computer power user, april 2006

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5522 Fighting For The SpotlightLesser-Known Boutique Builders At Center Stage

6666 Elite LCDsGet Ready To Toss Your CRT

Frontside6 What’s Happening 12 Digital Economy14 The Saint

Irony

April 2006 • Vol 6 Issue 04

Copyright 2006 by Sandhills Publishing Company. Computer Power User is a trademark of Sandhills PublishingCompany. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing in Computer Power User is strictly prohibitedwithout written permission. Printed in the U.S.A. GST # 123482788RT0001 (ISSN 1536-7568) CPU ComputerPower User USPS 020-801 is published monthly for $29 per year by Sandhills Publishing Company, 131 WestGrand Drive, P.O. Box 82667, Lincoln, NE 68501. Subscriber Services: (800) 424-7900. Periodicals postage paid atLincoln, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Computer Power User, P.O. Box 82667, Lincoln, NE 68501.

®

The Experts

Did you find the hidden CPU logo on our cover? Turn the page for the answer.

Rob “CmdrTaco”MaldaThe DepartmentOf Stuffpage 86

Pete LoshinOpen Saucepage 81

Kyle BennettHard Talkpage 36

Alex “Sharky” RossThe Shark Tankpage 35

Alex St. JohnThe Saintpage 14

Chris PirilloDialogue Boxpage 79

Anand Lal ShimpiAnand’s Cornerpage 34

Mike MageeShavings From The Rumour Millpage 99

Spotlight

Hard Hat AreaPC Modder38 Tips & Tutorials

40 The Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 ModA 16-Pipe Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

43 Advanced Q&A Corner46 X-Ray Vision: Zetera’s Z-SAN

Make Storage Easy48 White Paper: AMD Multi-Core Processors

Providing Multiple Benefits For The Future

Loading Zone70 The Bleeding Edge Of Software

Inside The World Of Betas71 Up To Speed

Upgrades That’ll Keep You Humming Along

72 Internet Security Suite RoundupBecause Your Computer Deserves The Protection

77 Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing 6.0Uniblue Systems WinBackup 1.86

78 muvee Technologies muveeautoProducer 5

SnapStream Media Beyond TV 479 Dialogue Box

Where (Else) Do You Want To Go Today?

81 Open SauceAbandonware: Welcome To The Netherworld Of Gaming Software Limbo

Caught In The Web82 Must-Click TV

Prime Time Comes Online86 The Department Of Stuff

pipes.txt

Digital Living88 Road Warrior

More Mobile Motorola Music, NewNintendo DS, Sony Ericsson’s Latest Walkman Phones, ESPN Mobile Gets Super Kickoff

90 At Your LeisureGames, Gear, Movies & Music

Tips & Tricks95 Software Tips & Projects

Make Gmail Your Mobile Desktop97 Warm Up To Penguins

Surfing For Torrents In Linux

What’s Cooking99 Shavings From The Rumour Mill

New Intel Chips Light The Performance Way

103 Technically SpeakingAn Interview With Kristin S. Rinne, CTO Of Cingular Wireless

106 Under DevelopmentA Peek At What’s Brewing In The Laboratory

Back Door108 Q&A With Ryan Petersen

OCZ’s Power-User CEO On Modular PSUs & What’s Next In PC RAM

15 Dream Hardware

18 High-End Power SuppliesMirror, Mirror On The Wall

22 SFF System RoundupGood Things Do Come In Small Packages

26 ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900

28 Antec P150Toshiba IK-WB21AIP Network PTZ Camera

29 ECS KA1-MVP ExtremeAsus P5WD2-E Premium

31 Asus Z62F Notebook

32 Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000 LaserPalm Treo 700w

34 Anand’s CornerIntel’s Roadmaps Reveal Conroe Clock Speeds & Information

35 The Shark TankATI Releases X1900 XT (No, Really!)

36 Hard TalkATI’s Next Mobo Chipset

Heavy Gear

Page

19

Page 28

CORRECTIONS:On page 25 of the March issue, weincorrectly stated that AMD reportspower consumption figures for itsCPUs as typical consumption. The company provides only maximum consumption numbers.

Infinite LoopsStrange stats and other oddball items from computing's periphery

96, 98

Grandia III :Page 93

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E D I T O R ’ S N O T E

Gotcha.Here it is.

One of the things I love most about being around the tech industry isthe constant give-and-take of ideas and the discussions those ideas pro-voke. The coming release of Windows Vista is a prime example of this.

If you ask 10 people if they’re looking forward to Vista, you’re likely to get 10pretty different answers, ranging from, “It’s about time, I can’t wait to upgrade”to the opposite end of the spectrum: “Microsoft is just trying to rip us off; I’msticking with XP.” (Or Linux, as the case may be.)

I guess I’m somewhere in the middle on this issue. On one hand, even though Ireally don’t have any significant beefs with WinXP, I do like the idea of a new OS solong as it doesn’t disrupt my current computing habits too drastically. (If you askThe Saint, it probably will; see page 14.) But the news last year that Microsoft wascutting the new WinFS file system to avoid even more delays to the launch dulledmy interest considerably. I mean, I don’t want a hideously ugly UI, but I’m not tooconcerned with getting a prettier one, either. I want new, more functional tech.

And you’ve no doubt seen some of the recent articles raising a ruckus over the lackof HDCP support among current high-end video cards. If not, the deal is this: Inorder to play high-def video content on a Vista PC, you’ll reportedly need to have avideo card and monitor that support High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection.

The thing is, because there aren’t many displays or video cards out there nowthat support HDCP (see our LCD roundup starting onpage 66), people who are building and/or buyingsystems now should probably be aware of this.

Anyway, these are just a few of the issues thatwill factor into an upgrade to Vista, and that’swhy we’ll have more in-depth information onVista’s hardware needs for you next month.

In the meantime, check out the latest editionof our yearly “Dream PCs” high-end systemroundup, starting on page 52. We took aslightly different approach this year;instead of profiling systems from the topthree or four boutique vendors, we thoughtwe’d take a look at boxes from some buildersyou might not be as familiar with, but thatwarrant some notice.

As always, let us know what you think viaemail or in the ComputerPowerUser.com forums,and have a great month.

Chris Trumble, Publication Editor, CPU

Compiled by Steve Smith

W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • H a r d w a r e

Three-Fingered ComputingWith The Optimus MiniThe same Russian designer who last year created a keyboardwith programmable OLED display key tops is at it againwith his Optimus mini three keyboard. This three-buttonauxiliary keyboard has large OLED keys that can be ani-mated at 5fps and programmed to quickly access vital controls in applications such as iTunes, Outlook, or evenHalf-Life 2. The oversized unit is about the height of a keyboard and designed to sit next to one. The keys can alsoreceive feedback from programs and the PC and changetheir state, so the buttons might preview and advancethrough slide images or serve as a kind of secondary displayfor system or in-game status messages. Lebedev is takingpreorders for the $100 add-on at ArtLebedev.com. ▲

With proper programming, Art Lebedev’s three-button OLED keyboard could be both an auxiliary controller and a secondary display for various programs and games.

Want to create a network of security cams for monitoring yourhome anywhere, anytime? Vendors like to trot out this dream ofultimate, personal homeland security every few years, but earliergenerations of pricey and user-unfriendly wireless cams were dis-appointing. Creative promises that the $199 Live! Wireless Webcamera simplifies the process with a remote cam tied to a self-configuring Wi-Fi 802.11b/g server. Once the unit sniffs out yourhome network, you send the feed to a dedicated, secure, and free Web URL onCreative’s servers. Then you can access up to four cam views on a single screen.Live! Wireless also has motion detection that can take a snapshot of an intruderand send you the image as an email alert. Brrrrring! You’ve got a burglar! ▲

Homeland Security Gets Personal

With an 802.11g server attached, Creative’s latest Web cam is good to go anywhere in your house.

Coming Soon:A C: Drive For Your PhoneNow that they’ve conquered MP3 players and set-top DVRs,hard drive manufacturers are hoping to up the storage stan-dards for cell phones. Seagate’s latest ST1.3 Series 12GB 1-inch drive is now a dwarfish 40mm x 30mm x 5mm. If 3G phone manufacturers have their way, mobile users willneed gigabytes of space to store photos, music, and bufferedstreaming media. The big worry in phone storage is shockresistance, so Seagate claims its ST1.3 can withstand a 1.5-meter drop onto concrete. ▲

Seagate’s new micro-mini hard drive is 23% smaller and with 50% more capacity than last year’s model.

6 April 2006 / www.computerpoweruser.com

W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • H a r d w a r e

HH aa rr dd ww aa rr ee MM oo ll eeThe First SLI Laptop (Maybe) Weighs In

High-end game PC maker WidowPC (www.widowpc.com) plans to introduce the firstlaptop with an SLI dual graphics array—we think. A day after the company announcedthe upcoming Stinger 919 model, Nvidia asked WidowPC to remove the details fromits Web site. Sources at WidowPC offer only a nondenial-denial about the supersizedlaptop, but some Web sites captured the initial post and specs. The Turion-poweredStinger 919 reportedly will tip scales at 15 pounds with a 19-inch widescreen LCD.Several online tech sources report the SLI array runs two GeForce G70M “Ultra” GPUswith 256MB of RAM apiece. And the price for this lap-toppler? According toNotebookReview.com, expect to pay about $5,000. ▲

The PS3 Chip Gets Serious

Before we even get our hands on its next-gen gaming goodness, the Cellprocessor inside Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 console will appear first onindustrial-grade servers for the medical, defense, and entertainment indus-tries. Jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, the Cell is remarkablythin and adroit at graphics-intensive tasks, so IBM created a category of bladeservers for industries with special imaging needs. The Cell architecture has aPowerPC core surrounded by a cluster of supporting processors. It handles awide array of physics, scientific, imaging, and even cryptographic functions.IBM is hoping this Cell will subdivide into numerous industries. OK, but canwe get it to run a photo-realistic version of Grand Theft Auto first? ▲

Fujitsu’s Better View On LaptopsDual-core CPUs, dual-layer DVD burners, and TV tuners are virtuallyde rigueur for high-end multimedia laptops, so manufacturers are look-ing elsewhere for that extra bit of market differentiation. LCD qualitymay be the next battleground. Fujitsu’s new LifeBook N3530 (startingat $1,449) has all the bells and whistles of a portable Media Center PC(even optional headphones), but the company boasts that it improvesstandard display technology with an optimized color filter that workswith a new TFT aperture design. The result is a Color-EnhancedCrystal View Display that’s 300 nits bright and delivers better shadowdetail at a 500:1 contrast ratio. Translation: You might actually get tosee some of the detail in the shadowy walls of those Doom 3 corridors,which is always a challenge even on the best of laptops. ▲

Fujitsu says that new filters and revised backlight and aperture design draw more brightness and image detail from the N3530’s display.

One low-res image of the WidowPC’supcoming laptop with dual-GPU SLI

graphics crept online for a daybefore Nvidia asked the

manufacturer to remove it.

IBM is not just playing around with the Cell processorinside Sony’s upcoming PS3 console.

CPU / April 2006 7

W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • C h i p W a t c h

Watching The Chips FallHere is pricing information for AMD and Intel CPUs.

CPU Released Original Last Month’s Currentprice price price

AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 10/19/2004 $827** $799 $849

AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 6/27/2005 $1,031** $1,011 $926

AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 1/10/2006 $999** $999* $1,011

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ 8/1/2005 $354** $322* $295*




AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4800+ 5/31/2005 $1,001** $780* $620*

Intel Pentium 4 631 3Ghz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 65nm 12/27/2005 $178** $178** $179*

Intel Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm 2/21/2005 $273** $199* $213*





Intel Pentium 4 661 3.6GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 65nm 12/27/2005 $401** $401** $404*


Intel Pentium D 820 2.8GHz dual-core 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm 5/26/2005 $241** $234* $215*

Intel Pentium D 830 3GHz dual-core 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm 5/26/2005 $316** $316* $271*

Intel Pentium D 840 3.2GHz dual-core 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm 5/26/2005 $530** $529* $491*

Intel Pentium D 920 2.8GHz dual-core 2MB 800MHz FSB 65nm 12/27/2005 $241** $241** $255*

Intel Pentium D 930 3GHz dual-core 2MB 800MHz FSB 65nm 12/27/2005 $316** $316** $329*



*Retail price** Manufacturer's price per 1,000 units

Other current prices, if indicated, are lowest OEM prices available through Pricegrabber.com

Compiled by DeanTakahashi

Memory ShortageTrips Up Microsoft’sXbox 360

Microsoft has acknowledged that itcouldn’t ship as many Xbox 360 gameconsoles during the holidays as it want-ed because of component shortages. Butrecently the San Jose Mercury News re-ported that GDDR3 memory chipsfrom Infineon Technologies fell short ofMicrosoft’s 700MHz specification forthe machine. As a result, contract man-ufacturers had to sort the good chipsfrom the bad, reducing the yield on analready scarce component. Nam HyungKim, an analyst at iSuppli, says that ashortage of GDDR3 may well havebeen responsible for the shortage ofXbox 360s. Both Samsung and Infin-eon are making chips for Microsoft cur-rently, but a third supplier, Hynix, isexpected to join them. ▲

Intel’s Top ResearcherTouts Mini-Cores In The Future

Intel CTO Justin Rattner says the com-pany is contemplating a rich future formicroprocessors with multiple comput-ing brains. Such multicore chips willhave anywhere from 10 to 100 “mini-cores” on them in the coming decade asIntel tries to improve computing perfor-mance while holding down power consumption at the same time. Intel’sengineers are engaged in a coordinatedeffort that involves software tools, cir-cuit design, and high-bandwidth net-working research in order to bring themini-cores to fruition. Intel currentlyhas dual-core microprocessors on themarket, and it plans to launch its firstquad-core microprocessor, code-namedClovertown, in early 2007 based on a65nm manufacturing process. ▲

IBM Unveils Wireless Networking ChipThat Could Eclipse Wi-Fi

IBM researchers in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., say they havecreated a wireless networking chip that could eventuallytransfer data at speeds of 1 to 5Gbps across a range of 10meters or less. Brian Gaucher, a member of the researchteam, says that the prototype chips are a hybrid of siliconand germanium and can operate at a frequency of 60GHz.Standard Wi-Fi chips operate at a frequency of 2.4GHz or5GHz and can transfer data at a standard speed of 54Mbps. But Gaucher says that IBM’s pro-totype transferred data in the lab at 630Mbps, and users could even see much faster speeds inthe next few years. For now the IBM chip has a range of up to 10 meters, making it useful fortasks such as replacing expensive video cables for digital TVs. Gaucher says, however, thatresearchers could extend the range if theydial back the networking speed. He antici-pates that a two-chip set could be ready forcommercial availability in 2007. ▲


W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • I n t e r n e t

SS ii tt eeSS ee ee ii nn ggSome Senseless Site Seeing StatsHow many PCs are there in Ethiopia?1

Who pays the least for Internet accessduring theevening?2 You canfind these Internetstats and severalother fascinatingfacts and figures(such as, in whichcountry are themost liters of beerconsumed per per-son?3) at Nation-Master.com.(NOTE: Some statsare a bit dated.) ▲

PodcastAlley.comAt this excellent site you can find any-thing and everything about podcastingand podcasts. Finding a specific podcast iseasy because they’re indexed by rank,name, and topic. According to Podcast-Alley it’s “striving to develop the biggestand best directory of podcasts (podcastdirectory) available on the Internet,” andwe think the site is on its way. ▲

One Red PaperclipIn July 2005 KyleMacDonalddecided to tradehis single, redpaperclip forsomething bigger and better, which hap-pened to be one, big fish pen. Shortly after,MacDonald traded the fish pen for a ceram-ic doorknob. Not just any doorknob; it hasa face on it. The end goal? MacDonaldwants to trade someone for a house. Youcan track MacDonald’s trades on his blog(oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/2005/07/about-one-red-paperclip.html). ▲

Compiled by Trista Kunce

Throttling The All-You-Can-Rent DVD BuffetWho doesn’t like a good buffet every once in awhile? Sure, the food is lukewarm,and the sneeze guard is a little foggy, but it is unlimited food for only $3.99.Imagine, though, if “all you can eat” didn’t mean “unlimited” because you frequentthe restaurant too often. For instance, what if restaurants limited the number ofpieces of pizza you could eat or made you wait in line so that newer customers (pay-ing the same $3.99 as you) could make a trip around the buffet first? In Netflix’sonline world of all-you-can-rent DVDs, this practice is called “throttling.” Throt-tling limits the number of DVDs per month a heavy Netflix user rents and receives.Oftentimes, Netflix members who rent less DVDs get the most popular and mostrecent movies before heavy DVD renters. So, what can you do? You could vent yourfrustrations online (hackingnetflix.com), sue, suck it up, or find an alternative buffetfor a short fix and return to your beloved buffet later. ▲

Get Your Online Renting Fix With A BookSo Netflix has altered your DVD-renting habits.(See “Throttling The All-You-Can-Rent DVD Buffet.”) Don’t worry because we’vefound a new fix to help you support your online renting addiction: Try renting a

book from Jigger-bug.com. It’s similarto Netflix, but insteadof DVDs coming toyour door, unlimitedaudio books on CDswill show up everymonth for just $19.95a month. (Free ship-ping both ways, ofcourse.) If you don’twant to bother withshipping CDs backand forth (which wekind of doubt becauseof your recent depen-dence on Netflix’s ser-vices), you can rent abook to download toyour PC or MP3 play-er. Why not take abreak, sit back, and lis-ten to “The ConstantGardener” todayinstead of waiting forthe DVD to get toyour door in a coupleof weeks? ▲

1. 225,0002. Canada, $43.563. Ireland

CPU / April 2006 9


W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • S o f t w a r e

How To Torture Your PC This YearIt’s always humbling to run the newest 3DMark software becauseFutureMark (www.futuremark.com) designs these tests to bring even themost overclocked and decked-out rigs to their knees—all in the interests ofthorough benchmarking. With 3DMark06 (free Basic Edition; $19.99personal, downloadable version), PC masochists everywhere can watch yetanother generation of hardware choke its way through the new ShaderModel 3.0 exercises, not to mention the latest HDR rendering. Usingmany of the same graphics sequences as 3DMark05, this update tosses inmore of everything: more light sources, image detail, and textures to occu-py up to 256MB of VRAM. PC enthusiasts everywhere love to debate thereliability and fairness of the 3DMark tests, but in the end, we all love tosee how our rigs rate. ▲

Google Desktop 3: Cool But Overexposed?Google’s third beta iteration of Desktop Search improves a number of fea-tures and gets an unexpected new one: a warning from the EFF against itscool new Search Across Computers option. GD3’s Search Across Com-puters can index and store data from several of your PCs on Google’sservers so that you can search and access files and browser histories fromany one of your computers. Convenient, maybe, but storing so much per-sonal data with Google also opens you up to legal subpoenas and hackers,says the EFF. A lawyer for the privacy watchdog group calls it “shocking”that Google expects users to store personal data on their servers after recentgovernment attempts to subpoena search engine records. ▲

Opera Gets Bigger & SmallerOpera Mini renders full Web pages on cellphones, while the upcoming desktop brows-er integrates BitTorrent downloading.

The browser wars ain’t over till the fat ladysings, says Opera Software, which ups the gamewith two new releases. If you have a Java-en-abled cell phone, point the WAP browser tomini.opera.com to download the excellentOpera Mini browser, which rerenders mostURLs to fit reasonably on a handset. No joke,it worked better on our test phones than mostbuilt-in WAP browsers. Meanwhile, Opera 9 isin its “technology preview” at the new OperaLabs (labs.opera.com). This next versionincludes an integrated BitTorrent client, AJAX-based widgets, and pop-up thumbnail previewsof all your open tabs. Whoa, now both IE andFirefox have some catching up to do. ▲

You’ll have loads of time toappreciate the pretty scenes in

3DMark06 as the frames drip by.

Does Google’sDesktop Search applicationexpose your datato governmentsnoops andhacks? Get BitTorrent downloading with new

Opera 9 software.


W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g • S o f t w a r e

BIOS Upgrades Available OnlineBefore you send another motherboard to the landfill, consider upgrading the BIOS and giving your PC a new lease on life. Here are a few recently released upgrades. Readers can check out www.cpumag.com/cpumar06/bios to see our entire upgrade list.

Motherboard Date Available URL

Abit KV8 Pro\KV8 Pro-3rd Eye 1/16/2006 www.abit-usa.com/downloads/downloads.php?file=/downloads/bios/kv8-pro/kv8p24.zip

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 12/8/2005 www.asrock.com.tw/support/bios/939Dual-SATA2(1.50)Win.zip

Asus P5LD2 1/4/2006 dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5LD2/LD2_0901.zip

MSI K8NGM2-FID 1/12/2006 download.msi.com.tw/support/bos_exe/mbd_bios/7207v31.zip

Shuttle SK21G 2/7/2006 ftp://ftp.shuttle.com/BIOS/sk21g/sk21s108.bin

Tyan Tiger i7525 1/19/2006 ftp://ftp.tyan.com/bios/S2672_112.zip


Enter The Vlogosphere

Vlogs (Video blogs) are the next big thing, sowe expect to see more tools such as SeriousMagic’s Vlog It! ($49.99; www.seriousmagic.com) coming soon. The company saysyou can drag and drop videos, photos, andmusic into the vlog window; edit and add tran-sitions; and then post these vlogs to the Webwith a three-step wizard that anyone can use.Vlog It! Creates up to 320 x 240 videos inFlash, WMV, and Real formats. And for you Tom Brokaw wannabes, it includes tools forreplacing backgrounds and superimposing graphics for that newsroom feel. ▲

An Odd Songbird Flies Online

Mix the Firefox engine with a media player and you get the innovative Songbird (www.songbirdnest.com). The version 0.1 test preview is an open-source project that can runfiles from your hard drive or detect audio files and podcasts embedded in Web pages toturn them into playlists. The authors claim that Songbirders could share playlists viaWeb pages or eventually access music subscription services. Actually, we love the idea,but we’re just trying to keep this alpha version bird from crashing regularly on our testbed. C’mon, little birdie, fly! ▲

A Neighborhood Watch For Your PC

While much of the industry seeks technical and legislative answers to the blight of un-welcome software and spies on our PCs, Harvard Law’s Berkman Center For Internet &Society and Oxford’s Internet Institute are trying a community-based response. Stop-Badware.org is a joint effort to collect consumer reports about badly behaved downloadsand their adware/spyware attachments. This “Neighborhood Watch” will issue reportson the worse examples of badware, so the rest of us know which areas of cyber-town toavoid. Do we get badges and whistles for this? Can we arrest people? ▲

SS oo ff tt ww aa rr eeSS hh oo rr tt ss Can Halo 2

Sell Vista?

PC gamers will finally get toplay the monster Xbox hit,Halo 2, but they’ll need theupcoming Vista OS to run thegame. Microsoft and BungieStudios will make the gameVista-only, although neitherfirm will say whether Halo 2will leverage any special capa-bilities of the new OS. PCgame sales have been declin-ing steadily in recent years, soMicrosoft continues a rearguard action to maintaininterest in Desktop play.Salvaging PC gaming while he saves the universe? That is a tall order, even for Master Chief. ▲

CPU / April 2006 11


Media PenetrationAfter all of the hype surrounding PC and broadband penetration, it turns out that when itcomes to household penetration rates, TV remains the worldwide leader by a wide, widemargin. Not too surprising, really, but this is: Informa Media Group and eMarketer predictthat 3G cell phones will trump all other media platforms sometime after 2010.


IronyFF irst a brief correction from last month’s col-

umn: Microsoft’s term for Protected UserAccounts is actually “Limited User Account,” orLUA. Anyone who’d like to read about them indetail can learn more at www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/luawinxp.mspx#EIAA.

As the release of Vista approaches, we canfinally begin to see the inner workings of Micro-soft’s grand design to have absolute control overyour computer clearly unfolding. Last month Ishowed you how amazingly obstructive Vistawill be to using your computer for many com-mon tasks you presently take for granted, likedownloading and installing media and software.This obstruction, of course, is in your best inter-est because it’s necessary to secure your comput-er from evil hackers and malware, right? If that’sthe case, why is Microsoft planning to launch anew antivirus, firewall, backup-and-recovery,and system maintenance service for $49.95 permonth called OneCare? I’m baffled; let me see ifI have this straight:1. Microsoft has shipped how many OSes since

1995? Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, andWindows XP SP2, and rather than gettingbetter with each major OS release, securityproblems for consumers have gotten worse!With each promise of a more secure OS,we’ve ended up with a less secure one. At thispoint we’ve all surrendered any hope of priva-cy or control of our computing environmentover to Microsoft’s update services, so theycan send us an unending stream of OS patch-es that never seem to fix the problem.

2. Security, maintenance, and backup andrecovery are the most fundamental OS ser-vices that any OS should provide, and you’dthink that Microsoft would concentrate ongetting these fundamentals right before wor-rying about all the junk it ships with the OSthat we don’t need. This, of course, hasnever been the case to such an extremedegree that Microsoft has created a multibil-lion dollar industry for such companies asSymantec and McAfee to clean up the messit makes with each new OS product.

3. Microsoft makes the OS and therefore makesthe security and maintenance problems as a

matter of design. If I were an Eastern Euro-pean virus writer and wanted to write thenext great Windows worm, I would get mydevelopment tools, my debuggers, and myWindows documentation from Microsoft,and I would use a Microsoft-provided SDKand APIs to infect your computer! A viruswould be far too large and complicated forone or two hackers to write without Micro-soft’s help and support. Nobody can installanything on your computer without askingWindows’ APIs to do it for them. Howmany years has the company had to write anOS that can remember how to install anduninstall things safely?

4. What’re all the obstruction and pop-updialogs in Vista for if I’m still going to needMicrosoft’s OneCare package to be secure?What has Microsoft been writing all theseyears, if on the verge of its next-generation OSrelease, it already knows that security andmaintenance for the OS will be so bad that thecompany figures it can make a killing sellingthe security and maintenance service for it sep-arately? I have trouble imagining a louder orclearer declaration of total surrender Microsoftcould make to its inability to make a reliableOS than to announce OneCare for Windowson the verge of Vista’s release.

The very suggestion that Microsoft has anymoral authority or creditability with anybodyon the subject of security is so wildly, unimagin-ably absurd at this point that any rational per-son hearing any form of the word “security”uttered from Microsoft’s lips should immediate-ly collapse on the ground roaring with laughter.Accepting for a moment that the company isbasically announcing that it gives up on makingWindows secure and is just going to try to profitfrom the consequences, you have to wonderhow good for your PC’s security it will be ifMicrosoft proceeds to put out of business theonly companies that have effectively stood inthe way of total security mayhem by competingwith them? This brilliant move combines ele-gantly with the company’s efforts in Vista toblock legitimate software—McAfee andSymantec included—from having sufficientaccess to the OS to provide any value. ▲

. . . we can finally

begin to see the

inner workings

of Microsoft’s

grand design to

have absolute

control over

your computer

clearly unfolding.Send your feedback to [email protected]

Alex St. John was one of thefounding creators of Microsoft’s

DirectX technology. He is the subject of the book “Renegades Of

The Empire” about the creation ofDirectX and Chromeffects, an

early effort by Microsoft to create amultimedia browser. Today Alex is

President and CEO ofWildTangent Inc., a technology

company devoted to deliveringCD-ROM quality entertainment

content over the Web.

The Saint


These GizmosDon’t Sing It,They Bring It

I t’s all about the value-adds, these days. OK, neat car

and all, but does it have its own game console? And

that girlie, clamshell notebook over there, does it come

encrusted with gems? You don’t say?

by Marty Sems

NNiissssaann UURRGGEE

Finally, a major car manufacturer answered our letters.Sure, we were just eight when we sent them, but we knewwhat we wanted: a car that could play video games, specifi-cally simulations of (what else?) driving a car. How manytimes have you sat in a sports car on a dealer’s lot—pretending, along with the salesman, that you could actual-ly afford it—and thought, “Wow, these would be killercontrols for Project Gotham Racing 3”? Nissan DesignAmerica’s URGE concept car (www.nissan-global.com) alsohas a 6-speed stick and a swarm-o’-bees, high rpm mill inaddition to its built-in Xbox 360 and flip-down LCD/rearview mirror. It’s like a game controller that you candrive around the block sometime—if actual driving evercomes up, we mean. You use your cell phone as anIntelligent Key to start the engine. Despite the URGE’sexotic design, Nissan claims a production price target of just $20,000.

WWaassaattcchh AAccoouussttiiccss MMuussiinnaa

Put simply, Wasatch made its new Musina Music System(www.wasatchacoustics.com) powerfully loud, yet breath-takingly faithful to original audio recordings. The Utahcompany’s ambitious creation offers 2,000 watts of powerand a frequency response accurate to within ±0.2dB.Meanwhile, a dedicated computer helps the microphone-assisted DEQX DSP technology optimize acoustics forindividual rooms. $39,950 will get you dual Musina 2.0BPU monitors, a pair of Musina .2 BPU subs, a preamplifi-er/processor/amplifier called the Uintah 2.2 AMPX, andUltama high-fidelity cables. At $250 per foot, those cablesare no small part of the price, either.

TTuulliipp EE--GGoo DDiiaammoonndd

Leave the poor Chihuahuas at home, Paris wannabes. Ifyou really want to look fabu at the hottest nightspots,dahling, try toting a $345,000 notebook. Dutch computerfashion mogul Tulip has inlaid its Barbie-cute, aptly namedE-Go laptop with 80 carats worth of diamonds, not tomention rubies and palladium white gold (www.tulipego.nl). There’s a Web cam to capture every moment asyou paint the town pink and a/b/g wireless to fling the livefeed to the fans outside your entourage. Before you can say,“Prada lickers,” yours will be the name dropped in everygushing article in Interview. ▲

CPU / April 2006 15

Deep within their respective Websites, ATI and Nvidia make spe-cific power supply recommenda-

tions. If you elect to go with a RadeonX1900 CrossFire configuration, for exam-ple, you’ll want a PSU with at least 550watts available and 38 amps of current onthe 12V rail. A pair of GeForce 7800GTX boards also calls for a 550-watt unit,this time with 30 amps.

Raw muscle isn’t the only considera-tion to use to compare power supplies,though. You also have to look at connec-tivity, as in the number and type of con-nectors a PSU offers. Then there’s noise,aesthetic appeal, warranty coverage, andprice. Each factor is weighted differentlydepending on the power user. Cost is nat-urally less influential when it comes timeto buy premium hardware, and noisemeans more if you’re building a hometheater-gaming platform.

How We TestedIf you lined up a handful of 550W

power supplies, would they all performequally? How would you quantify perfor-mance, anyway? It’s not like a WindowsMedia Encoder benchmark can tell youone way or another if a PSU is living upto its specification sheet. Or can it? Whatif you built a PC so totally massive that ittruly taxed today’s beefiest PSUs?

Well, that’s exactly what I did for thisroundup. By combining an AMD Athlon64 FX-60 and an Asus A8N32-SLI moth-erboard, I laid a foundation for a boxcapable of outmaneuvering any less-than-savory PSU. Now, add a pair of GeForce7800 GTX cards in an SLI configuration,

High-EndPower SuppliesMirror, Mirror On The Wall . . .

four new Western Digital 10,000rpmRaptor X hard drives, a D-Link wirelessnetworking card, two optical drives, 2GBof Corsair memory, and a handful of casefans that exact their own demands on the12V rail, and that’s a real hog.

You also have to take temperatures intoaccount. All those components sitting onan open-air test bench might run stablytogether. (Hooray for the air conditioner,right?) Throw them in an ATX chassis,and things might not end as well. Thesame high-end bits and pieces that makeyour PC a monster all dissipate plenty ofheat, and in the confines of a case, theyrun hotter. More heat results in a reduc-tion of efficiency, as overclocking enthusi-asts already know. PSUs are no exceptionto the rule. So I made it a point to runmy stability tests within the confines of anactual chassis, giving heat a chance tokneecap the units that vendors test atunrealistically low ambient temperatures.

Power SuppliesI invited numerous manufacturers to

participate in this roundup, and mosttook me up on the offer. Each vendor

knew my focus was on high-end hard-ware, and so I got a great representationof the industry’s best offerings rangingfrom 550W to 1KW.

BFG Technologies PC System Power Supply 600W

When you think of BFG, you probablypicture Nvidia GeForce cards overclockedstraight from the factory and covered by alifetime warranty. BFG has a great namewith enthusiasts who welcome the freeperformance backed up by compellingsupport. Given the company’s role inhigh-end graphics, getting involved in thePSU game makes good sense.

BFG’s top-end offering, the genericallynamed PC System Power Supply 600W,has everything you’d need for a gamingmachine, including the trademark lifetimewarranty with free 24/7 technical support.The PSU itself is a somewhat mundaneflat-silver color, and the package is verymuch minimalist. Then again, that’s whatyou get for less than $150.

The PSU is built smartly. The mainATX power connector ships in a 24-pinconfiguration, but you can snap the con-nector into two pieces to yield a 20+4-pinsetup for older motherboards. A separate4-pin plug delivers auxiliary power.Naturally, SLI compatibility means thesupply sports two 6-pin graphics connec-tors. You get eight large 4-pin Molex con-nectors and three smaller 4-pin floppydrive connectors. Unfortunately, BFGonly includes two SATA cables. (I’d liketo see four.)

Power-wise, the 600W supply is nicelyendowed, featuring 30A on the 3.3V rail,

r e v i e w s | h a r d w a r e

PC SystemPower Supply

600W$149

BFG Technologieswww.bfgtech.com


50A on the 5V rail, and 20A on each ofthe two 12V rails. Combined output ofthe three voltage outputs can’t exceed575W, though, according to the supply’slabel. Further, there isn’t any environ-mental data substantiating BFG’s outputnumbers. Additionally, although theNoise Killer variable-speed-fan technolo-gy helps manage acoustics at idle, youcan’t skirt the racket an 80mm coolingfan causes under heavy load.

Minor din aside, the PSU was stillgoing strong after three hours of endless3DMark06 loops with Prime95 runningin the background (yielding no errors).

The big bummer was a failure to evenboot an Intel 975X platform due to alack of EPS12V support. Just rememberthat the supply works best with AMD-based systems, and although it lackssome connectivity, a solid price makesthis PSU a reasonable value.

Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT 620WEnermax is a weathered veteran of

the power supply game and one of themost trusted enthusiast companies outthere. Enermax hasn’t commandedmuch spotlight attention lately, though,as other high-end brands such as PCPower & Cooling have released killerhardware more recently. The LibertyELT620AWT puts Enermax back incontention, though.

The Liberty shoots for the moon.Although some folks are uncomfortablewith the extra resistance of modularpower plugs, Enermax takes the plunge,opting for convenience over hard-wiredcables. Enermax serves the modularwiring harnesses—each professionallysheathed and secured by shrink tubing—in a black cloth caddy secured by Velcro.Classy. The sharp looks continue with ablack, lacquered finish and massive120mm cooling fan to keep acoustics inorder. A three-year warranty guaranteesthe supply against failure.

Current on the Liberty’s 3.3V rail israted at 28A. The 5V rail maxes out at32A, and each of the two 12V rails isgood for 22A. When it comes to power-hungry processors and graphics cards, theheavier 12V weighting is certainly wel-come. Even our super-system stress testfailed to cause a stability hiccup.

Connectivity is downright copious, too.You get a convertible ATX power cablethat you can use in a 24-pin plug or 20+4-pin configuration, an 8-pin auxiliary con-nector also changeable to a dual 4-pinsetup for less demanding motherboards,two PCI Express connectors, and no lessthan 10 SATA connectors. It’s incrediblethe Liberty didn’t yet have official SLI cer-tification as of press time.

Best of all, the onboard fan is barelyaudible after hours of load; paired to anFX-60 processor, AMD’s reference cooleris much louder than the PSU. It’s hard toargue with such a solid offering that’s lessthan $175. This is one of the most attrac-tive power supplies you can buy today.

FSP Group Epsilon FX700-GLN 700WHistorically, FSP Group hasn’t dab-

bled much in the high-end market. Youwouldn’t know it, though, by looking atits latest power plant, the FX700-GLN.Doused in a royal shade of blue and thor-oughly sheathed in black mesh, the PSU


S P E C SPC System Power Supply 600W specs: 600W; ATX 12V 2.01; dual 12V rails; dualPCI-E connectors; active PFC; 100,000 hour MTBF; 80mm fan

Liberty ELT620AWT 620W specs: 620W; ATX 12V 2.2; dual 12V rails; dual PCI-Econnectors; active PFC; modular cables; 120mm fan

Epsilon FX700-GLN 700W specs: 700W; ATX 12V 2.01; four 12V rails; dual PCI-Econnectors; active PFC; 100,000 hour MTBF; 120mm fan

ModStream 520W specs: 520W; single 12V rail; single PCI-E connector; modularcables; 120mm fan; UV reactive

PowerStream 600W SLI specs: 600W; ATX 12V 2.01; dual 12V rails; dual PCI-E connectors; adjustable rails; 80mm fan

Turbo-Cool 1KW specs: 1KW; three 12V rails; dual PCI-E connectors; 80mm fan;five-year warranty; 100,000 hour MTBF

Toughpower 550W specs: 550W; ATX 12V 2.0; dual 12V rails; dual PCI-E connec-tors; 120mm fan; 120,000 MTBF

Liberty ELT620AWT 620W$174

Enermaxwww.enermax.com.tw

Epsilon FX700-GLN 700W$170

FSP Groupwww.fsp-group.com.tw

CPU / April 2006 19

sports the longest cables of any supply inthis roundup, which is major conve-nience. Connectivity is plentiful, too. Inwhat seems to be a recurring theme, themain ATX connector breaks down from24 pins to 20+4. The auxiliary 12V 8-pinplug splits off into a pair of 4-pin con-nectors. Two curiously short 6-pin PCIExpress cables barely stretch long enoughfor SLI operation, but six SATA connec-tors accommodate plenty of hard drives.

Power isn’t an issue, either. TheEpsilon FX700 pushes no less than700W, 600W (50A) of which maycome from the four (that’s right, four)12V rails. The 3.3V rail serves up 36A,and the 5V rail pushes 30A for a com-bined output of up to 155W. Ofcourse, it would be nice to know atwhat temperature the FX700-GLN wastested, although most manufacturersseem to withhold that informationnowadays. Not that there’s anything toworry about; the FX700 finished mystress testing with rock-solid stabilityand zero errors in Prime95.

FSP offers a technology called NoiseKiller, which is similar to BFG’s variable-speed fan. At light load the 120mm cool-er is virtually silent, but as it heats up,you’ll eventually hear a hum that over-powers AMD’s reference heatsink-fancombination. At $170, the EpsilonFX700-GLN is on my short list of high-end contenders, even if it’s noisier thansome of the others. FSP does a great jobof balancing performance, aesthetics,functionality, and price.

OCZ ModStream 520WOCZ is already a celebrated name in

the memory game, and its power suppliesare equally revered. This 520W model isactually on the older side, though it’s stillthe ModStream flagship. How doesModStream differ from OCZ’s otherPSU family, PowerStream? ModStreamhas more of a blingy twist to it. Modularcables, UV-reactive cabling, LED light-ing—you get the picture.

The 520W supply isn’t just aboutlooks, fortunately; it also delivers 336Wof power on the 12V rail. Moreover, a120mm fan ensures noise doesn’t get out

of hand, although Enermax’s620W Liberty is still quieter.

Ultimately, I would really like tosee a newer ModStream supply thatreflects today’s more popular trends.For example, two 6-pin graphics con-nectors are almost mandatory on anenthusiast product. The ModStreamonly offers one. An 8-pin auxiliary powerplug is also important now that Intel975X platforms require it. Additionally,the cables, although gloriously shieldedand neat, are incredibly stiff and difficultto bend. I didn’t even have enough out-let plugs to connect an optical drive oncethe hard drives and graphics cards weretaken care of. At least the ModStream520W made it through my three-hourbattery of stress tests without issue.

OCZ PowerStream 600W SLI For each of the ModStream’s shortcom-

ings, OCZ’s new PowerStream 600W SLI-certified supply compensates nicely. DualPCI-E power connectors come standard. Apair of 4-pin auxiliary 12V plugs snapstogether in an 8-pin array for workstationmotherboards necessitating EPS12V com-patibility. The cables are sheathed moreloosely, too. They’re longer and more plen-tiful, so you won’t have to worry aboutpowering the bottom card of an SLI setup

or running out of 4-pin Molex plugs. Theonly real connectivity weakness is a lack ofSATA cables. The PowerStream 600W pro-vides for just two drives.

The supply is plated in a reflective-silver finish that OCZ calls titanium, andit looks great. An 80mm cooling fankeeps air flowing and casts green lightfrom built-in LEDs. As you might expect,the fan isn’t exactly quiet under full load.In fact, it generated significant noise afterhours of stress testing.

Stability never faltered, though. Thanksto 28A on the 3.3V rail, 46A on the 5Vrail, and 20A on each of two 12V rails,OCZ really makes sure stability is top pri-ority. Of course, I’d again love to see moreattention paid to the environmental con-ditions at which the PowerStream canachieve 600W, but it’s at least reassuringthat OCZ guarantees the supply for fiveyears, more than any other vendor exceptPC Power & Cooling. It also helps thatthe three voltage outputs are adjustable,with LED lights indicating whether each

ModStream 520W$109OCZ www.ocztechnology.com

PowerStream600W SLI

$209OCZ

www.ocztechnology.com



rail is running within tolerance, sufferingan under-voltage condition, or copingwith over-voltage.

At almost $210 the PowerStream600W is a little pricier than some compa-rable PSUs. In addition, although the80mm cooling fan pumps out seriouspower, it gets pretty loud. Nevertheless,this is a true enthusiast supply capable ofdishing out the goods to power users withbeefy hardware. The bundle of cablemanagement extras is a nice touch, too.

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KWOne kilo-what? That’s right, PC Power

& Cooling’s latest design is efficientenough to push 1 kilowatt of power. Thathas a special ring to it, sort of likeBugatti’s 1,000-plus horsepower Veyron.Like the European super car, only a selectfew will be able to afford the PSU’s nearly$500 asking price. So what do you get forhalf a grand? Inquiring dreamers want to know.

At this level SLI certification is a given.The supply serves up 30A each on the3.3V and 5V rails. Three 12V rails push acombined 66A, or 800W. It goes withoutsaying that stability in my test suite wassolid. Moreover, PC Power & Coolingrates its supplies in a 50-degree Celsiusenvironment, which is a realistic repre-sentation of a chassis interior. Such trans-parence is confidence inspiring, especiallyin an industry so easily manipulated.Even better, the 1KW model comes witha unique test report that discloses theresults of 22 different metrics.

You’ll find connectors aplenty, withample lengths for each. There aren’t anyaesthetic gimmicks, just an all-black chas-sis and sheathed cables. This is true

enthusiast fare. The 24-pinATX connector doesn’t breakinto a 20+4 configuration, nordoes the 8-pin EPS12V plugsplit apart. PC Power & Cool-

ing instead bundles adapters for thosewho need to downsize.

As close as it comes to being perfect,you’ll want to watch for a few things.First, the Turbo-Cool 1KW is huge. Itbarely fit into my ATX chassis. You willneed at least 11.5 inches of clearancebetween the back of your case and anyoptical drives. And then there’s noise; an80mm fan wouldn’t have been my firstchoice. Although the supply is very effi-cient and runs cooler than most, you stillget quite a bit of fan noise under load. Ifyou can live with both caveats (plus thesticker shock), the Turbo-Cool 1KWmight very well be the last power supplyyou ever have to buy.

Thermaltake Toughpower 550W Thermaltake has its hands all over the

enthusiast market. From cases to liquid

cooling to heatsinks and fans, the compa-ny has a real pulse on what works. Itsnewest power supply, the Toughpower550W, fires a volley at higher-end cus-tomers, the kind who could use an attrac-tive supply with plenty of connectivity ata reasonable price.

The Toughpower looks like Enermax’sunit in many ways, from the black-lacquer finish to the mesh grille and120mm cooling fan. It’s a little less pow-erful, though. Each of two 12V rails does19A with a combined maximum of 36A.The 3.3V rail does 32A, while the 5V railcan push 40A.

There’s plenty of connectivity, as well,and each cable is sufficiently long formidtower cases. A pair of PCI-E graphicsconnectors is standard, of course, as is the universal ATX power cable you willsee on almost every other supply in thisroundup. Two SATA cables pave the wayfor up to four drives, while eight 4-pinMolex plugs should be plenty. The onlynotable omission is an 8-pin EPS12Vconnector, making the supply incompati-ble with Intel 975X and Opteron work-station boards.

On my nForce4 SLI machine, theToughpower 550W did just fine, motor-ing through an overnight battery of stresstests and leaving one steamy laboratoryfor me to discover the next morning. The120mm fan that cools Thermaltake’sToughpower is a variable-speed unit, andas expected, it idles almost completelysilently compared to other noisy systemcomponents. After an hour or so of heavyload, however, the PSU fan gets increas-ingly raucous, equal to some of the 80mmmodels even.

At $150 the Toughpower is pricedsimilarly to BFG’s 600W offering (whichis more powerful, though it lacks EPS12Vcompatibility) and just $20 less than theEnermax and FSP Group products (bothof which are fairly more advanced). Ifyou’re already in the $100+ range for apower supply, spending an extra $20 formore power and protection against thefuture seems worthwhile. ▲

by Chris Angelini


Turbo-Cool 1KW$489PC Power & Coolingwww.pcpowerandcooling.com

Toughpower550W

$149Thermaltake

www.thermaltake.com

CPU / April 2006 21

Personal computers have gonethrough quite a transformationthe past few years. Gone are the

boring beige boxes of old, in favor ofmodernistic machines that come in amyriad of shapes, colors, and sizes. PCs are now available that resembleanything from monolithic, brushed-aluminum works of art to ornate mini-cubes, that look equally at home on adesk, in the kitchen, or even in a livingroom entertainment center.

Some of the more appealing designsare the relatively new small form factorsystems that gained mass market expo-sure when Shuttle first introduced itsSV24 mini-barebones system in late2001. Power users like us saw the poten-tial in the first SFF systems, but thesesystems required us to make too manysacrifices, which ultimately limited theirappeal. For example, many of the firstSFF PCs lacked AGP slots or had rela-tively weak power supplies, so installingthe fastest graphics cards and processorsavailable at the time wasn’t advisable—or even possible. Today though, SFFsystems don’t require such major sacri-fices. The platform has matured to thepoint where power users can equip atiny SFF PC with almost all of theamenities of a full-sized desktop system.

Asus Pundit P1-PH1Asus has engineered a highly integrat-

ed SFF PC in its Pundit P1-PH1, whichwould be a fine choice for an office sys-tem or a second home PC. The P1-PH1is built around ATI’s Radeon Xpress200 chipset and supports Socket 775

SFF SystemRoundupGood Things Do Come In Small Packages

Pentium 4 processorsand DDR2 memory.Asus designed the Pun-dit’s tiny enclosure insuch a way that it caneither lie flat on a desk-top, or you can use theincluded stand to prop itup on its side; so the P1-PH1’s footprint dependson its orientation.

To open the P1-PH1’senclosure, you have to re-move a pair of screws onthe rear and lift the three-sided panel upand off of the system. The design is nottoolless, but all that you need to com-pletely build up the system is a Phillipsscrewdriver. For its size the P1-PH1’s in-terior is surprisingly easy to work with,due in part to a carefully planned layoutand a streamlined motherboard that lacksany extraneous connectors or headers.The system features only a pair of PCIslots, a single ATA/100 connector, and asingle SATA port. This seems like a smallamount of connectors at first, until yourealize the P1-PH1’s enclosure can onlyaccommodate a single 5.25-inch opticaldrive and one 3.5-inch hard drive. Be-cause you can’t load the machine withmultiple drives, the extra connectorswould likely go unused anyway. The sys-tem BIOS is standard fare.

A six-channel Realtek ALC655 codechandles the P1-PH1’s audio duties, andyou also get 10/100 Ethernet via aRealtek controller. (This system doesn’tinclude Gigabit LAN.) Because themachine is built around ATI’s Radeon

Xpress 200 chipset, graphics come cour-tesy of an integrated Radeon X300 core.The P1-PH1’s IGP is basically the sameas ATI’s Radeon X300 series of PCIExpress GPUs, minus a couple of pixelpipelines. The Radeon X300 isn’t exactlya high-end GPU, but it is a fully capableDirectX 9.0 class GPU with two parallelrendering pipelines and PS 2.0 compati-bility, and it is far superior to Intel’s inte-grated graphics offering.

During assembly and testing, I foundthe Pundit P1-PH1 to be very user-friendly. The system’s 250W power sup-ply and fan on the included CPU coolerwere relatively quiet, but not silent. Thefans were not a distraction during normaluse, however, and shouldn’t be bother-some to most users, even in a quiet office.

Pundit P1-PH1$179Asus

www.asus.com



On the front of the system, users haveaccess to a 3-in-1 card reader, S/PDIFinputs and outputs, two USB ports, twoFireWire ports, and microphone andheadphone jacks. The rear of the systemhouses four different video outputs:DB15, DVI, S-Video, and composite,along with another batch of USB andFireWire ports, the remaining audio con-nectors, PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports,an RJ45 LAN jack, a serial port, and aparallel port.

The Asus Pundit P1-PH1 isavailable for about $180 online ineither black or silver. The sub-$200 price point, along with thePundit’s good looks and competi-tive performance, make this littlemachine one heck of a value. Theonly things missing from the P1-PH1 are a PCI-E x16 slot and aGigabit Ethernet controller. Per-haps Asus will integrate these itemsinto a future addition of the PunditSFF lineup.

MSI mPC 915At first glance the MSI mPC 915

resembles a completely white Rubik’scube, but this little machine is anythingbut a geeky, plastic toy from the ’80s.The mPC 915 is a feature-rich andwell-planned mini PC. As its nameimplies, this SFF system is built aroundthe Intel 915G chipset. As such, themPC 915 supports Intel Pentium 4 andCeleron processors in Socket 775 flavorand comes with an Intel GMA900graphics core. If you want to upgradethe graphics capabilities of the mPC915, though, a PCI-E x16 expansionslot is available. And because MSI clev-erly locates the PEG slot at the inner-most position on the motherboard,some dual-slot graphics cards can fitinto the machine. Although with only a260W PSU at its heart, I wouldn’t rec-ommend throwing a high-end GPU inthe system.

Working on the MSI mPC 915 wasan absolute pleasure due to the system’scompletely toolless design and prewiredenclosure. To gain access to the system’sinternals, you must remove three thumb

screws and then you can lift off thethree-sided enclosure cover. Onceopen, the mPC 915’s interior seemedcavernous in comparison to the othermachines in this roundup. MSI locatesjust about all of the system’s headersand connectors at the front of the sys-tem and hinges the drive tray in such away that when you lift it the entire

motherboard is exposed. Thereis a handle at the rear of thedrive tray, and if you lift the

handle, the entire mechanism swingsupward just like the hood of a car. Thislets you easily insert a single opticaldrive and one hard drive, lock theminto place, and connect them via thealready present wiring.

The system includes a large, copperCPU cooler with heatpipes that alsodoubles as a northbridge cooler. An alu-minum heatsink adorns the mother-board’s northbridge, which is situatedjust behind the CPU socket. With theCPU cooler in place, a fan directs airover the northbridge and processor,keeping temperatures in check. Themotherboard features a PCI-E x16 slot, astandard PCI slot, and also a mini-PCslot. You can use the mini-PC slot for anoptional wireless network controller. You

get audio functionality via a RealtekALC880 HD audio codec, 10/100 LANby a Realtek RTL8100C, and FireWireusing a VIA VT6307 controller.

As you’d expect, the front of the sys-tem houses a number of handy connec-tors. Underneath a hinged panel at thebottom of the front bezel, you’ll find a 7-in-1 card reader, a pair of USB andFireWire ports, an S/PDIF input, andheadphone and microphone jacks. Therear of the system has another four USBports, an RJ-45 LAN jack, a serial port,

DB15 monitor output, PS/2 ports,and the remaining audio connectors.

The MSI mPC 915 remained fair-ly quiet throughout all of my testing,so the system would be a good fit foran office or even a home theater.That is, if you can make due with themPC 915’s rather unique aesthetic. Isuspect the mPC 915’s front bezelmay turn off some users, but if youcan get past the Rubik’s cube-likeappearance, the system performs justlike a full-sized machine built aroundthe same chipset.

Biostar iDEQ 330PBiostar’s iDEQ 330P is as close to an

enthusiast-class SFF system as I’ve seen;although, it’s not without its flaws. This is the only system in this roundup based on the AMD Socket 939 platform forAthlon 64 and FX processors, and it’s alsothe only system that lacks an integratedgraphics processor. Nvidia’s nForce4chipset powers the iDEQ 330P, whichdoesn’t feature any sort of IGP.

The iDEQ 330P’s design offers moreexpansion possibilities than any of theother SFF systems I tested in this round-up, and assembling the system was pain-less thanks to its hinged chassis. Accessingthe iDEQ 330P’s internals was an ex-tremely simple process because of the easi-ly removable thumb screws on the threeindividual panels covering the sides andtop of the system. The system’s ventedside panels and the solid top panel eachhave small tongues that lock into comple-mentary grooves on the main chassis.When removed, you can tilt the wholefront of the system upward to completely


mPC 915$265MSIwww.msicomputer.com

CPU / April 2006 23

Benchmark Numbers3DMark05: LAME MP3 Encode Cinebench 2003 Doom 3CPU Test (minutes: seconds) (seconds) (low quality/640 x 480)

Asus Pundit P1-PH1 5529 1:42 84.5 21.4fps

MSI mPC 915 5564 1:44 81.6 146.6fps

Shuttle SD36G5M XPC 5581 1:45 81.4 152.3fps

Biostar iDEQ 330P 4937 1:37 78.2 164.2fps

expose the front of the motherboard andall of the related components, similar toMSI’s design.

Opening up the system reveals its300W PSU and uncommon slot layout.The iDEQ 330P’s motherboard featuresa PCI-E x16 slot, a standard PCI slot,and a PCI-E x1 slot. What’s fascinatingabout the layout of the slots, though, isthat they’re situated on opposite sides ofthe system. On one side are the PEGand standard PCI slots, and on theother side is the PCI-E x1 slot. I shouldalso note that the PEG slot faces inwardand can’t accommodate a dual-slotgraphics card. A problem with this slotconfiguration is that the hottest part of the graphics card faces the inside ofthe system and is almost completelyblocked by the CPU cooling apparatus.The iDEQ 330P features a tunnel thatbasically runs the length of the system.The system’s vented front panel pulls in cool air by way of a large fan. The air isthen forced through the CPU coolerand passed on through a tunnel that’sequipped with a blower on the otherend. This design works well for keepingprocessor temperatures in check, and itruns relatively silently, but it also iso-lates the rest of the system’s internals.Adding another fan to circulate airthroughout the rest of the system would

be a good idea, especially if you installa hot graphics card.

The iDEQ 330P features three inter-nal drive bays: one 5.25-inch bay for anoptical drive and two 3.5-inch bays toaccommodate a pair of hard drives. Andyes, you can link the two hard drives in aRAID array. You can remove the drivetrays, making mounting drives a cinch;however, you’ll need tools to completethe assembly. In addition, the system isessentially prewired, which also helpsspeed up the assembly process.

Biostar outfits the motherboard in theiDEQ 330P with a fairly complete BIOSwith a nice assortment of overclockingoptions. The motherboard also has ahost of integrated peripherals, including7.1-channel audio (Realtek ALC850),Gigabit Ethernet (Nvidia Gigabit MACwith a Vitesse Gigabit PHY), and Fire-Wire. It’s equipped with a pair of IDE

and a pair of SATA connectors, too.About the only things that differentiatethe iDEQ 330P’s motherboard from atypical ATX mobo are its size and num-ber of expansion slots.

The front of the enclosure houses amultitude of connectors and ports,including an IrDA receiver, a 7-in-1 cardreader, two USB 2.0 ports, an S/PDIFinput, one FireWire port, and headphoneand microphone jacks. The outputs onthe rear of the system are similar toMSI’s, minus the DB15 output but plusone serial port.

Shuttle SD36G5M XPCShuttle has long been considered a

pioneer in the SFF arena, and it shows.The XPC SD36G5M is a refined pieceof equipment, which illustrates Shuttle’sfocus on bettering its SFF systems witheach new generation.

The SD36G5M is based on Intel’sViiv platform. If you’re unfamiliar withViiv, it’s basically a brand Intel gives toa product it can equip with an Inteldual-core processor and is based uponan i945 or higher family chipset with an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator950 IGP, Gigabit Ethernet connectivity,and HD audio support. Because theSD36G5M is based on the 945G north-bridge and ICH7DH southbridge, itcan support any Intel single- or dual-core LGA775 processor and meets all ofthe other requirements for Viiv. A


iDEQ 330P$379Biostarwww.biostar.com.tw


Realtek ALC882 codec gives youthe HD audio support.

Assembling the SD36G5Mwas a breeze thanks to the sys-tem’s toolless design and nicelyengineered layout. Shuttle pre-wires almost the entire system,so connecting drives is a matterof mounting them in an avail-able bay and plugging in theappropriate connector. The sys-tem features a single 5.25-inchbay and a pair of 3.5-inch baysto accommodate a single opticaldrive and dual hard drives. And,sure enough, the machine isRAID capable. Installing a CPUis also easy due to Shuttle’s ICE(Integrated Cooling Engine) system.Pop the processor in its socket, securethe cooler in place with four thumbscrews, and you’re done. Expansionoptions include a single PCI-E x16 slot and a standard PCI slot. A dual-slot graphics card will not fit in theSD36G5M, but you probably wouldn’twant to put one in the system anywaybecause of its 250W PSU.

An interesting feature exclusive toShuttle’s G5M chassis is its integrateddisplay panel recessed behind the mir-rored front bezel. The panel serves as asecondary display when the PC is in

home-theater mode. The panel can dis-play DVD, TV, and video track infor-mation. For example, when you’rewatching TV, the VFD displays a TVicon and channel and volume informa-tion if you configure it via the XPCTools application to do so.

As is typical with most otherShuttle XPCs, the SD36G5Mhas variable speed fans. (You canconfigure these via XPC Tools orthe system BIOS.) The systemcan be somewhat loud when thefans spin at their maximumspeeds, but that doesn’t happenvery often. For the most part, thecooling fans spin at a relativelylow rpm. Shuttle designs thecooling system exceptionally, let-ting it keep things chilly withoutgenerating much noise at al lmost of the time.

As you would expect from a Shutt le product, the XPCSD36G5M features an array of

front-mounted USB, audio, and Fire-Wire connectors that hide behind ahinged panel at the bottom of the frontbezel. The rear I/O configuration hasanother batch of USB and FireWireports, along with DB15 and compositevideo outputs, and PS/2, LAN, andaudio connectors. The SD36G5M is awelcome addition to Shuttle’s highlyregarded line of XPC SFF systems. Thesleek chassis, intelligently designed cooling scheme, well-appointed BIOS,good looks, no-compromise perfor-mance, and near-silent operation makethe SD36G5M a winner in my book.

Maximum Performance, Minimal Sacrifice

Today’s highly integrated small formfactor systems offer all of the featuresand performance of a similarly config-ured full-sized system. The only sacri-fices you’l l have to make with SFF systems are related to expandability andtweakability. Small form factor PCs’diminutive size and relatively limitedpower supplies restrict the types ofgraphics cards and number of driversyou can install in typical systems, andoverclocking isn’t usually a strong suit.However, there’s no denying the aes-thetic appeal of a sleek SFF rig, andthose with limited space will love thetiny footprint. ▲

by Marco Chiappetta


Performance Metrics

Intel-Based Systems: Asus Pundit P1-PH1, MSI mPC 915, Shuttle SD36G5M XPCIntel Pentium 4 660 (3.6GHz)1GB Kingston KHX5400D2K2/1G (2x 512MB)Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000rpm hard driveATI Radeon X300 (Integrated Asus Pundit P1-PH1)Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT (MSI mPC 915, Shuttle SD36G5M XPC)

AMD-Based Systems: Biostar iDEQ 330PAMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz)1GB TWINX1024-3200XL (2x 512MB)Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000rpm hard driveNvidia GeForce 6800 GT

Operating Systems: Windows XP Professional with SP2

SD36G5M XPC$330

Shuttlewww.spacewalker.com

CPU / April 2006 25

For years ATI has led the way in aclass of highly integrated graphicscards that the company single-

handedly created. ATI’s All-In-Wonderseries of multifunction 3D graphics prod-ucts offer the combined capabilitiesof a TV tuner card along with ahost of other A/V input and out-put features, all built around itslatest flagship 3D graphics proces-sor. Shortly after the launch of its rep-utable Radeon X1900 series of cards, ATIwas quick to follow-up with an All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900 variant.

In the past, ATI has been known to in-corporate all the performance and featuresof its highest-end discrete desktop graph-ics features, such as with its line of AIWRadeon X1800 XT and X1800 XL cards.These boards not only have full All-In-Wonder TV tuning and A/V features, butthey also have identically clocked GPUsand frame buffer memory and the sameamount of that memory onboard. Withthe AIW Radeon X1900, though, ATIdecided to take a few dollars off the priceand take a cut-down approach on thegraphics subsystem of the card.

Although the AIW Radeon X1900sports a slower 500MHz core GPU and256MB of 960MHz GDDR3 memory vs. the 625MHz GPU and 512MB of

1.45GHz GDDR3 memory found on thestandard 3D graphics-only version ofRadeon X1900 XT, this new All-In-Wonder still puts up respectable framerates in even the most demanding, leading-edge game titles on the market today.

The AIW X1900 also sports the newsingle-chip tuner, which ATI’s been usingfrom Microtune, underneath a shieldedcasing on the top side of the card. Thischip does wonders for reducing power

consumption on the card compared toprevious versions of All-In-Wonder prod-ucts that use much larger tin can-style

discrete tuner sections. Also, the boardreal estate efficiency the device of-

fers leaves more room for abeefy cooler atop thatscorching-fast GPU.However, the chip

only supports analogoutput, so there won’t be

any HD/DTV processing. Onthe other hand, you do get a quali-

ty FM radio tuner out of the deal,which I’ve come to enjoy as a welcomeaddition to the product.

ATI bundles in its typical offering ofMultimedia Center software along withGemstar’s Guide Plus+. Guide Plus+ has anice, clean digital TV-style show listingsinterface and lets you view programmingby ZIP code. Multimedia Center’s “10foot,” interface (Eazy-Look), conversely,feels like it’s getting a bit long in the toothwith competing programs such as Micro-soft’s Windows XP MCE, providing amuch more integrated feel and functional-ity. It does provide a solid TV Tuner UI,though, and word has it that ATI’s driversfor All-In-Wonder products are alreadyMCE-compatible anyway. ATI also tossesin Adobe Premier Elements and AdobePhotoshop Elements to sweeten the deal.

Finally, ATI includes its ever-popularand recently refined Remote Wonder PlusRF-based remote with the AIW RadeonX1900. This third version of the RemoteWonder is really nice with a ton of pro-grammable buttons, including mapping forMCE functionality. Best of all, it’s capableof controlling the AIW Radeon X1900from over 60 feet away, and you don’t haveto be in the line-of-site of the device as youdo with other infrared based controllers. Alltold, the new AIW Radeon X1900 is apowerful offering of multimedia prowess,and the card holds its own on the gamingfront, as well. I’ll take a 512MB (memory),higher clocked All-In-Wonder RadeonX1900 XT next please! ▲

by Dave Altavilla


Chart Specs: AMD Athlon FX-55, Radeon Xpress 200 CF motherboard, nForce 2 SLI x16 motherboard (NV graphics testing only), 1G RAM

Specs: Radeon X1900 GPU (500MHz); 256MB GDDR3 memory (960MHz); Remote Wonder Plus

AIW Radeon Radeon Radeon GeForce X1900 X1900 XT X1800 XT 7800 GTX

F.E.A.R.(1,280 x 960; 4XAA) 48 62 54 39

Quake 4(1,280 x 1,024; No AA) 61.3 91.7 81.5 97.4

Far Cry(1,600 x 1,200; 4XAA) 53.2 83.31 71.95 54.78

ATI All-In-WonderRadeon X1900

All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900$499

ATIwww.ati.com


T he good stuff’s all inside of theP150. Antec layers the side and top

steel panels of this ATX mini/mid withsheets of sound-dampening polycarbon-ate. Panels swing out rather than back,then off, and reattaching them is effort-less. Both the front face and the filteredgrille can support two 120mm intakefans in front of the HDD bays that snapand swing out on hinges for easy access.The 5.25-inch bays use screw-on railsthat store in holders on the case’s floor.The four hard drive bays each comewith soft silicon grommets premountedfor noise and vibration dampening.Alternatively, you can mount up tothree hard drives in the rubber bandssuspended across the 3.5-inch bays. The bands attach to mounts on eachside. Just twist the rubber band until it

firmly holds the drive in place and thenattach the clip.

The right half of these rubber bandclips feature hooks on their flip side formanaging cables: an innovation that cleansup the case interior. You don’t normallysee these hooks because they’re sand-wiched between the drive cage and the

right side panel. Antec also includes theNeo HE 430W modular power supply formore cable management. Given that thisis a member of the Performance One caseseries, I questioned whether it was smartto jack up the price with only a 430WPSU, but it’s a good, quiet unit withActive PFC, and, according to Antec, upto 85% power consumption efficiency.

The new P150 features are modestyet smart and innovative, with solidconstruction, easy assembly, and quietrunning (thanks in part to Antec’s three-speed 120mm rear fan) rounding outthis formidable chassis. ▲

by William Van Winkle


Antec P150

Specs: Dimensions: 17.5 x 8.1 x 18.5 inches (HxWxD); Weight: 25.3 lbs; Bays: 3 5.25inch, 1 3.5 inch, 4 or 3 3.5 inch internal; front ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 1394a, mic and stereo;PSU: 430W modular

save imagery to the flashcard: stills as JPEGs andvideo as motion JPEG. AnMPEG-4 option wouldhave been useful, however.

The camera’s Web-basedoptions menus are exhaustive and fairlyintuitive. You can set up an FTP desti-nation for recordings, set abilities forvarious users, manage alarms, changesensing and patrolling criteria, and fine-tune a host of image options from back-light compensation to noise reduction tocompression ratio. Toshiba crams a lotmore into the IK-WB21A than mostcompetitors in this price range. ▲

by William Van WinkleSpecs: Effective Picture Elements: 2 648 x 486; Resolution: from 160 x 120 to 1,280 x960; Optical Zoom: 22X; Power Consumption: 10W

H igh-end USB desktop cams nowhave motorized pan and tilt, motion

detection, and email alerts and can postphoto and video content online. Whatmakes this Toshiba unit worth the extra$750? If you’re into security with remoteviewing and management, a lot.

For starters, it comes with a ceiling-mount kit. The camera pans up to ±175degrees and has a pan speed of 300 de-grees per second. The tilt angle spansfrom 90 to 30 degrees (reversed if usedon a desktop) with a tilt speed of 200degrees per second. The lens operates allthe way down to 0.13 lux at F1.6, andthe optical zoom is 22X.

The camera defaults to 640 x 480 res-olution at 30fps, but there’s also a 1,280x 960 mode at 7.5fps. Motion looks

blurry in the highermode and much bet-ter at VGA, althoughI still noticed plentyof dropped framesand some motionblurring in moderatelight at 640 x 480.Focus times takeconsiderably longer at the higher resolu-tion. I’m not sure when you’d use themacro mode (down to 0.4 inches!), butit’s pretty sweet.

The camera has a jack for an externalmic, audio output, 10/100 LAN, andAC power. Also noteworthy is the SD card slot stealthed behind a screw-secured panel. In the event of LAN disconnection, the IK-WB21A can still

P150$179

Antecwww.antec.com

Toshiba IK-WB21A IPNetwork PTZ Camera

IK-WB21A IP NetworkPTZ Camera

$950Toshiba

www.toshiba.com/taisisd/security


E CS is working to change its image withits Extreme product line. The latest ad-

dition to this line, the KA1 MVP Extreme,is an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFireEdition chipset-based motherboard that’stargeted at enthusiasts on a budget.

By exploiting the capabilities of the Ra-deon Xpress 200 chipset and supplement-ing those with an assortment of third-partycontrollers, ECS produces a feature-richmotherboard that’s affordably priced. TheKA1 MVP alleviates the most glaring limi-tations of the SB450 southbridge, the lackof SATA II and Gigabit LAN support, byincorporating Silicon Image’s PCI Ex-press-based SiI3132 SATA II RAID con-troller and Marvell’s 88E8053 PCI-EGigabit LAN controller. The board has asecond 10/100 LAN controller, FireWireports, and Realtek ALC880 HD codec.

The KA1 MVP’s layout is good overall,with exceptional connector placement, anactively cooled VRM, and well-labeledheaders. ECS, however, made some ques-tionable decisions regarding the KA1MVP’s appearance. The lavender PCBwon’t appeal to most enthusiasts, and theboard is adorned with a handful of blue

LEDs that look like they were incorporatedas an afterthought. The video card reten-tion clips the board’s PCI-E x16 slots useare also lackluster, but these shortcomingsare overshadowed by the board’s perfor-mance. With a pair of Radeon X1900 XTcards running in CrossFire mode on theKA1 MVP, the board posted and impres-sive score of 6789 in 3DMark06, and itsframe rate in Quake 4 exceeded 80fps at1,600 x 1,200 with 4XAA and 8XAF.

In February we gave DFI’s RDX200CF-DR 4 CPUs (page 29); ECS easilytrumps DFI’s board by offering more fea-tures at about half the price. DFI’s boardhas a more mod-friendly BIOS, but ECS’isn’t far behind. ▲

by Marco Chiappetta


ECS KA1-MVP Extreme

Specs: Socket 939; Chipset: ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition; Max Memory:4GB; Audio: Realtek ALC880 8; LAN: Marvell 88E8053 (PCI-E) + Realtek 8100C (PCI);Slots: 2 PCI-E x16, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI

The second component of the 975XExpress chipset, the ICH7R south-bridge, has full support for Intel’s Ma-trix Storage Technology and featuresHD audio support by way of a RealtekALC882M codec. A pair of Marvell88E8053 controllers enables dual-Gigabit LAN functionality, and Asuscomplements the ICH7R’s capabilitieswith a Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II con-troller that supports NCQ and 3Gbpstransfers. The motherboard’s BIOS isalso complete, with a full compliment ofoverclocking options and a number ofother performance-oriented features.

At over $260, the Asus P5WD2-EPremium isn’t cheap, but Intel fans can’tdo much better. ▲

by Marco ChiappettaSpecs: Socket T; Chipset: Intel 975X + ICH7R; Max Memory: 8GB; Audio: RealtekALC882M 7.1; LAN: 2 Marvell 88E8053 (PCI-E); Slots: 2 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, 3 PCI

I ntel may have lost a few battles in thedesktop processor war against AMD, but

the company’s core logic chipsets havealways been considered top-notch. Andthe 975X Express chipset at the heart ofAsus’ P5WD2-E Premium motherboardmay very well be Intel’s best chipset yet.

The Asus P5WD2-E Premium is one ofthe most feature-laden motherboards avail-able for the Intel platform. Built around the975X Express chipset, it has full support forany Intel Pentium processor, including theXE, and it supports up to 8GB of DDR2RAM. The memory controller incorporatesIntel’s MPT (Memory Pipeline Technolo-gy), which accelerates transfers between thesystem memory and CPU, and Asus buildsupon this feature with its own Hyper Path3BIOS option that reduces memory laten-cies even further.

The 975X Express chipset is similar to the older 955X, but the 82975X

northbridge that’s part of the 975XExpress has a more flexible PCI Expresslane configuration. To exploit this theP5WD2-E has two physical PCI-E x16slots and supports ATI’s CrossFire tech-nology. Both of the PEG slots’ PCI-E laneconfigurations automatically change to ax8/x8 configuration by inserting a secondvideo card. It doesn’t support Nvidia’s SLItechnology at this time, but Nvidia couldchange that in a future driver release.

KA1-MVP Extreme$125ECS

www.ecs.com.tw

P5WD2-E Premium$260Asus

www.asus.com

Asus P5WD2-E Premium

CPU / April 2006 29

New laptops are expensive. As wedemonstrated in the September2005 issue (page 54), however,

building a notebook can be cheaper thanbuying a brand-new one. Back then itwas Intel’s Sonoma platform in the spot-light, based on a first-generation PCIExpress/DDR2 chipset with the familiarDothan Pentium M processor. Now it’sthe Napa platform showcasing Intel’sfirst dual-core mobile chip, Core Duo.

And just like last time, Asus is one of the first vendors with a Napa white-book—that is, an empty notebook chassisready for the processor, memory, harddrive, and wireless module of your choice.Asus’ Z62F is a polished product, evolvingfrom several iterations of build-your-owndesigns. Truth be told, most whitebooksgo to system builders who slap their ownbadges on the finished product and resell.

Asus Z62FNotebook

However, power users have access tomobile hardware now through e-tailersand consumer-friendly distributors. Forexample, the Z62F is already availableonline. Core Duo processors are slowlytrickling in, as are 667MHz SODIMMmemory modules. And Intel’s PRO/Wire-less 3945ABG module is starting to seeavailability, as well.

In order to get a feel for building oneof these new Napa platforms, I kitted outmy own Asus Z62F using Intel’s CoreDuo T2600 processor at 2.13GHz, 1GBof Kingston ValueRAM memory (two512MB modules) running at 667MHz,Seagate’s new 160GB 5,400rpm note-book drive manufactured using perpen-dicular recording technology, and an IntelPRO/Wireless 3945ABG wireless mini-PCI-E card.

The chassis didn’t come with aninstruction manual, but the build pro-cess was easy enough to improvise. Onepanel under the notebook lifts up toreveal a processor socket—just unfastenthe screw-down heatpipe, unlock thesocket interface, drop in a chip, and lockit back up. Another chassis panel expos-es two memory slots. You line up thebottom slot at a 45-degree angle, insert,and then push down until the module

snaps into place. Rinse and repeat forthe top slot. A third and final piece ofplastic covers the wireless slot and harddrive bay. Screw the hard drive into itsincluded guide and drop it down intothe bay. Sliding it forward engages theparallel ATA interface (no SATA sup-port) . Wireless networking, i f youchoose to install it, is also a drop-in up-grade. Line up the mini-PCI-E moduleas though it were a memory card andsnap it down. The only tricky part is fig-uring out the two antennas. You haveblack and white wires coming from thechassis. Intel’s card has main and auxil-iary outputs. Push the black wire ontothe output labeled Main and the whitewire onto Aux. Screw all of the panelsback on, charge the battery, and Asus’Z62F should fire right up. Unlike theZ71V (evaluated in the May 2005 issueof CPU on page 24), the Z62F has abuilt-in DVD burner.

Unfortunately, the Z62F sports integrat-ed video (Intel’s GMA950), so you will not be using it to game. I set up the Napa platform against the older Sonoma system, both with 2.13GHz CPUs, 1GB ofmemory, and 5,400rpm hard drives. In3DMark06 the Z62F scored just 141points compared to 797 from Asus’ Z71Voutfit with a GeForce Go 6600 GPU. CPUscores were a different story, though. Thedual-core 2.13GHz raked in 1,752 pointsvs. 906 for the Dothan-based Pentium M770. PCMark05 tells a similar tale with theZ62F on top 3130 to 2936. Switching overto Windows Media Encoder, the Z62F justobliterates the Sonoma machine, finishing a1080p file conversion in 5:07 (minutes:sec-onds) vs. 10:06.

What more is there to say? The Z62F islight for a 14-inch notebook, its screen isincredibly vibrant, construction is easy, andthe available power is quite remarkable. Ifyou’re looking to build for the first timeand can do without discrete graphics, Asus’latest Napa system rocks. If you need anATI or Nvidia chip, just wait, they shouldemerge in the next month or two. ▲

by Chris Angelini


Z62F$595Asus

(510) 739-3777www.asus.com

Specs: Socket 479 for Intel Core Duo processors; Intel 945GM and ICH7-M chipset;DDR2-667 support; 2 SODIMM slots; 14-inch WXGA TFT display; HD Audio; GigabitEthernet; 0.35MP camera; DVD writer

CPU / April 2006 31

W hat exactly constitutes high-end onthe I/O scene these days? Try more

keys, flashy displays, wireless connectivity,and an ergonomic feel. Logitech’s Cord-less Desktop MX 5000 Laser incorporatesall of that, plus some.

The MX 5000 Bluetooth keyboard is aformidable looking piece of hardware, allblack with a blue-green inlay. It has anexcellent tactile feel and is just perfect fortyping all day. There’s a traditional numberpad to the right and the expected functionkeys up above. The left side of the keyboardis accentuated by touch-sensitive multime-dia controls. Slide your finger upward toturn the volume up, lightly touch fast for-ward to skip CD tracks, and so on. AnLCD readout relays connection informa-tion, temperature, media data, and more.

Logitech’s accompanying mouse ismuch like the popular MX 1000, only it

connects throughBluetooth ratherthan RF. Andalthough it feels exactly the same, italmost seems to be a little less respon-sive. Fortunately, the mouse comes witha rechargeable battery, so although youwill have to replace the four AA cells inthe keyboard, a bundled base stationhandles mouse duty.

Bluetooth adds an interesting twist tothe set. Not only can both keyboard andmouse communicate wirelessly, but anincluded Bluetooth 2.0 receiver also facili-tates synchronization with cell phonesthrough a single keystroke.

There’s a lot to like about Logitech’snewest wireless entrant, but there are acouple of shortcomings. Most regret-tably, the driver software seems incredi-bly bloated. Game performance on my

relatively mainstream system slowednoticeably after installing it. I experi-enced an occasional communicationsissue, as well, where the keyboard wouldstop responding and then resume.

Other than those minor gripes, theCordless Desktop is a pretty cool setupfor anyone with $150 for I/O. If youown an FX or Extreme Edition proces-sor, then that’s you. ▲

by Chris Angelini


Logitech CordlessDesktop MX 5000 Laser

Specs: Bluetooth 2.0 receiver; rechargeable mouse; laser tracking technology; touch-sensitive multimedia controls; tilting scroll wheel; LCD keyboard display; one-touchphone synchronization

lacks focus. And not that you’dbe restarting the phone often,but the 700w’s boot process ispainfully long, as well.

Fortunately, there’s a lotmore to like about Palm’s Treo 700w thanits predecessor. Mobile versions of Word,Excel, Outlook, and IE work just as you’dexpect. Media playback—both audio andvideo—with WMP 10.1 is crisp. Priced at$499 with a two-year contract from Veri-zon, it’s a big upgrade, but well worth it ifyou’re new to the Treo family. ▲

by Chris Angelini

Specs: Windows Mobile 5.0.2.0; Intel XScale 312MHz processor; 240 x 240 transflectiveTFT touchscreen; dual-band CDMA2000 EvDO; Bluetooth 1.2; 128MB memory; 1.3MP;MMC and SD expansion

M y friend Kevin is an avid Treo 650user. That certainly helps in his

position because he’s responsible for ser-vicing an entire enterprise of the devices.But for as much as he loves the 650, he’sbeen waiting with bated breath for theWindows Mobile-based 700w to drop in his lap. Rumors of a better speaker-phone, faster Internet connectivity, andthe familiarity of Windows have had theguy on edge for months.

As it turns out, Palm’s new Treo is ev-erything he’s been hoping for and more.And for new Treo users like me, it’s easy tolearn thanks to Microsoft’s good ol’ inter-face. The speakerphone really is better—after listening to a call on the 650, Palm’s700w is in an entirely different league.

Speed on Verizon’s EvDO net-work is respectable, but theusability of Internet Explorergreatly enhances the speed.Compared to the 650’s limitedBlazer browser, IE gives you alot more freedom to customizewhat you see on a page.

Navigation is much easier onthe 700w, too, especially fornew users. In fact, you canalmost get away without using the phone’sstylus, whereas the 650 just wasn’t asfriendly. Keyboard buttons on the 700ware actually smaller; however, their shapehelps facilitate cleaner text input.

Shortcomings on the 700w are few.The camera features much truer color but

Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser$149

Logitech(510) 795-8500

www.logitech.com

Palm Treo 700w Treo 700w$549; $499 with contract

Palm(408) 617-7000www.palm.com


Intel’s Roadmaps Reveal Conroe Clock Speeds & Information

II ntel is convinced that by the end of this year itwill have turned the tables on AMD; with

Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest, Intel fullyexpects to regain the performance crown whileoffering much lower power consumption thantheir present-day CPUs. While I’m expectingIntel to do well, it’s hard to say for sure whetherit’ll achieve its ultimate goal. Of course, if youask Intel, it has had the world’s fastest processorsfor the past five years straight. Regardless, it’sabout time for a processor roadmap update, andluckily I have one right here.

As you can guess, Intel is phasing out thePentium brand and replacing it with its newCore brand. We first saw this on the mobile sidewith the Core Duo and Core Solo CPUs, andwe’ll see it again this fall with some derivative ofthe Core name on the desktop. What we’ve allknown as Conroe for a while now will eventuallybe called the Core something E6000 or E4000.The E6000 and E4000 break down as follows:

With the latest roadmaps, we finally have anindication of clock speeds for Intel’s new archi-tecture. Remember that Conroe has a deeperpipe than Yonah, thus allowing it to reach high-er clock speeds, but the decrease in efficiency ismost likely more than made up for by architec-ture changes (such as the four-issue core).

The increase in L2 cache on the higher-endparts will also prove to be beneficial to perfor-mance, especially considering that these partsstill lack an on-die memory controller. I’vealready seen that Yonah can perform, clock forclock, very similarly to AMD’s Athlon 64 X2, soI’d expect Conroe to do no less. The larger L2cache on Conroe also explains why Yonah’s L2access latency went up from 10 cycles inDothan to 14 cycles; it seems as though Yonah’sL2 cache is a 2MB version of the 4MB cachewe’ll see later this year in Conroe (and inMerom on the mobile side).

The other key aspect of Conroe is its higherFSB frequency, from 667MHz in Yonah up to800/1,066MHz. More FSB bandwidth will helpkeep those larger caches full and help in multi-tasking scenarios where both cores are active.

Note that all of the Conroe E6000 andE4000 CPUs are still LGA-775, meaning theyshould work in current 975X-based mother-boards. Of course the 975X chipset is still ahigh-end solution; Intel will release the G965and P965 chipsets for the mainstream marketalongside the new processors. The G965/P965solutions will both support DDR2-800 and a1,066MHz FSB, so they will be able to run thefull gamut of Conroe E6000/E4000 CPUs.

Interestingly enough, there will be a Xeonbased on Woodcrest (the server version ofConroe) clocked at 3.0GHz with a 1,333MHzFSB released sometime in the third quarter ofthis year, as well. Given Intel’s prior history ofturning Xeons into Extreme Edition processors,we may very well see a 3.0GHz Core ExtremeEdition processor on the desktop later this year.

With Core Duo still taking its sweet time toget out into the mainstream market, it’s no sur-prise that Merom (Yonah’s successor) won’t beout until the fourth quarter of this year. It’s quitepossible that Merom gets pushed off into early2007 to give Core Duo a reasonable lifespan.The details on Merom are as follows:

Architecturally, Merom should be very similarto Conroe, and Intel is talking about including anew set of SIMD instructions with the newchips (currently called Enhanced Processor SSE,maybe SSE4 in the future). Merom is slated todebut on Core Duo’s Napa platform but willreceive its own brand-new chipset and wirelesssolution (the Santa Rosa platform) in early 2007.

Given how stagnant the CPU market hasbeen for the past several months, I’d recom-mend holding off on upgrading until late thisyear if possible. ▲

Of course, if

you ask Intel,

it has had the

world’s fastest

processors

for the past

five years

straight . . . Talk back to [email protected].

Anand Lal Shimpi has turned afledgling personal page on

GeoCities.com into one of theworld’s most visited and trusted

PC hardware sites. Anand startedhis site in 1997 at just 14 years

old and has since been featured inUSA Today, CBS’ “48 Hours,”

and Fortune. His site—www.anandtech.com—receives

more than 55 million page viewsand is read by more than 2 million readers per month.

Anand’s Corner

Processor Clock Speed FSB L2 CacheNumber

E6700 2.66GHz 1,066MHz 4MB

E6600 2.40GHz 1,066MHz 4MB

E6400 2.13GHz 1,066MHz 2MB

E6300 1.86GHz 1,066MHz 2MB

E4200 1.60GHz 800MHz 2MB

Processor Clock Speed FSB L2 CacheNumber

T7600 2.33GHz 667MHz 4MB

T7400 2.16GHz 667MHz 4MB

T7200 2.0GHz 667MHz 4MB

T5600 1.83GHz 667MHz 2MB


ATI Releases X1900 XT (No, Really!)HH ang on a minute, didn’t the ATI Radeon

X1800 series of GPUs just come out?Well, yes, no, and kind of, but not really ontime, and now they’re being phased out. Sohere we are, only a few months on, talkingabout ATI’s “spring refresh” and latest GPUupdate: the X1900 series. Only it’s differentthis time, and it’s good to be able to talkabout something that’s really out there thistime. The X1900 series is not only faster andmore expensive (at the high-end anyway), butit’s actually available. Let me put it in perspec-tive; the fudged release/delay with the R520GPU meant boards never really materializedin the summer of 2005 as planned, andmonths later ATI ended 2005 on a sour note.

Stranger things have happened, but perhapsATI took a long, hard look at itself and lis-tened to whiney, old-fogey journalists com-plaining about paper launches. The one thatreally catches the eye is the X1900 XTX basedupon the R580 chip. It’s somehow jam-packedwith 380 million transistors (which really is alot even by today’s standards) on a 90nmprocess from TSMC. Despite the fact that theR580 is architecturally similar to its predeces-sor, ATI has vastly improved the horsepower.

The top-of-the-line X1900 GPU, the XTX,is clocked at 650MHz and comes with 512MBof GDDR3 memory clocked at a stonking1.55GHz. Yes, this is a frequency monsterfolks, and the benchmarks show it. I could goon about how many pipelines it has, but what’smore interesting is the amount of horsepower

ATI’s added in the pixel shader performancedepartment by increasing the pixel shaderprocessors. Although the X1900 XTX stillcomes with 16 TMUs, just like the R520, itstill has 48 pixel ALUs, 16 ROPs, and eightvertex units.

If 2004/2005 was all about the number ofpipelines you did or did not have, ATI has cer-tainly decided to forget about that and just takeNvidia’s lead on shading power. There are acouple of new party tricks that come with theX1900 series, including improved texture look-up capabilities via the company’s Fetch4 feature.The Hierarchical Z feature, which detects andeliminates hidden/unnecessary pixels from beingdrawn on-screen, should also help performancein the higher resolutions.

The benchmarks are top-notch and propelATI, in most cases, above Nvidia’s 7800 GTXand even surpasses the SLI mode when “Cross-Fired.” (The X1900 CrossFire card is $599.)You could throw in any of your favorite titlesand max out the visual quality settings at1,600 x 1,200 and have not only a visuallypleasant experience but one also free of notice-able frame rate drops/slowdowns. Nvidia hasalways been stronger in the OpenGL depart-ment, and Quake 4 seemed to be marginallyquicker (we are talking 5 to 6fps here folks) onthe trusty Geforce 7800 GTX.

The XTX version is silly-expensive at $649.Instead, for $549 you could do no wrong andopt for the X1900 XT (no extra X) and dropyour clock down by 25MHz on the eCore and50MHz for your memory. Keep that money,or better still, throw the dosh on the All-In-Wonder version, which is due out by the timeyou read this. The Avivo features alone willkeep you busy when you’re not gaming.

So, after a few hiccups, missed release dates,and paper launches, the beginning of this yearsees ATI finally come good. And now my headis really itching for the PS3. Once again, the ballis in Nvidia’s court, and if the past 18 monthsare anything to go by, you know it will be send-ing in a huge return of serve. ▲

The X1900

series is not

only faster and

more expensive

. . . but it’s actually

available.Email me your X1800 XT sightings to [email protected]

Disrupting Reuters’ newswire witha cheery Christmas greeting at age6, Alex “Sharky” Ross became an

avid computer user/abuser, eventually founding popular

hardware testing/review Web siteSharkyExtreme.com. Exposing

shoddy manufacturing practicesand rubbish-spouting marketing

weasels while championing innovative products, illuminating

new technology, and pioneeringreal-world testing methods was just

a front for playing with the besttoys. The site acquired, he left in

2001. A London native andLondon School of Economics

graduate, Alex currently overclocks/tunes Porsche 996

Turbos with www.sharkwerks.comwhen he’s not tweaking PCs.

The Shark Tank

CPU / April 2006 35

ATI’s Next Mobo ChipsetAA s I’m writing this, ATI has yet to supply

me with any information on its next-generation motherboard chipset. That didn’tstop one of the world’s premier motherboardbuilders from sharing it with me, though. Thechipset in question was expected to be pub-licly christened in late February as the ATICrossFire Xpress 3200 northbridge. As noted,this northbridge will support ATI’s CrossFiredual-video card implementation.

ATI is taking queues from Nvidia and isgiving this latest part a doublewide serving ofx16 PCI Express lanes. Simply put, with thisnew CrossFire motherboard chipset, eachvideo card will have an x16 width bus all itsown instead of the previous x8. (I have yet tofind a real-world gaming situation where thisreally gives the gamer any advantages, but thetalking heads in marketing on both the Redand Green teams are letting us know this is atechnology you can’t afford to be without.)The dual x16 PCI-E bus just might hold somereal advantages for ATI fans out there,though. The greatly widened bus and newchipset platform for CrossFire video cardsshould hopefully equate to a few advances inthe very near future.

First, the bus and platform should let ATIditch that nasty external dongle solution that’snow required to let the faster CrossFire cardsoperate. This will also open up an extra headon the back of the CrossFire configuration,letting you plug in four displays, which isappealing to more and more folks nowadays.Second, this will hopefully allow the “master”card to go the way of the dinosaur. Last, Ihope it will let CrossFire not suck so badly.

When it came to CrossFire, I had become theanti-fan. My experiences with the ATI RadeonXpress 200 motherboard chipsets have sucked.Even when working with the Xpress 200 innon-CrossFire implementations, they sucked. Idon’t have enough room to list the problemshere, and I don’t generally use “sucked” todescribe a product, but I really think that“sucks” or “sucked” or “sucks badly” conveysthe feeling I want you to understand. I’m pretty

sure we have thrown away all the Xpress 200motherboards we were given for review just tomake sure they didn’t end up in the hands of aninnocent DIYer somewhere down the road, for-ever poisoning his outlook on computer hard-ware. Now, I’m not saying this just to enrageevery ATI fanboy in the world, who will surelyfill my inbox with “my Xpress 200 CrossFiremobo rocks, dufus!” emails. I’m telling you thisso that when you read my opinions, you’ll nottake them lightheartedly.

Back on Nov. 12, 2004, I put the followingstatement in writing: “There is no doubt in mymind that the Radeon Xpress 200 will be a‘winner’ for ATI on a scale it has yet to see inthe motherboard chipset market. I would likelyexpect to see a dual PCI Express graphics cardsolution based on this chipset very soon, aswell.” Considering this was ATI’s first forayinto motherboard chipsets and depending onyour definition of “very soon,” you coulddescribe those comments as being accurate, butyou all know that isn’t what I meant. I hadsome really high hopes for ATI’s motherboardchipset business, but basically, I was wrong.

Fast-forward to 2006. Here I sit with thenext-generation ATI chipset, code-namedRD580. I have some very positive feelingsabout it. All the RD480 experiences in 2004that left me to write glowing commentary werebased on reference motherboards that ATIdirectly supplied. This time it’s a bit different.I have some of those good feelings again, butthis time they’re based on a retail productionmotherboard from Asus, the A8R32-MVPDeluxe. Yes, Asus was able to actually take theATI RD580 and turn it into something well-engineered and executed. My short time withthe A8R32-MVP Deluxe has been a goodexperience overall. The A8R32-MVP looks tobe an extremely solid motherboard with anentire host of enthusiast options.

With the current CrossFire video cards anddrivers, ATI is still lagging behind in maturity,but it looks as though ATI finally will have atruly solid platform for users to plug thosenew CrossFire video cards into. ▲

Now, I’m not

saying this just to

enrage every ATI

fanboy in the

world, who will

surely fill my inbox

with “my Xpress

200 CrossFire

mobo rocks,

dufus!” emails.You can talk with Kyle at [email protected].

Kyle Bennett is editor-in-chief ofHardOCP.com one of the largest

and most outspoken PC-enthusiastsites on the Web. HardOCP.com

is geared toward users with a passion for PCs and those who

want to get cutting-edge performance from their systems.

Beware, though, Kyle is known forhis strong opinions and statingthem in a no-nonsense manner

while delivering some of the mostin-depth reviews and PC

hardware news on the 'Net.

Hard Talk


Modding does the body good. A PC’s body anyway, inside and out. Here you’ll findhardware, firmware, tools, tips, and tutorials for modding your rig’s performance andappearance. Send us your own mod-related tips and ideas at [email protected].

Modding enthusiasts have a pen-chant for the latest toys. Fastprocessors, powerful video

cards, silent SFF enclosures, and radicallylit motherboards are all fair game when it comes to a modder’s creative mind.Recognizing the appeal of unconventionalcustomization, an entire industry hasemerged to support the community.

Mods & Ends

SilverStone Temjin TJ07

Enthusiasts looking for a sleek full towerwith tons of space and ample cooling willwant to see the Temjin TJ07 ($350). Thecase’s main structure is made from a solidpiece of extruded aluminum panel. Whenfinished, the case measures more than 5 feethigh and is about 1/4 to 3/4 inches thick.The panel is arched on two sides usingautomotive-class press machinery to createthe top, front, and bottom. Silverstone saysthe result is a one-piece, all-aluminumframe with more than twice the structuralrigidity of the average steel enclosure. Thatrigidity also helps eliminate vibration-induced noise.

The TJ07’s size makes for easy accessand room for ample cooling. There are fourintake fans—two 92mm fans on the backand two more on the bottom blowing

across the lower drive bays. Another two120mm exhaust fans are top-mounted. Allthe fans have lower rpm speeds to keepnoise to a minimum. A toolless design andremovable motherboard tray make access-ing the insides easy. Rounding out thedesign are front-mounted USB, FireWire,and audio ports and 13 drive bays, includ-ing seven external and six internal.

Thermaltake Silent Boost RX CPU Cooler

Looking to do some heavy overclockingbut don’t want to jump to water or phase-change cooling? Also prefer that your rignot sound like a hair dryer running at fullblast? Thermaltake may have the answerwith its new series of Silent Boost RXCPU coolers, which aim to deliver highperformance but with very little noise.

The coolers ($28) feature large, all-copper finned heatsinks with tons of sur-face area to help with heat dissipation.They also have a unique reversed fandesign that minimizes noise by reducingturbulence that air rebounding off thefan’s blade guards can cause. Additionally,the coolers have three-point fixed clipsthat don’t require tools for installation,and you can outfit the coolers with either80mm or 92mm fans at just 18dB ofnoise. The Silent Boost RX coolers arenow available in Socket A and Socket939/940 models.

Cooler Master 550W SLI Real Power PSU

Cooler Master’s new addition to itsReal Power PSU line is the Real Power550W SLI ($130). The 550-watt PSU isNvidia SLI certified, so it should also be agood candidate for an ATI CrossFire-based rig. The PSU has two 6-pin PCI-Econnectors, a 24-pin ATX power connec-tor, 8-pin EPS 12V connector, 4-pinATX 12V connector, and assorted SATAand 4-pin peripheral connectors. Themost interesting feature may be anincluded analog meter you can mount ina 3.5-inch drive bay that displays real-time power consumption data. The PSUalso has a lighted, 120mm blue exhaustfan that generates no more than 23dB ofnoise and has a honeycombed structurefor better airflow.

Fashionably Fresh Firmware

Olympus E500 Digital SLR (v1.1)

This firmware adds a three-stepadjustable button timer, white balance offoption, and security feature to protectagainst unintentionally erasing both JPGand RAW versions of the same image file.

wwwwww..oollyymmppuuss--gglloobbaall..ccoomm

Plextor PX-740A (v1.02)

Plextor has updated the firmware for the PX-740A CD/DVD burner toincrease the drive’s compatibility withmore media types and brands.

wwwwww..pplleexxttoorr..ccoomm

Lite-On SHM-165H6S (vHS06)

A recent update for Lite-On’s SHM-165H6S dual-layer DVD/CD burnerenhances the drive’s burn speeds andcompatibility with more media typesand brands.

wwwwww..lliitteeoonniitt..ccoomm..ttww

by Marco Chiappetta

PC ModderTips & Tutorials

h a r d h a t a r e a | p c m o d d e r

The awesomeSilverstone Temjin

TJ07’s main structureis crafted from a solid,

extruded aluminumpanel measuring

more than 5.3 feet in length.

A new solid-copperheatsink from

Thermaltake promises high

performance andnearly silent

operation.

The 550W SLI RealPower PSU is Nvidia

SLI certified, so itjust may work withCrossFire, as well.


other cards, the die or substrate fuses arecut to disable the pipelines, and you can’treconnect them. On other cards, though,the onboard BIOS determines how manypixel pipelines are enabled. Reprogram-ming the BIOS is all you need to do toexpose the four additional pixel pipes andincrease the card’s performance.

The Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2

Limited Edition is one of the more mod-friendly cards out there, so we chose towork with it for this project. Before webegan, though, we plugged our card into atest system to check that it was functionaland to determine if it was a good candidatefor the mod. To see what was going onunder the hood, we downloaded a copy of ATITool (atitool.techpowerup.com), a

Every so often, a product comesalong that grabs the attention ofthe modding community. With

modders it’s all about value, so anytime arelatively inexpensive product hits thestreets that has the potential to outperformmuch more expensive counterparts, mod-ders gobble them up at a fevered pace. Onesuch product is Sapphire’s Radeon X800GTO2 Limited Edition graphics card. Afew months back, ATI launched theRadeon X800 GT GPU—which is at thecore of the Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2—for lower-cost, midrange gamingcards. It turned out, however, that theX800 GT wasn’t really a new GPU at all,but rather a means for ATI to unload someolder chip inventory to its partners.

According to referencespecifications, the X800GT has 12 pixel pipelines,putting it in the same per-formance category as theolder Radeon X800 Pro.But not long after cardsbased on the GPU hitstore shelves, some enter-prising modders foundsome models had shippedwith R480 GPUs, whilethe R420 or R423 pow-ered others. If you recall,the R480 is the same chipthat’s used on the RadeonX850 XT Platinum Edi-tion, ATI’s previous 16-pipeline flagship videocard. Armed with that knowledge, mod-ders knew there had to be a way to unlockthose unused pipelines and wring moreperformance from some X800 GTs. They

were right, and we willshow you how it is done.

Get StartedYou can easily unlock

the unused pixel pipelineson some X800 GT-basedcards from PowerColor,Connect3D, and Sap-phire by flashing theBIOS on the card. Thereare some things to watchout for, though, to ensuresuccess. Not every card

will work properly after the mod. Onmany cards the disabled pixel-pipelinequad is simply defective and won’t func-tion correctly when reactivated. On some


The Sapphire RadeonX800 GTO2 ModA 16-Pipe Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

Sapphire’s 12-pipeline Radeon X800 GTO2 Limited Edition is very overclockable,

and you can modify it to operate with 16 pixel pipelines.

The CONFIG_DIE_FUSES andCONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSESentries should read 0xFFFFFFFFand 0xFFFFFF9F in ATITool, or you may not be able tomodify the card.

Reprogramming the BIOS is all you need to do to expose the fouradditional pixel pipes and increase the card’s performance.


we wanted to enhance its cooling perfor-mance, which would aid in our overclock-ing efforts later. Using a Phillips headscrewdriver, we carefully removed thescrews on the back of the card. This let usremove the heatspreader on the back andthe cooling fan-heatsink on the front.Immediately after we removed the rearheatspreader, we were glad to have a tubeof high-quality thermal paste available.The thermal interface material installed atthe factory was woefully inadequate, sowe cleaned it up and then moved to thefront of the card.

The thermal interface materials thatwere used on the GPU and the RAM on the card’s front side needed someattention, as well. There wasn’t enough

free video card tweaking utility that’s avail-able for download from numerous sources.After installing the app, we launched it andclicked the Settings button at the lowerright. Immediately, we saw that a R480powered our card and that the die and sub-strate fuses hadn’t been cut. We knew thisbecause the CONFIG_DIE_FUSES andCONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES entriesread 0xFFFFFFFF and 0xFFFFFF9F in thesettings window, respectively. If the fifth Flisted in the CONFIG_DIE_FUSES or thelast F listed in the CONFIG_SUB-STRATE_FUSES lines had been a differ-ent letter or digit, we would have been outof luck.

Once we knew we had a card on ourhands that we could mod, we pulled

together the rest of the tools we needed forthe project. You’ll need to have a bootablefloppy (or thumb drive), a copy of Flash-ROM, and the appropriate BIOS for yourcard. These files are readily available if youconsult the Oracle (otherwise known as Google), but we suggest checking Techpowerup.com. The files you willneed and a tally of successful vs. failedX800 GTO mods are available there.Because we also planned to do some heavyoverclocking, we grabbed a Phillips screw-driver, some metal polish, and a tube ofhigh-quality ceramic-based thermal paste.

Tweak The HardwareBefore we began modifying the BIOS

on our Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2,


To facilitate heat transfer from our card’sRAM to the heatspreader, we thoroughlycleaned the (inferior) stock thermal interfacematerial and replaced it with high-qualityceramic-based thermal grease.

BBEEFFOORREE

MMIIDDDDLLEE

AAFFTTEERR

We also cleaned the GPU and RAM on the front side of the Sapphire video card and gave each a fresh application of thermal grease.

Performance: Before & After The ModTo determine exactly what kind of improvement (if any) we’d see after modding ourSapphire Radeon X800 GTO2, we ran a few benchmark tests. Our test system includedan AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU, 1GB (2x 512MB) of Corsair TWINX1024-3200XL Promemory, an ECS KA1 MVP (Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition) motherboard, and aWestern Digital WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000rpm hard drive. Our drivers included ATICatalyst v6.1 for video and an 8.111-050222a chipset driver.

F.E.A.R. v1.02 Quake 4 v1.0.5.2

Pixel Core/Memory 3DMark06 1,600 x 1,200 1,600 x 1,200 Pipelines Clock Speeds with 2X AA/8X AF with 2X AA/8X AF

Radeon X800 400MHz/GTO2 (stock) 12 490MHz 1470 22 22.8

Radeon X800 400MHz/GTO2 (modded) 16 490MHz 1762 28 27.1

Radeon X800GTO2 (modded 560MHz/& overclocked) 16 604MHz 2253 36 35.2

Radeon X850 XT 540MHz/Platinum Edition 16 590MHz 2212 35 34.3

CPU / April 2006 41

(980MHz DDR). But the card has anR480 GPU and 1.6ns RAM, whichmeans there is plenty of headroom. Weused ATITool again to automatically findour card’s peak GPU and memory clockspeeds and ended up with the coreclocked at 560MHz and the memoryclocked at 604MHz—huge increases of160MHz and 114MHz, respectively. Thenet effect of our hardware and softwaremodding, plus some overclocking, yieldeda card that could outperform a RadeonX850 XT Platinum Edition for a fractionof the price. And that’s what modding isall about. ▲

by Marco Chiappetta

material used on the RAM andtoo much on the GPU. Usingsome cotton swabs and iso-propyl alcohol, we cleaned upthe thermal interface materialon the GPU and RAM chipsand also cleaned off the heat-sink and heatspreader. Whilewe had the card’s cooling apparatus disas-sembled, we decided this would be a goodtime to lap the heatsink, so it would makebetter contact with the GPU. Luckily, thecopper slug on our heatsink was perfectlyflat and didn’t need much work. We spenta little time polishing the slug with metalpolish, though, and ended up with a mir-ror finish very quickly.

With everything cleaned and polished,we applied a fresh layer of thermal pasteto our card’s GPU and to all of its RAMchips. For this, you only need a smallamount of thermal paste—just enough tomake a paper-thin layer on the chip’s sur-face, as you don’t want excess goop drip-ping over the sides of the chips. With thisfinished, we reinstalled the heatsink andrear heatspreader and secured them inplace using the screws that we hadremoved earlier. The combination of anew, higher-quality thermal interfacematerial and a mirror-polished heatsinkshould help bring the temperatures onour card down a bit, which should allowfor higher clock speeds.

Flash The BIOSAfter reassembling the card, we were

ready to perform the BIOS mod. We hadpreviously copied FlashROM and theappropriate BIOS image files to abootable floppy, inserted the floppy, andpowered up our system. You don’t wantto perform this mod from within Win-dows, though. You must boot into DOSmode. At the DOS prompt, we usedFlashROM to back up the original BIOSon our card by typing flashrom –s 0backup.bin. The –s, 0, and backup.binparameters tell FlashROM to save theBIOS file in device 0 to a file namedbackup.bin. We did this as a precautionin case the mod failed and we needed toreturn the card to its original state. Withthe backup complete, we flashed the card

with a modified BIOS file to unlock thedisabled pipes. We typed flashrom –f –p0 modded.bin and pressed ENTER. Thistells FlashROM to ignore the differentBIOS types and program the BIOS ondevice 0 with the file named modded.bin.After flashing the card with the newBIOS, we booted back into Windows andlaunched ATITool again to see if all 16pipelines were enabled. They were.

Crank Up The ClocksWith our card humming along with all

16 pixel pipelines enabled, it was time to do some overclocking. By default, Sapphire’s Radeon X800 GTO2 LimitedEdition has a 400MHz core clock speedand its memory is clocked at 490MHz

While we had the card’s cooler removed, wepolished the copper slug that makes contactwith the GPU. The polished surface and a newapplication of thermal paste helped lower theGPU’s operating temperature and bolsteredour overclocking efforts.

A nytime you flash a BIOS orupgrade a component’s firmware,

there is always an element of riskinvolved. Many motherboards havebeen rendered useless due to a userincorrectly flashing the BIOS orbecause a BIOS flash went wrong.Power outages, corrupted files, or incor-rect parameters are some reasons aBIOS flash can fail.

Fortunately, inadvertently damaginga video card due to a bad BIOS flash is much more forgiving than doing thesame thing with a motherboard. Ofcourse, a problem could still render thecard inoperable, but recovering fromthe problem is relatively easy providedyou have the right tools on hand. Ingeneral, if a video card stops workingbecause of a bad flash, it won’t displayany images on-screen, and you’ll begreeted by dark monitor screen uponrebooting. But if you back up the card’soriginal BIOS and keep a PCI-basedvideo card handy, you can restore thedamaged card to its original statequickly and easily.

First, remove the damaged card fromthe system, insert the PCI-based videocard into a free slot, and connect yourmonitor. Next, power up the system andenter the BIOS. In the PCI/PnP sectionof the system BIOS, there should be anoption that’s usually labeled Init DisplayFirst that will initialize the PCI videocard first. Set this option to PCI, savethe changes, and power down the sys-tem. Now, reinstall the damaged card,and with the PCI card, boot to a floppyand reflash the damaged card with itsoriginal BIOS. Problem solved. ▲

Beware The Bad Flashh a r d h a t a r e a | p c m o d d e r

BBEEFFOORREE

AAFFTTEERR

Before flashing the card with a modified BIOS tounlock all 16 of the R480 GPU’s pixel pipelines,we backed up the original BIOS as a precaution.


Get informed answers to your advanced technical

questions from CPU. Send your questions along with a

phone and/or fax number, so we can call you if

necessary, to qq&&aa@@ccppuummaagg..ccoomm. Please include all

pertinent system information.

. . . the only video

card that is capable

of this across a

reasonable number

of game titles is

the now-aged

Matrox Parhelia.

“

“

Each month we dig deep into the mailbag here at CPU in an effortto answer your most pressing technical questions. Want some adviceon your next purchase or upgrade? Have a ghost in your machine?Are BSODs making your life miserable? CPU’s “Advanced Q&ACorner” is here for you.

Frankie C. asked: I’ve been confused by something I read onlinerecently. I stumbled across a post in a forum one day where someonehad stated that he planned to buy a new Pentium processor and under-clock it for whatever reason. I understand why people like to overclocktheir systems, but why on earth would anyone want to take a brand newprocessor and run it at a speed lower than what it’s rated for? Why notjust buy a slower processor and save some money? I just don’t get it. Itdoesn’t seem to make any sense. How about some enlightenment here?

A: We agree with you, Frankie. As performance enthusiasts,underclocking a processor seems counterintuitive. I mean, c’mon!We’re power users and want the fastest PC possible, right? Butthere are actually a couple good reasons why people engage in thepractice of underclocking. Before we get into the specifics,though, let’s talk about what typically happens while overclock-ing a processor. To substantially overclock a processor, users usu-ally bump up the core voltage and either increase the multiplieror FSB speed (or the HTT clock with Athlon 64/Opteronprocessors) to raise the processor’s operating frequency. By doingso, overall system performance goes up because the processor isundoubtedly running faster than its original, default clock speed.And by running the processor at a higher clock speed with anincreased core voltage, power consumption and heat output alsoincrease (obviously), sometimes exponentially. To counteractthese side effects, overclockers typically use beefy power suppliesand bigger, more capable CPU coolers. When underclocking aprocessor, however, just the opposite happens, and users don’thave to take extreme measures to keep the system cool.

When underclocking a processor, users are usually able tolower the CPU’s core voltage while still maintaining system sta-bility. In conjunction with a lower core voltage, lowering theprocessor’s operating frequency (by lowering the FSB speed)results in much lower power consumption and far less heat out-put. These side effects of underclocking are why some people doit. By lowering the power consumption and heat output, under-clockers can usually get away with using less elaborate coolinghardware and fewer fans, or even passively cool the entire system.This in turn makes it possible to have a silent, or at least a near-silent, PC. Lowering power consumption could also mean long-term savings on your electric bill, should you need to power up

CPU / April 2006 43

the system 24/7. The reasons to underclock a system are obvious-ly somewhat specialized, but if you’re in need of a quiet PC andwant some extra horsepower on tap should the need arise, under-clocking could be the answer.

Chris R asked: With 3D simulation games, such as Ubisoft’s PacificFighters, will a pair of Nvidia-based SLI video cards (providing four moni-tor connections) span a game across three displays? This is something Isee lots of posts about at just about every forum out there on simulationgames or multiple monitors. The ability to span a game across two dis-plays is fairly routine and achievable with many cards out there. Unfortu-nately, the bar right in the middle of the sighting reticule tends to distractfrom the pleasure of the game. Three displays is the magic number. Anyidea if Nvidia or ATI have something like this in the works?

A: Sorry, Chris, but to date the only video card that is capable ofthis across a reasonable number of game titles is the now-agedMatrox Parhelia. Unfortunately, the card didn’t have very com-petitive performance when it was first released, and since thenMatrox has all but disappeared from the gaming/enthusiastgraphics card arena. Unfortunately, Nvidia saysyou can only run two monitors in hori-zontal spanning mode with its cards, evenif you physically attach three displays totwo boards. In the case with two monitors run-ning in spanning mode, with one or two othermonitors attached, you can still use the extranonspanned monitors independently. In short,SLI gaming across three screens with Nvidia’sGPUs are currently a flat out no-go. There’sno reason hardware-wise that you couldn’tachieve this, however, so hopefully Nvidia willlisten to the gaming community a bit and con-sider it for future driver releases.

ATI, though, does have limited support ingames with a feature called SurroundView. ATIsays that SurroundView does work in Micro-soft’s Flight Simulator, but we haven’t proventhat ourselves. And supposedly the game titlesupport list for SurroundView is limited.

SoulD asked: I’m putting together a new sys-tem. This will be my first build, and I have ordered all the parts. I havean idea in mind on setting up all of the hardware, but I’m not real sureof how to set up the hard drives. Here’s what I have for components:

Asus A8N Deluxe motherboardAMD Athlon 4400 X2 processor1 Asus Extreme N6800 graphics card2 1 GB OCZ Platinum memory

2 WD 74GB Raptor hard drives2 Maxtor 200GB SATA 2 (3GBps) hard drives7-in-1 card reader/floppy16X dual-layer DVD burnerEvercool Water Cooler kit (WC-202)NZXT case with 600W power supplyWinXP Home (SP2)

My idea is to set up the two Raptors in RAID 0 and run the operat-ing system on them and then set up the bigger Maxtors in anotherRAID 0 array for all my iTunes files. The original reason for this wasthat I wanted the speed of the Raptors running most everything andthe bigger storage size for all my music and media files. I think mymotherboard supports two RAID 0 arrays at one time. I have read inseveral reviews, however, that newer SATA II drives are almost as fastas the Raptors. Is that true? Because if it is, I don’t see the advantageof running two smaller drives just for speed purposes. I would likeabout 400GB of storage, but I’d also like the system to be super fast.Striping seems to be the fastest way to move files. Any advice on thebest hard drive setup for me?

A: You are correct, Soul. Some of the more recent largercapacity 7,200rpm drives to hit the market are close to the per-formance of WD’s ever-popular and speedy 10,000rpm RaptorWD740GD; however, it’s not due to the new SATA II inter-face that these drives perform better. In fact, calling these drives SATA II is a bit of a misnomer. Actually, SATA II doesnot formally exist, and the SATA-IO group (www.sata-io.org)has defined interface bandwidth and features that many are

The Matrox Parhelia was and still is one of the only3D gaming/graphics cards in the market to support

horizontal spanning across three monitors.


incorrectly referring to as SATA II. Regardless, many recentSATA desktop drives on the market are coming out now with3GBps SATA interfaces on them, which takes the SATA inter-face from its legacy 1.5GBps data rate up to two times thespeed. There isn’t a hard drive on the market, however, thatcan push sustained transfer rates capable of saturating even aSATA 1.5GBps connection, so this clearly is not the reasonthese drives are faster.

Actually, what you’re probably seeing is the effects of largeronboard cache sizes of these newer drives, letting them competewith the faster spindle speed of the WD740GD. The RaptorWD740 only has 8MB of onboard cache, while newer drives,such as Maxtor’s DiamondMax 10 line, have 16MB of cache,which helps for general throughput. However, let us point you inthe direction of the new Western Digital WD1500 Raptor thatwe covered in last month’s issue of CPU (page 33).

The WD Raptor WD1500 combines the best of bothworlds. It has a larger 150GB capacity with a pair of 75GBplatters internally, as well as a beefier 16MB onboard cacheand support for some of the latest SATA controller technolo-gies such as NCQ. The Raptor WD1500 does still have a stan-dard SATA I interface at 1.5GBps, but again, that won’t holdthe drive back. (The 3GBps interface is more forward-looking,anyhow, for when drives are capable of utilizing that extrabandwidth.) We’re confident the WD1500 will pretty muchsmoke any standard desktop SATA drive on the market today,3GBps SATA or otherwise.

In terms of setup, we’d recommend a pair of the new RaptorWD1500s in a RAID 0 array for blistering OS and applicationperformance and maybe go with a pair of the larger 200GB or300GB SATA drives for your mass storage requirements. Setup a RAID 1 array for mirroring and redundancy on thoselarger drives. You’ll want to protect all of that music and mediacontent from drive failure, so striping definitely isn’t the wayto go there. RAID 1 has better fault tolerance in the event one

of the drives goes south, saving your most valuable multimediacontent and data.

M.O.B. asked: I just bought a new Shuttle SB81P XPC and amhaving a problem. The system went together perfectly, and everythingpowered up on my very first try. After installing Windows XP, though,I ran into some trouble. The OS installed without any errors, but whenI go to My Computer, my only hard drive is set to drive E: and notdrive C:. I tried using the tools available in WinXP’s Disk Managementapp to change the drive letter assignment, but it won’t let me changethe drive letter of my system or boot volumes. The system seems towork fine for the most part: I don’t get any blue screens or anythinglike that, but some applications do give me errors when I try to usethem because they can’t find files on the C: drive. Is there anything Ican do to fix this? I’ve tried reinstalling WinXP a couple of times andhaven’t had any luck. Do you think I got a lemon?

A: This is your lucky day! Not only can we set your mind at ease,but we’ve run into this issue ourselves numerous times and havean easy fix. That is, if you don’t mind cracking open the systemtemporarily and reinstalling WinXP one more time.

The reason your hard drive was designated a drive letterother than C: is because the Shuttle SB81P XPC has a built-incard reader that the OS interprets during installation as beingmultiple removable hard drives. And each slot on the cardreader is typically assigned a drive letter. We’ll assume thatwhen you installed Windows for the first time, your hard drivewas brand new and had never been partitioned. Consequently,when Windows set up a partition on that hard drive for thefirst time, it designated a drive letter that came after the driveletters already assigned to the built-in card reader. Thankfully,though, working around this issue is relatively easy.

The first thing you should do is back up any important filesand keep all of your application discs handy because you’re goingto repartition the hard drive and reinstall Windows again. You’reright that WinXP’s Disk Management application won’t let youchange the drive letter assignment on the boot drive, and becausesome applications use absolute references in the Registry, itmakes sense to just start over with a clean installation of Win-dows. After backing up anything important, shut the systemdown, open up the case, and unplug the cable connected to thecard reader to disable it. Next reinstall WinXP, but in the earlystages of the installation process, delete the existing partition andreformat the drive. Because your hard drive will then be the onlyfixed disk in the system, Windows will designate it as drive C:.Finally, once the Windows installation is complete, shut downthe PC and reconnect the card reader. Windows will detect thenew hardware the next time you boot up the system. ▲

by Dave Altavilla and Marco Chiappetta, the experts over at HotHardware.com

While the OS is installing, the Shuttle SB81P XPC’s built-in card reader couldconfuse Windows XP into assigning a drive letter for your hard drive otherthan C:. The fix? Unplug the card reader before installing Windows.

CPU / April 2006 45

fully compliant with all aspects of IP, itworks with IP network structures, includ-ing LAN, wireless LAN, PTPP, and more.

Zetera initially introduced its SoIP-basedtechnology, called Z-SAN, in early 2005.Products based on Z-SAN started appear-ing toward the end of 2005, aimed both atsmall businesses and home users.

CChhaannggiinngg SSttoorraaggee NNeeeeddss

Although other types of new storagetechnologies have failed over the years,

Zetera’s hoping it’s entering the market atthe right time. Judging from the changesoccurring in the way both business andhome users are making use of storage, thecompany may be right.

Business users. Data storage is changingdramatically among small and medium-sized business users thanks to the expansionof LANs and the increased use of theInternet. Both changes require businesses toboost the amount of storage each workerneeds, according to IDC.

Finding and developing new tech-nologies in the external storage mar-ket is a difficult proposition. Few

protocols have made it past the “great idea”stage, falling victim to the established pro-tocols, such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI.

As more small and medium-sized busi-nesses expand their data storage needs andlook for simple, cost-effective storage tools,the timing may be good for a new technol-ogy. SoIP technology is cost-effective com-pared to FC and iSCSI. Because SoIP’s

Zetera’s Z-SANMake Storage Easy

Striped & MirroredData With Zetera

Z-SAN vs. Fibre Channel

Sources: Zetera and IDC Source: Zetera

Using Zetera’s Z-SAN technology, data is brokeninto blocks as it’s stored. Each block is sent to aphysical drive. Each drive then receives a mirrorpartition from another drive. In this exampleeach drive is staggered by one so that the parti-tion on drive 1 mirrors the blocks on drive 2.The original blocks are called the striped data.

Such a configuration protects the overall sys-tem from the failure of one drive. If drive 2 fails,you install a new drive. The system can thenreconstruct the lost data from drive 2 using drive1’s mirror partition. The system also can recon-struct the mirror partition drive 2 stores by copy-ing the striped data from drive 3.

Simple math tells us that a system using fouror more drives can fully recover its data, even ifup to half of those drives fail, as long as none ofthe drives are adjacent. ▲

Z-SAN technology offers performance and scalability in a storage architecture simi-lar to what’s found with FC, but at a lower price.

Z-SAN’s architecture is less complex than FC’s setup. Z-SAN removes traditionalcapacity bottlenecks in storage architectures by disk striping on the IP switch. Mostof the expense with Z-SAN is in adding individual hard drives to the system; the over-all Z-SAN architecture uses inexpensive hardware and standard IP technologies. ▲

Under FC bottlenecks can occur at the RAIDcontroller and server. The server uses HBA

technology, which signif-icantly adds to the costof the overall storagearchitecture. Also, the FCswitch and the RAIDcontroller can be costly,as well. Despite the highcosts of using HBA, it’san important cog in theexcellent performancerecord of the overall FC architecture. ▲

Block 1Multicast Data Blocks To Be Striped

Block 1

Mirror ofBlock 2

Mirror ofBlock 3

Mirror ofBlock 1

Block 2

Stripe

Client

1-10 GbE1-10 GbE

1-10 GbE

Client

IP Switch

IP Switch

FC Switch

RAIDController

Hard Drives

Serverw/ HBA

Z-SAN Hardware Hard Drives

Mirror

Physical Drive 1 Physical Drive 2 Physical Drive N

Block N

Block 2 • • • Block N


Business users need more storage todrive their Web sites and handle email traf-fic. Large multimedia files are appearingmore on business Web sites, necessitatingmore storage space. And, with more com-panies expanding their use of LANs, moresmall business users are sharing files andcommunicating through the network,which also drives the need for additionalstorage space.

Changes and demands for more datastorage are occurring fast, leaving systemmanagers looking for new ways to expandtheir storage options efficiently and quickly.

Home users. In the past home usersseemed content running productivity soft-ware on their home PCs. That’s no longerthe case. Home PCs now often double asentertainment devices, managing digitalphotos, video, music, and gaming.

As home users set up more home net-works and connect entertainment devicesto those networks, the need for more stor-age capacity and flexible storage optionsgrows. And so, centralized storage with

connections for multiple PCs and otherdevices via a network is becoming a morepopular idea.

When considering storage options, mosthome users seem to be interested in easy-to-configure devices. But they’re also interest-ed in devices that are reliable and easy touse as backup devices. Home users alsoseem to want to keep most of their fileslonger than business users, necessitating sta-ble data storage devices.

ZZ--SSAANN OOvveerrvviieeww

Zetera aims to address the needs of bothbusiness and home users with its Z-SANnetwork storage technology based on IP.Zetera’s option differs from other IP andSoIP ideas because Z-SAN uses IP technol-ogy as the storage medium. Other optionstypically use IP as a bridge among otherlegacy storage technologies. Adding morestorage or additional PCs to the Z-SAN-based hardware is as easy as plug and play.

Because Z-SAN runs with basic compo-nents that are widely available, such as ATA

disk drives and Ethernet hardware, theoverall cost of implementing the technolo-gy is low. Z-SAN uses a fully establishedand widely available protocol in IP, whichmakes it a reliable option, as well.

Each drive within Z-SAN has its own IPaddress. Within the drive Z-SAN can createmultiple virtual drives, and each of themreceives its own IP address.

ZZ--SSAANN PPrroodduuccttss

Rather than building its own Z-SANand SoIP hardware, Zetera licenses its Z-SAN technology to other vendors.

Bell Microproducts. In early 2006 BellMicroproducts announced a new line of itsHammer Network Storage brand featuringSoIP for mainly business users.

Netgear. Netgear’s Storage Central(SC101) was introduced in September2005 with an MSRP of $129. However,you must provide your own hard drives forStorage Central, increasing overall cost. ▲

by Kyle Schurman

Zetera’s Personal Network Drive

Source: Zetera

Zetera’s PND (Personal Network Drive) provides automatic andeasy backup options for a home network.

You may use a PC that’s attached to your network as your mainbackup device, but as file size and storage capacity needs grow, youneed a dedicated, centralized storage device for running backups.For several reasons:

Backup issues. Because PC hard drives aren’t designed to serveas backup devices for a network, creating backups can be a time-consuming hassle, and running automated backups may be difficult.

Lower performance. As you access files on the computer youuse for backups and centralized storage, performance will suffer.

Power on. Your PC that serves as a centralized storage option ispowered on at all times, which isn’t always a practical option. ▲

The PND connects directly to the router on your network,giving every authorized network participant access to the PNDand the content it stores. You can configure it to perform automaticbackups of data from each network device each time a user accesses thenetwork. For business users, this feature is particularly vital. Each mobile usercan have his own partition on the PND, providing automatic backups. Accessing thePND is as easy as accessing the hard drive on your PC or laptop.

For remote users accessing the PND, it appears and works asthough it’s a local hard drive. The PND’s user-friendly simplicitymakes it ideal for home users and home networks. Individualscan connect to the PND with a wired or wireless connection,just as they would connect to any other node on the network.

Sharing large digital media filesover a network is easier with aPND, which works easily withnon-PC devices such as a DVR.

If you don’t want certain networkusers to have access to the PND,you can hide it from those users.

PNDs are especially handy if you use a laptop with a wireless connection. You can addhard drive capacity to the laptop via a PND while maintaining the laptop’s mobility.

Photos

Music

Laptop

Router/WirelessAccess Point

PC

Movies

CPU / April 2006 47

AMD Multi-Core ProcessorsProviding Multiple Benefits For The Future

variations this year. In 2007 the chipmakersexpect to introduce several multi-corechips, beginning with quad-core offerings.

We discussed Intel’s multi-core proces-sors in the January 2006 issue of CPU

(page 50). This month, we’ll focus on whatAMD has planned for 2006 and beyond.

DDuuaall--CCoorree CChhiippss

In April 2005, AMD released its firstdual-core chip aimed at the server andworkstation market, the Opteron proces-sor. There are several Opteron dual-core90nm processors ranging in clock speedsfrom 1.6GHz to 2.4GHz.

h a r d h a t a r e a | w h i t e p a p e r

By now you probably have heard ofdual- and multi-core processors.Both AMD and Intel released

dual-core chips in 2005, and both haveplans to release dozens more dual-core chip

Direct Connect Architecture vs.Legacy Systems

Source: AMD

Direct Connect Architecture lives up to its name by providing a direct connection between the processor, the memory controller, and the I/O area to improve overall system performance. AMD has used Direct Connect Architecture

for the past few years in its single-core chips.But now AMD has extended the use of Direct Connect Architecture to

connect the cores on a dual- or multi-core chip die and to connect eachcore to its memory controller. ▲

When using a dual-processor x86 legacy architecture,however, two processors then have to share the samememory control hub, which creates bottlenecks in datatransfers at the FSB. The two processors aren’t connected,either, which can lead to latency problems.

With multi-core architecture, each core on the chip has its own memory con-troller, which significantly improves memory performance. Using Direct ConnectArchitecture to make a connection with the memory controller eliminates mostbottlenecks and makes multitasking easier. Also, connecting the processor corestogether lets data flow freely and reduces latency problems.

As with other families of AMD processors, a larger model numberfor an Athlon 64 X2 dual-core chip equals better software perfor-mance on that processor vs. those with smaller model numbers.Each Athlon 64 X2 90nm chip listed here runs at 1.35 to1.40V anduses a Socket 939 socket. ▲

Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Chips

Source: AMD

Processor Clock Speed L2 Caches Max Temp Price*(GHz) (°C)

3800+ 2 512KB (x2) 71 $328

4200+ 2.2 512KB (x2) 65 $408

4400+ 2.2 1MB (x2) 65 to 71 $507

4600+ 2.4 512KB (x2) 65 $643

4800+ 2.4 1MB (x2) 65 $803

*Price as of January 2006, for direct AMD customers in 1,000-unit quantities


The first desktop dual-core processorfrom AMD appeared in May 2005 underthe Athlon 64 X2 brand name. AMD hasseveral variations of its Athlon 64 X2processors. (See the “Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Chips” chart for some examples.)

AMD’s first dual-core processors fornotebooks and the mobile market shouldappear sometime in the first half of 2006.Multi-core processors from AMD shouldinitially appear in 2007.

DDuuaall--CCoorree TTeecchhnnoollooggiieess

As AMD releases its dual- and multi-core chips, the company will introduceand improve upon several technologies.

Cool’n’Quiet. When AMD’s systemis running Cool’n’Quiet technology, it adjusts the speed of the system fanand the voltage and clock speed of thecores on the processor based on the system case temperature. (See the“Cool’n’Quiet Technology” sidebar formore information.)

Direct Connect Architecture. AMDplans to enhance this technology in dual-and multi-core chips to improve datatransfer connections among the cores onthe chip. (For more information see the“Direct Connect Architecture vs. LegacySystems” sidebar.)

HyperTransport 3.0. AMD and theHyperTransport Consortium continue todevelop HyperTransport 3.0, which mayoffer about three times the bandwidth ofversion 2.0. HyperTransport 2.0 can offeraggregate bandwidth up to 22.4GBps. Aswith previous versions of the technology,HyperTransport 3.0 will offer direct con-nections between the CPU and the I/Oarea. The new version will provide directconnections among the cores in the dual-and multi-core chips.

AM2 socket technology. During 2006AMD will release new dual-core chips thatuse an AM2 socket technology, which uses a different pin configuration thanAMD’s 939 socket. Customers who choose

dual-core chips and motherboards that sup-port the AM2 socket will then be able toupgrade to a quad-core chip, which alsowill use the AM2 socket when AMD intro-duces it (scheduled for 2007).

Pacifica technology. AMD’s Pacificatechnology will improve performance, relia-bility, and security for virtualization hard-ware environments. It should appear in thefirst half of 2006 and use dedicated transis-tors to deliver the new features while run-ning as part of dual- and multi-core chips.(See the “Using Pacifica Technology” side-bar for more information.)

Presidio technology. Presidio technolo-gy will give users advanced security fea-tures at the chip level. Although AMD hasreleased very little information about howPresidio will work or when it may appear,think of Presidio as creating a protectedarea on the processor where it can storeand process sensitive data. ▲

by Kyle Schurman


Inside AMD’s Dual-Core Processor

Source: AMD

CPU 1 and CPU 2. The dual AMD64cores on this chip can run 32- and64-bit computing simultaneously.

64KB I-Cache.The L1 instructioninternal cachesoffer low latency.

1MB L2 Cache.The L2 second-level internalcaches offer low latency.

72 bit. This DDR400 memory interface provides data transfer rates up to 6.4GBps.

Link 1/2/3. These three links connect the I/Oarea to the processor usingHyperTransporttechnology.HyperTransportalso can provide ahigh-speed link among processors in amulti-processorconfiguration.

System Request Queue.This area manages howeach core accesses thecrossbar switch.

64KB D-Cache. The L1 datainternal caches are low latency.

Crossbar. The crossbar makes the connection between each core and the I/O area and memory interfaces. The crossbar is a key component of the chip,letting the core access the data it needs torun software and perform calculations.

Integrated DDR Memory Controller. This featurereduces the latency associated with accessingmemory vs. using an FSB architecture to accessmemory. Each core has its own memory controller.

CPU / April 2006 49


When AMD designed the AMD64 processor duringthe late 1990s, the company had dual- and multi-core technologies in mind. Such planning has madeAMD’s evolution into multi-core products an easierprocess. For example, AMD designed some of itscurrent dual-core processors to fit in the same sock-ets as its single-core offerings, such as the 940-pinOpteron processor and the 939-pin Athlon 64processor. Also, all of the software that runs underx86 and AMD64 processors will work with AMD’smulti-core processors; no coding changes needed.

During the past couple of years, AMD hasmoved away from releasing timelines listing detailedplans for its future processors complete with codenames. Instead, AMD’s beginning to give more gen-eral names to overall chip projects, rather than split-ting out code names for individual chip plans.

K8 Dual Core. This is the server and workstationOpteron dual-core chip that debuted in April 2005.

K8L. This quad- or eight-core chip will poten-tially follow K9 in 2007 or 2008, although little isknown about this project.

K9. Due to launch in 2007, K9 should be aquad-core chip appearing under the Opteronbrand name in servers. It will feature a new coredesign, DDR3 memory, and contain L3 cache,which will let server designers build systemsusing up to 32 processors. (Current cache set-tings allow for only eight processors per system.)AMD road maps indicate quad-core chips fordesktops will initially appear in 2008.

Santa Ana. This dual-core chip should be partof the Opteron 100 series, use an AM2 socket, andappear in the second half of 2006.

Santa Rosa. Expected to appear in the firsthalf of 2006, this dual-core chip should be partof the Opteron 800/200 series.

Taylor. Aimed at the mobile market, thisdual-core chip should launch under the Turion64 brand name. Taylor should appear early in 2006, use an AM2 socket, and support DDR2 memory.

Toledo. This is the desktop Athlon 64 X2dual-core chip that debuted in May 2005.

Trinidad. Due sometime in 2006 and intend-ed for the mobile market, this 90nm AMD64dual-core chip will use an AM2 socket.

Windsor. This 90nm dual-core chip shouldappear early in 2006, use an AM2 socket, andsupport DDR2 memory. ▲

Sources: AMD, AMDboard.com, and Endian.net

AMD’s Multi-Core Processor Future

Multi-Core Benefits

Source: AMD

When multitasking, users willexperience fewer bottlenecksthan with single-core systems.

Improved performance is pushing the migration to multi-core proces-sors, but that’s not the only reason: Multi-core processors are alsoappearing out of necessity.

The technological advances that have driven manufacturers to double thenumber of transistors on a chip every 18 to 24 months (fulfilling Moore’sLaw) are beginning to reach their physical limits. Chipmakers have continu-ally shrunk the manufacturing process for transistors over the years. They’recurrently shifting the manufacturing process from 90 to 65nm, which letsthem squeeze more transistors onto each chip. An IDC report, however,says that once the chip manufacturing process reaches about 16nm in size,the processors won’t be able to control the flow of electrons as the flowmoves through the transistors. This means that transistors eventually willreach a size where chipmakers can no longer make them smaller. Eversmaller and denser transistors on a chip generate more heat, causing pro-cessing errors. But multi-core processors can improve computing powerand limit some of the problems that shrinking transistors are causing.

The one drawback to multi-core technology is the increase in costfor systems and chips. However for many users the benefits will out-weigh the cost factor.

• Users can add more computing power without the cost of addinganother computer. This feature especially benefits commercial users,letting them add more processing power without adding more servers.By adding fewer servers, companies will need less real estate to holdthe servers. Also, the costs of electrical power to run those servers andthe cost of cooling the servers will decrease.

• For those who compile software code, dual- and multi-core processorsseriously improve compiling efficiency. AMD says its current dual-coreprocessors reduce the time needed to compile code by as much as 50%compared to a single-core processor.

• Game developers can add more features and cutting-edge graphics totheir games because dual- and multi-core chips will more easily andefficiently handle multithread software designs.

• Multi-core processors don’t consume more power or generate moreheat vs. a single-core processor, which will give users more pro-cessing power without the drawbacks typically associated with such increases. ▲

When running two processor-intensive applications, each onecan access its own core, whichmakes it easier to burn a CD whilerunning a virus scan, for example.

When running a single application, dual-cores can share the processing load,improving overall system performance.The system also can shut down portionsof the cores that aren’t in use, savingpower and generating less heat.

A processor withtwo or morecores worksfaster and moreefficiently than asingle-coreprocessor forseveral reasons:



Virtualization uses software to share and manage workloads at theprocessor level, making it appear as though the server contains a multi-processor system. A single server can run multiple OSes and applicationsusing virtualization. Implementing the idea of virtualization also meanscompanies don’t need to have as much hardware performance capabilityheld in reserve among their servers to meet peak situations.

By building virtualization technology inside the processor, as AMD willdo with Pacifica technology, multi-core processors could then providebetter overall performance vs. a single-core processor trying to run virtu-alization. Pacifica, which AMD will introduce later this year, would simplifythe implementation of virtualization and let it more easily take advantageof the multiple cores on a processor. ▲

In a system without Pacificatechnology, the x86 processorhardware contains no virtu-alization capabilities. When cre-ating a virtual machine in thistype of system, the virtualiza-tion software must manage theresources between the host OSand the guest OS. Because thisextra layer causes additionaloverhead and complexity, ap-plication performance suffers.

With Pacifica running on an AMDdual- or multi-core processor, therewould be fewer layers and lesscomplexity, improving applicationperformance. Pacifica would useHypervisor as its virtualization software, which would manage thevirtual machines. Hypervisor alsowould track the availability of physical hardware, letting applications take advantage of thehardware as it becomes available.

Using Pacifica Technology

Cool’n’Quiet Technology

Source: AMD

Source: AMD

AMD has carried its Cool’n’Quiet tech-nology into its dual-core offerings. It cutsdown on the heat and noise that a proces-sor generates and helps the processor useless power by cutting back on the its clockspeed and voltage when the computeruser’s demands are less. AMD says usersrarely will notice any system performancedegradation while using Cool’n’Quietbecause it can adjust the clock speed andvoltage up to 30 times per second.

To run Cool’n’Quiet, a PC needs aheatsink with a variable speed fan, whichadjusts the fan’s rotation speed based onthe computer case’s air temperature. Thesystem also needs a Cool’n’Quiet driver.

When running Cool’n’Quiet, the CPUoperates in one of three basic states: max-imum, intermediate, or minimum. The in-termediate state can have more than onesetting, and the more settings available,the more flexibility the processor has tosave power and reduce heat.

For example, AMD’s Athlon 64 3500+processor can operate in one of fourstates, measured by the clock speed andvoltage in use.

Maximum: 2.2GHz; 1.5VIntermediate A: 2GHz; 1.4VIntermediate B: 1.8GHz; 1.3VMinimum: 1GHz; 1.1V

The minimum state works well forcomputing tasks involving a lot of idleprocessor time, such as word process-ing and emailing. Intermediate stateswork well for tasks requiring a lot ofcontinuous processor access, such assystem scans with no other tasksoccurring or processes running.

As the Cool’n’Quiet driver workswith the motherboard to measure sys-tem temperature and current processorworkload (based in part on the type ofsoftware a user is running), it placesthe processor in the most appropriatestate. At the same time, the variablespeed fan speeds up or slows down tomatch the change in the processor’sstate. As the processor decreases itsclock speed and uses less power, theprocessor and power supply generateless heat. As the temperature in thecase falls, the system can decrease the fan’s rotation speeds, leading toless noise from the fan and from air turbulence.

In contrast, when a user cranks upsystem performance to the maximumstate, Cool’n’Quiet increases the fan’srotation speed to remove the addition-al heat it now generates, increasing system noise. ▲

CPU / April 2006 51

t is spring already, whichmeans it’s time to put some

of the planet’s hottest rigs onthe CPU runway. Each year

we invite a select few high-endPC builders to send us the best

and most luxurious gaming systems theycan muster. We’ve seen origami wiring,unusual mods, great component choices,classy paint jobs, and price tags that couldstop your heart.

This year you’ll see more of the same—but with a twist. If you are a longtimereader, you may have done a double-takewhen you didn’t see Falcon Northwest orVoodoo PC on the cover. That’s right; wedidn’t invite some of the best-known cus-tom builders in the business to participate.Although our previous Dream PC buildershave earned their spots at the top of thecustom-computer food chain, they’re not

the only companies that can produce anoteworthy luxury system.

This time around, we lined up six PCshops that have solid reputations buthaven’t graced our Dream PCs roundup.Some are industry veterans and others aremere pups. Each obsesses over design andperformance, however, which makes themour kind of builders. As in previous years,we stuck to a single but important rule:No system could have components thataren’t available on the vendor’s Web site.

How We TestedYou won’t hear us whine about enor-

mous price tags in this review. These areDream PCs; they should be out of reach formost of us. These are the best the best offer.We tossed price-for-performance compar-isons out the window for these luxury rigsand focused instead on performance and

ABS 54

Biohazard 56

HyperKore 58

Hypersonic 60

Overdrive PC 62

Velocity Micro 64

Elite LCDs 66Get Ready To Toss Your CRT


design. We kept LAN parties in mindwhen we considered both categories. Wewanted looks that would make moddertypes jealous and frame rates that wouldmake performance junkies sweat.

We kicked our testing off by actuallyusing the systems. We listened to CDs,watched portions of “The Matrix” onDVD, and played games (mostly Doom 3and F.E.A.R., but with a little Half-Life 2thrown in). Sure, it was tough, but wewere willing to risk sore fingers and blearyeyes to make sure these systems wereworth their salt.

Next, we trotted out the benchmarks.On the gaming end, we ran 3DMark05and the brand-new 3DMark06, whichhas new features, including a Shader testand a special CPU test that supports mul-tiple cores. In our experience, high-endsystems will break 14000 in 3DMark05

and 7000 in 3DMark06. We also ranDoom 3’s built-in demo at several set-tings. The demo frame rates make bettercomparison figures than indicators of thetrue gaming experience, as Doom 3 capsat 60fps during gameplay.

We included some tests that measureperformance outside the gaming arena,such as PCMark05. After all, you’ll prob-ably use your gaming PC for home-officetasks from time to time. Here, we like tosee scores above 6000 in a gaming rig. Wealso used Dr. DivX to encode a video andWinRAR to crunch our test folder, whichhad 500MB of files.

Although we expected graphics andCPU muscle from every rig in this round-up, luxury is much more than numbers.To that end, we looked for detailed cablerouting, high-power cooling setups, cre-ative mods, stable overclocks, and solid

component selections. Many of thebuilders chose some of the same popularcomponents (the 512MB Nvidia GeForce7800 GTXs are a hit this year), so wekept an eye out for features that set thesystems apart.

What’s NewWe wrapped up our review of each sys-

tem by scoping out the builder’s Website. We paid special attention to the con-figuration menus and component selec-tions. An easy-to-use menu paired with awide array of part choices makes for agreat buying experience, as do detailedproduct descriptions, automatic priceupdates, and features that let you saveyour dream configuration until you havethe cash to place your order. ▲

by Joshua Gulick

Pho

tos

by A

lan

Jack

son

CPU / April 2006 53

W ith more than 15 years of cus-tom-PC building under itsbelt, ABS Computer is an

industry veteran. The City of Industry,Calif., builder offers a few workstationsbut dedicates a large portion of its Website to gaming desktops and notebooks. Ifyou haven’t visited the site since last year,check it out: 2006 heralded a brand-newonline look for ABS.

ABS sent us its M6 Sniper, which is partof its Ultimate desktop series. Our review

unit is a special version of the M6 Sniperthat includes Gigabyte’s i-RAM card. Tofind this model’s secret configurationmenu, visit www.abs.com/app/config.asp?mono=1936. The first thing we noticedabout the rig was an external radiator hang-ing on the back of the full-tower Gigabyte3D Aurora chassis. ABS stuck with Giga-byte when it selected several of the system’scomponents, including the liquid-coolingpackage, which is a Gigabyte GH-WIU01kit that handles CPU cooling.

The kit looks great thanks to bright bluecoolant and a blue LED fan that whips airacross the surface of the copper CPUwaterblock. Unfortunately, the kit eats up aton of chassis space without cooling anyother components, including the video cardand the chipset. The reservoir fills bothexternal 3.5-inch bays and three of the five5.25-inch external bays. The system’s singleNEC ND-3550A DL DVD+RW drive fillsthe top bay, leaving only one bay free. Totop things off, one of the tubes kinked near

ABS ComputerTechnologies UltimateM6 Sniper Ultimate M6 Sniper $3,813.61ABS Computer Technologies(800) 685-3471www.abs.com● ●

Call us easy toplease, but welove the UltimateM6 Sniper’slightshow. ABSput blue lightsthroughout the system.

This clunkyreservoir eats upmuch morespace than mostother reservoirs;its height alsoputs strain onthe tubes, one ofwhich kinked.

The external radiator frees up some spaceinside the chassis.Unfortunately,you’ll probablyhear the radiator’snoisy 120mm fan through your headphones.

CPU RANKING ●● 0 = ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS | ● ● ● 2.5 = ABSOLUTELY AVERAGE | ● ● ● ● ● 5 = ABSOLUTELY PERFECT


the reservoir. We suspect the kinkoccurred when the reservoir separatedfrom the adhesive tape that secured itto the chassis during shipping.

The M6 Sniper boasts a 2.6GHzAMD Athlon 64 FX-60 on an AsusA8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard.Rather than rely on the mother-board’s integrated sound, ABS in-cluded a Creative Labs Sound BlasterX-Fi Elite Pro, which includes theinternal sound card and a consolethat sits outside the system. Gamersand audiophiles alike will appreciatethe PC’s sound quality.

The use of a Gigabyte i-RAM cardis an unusual storage choice. The card has 4GB of memory (via four 1GB Kingston KVR400X643AK2DIMMs) and acts as a super-fast harddrive, but its limitations are signifi-cant. For example, the card can onlystore data as long as your system is plugged into an electrical outlet.Once you unplug the system, anincluded battery keeps your data safefor 10 to 15 hours. After that, it bitesthe dust. ABS put Windows XP Proon the card, so if you leave the systemunplugged too long, you’ll lose theentire OS. Two 400GB WesternDigital WD4000YR 7,200rpm driveshandle storage.

Samuel Gao, ABS R&D techni-cian, says ABS chose the i-RAMbecause it’s faster than standard hard

drives. “It would take four HDD inRAID 0 to match the performanceof the i-RAM,” says Gao. He saysthe i-RAM won’t increase a game’sframe rate but will increase the speedwith which levels load. The i-RAMdid force ABS to make other perfor-mance sacrifices. Because the i-RAMand sound card crowd the mother-board’s second video card slot, ABSinstalled only one 256MB EvgaNvidia GeForce 7800 GTX. As aresult, the system competed onlywith the single-card HyperKore HK-Xtreme in 3D benchmarks; the SLIsystems blew past it. The M6 Sniperscored 8733 and 4857 in 3DMark05and 3DMark06, respectively. Therig also struggled with PCMark05,posting a 6388, but it crunched our500MB folder with WinRAR in astrong 3:27 (minutes:seconds).

We commend ABS for its cre-ativity but we can’t get onboardwith this special M6 Sniper just yet;it doesn’t have the gaming musclethat SLI systems boast, it drops theoperating system too easily, and thecooling setup is susceptible to kink-ing. Gao says the system may sooninclude a DFI motherboard thatwould let it use the i-RAM and anSLI setup simultaneously. If so, wesuspect the system will be a force tobe reckoned with. ▲

CPU 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60

Motherboard Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe

Chipset Nvidia nForce4 SLI X16

RAM 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR266 (1GB x2)

Hard Drive 400GB Western Digital WD4000YR 7,200rpm (x2 RAID 0)

Hard Drive 4GB Gigabyte i-RAM (1GB Kingston KVR400X643AK2 x4)

Graphics 256MB Evga GeForce 7800 GTX

Sound Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro

NIC Integrated Gigabit

Optical Drive NEC ND-3550A 8X DVD+R DL, 6X DVD-R, 16X/8X/16X DVD+RW, 16X/6X/16X DVD-RW, 48X/24X/48X CD+RW

Media Reader N/A

PSU 620W Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT

Cooling Gigabyte GH-WIU01

Chassis Gigabyte 3D Aurora

Keyboard/Mouse Saitek Eclipse; Logitech G7 Laser Cordless

OS WinXP Pro

Extras Restore DVD

Documentation Binder: setup instructions, manual

Warranty One-year 24/7 tech support and on-site service

Price $3,813.61

Benchmarks

3DMark06 4857

SM2.0 1957

HDR/SM3.0 1921

CPU 1966

3DMark05 8733

PCMark05 6388

PCMark04 CPU 5346

PCMark04 Memory 4758

PCMark04 Graphics 7331

PCmark04 HDD 5575

Dr. DivX (minutes:seconds) 8:05

WinRAR (min:sec) 3:27

WinRAR/Dr. DivX 4:23/8:30

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 89

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 55.3

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 50.6

AABBSS CCoommppuutteerr TTeecchhnnoollooggiieess UUllttiimmaattee

MM66 SSnniippeerr

One of the i-RAM’s four DIMMs appears just below the blue circuit board. Because the i-RAM can’t hold data without electricity, we had to restore the OS when the PC arrived.

CPU / April 2006 55

Biohazard modified several parts of thecase to enhance airflow. The hard drivecage, for example, now faces the oppositedirection and has an attached 120mm fan.

The copper heatsink lets Biohazard pumpup the FX-60’s volume to 2.81GHz, andthe mesh window in the panel below letsthe PSU add oomph to the airflow.

A single 120mmexhaust fan atthe back of thesystem pushesair into thecase’s handyfan shroud. Welike the chromefans, whichmatch the rig’s décor.


Biohazard Computer Systems

Annihilation Annihilation

$6,584.85Biohazard Computer Systems

(866) 424-6727www.biohazard-computers.com

● ● ● ● ●

The hole and fan at the case’s bottomis another F.A.T.E. feature. Thanks to amesh panel mod, the fan blows air direct-ly up into the motherboard’s compart-ment. The PSU also has an unusualsetup; it’s upside down. “The EnermaxPSU’s exhaust fans will continue to runfor two minutes after the system has beenpowered down to exhaust any remaininghot air,” says Josh Smith, BiohazardCEO. “And with the orientation we haveimplemented in the Annihilation, this

The Annihilation’s F.A.T.E. dependson a series of 120mm fans that forcecool air into the system’s modified Lian-Li V1000B’s compartments. Biohazardmoved the hard drive cage from thechassis’ middle to the front and closed itoff from the rest of the case. Biohazardalso flipped the cage, so you access thedrive cage from the right side. Thebuilder then attached a fan to the cage’sback so that it sucks air onto the drivesfrom the side-panel vent.

H ailing from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,Biohazard focuses almost exclu-sively on gaming and entertain-

ment systems. Its gaming family consistsof a heavy-duty notebook and fourcalamity-themed desktop PCs that showoff the boutique builder’s customized air-, liquid-, and phase-change coolingsetups. Biohazard sent us the Anni-hilation, which boasts the company’sF.A.T.E. (Forced Air Thermal Exchange)aircooling package.


our video with Dr.DivX in 7:49 andcrunched our 500MB folder withWinRAR in 3:46.

F.E.A.R. played like a (surreal,horrifying) dream thanks to the rig’sgraphics muscle, and Doom 3 alsolooked great. Biohazard chose someof the better gaming peripheralsaround with Logitech’s G15 key-board and G5 Laser mouse. Themouse holds adjustable weights andcan drop to a low dpi setting to helpsnipers pick off targets.

As you read this, Biohazard willhave launched a new version of itsWeb site. That’s good because the oldsite’s configuration menu wasn’t par-ticularly exciting and didn’t automati-cally update prices as you changedcomponent choices. The selection ofcomponents, however, gives youplenty of room to build a rig thattruly fits your personality. We noticedthe menu also lets you buy games thatBiohazard can install so your systemarrives ready for action.

The Annihilation didn’t snagthe performance crown in thisroundup, but it is no slouch andhas plenty of style. If you are look-ing for an eye-catching luxury rig,put this system on your list ofmust-sees. Biohazard backs up theAnnihilation with a one-year war-ranty that covers 24/7 tech supportand on-site service. You can alsoupgrade the warranty to three yearsfor an additional $172. ▲

BBiioohhaazzaarrdd CCoommppuutteerr SSyysstteemmss

AAnnnniihhiillaattiioonn

CPU 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 @ 2.81GHz



RAM 2GB OCZ Enhanced Latency DDR266 (512MB x4)

Hard Drive 74GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm (x2 RAID 0)

Hard Drive 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 7,200rpm

Graphics 512MB Evga Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (x2 SLI)

Sound Integrated ALC850


Optical Drive NEC ND-3540A 8X DL DVD+R, 6X DL DVD-R, 16X/8X/12X DVD+RW, 16X/6X/12X DVD-RW, 48X/32X/48X CD-RW

Media Reader Floppy/Media Reader

PSU 600W Enermax Noisetaker EG701AXVE(W)

Cooling Biohazard F.A.T.E. Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu

Chassis Lian-Li V1000B

Keyboard/Mouse Logitech G15, Logitech G5 Laser (gaming weighted)

OS WinXP Pro

Extras Annihilation Restore DVD, F.E.A.R. ,Nero OEM, WinDVD Suite, WinXP CD

Documentation Binder: mobo manual, setup instructions, specs, tech support, and warranty info

Warranty One-year warranty, 24/7 tech support, on-site service

Price $6,584.85

Benchmarks

3DMark06 9034

SM2.0 4204

HDR/SM3.0 4127

CPU 2064

3DMark05 14435

PCMark05 6754

PCMark04 CPU 5676



PCmark04 HDD 8938




Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 104.6

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 109.7

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 96.6

The Annihilation boasts cleanwiring and some unusual mods,

such as the 120mm fan at the bottom of the case. Biohazard

moved the cage to the left.

will draw hot air away from themotherboard compartment andconsequently the CPU.”

Biohazard also tweaked some ofthe rig’s components. The S.H.O.C.(Stable Hyper OverClock) overclock-ing feature involves BIOS customiza-

tions, which means youwon’t lose S.H.O.C. set-

tings if you reinstallyour operating system.The Annihilation’s

2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 runsat 2.81GHz—a decent overclock.Biohazard also S.H.O.C.-ed the two512MB Evga Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX cards from their stock settingsof 550MHz/1,700MHz (core/memo-ry) to 594MHz/1,800MHz.

An Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe boardbrings the system’s componentstogether; it boasts 2GB of OCZEnhanced Latency DDR266 memoryand provides the system’s sound andEthernet port. The board also has sixSATA II connections, one that han-dles a 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax10 7,200rpm drive. Another two con-nections support the system’s dual74GB Western Digital Raptor10,000rpm drives in a striped array.

The Annihilation handled ourbenchmarks well, posting good scoresin 3DMark05 and the 3DMark06(14435 and 9034, respectively),which landed the rig just behindHypersonic’s Cyclone OCX andOverdrive PC’s Gemini.SLI in bothbenchmarks. The system encoded

CPU / April 2006 57

HyperKore HK-Xtreme

HK-Xtreme$3,835HyperKore(866) 640-5673www.hyperkore.com● ● ● ●

your new system’s window. Our reviewunit sports a Blackout 1 etching (Tank)that depicts an incredibly detailed battlescene. It’s a refreshing departure from thetraditional window mod that sets the sys-tem apart from the other rigs.

The midtower Lian Li PC-6070B’sinsides are strikingly clean. HyperKoresheathed the cables and carefully routedthem so most of each cable is hidden fromview. It also opted for a traditional aircool-ing setup. Fans at the bottom of the frontpanel suck cool air over the hard drivesand into the system, while an 80mm fanat the back handles the system’s exhaust.HyperKore beefed up this package with a120mm fan near the graphics card and alarge copper Zalman CNPS7700-CUprocessor heatsink.

HyperKore broke from the FX-60 packwith a 3.4GHz Intel Pentium D 950processor. The motherboard is loaded with2GB of Geil GX21 DDR2-533 in the formof four bright orange (thanks to the heat-spreaders) 512MB DIMMs. The builderran into a little trouble when it tried to beef

Kore co-founder and graduate of theSchool Of Visual Arts in New York, over-sees the etching program and developedthe builder’s Blackout series. The seriesincludes two styles: Blackout 1 lets interiorlights shine through the window, whileBlackout 2 resembles black-and-white pho-tos. The site offers tons of etchings of gameand movie characters, symbols, and pho-tos, but HyperKore prides itself on its cus-tom etchings; if you send a photo or designwith your order, the builder will etch it on

B ased in Staten Island, N.Y.,HyperKore is just more than twoyears old and one of the youngest

PC shops in this roundup. You wouldn’tknow it, though, browsing its slick Website or playing games on its high-end HK-Xtreme rig. HyperKore offers three sys-tem families, including the home officeHS-1 and gamer Vor-Tek. The HK-Xtreme is its heavy-duty fragger.

HyperKore’s signature mod is the laser-etched window. Thomas Volpe, Hyper-

HyperKoreadded a pictureof its mascot(Zeebo) to theempty baycover—a nicetouch. If youappreciate artwith a ’tude,you’ll lovethese systems.

As withBiohzard,HyperKore relieson Zalman’spopular all-copperheatsinks. Welike the memo-ry’s orange heatspreaders,which add a little color to thelightless interior.



up its video capabilities, however.HyperKore had hoped to send us aCrossFire system, but a shipping dis-aster left it with a single 512MB AsusATI Radeon EAX1800XT.

The system boasts a strong stor-age setup. There are four hard dri-ves, including a 74GB WesternDigital Raptor 10,000rpm drive.The three 200GB Western DigitalCaviar 7,200rpm drives providemore than a half-terabyte of storage.HyperKore rounded out the sys-tem’s internals with a Creative LabsSound Blaster X-Fi Platinum, whichincludes a remote control and 5.25-inch bay I/O console that lets youaccess important ports from thefront of the case.

The company’s Web site configu-ration menus are well-organized andoffer a price section that updatesautomatically as you select or removecomponents. The information pop-ups for each category have clear com-ponent pictures and solid descriptionsthat let you quickly clear up misun-derstandings and get back to the

menu. HyperKore has a wide range ofcomponents in most categories, but itputs single items into drop-downmenu fields, too, which gets old fast.

Because of the single-card setup,the HK-Xtreme couldn’t take on theSLI systems in this roundup. Still, itposted 7441 in 3DMark05 and 4087in 3DMark06, both reasonablescores. The system beat the VelocityMicro Raptor DualX in the Dr.DivX test, encoding our video in8:20, 13 seconds faster than theRaptor. The rig’s frame rates inDoom 3 (61.7fps at 1,600 x 1,200)are also solid but can’t top the SLIsystems, most of which broke 100fps.

Buyers who want to set them-selves apart from the rest of thepack will get a kick out of Hyper-Kore’s impressive etching capabili-ties. We would love to see whatthis system could achieve with aCrossFire or SLI setup. HyperKorebacks up its system with a three-year parts warranty (one-yearlabor), in addition to lifetime toll-free tech support. ▲

HHyyppeerrKKoorree HHKK--XXttrreemmee

CPU 3.4GHz Intel Pentium D 950Motherboard Intel D975XBXChipset Intel 975XRAM 2GB Geil GX21 DDR2-533 (512MB x4)Hard Drive 74GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpmHard Drive 200GB Western Digital Caviar

7,200 (x3 RAID 0)Graphics 512MB Asus ATI Radeon

EAX1800XT Sound Creative Labs Sound

Blaster X-Fi PlatinumNIC Integrated GigabitOptical Drive Lite-On SOHD-16P9S 16X DVD-

ROM Sony DRU810A 8X DL DVD+R, 4X DL DVD-R, 16X/8X/16XDVD+RW, 16X/6X/16X DVD-RW, 48X/32X/48X CD-RW

Media Reader Floppy/Media ReaderPSU 680W Thermaltake Silent

PurePower SeriesCooling Zalman CNPS7700-CUChassis HK-Xtreme Lian-Li PC-6070B PlusKeyboard/Mouse Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard,

Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical 1.1AOS WinXP ProExtras Asus XitePad, Creative Labs X-Fi

Remote, CyberLink PowerDirector Joint Operations Project: Snowblind, Symantec Norton Internet Security, WinXP CD, Xp and Rally

Documentation Binder: invoice, HyperKore etching, maintenance guide, setup guide, specs, tech support and warranty info

Warranty Three-year parts, one-year labor, lifetime toll-free tech support

Price $3,835

Benchmarks3DMark06 4087SM2.0 1599HDR/SM3.0 1659CPU 16693DMark05 7441 PCMark05 5812PCMark04 CPU 5398PCMark04 Memory 4026PCMark04 Graphics 6405PCmark04 HDD 6390Dr. DivX (minutes:seconds) 8:20WinRAR (min:sec) 4:23WinRAR/Dr. DivX 5:37/8:36Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 61.7Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 49.4Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 60.7

The 512MB AsusATI Radeon

EAX1800XT is noslouch, but it can’tcompete with dual

Nvidia GeForce7800 GTX cards

on its own.

HyperKore’s wiringtechniques keepthe component-packed system

uncluttered. If youskipped the

etching in favor of a side panel

window, the interior won’t

disappoint.

CPU / April 2006 59

HypersonicCyclone OCX

Cyclone OCX$7,117

Hypersonic(800) 520-0498

www.hypersonic-pc.com● ● ● ● ●

setup cools the video cards, chipset, moth-erboard MOSFETs, and CPU. About adozen 3/8-inch tubes connect the variouscooling blocks to a small reservoir and notone, but two, radiators. The radiators sit at the front and back of the case and sport120mm fans that double as the intake and exhaust fans. The kit includes water-blocks that cover the two 512MB XFXNvidia GeForce 7800 GTX cards’ voltage

competent and polite, even before findingout he was speaking with CPU. Withinminutes, we had a return shipping label.The Long Island, N.Y., builder replaced thedamaged components and turned the sys-tem around in a couple days. The reworkedsystem arrived in perfect condition.

The Hypersonic Cooled By FrozenCPUEdition Liquid Cooling System is amouthful—and a windowful. The $950

F rom paint jobs to performance,Hypersonic consistently pushes theenvelope. So, we weren’t surprised

when we saw one of the most complex liq-uid-cooling systems to breeze through ourdoors. We were surprised, however, to see itleaking after having born the brunt of ashipping service’s wrath. We used theopportunity to check out Hypersonic’s customer service. The representative was


This is the front-panel radiator. Rather thantoss a huge radiator into the case, Hypersonicopted for a front-and-back pair that includesmatching 120mm fans.

We were surprised to see Hypersonic didn’t addany extra support for the waterblock-laden videocards. That said, they held up fine in transit.

The Cyclone OCX’s heavy-duty watercoolingeven includes a MOSFET block. The full packageadds $950 to the rig’s price.


regulators, plus the GPU and memo-ry. Thanks to Hypersonic’s Inner-View & InnerWorks Case Modi-fication (a window and blue-interiorlighting), the system draws crowdslike moths to a flame. In keeping withthe blue theme, Hypersonic addedPrimoChill ICE coolant and aReflexxion Series Two-Tone Titan-ium/Blue Pearl paint job.

A system with such a slick water-cooling setup begs for overclocking,so Hypersonic implemented itsTurboClock overclocking option.The popular AMD Athlon 64 FX-60dual-core processor, which runs at2.6GHz by default, hummed alongat a speedy 2.86GHz. The dual512MB XFX Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX cards also saw a bump from580MHz/1,730MHz (core/memory)to 610MHz/1,760MHz.

On the storage side, Hypersonicopted for two 150GB WesternDigital WD1500AHFD Raptor10,000rpm drives in a striped arrayand boosted the storage beyond thehalf-terabyte mark with a 500GBSeagate Barracuda 7,200rpm drive.We can’t complain about the storagesetup or the 2GB of Mushkin Red-line XP4000 DDR500 memory.Hypersonic used 1GB DIMMs,leaving the other two slots on theAsus A8N32-SLI Deluxe free.

The Logitech G15 keyboard andG5 Laser mouse make a great gam-ing package. The gamer-friendlykeyboard has a pop-up display and abunch of G keys that let you assigncommands. Although the displaydoesn’t support many games yet, theboard has prebuilt profiles for mostpopular games, which means youcan dive right into Unreal Tourn-ament 2004 and use the keys totaunt or slaughter your foes.

The Web site configurationmenus are clean and easy to under-stand and include a price box thatautomatically updates and followsyou as you scroll down the page. Thebox also estimates your shipping fees

and shipping date and tracks yourrig’s remaining free slots and bays.You can select paint options fromthe configuration menu, and Hyper-sonic sends a WinXP CD with thesystem. You will need to pay $29 fora Disaster Recovery DVD.

The 512MB GeForce GTXs weregaming monsters before Hypersonicturned up the juice, so we weren’tsurprised to see them rip through the3D benchmarks and Doom3 tests.The system gave Overdrive PC’sGemini.SLI a run for its money in3DMark06 with a 9345 score (to theGemini.SLI’s 9409) and posted anexcellent 15008 in 3DMark05. Thesystem also handled PCMark05 well(7403) and crunched our 500MBfolder in WinRAR in a mere 3:09.

If we were buying a system inthis roundup, we would snap upthe Cyclone OCX. Its excessivepower, snazzy cooling system, andgreat paint job make it well worththe $7,117 price tag. The systemincludes a one-year Platinum war-ranty, which offers users one yearof on-site service and 24/7 techni-cal support. ▲

HHyyppeerrssoonniicc CCyycclloonnee OOCCXX

CPU 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 @ 2.86GHz

Motherboard Asus A8N32-SLI DeluxeChipset Nvidia nForce4 SLI X16RAM 2GB Mushkin Redline XP4000

DDR500 (1GB x2)Hard Drive 150GB Western Digital WD1500

AHFD Raptor 10,000rpm (x2 RAID 0)Hard Drive 500GB Seagate Barracuda

ST3500641AS 7,200rpmGraphics 512MB XFX Nvidia GeForce 7800

GTX (x2 SLI)Sound Integrated ALC850NIC Integrated GigabitOptical Drive Pioneer DVR-110D DL 8X DVD+R,

16X/8X/16X DVD+RW, 16X/6X/16XDVD-RW, 40X/32X/40X CD-RW (x2)

Media Reader Floppy/Media ReaderPSU 620W Enermax Liberty EL620AWTCooling Hypersonic Cooled By FrozenCPU

Edition Liquid Cooling SystemChassis Hypersonic STRATUS (Reflexxion

Series Two-Tone Titanium/Blue Pearl Paint Job)

Keyboard/Mouse Logitech G15, Logitech G5 LaserOS WinXP ProExtras Far Cry, Hypersonic InnerView &

InnerWorks Case Modification, Moto GP, Nero OEM Suite, Restore DVD, WinDVD Suite, WinXP CD

Documentation Binder: manual, warranty, and tech support card

Warranty One-year Platinum warranty, one-year on-site service, 24/7 tech support

Price $7,117

Benchmarks

3DMark06 9345

SM2.0 4323

HDR/SM3.0 4238

CPU 2172

3DMark05 15008

PCMark05 7403

PCMark04 CPU 5844



PCmark04 HDD 9748




Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 119.6

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 113.2

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 104.8

From the chipset to the graphics cards,Hypersonic left no component uncooled.The blue tubes and lights turn a slickwatercooling setup into a work of art.

CPU / April 2006 61

Overdrive PCGemini.SLI

Gemini.SLI$6,816Overdrive PC(866) 410-9958www.overdrivepc.com● ● ● ● ●

MX518 mouse to scratch easily, but theyboth stood up to our abuse without show-ing the slightest imperfection. Inside thechassis we found the same little (but impor-tant) details that add an important touch ofluxury: Each screw had a rubber grommet,and rubber molding covered every sharpedge in the case.

We love the side panel’s dual 120mmLED fans. Overdrive modifies the fans sothey run through a single custom cord to asmall plug near the system’s front. Insteadof the standard Molex connectors, the cordhas a single male plug. The result is thatyou can detach the side panel quickly with-out disturbing the wiring job, which bor-ders on artwork.

Overdrive “HyperClocked” the system’s2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 to no lessthan 3GHz, making it the fastest system inthis roundup. As if that’s not impressiveenough, Overdrive performed this featwith the standard all-copper heatsink theprocessor comes with. The processor sits

first unit was DOA. Overdrive promptlysent us a replacement.

The Lian-Li PC-6070’s bright red, ultra-shiny paint job is stunning. Overdrive’soutsourced chassis painter also coated thekeyboard and mouse. The process isintense: The painter applies several coats ofautomotive paint and clear coat and investshours in wet-sanding. We weren’t excitedabout the peripheral paint job at first, as weexpected the Logitech Elite keyboard and

I f you absolutely must have the fastestsystem at every LAN party you attend,check out Overdrive PC’s expensive-

but-speedy rigs. The powerhouse ofOverdrive’s lot is the Gemini.SLI, whichcarries a base price of $4,424. Overdrivesupplied us with a $6,816 model thatboasts a paint job and some great com-ponents. Thanks again to a shippingmishap (we got the impression the sys-tem was rolled all the way to CPU), the

There’s zero roomfor external 5.25-inch expansionhere, but theremovable harddrives and Fatal1tyEdition SoundBlaster consolemake this one of the best front panels in this roundup.

If a drivedies, you can pop it out and send it back to Overdrive for a replacementwithout taking yoursystem offyour desk.



on the popular Asus A8N32-SLIDeluxe motherboard, which alsohouses 1GB of Overdrive’s customDDR400 memory.

The builder took advantage of thetwo graphics card slots, using two512MB XFX Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX cards to provide the rig withunbelievable graphics muscle. Over-drive also slipped a Creative LabsSound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Editionsound card between the GTXs.Despite the crowded slot area, the sys-tem didn’t have any heat problems.

Surprisingly, the internal harddrive cage is completely empty.Overdrive put the three hard drivesinto a special drive cage that eats uptwo of the front panel’s 5.25-inchbays. The setup lets you remove anyof the drives in seconds and withouteven removing the side panel. Over-drive uses this feature to simplifydrive replacement; if your hard drivedies while the system is under war-ranty, Overdrive will overnight you anew hard drive so your system is upand running quickly.

The drive cage and its columnof green lights are cool, but the

drives hidden inside are the realprizes. Overdrive popped a 500GBSeagate Barracuda 7,200rpm driveand two screaming-fast 150GBWestern Digital WD1500ADFD10,000rpm drives (RAID 0) intothe cage’s three slots.

Not surprisingly, the ultra-over-clocked Gemini.SLI posted somejaw-dropping scores. It took top hon-ors in 3DMark05 and 3DMark06,posting 15949 and 9409 scores,respectively. It also pummeled theother systems in PCMark05, postinga 7964. Its Doom 3 frame rates wereexcellent at 142.8fps at 1,600 x 1,200and 118.9fps when we boosted thegame to high quality with 4XAA.

Overdrive’s Web site configura-tion menus let users focus on onecategory at a time instead of amammoth list. The site also has aneat Build feature that assigns aBuild ID number to your comput-er configuration. You can return tothe site later and load that Build atany time—nice. The Gemini.SLIincludes a one-year warranty andtechnical support. ▲

OOvveerrddrriivvee PPCC GGeemmiinnii..SSLLII

CPU 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 @ 3GHz



RAM 1GB Overdrive PC Custom DDR400 (512MB x 2)

Hard Drive 150GB Western Digital WD1500ADFD 10,000rpm (x2 RAID 0)

Hard Drive 500GB Seagate Barracuda ST3500641AS 7,200rpm

Graphics 512MB XFX Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (x2 SLI)

Sound Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Edition


Optical Drive Sony DW-Q28A 4X DL DVD+R, 16X/8X/16X DVD+RW, 16X/6X/16X DVD-RW, 48X/24X/48X CD-RW

Media Reader Floppy/Media Reader

PSU 600W Silverstone SST-ST60F

Cooling Standard AMD FX-60 heatsink

Chassis Lian-Li PC-6070

Keyboard/Mouse Logitech Elite Keyboard, Logitech MX518 Optical Mouse

OS WinXP Pro

Extras Far Cry, Moto GP Overdrive PC Memory Diagnostics, Nero OEM Suite, Restore CD, Symantec Norton Ghost 9.0, WinDVD Suite

Documentation None

Warranty One-year parts, labor, return shipping, tech support

Price $6,816

Benchmarks

3DMark06 9409

SM2.0 4205

HDR/SM3.0 4241

CPU 2329

3DMark05 15949

PCMark05 7964

PCMark04 CPU 6128



PCmark04 HDD 10016




Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 142.8

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 118.9

Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 103.6

Overdrive managed to squeeze a sound

card between the behemoth 512MB XFX

Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX cards.

Despite the stock aircooling, the

system’s FX-60 runsstable at an impressive

3GHz. As with the otherbuilders, Overdrive

offers this OC to customers without

voiding its warranty.

CPU / April 2006 63

Velocity MicroRaptor 64 DualX

Raptor 64 DualX$5,680Velocity Micro(800) 303-7866www.velocitymicro.com● ● ● ●

kept things tidy by twisting multiple PSUcables and securing SATA cables with ties.

The Raptor sports an AMD Athlon 64FX-60. Velocity used a liquid-cooling unitto bump the processor from 2.6GHz to2.8GHz. The Velocity Micro LiquiCool 2

The chassis features two front-paneldoors. The upper door conceals the sys-tem’s four 5.25-inch bays and two 3.25-inch bays. A floppy/media reader fills one of the smaller bays, while the largerbays house a Lite-On SHW 160P6S DLDVD+RW and a Lite-On SOHC-5236VCD-RW. The lower door opens to reveal a120mm blue LED fan and a mesh grille.Inside, the wiring job is clean and detailed.Velocity didn’t sheath every cable, but it

V elocity Micro opened its doors inRichmond, Va., in 1992 and hasbuilt a solid reputation for build-

ing both business and gaming PCs. Thecompany offers inexpensive rigs that willappeal to casual gamers, as well as thesouped-up Raptor series. Velocity sent us one of its most expensive systems, theRaptor 64 DualX, which boasts Ve-locity’s stylish Signature Case LX-W and$5,680 price tag.


We can’t help but like this slick little watercooling system; it handles the overclocked FX-60 at 2.8GHz without any trouble, and it’s quiet.

Velocity routed the wiring carefully to avoidcluttering the system. The company twisted the PSU cables instead of sheathing them,which works for us.

If you’re running intensive applications, open the bottom front-panel door to give the fan some breathing room.


Fluid Cooling System uses one of thesmaller liquid-cooling setups around,thanks to Cooler Master. The largeCPU waterblock unit feeds a nearbyradiator, which sits directly behind a120mm exhaust fan. Although theLiquiCool 2 doesn’t have the wowfactor of Hypersonic’s stunning liq-uid-cooling system, it gets the over-clocking job done and doesn’t take upmuch space.

Four 512MB Mushkin Blue SeriesDDR400 modules fill the AsusA8N32-SLI Deluxe’s memory slotsand brighten the inside of the casewith their shiny blue heatspreaders.The drive cage houses two speedy150GB Western Digital Raptor10,000rpm hard drives in a stripedarray and a 400GB Western Digital4000YR that provides plenty of extrastorage. Velocity also selected two512MB Evga Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX cards. A Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 4 sits between the two cards.

We were a little disappointed inthe bundled Microsoft InternetKeyboard and IntelliMouse Explorer4.0, as neither strikes us as the sortof heavy-gaming peripherals thatshould accompany a high-end sys-tem. Unfortunately, the Web site’sconfiguration menu doesn’t offeryou many keyboard or mouse choic-es. The Logitech Cordless DesktopMX 3000 isn’t bad, but you’d thinkthe company would also have someof Logitech’s crazy new gaming miceor G15 gaming keyboard.

Speaking of the site’s configura-tion menu, it lacks links to extrainformation about components. Thelittle blurbs that builders often add totheir menus help you pick the bestcomponents and learn about unusualitems or services. That said, the menudoes have a price box that updatesautomatically when you change com-ponents and it remains visible as youscroll. The site also offers a large arrayof monitors, including a 40-inchNEC LCD4010 display at $4,699.

The Raptor’s benchmark scoreswere solid; it lagged just behindBiohazard’s Annihilation, scoring14135 and 8857 in 3DMark05 and3DMark06 to the Annihilation’s14435 and 9034. The system didbeat the Annihilation in PCMark05,scoring 7140 vs. 6754. The Raptoralso produced solid frame rates inDoom 3 and played graphics-hun-gry games (including Doom 3 andF.E.A.R.) smoothly.

The Raptor is powerful but stillextremely quiet, which makes itgreat for late-night gaming sessionswhen the kids are asleep. Velocityincludes a great binder with a man-ual and Quick Setup Guide. Thesystem has a three-year Velocity-Care Parts & Labor warranty thatcovers one year of 24/7 technicalsupport and on-site service, as wellas lifetime tech support duringbusiness hours. Velocity also has anonline technical support chat ser-vice you can take advantage of. ▲

VVeelloocciittyy MMiiccrroo RRaappttoorr 6644 DDuuaallXX

CPU 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 @ 2.8GHzMotherboard Asus A8N32-SLI DeluxeChipset Nvidia nForce4 SLI X16RAM 2GB Mushkin Blue Series

DDR400 (512MB x4)Hard Drive 150GB Western Digital Raptor

10,000rpm (x2 RAID-0)Hard Drive 400GB Western Digital

4000YR 7,200rpmGraphics 512MB Evga Nvidia GeForce

7800 GTX (x2 SLI)Sound Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 4NIC Integrated GigabitOptical Drive Lite-On SHW 160P6S 8X DL

DVD+R, 16X/8X/16X DVD+RW, 16X/6X/16X DVD-RW, 48X/24X/48X CD-RW Lite-On SOHC-5236V 16X DVD-ROM, 52X/32X/52X CD-RW

Media Reader Floppy/Media ReaderPSU 600W Enermax NoiseTakerCooling Velocity Micro LiquiCool 2

Fluid Cooling SystemChassis Velocity Micro Signature Case LX-W Keyboard/Mouse Microsoft Internet Keyboard,

Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0OS WinXP ProExtras APC Surge Protector, Corel

WordPerfect Office 11, Far Cry, McAfee VirusScan 2006, Nero OEM Suite, Restore DVD, WinDVD Suite, WinXP CD

Documentation Binder: manual, mobo guideWarranty Three-year VelocityCare Parts &

Labor Warranty, one-year 24/7 tech support with on-site service

Price $5,680

Benchmarks3DMark06 8857SM2.0 4074HDR/SM3.0 3975CPU 21113DMark05 14135PCMark05 7140PCMark04 CPU 5679PCMark04 Memory 4259PCMark04 Graphics 6956PCmark04 HDD 8929Dr. DivX (minutes:seconds) 8:33WinRAR (min: sec) 4:06WinRAR/Dr. DivX 4:49/9:27Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 98.1Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (High 4XAA) 96.7Doom 3 1,600 x 1,200 (Ultra 4XAA) 93.7

The hard drives getplenty of cool

air, thanks to the nearby 120mm fan.

Note the cable tie,which ensures the

hard drive cage doesn’t budge.

CPU / April 2006 65

o you’ve already bought the latestAthlon 64 FX-60 (maybe it’s an

Athlon 64 X2 3800+), and you’rerunning a pair of GeForce 7800 GTX cards in SLI. Yeteveryone has you convinced that power-hungry 21-inchCRTs are absolutely necessary in order to get the best resolu-tions, refresh rates, and overall game experience.

In all actuality, there are several areas where LCD technolo-gy is better than your standard CRT. Brightness is one exam-ple; an LCD is easily more vivid, especially in environmentsprone to glare. Size and weight also go to the LCD. In fact, it’sfairly safe to say that none of the displays in this roundupwould have been very mobile had they instead been like-sizedCRTs. Power consumption favors the LCD, as well. An LCDwon’t suffer burn-in; it doesn’t flicker (despite the 60Hzrefresh); and it isn’t susceptible to magnetic interference.

Those areas where CRT displays still hold an advantage(viewing angle, response time, contrast, and color) have nar-rowed as of late. Many LCD vendors cite 178-degree viewingangles, for instance. You realistically can’t read text andwouldn’t want to watch a movie at such an extreme geome-try, but the point is that the picture no longer distorts as youmove around an LCD.

Response times are also dropping, although that particularspecification is problematic because the ISO standard black-white-black measurement technique isn’t always the onequoted. Further, a number of vendors now employ responsetime compensation, which is often referred to as overdrivetechnology. Response time compensation improves the per-formance of grey-to-grey changes—much more commonthan black-to-white transitions. But even then, you’re onlygiven averages, meaning performance might still vary.

Overall, though, LCDs have matured. And although theycontinue to cost more than CRTs, you’ll probably find thatan investment in display technology is much more rewardingthan upgrading from an Athlon 64 3400+ to an FX-57.

How We TestedPitting monitors against each other isn’t as easy as com-

paring a bevy of graphics cards. There’s a lot of variation, to

begin. From size to aspect ratio to features to performanceand price, one person’s must-have spec might be trivial tosomeone else. And although it’s pretty easy to judge basedsolely on price, it’s more difficult to evaluate a display’s per-formance characteristics.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of software to help make thereview process more objective. We used PassMark’s Mon-itorTest 2.2 and PerPixAn, both available from www.prad.de,to synthetically test LCD performance. Those results werethen compared to our real-world usability tests: WindowsMedia Player 10 for movie playback and Half-Life 2 as ameasure of playability. The synthetic metrics still have adegree of variance to them because they involve judgmentcalls but not nearly as much as the movie and game tests. Forthose we had two people, both avid gamers and multimediaenthusiasts, sit in front of each monitor and take notes on amovie clip or game sequence. An after-the-fact comparisonhelped clarify strengths and weaknesses.

The test system consisted of an Intel Pentium ExtremeEdition 955 on a 975X board. Two 512MB memory mod-ules were arranged in a dual-channel configuration, and aWestern Digital 150GB Raptor hard drive supplied storage.We connected each display to an XFX GeForce 7800 GTXcard with 256MB. The card’s dual-link DVI output is actu-ally required in order to drive Dell’s 30-inch 3007WFP. Anycard with a dual-link output would work, though, includingATI’s Radeon X1900, X1800, X1600, or X1300.

2405FPW UltraSharpWe’ve already spent some time discussing Dell’s 24-inch

2405FPW widescreen display. (See page 16 in the May 2005CPU.) But it’s still a prolific player, age aside. And givenDell’s 30-inch entry, the 2405FPW at least deserves a com-parison to its larger sibling.

It turns out that in many ways, the 24-inch display is moreversatile than the 3007WFP. Sure, you still get DVI input, aslew of USB connectors, and a multimedia card reader.However, the 2405FPW also accepts S-Video, composite,component, and VGA inputs. It can take two of those sourcesand display picture-in-picture, too.


Adjustments to the monitor’s outputare made through an easily navigable on-screen display. Positioning, color, image,and language settings are all included.Physical adjustments are also plentiful onthe 2405FPW. It swivels, tilts, telescopes,and rotates for a perfect fit on your desk.

At 1,920 x 1,200, the monitor’s nativeresolution is grandiose enough to impressanyone used to 17-inch or 19-inch dis-plays, yet still within bounds for those witholder graphics cards limited to single-linkDVI outputs. Even though it consumessignificant desk space, the 2405FPW re-tains Dell’s classic style: a slim, all-blackbezel and minimalist brushed silver stand.

On-screen image quality matches theexterior good looks. Although the 2405-FPW’s response time isn’t the fastest(12ms grey-to-grey, 16ms black-to-white),the 24-inch Dell exhibited minimal ghost-ing in our synthetic tests. Half-Life 2looked particularly lush, and WMV HDcontent suffered very little banding as lightblue shifted to dark blue in our test clip.

Best of all, the 2405FPW sports a$1,099 MSRP, which compares favorablyto Apple’s 23-inch M9178LL/A CinemaDisplay at $1,299. Sales on Dell’s Website regularly cut that price down below$900, further sweetening the deal. Un-fortunately, a lack of HDCP support iswhat will really knock the wind out ofyour sails if you buy the 2405FPW today.Think of the content protection schemewhat you will—the fact remains thatVista will tout it, and anyone hoping toplay full-resolution Blu-ray or HD-DVDcontent will need a compatible display.

3007WFP UltraSharpA picture in print might suggest that

Dell’s new 30-inch 3007WFP UltraSharpis large, but you can’t appreciate its truesize without sitting down 2 feet away andtaking it all in. Gargantuan doesn’t evenbegin to capture how such an impressivedisplay looks sitting on a desk.

The 3007WFP goes right up againstApple’s 30-inch Cinema Display HD,selling at a lower price and sporting sig-nificantly better specifications. Even still,it’s not for the budget-conscious buyer;the MSRP is $2,199. Depending on yourhardware configuration, you might alsoneed a new video card to properly operatethe 3007WFP, though.

Its 4MP resolution (2,560 x 1,600)exceeds the bandwidth capabilities of asingle-link DVI connection. So you’llwant a card equipped with a dual-linkport, such as ATI’s Radeon X1900 fami-ly or Nvidia’s 7800 series. Anything less,and you’ll be looking at a black screen

Honorable MentionsOur shopping list of desirable displays wasactually a bit longer, but shortages and shift-ing product lines kept us from testing all ofthe contenders.

Apple is, of course, the highest-profile ven-dor missing. According to a PR representa-tive at the company, Cinema Displays are in such high demand that it couldn’t send us one for months. With that said, the 30-inchM9179LL/A no longer has the market corneredon 4MP (2,560 x 1,600) goodness anymore,anyway. Its plight is complicated by lowerbrightness and contrast ratio ratings, a narrow-er viewing angle, and higher price tag. At leaston paper, Dell’s 3007WFP has the upper hand.

We were also hoping to get our hands onSony’s 23-inch PremierPro widescreen LCD,which features the same 1,920 x 1,200 nativeresolution as Dell’s 24-inch 2405FPW. Sony’srepresentative let us know that the $1,400monitor was actually being phased out in favorof something new. The replacement wasn’tready, though. Maybe that helps explain therecent $400 price drop on Sony’s flagship. Welook forward to Sony’s next effort; if it canindeed eclipse the SDM-P234/B, Sony willhave a real contender on its hands.

Lastly, we looked to BenQ for itsFP231W, another 23-inch panel capable of1,920 x 1,200 with a $1,500 price tag. The16:10 widescreen display is just big enoughto fit two A4 pages next to each other, mak-ing it perfect for editing. Unfortunately, theyjust weren’t available. ▲

2405FPW UltraSharp$1,099Dell(800) 915-3355www.dell.com● ● ● ●


Specs: Active Matrix TFT LCD; 24-inch diagonalsize; 178º/178º viewable angle; 0.27mm pixelpitch; 500 cd/m² brightness; 1,000:1 contrastratio; 1,920 x 1,200 maximum resolution; analog/digital interfaces; 16:10 aspect ratio

3007WFP UltraSharp$2,199Dell(800) 915-3355www.dell.com● ● ● ●

Specs: Active Matrix TFT LCD; 30-inchdiagonal size; 178º/178º viewable angle;0.25mm pixel pitch; 400 cd/m² brightness; 700:1 contrast ratio; 2,560 x1,600 maximum resolution; DVI-D connector with HDCP; 16:10 aspect ratio

s p o t l i g h t

CPU / April 2006 67

when you try to run at the display’snative resolution. On the bright side,this is the only display in our roundupwith HDCP support—apropos since it’salso the priciest.

Simplicity is a hallmark of the 3007-WFP’s aesthetic appeal. The bezel is aclassy black with just two buttons foradjusting brightness at the bottom-rightcorner. The stand is silver and remarkablystable given a modest footprint. It tilts for-ward and back, swivels side to side, andtelescopes up and down for optimal posi-tioning. Rotation isn’t one of the stand’sdocumented capabilities, but where there’sa will, there’s a way. (NOTE: You’ll need todisassemble the stand.) A four-port USB huband 9-in-2 media card reader make it easyto directly attach peripherals. And it’sworth noting that the 3007WFP doesn’toffer an on-screen display. Instead, you willhave to rely on graphics drivers for anyimage-processing adjustments.

The performance numbers Dell claimsare pretty impressive given the 3007WFP’ssheer size. A 11ms grey-to-grey responsetime is certainly suitable for gaming andmovies. The 700:1 contrast ratio is muchhigher than Apple’s offering, as is the3007WFP’s 400 nits brightness rating.

Real-world results are often much lessoptimistic than manufacturer specs, butfortunately there’s some real credence toDell’s published numbers. PassMark’sMonitorTest revealed excellent uniformi-ty in the all-black screen; there weren’tany backlight blooming artifacts. Plus,Half-Life 2 immediately recognized a16:10 aspect ratio and ran the game at2,560 x 1,600, outputting incredible

visuals. Our WMV HD clip did demon-strate noticeable banding in scenes withgradual color gradients, though. And thesolid green, red, blue, and white screensin MonitorTest uncovered noticeablybrighter output on the display’s rightside. Fortunately, you really won’t noticethe imbalance in Windows.

For its raw cool factor, we have to giveDell’s top-end monitor due respect. Butin terms of economics, you’d almost bebetter off with a pair of 2405FPW dis-plays. Then again, consider that the3007WFP does indeed support HDCP,ensuring compatibility with Vista and theupcoming high-resolution playback for-mats it’ll introduce.

Flatron L2000CLG’s Flatron L2000C has all the

makings of a high-end display. It’s tech-nologically more advanced than any ofthe company’s 23-inch models. It fea-tures an 8ms grey-to-grey response timeat resolutions up to 1,600 x 1,200, an

800:1 contrast rat io, and 300 nitsbrightness rating.

Connectivity on the L2000C is aboutaverage. You have a single VGA input anda DVI input. The monitor’s design is sim-ilarly run-of-the-mill. Its bezel is thickerthan most, and the circular stand, thougha stylish departure from the mechanicallines most other vendors offer, only tele-scopes, tilts, and rotates. It won’t swivelfrom side to side—a minor gripe, sure.

But the complaints get a little moreurgent once you shift focus from cosmet-ics to actual performance. Specifically,MonitorTest revealed some serious band-ing issues in the Scale Black-Red test. Thesame was true for Black-Green, Black-Blue, and Black-White. Sure enough, thesame issue popped up in our WMV HDplayback test, which presented some chal-lenging blue gradients.

All other synthetic tests turned out well,with fairly uniform color and negligibleghosting. Half-Life 2 moved fast enough sothat banding issues weren’t noticed if theywere there at all. As a gaming display,L2000C seems to do a solid job.

Price is perhaps the most compellingreason to spring for LG’s offering. It’s list-ed well below $600, appealing to anyonewho wants to get a 1,600 x 1,200 nativeresolution and respectable gaming perfor-mance. The banding issues are disconcert-ing, though, as is the exclusion of HDCP.

SyncMaster 214TIn an ocean of black bezels, Samsung’s

SyncMaster 214T is a lovely shade of sil-ver (but also comes in black). Color,

Flatron L2000C$559LG(800) 243-0000us.lge.com● ● ●

Specs: 20.1-inch TFT LCD; 178º /178º viewable angle; 0.255mm pixel pitch; 300cd/m² brightness; 800:1 contrast ratio; 1,600x 1,200 maximum resolution; analog/digitalinterfaces; 4:3 aspect ratio

SyncMaster 214T$679Samsung(800) 726-7864www.samsung.com● ● ● ●

Specs: a-si TFT/PVA panel; 21.3-inch;0.27mm pixel pitch; 300 cd/m² brightness;900:1 contrast ratio; 178º/178º viewableangle; analog/digital interfaces; 1,600 x 1,200maximum resolution; 4:3 aspect ratio

s p o t l i g h t



however, isn’t the only area where Sam-sung is innovating. The 214T also comeswith MagicRotation technology, whichtracks whether you’re in landscape orportrait mode and automatically adjuststhe display output to match. Cool, eh?Moreover, Samsung’s stand is completelyadjustable—swivel, tilt, rotate, andheight are all customizable.

There are plenty of options for connect-ing the 214T: DVI, VGA, composite, andS-Video inputs. Its native resolution is1,600 x 1,200, so you won’t have to worryabout buying a new graphics card. Betterstill, Samsung took an early leap onto theHDCP gravy train and indeed supports thecontent protection scheme with its 214T.This makes the Samsung a solid buy todayif you’re concerned about movie playbackin Vista later this year.

The 214T is also a great performer,thanks in part to its 8ms grey-to-greyresponse time. A number of onlookerscommented on its particularly vibrantimage as we ran it through our batteryof tests. Half-Life 2 looked amazing at1,600 x 1,200, and the WMV HDmovie content played back withoutany ghosting artifacts or banding prob-lems. MonitorTest revealed some seri-ous backlight blooming on each of thefour corners, but unless you’re lookingat a black screen, the artifact isn’t dire.

Samsung’s score derives from ex-cellent performance and the forward-looking decision to include HDCP.It features impressive picture quality,reasonable connectivity, and plentyof options for tweaking the stand.Though a little pricey at $679, it’s

st i l l a smart buy for enthusiasts inimmediate need of a display.

VP2130bA quick look at ViewSonic’s lineup turns

up some seriously high-end hardware,headlined by the 23-inch VP2330wb.Sporting a native resolution of 1,920 x1,200 and amazing 8ms grey-to-grey transi-tions, it’s a gaming display and professionalpowerhouse all rolled into one monitor. Nosurprise, then, that the VP2330wb is nearlyimpossible to track down. In its stead we’retesting the VP2130b, a 21.3-inch modelwith similar specifications.

Whereas the VP2330wb is a widescreenoffering, the VP2130b features a 4:3 as-pect ratio yielding a 1,600 x 1,200 native resolution. Like Dell’s 2405FPW, this

ViewSonic boasts a 1,000:1 contrastratio that results in very bright whites.Blacks aren’t quite uniform, with bloomingin all four corners. Plus, PerPixAn revealedsome streaking in its black flag test.Fortunately, those effects really onlyimpacted our synthetic measures. Real-world performance metrics, such as theHalf-Life 2 test and Windows Media Player10, were much more forgiving to theVP2130b. Text appeared to be sharp, andcolor gradients transitioned smoothly.

ViewSonic only enables two inputs:one analog HD-15 connector and oneDVI-D port. However, the OnViewOSD lets you utilize them both throughpicture-in-picture support. A four-portUSB 2.0 hub expands peripheral connec-tivity, even if the rear-facing ports arehard to reach. The monitor’s stand isexemplary, allowing height, tilt, androtation adjustments. Further, theVP2130b can swivel back farther thanany other display we’ve seen.

Of course, you pay a premium for theVP2130b’s ambitious specification sheet.Whether that’s justified given the com-petitive performance of some of the otherdisplays we’ve tested is questionable,though. And once again, the lack ofHDCP has to factor in to our score. ▲

by Chris Angelini

LCD Dell 2405FPW Dell 3007WFP LG Flatron Samsung ViewSonic UltraSharp UltraSharp L2000C 214T-Silver VP2130b

Price $1,099 $2,199 $559 $679 $899

Viewable 24 inches 30 inches 20.1 inches 21.3 inches 21.3 inchesimage size widescreen widescreen

Viewing angle 178/178 178/178 178/178 178/178 178/178

Native resolution 1,920 x 1,200 2,560 x 1,600 1,600 x 1,200 1,600 x 1,200 1,600 x 1,200

Contrast ratio 1,000:1 700:1 800:1 900:1 1,000:1

Response time 12ms 11ms 8ms 8ms 8ms(grey to grey)

Luminance (nits) 500 400 300 300 300

Input signal HD-15; DVD-D; DVI-D HD-15; HD-15; DVI-D; HD-15; S-Video; composite DVI-D S-Video; DVI-Dcomponent composite

Weight (pounds) 22.1 25.1 16.9 19.4 20.3

Pixel pitch 0.27mm 0.25mm 0.255mm 0.27mm 0.27mm

Warranty Three years Three years Three years Three years Three years limited

CPU rating 4 4 3 4 3.5

Round ’Em Up

VP2130b$899ViewSonic(909) 444-8888www.viewsonic.com● ● ● ●

Specs: Active Matrix TFT LCD; 21.3-inch;0.27mm pixel pitch; 300 cd/m² brightness;1,000:1 contrast ratio; 178º/178º viewableangle; analog/digital interfaces; 1,600 x 1,200maximum resolution; 4:3 aspect ratio

s p o t l i g h t


CPU / April 2006 69

The BleedingEdge Of SoftwareInside The World Of Betas

A lways forgetting to do those littlethings in life because you’re

always staring at the Windows Desk-top? Don’t know what day or monthit is? Hate wasting system resources onbloated calendar software? Interestedin expandability? Look no farther than

Rainlendar for help.Rainlendar is essentially a Desktop calen-

dar app, but it’s especially attractive, light-weight, and quick. Different skins allow forvarious icons for different activities, such asplane trips and birthdays, and making yourown icons is possible. The calendar can dis-play a list of events and a To Do list. If yourOS supports it, you can set various trans-parency levels for panels and make themappear on different Desktops on multiscreensystems. The app also works as a plug-in forthe LiteStep alternative Windows Desktop.

Adding events and To Do items is assimple as double-clicking a date and enter-ing data. Setting an alarm or entering alonger description or note takes a few clicks.Alternatively, Rainlendar can import eventsfrom Microsoft Outlook or (when it works)via a third-party plug-in for Palm Desktop.

If you’re looking to spread out a com-mon calendar between several networkedcomputers, there’s also a Rainlendar serverthat works over TCP/IP and the Internetwith the proper tweaking. An API alsoexists, so other programs can send calendardata, too, and it isn’t hard to work with.

Although it’s hard to quibble about freesoftware, a more reliable method for work-ing with Palm Desktop would be welcome,but if you’re an Outlook user, it’s hard tothink of a better way to get a run-down ofyour day’s events. ▲

Rainlendar 0.22.1

W hen you think of freeware audioapps, Audacity always comes to

mind. But it isn’t the only game in town,and it isn’t necessarily the best tool for everyaudio job. Reaper, for example, excels atrendering and arranging multitrack wave-form audio, and it’s free—at least for now.

In a crude way, Reaper looks and feelsWindowsy. Each loop or waveform appearsas a horizontal strip, and each gets its ownset of controls (volume, balance, etc.). Youcan lay multiple strips on top of each other,and they play together via the master play-back controls at the window’s bottom. Toeasily manage many tracks, you can groupthem together as a bus, where one set ofcontrols handles the entire group. Reaper

automatically imports Ogg, WAV, MP3,and MIDI files. It can export WAV andMIDI, meaning you must manually convertoutput to MP3 if you’re making podcasts.

Reaper has a few unusual options. It canrecord from and playback to different audiohardware, even at the same time, which isuseful for monitoring results live with head-phones while outputting a subset of tracks toa DAT or other recorder. It also supportsDirectX, VST, and Jesusonic audio process-ing plug-ins. You can also change measure-ments between milliseconds or beats perminute to get loops sounding right.

Perhaps the best thing about Reaper is itspotential: There’s an active user communitythat constantly offers improvements, and

Reaper v0.54

Official product name: RainlendarVersion # previewed: 0.22.1Publisher: The Rainy TeamDeveloper and URL: The Rainy Team;vapaa.dc.inet.fi/~rainy/index.phpETA: Q3 2006Why you should care: There’s no neaterway to review your schedule in Windows.

Official product name: ReaperVersion # previewed: v0.54Publisher: CockosDeveloper and URL: Cockos; www.cockos.comETA: Q3 2006Why you should care: A fine option for loop-based sound editing.

by Warren Ernst

l o a d i n g z o n e

the author is targeting an eventual sharewarerelease, so he’s highly motivated to makeReaper as good as it can be. Why not get inon the ground floor? ▲


UUppggrraaddeessAnyDVD 5.8.4.1The DVD backup software adds routinesto handle the latest discs and data aboutdisc size and layer break positions in theinformation window.

Get it at: www.slysoft.com

BitTorrent for Windows 4.4.0The original client for the P2P file-down-load protocol gets bug fixes, including amemory leak fix and language supportexpanded to Hebrew and Icelandic.

Get it at: www.bittorrent.com

Driver Magician 2.6This tool for backing up and updating yourdevice drivers updates the driver andunknown driver databases.

Get it at: www.drivermagician.com

Gmail ChatGmail accounts get a new Chat icon, whichcan track the online presence/availability ofcontacts and open a Google Talk IM ses-sion from within the browser.

Get it at: www.google.com

Google Toolbar for IE BetaThis major update adds buttons for search-ing on specific sites. You can bookmarksites and access them from other desktopsor share Web pages via blog, SMS, oremail. The search box also offers sugges-tions to complete or amend your queries.

Get it at: www.google.com

Hard Drive Inspector 1.5Based on SMART technology, this app lets you control your hard drive state and

predict possible failures. The update addsSMTP mail reporting and a Spanish inter-face option.

Get it at: www.altrixsoft.com

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.50 BetaThis comprehensive codec bundles addsInterVideo decoders; Gabest MPEG decoder; and splitter and updates for ffd-show, CyberLink DVD decoder, andLAME codecs.

Get it at: www.codecguide.com

McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.6.0The standalone virus scanner and fixer getsthe latest virus definitions.

Get it at: vil.nai.com/vil/stinger

Paint.NET 2.6 RC1The open-source image-editing app up-dates the English Help file and revises theUI to work at 120dpi. Bug fixes addresscurve adjustment, problems launching theHelp file, and some brush rendering.

Get it at: www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net

RoboForm 6.6.5The form filler/password vault now lets youclear all generated passwords at logoff.

Get it at: www.roboform.com

Total Commander 6.54The file manager gets fixes to surroundingplug-ins, shortcut keys, and searches.

Get it at: www.ghisler.com

Winamp 5 Full 5.2 Beta (Build 393)The media player adds skin-colored iconsin the media library tree and fixes for mediaplayers, security holes, and a memory leak.

Get it at: www.winamp.com

Some shareware mainstays get updates this month, including BitTorrent,

RoboForm, and Winamp. The release most users will want, however, is the

enhanced Google Toolbar for IE (while we wait for the Firefox version).

X-Setup Pro 8.0.100One of the best Windows tweakers andcustomizers gets an enhanced searchengine, new plug-ins, and SDK functions.

Get it at: www.x-setup.net

Yahoo! Toolbar for Firefox1.1.0.20060206The big addition is a right-click contextmenu available anywhere in the browserthat will email, blog, IM, save, or book-mark the current page.

Get it at: www.yahoo.com

YamiPod 0.92 Beta 3YamiPod manages your iPod files from thedevice via Windows, Mac, or Linux. Thisversion shows video and podcasts.

Get it at: www.yamipod.com

DDrriivveerr BBaayyATI Multimedia Center 9.13ATI’s software gets fixes involving DTVlaunching under low drive space states,annoyances with the Channel Lockout fea-ture, graphical glitches with channel surf-ing, and errors related to using DVI andCRT connectors at once.

Get it at: www.ati.com

Creative Audigy 2.08.0004These drivers are a general update for mostAudigy/Audigy 2/Audigy 4.

Get it at: www.creative.com

Creative Zen Vision: M Firmware Update 1.11.01This firmware for the new AV playerimproves both MP3 and video playbackquality. Updates to the PlaysForSure sup-port let the player work better with musicsubscription services such as Napster.

Get it at: www.creative.com

S3 Chrome 20 Series & GammaChrome 6.14.10.2168For S3 Chrome PCI-E video cards, thesedrivers are recommended when testing with3DMark06 and also enhance the TV set-ting adjustment.

Get it at: www.s3graphics.com

by Steve Smith

s o f t w a r e | u p g r a d e s

CPU / April 2006 71

Internet Security SuiteRoundupBecause Your Computer Deserves The Protection

“S ecurity.” The word on every-one’s lips today has long beena concern of computer users

since the first viruses weaseled their wayinto our computers via 28.8Kbps mo-dems. Today, the threats are more diversethan ever, but so are the choices you canmake to protect yourself.

I looked at six application suites fromfour major vendors (Symantec, TrendMicro, Zone Labs, and McAfee) and tworelatively newer companies (Aluria andBullGuard). Each vendor’s suite shone ina particular area: ZoneAlarm had the bestfirewall; PC-cillin had the best anti-virus/antispyware system; Aluria had themost configurable antispam app; Bull-Guard had the best miscellaneous features(in this case, Internet-based data backup);and Symantec had the best integrationwith other products in its line. In manycases they all did a particular task well.For example, every program I surveyed inthis roundup except Aluria’s integratedproperly with the Security Center in post-SP2 Windows XP.

Several new features seem to be makingthe rounds of all the major security prod-ucts, although like anything else, they’reat the mercy of user discretion. Most ofthe applications contained some form ofpersonal data protection to prevent pass-words or credit card numbers from beingtransmitted in the clear. It’s a nice idea,but it’s an open question as to whetherpeople are going to take the time topunch in all the sensitive data that comesto mind.

Aluria SoftwareSecurity Center 4.0

Aluria SecurityCenter is a relativelynew suite that offersbasic four-way cov-erage—spyware, vi-rus, spam, and fire-wall—at a very decentprice ($39.95). As withthe Symantec suite, ittreats spyware and virusesas essentially a single threat.To that end it offers a functioncalled OneScan with which youcan scan for both threats in a singlepass. It’s a handy time-saver, and in thatvein you can also let the program reportback as-yet-unidentified spyware (as youwould with viruses) for analysis.

When you launch it, Aluriashows a number of protectionindex meters that are akin to whatMcAfee’s program displays, alongwith suggested actions to take ifany are needed. However, theseindices don’t seem to take intoaccount some of the additionalprevention options the softwareoffers, such as the ability to protectagainst HTA (HTML applica-tions) vulnerabilities or protect thedefault browser’s home page frombeing hijacked. Aluria seems especiallyattentive to problems like these and hasslightly more options for dealing withthem than the other apps here. One big minus is that Aluria doesn’t seem to

Aluria Security Center 4.0$39.95

Aluria Softwarewww.aluriasoftware.com/securitycenter

r e v i e w s | s o f t w a r e


integrate correctly with the Security Center;there, both firewall and antivirus protec-tions are listed as not available by default.

The firewall comes pre-equipped witha list of known good programs, but it’s asmall list; you will probably have to do afair amount of manual configurationwhen you first run the program. I wasalso occasionally stymied about where to

find certain things. For example, theredoesn’t seem to be a way to get to

the advanced antispam configura-tion controls from within the

main application window. Youhave to right-click the anti-spam icon in the SystemTray and select Admin Con-sole to change the antispamsettings. Once you find it,however, the expert anti-spam settings are prettysophisticated: DNS black-lists, word training, block-ing by country, encoding or

IP address, etc. In fact, of allthe apps here, Aluria’s spam

system was probably the mostflexible and configurable.

BullGuard Internet Security 6.0 BullGuard Internet Security 6.0 is

another relatively new face in the PC-security crowd, but it has a healthy list offeatures, including something no othersuite here had: integrated file backup.This makes sense, as backing up data isat least as important as protecting yoursystem from common threats. Onemajor thing missing here is spyware pro-tection; it’s not integrated into the anti-virus engine, and it’s not available as aseparate product.

Once BullGuard is installed, its mainwindow presents you with a system sum-mary of what you need to do, what’s hap-pened recently (such as emergent threats),and how well protected your system is.The antivirus system handled email par-ticularly well. You can set the engine toscan inside email databases (for instance,an Outlook message store), scan incomingand outgoing email for viruses withoutthe need for application-specific settings,and even elect to put a BullGuard footer

on outgoing email to show it’sbeen scrubbed.

The firewall is quite flexible.You can set up different securityprofiles for different environmentsand write fairly advanced traffic-handling rules for each profile,including which network interfaceto use and what special network-security behaviors to use (such aslook for port scans, authenticate DLL filesthat try to communicate with the net-work, and more).

The app’s spam filter works best withOutlook because it integrates directlywith that program, but it will workwell with any POP3/SMTP emailsystem. Also, you can automaticallyforward the spam filter log to Bull-Guard to help improve spam de-fenses, much like how Microsoftuses junk-mail analysis harvestedfrom Hotmail to build its filters forOutlook. If you use BullGuardwith one of the supported mailclients, such as Outlook, it sendsmessages that you tag as spam to BullGuard’s servers. Support forother email clients is planned forthe future.

BullGuard’s backup system lets youcopy a certain amount of data—1GB inthe basic product and up to 3GB in theGold-level subscription version ($160)of the suite—to BullGuard’s servers. Ifyou use the Synchronization mode,BullGuard performs a backup wheneverchanges occur within a file. This sort offunctionality is available in a few stand-alone subscription services, but it’sinteresting to see it as part of a system-protection package. For me, the one bignegative feature of BullGuard wasn’t anissue with the actual program, but ratherwith its interface: Why did BullGuardmake it impossible to resize the applica-tion window?

McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006Internet Security Suite 2006 compiles

McAfee’s antivirus, firewall, privacy pro-tection, and antispam products and spy-ware protection (included as part of theantivirus engine). It makes for a good,

BullGuard Internet Security 6.0$59.99 (Bronze Edition)

BullGuardwww.bullguard.com


solid collection that’s easy to work withand that contains relevant, useful features.

Once the suite is installed, the mainwindow displays a series of SecurityIndex meters that let you know how wellprotected you are against various threats,including general security, viruses, hack-ers, abuse, and spam. If a meter isn’t inthe green, you can click it and get detailsabout what needs fixing. Emergentthreats appear on this page, too, andyou’ll be warned if you’re not protectedagainst them.

The virus scanner checks for a broadcollection of threats, including emailviruses, worms, and scripts, and it inte-grates antispyware protection pretty ele-gantly. McAfee calls such apps PUPs, or

Internet Security Suite 2006$49.99 (after $20 rebate)

McAfeewww.mcafee.com

CPU / April 2006 73

potentially unwanted programs. Theapplication lets you set up exclusion liststo keep certain PUPs if you actually needthem. Programs that might be roguemass mailers also get flagged, and you canedit the detection rules for such programsif you run a legitimate mail engine onyour computer.

Most firewalls come configured out ofthe box to work with known good appli-cations. McAfee looks up unknown appsin an online database to see if they’revalid, so most common programs workas-is. A special Gaming mode hides pop-up alerts when you’re using any applica-tion in full-screen mode, and you caneasily expose common service ports (FTP,HTTP) as needed, although the rules forallowing/blocking access aren’t as flexibleas what’s available in Symantec’s product,for example. If you’re curious about howwell you’re protected, you can click TestMy Firewall to get a free remote testcourtesy of HackerWatch.org.

The spam blocker will work with mostany mail client, but you have to redirectall your mail traffic through the programas a proxy by reconfiguring your mailclient. This is bit of a drawback, but theprogram steps you through it and offers afair range of spam-control options such asmultiple user profiles, blocking by lan-guages or encodings, custom filters forindividual users, and complaint forms tosend to ISPs when you suspect abuse istaking place.

If viruses or other disasters keep youfrom even booting your PC, McAfee canlet you create a rescue floppy that servesas a bootable disk that you can use to per-form an offline scan. It’s a great idea, butit’s severely hampered by a major featureomission: It won’t work on systems for-matted as NTFS, and at this point, mostPCs preloaded with WinXP come for-matted as NTFS anyway.

Some of the program’s antivirus func-tions are wonderful. I especially likedMcAfee’s online virus database. Here youcan determine without too much sweatwhether or not something is a legitimatethreat or a hoax. Equally interesting is the World Virus Map, which shows youwhere major virus outbreaks are taking

place (and for which you can supply feedback for).

Symantec Norton Internet Security 2006

It’s next to impossible to talk aboutsecurity software suites without mention-ing Symantec’s Norton products. Afterall, Norton gave us Norton AntiVirus andthird-party PC security software as weknow it. Norton Internet Security 2006brings together Norton AntiVirus, Nor-ton AntiSpam, and Norton Personal inone application. It’s also possible to addother Norton applications to the mix bybuying them separately, such as System-Works 2006 (for system cleanup).The suite itself is sold in a sub-scription model: The box priceincludes 12 months of updatesand ongoing protection.

Internet Security 2006 has sev-eral new features. For one, spy-ware is now handled as if it were avirus infestation, although youcan selectively exclude applica-tions if you need them. This isuseful if you have ad-supportedprograms that you don’t want tobreak. Also, whenever new viruses aredetected in the wild, the system updatesitself and makes any needed system set-ting changes accordingly.

If you are in a hurry, Norton’s Quick-Scan function does an intelligentanalysis of the system for com-mon virus/spyware risks. Insteadof scanning every file, QuickScanscans the most commonly infect-ed areas of the system—runningprograms, startup files, key Reg-istry locations—and reports backon those. Most of the time, thisyields a pretty accurate picture ofwhether or not your system has aproblem, but the program willnag you to do a full system scanwhen it’s initially installed.

A Security Inspector featurechecks your system for many commonsecurity problems—blank passwords,insecure IE settings, entries in theHOSTS file, etc.—and remedies them ifneeded. Any time the system needs to call

PC-cillin Internet Security 2006$49.95

Trend Microwww.trendmicro.com

Norton Internet Security 2006$69.99

Symantec www.symantec.com


your attention to something, it pops up alarge warning from the System Tray.Unfortunately, the program is a bitoverzealous about this at first, so until youturn off many of the less-essential warn-ings, you may find yourself almost con-tinually bombarded with System Traynotices when you set up the program.

You can configure the firewall with twolayers of rules to allow or disallow accessto applications, ports, or address rangers,and it comes preloaded to recognize manycommon, safe applications. If you’reroaming or have multiple users, you canset up the firewall for different user andconnection profiles. An AutoBlock feature


can aggressively block incoming attacks.AutoBlock blacklists an attacker’s IP for afixed period (30 minutes by default). LikeZoneAlarm, there’s a repository for privateinformation, such as credit card numbers,to keep such data from being transmittedopenly. You can also set up ad and cookieblocking on a site-by-site basis, and theparental control system not only blockssites and applications but also Usenetnewsgroups, something I didn’t see in anyother program here.

The biggest issue I noticed was some-thing that also plagued SystemWorks2006 Premier when I reviewed it: a slug-gish interface. Even on the fastest availabletest system (a dual-processor 64-bit AMDmachine), it took 10 to 15 seconds for theControl Panel to come up and be useful,with CPU usage inexplicably pegged at100% the whole time. It’s frustrating tosee a problem like this from an applicationand a company of Symantec’s prestige.

Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2006

Trend Micro’s PC-cillin has consis-tently remained one of the best all-aroundantivirus packages for a long time, andnow Trend Micro has complemented thatwith a simple but strong suite of securityproducts. Some individual details thatother products in this roundup coveraren’t here, but what is covered is doneextremely well and rounded out by somefeatures I didn’t see elsewhere. For exam-ple, the program not only updates itselfon demand but even provides you withthe option to roll back an update if itdoesn’t go well.

Aside from the usual scan-on-demand,real-time protection, and file quarantinefeatures, PC-cillin performs live emailscanning on both in- and outbound emailand on Web-based email clients. If newviruses appear in the wild, the systempops up an Outbreak Warning and auto-matically connects to Trend Micro’sservers to obtain updates, so you’re notcaught by surprise.

Trend Micro’s antispyware system isfunctionally similar to its antivirus; it pro-tects in real time and on demand, but youcan also set it to selectively exclude files

(such as if you have an adware-support-ed program that you don’t want dam-aged). The antiphishing and content-protection tools keep you from beingsuckered by bogus Web sites or trans-mitting sensitive personal informationin the clear, such as credit cards.

One feature I didn’t see elsewhere isa comprehensive check for knownWindows and Office security vulnera-bilities, which is updated regularly andwhich you can run on a schedule. If you run the Anti-Fraud Wizard(another unduplicated feature), theprogram steps you through setting upeach key element of Internet Security’sprotections, including antivirus, antispy-ware, antiphishing, content protection,and network security. You can also add abrowser-protection toolbar, although it’sfor Internet Explorer only, as a Mozilla/Firefox version isn’t available yet.

The suite’s parental controls aren’tquite as granular as they could be, butthey’re designed to be easy to use out ofthe box, and in that they succeed nicely.When you opt to filter sites, you canblock predefined categories of Web sites(gambling sites, for example, or hacking/proxy avoidance), but the program doesnot let you see which sites are indexed inthose categories. You can selectivelywhitelist sites if you are confident they’resafe to access, however, so not havingaccess to the full site list for a categoryisn’t all that bad.

Internet Security’s firewall lets youspecify multiple profiles for different net-work environments, such as home vs.office vs. wireless network in a hotel,making the program especially useful for anotebook PC. Also, if you have othercopies of Internet Security running onyour local network, you can manage themremotely. The most unparalleled featurein this department has to be the Wi-Fiintrusion detection system; it polls yourwireless network for the presence ofunwanted users. Granted, many wirelessrouters can do this, but they don’t usuallyalert you, and Internet Security is a loteasier to set up.

Unfortunately, Internet Security’s anti-spam system was the least configurable of


the spam blockers I saw here. There is a filtering level slider and a whitelist/blacklist control, but that’s it—no DNSblacklist controls (at least none the enduser can set) and no editable heuristics.On the plus side, the app requires noproxies or changes to your mail setup; itworks with any POP3/SMTP-compatibleemail client. Messages that get flagged asspam have keywords added to the title foreasy classification.

Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 6

ZoneAlarm was one of the first reallysuccessful personal firewalls for Windows.The basic, firewall-only product is stillfree, but ZoneAlarm Internet SecuritySuite 6 is packed with plenty of other fea-tures to make it worth the price, includ-ing antivirus and spyware; mail, privacy,instant messenger, and identity theft pro-tection; and parental controls.

ZoneAlarm got its name ostensiblyfrom its three selectable zones for handlingInternet traffic: Internet (for all unclassi-fied traffic), Trusted (for machines knownto be safe), and Blocked (for machinesknown to not be safe). Adding sites ormachines to specific zones isn’t hard; youjust supply a domain name, address, orrange of addresses. Expert users can also

ZoneAlarm InternetSecurity Suite 6

$69.95Zone Labs

www.zonelabs.com

CPU / April 2006 75

create custom rules that filter by source,destination, protocol, or time of access(so you can block sites at given times, forexample). In an emergency, such as aworm attack or attack from anotherInternet-borne nasty, you can click a“panic button” to stop all Internet ac-cess, a feature that many other programshere copy. Finally, thanks to existingfeedback from legions of ZoneAlarmusers, many of the most commonly used,safe, third-party applications (Firefox, forexample) are already set up as trustedwhen you install the program.

To protect personal data, ZoneAlarmhas a myVAULT feature. When youenter bits of data into myVAULT, suchas credit card numbers, ZoneAlarm pre-vents them from being transmitted “inthe clear.” The spam filter unfortunatelyonly works with Outlook, but Zone-Alarm performs inbound and outboundscanning for viruses on all email traffic,regardless of client. One of the spam fil-ter options that I didn’t see in the otherprograms I tested is an email challengesystem where you can automaticallywhitelist someone by sending them emailwith specific instructions on how to bewhitelisted. (Most people hate having torespond to such things just to send anemail to someone, so this techniqueseems unpopular, and it’s off by default.)

ZoneAlarm has a few other, highlygranular ways to control personal infor-mation. You can selectively disable orcontrol cookies, advertising, and mobilecode such as JavaScript, embeddedActiveX objects, and more. The ad block-ing in particular has some incrediblydetailed options, such as being able toselectively block animated ads as opposedto static, text-only ads. The mobile-codeblocking system is equally selective. If youonly want to shut off Java and VB scripts,but not JavaScript, you can do that.

ZoneAlarm’s parental control systemnominally blocks listed or already-ratedWeb sites but it makes a best guessabout unknown sites, and you can setthe program to either err on the side ofcaution or allow access if the softwareisn’t sure. ZoneAlarm also secures traf-fic with instant-messaging clients and

comes with AOL, ICQ, MSN, andYahoo! Messenger all preconfigured.You can back up the entire program’sgalaxy of settings and restore to/from an XML file, making it easy to restoreeverything if that you move to another


system or reinstall. You can also log allprogram actions and alerts for laterinspection or troubleshooting. ▲

by Serdar Yegulalp

The Sweet Science Of Internet Security

T he name of this computer game is protecting your system with good Internet securitysoftware. The question is which software will you choose and use to protect your rig?

Installing one of the suites here is a good start. Here’s how they compare feature-wise.

FeaturesAntivirus Y Y Y Y Y YAntispyware Y* N Y** Y Y YAntispam Y Y Y Y Y YFirewall Y Y Y Y Y Y

User-specific settings/administrative control N N Y Y N NLocale-specific settings N N N Y Y*** Y

FirewallScheduled access rules (such as block by time) N Y N Y N YProtects sensitive data(credit card info) N N N Y Y YParental controls N N Y Y Y YPop-up blocker N N N Y N NAd blocker N N Y Y Y Y

AntivirusEmail scanning N Y Y Y Y YScans all POP3/SMTPclient email N Y Y Y Y YNatively protects IM clients N N N Y N YNatively protectsMicrosoft Office N N N Y N N

AntispamOutlook client integration Y Y Y Y N YBlock specific languages/encodings Y N Y Y N Y

Misc.Browser homepage protection Y N N Y N NWireless-specificintrusion detection N N N N Y NVulnerability checking/prevention Y N N Y Y N

CPU Rating 3.5 3.5 3.5 4 4 4

*Optionally Integrated **Integrated into AV ***Firewall

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Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing 6.0

A s you probably know, as you surf theWeb, you leave a trail of bread-

crumbs for others to see. The problem iswith your IP address. Depending on themethod that you use to connect to theInternet, that IP address may neverchange or only change occasionally. Therehave long been methods available to“anonymize” your connection, but thesehave generally decreased the connectionspeed dramatically, and some were tricky

to set up or install. Anonymous Surfing makesyour Web surfing anonymous with none of thesedrawbacks. AS works well, but with a few issuesof its own to consider.

For about $30 a year, AS hooks your Websoftware into Anonymizer’s proxy server farm.Thus, all your Internet activity seems to comefrom Anonymizer and not you. You can turnthis feature on and off via AS’ Control Panel(although, frustratingly, you can’t do this from aSystem Tray icon), which you’ll need to do once

in a while to access certain Web mail sites or tolet certain Internet software make a connection.Unlike some overly saturated freeware anonymiz-er options, there’s not much of a connectionslowdown when you turn AS on.

AS lets you optionally open a 128-bit SSLencrypted connection to the proxy servers, whicheffectively protects your communications viaopen Wi-Fi hotspots and “evil twin” hackerhotspots. The proxy also optionally blocks mate-rial from known phishing-, spyware-, and virus-pushing sites, including banner ads. Viewingblocked material is cumbersome, however.

AS includes its own antispyware offerings, butthese amount to nothing more than what themajor, free products offer. The antispyware fea-ture can perform full system scans on a scheduleand remove what it finds, but it seemed too sen-sitive in my tests: AS found 83 problems vs. Ad-Aware’s 27 (all cookies) vs. Spybot’s 0. As ananonymizer AS has the bases covered, offeringspeed and simplicity at a reasonable price. ▲

A ll it takes is losing your files or otherinformation just once to definitively

decide that you need to get a backup sys-tem in place. Uniblue Systems’ Win-Backup 1.86 is a utility that has plenty ofoptions that are worth looking at, especial-ly if you want to burn your data to CDs orDVDs. Better yet, the program is free.

WinBackup is geared more towardbeginning users. This is evident from theprogram’s very simple interface andseemingly automatic Wizard, which

always prompts you to perform the next stepin a backup or restore sequence. Typically,you create a Backup Job, select the files youwant to back up, select a destination location(or optical drive), set any extra job optionsyou want (such as compression, encryption,or incremental backup), and then let the pro-gram rip. Restores are similarly easy, withWinBackup asking if you would like to selecta new destination location and overwrite oldfiles and prompting you for the correct discin a backup set.

This isn’t to say that WinBackup is withoutany annoyances. The product always promptsyou to upgrade to the commercial 2.0 versionat every startup, and there’s no way to turn thisoff. The program also had trouble recognizingthe Sony DRU-800A dual-layer DVD burner Iused for testing, even with all of the app’s alter-native detection methods. The program didseem happy with every other burner I tried. (Alist of supported drives is available on theWinBackup Web site.)

Additionally, the compression method thatthe program uses isn’t a standard one, so youcan’t just take backup discs to Kinko’s, for exam-ple, and unzip your files in an emergency. Youwould also need to install the WinBackup soft-ware to get your data back. There’s no option toautomatically add it to your backup discs.

WinBackup may be the best option availablefor first-time users, as it’s simple and powerfulenough to get the job done (and for free) whilealso gently exposing them to issues that willmake selecting a commercial backup producteasier in the future. ▲

Uniblue Systems WinBackup 1.86

Anonymous Surfing 6.0$29.99 per yearAnonymizerwww.anonymizer.com

WinBackup 1.86FreeUniblue Systemswww.backupanswers.com/freewinbackup


by Warren Ernst

CPU / April 2006 77

muvee Technologies muvee autoProducer 5

Y ou bought a video camera and digi-cam with the best of intentions: You

wanted to create DVDs from your homevideos to share and treasure forever. Thenreality hit: Creating those videos is time-consuming. muvee autoProducer 5 takesthe drudgery out of creating somethingthat’s watchable from your video clips anddigital photos. Just feed the app a folder ofimages, select one of 24 video styles,

choose a music file, and click Make Muvee.In a few minutes, the app produces your video

by syncing scene transitions to the music anddoing a reasonable job of selecting the mostinteresting bits of your raw video. The resultingvideos are cute enough; they’ll impress Grandmaand make a slideshow that’s worth watching.The built-in video styles range from freneticmusic video to mellow sepia. Additional StylePacks ($15 to $20) are available for download.

After watching several videos, you may noticethat output is somewhat repetitious. Videos can

seem as if a computer generated them using aheavy dose of Ken Burns’ pan-and-zoom effect,which Apple’s iMovie helped popularize. Withsome extra effort, you can customize videos byselecting areas in a photo to focus on using themagicSpot feature, rearranging clips, and addinga title screen and credits.

Your chosen music track replaces the video’sauto track, so you’ll lose important sounds, suchas birthday party squeals, in the final product.Version 5 adds the ability to replace scenes in afinished video, although the UI for doing so isconvoluted. You can burn the finished movie toDVD and save it in numerous formats, includ-ing DivX and QuickTime.

autoProducer won’t overwhelm you withfeatures, which might be a blessing for many,but users who want greater control may quick-ly outgrow the program. For simply creatingvideo slideshows and sharing pictures withoutwasting a weekend doing it, autoProducerdoes the job. ▲

W hen I set up a PC-based PVR formy living room two years ago,

the two Windows-based solutions wereSageTV and Beyond TV. Beyond TVhad a slick interface but couldn’t handlemore than one tuner at once, so I optedfor SageTV. Today, Beyond TV 4removes that limitation and adds somany other features it would now bemy choice for a Windows-based PVR.

Setup was blissfully easy. Using aHauppauge card, the installation process let meavoid Hauppauge’s usual driver installationprocess, which can be frustrating to the point ofmadness. The drivers on the Beyond TV discsimply worked the first try.

In addition to supporting multiple tuners(Beyond TV’s site shows six- and 10-tuner sys-tems), the app can now record HDTV broad-casts. There are no HDTV channels in my area,but programs I recorded from cable TV lookedand sounded great. The app’s UI is clean and fastwith helpful navigational sound effects; it’s morepleasant and professional than SageTV’s UI.

A ShowSqueeze feature can compress a videoto DivX or other formats to save drive space.This can work automatically or manually. ASmartSkip feature lets you skip multiple com-mercials with one click; it worked perfectly forme most of the time. Neither feature is availablewith SageTV; although there are hacks for com-mercial skipping, they’re not easy to use. BeyondTV also lets you set recordings via the Web, soyou can schedule a program from work, forexample. You can also play and pause FM .

I tested the program on a Sempron 2400+ PCwith 512MB of RAM, a Radeon 8500, and aHauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 tuner card. Theonly problem I experienced with Beyond TV wassome sluggishness as the app downloaded pro-gram guide data. Thankfully, guide downloadsdon’t happen frequently.

SnapStream’s optional FireFly remote control($50) controls the PC via RF with a USB receiv-er connected to the PC. The FireFly has an intu-itive interface, but it’s tied to the PC, so youcan’t use it to turn on the television or controlother A/V components. ▲

SnapStream Media Beyond TV 4

muvee autoProducer 5$74.95muvee Technologieswww.muvee.com

Beyond TV 4$69.99 standaloneSnapStream Mediawww.snapstream.com


by Kevin Savetz


Where (Else) Do YouWant To Go Today?LLove ’em or hate ’em, Microsoft rules the PC

roost. Windows and Office are its cash cows,yet we haven’t seen a new Windows versions infive years, and while Office was updated in2003, it hasn't changed much since Office 2000.That’s tantamount to a death sentence for soft-ware. Meanwhile, power users are slipping intoApple’s camp with OS X—the iPod being theaddictive gateway drug. With Web-based andopen-source Office alternatives and OS X lettingusers do what they can do on Windows, plus theIntel-Apple marriage . . . without a blockbustershowing this fall, MS will keep losing market-share and, more importantly, mindshare.

I’m writing this in a hotel room in Vegasusing a Vista beta build. I think the impendingOS will be an upgrade, but that’s unfortunatelyas much as I can say about it—generically, atthat. I fear most that a lot of last-minute detailswill ship in the box, and the UI will be just asincomplete, sloppy, and incongruent unless MSdoes major work between the current CTP andVista’s shipping version. The mantra of “func-tionality first, form second” doesn’t fly withtoday’s consumer. Vista needs to be slick andsmart, and many influencers will be holdingMS’ feet to the fire. As a featured communityleader for Microsoft, I’ve provided continuedfeedback to the teams assembling Vista. Theonus is on them to listen to our feedback.

I’m sure Mr. Gates is as upset as everybodyelse that we haven’t seen a new Windows versionfor so long. WinXP isn’t broken, per se, but it’scertainly not sexy. Office has grown stagnant,and the next version (12?) is likely to serve corporate clients more so than Joe and JudyConsumer. Past trends indicate Microsoft caresmore about the enterprise than the user, and thatisn’t likely to change, as there’s a lot of money inthe workplace. Case in point: Outlook 2003 isan amazing Exchange client, but it’s riddled with countless UI bugaboos that make it nearlyimpossible to use as an Internet PIM.

Microsoft, Gates, et al haven’t done much toposition Vista today, aside from some sneakpeeks. PC sales would suffer if it shared too

much; why buy now when something new isright around the corner? MS has been promot-ing its Media Center Edition as an interim solu-tion, but isn’t likely to ever convince TiVo usersto switch. Also notable is that highly touted newtechnologies (WinFX or Windows PresentationFoundation) won’t even ship within Vista, ac-cording to official reports. Makes you wonderwhat will ship and if it’ll be as dramatic a differ-ence as Windows 95 was to Windows 3.11?

Beyond Vista and Office 12, where’s MSmost vulnerable? The Internet. MS doesn’t andcan’t own it. The Internet is tomorrow’s OS (orwhat we once believed only an OS could offer).MS’ new Live initiatives have been interesting,but I have a feeling the better internal projectswere lost to red tape and middle management. Iknow hundreds of wonderful people at MSdoing their best, but sometimes it’s the goliaththat holds them back. Just read Mini-Microsoft,an anonymous blog an insider (who has becomevery jaded) writes. To put it another way,Microsoft is Microsoft’s biggest vulnerability.

MS has its hands in so many efforts it’s diffi-cult to pinpoint its competitors anymore. In thedigital media space, MP4 is emerging as a stan-dard, being inherently supported in the PSP andiPod. The iPod is also taking a bite out of all theWindows Media devices out there. If it’s notiPod-compatible, it’s going to have a short shelflife and lack of general industry support. Inmany ways it’s the partnerships that MS makesthat are more dangerous than its competitors.MS develops platforms for developers; upon thisrock, you shall build software. The Intel-Appleunion should have MS concerned; why wouldn’ta consumer spend money on hardware that canrun Windows and OS X efficiently (in theory)?

Gates has plenty of competitors, but it’s thosehe can’t see who should be most concerning.Today, anyone can force change by releasing anapp that works via the Web, and the Web isfilled with plenty of smart people doing smartthings off the radar. In other words, where thehell did Google come from? And where willMicrosoft be tomorrow? ▲

I’m sure Mr. Gates

is as upset as

everybody else

that we haven’t

seen a new

Windows version

for so long.You can dialogue with Chris at [email protected].

Chris Pirillo writes a new bylinefor himself in CPU every month.We don’t know why he spends so

much time crafting a sidebar thatfew people ever bother to read. Wealso don’t know why he constantly

refers to himself in third person,but it gets really annoying whenyou’re out with him in public. If

you’re reading this paragraph,you’ve officially passed the “CPU

addict” test and are allowed tovisit all of Chris’ online adven-

tures: Lockergnome.com,TheChrisPirilloShow.com,

Chris.Pirillo.com,Gnomedex.com, and his RSS

metasearch service athttp://gada.be, which is more fun

than shooting monkeys in a barrel(or mixing metaphors).

Dialogue Box

CPU / April 2006 79

Abandonware: WelcomeTo The Netherworld OfGaming Software Limbo

CC all it what you will—orphanware, aban-donware, software limbo—but a ton of

code is lost forever when proprietary programsare deemed no longer profitable. It happened inJanuary when Microsoft terminated support forInternet Explorer for the Macintosh. Not thatIE is so great, but if you were operating a mixedMac/PC shop depending on IE for your busi-ness, you were officially out of luck.

You may not care if Ms. Pac-Man is lost tohistory, but for many people in the youngergenerations, the circular lady and her arcade-based friends form an important part of our cul-ture. Unlike printed matter that can survive forcenturies, computer games survive only as longas there is a working platform to play them on.

Abandonware plagues the computer gamingindustry with its rapid turnover of proprietaryplatforms. It has spawned the concept of “aban-donware,” which is defined as software that’s atleast four years old that’s no longer marketed bya copyright holder or licensee. (See the Aban-donware Web ring; www.abandonwarering.com.) Gamers download and share arcade gameROMs; if you have the original arcade hard-ware, you could (in theory, anyway) uploadthose games to your own ROM and play them.

Arcade hardware, though, is big, old, andincreasingly scarce. For most gamers softwareemulation of the original gaming hardware iseasier. Emulators replicate the original hardwarebut in software, and they execute the gamesfrom the original ROM code. Sharing softwareemulators is legal, but not so the game code.

The MAME project (www.mame.net) is aneffort to emulate classic arcade games from mak-ers such as Atari, Capcom, Konami, Namco,Sega, and others. MAME is open, and you’renot only forbidden to sell it, you can’t even sellaccess to MAME. (Thus, you can’t run yourown arcade with it.) The license also forbids dis-tribution of copies of the original game ROMs,invariably still under copyright.

MAME started as a Windows/DOS app, butit has since been ported all over, including to

Linux/Unix with XMAME (x.mame.net); MacOS X (www.macmame.org); and Amiga,Dreamcast, Zaurus, and more (see mame.net/downports.html). If you prefer home consolesystems such as Coleco or Nintendo, the MESS(Multiple Emulator Super System) project (mess.org) is the answer. AdvanceMAME (advancemame.sourceforge.net) is another MAME-basedproject offering MAME and MESS withadvanced video support on most hardware.

Go to MAMEWorld (mameworld.net) tojump into countless emulation sites full of gameROMs, more emulation software, and how-tos.Retrogames.com hosts message boards and sub-sites for cheats, tips, and more. If you’re havingtrouble with a game, see the MAME ActionReplay Page (marp.retrogames.com) where youcan see “action replays” through MAME to seehow others have played the same game.

Retrogames.com even publishes lists of un-MAMEd games (nonmame.retrogames.com)and unMESSed consoles (nonmess.retrogames.com) that include pointers to non-MAMEemulators that work for the games and consoleslisted. With thousands of games for more or lesslegal download, searchable databases such asMAMEWorld’s MAWS and Theo’s Page ofEmulated Games (gamebase.retrogames.com)are indispensable.

Unlike free/open-source software, abandon-ware has no legal standing; it’s a matter of eco-nomics that games publishers abandon theirolder games rather than maintain a backlist oftitles like book publishers do. When a game’sowner does assert copyright and requests an oldgame be taken down, the gamers must comply.

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to run IE forMac OS X in the future, but I know we wastetons of time and effort creating software fromscratch—software that could be built on codewritten 20 or 30 years ago. Who knows whatinteresting code is hidden in game ROMs? Dowe really need to give software publishers theright to lock all that data into the next century?I doubt it, but that’s copyright law for you. ▲

Unlike printed

matter, which

can survive for

centuries, com-

puter games

survive only as

long as there is

a working plat-

form to play

them on.

You can get saucy with Pete at [email protected].

Pete Loshin, former technicaleditor of software reviews for

Byte Magazine (print version),consults and writes about com-

puting and the Internet. He also runs www.linuxcookbook.com. He owns shares ofboth Microsoft and Red Hat

and believes that Windows isn't for everyone,

but neither is Linux.

Open Sauce

CPU / April 2006 81

W hy bother turning on your TVanymore these days when someof the best bits are a mouse

click away? For instance, maybe you wantto watch Pink’s latest video. It actually pre-miered at MTV’s 24/7 broadband network,Overdrive (www.mtv.com/overdrive),before it hit cable TV. Miss “The DailyShow” last night? Odds are the best sketch-es are now on-call at Comedy Central’sMotherLoad (www.comedycentral.com/motherload). Did you hear that “SaturdayNight Live” was actually funny last week?Well, you can catch the latest episode oniTunes. You can also see episodes of severalshows, ranging from “Survivor” to “StarTrek” on Google Video (video.google.com). And while you’re rolling your ownprogramming day, catch the entire BrianWilliams NBC telecast available after 10p.m. on MSNBC.com. On-demand, per-sonalized TV is not a near-future promiseof some super-powered set-top box; interac-tive TV is already here, but it’s online.

Start With The BestMTV’s Overdrive is the most ambitious

broadband programming venture to date.Since its April 2005 launch, it has servedmore than 125 million video streams. Loadthe site to get a preprogrammed lineup flowof online-only productions dedicated tomusic, celebrities, and MTV reality shows.

Must-Click Prime Time Comes Online

Six channels let you pick clips from vir-tually any show across the MTV TVproperties. The interface has multiplescreen layouts and DVD-like controlsthat advance quickly across a clip or tothe next on-demand show. The playlistlets you send any videos from the libraryinto a personal programming lineup thatyou sit back and just run.

The genius of Overdrive is that it givesusers total control over their TV experi-ence in the form of multiple entry points.You can load it up and lean back towatch the programming in a TV-likefashion, lean in to pick and choose showsin targeted channels, or get fully in-teractive and build a playlist.This isn’t just cool Web pro-gramming; it may well be thefuture of TV itself as DVRsand digital delivery makethe living room experiencemore interactive. The ideaof uniform programmingbroadcast to millions isdying fast.

Long OverdueWhy is so much TV good-

ness (and expensive projects suchas Overdrive) coming online all of asudden? “What you are seeing is the main-stream media finally responding to thedevelopments in new media where digitaland broadband allow the video we tradi-tionally see on TV or the big screen to beprojected pretty much anywhere,” saysDiane Mermigas, media columnist, TheHollywood Reporter. After years of watch-ing their audiences spend more time

online and less with the tube, TV execu-tives got the message at last that broad-band reaches an estimated 40 million U.S.households, a mass audience by anyone’smeasure. Viewers, especially younger ones,are spending more time online, on iPods,and on cell phones than with TV. Moreimportantly, advertising dollars are nowmigrating from TV to online. “This is in-evitable and probably long overdue,” saysMermigas. And absolutely necessary if the TV business is to survive, says JasonHirschhorn, chief digital officer at MTVand a former Web developer.

At Comedy Central’s new and popularMotherLoad, it’s all about giving

users Web-like control overtheir TV experience. The sitehas an A-to-Z menu that letsusers access video from anyof the shows on the cablechannel’s schedule. Most ofthe material follows theWeb TV mantra that “it hasto be interactive and brief,entertaining and intriguing,”says Mermigas. MotherLoadalready has a library of 500

TV clips, and it adds 80 moreeach week. In March 2005

Comedy Central launched specialcomedy routines from the Gotham Com-edy Club, a daily schedule of new comicbits premiering on MotherLoad beforethey appeared on the cable channel itself.And because there are so many snippets ofcomic goodness here, a search function letsyou do things such as scan the whole pro-gramming schedule for skits on MichaelJackson or pull together all of LewisBlack’s standup and “The Daily Show”appearances from previous years.

Google, Meet TV; TV, Meet GoogleIf you want to search for TV, then the

new place to go is Google, where the beta

c a u g h t i n t h e w e b

TV

MTV blows every other TV brand away online with an on-demand broadband service that lets you assemble playlists ofindividual episodes.


of Google Video is suffering some grow-ing pains but still delivering a ton ofpriceless wares. The interface is ugly, andthe collection was spotty at its prematurelaunch in January, but this may be whatyour TV will look like in the future.CBS, PBS, the NBA, and ParamountPictures TV are among the TV propertiesGoogle sells. You can run video searchesfor clips containing, for instance, PamelaAnderson or Regis Philbin, and the inter-face lets you assemble them into a con-tinuous stream or even download themin iPod/PSP formats. This hunt-and-search approach to media demonstratesan important principle, says Media-Contacts VP and U.S. Director of SearchRob Griffin. “TV isn’t the killer app;video is.” People want to use the Webnot to watch the tube in a different placebut to mix and match clips—become

CPU: How’s this generation of streaming media programming different from whatcame before?

White: The most important part is volume. It’s not a Web scraps approach towardprogramming where you have video and throw some junk [leftovers] on a page: We’repushing for a model that is much faster-paced.

CPU: How many people does it take to run this?

White: It started with six to 10. Now probably 30 to 40 are actively involved. Webuilt an entire studio overlooking Times Square dedicated to Overdrive.

CPU: Overdrive remarkably has minimal load and buffering times and a lot of cooltricks such as video playlists. What kind of back-end technology makes somethingthis sophisticated work?

White: We run a bunch of our own servers, but everything gets pushed out to Akamaifor storing and serving the video. We worked closely with Microsoft as one of the firstto use their client-side playlists on Windows Media Player. It looks ahead to see thenext clip in your playlist and prebuffers it, so there’s little buffering between videos.

CPU: Is broadband finally up to delivering TV-like quality?

White: You had to have a lot of patience a year ago with Web video because of buffer-ing. The technology allowed you to watch a couple of videos and then your patiencewore out. We’re trying to fire on all cylinders. There is a confluence of forces that leadsto a longer attention span [online]. Our broadband penetration rate for MTV.com hasbeen a hockey stick, and the connections are getting better. You can get a lean-backexperience now.


MTV is arguably the most advanced TVproperty now on the Web, and at its helmis Ben White, VP of digital media. Softlaunched last spring and formally intro-duced at the 2005 “MTV Video MusicAwards,” Overdrive has six channels of24/7 programming and is driving thebrand as it follows young eyeballs ontothe Web, iPods, and mobile phones. Butwhat does it take to run the poster childfor broadband programming?

Ben White:Overdrive’s Chauffeur

Q&A

programmers. “The hard part is access,hunting, and finding a lot of video con-tent, so that’s where a lot of people aregoing,” says Griffin.

For media insiders, the blinx.tv Self-Cast is the place to see the future of TV.Partnered-up with NBC, HBO, Fox, andscores of others, blinx.tv runs advanced

Comedy Central’sMotherLoad parses the cable network’sprogramming scheduleinto Web-sized stream-ing media snacks.

CPU / April 2006 83

algorithms against video and lets you turna video-search query into a permanent,personal TV channel for your particularinterest. You can even turn the channelinto an RSS link or a feed into your iPod.

Don’t Touch That DialAre you ready for the next generation of

Web programming, the “search reality”shows? Producer Mark “Survivor” Burnettjust signed with AOL to create the online-only “Gold Rush!” Contestants will useAOL tools such as MapQuest and Movie-fone to get treasure hunt clues and win a $1million prize. Yahoo! and Burnett havetheir own broadband show in the works, aswell. Also, by the timeyou read this, WarnerBros. and AOL.commay have launchedtheir hotly anticipatedIn2TV, which willinclude thousands ofclassic TV episodes, allfree and fully spon-sored with 15-secondvideo spots. And don’tforget all those lifestylenetworks. The ownerof cable mainstays Food Network andHGTV, Scripps Networks, plans to launchup to 10 broadband video networks in thenext year around niche interests such askitchen design and woodworking.

Will all TV move into interactivemode someday? Probably not, say manyexperts, who expect parts of our TVviewing habits to migrate online andothers to stay in the living room. Whatthe Web is doing, however, is uppingthe game for TV executives. “It is creat-ing another level of competition,” saysMermigas. “They are stepping into aworld where consumers consume differ-ently, have different expectations, andassume the role of programmer.” ▲

by Steve Smith


The Land Of Misfit TV

Now that the TV networks have discovered broadband, it has become a resting placefor all that footage and programming that for one reason or another doesn’t make it

into our living rooms.

Super-Banned Bowl. If you think the high-priced ad spots at this year’s Super Bowlwere good (or bad), wait until you see what didn’t make it onto the air at Heavy.com.Rejected ads such as PETA, GoDaddy.com, and Airborne all found a safe haven here.

Daniel Lives. NBC.com will run the remaining episodes of the short-lived “The Book ofDaniel” series. When religious groups objected to the show’s depiction of the faithful,advertisers fled, and so did the network.

In2TV (tteelleevviissiioonn..aaooll..ccoomm//iinn22ttvv). It only seems as if every TV show in history is inreruns somewhere on cable. In fact, AOL and Warner Bros.’ upcoming In2TV is promis-ing on-demand access to thousands of episodes of “F-Troop,” “Fugitive,” “Pinky and theBrain,” and more than 100 other lost TV series. When it launches sometime in early2006, In2TV may be the most full-featured broadband TV network yet.

Must-See Web TVSure there’s MotherLoad and the Yahoo! TV portal, but scratch the Web’s surface, andyou’ll find some amazing TV archives and resources online.

AdvertisementAve.com. This is the place to find that TV ad you love or hate, neatly categorized by product type, company, and even celebrity endorser.

WebTVList.com. We didn’t count and compare for ourselves, but this massive repositoryclaims to be the largest aggregator of live TV streams on the Web. WebTVList links localstations, cable giants, and international stations all on one site.

NASA TV (wwwwww..nnaassaa..ggoovv). Talk about uncharted space. NASA runs a full slate of dailybroadband programming, from retrospectives to live feeds of launches and space walks.

mtvU.com. This broadband-only extension of MTV is targeted specifically to the collegeexperience with shows such as “Stand In” (replace professors with celebrity subs) and“Does This Look Infected?” (user-submitted videos of disgusting dorm rooms).

LikeTelevision.com. For TV nostalgia buffs, you may never click away from this free troveof thousands of episodes of classic TV, ancient commercials, and specials. Movies, too!

Blinkx.tv runs avideo search andturns the resultinto an RSS feedthat refreshesitself regularlywith the newest,relevant content.

TTVV isn’t the killer app;vviiddeeoo is.

—Rob Griffin,MediaContacts VP and U.S. Director of Search


pipes.txtEE very month you pay a fee to your ISP

to go online. Your ISP in turn pays itsISP who might pay another, and another,and on up the food chain. And at the otherend of the Internet are the content pro-viders: MSN, Yahoo!, and Google—ormaybe just your buddy who hosts his ownblog. All of them pay their ISPs, as well.Some pay millions of dollars, and othersmight pay $15 a month.

What matters is that today once your bitsget on that glorious information superhigh-way, they all travel at the same speed limit. Ifyou are watching a video CNN hosts or read-ing a news article MSN hosts or reading yourbuddy’s latest blog entry about his ingrowntoenail, all of those bits are routed through thesame backbones. They travel at the samespeed. Your connection might be slower, butthe backbone remains constant.

All of this is about to change. The band-width providers, the guys who own thesebackbones that the whole Internet hangs off,are getting ready to blackmail thecontent providers of the Internet.They are taking today’s four-lanehighways and making sure thatone lane is only for people whoare reading the content that paidfor the privilege.

I like to think of the phonecompanies as basically beinggangsters showing up at Googleand saying in their best fakey,mobster accent, “Ya know,Sergey, we were just talking toour buddies over at Yahoo! yes-terday, and they agreed to pay us a milliondollars to make sure that their customersget 10ms ping times to their servers. Ifyou pay us $2 million, we’ll give you 8msping times. Oh, and if you don’t pay up,it sure would be tragic if your customersstarted dropping packets and lagging out.I heard there’s going to be a lot of con-struction in the Midwest. It sure would beterrible if your backbone got cut by abackhoe somewhere.”

Of course, the real losers in all of this arethe little guys. They can’t afford to compete

against the pocket books of companies such asYahoo! and Google. If you want to run a little,independent blog, your readers will end upwaiting and waiting, stuck in traffic as thepeople going to the big companies zip along intheir dedicated high-speed backbone pipes.

But let’s take all of this to its logical (and frightening) conclusion. The name of the game today is Consolidation. Mega-corporations buy out bandwidth providers,game companies, software manufacturers,and content providers.

Let’s say AT&T owns a lot of backbones,but it decides that VoIP traffic is cutting intoits phone unit’s profit margin. To solve that,it simply throttles back all of Skype’s andGizmo’s traffic. Suddenly users find theirVoIP phone calls are laggy and choppy.

Imagine if Channel 12 owned your cablecompany. One day it decides that Channel 2is just getting too high of a Nielsen rating, soit starts making Channel 2’s picture a littlefuzzier, and the sound starts cutting out. Re-

member that you don’t haverabbit ears to adjust in 2006!

All of these things that I’mdescribing sound pretty awfulto me, but they are happening.The telcos are working to cre-ate tiered service where thegreatest performance will begiven to the content providerswith the deepest pockets.

The promise was that theInternet was supposed to tipthe balance of power. It was togive power back to the people

and to take control away from the mega-corporations. That’s not to say that theCNNs and Disneys of the world don’thave a place, but rather that is to say thatif you want, you can stand alongside themwith your own soapbox, and the worldcan decide who to read. You are at a dis-advantage; they have marketing and de-velopment resources. But at the end ofthe day, a paragraph on their dot com isequal to a paragraph on yours.

How long that remains true is yet to be seen. ▲

If you don’t

pay up, it sure

would be

tragic if your

customers

started

dropping

packets.

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda is thecreator and director of the pop-ular News for Nerds Web site

Slashdot.org. He spends histime fiddling with electronicgizmos, wandering the ’Net,

watching anime, and trying tothink of clever lies to put in hisbio so that he seems cooler than

he actually is.

The Department Of Stuff

Contact me with the power of technology at [email protected].


CPU / April 2006 87

by Jen Edwards

D I G I T A L L I V I N G

VVeerriizzoonn WWiirreelleessssOOffffeerrss MMoobbiillee MMooddeemm SSeerrvviiccee

V erizon Wireless customers can now use certainmobile phones as a modem to connect their lap-

top to the Internet via Verizon’s BroadbandAccessConnect service. Supported phones include the LGVX8100 and VX9800 and Motorola E815 andRazr V3c. The service costs $59.99 per month (inaddition to voice-plan charges) and connectsusers to Verizon’s broadband EV-DO networkat up to 700Kbps within coverage areas. Userswill make the modem connection via a USB

cable that should cost $10 to $20 fromthird-party vendors. The service will alsorequire buying a separate Mobile OfficeKit ($39.99). Support for additional

phones and other devices is expectedin the future. ▲

With Verizon’s new mobilemodem service, you can

use select phones suchas the Motorola E815

to connect your laptop to the

Internet.

RRIIMM RReelleeaasseess BBllaacckkBBeerrrryyWWoorrkkaarroouunndd

R IM announced in early February that ithas developed a workaround that will

ensure continued BlackBerry service for userseven if a U.S. District Court injunction isenforced. The injunction stems from a lawsuitthat NTP brought against RIM in 2003 con-cerning patent infringements. A District Courtjudge stayed the injunction following appealsfrom RIM, but a hearing to rule on the injunc-tion was scheduled for Feb. 24. RIM and NTPhave worked unsuccessfully since 2003 to reacha settlement.

RIM says the workaround doesn’t infringe on any NTP patents, but it will require users to update to new Multi-Mode Edition software,which RIM has filed patent applications for. IfRIM and NTP do reach an agreement, Black-Berry service will reportedly continue to operatein Standard Mode. If an injunction is enforced,however, RIM will remotely switch BlackBerryservice to US Mode. RIM says the switch will betransparent to users. Additionally, RIM says itwill preload new BlackBerrys with the Multi-Mode software, which is also available atwww.blackberry.com/go/workaround. ▲

MMoottoorroollaa && MMiiccrroossoofftt MMaakkee AA MMuussiiccaall DDeeaall

F ollowing in the footsteps of its iTunes-enabled phones, Motorola announced in mid-Februarythat it will offer Windows Media technology in future phones. DRM-integrated phones are

expected in the second half of 2006 and reportedly will sync with Windows PCs via USB 2.0 todownload songs directly to the phone using Media Transfer Protocol via such services as Napster,Rhapsody, and Yahoo! Music. Windows Media Player will automatically recognize the Motorolaphones when synced. Microsoft already had a similar deal with Nokia.

Meanwhile, Motorola will keep its iTunes-enabled phones as a separate line. Tothat end, Motorola recently released the SLVR L7 (about $200) for the Cingularwireless network to mixed reviews. The phone features Push-To-Talk technologyand an ultra-sleek design that’s similar to Motorola’s previous Razr. The SLVR fea-tures a candy bar design (which reviewers have raved about), however, and not theRazr’s clamshell design. The SLVR also has an integrated camera with 4X zoomand stores up to 100 iTunes songs on an included 512MB Micro SD card. Musicis played via built-in speakers or a stereo headset. A travel charger and USB cableare included in the $199 package, which requires a new two-year contract. ▲

Motorola’s newSLVR for Cingularlets you to listento iTunes musicon the go.


D I G I T A L L I V I N G

EESSPPNNLLaauunncchheess MMoobbiillee SSeerrvviicceeDDuurriinngg SSuuppeerr BBoowwll

E SPN used the backdrop of the Super Bowl to officiallylaunch its new ESPN Mobile service, which is available

for the specially branded red-and-black Sanyo MVP cellphone. ESPN Mobile lets users press an “E” button on thephone for one-touch access to current scores, columns, ESPNSearch, highlights, fantasy league features, and alerts forfavorite teams. Sprint’s high-speed EV-DO service will delivercontent, and there’s no extra charge for additional contentbeyond the cost of a required Sprint voice plan. Costs rangefrom $34.99 for 100 minutes to $224.99 for 4,000 minutesof talk time. The Sanyo MVP includes a 1.3MP camera(which also takes 30-second video clips), speakerphonecapabilities, and an MP3 music player. To date, thephone is the only model the service is available for,although more phones are expected in the future. AnESPN Stereo Headset, travel charger, USB cable, and16MB MiniSD card are included. ▲

NNiinntteennddoo’’ss NNeewwDDSS LLiittee DDeessiiggnn

N intendo has redesigned it DS hand-held player in the form of the slim-

med-down DS Lite. The DS Lite is smallerand lighter than the DS but retains thatplayer’s original functionality and features,including dual screens, a microphone, and

the ability to play both DS and GameBoyAdvance games. To accommodate thesmaller design, buttons are smaller, thelocations of the Start and Select buttonshave been altered, and the microphone hasbeen moved. Additionally, the screens havefour levels of user-selectable backlighting,depending on environmental conditionsand battery power.

The DS Lite, which bears a resem-blance to the iPod, was to be available inJapan in early March in white, pale-blue,and navy colors. Import companies suchas Play-Asia.com and Lik-Sang.com areaccepting pre-orders for $169. Nintendowill reportedly release the handheld in theUnited States in the near future, althoughofficial information hadn’t been releasedat press time.

In related news, Nintendo will beginoffering Japanese DS owners Web brows-ing functionality in June via a DS card(about $30) that includes Opera’s browser.Nintendo will also offer a digital TVreceiver via a card with an antenna byyear’s end for watching digital TV pro-grams. Japan is expected to launch digitalTV programming for mobile devices April1. Nintendo is reportedly considering abrowser card for customers outside ofJapan but isn’t planning on a receiver cardas of now. ▲

SSoonnyy EErriiccssssoonn SSeellllss 33 MMiilllliioonn WWaallkkmmaann PPhhoonneess

S ony Ericsson has sold more than 3 mil-lion Walkman phones since the line’s

first model was released in 2005, SonyEricsson President Miles Flint announced inmid-February. As part of the announcement,the company introduced the new W950,Sony Ericsson’s sixth Walkman phone. TheW950 features a Symbian 9.1 and UIQ 3.0platform, 4GB of storage, a touchscreen,stereo sound, FM radio, support for wirelessheadphones via Bluetooth, and a new inter-face. The UMTS-enabled W950 is expectedfor Q2 or Q3 for about $360 to $475. SonyEricsson also released the mid-to-low-endSony Ericsson J100, a dual-band GSM unit,and the K610, a 3G model with dual-modeUMTS connectivity. The K610 is just over ahalf-inch thick and weighs just about 3.2ounces. It features a 2MP camera, Bluetooth,a 1.9-inch display, support for RSS feeds,removable Memory Stick storage, P-IMAPtechnology, and a Flight mode for workingoffline. Look for it in Q2. The J100 is thesmallest phone in Sony Ericsson’s arsenal butstill features 65,000-color display. Expect itin Q2. ▲

Sony Ericsson announced inFebruary that it has sold morethan 3 million Walkman cellphones. That number willincrease with the new W950.The company also recentlyreleased the K610.

CPU / April 2006 89

EEnnrroonn:: TThhee SSmmaarrtteesstt GGuuyyss IInn TThhee RRoooomm“Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room” is an unflinching look at one of thelargest corporate scandals in history: a financial meltdown that cost 30,000 peopletheir jobs and retirement funds, shook worldwide confidence in corporateAmerica, and had far-reaching political implications on both sides of the prover-bial aisle. As is the case with most documentaries, “Enron” shows a hair morebias in a scene or two than is probably ideal, but by and large the film’s behind-

the-scenes looks at the personalities involved in the Enron collapse arecompelling, enlightening, and often tragic.

LLoorrdd OOff WWaarr 22--DDiisscc SSppeecciiaall EEddiittiioonnNicolas Cage has starred in some of our favorite films of all time, including such absolutegems as “Raising Arizona” and “Red Rock West.” Of course, like many successful actorshe’s been involved with his share of big-budget train wrecks, as well, such as “Con Air” andthe highly egregious “National Treasure.” (That’s right, we’re not planning on paying $10to see the sequel in 2007.) In “Lord of War,” however, Cage is very good as Yuri Orlov, afast-talking international arms dealer who manages an uneasy balance between the horriblestuff he does for a living and his life as a family man . . . for a while. We especially love the

way his character handles the eventual (and inevitable) crisis that occurs when hisworlds collide. Hint: No Hollywood cliché ending here, and thankfully so.

SSuubbwwaayyss——““YYoouunngg FFoorr EEtteerrnniittyy””The Subways’ story may be better than its actual music on its debut, “Young For Etern-ity,” which is pretty good, too. The English trio won the Glastonbury Festival UnsignedPerformers Competition in 2004 and appeared on “The O.C.” and a following sound-track. Sweating out influences like Nirvana, The Jam, The White Stripes, and Oasis, thepunk-charged tunes that brothers Billy Lunn (guitar/vocals) and Josh Morgan (drums)turned out with Lunn’s fiancé, Charlotte Cooper (bass), show awesome potential. Gemslike “Rock & Roll Queen”—maybe the loudest love song you’ll hear this year—show

reasons to be encouraged.

At Your

Leisure The entertainment world, at least where it pertains to technology, morphs,twists, turns, and fires so fast it’s hard to keep up. But that’s exactly why welove it. For the lowdown on the latest and most interesting releases in PCentertainment, consoles, DVDs, CDs, and just leisure and lifestyle stuff we (formost part) love and recommend, read on.

AA uu dd ii oo VV ii dd ee oo CC oo rr nn ee rr DVDByte

March 14Good Night, AndGood Luck

A History OfViolence

A Fish CalledWanda (DeluxeEdition)

March 21Chicken Little

Capote

Derailed(UnratedWidescreen)

South Park:The CompleteSeventh Season

March 28Get Rich Or Die Tryin’

Memoirs Of A Geisha(2-Disc WidescreenSpecialEdition)

RobotChicken,Vol.1

April 4Night Watch

Star Trek FanCollective: Time Travel

See the full reviews from A/V Corner at www.cpumag.com/cpuapr06/AYL.

$14Sire Recordswww.thesubways.net

DVDs by Chris Trumble, CDs by Blaine A. Flamig

$26.98Magnolia Pictures/HDNet Filmswww.enronmovie.com

D i g i t a l L i v i n gGames

Gear

Movies

Music

$30.98Lions Gatewww.lordofwarthemovie.com

RRaayy DDaavviieess——““OOtthheerr PPeeooppllee’’ss LLiivveess””We’ve long loved and admired the acidic, observational, biting work of Ray Davies, now61. His stint as the guiding force of The Kinks is legendary among those in the know forhis straight-ahead garage rock, man-of-the-street approach. Remarkably, “Other People’sLives” is Davies’ first solo album, and it’s overdue. Long one of rock’s best songwriters,Davies’ work here is melancholy, bitter, touching, beautiful, and surprising reflective.Davies and The Kinks have been overshadowed, undervalued, and overlooked throughthe years, and those truths will likely remain intact for “Other People’s Lives,” which istoo bad because Davies appears to just be getting better with age.

$14V2 Recordshttp://www.raydavies.info


Strategic Bliss In A Galaxy Far, Far Away —by Dr. Malaprop

TT here have been a slew of fantastic “Star Wars”-related action and simulationreleases from LucasArts over the years (who can forget Dark Forces and TIE

Fighter?), but the company has consistently failed to deliver the goods in thestrategy genre. Back in 1998 the turn-based Star Wars: Rebellion was a disap-pointment (it paled greatly next to the Master Of Orion games), and its follow-up, real-time strategy efforts fell well short of the mark. Star Wars: ForceCommander (2000) and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (2001; basically a newtile set for Age Of Empires II) left us underwhelmed. That’s why it’s a breath offresh air to play the Petroglyph-developed Star Wars: Empire At War.

EAW’s campaign game picks up at the end of “Episode III” and continuesthrough to the end of “Episode IV.” Everything here feels like “Star Wars”: theanthem-like soundtrack, voices, key spaceships/vehicles/ground units, and spacebattles. The graphics presentation is top-notch (some up-close textures leaveroom for improvement) and beautiful to watch in motion. You get to control allthe movies’ key characters (each can change the tide of war), and there’s even acinematic mode where you can watch your battle decisions unfold on the smallscreen. The scenes the AI selects could use some improvement, though.

Step through the tutorials, and you’ll quickly notice that unlike most RTSgames, you’re not going to find much in the traditional method of resourcegathering/management. In addition to that, you’ll make strategic as well astactical decisions during gameplay. There are three gameplay modes: Cam-paign, Galactic Conquest, and Skirmish Battles. The first takes you through theentire story arch; the second lets you play through the “best-of” scenarios; andthe final mode is self-explanatory. It can be difficult to understand why thegame insists on you finishing off every single opponent on a land map whenvictory is very obviously yours. At times, the game feels repetitive on theground. Fortunately, the space battles are exciting to the last. Your ships caneven target specific parts of a ship (shield generator, engines, etc.) dependingon what you expect to achieve during a mission.

Though as yet unannounced, we speculate that there will be an expansionpack set during “The Empire Strikes Back” somewhere down the line. The addi-tion of greater depth to the land-based battles and improved up-close textureswould come as a nice surprise. Better unit pathing would also be welcome.Anticipation for an expansion with regard to a LucasArts RTS is a huge step for-

ward, and although Empire At Warhas some shortcomings, it looks gorgeous, sounds spot-on, and, most importantly, provides stronggameplay value. ▲

$49.95 (PC) • ESRB: (T)een

LucasArts

www.lucasarts.com/games/swempireatwar

CPU Game Of The Month

CPU / April 2006 91

$59.99 (Xbox 360)

ESRB: (T)een • Sega

www.sega.com/gamesite/fullauto

RR eal-time strategy fans will fondly remember1992’s Dune II as the first PC RTS title that

preceded the massive onslaught of genrewannabes. Next came the first of many titlesthat would eventually make up the Command& Conquer franchise. One DVD brings you the12 C&C games, with even the oldest now com-pletely playable under WinXP. This really is asuperb collection for RTS fans and brings with itequal parts of nostalgia and sur-prise. It’s funny how well ourbrains fill in the technology gapsfor the oldest titles. (As an aside,

a similar WinXP-friendly release by Blizzard fea-turing the Warcraft games/expansion packswould superbly complement this package.Blizzard, are you listening; or are you too busyexpanding World Of Warcraft?)

There are some minor game changes thatoccurred in the DOS to WinXP transition, butthe game looks pretty much identical to theoriginals. The developers note this as intention-al, but they could have made some updates tofill out the package without harming the old-school ambiance of the presentation. Also, thedevelopers should have implemented remas-tered videos, widescreen gaming support, andeasy multiplayer support in all of the games.The missing install status screens come as a sur-prise, too. Those load screens were quite enter-taining in their heyday. Other than the FPS fiasco that was C&C: Renegade (also included),

you get some substantialgameplay for the dollar here.We only wish EA had gone thewhole 10 yards. ▲

Every C&C On Windows XP— by Dr. Malaprop

$39.99 (PC-DVD) • ESRB: (T)een

Electronic Arts

www.ea.com/official/cc/firstdecade

Live Fast, Die Young, Unwreck —by Chris Trumble

CC ar combat video games have been an inter-esting subgenre of the action and racing

genres for years, and why not? There are few day-dreams cooler than the idea of driving a super-fast car with .50 caliber machine guns mountedon the hood and/or a rocket launcher strappedto the roof. Full Auto attempts to let you liveout those fantasies as it drops you into high-speed races through crowded city streets, armedwith massively destructive weaponry, poorimpulse control, and an Unwreck feature thatlets you roll back brief segments of time a laPrince Of Persia so you can counteract theeffects of the previous item.

Full Auto looksgreat, with cars andenvironments that aredetailed, highly reflec-tive, and (perhaps most importantly) completelydestructible. You can destroy pretty much any-thing you see on-screen, a big deal in games of thiskind, which in the past have offered fairly limitedinteractivity with buildings and other scenery-typeobjects. Crashes, explosions, smoke, and otherreal-time effects are also very easy on the eyes,adding to the game’s visual splendor.

Unfortunately, though, Full Auto’s beauty onlycaptivates you for a while, after which you begin to

focus more on themechanics of game-

play and control, andFull Auto seems a little too

easy to pick up and play fairly well. This is com-pounded by the fact that within a couple hoursyou’ve seen most of what the game has to showyou. That’s where multiplayer comes in; Full Autois similar to most fighting and sports games in thatit’s most fun when played against live opponents.You can take on another player in split-screenaction, or you can hit Xbox Live to play against upto seven others. Unwreck doesn’t work in multi-player, but trust us, you won’t miss it. ▲


You Look Like You Could Use A Monkey — by Chris Trumble

AA s its name suggests, Ape Escape 3 is thethird game in Sony Computer Entertain-

ment America’s platformer series that calls onyou to catch a bunch of monkeys led by Specter,the evil monkey mastermind who, thanks to ahelmet that boosts monkey intelligence, wantsto take over the world. He aims to do this byteaming up with a foppish supergenius namedDr. Tomoki and hijacking TV networks to showprogramming that turns whoever watches itinto mindless couch potatoes.

Armed with a monkey net, various otherGotcha Gadgets, and even

a small selection of vehicles, you’ll

traverse a number of levels catching monkeysand generally doing whatever’s necessary to stopSpecter. Along the way Sony throws in a bunchof entertaining minigames, including a MetalGear Solid spoof, a monkey hammer throw, andmore. As if all of that isn’t zany enough, you canmorph your character into several alternateforms (a knight, a ninja, a cowboy, and so on) asyou progress through the game, each of whichoffers special abilities and attacks.

We know, the game sounds a little silly, andquite frankly it is. But despite the fact that Ape

Escape 3 is pretty, erm, kid-friendly,it’s fun to play and good for alaugh now and again. ▲

$39.99 (PS2)

ESRB: (E)veryone 10+ • Sony

www.us.playstation.com

$49.99 (PS2)

ESRB: (T)een • Square Enix

www.square-enix.com

YY uki is a young boy whosedream is to follow in the

footsteps of the famous SkyCaptain Schmidt and fly acrossthe sea from the island where helives to the mainland. Miranda, hismother, thinks he should keep hisfeet on the ground and his headout of the clouds, and stick tolearning how to make pottery. Ofcourse, at the outset of the gameYuki sneaks out of the house to

the shop where he and his friendRotts keep the plane they havebuilt and takes off in an attemptto live his dream. But the flightdoesn’t turn out the way he’dplanned, and Yuki finds himselfcaught up in a conflict that’smore than he bargained for.

Grandia III doesn’t fall far fromthe tree as console RPGs go, withits turn-based combat, battles withwandering monsters, and a plot

that has a young protagonist be-coming an unintentional hero. Butit adds plenty of fun elements tothe usual mix, including the abilityto travel Yuki’s world in his pre-ferred mode of transportation—in

an airplane. There’s also an inter-esting character skill system and a casino where you can try yourluck at dice to add flavor, and thegame’s graphics and audio areabout as good as you’ll find on a PS2 RPG. ▲

Final Fantasy Lite — by Chris Trumble

CPU / April 2006 93

TrackIR 4: ProControl Your Head

WWe missed getting hardware in time toreview the TrackIR 3 last year, but

that was then. The TrackIR products let youtrack your field of view in games, such asflight and race simulators. Move yourhead, and your view in a game shiftsappropriately. This means you could look straight out of your cockpit window and also be able to glance down atyour gauges or out another window with the appropriate movement of your head. It’s simple: You put on a base-ball hat and attach the appropriate sensors, which transmit your head movements to the infrared receiver sittingon your desk. The receiver is much smaller than we imagined and barely took up any desktop real estate.

Version 4 makes itself a more interesting proposition by rolling in the features found in the original VectorExpansion for the TrackIR 3, which introduced six degrees of freedom. (So moving your head forward lets youzoom in.) The TrackIR 4 ratchets up the field of view by 13 to 46 degrees. A year ago you would have paid $49.95extra for the Vector package beyond the $129.95 list price of the TrackIR 3: Pro. Now you get the full functionali-ty of last year’s model and its expansion pack, all with better response time and a wider field of view for $179.95.

If you already own the TrackIR 3 and Vector Expansion, you probably want tosave your hard-earned hardware funds for something else or perhaps the nextiteration of the hardware. All others with an interest in sims should consider thismust-have hardware because it works just as advertised. Combine it with yourforce feedback joystick, and you’ll be that much closer to living your flights. Wecan hardly wait to lose our selves in the friendly skies of Microsoft FlightSimulator X for Windows Vista. ▲

$179.95 • NaturalPoint • www.naturalpoint.com/trackir

CConsole gamers got to play Rainbow Six:Lockdown in the fall, but PC gamers had

to wait until now for a PC port. PC gamesbrought over from consoles never entirelyfeel like they belong on a PC; instead, theyfeel shoehorned. Ubisoft worked hard toavoid this problem and has mostly succeed-ed, but the game still feels more console-cen-tric than we remember the last PC-focusedRainbow Six release being.

Rainbow Six is a counterterrorism gamethat rains down hell on the bad guys, butthings take a turn for the worse in Lock-down. The team itself comes under attack,

and all your skills as a squad

manager will come into play to keepthe team alive—or that’s what shouldhave been. Unfortunately, some of thestrategic aspect of this unconventionalFPS never comes to pass.

PC gamers are left with a conventionalshooter and only fond memories to remindthem of the PC-centric Rainbow Six of yore.Sadly, Rainbow Six never truly requires yoursquad management skills, which kills thetension found in this title’s predecessors.All is not lost, however. We’ve got highhopes for Ubisoft’s upcoming GhostRecon: Advanced Warfighter forXbox 360 and PC. ▲

$49.99 (PC, PS2, NGC, Xbox) • ESRB: (M)ature

Ubisoft • www.rainbowsixgame.com

The Prodigal Son Returns Home — by Dr. Malaprop

II t happens to plenty of folks,especially console gamers: You

run out of video inputs on theback of your TV well beforeyou’ve connected all yourconsoles, your DVD player,and your VCR. If you’re plan-ning on adding an A/V receiv-

er to your setup, no problem,but otherwise you have to find

a way to get some extra inputsor you’ll be stuck in plug-swap-ping hell each time you want touse a different component.

With Score’s Universal SystemSelector Pro 2.0, however, youcan plug up to six items intoyour TV via composite, S-Video,or component cables, and theunit has a backlit LCD on itsfront panel that makes it easy tosee what device it’s currentlyconnecting. As if that’s not coolenough, the unit also comeswith a tiny remote control thatlets you switch among any ofyour connected devices withoutleaving the couch. The Pro 2.0also lets you switch betweentwo Ethernet connections incase you have a couple of Inter-net-connected devices and onlyone line running from yourcable modem or router to yourentertainment center.

The Universal System SelectorPro 2.0 costs about 100 bucks, butas the handiest A/V switcherwe’ve seen to date, it’s well worththe investment. ▲

Score Universal SystemSelector Pro 2.0

$99.99 • Score • www.pdp-usa.com


Make Gmail Your Mobile Desktop

Bookmarks To GoYou can maintain a full list of mobile

Web bookmarks in Gmail if your emaileditor (usually Word in Outlook) cre-ates clickable hyperlinks when you typeout URLs or email addresses in the bodyof an email, which you can also clickwhen they appear in your mobile Gmailinbox. For instance, if you have a longURL that’s a hassle to type in from yourmobile browser, you can paste the ad-dress into an email message and send itto your account. (Make sure you pressENTER at the end of the URL to en-sure it activates as a hyperlink.) Then, inGmail Mobile, click the URL to openthe Web page.

To maintain a full bookmark list inGmail, you can use two techniques. First,in your Web browser, export your Fa-vorites to a file. (Select File and clickImport And Export to start the Im-port/Export Wizard.) Next, open this filewith your browser, and the bookmarksshould appear as a page of hy-perlinks.Highlight the links you want tomake available in Gmail, right-click the list, and select Copy.In a new email message to yourGmail account, paste the book-marks. (Again, Outlook mustbe set to use Word as its editor.)The bookmarks and theirembedded links should show upin the Gmail Mobile message ashyperlinks.

A second, more flexible ap-proach to traveling bookmarks uses G-mail Mobile attachments. Again, open

your bookmarks file, copy the links,paste them into a new Word document,and save the document. Send the docu-ment to your Gmail account as anattachment. Gmail can translate mostcommon file types into legible cellphone formats. You can open this Wordattachment in Gmail Mobile and thenhave all of your bookmarks together as aseries of hyperlinks.

Traveling Gmail Photo GalleryGmail Mobile handles a limited range

of attached file types, including GIF,JPG, and JPEG files. You can attach smallphoto galleries to one or more emails withappropriate subject headings and openthe attachment in Gmail Mobile.

The beauty of accessing a Web-basedemail via mobile is that you can’t download

If you’re miles from home and need acontact name, photo, or file fromyour desktop PC and can’t afford aBlackBerry or remote access services,

there are a number of new and free appli-cations that connect your cell phone to theinformation you keep either on yourhome desktop or on Web services. Thismonth we’ll look at how Gmail can serveas a traveling desktop on your cell with afew smart strategies. And next month we’lllook at several other free and fee-basedtools that access desktop data directlyfrom your mobile phone.

(NOTE: As of this writing, establishinga Gmail account requires an invitationfrom an existing user. There’s a loophole,however: Go to www.google.com/accounts

/smsmailsignup1 to send your phone a textmessage with an invitation code to activatea new Gmail account.)

This Is Gmail CallingMost of the up-front work to make

Gmail mobile-friendly gets done onGmail via your desktop Web browser. Forinstance, you can use Gmail Mobile notonly as a contact list but as direct dial andone-click email directory. From the mainGmail screen, click Contacts. Whetheryou are editing an existing contact oradding a new one, you can click the AddMore Contact Info link to see forms forpersonal and work phone numbers. Whenyou access the contact in Gmail Mobile,the phone numbers in these forms becomea hyperlink. You can then highlight thenumber and dial it directly. The same istrue of the email addresses.

T I P S & T R I C K S

D o you have a hand-me-down PC withthe wrong owner and organization

name as its registered user in WindowsXP? Well, this isn’t a trivial matter becausemany software installations use thenames registered to WinXP to name orregister themselves, as well. Instead ofreinstalling WinXP, click Start, Run, typeRegedit in the Open field, and click OK.Next click the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWSNT\CURRENTVERSION key and double-click the value for RegisteredOrganizationand RegisteredOwner. To change thenames in both cases, just type in a newname in the Value Data box. ▲

You can invite yourself to a new Gmailaccount via SMS messaging.

CPU / April 2006 95

the attached files themselves to your hand-set unless you click them. For nonimage filetypes, we have found that Word files workbest for handheld viewing because, oddlyenough, Gmail Mobile wouldn’t recognizea straightforward TXT file as compatible.You can open Excel and PDF files, butGmail strips them of images and format-ting and presents mainly text.

Manage Your G-MessNow that you’ve sent tons of info to

your Gmail account for mobile access,

how do you sort though all of these good-ies in your inbox? Use Gmail’s labelingand filtering functions. From the desktopbrowser, click Gmail’s Settings link andthen the Labels tab. Create one or morelabels for the material you want to accesson your phone.

In your inbox, put checks beside theemails that you’ve already sent yourselfwith image or data attachments. Use theMore Actions drop-down menu to applythe appropriate labels.

You can use Gmail filters to automatethe process of adding new data to yourmobile collection. Click Settings, theFilters tab, and Create A New Filter tomake a new filter. You’ll have to deter-mine for yourself how you want your fil-ter to label incoming emails with specif-ic content, but here’s an example ofwhat we did to help you out: In theFrom field we wanted the filter to applyto any email coming from our desktopaccount. We also decided to give our-selves a filter cue word, “Personal Im-

ages,” and typed that inthe Subject field. ClickNext Step. Next, wechecked the Apply TheLabel box and cl icked the drop-down menu to choose the label wewanted to apply to theseincoming emails . Wechose our Personal Im-ages label. Finally, weclicked Create

Filter . Now whenever we send an email fromour home PC to G-mail with the termPersonal Images inthe email , Gmailwill automaticallylabel the messageand any attachmentsPersonal Images.

Finally Phoning InOnce you’re signed in to

Gmail, you’ll see the first 10messages of your inbox. In order toset up the mobile view to use some ofour techniques, scroll to the bottom of your

Gmail entry screen and click More Views.Scroll to the bottom of the list, and you’llfind checkboxes for each of the labels youjust made. Check the labeled emails youwant to access and click Save. These labelswill now appear beneath the Gmail Mobileinbox. By clicking one of these labels, all ofthe associated emails with their bookmarksand attachments float out of your Gmailmorass for each access in Gmail Mobile.

Why do things this way? Because nowyou can read email, peruse files and familyphotos, send email, call contacts, andbrowse your favorite Web sites from a sin-gle mobile application rather than jugglethe usual four or five apps mobile connec-tivity usually requires.

by Steve Smith


I f the batteries in your wireless keyboardfail, Windows provides the OSK (On

Screen Keyboard) as a keyboard interfaceyou can use with your mouse or joystick.Browse to C:\WINDOWS\system32\osk.exeto lauch the keyboard. To switch the pop-up keyboard into standard or enhancedlayouts click Keyboard. ▲

Super Soakers:Good For Ears

Two doctors in the “CanadianMedical Association Journal” com-

pliment the Super Soaker Max-D5000’s ability to loosen up severelyimpacted ear wax. They discoveredthis new ear wax-removal strategyafter examining a man with “cement-like ear cerumen” living on an islandwithout any available ear syringeequipment. However, a 4-year-old boydid offer up his Super Soaker to thedoctors, which took care of the man’sclogged ear and soaked both thepatient and his doctors. ▲

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Turn your bookmarks into a Word file, store them as a Gmail attachment,and then access them as Web links on your mobile phone.

You can attach Gmail filters to labels to organize incoming mail for easier grouping in Gmail Mobile.


Surfing For Torrents In Linux


not only how quickly others can down-load from you, but also lets you makesure all your bandwidth isn’t sucked awayby peers in a swarm downloading thesame file as you. The lower the value is setto, the slower uploads will be. Peers willupload to you as fast as you download tothem. Additionally, don’t set the valuepast the amount of bandwidth you actual-ly have and remember that you’re hopingto download from a peer just as fast. Mostlikely, you’ll want to leave enough band-width so you can keep working onlinewith other tasks. Finding the optimallevel may take some experimentation, butwe’ve found 40Kbps on a broadband con-nection works well.

Next, click View and then Settings toopen the BitTorrent Settings dialog box.On the Saving tab, change the Save NewDownloads field to the location where youwant your downloads saved. You can alsoclick Change to browse to the location.To use a different download location eachtime, check Ask Where To Save EachNew Download.

On the Downloading tab, you canchoose how the client handles new down-loads. If you have limited bandwidth, you

Unless you have been livingunder a rock, you know thatP2P file sharing has been ahot technology topic for

years. BitTorrent, of course, is one of themost popular sharing networks. Whilemany people use P2P technologies for ille-gal purposes, there are many legitimateuses. For example, many Linux distribu-tion makers offer DVD ISOs (used tohelp create distro-install DVDs) for down-load over networks such as BitTorrent sothat the distro maker’s servers don’t getoverwhelmed. After all, DVD ISOs can be1GB or larger.

Another legitimate use of BitTorrentinvolves when popular programs arereleased. Id Software, for example, offers a native Linux client for its games. How-ever, you must purchase the Windowsgame set first and then download theLinux client to use with data on theboxed media. Using BitTorrent lets endusers download a newly released Linuxversion much faster than they could oth-erwise. It also lets Id Software avoid pur-chasing extra servers and bandwidth fortemporary use.

BitTorrent In LinuxP2P file-sharing methods typically

involve avoiding using a bank of centraldownload servers. With BitTorrent, forexample, instead of pointing the client to a Web or FTP server, you download a filewith a .TORRENT file extension. The file

tells the BitTorrent client which tracker(the server managing the content) is seed-ing (or offering) the file you want todownload. When the client contacts thetracker, you join a swarm of peers that isuploading/downloading the file. As youobtain pieces of the file from various peers,your machine shares those pieces with oth-ers in the swarm. Thus, no one relies on asingle machine’s bandwidth to get theentire file.

You can download BitTor-rent clients from BitTorrent’smain site, but it is often bet-ter to get your client throughyour Linux distr ibution’spackage-management system,as updates will occur auto-matically. Search your pack-age-management system for the keyword“torrent,” and you should find one ormore clients. Sometimes, you will find aclient named bittorrent and anothernamed something such as bittorrent-gui. If so, install both, unless you preferto work only on the command line. Ifthat is the case, consider adding rtor-rent, which is an ncurses (a menu-basedcommand line) client. You can also goto the BitTorrent Portal (www.bittorrentportal .net) to experiment withother clients. For this article we will usethe main BitTorrent client.

When you launch the BitTorrent GUI,you’ll want to first consider adjusting themaximum upload rate. This determines

This is the default graphical interface for the BitTorrent client as shown without adownload in progress.

The BitTorrent Settings dialog box is where you’ll configure various features and options of the client.

CPU / April 2006 97

may want to download only one file at a time. If so, select Always Stops The LastRunning Torrent. This causes an existingdownload to pause and let a new one takeover. If you aren’t worried about band-width, choose Always Starts The TorrentIn Parallel to let more than one downloadrun at a time. If you have more band-width available at certain times than others, consider the Asks Each Timeoption for more flexibility.

Next, click the Seeding tab. If you’reconcerned with bandwidth, considerselecting the Seed Indefinitely option forboth the Seed Completed Torrents andSeed Last Completed Torrent settings.This will continuously offer pieces of filesyou’ve downloaded to other users to grab.If you don’t want to keep seeding every-thing you’ve finished but instead onlywant to continuously offer your last download, check the Seed Last CompletedTorrent box.

Occasionally, neither option may bepossible due to bandwidth or other rea-sons. If so, you can set how long youwant to offer each torrent rather than usepermanent seeding. If you don’t want toseed anything indefinitely and only wantto seed the last finished torrent, makesure both Seed Indefinitely boxes areunchecked and change the Share Ratiofield in the Seed Last Completed Torrentsection to a percentage you’re happywith. Essentially, the higher the shareratio, the longer you’ll share the file. Inthe Seed Completed Torrents section,

you can configure BitTorrentto keep seeding all the files upto a certain share ratio or for acertain length of time.

The Network tab lets you dosuch things as tell the client to use a certain port, such as ifyou’re seeding a file within your

own LAN and the data doesn’t have to passthrough routers. Under the Language sec-tion, you can configure the client to pro-vide an interface in a supported language.

Once you make your changes, closethe BitTorrent Settings dialog box toactivate the changes.

Using BitTorrentClicking a Torrent file in your Web

browser may open a dialog box that offersto launch the BitTorrent client. If this hap-pens, click Yes. Otherwise, open the clientmanually and click File and then OpenTorrent File to begin a download. You canalso select File and then Open TorrentURL and feed in the URL to the file.

As an example, let’s say you go toGnome’s Downloads via the BitTorrentWeb page (torrent.gnome.org) and clickthe English-x86 download version. Ifyou’re using Firefox, it will offer to openthe Torrent file in BitTorrent. ClickingOK will start the client with the down-load in progress. Initially, the progress barwill show none of the download complet-ed. Once the client joins a swarm for thatfile (this can take a few minutes if therearen’t many peers offering the file), theprogress bar will change. When the clientjoins a swarm, it will display how long thedownload is expected to take, the currentdownload rate, and how much of the fileyou’ve downloaded.

To control an individual download,right-click the progress bar to open a con-text menu. Torrent Info displays a dialogbox with the file’s size, tracker URL,name, and the location the file is beingsaved. Open Directory opens a file man-ager window displaying the save directo-

ry’s contents. The PeerList shows how

many peers are in the swarm. SeedIndefinitely overrides any settings for thisfile that would have shut the feature off.Download Later lets you focus on anotherfile for downloading or lets you cut offyour Internet connection if needed. Bit-Torrent will resume the download if theconnection ends in the middle of a down-load. Abort will remove the downloadfrom your download list.

If you have multiple files in your queueand are only downloading one at a time,you can drag and drop the files in theorder you want. When a download is fin-ished, the program will continue to seedas long as you’ve configured the client to do so. If there aren’t many peers in theswarm, it’s considered polite to leave theseed up a while, so others can reap thebenefits of the swarm.

by Dee-Ann LeBlanc


Here, BitTorrent is negotiating our download of a Gnome LiveCD file.

LEGOs For Geeks

R emember how you used to spendcountless hours building castles and

tanks out of your thousands of LEGOs?Well, who says the fun has to stop? Pickup a set of PixelBlocks and let the creativi-ty flow ($30 for 875 pieces and $50 for2,000 pieces). These translucent 3/8-inchcubes come in 12 colors that you canattach to each other in three differentways, letting you create 2D or 3D master-pieces. The possibilities are endless, andthe results are pretty cool, too. (Warning:Use of PixelBlocks may be addictive. Weare not responsible for lost sleep ormissed meals incurred while trying to create the perfect Mario and Luigi.)

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New Intel Chips Light The Performance WayEE arly in February Intel disclosed details of

the next-generation microprocessors itwill roll out during the course of this year andthe first quarter of 2007, and there are quite afew surprises in there.

It has also comprehensively rebranded andrepositioned its microprocessors.

The speed with which Intel is moving todual cores and then quad cores is significant.It has told motherboard makers and PC com-panies that by the end of this year, 70% ofdesktop and notebook processors will be dualcore. That also implies that its move to asmaller production process (65nm) is also pro-ceeding well, as Intel is already selling CPUswith these characteristics.

The code names for the next-gen CPUs areMerom (notebook), Conroe (desktop), andWoodcrest (servers). Unlike the previousbranding for Intel chips, Merom processorswill go into desktop machines, as well, butbecause of their low power and other charac-teristics, will fit into slim machines associatedwith style and with quietness.

Merom processors, unlike the currentYonah processors used in Intel-based note-books, will also support 64-32 extensions.Although the current Windows OS for 64-32AMD Turion notebooks is somewhat unsatis-factory because of poor driver support, thenext Microsoft OS, Vista, is expected to havegood support for the additional functions.

Intel also told its customers about some ofthe characteristics of both the Merom andthe Conroe CPUs. They will largely be dual-core processors, although Intel will also offera single-core version of each of these families.Conroe will also make its appearance in aConroe Extreme Edition. The performanceof the Conroe Core chips will be betterbecause the L2 cache will be shared and opti-mised—there will be desktop Conroes with4MB of L2 cache. The Conroe Extreme

Edition (XE) is expected to launch in thethird quarter of this year.

Intel will call the Conroe desktop chipsE6700, E6600, E6400, E6300, and E4200.The first four of these processors will have4MB, 4MB, 2MB, and 2MB of cache and busspeeds of 1,066MHz; the E5200 single-corechip will have a system bus speed of 800MHzand 2MB of cache. The clock speeds for all fiveare 2.66GHz, 2.40GHz, 2.13GHz, 1.86GHz,and 1.60GHz, respectively, and they will sup-port a number of different features, includingvirtualisation, enhanced SpeedStep, and otherbells and whistles. Before Intel introduces theseConroe desktop processors, it will introduce alarge number of Pentium D chips, again indual-core configurations but without the next-generation cache.

If anything, the Merom family of processorsis more interesting to me. Intel is positioningthe dual-core Meroms as energy efficient andwith quick responsiveness. While they don’thave as high system bus speeds as the Conroechips, I do expect them to be very good per-formers. As well as having support for 64-32extensions, there will be a new chipset code-named Crestline, which will come in severalflavours. There will also be Celeron M chipsbased on the Conroe architecture. TheMeroms with standard voltage will be num-bered the T7600, the T7400, the T7200, theT5600, and the T5500. Intel expects to releasea version with an 800MHz system bus, butthese versions will come with a 667MHzcache, and all but the single-core T5600 willhave 4MB of cache. Clock speeds will be2.33GHz, 2.16GHz, 2GHz, and 1.83GHz.

From the look of things, Intel could have astrong 2006, giving desktop and notebookusers alike more intriguing options than they’vehad in a while. AMD, however, is unlikely tosit still and let Intel steal its limelight. ▲

The speed with

which Intel is

moving to dual

cores and then

quad cores is

significant.Send rumours to “Mad Mike” Magee at [email protected].

Mike Magee is an industry veteran. He cut his teeth on

ancient products like the Dragonand the Japanese PC platforms

long before the IBM-PC won. Heworked for a corporate reseller

in the mid-’80s and saw theCompaq 386 sandwich box and

every GUI known to humankind.Mike decided that the way to gowas the Interweb around 1994

after editing PC mags in the late’80s and ’90s. A co-founder of

The Register, Mike started the chip-driven INQUIRER

(www.theinquirer.net) in 2001.He has contacts from top to

bottom in the business, spanningthe entire chain, who help him

root out interesting rumours and speculation.

Shavings From The Rumour Mill

CPU / April 2006 99

CPU: No secret here, but women CTOsare a rarity. Without resorting to stereo-types or overgeneralizations, has your gen-der been a large factor in your career?

Rinne: Well, I’ve never felt like it im-pacted how I interfaced with vendors orcustomers or other operators. It wasn’t anadvantage or a barrier, to be honest. Iwould say, though, that I’ve never stoodin line for a restroom at an industry meet-ing. [laughs] Now, I’d point to the CTIA[Cellular Telecommunications & InternetAssociation]. I served on a panel lastMarch, and there were probably three outof the six panelists—all U.S. leaders intechnology—that were women, so I thinkyou see more and more of that. I hopethat continues to grow.

CPU: Every technology and big productcategory has its share of foofy features, orselling points that capitalize on hyperegardless of whether people actually useor derive any real-world benefit fromthem. Do Cingular offerings have foofyfeatures or is pretty much all of this essen-tial technology?

Rinne: Wow, that’s one I’ve neverbeen asked before. . . . Primarily, whatwe’ve focused on is providing the coreenablers for our broadband transportcapabilities. Our implementation ofUMTS (Universal Mobile Telecom-munications System) and HSDPA(High-Speed Downlink Packet Access)is a continual evolution of the packetdata services that we’d already deployednationwide on our EDGE network. Soby focusing on that core enabler andthen being able to put services on top ofthat, you’re able to try lots of differentthings that might fit into niche areaswithout large-scale commitments. Thebulk of my job is focused on puttingthose core enablers in the ground, andthen we can put different products andservices on top of that enabler and seewhat works well and what doesn’t. Thenwe can move pretty quickly in terms ofeither scaling it or closing it down.

CPU: Let’s make the question a littlemore personal. In considering things suchas mobile TV or polyphonic ringtones,what new technologies the data network

is enabling do you personally use andwhich don’t have any appeal to you?

Rinne: I have moved a significant portionof my communications from voice to dataservices, and consequently I have differentringtones downloaded on my device, butmy device is on vibrate practically all thetime. So it doesn’t get a lot of exposure inthat regard. But all our different consumeremail applications, instant messaging ap-plications, the broadband access in termsof being able to use it with a PCMCIAcard—I’m a very early adopter on all ofthose apps because that’s more how I com-municate. As you can imagine, in thehours I spend in meetings, not available toreturn phone calls, etc., that has becomemy primary means of communication,both professionally and personally.

CPU: So these cutting-edge features arebusiness applications for you, not neces-sarily personal applications.

Rinne: Right. Now, that said, I alsolearned a long time ago that I do not rep-resent the demographics that we’re going

K ristin Rinne jokes that she can’t spell, so she had to work inan industry based on acronyms. But there’s no abbreviation in

her telecommunications career, which started over 25 year ago withSouthwestern Bell and that now has her as the CTO at CingularWireless, the leading cellular service provider in the United States.Rinne is no white collar tech wannabe. With a foundation in engi-neering and special application development, Rinne even todayhabitually goes about with three or four gadgets on her waist whileplanning the wireless services that will dominate how we commu-nicate in the future.

by Chris Angelini

TechnicallySpeaking

An Interview With Kristin S. Rinne,CTO Of Cingular Wireless

WWhhaatt’’ss Cooking . . .

CPU / April 2006 103

South, some of the joint billing we’vedone with common voicemail systemsand such allow the customer to mix andmatch those to meet their specific needs.

CPU: Even power users like us havetrouble grasping what to do with the15Mbps of fiber optic bandwidth nowappearing in our neighborhood. A yearfrom now, it’ll probably be more neces-sary. But similarly, what are people sup-posed to do with 3G bandwidth today?

Rinne: Laptop Connect was the primarything we focused on when we launchedour 3G networks in December in those16 markets, and our initial offering wasthe PCMCIA card that allows you to haveaccess to our HSDPA network. Yourspeeds from the network to the PC are inthe 400 to 700Kbps range, and then backfrom the PC to the network, that’s in the60 to 100Kbps range. Enterprise applica-tions—email synchronization, Webbrowsing, etc.—on the laptop is where weinitially focused. We’ll be introducing

additional video products that would beoptimized for a small device. So youcould get content clips that you might beinterested in or get up to speed on whathappened with the sitcoms last night.Those are new apps that we would becontinuing to introduce to grow customerusage and adoption. Also, this is a devicethat you can carry with you all the timebecause of the ubiquity of the voice ser-vices, so making it easy to use for otherapplications, that’s what we’re mostfocused on.

CPU: As 3G becomes more prevalent,how difficult is it to scale the network so the bandwidth from each tower doesnot end up still being dial-up class ateach phone?

Rinne: You have to manage the spec-trum in terms of the number of channels,

after for many of our products. My viewon different types of games and applica-tions is not necessarily going to bereflective of how well it will do in themarketplace. I’m ready to accept that.

CPU: With relatively new features suchas Web browsing and, most recently forCingular, Push-To-Talk, do you findsuch features are adopted faster or slowerthan you might expect in the mainstream?

Rinne: Well, take the Web browsingexample. A significant portion of our basehas that capability in the device they’recarrying today. By giving them the op-portunity to optimize that experience fortheir own geography and interests, we’veseen a significant uptake in terms ofusage. There are other things we’ve donein the industry, and I point to ‘AmericanIdol,’ where we’ve provided the applica-tion that allows for the customer to vote.So that also drives adoption. And whenyou hear text messaging described, somepeople haven’t been able to think of an

application for it, but as we’re able to par-ticipate in things like ‘American Idol’ orother campaigns where you give the cus-tomer a reason to try it and then to have apositive experience, they begin to seeother ways to apply it. There are otherproducts and services where it mayrequire a new device, such as Push-To-Talk. That impacts your ramp time, butwe take that into consideration when webuild the business cases.

CPU: Last time we checked, the UnitedStates still trailed Europe and Asia interms of cellular technology adoption byabout two years. Is that still the case?

Rinne: We’re a bit over 70% penetra-tion in the United States. There are somecountries that are over 100% becausethey’ve moved into some man-machinetypes of applications. So I think we are

still a bit behind on overall population,but the U.S. consumer does two to threetimes the usage on a monthly basis as thetraditional European subscriber.

CPU: But in terms of feature adoption—take SMS or even camera phones—cameraphones were huge in Japan at launch,while everybody here just kind ofscratched their head and said, ‘I don’tknow what I’d ever do with that.’ Why doyou think our country is slower to adoptthese things?

Rinne: Some of it has to do with howdeep the wire line and Internet penetra-tion was ahead of wireless adaptation. Iwould point to the early successes of datain Japan. If you had to stand in line topay your bills because of no online check-ing and things like that, you would adoptthat pretty quickly. Here, you have ease ofuse in terms of our high Internet penetra-tion. Some of those applications aren’tquite as meaningful right off the bat on awireless device as they might have been

because of the wire line apps. But Cing-ular’s data revenue growth has not been100% SMS as you would see in Europe.We are being very successful with contentand the services related to utilizing ourEDGE transport. There are other areaswhere we’re probably ahead of theEuropeans in terms of adoption. It’sthings that you need to tailor to our cul-ture, to our lifestyles, and take intoaccount the other means that customershave to communicate with their wire lineand Internet applications, as well.

CPU: Will cell phones replace residen-tial landlines?

Rinne: It’s a telephone number that’sassociated with a person rather than atelephone number that’s associated withgeography, and there’s an application forboth of them. And with AT&T and Bell

WWhhaatt’’ss Cooking . . . Technically Speaking

. . . the U.S. consumer does two to three times the usage on amonthly basis as the traditional European subscriber. — Kristin S. Rinne


CPU: You used the ‘American Idol’voting example before, and we mightadd to that Top 40 ringtones, mobileTV, and more. There seems to be anincreasing overlap between cell phonesand mass entertainment, but of these,only ‘American Idol’ it seems clearlyshows the cell phone influencing themedia rather than just being a passiveplayback device. Will such things be-come more common?

Rinne: I think development is morefocused on consumption, but we arelooking at other kinds of applications thatcan make it more of a live usage. You’regoing to see that more in an enterprisespace in terms of some of the applicationsthat we’re able to run on existing PDAsthat give customers the ability to accessand update their sales force informationtools or whatever systems they use inter-nally for quotes, etc.

CPU: You OK with a crazy, sci-fi typeof question?

Rinne: Sure.

CPU: Implants. Obviously, for thosewho are crazy about miniaturizing andwant everything always available andnever want to lose their phone, do youthink the idea of an implanted commu-nicator happening decades into thefuture is crazy or something that’s des-tined to happen?

Rinne: You know, the first thing Ithought of when you said that was Ihave responsibility for device certifica-tion and interoperability testing, and Iwas just thinking, ‘Gosh, how do I vali-date this?’ [laughs] I don’t know. That’squite a ways down the road in terms ofmaking sure we’ve identified the healtheffects and all the other challenges relat-ed to that. Today, you are seeing moreand more wearable devices, like theOakley Bluetooth sunglasses we cameout with last summer. You’ll see moreand more wearable applications, but Ithink we’re quite a ways away fromimplanting.

if you will, that you have accessible to aspecific geographic area. With broadbandcapabilities, the other area that requires alot of focus from a design standpoint isthat transport layer from the cell site backto the Internet to our centralized switch-ing locations. We’ve established specifickey performance indicators that we focuson, and we’re still learning what the busyhours on data services are to make surewe’re targeting our growth where andwhen it’s needed, which could be differ-ent than where the voice busy hours are.

CPU: When ‘4G’ arrives will it simplybe a matter of upgrading existing facilitiesor adding a new infrastructure? Ourcheckbook wants to know.

Rinne: Where we have deployed 3Gcapabilities, that infrastructure is able togrow some of these additional capabili-ties with additional software and addi-tional transport. Our 3G rollout, as weadd cities with UMT (Universal MobileTelecommunications System) andHSDPA (High-Speed Downlink PacketAccess), does require some additionalinfrastructure to be able to supportthose high-speed capabilities, so that’swhat we are in the process of deploying.One of the advantages of the technologypath we’ve chosen, though, is that sameinfrastructure, that same spectrum thatwe put out there for the high-speed datacapabil i t ies , a lso supports circuit-switched voice, so we’re able to use thathardware and software for both voiceand data and optimize it around theusage for that particular geographic area associated with the cell site. We’renot dedicating a specific amount ofinfrastructure or spectrum only for aspecific application.

CPU: Between rollover minutes, nation-wide calling, and your competitors, is itfeasible that a cellular voice subscriptionwill someday be free, and we’ll all just payfor data services?

Rinne: They don’t let me price things.[laughs] In order to provide the level ofquality that customers expect in terms

of high accessibility and high quality on calls end to end, I think it is going to continue to be a paid service. Thereare lower-quality services that mightbecome all-you-can-eat packages, andthat’s going to meet some customers’needs, but it is not going to meet all customers’ needs.

CPU: Because phones are now datadevices, how can data entry be made easi-er? Will voice-to-text be an option in thenear future?

Rinne: That’s very processor intensive.We’re looking at some ways to do thatin a network-level application vs. adevice-level application because thereyou have much more processing power;if I could do that on a network server vs.the processor in the device itself. It’ssomething that we have looked at, butthere are no product launches to talkabout at this point.

CPU: We’d think the latency of doing iton the network might be a killer.

Rinne: Valid point.

CPU: OK. Love the portability; hate thescreen size. What improvements are instore for phone displays?

Rinne: On PDAs or devices that areoptimized for screen size, we’re begin-ning to see some prototypes that, eventhough the screen size may be the same,are much brighter, handle sunlightmuch better in terms of the contrast,and things like that. Over time, you’llsee devices emphasize the screen or key-board or battery or whatever needs to beoptimized for a specific application.

CPU: But even at VGA resolution, Webaccess just stinks, right? Will we getbeyond that?

Rinne: Yeah, in the second half of theyear you’ll see the next generation of dis-plays, with improved contrast and bright-ness. I think you’ll see tighter resolutionon different handsets, as well.

WWhhaatt’’ss Cooking . . . Technically Speaking


by Kristina Spencer

WWhhaatt’’ss Cooking . . .

II magine shaking hands with someone and having her contact infor-mation instantly downloaded to your cell phone. Or imagine getting

into your car and having the seat position and mirror settings adjustautomatically when you touch the steering wheel. What if you couldwalk into a room and connect to a network just by setting your laptopon a table? Well, these are just some of the potential applications of atechnology called RedTacton, currently under development by Japan’sNTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone).

RedTacton uses the human body’s weak electric field and conduc-tive properties to transform special transceivers that people wear into“Human Area Networks” that can transmit data at up to 10Mbps.Devices, such as PDAs and cell phones, and environmental objects,such as tables and doorknobs, equipped with similar transceivers canthen capture the data.

Unlike earlier failed touch-transmission systems that attempted toharness the flow of the human electric field to transmit data,RedTacton instead focuses on fluctuations in the field that occur whena touch connection is made that links two or more transceivers. A“photonic electric field sensor” embedded in the receiver uses a laser tomeasure changes in an electro-optic crystal. Those minute changes arethen converted and transmitted as digital information. Because similarelectric fields exist in other common dielectric and conducting materi-als, such as water, wood, glass, metal, and clothing, direct skin-to-skincontact isn’t necessary for data transmission.

NTT began field-testing prototypes of the technology in mid-2005with selected partners. Depending on the results of those trials, NTThopes to achieve rapid commercialization. Toshiaki Asahi, aresearcher at NTT’s strategic business creation team, has stated that“if the development goes well enough and we’ve come a long way, wehope to have commercial ‘Human Area Network’ systems workingsometime during 2006.” ▲

Under DDeevveellooppmmeennttA Peek At What's Brewing In The Laboratory

Information In The Palm Of Your Hand

AA s we’ve reported previously in “Under Development,”flexible displays are definitely high on many manufac-

turers’ to-do lists, not to mention our own wish list. Elec-tronics that can bend or roll without overstressing the thin,but ultimately brittle and breakable, silicon are a technologylover’s dream whose time is definitely coming. But creatingelectronics that can be molded and fit to shapes other thancylinders or cones, or that are part of devices that need to flexor stretch, requires a much greater degree of bendability thancurrent technology provides. To this end, researchers at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed astretchable form of single-crystal silicon.

To create the stretchable circuits, materials science and engi-neering professor John Rogers and his team took a flat rubbersubstrate, stretched it, and laid it on top of silicon ribbons 1,000times thinner than a human hair. When the stress was released,the silicon ribbons that were adhered to the rubber crinkled intoa series of regular waves. During subsequent stretching or com-pressing of the material, the amplitude and frequency of thewaves changed but the silicon strips remained intact.

The team then fashioned diodes and transistors on thiswavy silicon and tested them against traditionally construct-ed devices. Even after repeated straining and compression,the stretchable circuits functioned just as well as their brittlecounterparts. Rogers sees this stretchable-form silicon as thefirst step in creating electronics for smart surgical gloves orfor aircraft wings that can determine their own structuralsoundness—but not right away.

“A first application might be simply to extend the degreeof bendability in the flexible displays and other relatedbendable systems that are beginning to make their way intothe commercial sector. In other words, stretchable toachieve extreme bendable devices,” Rogers says.

Additionally, stretchable electronics could be used in place of traditional circuits in PDAs and other devices to make them more durable. But when can you get yourhands on that bendable iPod? First, the challenges of large-

scale manufacturabilityneed to be overcome.Rogers explains, “Thetime scale is on theorder of five years sincethe stretchable work isstill very new and verymuch represents a lab-based demo.” ▲

Flexible Circuits Make Waves

Using fluctuationsin the body’s

electric field as a transmission

medium,RedTacton

technology letsusers exchange

information via a touch.


subset of photos that are likelycandidates for finding a facematch. For example, if youtake a photo of your kids at thepark on a Saturday afternoon,the application will look forother photos in the dataset thatwere taken at the same locationor nearby locations on otherSaturday afternoons. This nar-rows the pool of potential facesand improves the chancesthat a match the face-recognition softwaremakes will be theright one.

To test the con-cept, Davis’ teamused a dataset thatit gathered from 11 users over ninemonths with morethan 1,000 pho-tos. When the

contextual metadata was usedin combination with the face-matching algorithm, the systemachieved 60% face-recognitionaccuracy as opposed to the 43%the face-recognition softwarealone achieved. ▲

Photo Labeling: It’s A Snap

TT he digital revolution hasmade it easier than ever to

keep photo collections orga-nized, letting you label snap-shots that can help easily findwho or what you’re lookingfor, right? Well, technically,yes. But tagging each photocan still be a tedious, time-con-suming process that in realityoften never occurs. Raise yourhand if your photo folder is thedigital equivalent of an over-flowing shoebox of photos.

If you take your snapshotswith a Bluetooth-enabled cam-era phone, help could be on theway. A team that Marc Davis ofYahoo!’s Berkeley research labheads up is working on a sys-tem that can automaticallyidentify and label photo sub-jects by combining analysis ofmetadata collected when the

picture was taken with a facial-recognition algorithm.

The MMM2 (Mobile MediaMetadata 2) system consists oftwo parts. The first is a Con-text Logger that runs on thecamera phone and collects rele-vant data, such as the time anddate a photo was captured, thenearest cell tower, and a surveyof other Bluetooth-enableddevices in range. The secondpart is a Linux server applica-tion that manages the down-loaded photos and data andmaintains user profile data. Forface-matching to occur, a userestablishes a baseline dataset bytaking snapshots and annotat-ing them on the server app,associating faces with names.

When the user snaps a newphoto and downloads it, themetadata is used to create a

TT he availability of inexpen-sive digital cameras and

teleconferencing software hasmade basic videoconferencinga virtually PnP experience formost users. But taking video-conferencing into the thirddimension of tele-immersiveenvironments presents hugechallenges, particularly when itcomes to the bandwidth-inten-sive task of transmitting multi-ple 3D video streams over ageneral-purpose network.

TEEVE (Tele-immersiveEnvironments for EVEry-body) is a 3D multiple-cam-era tele-immersive system thatresearch teams at Universityof California, Berkeley andthe University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign are joint-ly developing to address thischallenge. TEEVE is a multi-ple-tiered system that cap-tures, transmits, and renders3D video in real time on the viewer’s side, giving the

viewer the ability to manipu-late the images to see themfrom different perspectives.

Through a combination ofvideo compression and the use of QoS-aware protocols,the system can transmit the3D video streams clusters thatfour 2D cameras capture at 4 to 5fps over a high-speedInternet 2 connection (40 to 60Mbps).

Professor Klara Nahrstedt,the lead researcher on theproject at UIUC, sums up thechallenge of creating a com-mercially viable tele-immer-sive system given currentbandwidth limitations thisway, “If one service provideron the path is puttingthrough 40 or 50Mbps orless, you can have gigabit atyour edges and it will nothelp you because the trafficwill be bottlenecked. If I put

a couple of cameras aroundme in a room and I want animmersive environment, howdo I do it over this kind ofgeneral purpose network?”

The TEEVE research teambelieves that the answer lies in the development of seman-tic protocols that take intoaccount variables such as cam-era location, the views theuser requests on the displayend, and the amount of band-width available. The systemcan then adjust the amount ofinformation that’s being sentat any time, accommodatingexisting network conditions.

Nahrstedt is optimisticthat given the advances beingmade in 3D camera develop-ment and increased processorspeeds, commercially-viable3D videoconferencing sys-tems could happen withinfive years. ▲

WWhhaatt’’ss Cooking . . . Under Development

3D TV For You & Me


RRyan Petersen, the CEO ofOCZ Technology, is a truegeek at heart. He knows histechnology, loves partici-pating in the design

process, and is determined to keep OCZinvolved in enthusiast hardware, whetherthrough memory, power supplies, orphase-change cooling. When he isn’tlocked in the boardroom, Ryan exerciseshis mind by inventing and rockin’ out onhis guitar. (He prefers the term “musician”to “rock star,” though.) We coerced himinto talking tech and laying a littleroadmap for the future of system memory.

QQ In addition to being the chiefexec at OCZ, you’re also an

inventor. So you would rather be in thelab than the board room, so to speak?

RRPP Oh, of course! I’m really just ageek just like everybody who

reads CPU. I just happened to becomeCEO by measure of luck. [Inventing is]what I enjoy doing. Unfortunately, some-body needs to run the company.

QQWhen you have a product such asthe XTC that’s high on cosmetics

but without a similar amount of tech-nical advance, what process goes on atOCZ when you want to reach thespeeds and feeds crowd?

RRPP With the XTC heat spreader, wecombined a good look—and as

you can see from the heat spreader, thereis an outer frame that’s not actually part ofthe heat spreader itself—and we made theframe, so it doesn’t interfere with airflow.There’s a very easy way to balance havingthe performance there and the looks.

QQ A little birdie told me you’re a rockstar. How does technology play

into the music that you make?

RRPP [laughs] First of all, I’m not arock star, but I play guitar. My

ability to play music hasrelated to my ability tobe creative in the prod-ucts we develop. I’vebuilt a pretty elaboratehard disk studio at home:M-Audio stuff and someother home audio record-ing gear. I’m a fanatic. Ihave experimental prod-ucts and prototypeCPUs, and I get to stickthem in my home systemwhen I’m done playingwith them. Don’t tellanybody I said that.AMD is going to stopgiving me CPUs.

QQWhen we recentlyinterviewed him,

PC Power & Cooling CEO DougDodson wasn’t shy about knocking thedesign deficiencies in modular powersupplies. Because OCZ offers both PSUtypes, what’s your take on it?

RRPP He’s absolutely right. Everytime you have a connection,

you will increase the resistance of anyelectrical pathway. Engineering 101. If Iwere to put one in my digital audio sys-tem, I would not use a modular powersupply. But for a standard PC gamer oreven a pretty aggressive overclocker, thereis not a problem typically with a modularpower supply. The purpose of a modularpower supply is simplicity. We do ourbest to offer the highest-quality modularpower supply on the market. Of course, itwon’t be as good as a nonmodular. But ifyou want pluggable cables, if you wantcables to be out of your way, you have tosacrifice something. We’re not going toexclude enhancing the user’s experience,especially when it won’t affect the perfor-mance for 95% of users.

QQ Is there life after DDR2? Once westart hitting the functional limit

of that technology, what can we expectwill take its place?

RRPP DDR3.

QQWhat makes DDR3 differentfrom DDR2?

RRPP There are more terminatedlines, so DDR3 will scale faster

than DDR2. Let me tell you somethingabout the end of DDR2: Don’t bet on itfor a long, long time.

QQ Really?

RRPP We’re a member of JEDEC here;we know what the talk is about.

The talk is about DDR3 coming in after800MHz. But I would bet that by the endof ’06 we’ll see 1,300MHz and 1,333MHzDDR2 modules. Look for it. ▲

by Chris Angelini

Subscribers can go to wwwwww..ccppuummaagg..ccoomm//ccppuuaapprriill0066//ppeetteerrsseenn for bonus content.

Q&A With Ryan Petersen

b a c k d o o r | q & a


computer power user, april 2006

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