngs. Jmages and designs that che customer sup- NVS PC targets the Carbon at business | The Carbon in't a graphics chump, bur | plies but has plenty ofits own designs that travelers and college seudents, and Ithink | ies sill imited to integrated graphics customers can choose from, including the builder succesfully addreses che needs | (Incl's GMA X3100) works by hip artists. Oscar Zapata, the of both eypes of customers, particularly No surprisingly president and co-founder busines users. Aronly 1x 128,75 inches | the Carbon did't SE EREE ERED of SVS DC, rls me thae (HeWsD) and 4.5 pounds, the Carbon is | knock over my gam: INVS uses proprietary a lighe, ravel-fiendly notebook. The note- | ing benchmarks pine thac resists crack book’ touchpad is responsive (rial for | posting oly 750 Ae rr ing, even when the pls- situations in which you don’ have room | max seings wih che AOA OOMESME ic panclsbond to use your tusty travel mouse), anda exception of ANAR) [IURISSTCSS e ‘The NVS PC online fingenprint scanner sits between the two FEAR. and 13%ps [OUIiaeoiac) Virewal Paintshop is fan ‘mouse buttons. Toss in integrated 802.11 | ar medium sewing in to use. You can choose deafe-n and Bluctooth capabilies,and | S.LALK-ER., but from several colors and you'r looking ca busines nocehook with | icplays:he gamesit ie dozens of peedesigned some personaly |/ you're willing co cor ERAN ‘mages or upload your own, The colors and The 12.inch dplay is bright and _() yay Back on pei sharp, and the keyboard has full-sized keys. | effects. The proces- citarkos predesigned images The keyboard doesn't have a diserete sor contributed eo = appear on notebook ssumber pad, but iedoes havea row of | the norebook’s over- aa illustrations inthe con- ‘number keys that sit above the QWERTY, | all PCMark0S score (AM figurator as soon as you layout. (Ie also has a fall set of FI-F12 (che processor alone (RGM select dace Once jou keys) 1 wasa litle surprised to sce that | scored 5611). co place the order, NVS VS didn't follow ts own Web se’see- | So, NVS PC puss PC's designers contact, ommendations when irbuilt my review | ouradecent note- ‘Aaa you and discuss the pro- unit. Whereas the Carbon's online config- | book, bur it’s noe a ject to make sure you get uration page recommends a 2.4GHz pro- | breaking any innova- the notebook you want- cesor, AGB of memory, and a160GB_ | ion records in the A cd. With chat sor of hard drive, my review unit has a2.2GHz | hardware department. attention to deuil, NVS. Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, 2GB of DDR2- | The builder really PC looks like a safe bee 6667 memory, and a 120GB Toshiba shines in che painting for users who want 10 MK1237GSX hard drive. The notebook | arena, both because it give thei notebooks personal touch, A. ois by Joshua Gulick eas GN; 1GB Intel Tur y J CPU RANKING c O= ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ «2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | 30 ot 208 / wo computrpaneechardwa SanDisk Sansa TakeTV PC To TV Video Player hhe TakeTV isn't without a few omis- sions that would have seemed no- brainers to include. Sul, if you're lacking the means to stream video from your Linux, Windows XP/Vista, or Mac com: puter toa TV, che TakeTV is about as ‘asy a method as imaginable—if the video isin MPEG-4, Xvid, or DivX format. sentially, the TakeTV (abour 4.5 x 15 inches [Hx W]) is a USB 2.0-compli- ant thumb drive that plugs into your ‘computer. Drag and drop unprotected video co the TakeTV, unplug it, and chen stick iv in the cradle SanDisk provides that connects to a TV via inchided video (S-Video or composite) and analog audio cables. A remote houses the TakeTV ‘when notin us. Playback sofware offers 4 menu ro scroll chrough your files, Select a file, press Play, and you'r viewing video Vuzix Wear AV920 Aimbot me his tp tothe hyp, they ely do. Such ihe cane with he Wee AVD20 a vine reminaent of Geodain “Stat Tek ‘The Newt Generation” Vai says he AV920iscqualen vo watching 362-_| inc screen fom 9 et say providing “de py of jour ome reagan thee "By Buin our eal noc ing bu the AV920' dpa, dos hae 1 bigacen od, Untoranrcly gar fling worth neal $330 Vath efor ae commendable, though The AV920 fe 2D and 3D fume i wet wich Svs wih sept Ws fuk cag pe ae tle is ines Lon bay provide Goa teko sere else ae asepabe 60 pS we Miedema! yo eg going (AW cable, min-USB charges AAC alaper, etc). The design isn't bad ihe Theor weighs just 29 ounces, in 43 or 169 aspect ratios at upto 7203576. moved Biles from home PC to my bedroom TV in under fre mine Video qa prsingly god, albeit a bie fizy, ws though nor disci. ‘Adio vases saisfing bur sevicable consieing he Take TV's intended pu pose. Twn able dnply JPEGs or ther phous format from the drive odd tonsering SanDisk's acumen fr storage kis. couldransr dat ls, hough iF you're hurting for coment, SanDisk elfen TV and movie downloads vis fanfare beta service (fanfarecom) a $1.99 and integrates ible removable earbuds ‘TheAccuTile view: expivors 15, degrees, and an ‘optional immersive cyeshield ($14.95) blocks ‘out meaty all ambient lghs. ‘Negatively, the embedded twin LCDs the AV920 uses to reproduce images never left me feling I was viewing just one 62-inch screen. Additionally, maintaining a good viewing angle was a chore. Vusix says the AV920 fearues its “est mobile experience yer,” but Iean’t imagine using the visor for anything but stationary applications. Additionally, video during "300,” "The Departed,” and “The Lase Waltz” was noticeably soft and colors borderline accurate. The AV920's handling of *Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over ‘was surprisingly immersive, however, a, various objects displayed realistic depth 4 pop, though all offr- ings were “fre for limit eo time" at press time. You do necd SanDisk's fanfare software (3.9MB), and only Visa and WinXP are supported. Further, content downloads directly to the TakeTV and isn't viewable on the computer. Variety was limited at press time to select shows and movies from CBS, Showtime, TV Guide, Jaman, and the Smithsonian Channel. NBC pro- ‘gramming is listed as coming soon. AA by Blaine Flamig TakeTV PC To TV Video Player {149,99 (8B); $99.99 (468) SanDisk ‘wonu.sandisk.com and convincing “The integrated headphones, output generally strong and clear audio, but I did notice a distracting, steady buzz while using standalone headphones that seemed stem from the power adapter Interestingly, Vuzix’s newer AV920-C lees gamers dasy-chain multiple AV920s, Thus, if you're playing Halo 3, for exam: ple, each player views his own 62-inch virtual screen eather than view one sercen divided into sections. by Blaine Flamig Wear Avg20 sa49.95 Vurix (CPU RANKING © 0 \BSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | ©” IBSOLUTELY PERFECT Apt 31Maingear Eohex 3-Way SLI Gaming System JN titty St log wi oe motherboards and graphics cards that enable it, ust screams “killer gam- ing rig” to boutique builders and major OEMS, And, of course, boutique PC builders such as Maingear are quick to jump on the bandwagon when products like this, which are rargeted ro the per- formance enthusiast, hie che market. Withoue question, three high-end graph- ies cards chained together ina system like the Maingear Epher isthe eype of sctup that caters to a select niche within niche Maingear’s Ephex line of desktops is ies high-end flagship product. The Maingear TEphex we tested was built within a black Silverstone T}10 case—to say it’s an ab solute rank would be an understatement. A 1,200-wate Silverstone DA1200 PSU tests a the bottom ofthe chassis to power this heas ofa rig. The DA1200 handled 32 spt 0s conpteronee cn CPU RANKING GO ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ the draw of che system's thre Evga Ge- Force 8880 Ura cards with ease but also pur outa tad mote noise than we would have liked ‘Ar the heart of our test specimen was an Evga nForce 680i-based 122-CK- NGS with an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 overclocked ro 3.8GHz and warrantied (for three years) by dhe factory a this speed. (Maingear updated its offer. ing to an overclocked, liquid-cooled QX9650 and 780i motherboard as we went 1 press.) The "special sauce” Main. gear used to get Intels quad-core CPUs to this impressive speed is none other than Asetek’s LCLC (Low Cost Liquid Cooling) system. This seffcontained liquid cooler isa gem of setup that boles to one of the TJ10’s 120mm fan iaror exhaust ou the pores, letting is top ofthe system, Overall, the LCLC worked well and kepe che horer-running 65nm Kencsfield eunning no hor ter chan 52 degrees lunder 100% load. And we never experienced sa much as a ewitch in stability during extensive rest ing. Now imagine the same sys. tem configuration but with Maingea’s QX9650 upgrade and clocked at 4GH:—too sweet. We also applaud Maingear's cable management system and choice of subsystem components Maingear chose 2GB of Corsar's fabulous Dominator series XMS2. 8500 DDR2-1066 system memo- ry forthe build, as well as a pair of Western Digital’ killers, 150GB Raptors in RAID 0, A 750GEB Seagate Barracuda joins Ephex $6,676 (as tested") Maingear worw.maingear com ecco ea the ride to provide mass storage. Inside the Ephex’s case, che layout and cable organization is immaculate, with zip-ties and routing, ‘You might have a cough time justifying 3.Way SLI like the Maingear Ephex, but you'd also sspense ofa system have a hard time finding another precon- figured system char puts up the sme out- standing numbers. by Dave Alavi ereiaT ene) Pe reed co i a BO | Cees ee a me ree ites ono re Comore eee inctudes ltl X9650 and Nie 701 motherboard st 0x50 ‘valle as an option. 680-based motherboard 0 fo 7.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | @ @ @ @© @ 5 =ABSOLUTELY PERFECTIntel Core 2 his years shaping up to be the year of eights, Just last month, CPU re- viewed AMD's flagship Phenom 9900 running on its quad-CPU and quad-GPU Spider placform. (See page 32.) Intel's Skulleral represents the ficm's latest exer cise in eights and makes AMD's Spider platform look like an octogenarian ‘comparison, But while AMD's platform is meant for those of mainstream means, ed forthe elite s). AL though Intel hadn's finalized prices as Ine!’ Sulla was des PC enthusiast (latvely wwe went to press, the CPU, mobo, and ‘memory combo will likely cost upward of thee grand. This double quad-core CPU and moth cerboard platform replaces lat year's VS and avails itself of two Intel Core 2 Ex- ne QX9775 pracesors clamped into c's DS400XS motherboard. Each (QX9775 features a 3.2GHz clock speed, a 1,600MHz FSB, 12MB L2 cache, and a TDP of 150W. The DS400XS mother- board is buile around Intel's 5400 chips pair of LGA 771 sockets, and feature which are traditionally reserved for Xeon (QX9775 that Intel pur inco che Skullril accually hears a striking processors. Th resemblance to the LGA 775-hased Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which has the same clock speed, FSB, and L2 cache. Fr this revision of is 8-core platform, Incl decided to strike many of the origi nal V8's workstation. such asthe integrated SAS concroller and the pair of PCLX slots, in favor of more centhusiascfriendly goodies, such a 8- channel audio, eSATA ports, an S/PDIE port, FireWire, and up to 10 USB ports The D5400xS four DDR2 FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) bandwidch, bur each slr ges its own memory channel. Intl really rempes gamers and graphics professionals by including four x16 PEG slots. Better yet, Skulltrail is capable of both SLI (chanks co a pair of Nvidia nForce 100 MCPs) and CrossFte (thanks to a lack of proprietary core logic found in ATY's archieecture). Intel also set our to please ‘overclockers by including BIOS-based, frequency and voltage switches forthe CPU and memory My Skalleral kit included se Zalman ‘CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU coolers and a pair of 2GB S00MHZ FB-DIMMs. The rest of my test system consisted of 2 150GB Raptor hard driveyan ATI Radeon HD 3870 (Catalyst driver ver sion 8.1), and an 850-wate PSU from Cooler Mastet, I ran our benchmarke suige under the 64-bit version of Win- dows Vista Ulkimae. Despite architectural improvements, Skulltrail dida's fare any beter than V8 in a number of benchmarks, including 3DMark06's CPU tests, Dr. DivX, and Ginchench, SiSofe Sandra, howev revealed impressive gains in all categories, Skullail’s Dhrystone ALU and W) stone iSSE3 scores and 14% bee ter than V8's scores. Floating Point x8 ISSE2 saw a tml also took a commanding lead in icant 49% gain. Skull Sandra's memory bandwideh tests, sco 28% berter than the VB in the Intege BulferediSSE2 test and 36% better in the Point Buffered iSSE2 test Intel pumped Skull full of every Floating thing a PC enthusiast dreams about. For most of us, che price tag isa rade awaken ing, but for chose with far wallets, this is ‘one gaming and content-creation plat- form that won't hold you hardware Extreme QX9775 & D5400XS 5¢00xs Retail price unavailable at press time Dual Intel Core 2 Extreme 0X9775 $1,499 Inte Jinte.com coco CPU RANKING © 0 PL) ag amns 33Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680 cou won't want ro lug the 10-pound Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680 co Starbucks, bur you'll want to kick back in your living room and enjoy movies and ‘TV with its high-definition features and music with its excellent audio quality The glossy black pearl exterios makes it easy on the eyes, especially if you like a lapeop with a litle meat on its bones, The Qosmio has solid hardware packed int its hefty frame, including an Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 CPU, 320GB with dual 160GB HDDs, and an Ineel Wire- less WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.1 Lap). An integrated 2MP Web cam, Bluctooth capabilities, and a fingerprint reader are also included. The Qosmio was designed to entertain, with its HD DVD SuperMulei drive SB HDTV tuner, and four builein harmon/kardon stereo speakers (vith built-in subwoofer and I-bie digital amplifier). watched the HD DVD “Bat- ‘man Begins” on the Qosmio, and the aforementioned features, combined wich the 17-inch widescreen, 1080p LCD dis play (native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200), were able o really present the moy external Pee eat Rosewill RX81-MP-SC he RXSI-MP-SC isa hot-swappable external hard drive enclosure made of heat-dissipating aluminum, Designed to reside in an office rather than a lap= top case, the RX81-MP-SC is somewhat bully (13.5 x 22.5 x 3.5em [HxWsD]) and requires a separate power adapter. This probably isnt an enclosure you'll be toting around, The device supports hard drives up to 1TB, although you'll have to purchase a hard drive separately Installing a drive (an 0GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, in my case) in the RX1-MP-SC was somewhat CPU RANKING GO ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ Ik should be noted that while those HD DVDs look great on the Qosmio, i will likely future. The Qosmio also has S-Video and HDMI outpus. "The Qosmio incorporated the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card, with 512MB of dedicated memory, which isn't bad fora laprop, but the Qosmio didn’e do particularly wel on gaming benchmarks. This won't be pleasing co the high-intensity gamer, but the Qosmio can sill be appealing to a more casual gamer, especially with the other features it * | become a dead format in the n Pattee anh) by Tessa Warner Breneman osmio G45-avE80 $2,999.99 Toshiba nvutoshibadirect.com eee Ces Peed Peer ro eee Parteety install; the plug-and-play feature worked smoothly “The Seagate drive I used was NTFS, but the enclo- sure also supports Mac OS 86 and above, as wells sime-consuming. I had to remove two screws to get the outside case a four to get in to the enclo- sure, and then T ad to Linux 24.1.0 and above, 50 yout can format a dive ro use the RXBILMP-SC with just about any sytem. The use another four ea secure the hard drive ro the case when Tinsealled it, How- RXBY-MP-SC ‘arery of ports adds othe ver, the hard driveitsel? $149.99 RXB1-MP-SC's formar. popped right in withou ——-Rosewill friendliness, You can con- rect the enclosure toa computer or neswork hub via five differen interfaces (from USB 1.1 ro SATA), 50 the device will work with computers young and old. A. any fuss. Once I pur the wew-rosewillcom whole thing back rogeth- @@. the unit worked im= mediately. There was no sofewate to ‘by Seth Colanee 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | @ @ @ @ @ 5 =ABSOLUTELY PERFECT 34 spt 08 conpteronee cn16) net : Ree aca cores 3 in 1 power supply Sentient tree Saad Redd eee Scud ‘ard owor demas Peters Peete) oned Sa www.epowertec.com Bg se eeeCanon PowerShot S65 IS Ceaser _ Frome alermative roa D-SLR. This SMP | aperture can open camera features a powerful 12X optical | as wide as 12.7, zoom lens and 2 2.5-inch swiveling LCD, | (wide angle) and and che camera's comfortable grip makes | 3.5 (telephoto). i more comfortable to use than similar | Canon offers fur- cameras, such as Canon's PowerShor G9. | ther help in low ‘Canon improves this camera's IX opti- | light conditions cal z00m by incorporating es 1S (Image | with light sensitivi- Stabilizer) technology, which detects small | ey secings as high as ‘movements ofthe camera and then moves | ISO 1600; however, images suffer from the lens incerir optical components in| noise above ISO 200. the opposite direction of the movement. “The $5 IS can take impresive close-ups “This cancels out much ofthe effect ofthe | with a Macto mode that focuses as close as | camera shake, resulting in crisper images, | 3.9 inches and a Super Macro mode, which, “| even when you can’t hold the camera per- | according to Canon, has a minimum range fectly sl, of inches. In ‘esting, only needed. ern eran ret Apricorn Aegis Vault (120GB) pricom’s Aegis Vaule provides away | VaulkConsole to transport your files without rsk- | on a sepa ing that chey fll into the wrong hands. | rate dic or “This portable drive features 128-bie AES | ingle on encryption and password protection, the public The Aegis Vault comes with sofware | portion ofthe formanagng the dive and gansng ser) Aegis aul dive permissions. The fist progsam is Vaul= "There were a Tray, which lets you erate one administra) couple of small quirks tor account and up to three user accounts, | during installation and setup. Fes, the cach with a unique password. VauleTray | drive didn’t power up on che frst system alko les you access your encrypted driveby | on which I rested the Acgs Vault. How ‘ying your password. The second pro ever, the drive did work once I used the gram is VaullResize,a usility that lets you. | bundled USB Y-cable, which Apricorn reallocate the drive's encrypted partition. | says is rarely necessary to use the drive With this utility, i's possible to createhoth | The second problem was that I could publicly accesible and private, nerypred | only launch VaultResze iI frst closed partitions. Finally, Apricorn includes the | VauleTray: otherwise, I received an error third program, VaulrConsole, which lets | message and the program wouldn't star you access your encrypted files when you Te was simple to setup the administrx- are using a computer that doesn have torand user accounts through VauliTsay, VauliTray insalled. You can either cary | and VauleResize was equally intuitive for ce CPU RANKING ‘ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @ @ «2.5. ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | PowerShot $5 1S $399.99 ‘canon ee enough distance to allow a sliver of light ro expose theimage. When I also used manual fous, I rook close-ups that revealed the tex- sure of lower petal andthe grain of paper. ‘The $5 1S fills an importane niche, offering more power than most compact tameras. The only thing ie really lacks is support for RAW mode. However, the user who wants a wide 200m range and advanced manual settings should appreci: ae the S5 IS’ flexbilcy, by Kylee Dickey ‘Aegis Vault (12068) 199 Apricom woe apricom.com eon S creating an encrypted partition. Once you create the encrypted partition, you can tuse Windows Disk Management co for- ‘mat the public partition, "The Acgis Vault is available in 80/120) 160/250GB capacities and is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista. The Vault's size and security features make it an excellent option for transporting files berween systems. by Kylee Dickey SSOLUTELY PERFECT 36 set 208 / wo computrpaneecAT&T Tilt also liked that this phone has integrated GPS, he Tile may not have the same cool- | HSDPA, Blucrooth 2.0 ress factor thatthe Apple iPhone has, | vith A2DP profile) but ic docs offer some added fearures that | and 801.11 big. The Tilt make ita worthy phone, especially for ‘comes wit a link to download a users looking to upgrade from the AT&T | 30-day wil of TeleNav. Aer the rial 8525. As its name suggests, the Til’s the service coms $9.99 per month. Ifan sercen tilts up to 40 degeees to a note- | additional monthly fe doesn’t appeal to hook-like viewing angle. This feature is | you, try Windows Live Search or Google handy, especially if you want to watch a | Maps with the Tis GPS recsver. video of read email while the phone is According to ATST, the Til’ barery resting on a desk. The rouchscreen itself | life is up to four hours of talk time and up had good color and brightness and re to eight days of standby time; your mile- sponded quickly ro raps with my fing age may vary. The device comes with nail and the phone's stylus, 256MB flash ROM and 128MB SRAM. PC MicroWorks Black-Hawk XR5 sx bla i ond Perens dskop ans ebook DC cw Works lc Hawk XS soy cele porble machines @ This base can houses quad-core ne | Care2 Quad QE700 a up tor Nv Geos Go 8900 CTX cans inSL GB of DDR2 S00 and hee Shp: SATA des ina RAID. Ad Tonal pins forthe XS nce EVDO or HSDPA connectivity, GPS, Black-Hawk XRS and a biometric fingerprint scanner: ‘$5,382 (as tested) ‘Another add-on, the PC MicroWorks >| PC MicroWorks three-year Diamond Blanket Protection | Www-pemicroworks.com Program, gives you access to whélesale | @@@@ coger accel ally Eulivand more See DC Mice Wor’ |The XR 17nch WUXGA wide sertang pope fer more deal screen dpa sp and le This Mpstem had single 8800 GTX, | ply spo fall HD reslaon a broke 10000 3DMark06 | 180% 1200 or Bly moi ploy {0070 beech; PC MicwWers | back ond 3D appa: For addon topes dnnlcad ode wcmcoer. | al Bs nd comp wih Tio Asyoumightcrpec he XRS | appa; mys unt shipped wich ints bay while Solediog | dons XP and Vita Ue. B02 Tanase Wye os Tit $549.99 (before contract discounts) ATaT weaireless att.com coco Ofcourse, Windows Mobile 6 and the Tile’s other programs consume some of the Rash memory The pictures I rook wid SMP camera were OK, buta steady hand is required 0 ger a respectable shor, Te is hard to beat the Tile in terms of Features. A few drawbacks aside (soft ke) accesbilty and so-so camera), this phone is worth considering ifyou'te looking for 4 smarsphone that can handle both work and play. A. (CPU RANKING © O=ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | @@4 2.5=ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | © @ © @ @ 5 = ABSOLUTELY PERFECT (Uap 37pple realy ried she bar for excellence with the iPhone announce- ‘ment rwo Macworlds ago. What Apple promised atthe time seemed impossible, oa least unlikely, but weall wanted i, We wanted the revolutionary interface, the sleek sylng, and we wanted what Apple claimed it had designed. Months later, when it rived, the world was blown away shat Apple was able to deliver what it had promised How could Apple possibly top the iPhone announcement? I’ like getting someone an amazingly thought: ful gift for his birthday; sure, the instan- tancous reaction is incredible, but you've just raised che bar to an often impossible level for next year. Expectations were high, and when rumors started ro sut= face about an ultsportable MacBook Air being released at che show, imagina- tions ran wild Prior to the Phone, Apple had never smade a smarephone. The company looked atthe marker, sav what was ‘wrong, and made the iPhone beter Apple isn a company that creates new things, i's company that looks at exist- ing devices and ties to make them bet- ter If che Dells and Microsofts ofthe ‘world gore perfect the first time around Apple would have no room ro compete [Apple crives on knowing tha che major players in any industry arent perfec. ‘When it was clear that Apple was going afzer the ultraportable market, she hope was thar Apple would do the same thing it had done for smarphons. I wanted [Apple to crete an ultraportable thar would change the way we view notebooks; I wamt= cd the best, mose practical, most useful ultraportable ro ever ie the market. For several yeas in my computing lif, 1 ‘was in search of the perfec ultraportable. As soon as something smaller, thinner, o lighter came out, I bought ic and tried wo use it, and ‘very single rime, I evencualy grew too fur E trated with ch thing and went hack ro a more practical notebook. The keyboards were always to cramped, the screen 100 small, the per- formance too low; ulraporables were great © cary around, but that vas litle comfore when the time came to unfold and actually use them. If anyone could succeed where everyone se filed, [figured i would be Apple. 38 ye 8" wong Book Air: Revolutionary From the get-go, is clear that che MacBook Air ine the perfect ulersporeable. Expansion is very limiteds chere’s no optical drive (you can buy one for $99), no integrated Ethernet (you can buy a USB dongle for $29), and most importantly, there's no clean way of getting 3G cellular nenwork access on che notebook Given that Wi-Fi doesnt exist everywhere, 3G support isa necessity. Your only option for 3G on che MacBook Air is through a USB modem, which you'll ‘probably need to connect to USB extension cable, thanks to the low-pro- file USB connector on the Ai. (Thar's ‘two more things you need to carry around with you.) “The Airs foosprine is also nor that small, although the unit is incredibly thin, The foorprin fant much different from the regular MacBook, as it uses the same screen and keyboard, the latcer being one of the most importan fs tures ofthe Air. The full-sized keyboard is unbelievably pleasane to type on; in facr, it’s the most useful I've ever used fon an ultraportable, The performance of the A is also quite good, duc entirely to Apple’ choice to use a 1.6GHz (optional 1.8GHz) Core 2 Duo CPU. The disk performance leaves something ro be desired, bur SSD cost and perform- ance will improve over the coming months, making an upgrade much easier than today. The build quality of the Airis also the bes Tye ever en in an ultraportable; it’ light, but it doesnt el lke is going to break. Many scofled atthe Ais 3-pound weight because many oftheir competron’ product are loser +0 2 pounds now, bur Apple’ tradeoff of ‘weight fr rigidly was the right one—Apple got the feel perfec with the Ai. “The MacBook: Air is the revolutionary device I was hoping for and expecting from Apple. At the same time, its a pretty good ultsportable, and the only one that runs (OS X. The decision ro buy ie ot not should be much simpler than most ofthe online discussion has made it out co be. Talk back wo Anand at and@epumagcom[ied Mie gece es easel = =|) Seasonic is the first manufacturer who qualifies Poot renee ete ie or) the world. All Seasonic models meet the Coen ee of loading circumstance, reduce eneray waste cfficiontiy, and improve daily electric bill saving, See) ees penn stery ot ce on) roa CN] icy ca cr) Eng Note : n order fo generate SUOW of energy, Seasonic PSU only need Se ee eae ene et perenne i re Someone tor) 430 | SOOW WWW.SEASONICUSA.COM TETASTine Sineink Weinlk Nvidia's Hybrid NA ia ces orca ihe shies wml gut ptt of che year, so when any of the big-name technology companies such as Intel, AMD, or Nvidia have something to talk about, wee all ears Infact, just prior to CES, Nvidia announced its new Hybrid SLI technology. Usually those two aforementioned words don't gel very well for someone like myself To me, hybrid equates co Prius (or “compromise’), and SLI means no compromise and extreme gaming performance. Nvid- jab announcement isne actually che fire time I've heard terms coined such as these. At the end of 2007, AMD announced ies Hybrid Cross- Fire technology co show the perform- ance benefits of combining on-board IGP (incegrated graphics product) ‘graphics with discrete graphics cards. Hence, the idea isn't completely new, but Nvidia wasa'e going to sit idle, ‘Nvidia's Hybrid SL will allow the ‘end user to stack up an IGP along with a discrete GPU for two new modes dubbed "GeForce Boost” and Hybrid Power.” The GeForce Boost mode shares the 3D rendering work. load between GPU and IGP for improved performance. In order to actualy use this mode, you'll need ‘one of Nvidia’ new 700a-series of motherboards sporting its new mGPU (otherwise known as an IGP) and a budg- et-minded GeForce 8500 G GPUs is markedly similar ro that of che 7002's IGP, hence no hardware modi tions are necessary for GeForce Boost, It will be accessible via the drive. SLI will lise the same alternate frame rendering that we're used ro on the high end, The IGP is used as che primary display and uses block transfers co transfer the discrete GPU's rendered image to the IGP’s frame buffer. As youll expect with Nvidia's strong software forte, the driver will have built-in Al for balancing ca prevent either of the owo graphics parts from siting ile ‘There are no plans for this at the high end because pairing any IGP with an expensive 0 8 wr or 8400 GS. eee ‘The architecture in those two discrete Sey frat) Power discrete pare could be mor ike case of “deceleration, "where the faster GPU is always waiting forthe IGP to cender its share of frames Hybrid Power mode is another benef ofthis echnoogy in which combining a discrete GPU with an IGP acl allows you co ave poner. When the monitors connected othe IGE, the tore power-hungry dcragGED) can be completly shut down Fae od required, As with mor forms A ofover saving, you gees het, es noise and in the mobile space, m- proved batry ite, The operation of Mb enabling and/or shuting down i achieved via the SMBUS connection ‘which spare and parcel ofthe PCL Expeca peciiation. Having both Nvidia and AMD pen che doors mizing and mac ing GPUs with IGPs is ony going 10 help game developers onthe PC plr- fonm, wh forthe most part have pub- lishersharstingng chem to design chek game oo fone “cing” hay ware in other word, she lowest com- mon denominator. By and age es aways been this way in the games, industry, Not everyone can afford eo Shall out fora pat of shiny new graph- ics and. Historically, motherboards with onboard graphics have heen something 0 shy away from. I an 1GP is present on your platform, no gamer in their ight mind would be caught fogging vith, would they? Iaead, we ope for 8 discrete GPU (or nso) ro populate that PCLE spot Hence whar youte lef wth i a redundant IGP. Should mainstream beards star orl outwith IGP on them (they used to afew yar ago), having the citi ev combine he apes pioeetng of your discrete GPU along with whars already on-board wold be anes prey trick and hopefll clover to where on gamers tat the tp. Now if only I could combine my 8001? Porsche wth my wifes Hybrid Honda and ge howe UO-send quae nile ines vith emer gus mileage ise that boteom line Email me at hariyBepumagcomPC Modder Tips & Tutorials Moding does the body good. A PC's body anyway, inside and out Here youl find hardware, firmware, tols tps, and tutorial for modding your rig’s performance and appearance. Send us your own mod-telated tps and ideas at modding®cpumag.com. Mods eds mumnces vee wea, Te Ses reac ‘The Extreme Thermaltake treme Spit Wsalkcopper construction and mirrored base provide northbridge cooling that should ecipse stock chipset beatin, oad onhacare sur bat ftir robs Gad pred wail pclong she bard ee permet ere, from the system chassis. A blue, backlit LCD temperature panel is mounted on the front of enclosure for real-time tem- peragute monitoring, and a reusable dust filer is also included. Rat ‘Quiet down and protect a noisy hard drive and actively cool it with Evercol EC-HDAC HDD. Air Conditioner ETE Sometimes a system just needs more bling. If you want ro make your rg sand ‘our at the next LAN party and personalize it in the proces, Coolag's Mini LED Flash Fans ($20.99 to $24.99; www.crazype com) may be use what the doctor ordered. “Available in 80, 90, and 120mm diameter Coojg’s Everlow Mini LED Flash Fans can be programmed to display any message up to 128 characters on thie fan blades sizes, the fans feature a programmable flash ing LED array that produces customized ‘messages (up 10128 characters) on che fan's blades a they spin, The control software bundled with the fans also includes some simple graphics. And for the practical mod der, the array can also display the cursent temperature on the fan blades. A couple of these puppies in a windowed case are sure ro turn some heads Fashionbiy Fresh Fmmare sactauntr of Jit per ok Speke rad aa coe ‘by Marco Chiappe Apt 41nleash The Beasts G92 & RV670 Modded & Overclocked ‘Nvidia's 692-based GeForce 8800 GT and ATI's RVE7O- sed Radeon HO 3870 cards offer excellent performance despite thelr relatively low cos. —p— hanks to the recent efforts of both AMD and Nvidia, the mainstream graphics card mar- ket is brimming with high-quality prod- ucts. The sub-$250 graphics cards of today outperform even the high-end cards from less than two years ago. They have many more Features as wel Of course, even with the relatively strong imainsream graphics cards available a the moment, we're always laoking for ways to quickly and inexpensively increase perfor- mance. Lucky for us, it seems boch AMD and Nvidia have buile some headroom— which enterprising modes can easily unlock with minimal ffoet—ineo thei cur- ent mainsteam graphics card ofeings For this issue, we've taken AMD's Radeon HD 3870 and Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT and modded them ro maximize ‘overclockabilty for increased performance. ‘We performed some basic cooling modi cations on both cards to lower GPU and ‘memory temperatures. We also valt-mod- ded che Radeon to increase the verclocka- bility ofits RV670 GPU. Assuming you hhave the wolsat your disposal already, you can do these mods essentially for free and in a minimal amount of time, Let's stare withthe GeForce, GeForce 8800 GT Mod ‘A common complaint among many GeForce 8800. GT ayeners is that, under load, the GPU on their cards can get quite hhor sometimes in she neighborhood of 95, degrees Celsius, This isthe main reason. some of Nvidia's board partners, such as Eyga, for etample, have plans to release 8800 GTs wich more powerful dual-slor ‘cooler. This heat can also be a limiting fac- tor when trying to overclock. However, there ae a few things you can do to alleviate ‘the problem without replacing the cooler. ‘After testing a number of 8800 Gs for a recent roundup, we found a couple of problems thar no doubt hinder cooling performance. First, the reference fan shroud restricts air from frely escaping ar the front of the card. We've also noticed compressed cooling pads on some of the RAM chips protruding into the arca beneath the fan and found an excessive amount of TIM (thermal interface maeri- al) applied on the GPU. Thankfully, all of these things can easily be fied, Pull I Apart For our GeForce 8800 GT mod, we used a screwdriver, 2 pair of sharp wire snips, a bit of metal polish, and some high-qualiry, diamond-based thermal paste. First, we removed the cooler from, the card, We did this easily by removing a handful of screws on the back of the PCB and carefully pulling up on the cooler. We were careful not to yank ie off at an angle that would damage any small com- ponents underneath Wich the cooler removed, you'll see thermal pads on each RAM chip and a large amount of TIM on the underside of the heatsink. Most of the thermal pads on the RAM should be fine; vou may need 10 tim the two that reside under the fan so they don’t interfere with the underside of the fan. This may sound counterineutive, but if the pads are protruding over the chips and off of the heatsink, that excess ‘material isn't helping cool things down, Next, we cleaned up all of the stock ‘TIM used on the GPU. On our card (and wwe suspect most others), the layer of ‘TIM that covered the entire bate of the Ineatsink was very thick. We cleaned ic up and, while the cooler was removed, used the opportunity to polish the heatsink's base with some wadding metal polish Although the hase had a near-misror ish already, it docsn's hurt to remove 42 oe 08 Fw comptraneusecr,some of the minor imperfections. Once we cleaned and polished everything, we applied a very thin layer of high-quality, dliamond-hased thermal paste to just the PU die. Don's spread thermal paste over the entire base ofthe heatsink, Finally, we moved on to the 8800 GT's fan shroud. Because the 8800 GT's Performance: Bice Rc WIC) The Mods Se fee ee eee Pee eee pene en ee et ee ee’ ee eer ee ee Seon) Se eee eo ae eer nr eee cera cee heen eee) DirectX update, Finally, we used anes eee 8.1 eee ero erenn Per = eee 8800 GT and the Radeo mance up tothe levels ser by the ee es enjoyed sizable performance gi and the GeForce 8800 GT came eee ae er eee err) 3870 to rival the dual-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2. operecan didn't ey Center etna dsb eee ee ee clocking makes either midra reference cooler is only a single-slor design, it isn'r set up to exhaust hot air Instead, the fan just blows air across che heatsink and rectculates it back into the case. The problem is that the area at the front ofthe card where the aris supposed to exhaust is somewhat cramped. We remedied the situation by curcing away a oe oes Co ee nes eae Se) eens Rea tes ery ‘Sader Model 30/HOR es ood pera n Company of Heroes reed rete ny Cree ee rer cemented Cee) ad pecs omnes Memory dock See) peed Shader Model 20 Een eeEn Peary ere Decree iad eee ered Denar) Cree Decree) Denti Peete none portion of the shroud. This may sound difficult, but the aluminum was so thin thar we just crimped it with the wire snips and broke it off by hand. We fol- lowed the curved line of the underlying heatsink fins all the way up to the top of the card, removing a fair amount of metal in the process. GeForce 2900 GT {Overdocied) oe Po Cee nad Bad eon Prd ard eo Ce Ey Cece) pod cera Deeg paid Bord (Ap 43(Our GeForce 8800 GT had too much thermal interface material applied atthe factory. By cleaning it up, polishing the heatsink’s base, and applying a high-quality TIM, heat is more quickly drawn from the GPU, which reduces its temperature. Put it Back Together With all of the mods complete, we reassembled the card and checked the GDU temperature before overclocking. Before the mod, our particular card hit 92.C alter abou 30 minutes of gaming, Alter the mods, however, the GPU tem- perature never broke 85 C. Ir wasn'tan carth-shattering difference, but sigaifl- cant nonetheless Next, we moved on ro overclocking the card using Nvidia's Tune utility. We were able to take the card's stock GPU and memory speeds of 660MHz and 950MH2, respectively, to 740MHz and 1,070MHiz. These impressive overclocks paid dividends in the benchmarks, as you'll ee alte later. Our Rad Radeon Mod ‘One of the Radeon HD 3870 mods we performed was a bit more technical. For the Radeon mods, we used all of the same tools bur swapped the wire snips for a dig- ital mulsimerer and grabbed hold of a pencil. Our first order of business was replacing the stock TIM on the GPU and polishing the heatsink’s base, following the same procedures we used carlier for the GeForce. Heat isn’ generally an issue with the Radcon HD 3870, thanks ro its 55am GPU and dual-slor cooler chat exhausts hot air from the system, but every degree helps when overclocking. And because we were volt-modding the card, we wanted to enhance ies cooling performance as much as possible We've done a number of vole mods in the past, a few of which required solder ing potentiometers onto a board or modi- fying its BIOS. Wich the Radeon HD. 3870 (and 3850), however, increasing the voltage to the GPU is much easier. If you look atthe backside of the PCB, you'll see 4 row of four squate solder joints near the edge of the card, Ar these points, you can check your card’s stack GPU voleage: With your system running, ground your sulkimerer’s negative lead to your case and probe each of the’ four poines wich the tip of the meter’s positive lead. If your card is based on ATI's reference design, you should see a stock voltage of 1.33V. (This may vary by a few hun- Aredths of a volt) ‘Once we measured our card’s stock voltage, we shut down our system and removed the card. On the back of the card, about an inch away from the wo upper solder joints, cere is a row of resis- tors, the frst of which is labeled R1222 “This cessor is used to help determine the GPU's supply voltage. In its stock configuration, the R1222 resistor should measure berween 1.5k and 16k ohms. Using the multimeter, care- fully measure across the R122 resistor; furs read 1.56k ohms. If you reduce this resistors resistance, however, the voltage supplied to the GPU will increase. Our goal was to get the resistance down co about L.1k 0 1.2k ohms, which would increase the GPU voleage to about 1.4V., Lowering the resistance more would've resulted in an even higher voltage, which wwe woulda’r be comfortable using with a stock GPU caoles, To lower the resistance of the R1222 resistor all you need co do is pencil lines 6 removing the entire end partion ofthe shroud ar can more freely flow away trom the heatsink and card along the cop of the resistor. We recom: mend drawing a couple of heavy lines and hen retesting the resistance until you hie about the 1.1k-ohm mark, ‘Then, reinstall the card and recheck the GPU's supply voltage as soon as the sys tem has power. If itis higher than 1.4V, shut down the system, clean wp the pen: cil marks, and start again. Also, be mindful of the excess pencil dust. The dust is electrically conductive and should be blown off of the card before scinstaling i into your system, Increase The Clacks ‘When you've lowered the resistance 10 the proper range and are certain that the GPU’s supply voleage is hovering around the 1.4V mark, it’ time to overclock your card. For Radeon overclocking, we like ro tuse ATITool because of its automated maximum frequency finder and artifact tester, We took our stock Radeon HD. 3870s GPU and memory from 775MHz and 1,126MHz, respectively, o 865MElz and 1,300MHz. That's a lor of extra clock speed for alittle bit of effort. dk ‘by Marco Chiappetta 44 se 108 J wo compan,For PROPER Ley Tel aa RRC Tcl) ono ay BLAC & Cer oo ay Thermaltake na" acy’ ce micocnas frge mmm EY Gonosall us crazy, bue we thinks Alex Wiley likes the pop ular social news bookmarking Web site Digg. “l buile this case mainly to show off what can he done (in terms of cus- om cases) for simple logos. Wiley says. "Digg is also a favorite site of mine, and the ‘owners were helpful in getting sme any artwork I needed. Digg lovers will enjoy more than the Digg Custom Case's shape and backlit lettering. A Noritake Message Display Module suns the Digg news ticker when the system is connected to the Internet. LedStudio.com forum members created and helped troubleshoot the sofeware thae lets che PC run the Digg news ticker. The Digg Custom Case features a medium-densi- ty fiberboard chassis. “Ie was quite an experience sealing it up properly,” says Wiley. “Since MDF absorbs quite a bit of material, the case had to be sprayed with polyester primer, egular primerysaler and finally basecoat/clearcoat. Each step required a los of sanding, especially on the inside of the case.” ‘Ofcourse, he Digg Custom Case is more than a case ‘mod. Wiley complecly overhauled the S80W Hiper power supply by extending some ofthe cables roan our- leva the motherboard tray. He used gray pipes t hide the wiring that led to the hard drives and optical drive ‘As head of modding business Computer Choppers jn West Linn, Ore., Wiley already has exciting new siods in the works, some of which require more exotic ‘materials chan others. By the time you read ths, he will have finished a 24k gold-plared MacBook Pro that features a diamond-studded Apple logo. And as for Digg’s fate: Wiley plans co sll iat the time of cis writing. “T don’ rypically sell my per projects, but 1 get quite a few emails every month asking about i,” Wiley says big project.” Digg in. I decided to sell ie so I could satt another 46 ie 208 J wn comptranerecry ‘Aveteran moder, ‘Wiley has already but several noteworthy computes, including a ‘Batman Begins"-themed HTPC. “In general, my in- spiration comes from pop culture,” Wiley continues. “Ive gat a moun- tain of ideas I've drawn up sitting on my desk for future use. Most are my own art, but some logos stil look fun to buld. This is just the tp of the iceberg in terms of cases.” The power buttons and USB ports sit con the sie of the system, below the fit eters. Wiley ‘magified the PSU so that its power switch ison the same paneStandoffs atthe side ofthe case hold the power supply so that it appears to float. "The hard drive aunts took a variety of shapes and sizes in the design stage | settled on the cascading, singled-sided mount incase | did any mods to show off the drive face. Inthe end, | didn't do anything to change the drives but would have liked to use windowed drives instead.” ‘Wiley created ight Box that contains eight cold cathode lights. “Having alight box allowed me to Aispese the ight eveny behind the lettering,” says Wiley. “The only problem the light box creates is heat. To counter that, | installed three small fan inthe back ofthe ease that take air directly out ofthe box.” The optical drive sits a he top of the case and opens between the two chrome bars, “All ofthe windows are ‘made from 1/@-inch bronze aryl,” says Wily. “I cut ‘The neuwsticker isthe best part ofthe case, hands and polished each ofthe windows using a band sav.” down,” says Wile. “It took alot of collaboration with various people to get the software synced tothe display, and it worked perectly in the end.” oe Give Us Your Mod fans cool the Digg Have a computer mod that will bring tears ae ove OSU CSE R cen att Wiley used a Digg ‘to madreadermod@ cpumag.com. We're wean ote omie ee uncted Al a0) of the fans, oO M LCR ROAM MUO MT Toca ere PCC Reader Mod” section, we'll help you load MNase nom UR RAE UT a one-year subscription to CPU. (apt 47Baricpumeg.com. 6 6 The more performance and power youhave under tae heod, the greater the heat and noise will be. 5 5 Each month, we dig deep into the mailbag here at CPU in an flr 0 answer your most presing technical questions. Want some ‘advice on your nest purchase or upgrade? Have a ght in your ‘machine? Are BSODs making your lift mierable? CPU ¥"Ad- tnanced Q&A Corner" is here for you. Larry . asked: over a year ag, decided that our 7-year-old Del computer probably would nat make it too much anger, so star dreading every computer magazine available with the thought of building our own compute. My wife uses the compute every dy, for things related to he job as. an RN and for email family pies, banking and Buying onine et. Mer reading everything could, reached a decision on components for our new computer in lanuary 2007. Then in February 2007, ead the March “vanced QAA secon in CPU Magazine, and my aw Aroppdi The answers you gave Alan M. were the exact components | wanted, Las ol, not only on your maga, but ako CyberPower who coud putallthese components together for under $2,000 CoolerMaster cas w quid cooing soa PSU Core 2 Duo Ese00 ‘Asus PSW DH Delue Csr 268 DDR2-80 RAM Evga GeForce e000 GTS “wo 32068 hard dives (RD 1) Windows Vt Utimate ‘We love the compute. t's worked great since we acquired iat the end of March 2007. We had some minor problems, but those were be- cause of Windows Vita-drier stuf most ‘We shut ofthe od Del computer when we got the new computer ‘unning and have not touched it since. We were thinking about getting ‘id oft until reading an atc about using an old computer, with a ile wort, “home server” for backup purposes. 'o you think it would be worth i Do you think there would be any il effects using the old machin to back up our new computer? [My thoughts are about puting two new hard drives inthe old com- puter ina RAID 1 configuration and tying it in with the new computer. [sthis possible? Here are the specs forthe old computer: Dell Dimension 19S Pentium il 1GH2 '512MB RORAM (PC800) 45GB Ula ATA 7.200rpm EIDE ‘54MB DDR Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS 4x ‘Windows Me 48 ot 08 J wo comptpanesecr,LEST. “ternal hard drives such asthe Westen Digital My Book or Seagate FreeAgent indude easy-to-use software for automating backups from a PC. AA Firs off, Lary, wet glad the magazine helped you v0 choose the components for your new rg. We ik think secre hereto help, sa e's always good to heat shat ou advice wea taken to hear by a reader and things worked wel “Thanks for che lads. Ax for your questigGB uo your ld PC asa server, yess absolutely that could work In your particular insance, however, we think you may be beter served by an extemal hard dive or maybe even a NAS (net workeatached storage) device Your old PC is definielypowetfl notgh ro we as home server, bt considering its age and che operating synem in- selled omit, atthe very lat, you'll ned ro add @ RAID controller (or ran software RAID) and replace the operating ‘ystem fo doit right” There are mulstude of inexpensive RAID controllers on the market, and if you'e up forthe cha lenge of learing «new operating sate, just about any Aavor of Linux could be wsed on this machin for fee. However, couple the upgrade hale with the posible expense of the coti- troller andthe definite expense ofthe new hard dsives, and an sternal hard dive becomes «much more arate opin. From the tone of your note, t alo sound like you have only & single PCin the Rouse. IF that isin fact the eme, you mas also factor in the cost of nerwark switch or hub o connec the new machine tothe old machine ‘There are many name-brand USB 2.0/eSAT external hard dives available with capacities around 500GB for about $120 char include auromated backup sofeware. A prod- uct such as a Western Digital My Book or Seagate Free- Agent could serve your backup nceds very well. you'd prefer something a litle more sobust that has support for RAID 1 (mirroring), extemal drive arrays with capac ities of S00GB to ITB are also available, bue for a con- siderably higher price tag somewhere in the range of $250 ro $450. ‘Weshould also nore chat NAS devices with similar fanctionalty, software, capacities, and feacues are avail- able, as well, with the added benefit of being able to access them from any machine on the nerwork. Should you already have a neewark switch in your home as part of a broadband router, we'd also advise looking into a NAS device asa posible solution to your problem. As cool, and potentially educational, as ie might be to resurrect your old ‘machine and reconfigure it asa home server, sometimes it's jusc beter t0 keep chings simple. ‘by Dave Altavilla and Marco Chiappe, the experts over at HotHardware.com For bonus content, subscribers can go to ‘wuwepumagcom/epumartéjatea CMLL PI eh dh id Eee HSPC Tech Station rast-access computer case! "The Tech Staton (gatent pending is a hardware workbench bringing parts wnhin easy reach yet keoping them safe and and ovrlackrs XC opm entntcomtg roaoiw Stone Ras ABATE Suplon Bae Www.highspeedpc.com apt 49