22 incredible applications and games to install

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PC

Yes, this kiteactually flies!

MINIMUM BS DECEMBER 2009

22 Incredible Applications and Games to Install TodayC D I N S I D E

REVIEWED:ZUNE HDIs It an iPodTouch Killer?

ATI RADEONHD 5870: Most AdvancedGPU Ever!

SMARTPHONE REPORT: Is Windows Mobile Doomed to Mediocrity?

29XP, VISTA &WIN7 TIPS TOCUSTOMIZE &

SUPERCHARGE YOUR OS



22 Windows Tips Optimize your OS—be it XP, Vista, orWindows 7

36 Radeon HD 5870 AMD’s awesome new GPU lands

QuickStart08 NEWS Why does Windows Mobile suck,

and can it be fixed?

16 THE LIST Nine legacy technologies thathave seen their day

R&D60 WHITE PAPER Organic LEDs

In the Lab73 REVIEWS

91 LAB NOTES

96 EST OF THE BEST

WHERE WE PUT STUFF CONTENTS

FEATURES DEPARTMENTS

LETTERS

19 DOCTOR

ECEMBER

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A THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWOED WORD

What ExactlyIs a PersonalComputer?

LETTERS POLICY Please send comments, questions, and tapiocapudding to [email protected]. Include your full name, cityof residence, and phone number with your correspondence.Unfortunately, Will is unable to respond personally to all queries.

BRINGING THAWESOMEThe Fastest VideocardEverpage 36

AMD’s $99Quad-Core CPU

page 54Zune HD Reviewedpage 84

If I asked you in 1993, “What’s a PC?”, you’d probably have pointed to the beige boxsitting under your desk at work. In 1999, if I asked you the same question, the odds aregood that you’d have shown me a grey box in your den. In 2005, you would probablyhave shown me a shiny new notebook. But, as I sit here in 2009, I’m nding it diffi cult toanswer this seemingly simple question.

Sitting on my desk, I have four extremely powerful computing devices, eachwith its own strengths and weaknesses. Let’s decide which of these are personal

computers together.Machine A features four CPU cores, and a host of GPUs and coprocessors.

Machine B is more modest, with three CPU cores and a decent GPU. Machine C iseven more modest, with a dual-core CPU, but a woefully inadequateGPU. Machine D pushes a lot of its workload onto dedicated processors,but still sports a dedicated GPU.

So, what’s all this powerful hardware? A home-built gaming PC, anXbox 360, a Lenovo X200s notebook, and an iPhone 3GS.

The gaming rig and the notebook clearly t the classical denition ofa PC, but what about the iPhone and Xbox 360? I’m not sure. Let’s see ifwe can gure out what gives a device its essential PC-ness.

In the old days, it was safe to say that an Intel CPU and a Mi-crosoft OS made your computer a PC. But now other types of hard-ware and software are gaining ground on the WinTel duopoly. Whatmakes my machines PCs is that they’re platforms —constructs thatallow me to run software that does what I need, assuming it followsthe basic rules of the platform. Network connectivity is key, as well.Without a connection to the net, computers are much less valuable.For the most part, I use my four PCs to browse the web, communicatewith friends, play games, and work.

Does the Xbox 360 meet my essential PC-ness test? It’s definitely a platformthat I use to play games and watch video, and it’s connected to the Internet.However, it’s a locked system, so I can only run Microsoft-authorized softwareon it and connect Microsoft-authorized hardware to it. I can’t write a word pro-cessor for Xbox 360 because Microsoft wouldn’t let me run it. Clearly, the Xbox360 isn’t a personal computer.

The iPhone is a tougher question. It’s a closed platform, but there are mechanisms

that let me run apps from a nite, but very large pool. The device is net-connected24/7, and I nd myself using my iPhone for many of the tasks that I once exclusivelyused a PC for. This is a new class of device that we call the smartphone—but I’d behard pressed to describe a more personal computer than the one that I carry in mypocket with me everywhere.

Could you?

MAXIMUM PC EDITORIALEDITOR IN CHIEFWill SmithDEPUTY EDITORKatherine StevensonSENIOR EDITORGordon Mah UngONLINE EDITORNorman ChanASSOCIATE EDITORNathan EdwardsASSOCIATE ONLINE EDITORAlex CastleEDITOR AT LARGEMichael BrownEDITORIAL ASSISTANTFlorence IonCONTRIBUTING WRITERSLoyd Case, Jason Cross, Tom Halfhill,Paul Lilly, Thomas McDonald, Quinn Norton, Andy Salisbury,

Dan StapletonCOPY EDITORMary RicciPODCAST PRODUCERAndy BaumanEDITOR EMERITUSAndrew Sanchez

ARTART DIRECTORNatalie Jeday CONTRIBUTING ART DIRECTORBoni Uzilevsky PHOTO EDITORMark MadeoASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHERSamantha Berg

BUSINESSGROUP SALES DIRECTORGabe Rogol650-238-2409, [email protected] REGIONAL SALES DIRECTORDave Lynn949-360-4443, [email protected] SALES DIRECTORDavid White650-238-2502, [email protected] MANAGERAida Rodriguez708-562-0686, [email protected] SALES DIRECTOR Joe Pomparelli323-342-1888, [email protected] MARKETING MANAGERAndrea Recio-Ang

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PRODUCTIONPRODUCTION DIRECTORRichie Lesovoy PRODUCTION COORDINATORDan Mallory PRINT ORDER COORDINATOR Jennifer Lim

CONSUMER MARKETINGDIRECTOR CONSUMER MARKETINGRich McCarthy CIRCULATION DIRECTORCrystal HudsonNEWSSTAND DIRECTORBill Shewey CONSUMER MARKETING OPERATIONS DIRECTORLisa RadlerRENEWAL AND BILLING MANAGERMike HillBUSINESS MANAGERElliot KigerSR. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTOR Jennifer TrinkerCUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERMike Frassica

FUTURE US, INC4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080www.futureus-inc.com

VP/CFO John SuttonVP INTERNET DEVELOPMENTTyson Daugherty GENERAL COUNSELCharlotte FallaEDITORIAL DIRECTOR TECHNOLOGY & LIFESTYLE Jon PhillipsEDITORIAL DIRECTOR GAMES GROUPStephen PierceEDITORIAL DIRECTOR MUSICBrad TolinskiDIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCESNancy DuBois

Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc.Future produces carefully targetedspecial-interest magazines, websitesand events for people who share apassion. We aim to satisfy that pas-sion by creating titles offering valuefor money, reliable information, smartbuying advice and which are a plea-sure to read or visit. Today we publishmore than 150 magazines, 65 web-sites and a growing number of events

in the US, UK, France and Italy. Over 100 international editions of ourmagazines are also published in 30 other countries across the world.

Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange(symbol: FUTR).

FUTURE plc30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, Englandwww.futureplc.comTel +44 1225 442244

NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMANRoger Parry CHIEF EXECUTIVEStevie SpringGROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR John BowmanTel +44 1225 442244www.futureplc.com

REPRINTS For reprints, contact Marshall Boomer,Reprint Operations Specialist , 717.399.1900 ext. 123or email: [email protected]

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QUICKSTART THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

W hip out the typical Windows Mobilephone among a group of iPhone, Pre,and Android users, and you’re likely

to draw comments such as, “Damn G, you’rekickin’ it old-school!”

That’s the problem, according to IDC ana-

lyst Ramon Llamas.“[Windows Mobile] is seen as kind of a

utilitarian thing. It doesn’t make people droolwith envy,” said Llamas. Whereas people werehappy just to have email access and PDA func-tionality on their phones when Windows Mobilerst launched in 2003, today a phone is a stylestatement. And using Windows Mobile is a bitlike wearing bell-bottom jeans and tie-dye at aDevo concert.

Despite their janky looks, Llamas said,Windows Mobile phones continue to ship at arespectable pace. Worldwide, Symbian controlsthe smartphone OS market with 46 percent ofthe game, RIM’s BlackBerry has 20 percent, andApple’s iPhone has 12 percent. Windows Mobilecomes in next at 11 percent, with the rest of thepack, including Palm and Google’s Android,bringing up the rear at less than ve percent.

In the U.S., Windows Mobile has a far stron-ger presence. A recent comScore study showsWindows Mobile with a 21.6 percent install base, just ahead of the iPhone’s 21.4 percent. Black-Berry OS phones are the 900-pound gorilla with42.3 percent of market share.

Still, there’s no denying that WinMO is theleast sexy of the current phone OSes. That’s an

issue phone maker HTC hopes to counter withmany of its new WinMo handsets and its much-

lauded TouchFlo interface.“Windows Mobile is actually very power-

ful,” said HTC’s Keith Nowak, “we’ve just com-bined that power with our custom interface andmade it very usable.” Up until recently, the bulkof HTC’s phones have been Windows Mobile. But

a er rolling out Google’s G1 phone and followingthat with three subsequent Android handsets,some folks gured HTC was bailing on WinMo.Nowak said no way: “We’re excited withMicroso and whatever iterations (of WindowsMobile) come next.”

Less excited is mobile analyst JamesFaucette of Pacic Crest Securities, who doesn’tsee Windows Mobile really getting any betterin perception or market share anytime soon.That’s because while Windows Mobile has beena moderate success and ran on about 20 millionphones sold last year, it’s immaterial to Micro-so ’s bottom line.

“Windows Mobile makes no difference toMicroso . If it doesn’t make any difference toMicroso , it’s not going to receive any attentionand emphasis,” Faucette told us.

If Microso has to decide between throw-ing a genius engineer at Microso Windowsor Offi ce, which both generate billions in rev-enue, or at Window Mobile, which side do youthink is going to win? According to Faucette,even if Windows Mobile doubled in sales, itstill wouldn’t move the needle much on prot,so why would Microso care?

Faucette thinks that it’s that attitude over

the years that has led to a high turnover of se-nior management and lack of motivation in the

Windows Mobile division.For Microso to increase its prots on

phones, it would have to get into the hardwarebusiness. And if Microso does somehow createa wildly successful phone that smashes RIM,Apple, and Google, it’ll probably end up with a$200 million antitrust suit.

“Are they going to make improvements on(Windows Mobile)?” Faucette posed. “I’m surethey will. Are they likely to trail everybody else?

Yeah, probably. There’s nothing wrong with that.It’s a rational business decision.”

HTC’s Touch Pro 2 is among the new breed ofphones that will use Windows Mobile 6.5.

Sadly, the evolution ofMicrosoft’s phone OS hasmoved at a glacial pacesince Pocket PC hit thebeaches in 2000 (left).Little changed mov-ing to Windows Mobile2003 (middle) or evento Windows Mobile 6.1.Windows Mobile 6.5, duein 2010, will be nger-friendly and nally offera retuned interface.

Will the Rodney Dangereld of phone OSes make a run at the top orsettle for mediocrity? —GORDON MAH UNG

Still Alive




The Future ofSearchIn an interview withTechCrunch.com, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sharedan idea he and cofounderSergey Brin have talkedabout internally: directbrain implants.

Say what?Naturally, the two

aren’t completely seriousabout wiring Google’ssearch technology to yourbrain, but, according toSchmidt, Google is strivingto better understandsearch queries so it canspit out more relevantresults. For example,

rather than return a listof sites for a questionlike “What percentageof Americans havepassports?”, Google wouldread the appropriate site,summarize it, and answerthe question directly.

With Microsoftpositioning Bing as adecision engine, thesearch wars look to getvery interesting in thecoming years . – PL

IRS TracksDeadbeatsOnlineSocial networking siteslike Facebook, MySpace,and Twitter are provingto be useful tools forthe IRS.

Scouring throughposted informationsuch as relocationannouncements,professional proles,and news of nancialgains, agents with theIRS have been ableto collect all sorts of

bucks from would-be tax dodgers. OneNebraska agent wasable to collect $2,000from a disc jockeyafter he advertised onMySpace that he’d beworking at a big publicparty. Another agentcollected $30,000 ofunpaid taxes after aGoogle search led himdirectly to his target.

With so many

people now sharinginformation online, theweb has become a farmore efficient meansof investigation thanthe tactics previouslyused by agents,such as reading thelocal newspaper ormaking inquiries atlocal businessesor churches. – AS

DRAM Priceson the RiseIt’s only a matter timebefore you’ll no longer be

able to buy DRAM withthe loose change in yourpocket, according to newdata by DRAMeXchange.

As it currently stands,1Gb of DDR2 runs $1.53while 1Gb of DDR3costs $1.66. That doesn’tsound like much (and itisn’t), but those pricesrepresent increases of 8.5percent and 5.1 percent,respectively.

Meanwhile, contractprices for 2GB DDR2and 2GB DDR3 stickshave shot up to $27.50and $29.50, respectively,in just the rst half ofSeptember.

So, if you’ve beeneying a memoryupgrade, you may wantto bite the bullet ratherthan continue to playRussian Roulette withmarket prices. – PL

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering gamesfor 17 years. He is an editor at large for Games

Magazine.

Facebook is the answer to a question noone asked: “How can I waste more ofmy time?” Compared to social network

gaming, however, Facebook itself is as usefulan invention as the cell phone.

Actually, I do like Facebook. I’ve used itto reconnect with dozens of people I used toknow. Two of them are even people I like. Ayear after I rst joined Facebook for the solepurpose of sharing pictures of a new puppy,I nd myself updating my status, making

comments, and listing things like the “FiveTV Characters I Wish Were Real So We CouldHang.” (Dr. McCoy, Emma Peel, Hurley Reyes,Simon Templar, and Gomez Addams: anotheranswer to a question no one ever asked soberor outside of a college dorm.)

I used Facebook for a year before I caved inand tried any social gaming. It held no appealat all. I ignored the messages from friendsasking me to join their Maa, become part oftheir vampire clan, move in next door to theirrutabaga farm, or contribute to efforts to electRon Paul president. (Oh, you mean they were

serious about the Ron Paul thing?)Since I’m Jersey born and bred, Maa

Wars seemed like the right t. It’s actuallyan elegant little piece of work: a role-playinggame stripped down to pure stats and wrappedin a simple graphical interface. It has a bal-anced risk/reward system and a satisfyinginitial arc driven by leveling, establishing andexpanding an income stream, and accumulat-ing bits of stuff.

But it loses steam rather quickly. The level-ing cycle becomes rote, and the game reachesa point where risk vanishes, rendering the re-wards hollow. It’s also an oddly unsocial social

game, with minimal personal interaction.Yet it retains one important appeal: It ’sundemanding. You can perform all of yourduties for the day with a few clicks over themorning coffee, making it one of the mostcoldly efcient games I’ve ever seen. It’s likewe’re even outsourcing our gameplay. That’sreally not what I’m looking for.

And, no, I don’t want to join you maa, butthanks for asking.

GAME THEORY

Offer I Can Refuse

THOMAS MCDONALD




This may seem odd, but I’d like to recom-mend a movie this time. It’s called SitaSings the Blues . It’s an animated retelling

of the Hindu Ramayana interwoven with com-mentary about the story and the creator’s real lifetroubles, set to the 1920s-era songs of AnnetteHanshaw. I know, not what you were expecting,but trust me. It’s in turns hilarious, lush, sad,

and beautiful. It’s worth your time, and it’s free atSitasingstheblues.com. Go ahead. The rest of thecolumn will still be here when you’re done.

See, wasn’t that great?Most talk of whether copyright is restricting

free expression is theoretical, but for lm mak-ers like Sita ’s Nina Paley it’s a real and commonproblem. Paley read the Ramayana and discoveredHanshaw’s jazz singing around the same time thatshe lost her relationship, and got inspired. It’s of-ten a bit of music or a shot with something in thebackground that gets indie lmmakers in trouble,but Paley was particularly stuck.

It’s obvious when you see the lm thatHanshaw’s songs are vital. A different movie couldhave been made, but not Sita Sings the Blues . Han-shaw is older, but not public domain. Paley wentahead anyway, unsure how it would turn out. “If Ikill my own art out of fear of them, then I’ve reallylost,” she told QuestionCopyright.org. Turned outshe couldn’t afford the rights. It could cost up to$200,000 to ever show Sita commercially.

So, more than $80,000 into making Sita

with her own money, Paley Creative Com-mons licensed it and gave it away. As I write,the archive alone had 113,629 downloads, pluswho knows how many on the torrents and from

other sites. Paley also released the source filesfor Sita as well as posting it, and others havestarted to remix her scenes into new things,which she posts on her blog. She says her nextproject will be inspired by the copyright troublesin her life right now.

I know it’s selfish, but I’m glad Paley raninto trouble. We got a great movie, and the copy-right reformers got a great auteur on their side.

BYTE RIGHTS

Show BusinessBlues

QUINN NORTON

Western Digital has commenced volume shipments of its 2.5-inch WD ScorpioBlue 640GB hard drives for notebooks. The tiny drives pack 640GB into a singleunit by way of 320GB-per-platter technology, making them the highest-capacity2.5-inch hard drives in the industry-standard 9.5mm, two-platter formfactor yetavailable. MSRP is set at $150. – PL

STORAGE

WD Ships 640GB Notebook HDD

Amazon’s Kindle may be thecurrent king of the ebookreader hill, but its reign maysoon be coming to an end.The only question is: Whopresents the biggest threat toAmazon’s lucrative businessmodel? Some would say Sony,which recently announcedplans to embrace the openEPUB format for its ebookstore shortly afer unveilinga pair of low-cost ebookreaders, including the sub-

$200 Reader Pocket Edition.And then there’s Asus,

which turned the netbookhype into hysteria with itswildly popular Eee PC andwill look to replicate thatsuccess in the ebook market.According to Asus presidentJerry Shen, his company willmarket its upcoming digitalreader under the Eee brandand shoot for the $150 price

range.Combinedwith afull-colordisplay,theEeeBook,or Eee-whatever, could be thenext must-have device amongtrendy technophiles andpenny-pinchers alike.

Meanwhile, MSI, anothermajor player in the netbookmarket, is rumored to also be

mulling a digital reader of itsown, but the company isn’tsaying much. Time, Inc. alsosparked rumors of ebookplans when, in an internalpresentation titled “NewPlatforms & Business Modelsfor Publishers,” the mediaconglomerate revealed ithas been speaking withhardware, sofware, andcontent companies about

“various projects.”An interesting side note

to all of this is the impact

an ebook explosion mighthave on Mother Nature.According to a study bythe Cleantech Group, treehuggers have nothing toworry about; the carbonemissions from electronicbooks are signicantlylower than traditional bookpublishing, and that includesthe environmental impact ofproducing the hardware. – PL

The Ebook EconomyA deluge of digital readers are on the way

Sony’s distribution model,open EPUB format support,and new low-cost readerspose a threat to Amazon.

Quinn Norton writes about copyright for WiredNews and other publications. Her work hasranged from legal journalism to the inner life

of pirate organizations.



USB SlowdownI recently reformatted mycomputer after a failure withan old Seagate 7200.11 1TB.Lately, though, I have beennoticing problems with my

USB ports. Whenever I con-nect my iPhone 3G, it is veryhard for iTunes to recognizeit and the popup tells me thatthe iPhone isn’t plugged into a high-speed port, eventhough all my USB portsshould be 2.0. This has raisedeven bigger concerns aboutmy other devices connectedvia USB.

My motherboard is anAsus P5Q-E. The CPU isan Intel Q6600. My initialthought is that an upgrade tomy mobo’s BIOS or other util-ities might fix the problem,but I’m wary of undertakingsuch a feat without knowingfor sure what the problem is,because I’ve heard updatingthe BIOS can be dangerous.If a BIOS update is necessary,what sorts of precautionsshould I take?

—Taylor Sabbag

The Doctor suspects the solu-tion may be much simplerthan you think. You’re prob-ably plugging your iPhoneinto your PC’s front-panel USBconnectors, as most of us do.Front-panel connectors tendto be flakier than your moth-erboard’s onboard USB ports,

because they’re connectedby cables rather than directlyattached and many low-costvendors use similarly low-cost cables. Our guess is thatwhen you replaced your hard

drive, you dislodged the front-panel USB connector from themotherboard. Power downand unplug your computer,then reseat the front-panelUSB connectors on the moth-erboard. If it is a problemwith the rear ports, the issuecould be OS support (you arerunning at least Windows XPwith SP1, right? SP1 addedUSB 2.0 support.) Besidesmaking sure that you haveat least SP1 installed (SP3 isrecommended), you shouldalso download and install thelatest chipset drivers fromeither Asus.com or directlyfrom Intel.com for the P45chipset, which is used in thatmotherboard.

Finally, while the Doctorunderstands your fear ofBIOS updates, it’s quite pain-less and generally quitereliable these days. A BIOSupdate is unlikely to fix your

problem, though.

Mismatched MonitorsI’ve got two monitors:a slightly older 24-inchSamsung SyncMaster 2443BWX and a brand-new22-inch Samsung SyncMaster2233 RZ. I am attempting

a dual-monitor setup forIllustrator/Photoshop pur-poses (as well as animationand other forms of graphicdesign) on a Radeon HD4850 X2 with Catalyst 9.8

drivers. Out of the boxthe color representationcouldn’t be worse. The newmonitor is extremely blueand the old one looks better,but is still a tad red. NothingI do can get these monitorsto look even remotely close.I’ve fussed with the built-incontrols on both for a goodhour, and nothing. I evenused the calibration tool inWindows 7 and still can’tget these monitors lookinggood. I’m sure that sincethey are different monitors,I can’t get them “perfect,”but they should at leasthave accurate enough col-ors for printing purposes.

—Joe

We wish we could suggest aneasy DIY method for gettingaccurate color from your twomonitors, but we’ve had thebest success using Pantone’s

HueyPro color calibrator($130, www.pantone.com ).The nice thing about the Proversion is that it works formulti-monitor setups. Youstick the USB calibrator toeach screen and it measuresthe color temperatures andmakes adjustments accord-

ingly. Once adjusted, you canchoose from a few differentwhite-point profiles, whichshould help you find a good

middle-ground between yourwarm and cool screens. If youdon’t want to shell out for ahardware calibrator, see thefree alternatives we suggeston page 53.

Turn the ScrewsI have a Thermaltake DuOrbCPU cooler and when Iinstalled it, I tightened thescrews until I felt some ten-sion, but I’m not sure that wasthe right thing to do. I have a

Q6600 CPU and the temp was

This month the Doctor tackles...

Old Tech: BTX & AGP es z ng Partitions

Mismatched Monitors

IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIME DOCTOR

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IMUM P | 1

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First,grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display hasfizzled, email the doctor at [email protected] for advice on how to solveyour technological woes.

A color calibrator like thePantone HueyPro will helpmatch your monitors’ colortemperatures, even if they’refrom different manufacturers.



GOOGLE GAVE ME THE BASICS ON TRIM, BUT HOW

IMPORTANT IS IT, REALLY?

34-36 C at 2.4GHz (stock). I over-clocked my CPU to 2.8GHz andthe temp went up to 38-42 C (idle).If I overclock to 3.0GHz the CPUgets too hot—55-65 C idle. Is there

a proper way to tighten a CPUcooler for optimal performance?—Sam Torres

A properly mounted CPU coolercan mean the difference betweena cool, fast machine and an over-heating, crashing mess. CPU coolersrequire as much contact with theCPU as possible for maximum heattransference. That’s why you shouldalways use thermal grease (or paste)between the CPU and cooler—it fillsin the little bumps and valleys on the

surface of the CPU and heatsink toensure maximum heat transference.

You should follow the instruc-tions in the DuOrb’s installationmanual, tightening the screwsas much as the manufacturerrecommends to ensure a snug fit.We always tighten screws usinga crisscrossing pattern, similar to

how you tighten the lug nuts on acar’s wheel. Start with one corner,then tighten the opposite cornera bit. Then tighten the other twocorners a bit, and then go back to

the first corner and repeat the pat-tern again.Your high temps—which aren’t

actually that high for an over-clocked Q6600—could be relatedto poor contact between the CPUand heatsink (not tight enoughor just off kilter), an improperamount of thermal paste (toomuch or too little), or too muchcore voltage for your overclock.And remember, not every CPUoverclocks perfectly; it’s possibleyou have a Q6600 that just doesn’t

like to clock up without the heat.

64-Bit Partiti n Resizer?I just got a new computer(64-bit Vista) with a 1TB harddrive. It has only one partition,the factory image. Is thereany way to add another parti-tion to this drive without

installing Windows again?—Kevin

Though there are plenty of freepartition managers for 32-bit

versions of Windows (we preferEaseus Partition Master), 64-bitowners have fewer third-partyoptions. Fortunately, Kevin,you’ve got a built-in tool in Vista

that will do the trick nicely.First, defragment your drive

to maximize the amount you’llbe able to shrink it. Then, go toyour Start menu and type DiskManagement into the search box(alternately, you can get there viaControl Panel > AdministrativeTools > Computer Management >Disk Management). Click Storage,then find your drive in the list.Right-click your 1TB partitionand select Shrink Partition. DiskManagement will calculate howmuch your disk can be shrunk,and then you can choose howsmall you want to make it. It’s agood idea to leave some extraspace on the C: drive, though.Once Windows has shrunk thepartition, right-click the emptyspace in the drive (in the DiskManagement window) and clickCreate Partition. Presto!

The Missing KeysI bought two laptops for my twogranddaughters about a year anda half ago. Now both have missing

keys. Is there a way to purchasereplacement keys, or do I needto buy a whole new keyboard?These two laptops are bothCompaqs sold by HP. If I give HPthe model number can I get a kitwith all the key caps and a proce-dure for installation?

—Bill Calkins

Key replacement will vary basedon the keyboard type used inthe notebook. Some keys can bereplaced by pressing replacements

into the socket; others, however,

once broken, cannot be easilyrepaired. In that case, the best wayto repair them is to buy a new key-board. The HP Parts Store ( http://bit.ly/2bQhQv ) carries replace-

ment keyboards for $30–$60.Obviously, prices vary greatly, buta new keyboard for a notebook oneBay can fetch from $20 to $100 ormore depending on the model and

make. Switching the keyboard isusually a pretty painless affair, so

long as you can locate the servicemanual for your notebook. You canfind Compaq service manuals atHP’s Customer Care site.

SSDs with TRIM Supp rtI’m looking to get a new SSDfor my laptop when Windows7 comes out, and I just read areview on Newegg warningabout a drive not supportingWin7’s TRIM feature. A Googlesearch gave me the basics onTRIM, but how important is it,really? I’m having trouble find-ing which drives support it andam wondering if I should waitbefore pulling the trigger.

I use my laptop for homeand work, so I’d really like to doa clean install on a new drive(for restoration purposes when Ireally screw something up) andit seems like a perfect time tomake the switch. I’m also mov-ing from 32-bit Vista to 64-bitWindows 7, so—as I understand

it—I need to wipe regardless.—Steve Wale

Think of TRIM as a garbage col-lector for your SSD. Normally,when you delete data on a disk,whether SSD or standard mag-netic hard drive, the data isn’timmediately scrubbed. Instead,it’s marked as overwriteable, sowhen the disk runs out of f reshblocks to write to, it goes back andwrites over deleted files. But giventhe way SSDs store data, this can

decrease your drive’s perfor-

DocToR improving your pc experience one step at a time


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mance once there are no more freshblocks to write to. To write data to ablock, an SSD first has to copy theentire block to cache, wipe it, deletethe overwriteable sectors in cache,

write in the new data (in cache),and rewrite the entire block to thedisk. This can lead to slowdowns.Essentially, TRIM scrubs blocksof deleted data when it’s deleted,and makes sure the disk controllerknows they’re blank, speeding upthe whole process and making sureyour drive’s performance doesn’tdegrade over time.

At press time, only a few SSDshave TRIM support (including theOCZ Vertex and Patriot Torqx)but several ship with wiper.exe,

a TRIM-like command that helpsrestore performance. We expectmore SSD vendors to release TRIMin firmware upgrades as Windows7 gets closer to release.

AGP Aperture SizeI am currently running a semi-old computer: a 3GHz Pentium4 on an Asus P4C800-E with anAGP expansion slot. It has 4GB ofPC3200 DDR, a 500GB hard drive,and a BFG GeForce 7800 GC 265MBvideocard on the AGP slot.

I’m getting ready to upgrade toa newer AGP card: the HIS Radeon4670 1GB, to be exact. What sizeshould I set my AGP aperture to? Iknow the basic concept behind thetech—the aperture sets the maxi-mum size of system memory thatcan be used for an additional framebuffer by the videocard. So if I’mmoving to a card with more GDDR,should I set the aperture smalleror larger?

—Bill Walker

Bill, in the Olden Days, AGP aper-ture let you use system resourcesfor video memory if you were run-ning out of videocard RAM, andthe common advice was to set youraperture size to half your availablesystem memory.

Newer videocards, however,have much more memory thanearlier models. With 1GB of GDDRon your new card, you should befine with an aperture of 64MBto 128MB. You might want to try

running 3DMark with varying

aperture sizes to see where yoursystem performs best. It could be aslow as 16MB; it probably won’t behigher than 64MB.

We should mention, however,

that most of our editors adviseagainst spending any more moneyon an AGP system. We’d suggestsaving the $130 or so that thatcard will run you and putting ittoward a new machine; $600 willbuild a significantly faster rig.

BTX Hair DryerI built a home theater PC fromscratch a while back. It has anIntel D945GCZLR motherboardwith a Pentium D 925, a pas-sively cooled GeForce 6600, and

an Avermedia PCI-e Combo TVTuner, all inside an EvercaseECE1341 case. I went with thebest BTX CPU cooler I could find:the Thermaltake CL-P0191. Thisthing sounds like a lawn mower.

Even with plenty of airflowinto the case and plenty ofroom in every direction on myentertainment system, the cooleris far louder than the 14-28dBAits marketing materials claim.I have already replaced thecooler’s fan once, but the new onewas just as loud.

What can I do to quiet thisthing down? Would upgradingto a cooler Core 2 Duo or Quadmake a difference? What aboutupgrading to an actively cooledGPU? Even stock ATX coolers arecooler than this thing—can I justuse one of those?

—Frank Durocher

Frank, your motherboard doesn’tsupport Core 2 CPUs, and you

can’t just mount an ATX CPUcooler on there, either. Oh, andnobody makes BTX CPU coolersanymore, though you can stillfind old ones online.

The Doctor thinks your bestbet is to replace the 9.2cm fan onyour Thermaltake CL-P0191 with aquieter one. Noctua makes a quiet9.2cm fan that should do well, butbeware: It puts out about 30CFM,roughly half what the stock fanputs out. If your current fan rarelygoes above half-speed, you might

be OK, but those old Pentium Ds put

out a ton of heat, so you should testthe new fan thoroughly to makesure it can handle your processor.

Upgrading your graphics cardto one with a fan might help coolyour case, but there’s a reason theyhave fans: They heat up. We’re notconvinced that the added airflowwould compensate for the greater

The Disk Management tool in Windows 7 and Vista lets you resize andadd partitions.

heat output.Ultimately, you’ll probably

want to move away from BTX. Alow-power Core 2 or Phenom ina mini-ITX or micro-ATX boardwith a PCI-e slot will run coolerand quieter, and with a smallerfootprint. And unlike BTX, bothspecs are in wide use.



That stock Windows install may be OK for your mom,

but is it good enough for you? Never! You deserve

a Windows that soars above the clouds, swift andstrong. That’s why we collected our team of Windows

experts and spent countless hours mucking around

in the registry, downloading little-known tools, and

searching for new keyboard shortcuts to bring you

this, our nest Windows tips guide of all time.

Dig it: First, we show you the right way to install

Windows 7 and tell you exactly what you should do

the moment your install completes. Then, on page 26,

you’ll nd the denitive list of kick-ass, Maximum PC –

approved tips and tweaks for Windows, whether you

run XP, Vista, or Windows 7. While some are specicto Microsoft’s latest OS (you’ve upgraded, right?),

many will work on XP and Vista, as well. Finally, we

wrap up on page 33 with a list of ve applications we

think should be installed on every single Windows

machine—heck, we think Microsoft should just

integrate these handy tools in the OS!

So sit back, relax, and get ready to make

Windows better.

MakeWindows

SoarImprove your OS with theseoutstanding tips, tricks, andhacks that turbocharge XP,Vista, and even Windows 7

BY THE MAXIMUM PC STAFF



PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO



Windows 7 Install GuideHow to get Microsoft’s new OS up and running on your rig

24 | MA IM | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

Before beginning a new OS installation, it’s crucial thatyou back up your documents and media—a er all, werecommend a clean install to minimize cru and maximizeperformance. The safest, easiest way to do this is to buy anew hard disk and replace your old one. With speedy 1TBdrives around $100, it’s never a bad time to upgrade yourstorage, and using a clean drive to install your OS means all

your les are already backed up; just connect your old harddrive when you’re done and transfer over what you need.If you’ve updated recently, or don’t want to spend the cash,you’ll want to make sure to back up the les you need toa different partition or physical drive. The most importantplace to look for les is in your user prole directory, whichcontains your Documents, Desktop, Pictures, and Applica-tion Data folders. We generally recommend backing up theentire C:/Users/<your user name> path. Remember to grabany needed program data or game saves from your ProgramFiles folder, and also make sure to grab any other importantdirectories you’ve created on the disk that are outside thesestandard paths, such as C:/Download.

Microso has made installing Windows 7 simpler than withany previous version of Windows. You just drop the DVD inthe tray, and restart your system. At some point during theboot, you’ll be given the option to “Press any key to boot fromCD/DVD,” or something along those lines—do so. (If you don’tget this option, go into the BIOS and move the DVD driveahead of the hard drive in the boot order). Windows will loadles from the disk for a moment, then the installer will launch.

Select your language preferences, then click Install Now.Accept the Windows license agreement and choose to do aCustom install. Now, select the system partition you want toinstall to. (If you’re installing onto a new drive, you may needto create a partition by pressing the New button). If you’reinstalling over an old partition, it’s a good idea to format it toremove the remnants of the old OS before you install Win7.WARNING: Formatting removes all data from a drive, so makesure you’ve backed up everything. This is the point of noreturn. That’s all Windows 7 needs to know, so go makeyourself a sandwich while your new OS is installed.

Once the install is complete, you’ll be asked for a user nameand computer name. We generally recommend using a morecreative name than “PC” or “Laptop” for your computer name,to make networking easier. You’ll be given the option to createa password for your account, but you can skip this if youwant to. You’ll then be asked for your activation key, althoughyou can skip this step as well—Windows 7 will run for 30days without a key or activation. Next, you’ll be prompted

to choose Windows update settings; we recommend “Userecommended settings.” Set the clock and choose your timezone, and you’re ready to start using your new system.

Back Up Your PC

Start the Installer Finish the Install2 3

TWEAK GUIDE



Post-Install GuideIt’s time to get your new OS in order

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IMU M P | 2

Windows Update does a pretty good jobof automatically downloading and in-stalling the drivers your system needs,but that doesn’t mean you’ll never needto manually download a driver again.We recommend that you start (as al-ways) by installing your motherboard’s

chipset/NIC drivers. It’s also worth it tomanually install the latest drivers foryour videocard. Even though Windowsupdate will most likely nd driversfor your GPU, it probably won’t be themost up-to-date version available. UseWindows 7 drivers whenever they’reavailable, but if they aren’t, we’vehad good luck using Vista drivers onWindows 7.

In Vista, one of the rst things you had to dowith any install was disable UAC to preventthose incessant “Do you really want to installthis?” prompts. Fortunately, Microso hastweaked the default UAC setting in Windows 7.Now, it strikes an excellent balance of keepingyou safe with minimal annoyance, popping upalerts only when programs attempt to install

so ware or alter your settings. If you want ahigher level of security, you can open the UACmanager (in the control panel under Security)and raise the UAC to the maximum level, whichis similar to Vista mode and will trigger an alertfor pretty much anything. Alternately, you candisable notications entirely by setting UAC toits lowest setting.

If you took our advice and startedwith a fresh hard drive, all you’llhave to do to restore your olddata is connect your old HDD to a

secondary SATA port and transferover all your old les. Copy overall the important data we men-tioned earlier, but be sure not tosimply copy your old user proledirectory over to your new one.Instead, sh out all the documentsand media you need, remember-ing to collect important les fromthe hidden AppData folder, whichusually includes your browserproles and Outlook data.

Install Drivers

Congure User Account Control Settings

RestoreYour Data

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TWEAKGUIDE

On with the Windows TipsDon’t have Windows 7? Never fear, we’ve got a boatload of tips for XP and Vistausers. Psst, most work in Win7, too!


This tip is a l ittle bit of a cheat, since it’s notsomething totally new to Windows 7, butactually a feature that existed in WindowsXP, was removed in Vista, then reintro-

duced in Microso ’s latest OS. To run aprogram as a different user, with access tothat user’s settings and documents, holdshi and right-click an executable, thenchoose Run as Different User.

PDF previews have been a perennial hassle to get working properlyin 64-bit Windows, but luckily, it’s easy to x that. Open Regeditand go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{DC6EFB56-9CFA-464D-8880-44885D7DC193},where you should see an existing AppID value. Change that to{534A1E02-D58F-44f0-B58B-36CBED287C7C} and reboot. ThenWindows (and Outlook) will properly display PDF previews.

‘Run As’ a Different User

Make 64-bit Windows Handle PDF Previews Properly

On the subject of proper preview-handling,les associated with Photoshop typicallydon’t show up in 64-bit Windows. We’realking about PSDs, TIFFs, and TGAs, for the

most part, but there are some other, evenmore esoteric formats that are omitted bydefault. Luckily, there’s a little utility calledMysticThumbs (donateware, http://bit.y/3EtfPk ) that xes the problem. Install it,

reboot, and bask in the glory of the thumb-nail preview revolution.

In Windows XP andlater, some operations—such as those thatchange core system or

user account settings—can only be performedby the Administrator ac-count. However, it’s badform to run using theAdministrator accountall the time. You can usethe Run as Administra-tor function to get the privileges you need, whenyou need them, without constantly switching useraccounts. In Windows XP, right-click a programand choose Run As. In Vista or 7 just right-click anexecutable and choose Run as Administrator.

The low-rent versions of Vista don’t allowyou to go back in time for older versions ofles the way Ultimate does. Fortunately,although Microsoft disabled your access tothe shadow copy feature, it didn’t actuallyremove it. The OS is always secretly mak-ing backups, you just can’t access them.To get around this, use the free ShadowExplorer from Shadowexplorer.com toreach back in time for that tax return fromtwo months ago.

Make 64-bit WindowsShow PhotoshopPreviews

Run Programs as anAdministrator

Use Shadow Explorerto Save Your Bacon

Searching network shares is easy, if you have ac-cess to the machine that’s hosting those shares.Installing Windows Desktop Search 4.0 on aWindows machine that supports it will make anyshares hosted on that machine searchable by theuser. That applies to XP, Vista, and Home Server.If you want to search non-Windows networkshares, you’ll need to install a third-party tool,such as Copernic Desktop Search Professional($50, www.copernic.com ).

SEARCH NETWORK SHARES

TWEAK GUIDE



TWEAK GUIDE

One of the handiest tools for keeping your computerbooting and running smoothly is the System Congu-ration client. With it, you can view and edit the list ofprograms and services that start with your computer(including the hidden ones), as well as access a list of

useful tools for administering your system. You cannd it three layers deep in the control panel, or youcan open the Run dialogue and type mscong.

Use mscong toSee What’s Runningon Your PC


Got another amazingWindows tip? Send

it to [email protected] andwe’ll print the best

ones in an upcomingissue of Maximum PC !

To avoid cluttering up your Desktop withshortcut icons, you can assign unique keyboardshortcuts to any application (or even docu-ment). First, you’ll need to create a normalshortcut to your target program if one doesn’texist already. Right-click the executable andclick Create Shortcut. Next, right-click the new

shortcut le and select Properties. Type yourdesired keyboard shortcut in the Shortcut keyeld. The keyboard shortcut has to either beprefaced with “Ctrl+Alt” or you can assign it toa key on the numpad. This shortcut will workon your Desktop, while you’re in WindowsExplorer, and even if you’re in other programs.

The days of typing long folderaddresses in Command Promptare over, at least if you runVista or Windows 7. Rather thanopening a command promptand typing cd Desktop\CatPictures\Cats on a Skateboard\

Two Cats One Skateboard\, justShif+right-click to add “opencommand line here” to yourright-click context menu.

Open aCommand

Line in Any Folder

Create a Custom Keyboard Shortcut to Launch Any Program

Symbolic links allow you create a sort of “super shortcut”—a folder that existsin two places in the le system at once. Why is this useful? Because it means thele system is nally totally under your control. A game doesn’t let you choosewhere you store save les? Replace the default directory with a symbolic link towhatever location youwant. Learn how toset up symbolic links,and how to use themwith Dropbox to takeall your apps onlineat MaximumPC.com(http://bit.ly/173G06 ).

MASTER YOUR FILE SYSTEM WITH SYMBOLIC LINKS

MAKE WINDOWS KEEP CUSTOMFOLDER VIEW SETTINGS

Windows will often assume certain folders contain

photos or music—even if they don’t—and change yourfolder view options. You can overwrite Windows’ viewpreferences by setting a custom default view. Open anyfolder containing les, access the Properties menu,and head to the Customize tab. Under folder templates,select Documents to change back to the default view.Next, right-click within the folder again and change theView option to Details. You can add, remove, or changethe order of the Details categories shown by right-clicking the category labels and choosing the More…option. Once you have a Details setting to your liking,make this the standard view for all folders by going tothe Folder Options menu under Tools, the View tab,and then clicking Apply to All Folders.

While some editions of Windows 7 comepreinstalled with Divx and H.264 video co-decs, Vista and XP users who use WindowsMedia Player are stuck with limited play-back support. To play more than just WMV-encoded les, download FFDShow Tryouts(http://bit.ly/1xKDV P), an all-inclusiveDirectShow lter that plays an expansiverange of video and audio codecs, alongwith robust conguration options.

■ SuperchargeWindows Media Playerwith FFDShow Tryouts



Windows 7 Secrets Unveiled!As good as it is, Windows 7 can be made even better with these nifty tricks

We love having the option to activate core UI tasks using mouse gestures in Firefox, and nowWindow 7 adds a handful of gestures for window management. Grab a window and drag it to thetop of the screen to maximize it, drag it to either side to make it ll half the screen, or shake thewindow to minimize everything else. Finally, you can access an application’s Jump List by clickingon its Taskbar icon and dragging up. That’s just dandy!

Three Reasons Why Mouse Gestures Are Your Friend

With the new Windows 7 Taskbarcomes a whole host of new key-board shortcuts. You’ve probablyheard of the Windows key + 1 –0shortcuts, which launch the appson your taskbar (if they’re closed)or bring them to focus (if they’rerunning), but there are some other kick-ass hotkeys as well. Win+T cycles through allthe Taskbar apps. Win+Shi +right arrow and Win+Shi +le arrow let you move thecurrently focused window from monitor to monitor. Finally, Win+Space gives you a

quick look at the Desktop.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Launch AppsJump lists are another new Windows 7 feature.You can use them to keep shortcuts to commonlyused les—not apps—easily accessible, oneclick away from the shortcut you use to launchthe app. To add a le to a Jump List, all youneed to do is drag it onto the appropriate app’sTaskbar icon. To access the Jump Lists you canright-click any Taskbar shortcut, once you (orthe app) have added items.

HARNESS THE POWEROF THE JUMP LIST

HomeGroups make it really easyto share les and printers betweenyour computers, but unfortunatelyyou can only connect to a Home-

Group if you’re using Windows7. Set up your HomeGroup in thenetworking control panel, thenyour music, photos, video, anddocuments will all be shared withother machines in the HomeGroup.If you want to share individual lesyou can by right-clicking them, andchoosing the appropriate optionfrom the Share With menu.

We’ve already talked about pinning frequentlyused les to the Taskbar, but what if you wantto open a le in a particular application bydrag-and-dropping it in on the Taskbar iconOS X–style? All you need to do is hold down

Shi when you drop the le on the Taskbar icon.You can even open les with applications thataren’t associated with that particular le typeusing this trick!

Libraries are virtualfolders that let youcollect similar les inone handy location.Windows 7 shipswith several defaultLibraries for music,

photos, and docu-ments, but you cansupercharge themby adding additionalles and directories.For example, we add commonly usednetwork shares to the documents Library.The machine hosting the share will need tohave Windows Desktop Search 4.0 or higherrunning on it, or you’ll need to right-clickon the folder you want to add and selectAlways Available Ofine.

SuperchargeYour PC withHomeGroups

Launch Apps By DraggingFiles to the Taskbar

Using Libraries

TWEAK GUIDE



EASILY CHECK YOUR PC FORWINDOWS XP MODE SUPPORT

Don’t know if your PC has what it takes to support

Win7’s Windows XP mode? Besides needing Win7 Pro,Ultimate, or Enterprise, you’ll also need a CPU withhardware virtualization support. To query your system,download Steve Gibson’s free utility Securable athttp://bit.ly/3cS9M . Once you’ve downloaded it, re itup and it will tell you ifyour CPU supports 64-bit or not, if hardwareDEP is supported, andif hardware virtualiza-tion is in the proc.

| DEC 09 | MA IMU M P | 3

New to Windows 7 is Search Federation, whichallows Windows 7 to add remote sources ofdocuments (such as Flickr or YouTube) to Windows’native search interface. Simply nd an .odsx “con-nector” le for a service you want to search (Google“Windows 7 Flickr search connector,” for instance),download and run it. The search will be added toyour User > Searches directory.

Add Websitesto Native WindowsSearch

Windows 7 adds functionality to powercfg.exe to help you better analyzepower consumption issues on your PC. To create a report, spawn a command-line box with administrator privileges. To do this, press the Windowskey, and type cmd in the search box. Right-click on cmd and select Runas Administrator. Now select the box and type powercfg -energy .Powercfg will run for about 60 seconds, then generate a report calledenergy-report.html in C:\Windows\system32. This report will notify youof anything in your computer that is keeping the CPU turning, which in

turn means burning more power and sucking down more battery life.For example, if you want to save power, don’t run Sidebar gadgets. Fromthe runs we’ve tested, most of the problems are due to USB devices thatdon’t properly shut-off to save power. While you might think the powerconsumption of a USB doohickey is pretty insignicant, if it prevents theCPU or south bridge from switching off, a trickle of power can add up to asignicant hit where it hurts—your battery life. The energy report won’tx the problem, but it’s a great tool to help you get started.

With Windows 7, Microsonally introduces native supportfor burning disc images. Justright-click an ISO le and selectBurn Disc Image to bring up theWindows Disc Image Burner.It’s pretty bare-bones, but howmuch chrome do you really

need here?

Make ISOBurning Simpleand Fast

Order Win7 to Generate an Energy Report

Got virtual machines? Now you can mountyour virtual hard drive (.vhd le) and ac-cess it via Explorer just like you would anyother drive, so you can pull data from it, oreven transfer it easily between computers.Create, attach, and format VHDs from DiskManagement. Just go to Disk Management,click a disk, and go to the Action menu,where you can create a new VHD or mount

one from hard drive.

MOUNT VIRTUAL HARDDRIVES WITH EASE

With Windows 7, a couple of theold staples like Paint, Notepad, andCalculator have gotten a graphicalfaceli . With the calculator, though,the improvements go beyond skindeep. In addition to the standardarithmetic calculator, Windows7 brings Statistics, Scientic, andProgrammer modes to the calcula-tor, along with specialized functionsfor calculating fuel economy, leases,and even your mortgage. Does the calculator still look like it always did to you?Check out the View menu—that’s where all the goodies are hidden.

■ Access the True Power of theWindows 7 Calculator



Windows 7 supports creating wallpaper slide showsvia RSS, but it’s hardly simple. Go to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes and make a copy of one of thethemes (we picked aero.theme) to your Desktop. Openit in Notepad and add the following code to the le:

[slideshow]

Interval=1800000

Shuffle=1

RssFeed= (your RSS feed goes here)

Then save it, and double-click to install your theme.Only RSS feeds that include images as enclosureitems will work.

Create a WallpaperSlide Show from RSS

By default, launching Windows Explorer (theshortcut for which is Win+E) takes you tothe Libraries directory, but you may be morecomfortable with My Computer as the startingnode, especially if you want to browse mul-tiple hard drives or network drives. To changethe launch folder, access Windows Explorer

by typing explorer in the Start Menu searcheld, right-clicking the rst result, and select-ing Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, changethe Target eld to %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

If you prefer Vista’s Taskbar to Windows 7’s, you can bring it back. Right-click the Taskbar and select Properties. Check the “Use small icons” boxand select the “Combine when taskbar is full” option under the TaskbarButtons drop menu. Launched programs will now display their full namesin the Taskbar, and multiple instances of a program won’t group into oneicon until the Taskbar is full. You can also bring back the Quick Launchtoolbar by adding a new toolbar with the following string: %userprole%\AppData\Roaming\Microso \Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Bring Back theVista-Style Taskbar

Whether you’re using a wall projectoror small LCD, we recommend running

the Display Color Calibration tool to

optimize Windows 7’s color rendering.

Launch the app by typing dccw in the

Start Menu. The wizard will run you

through a series of steps where you can

adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast,

and color of the screen to make images

look their best.

CALIBRATE YOUR SCREEN WITH DISPLAY COLOR WIZARDEasily Switch BetweenDisplays with Win+P

Connecting your laptop to a projector or external moni-tor has never been easier. Just hook up the device to

your computer, and hit Win+P. This brings up a display

menu: You can choose to show your desktop on either

the computer or the projector, duplicate your desktop

on both, or extend it to th e external monitor. It’s

perfect for playing movies or giving that all-important

PowerPoint at work.

The search prompt in the Start Menu normally nds les only on your computer, but youcan enable it to launch your default browser to search the Internet. Open the Group PolicyEditor by running gpedit.msc in the Start Menu. Go to User Conguration/AdministrativeTemplates/Start Menu and Taskbar. Right-click the “Add Search Internet link to StartMenu” setting and set it to Enable. Unfortunately, this works only on versions of Windowsthat include the Group Policy Editor, so Home Premium users are out of luck.

■ Search the Internet from the Start Menu

Change Windows Explorer’s Default Launch Folder

TWEAK GUIDE



Five Free Utilities that Should be Includedin WindowsC’mon, Microsoft, save us some time and just fold these must-haves into the OS

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IMU M P | 3

WINDIRSTATWinDirStat ( http://windirstat.info ) creates a graphical representationof the les on your hard drive. Bigger blocks represent larger les,and the different colors equate to different le types. What does thismean? WinDirStat is essential for guring out why your hard drive isfull. Clicking a block takes you to its location in the le tree, allowingfor easy cleanup. Intuitive navigation and easy “open in Explorer”options make this a must-have.

TRUECRYPTWindows Ultimate and Enterprise editions have BitLocker for encryptingvolumes, but what about other editions of the OS? TrueCrypt ( www.truecrypt.org ) can hide a virtual partition inside a le, encrypt entire disks (even bootdisks), and even create a hidden volume within another TrueCrypt volume.Real-time encryption works entirely in RAM without slowing down yoursystem. Plus, it’s portable and uses AES-256 (and stronger) encryption. Whypay for something that does less when you can get TrueCrypt for free?

DROPBOXWhat if you could drag any le to a folder on your computer, and amagical app immediately syncs that le to every machine you own?What if that magical app also made up to ve older versions of thoseles available via a web interface? Dropbox ( www.getdropbox.com ) does both of those things, and it has the added bonus of beingcross-platform and free for up to 2GB of storage, with more storageavailable for fees between $8/month and $20/month.

7-ZIPWindows’ Compressed Folders Extraction Wizard is so last century.Instead, we wish Microso would package something as useful as7-Zip (www.7-zip.org ), which can unpack practically any compressionformat, from TGZ to RAR. It even opens image les, including ISO and

UDF. It also creates encrypted and self-extracting ZIP archives, andincludes a command-line version for scripting wizards.

SECUNIA PSIHackers and malware writers routinely discover new security awsin so ware. Most companies are quick to update their programs toclose the loop, but users aren’t always quick to install these updates.The Concker worm spread through a Java exploit that had beenpatched long before, but millions of users with out-of-date so warewere affected. Secunia ( http://secunia.com ) shows your unpatched andexploitable programs so you can get them up to date. If Microso caresabout security, it should include the same functionality in Windows.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO

Speed,

36 | MA IMU P | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

Killerperformanceyou can actuallyafford

Radeonthy name is

BY LOYD CASE


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/22-incredible-applications-and-games-to-install 24/70www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IM |

AMD’s graphics division loves a good surprise. The company hasbeen a perennial also-ran in the graphics performance arena, butevery now and then, it one-ups the competition in a big way. Thathappened back in 2002 with the launch of the original Radeon9700, which stole the performance lead from archrival Nvidia. Ithappened again last year with the Radeon HD 4800 series. The

4850, 4870, and 4890 weren’t always faster than the competition,but they were small, efcient chips that forced Nvidia into a pricewar that was good for users but bad for Nvidia’s bottom line.

Now AMD’s doing it again, putting serious hurt on thecompetition with the rst GPU to support Microsoft’s upcomingDirectX 11 API. AMD’s also been paying close attention to theemerging market for non-gaming apps accelerated by GPUs,

such as video transcoding and digital photography, fully sup-porting DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL standards for general-purpose computing on graphics cards.

This new chip is no shrinking violet in the numbersdepartment. The new 5870’s spec sheet is staggering: 2.15 bil-lion transistors, 2.7 trillion oating-point operations a second,

more than 20 gigapixels-per-second throughput, and 1,600shader units. Other numbers impress because of their small-ness. One example: The idle power is a scant 27W—lower thanmany entry-level GPUs.

Given the sheer scale and ambition of this GPU, does itdeliver in the performance realm? And will it deliver at a pricenormal humans can afford? Let’s nd out.



Two years ago, AMD’s ATI divisiondecided to bow out of the game of build-ing huge, hot chips that were expensiveto make, ceding the high-end glory toNvidia’s GT200 chip. That’s not to sayAMD gave up on performance; it insteadadopted the goal of building the best per-formance GPU within a certain cost andpower envelope. The Radeon HD 5800 se-ries, originally code-named RV870, is thefruit of that approach. Taking advantageof Moore’s Law, ATI’s designers were able

to build a GPU with few compromisesusing a 40nm manufacturing process.

POWER AND PERFORMANCEThe new GPU is just 334mm 2—30 percentlarger than the earlier 4870 GPU, but packingmore than twice the number of transistors.

At 27W, the idle power is astonishinglylow for such a large chip. The key factorwas enabling lower memory clocks andvoltages during idle, a feat made possiblebecause of signicant improvements inthe 40nm manufacturing process. The netresult is very low power when the board is just rendering your Windows desktop. Atthe same time, the VRM (voltage regula-tor module) interface has been improved,preventing overheating while allowing

somewhat higher power consumptionwhen performance is actually needed.

So, the HD 5870 can draw less powerwhile it’s doing nothing. But we also expectto see better performance, particularlygiven some of the other specs listed by ATI.The faster memory gives the 5870 overallmemory bandwidth of 153GB/s. Feedingthat huge pipe is a GPU with twice as muchhardware where it matters—stream proces-sors, ROPs, and texture units.

The graphics engine itself sports some

new features—particularly the hardwaretessellation engine. While past ATI productshave offered hardware tessellation, the newengine fully supports Microso ’s DirectX11 tessellation API. ATI is fond of pointing

out that this is actually its sixth-generationtessellation hardware.

TEXTURE UNITS AND CACHESHaving a robust set of shaders gives theRadeon 5870 unparalleled computationalperformance, but games still make heavyuse of textures. Previous Radeons havebeen criticized for having fewer textureunits and ROPs (raster operations in therender back-ends) than the competition.

ATI has responded by doubling the numberof texture units, from 40 to 80. The ROPshave also been doubled. The result is atheoretical doubling of throughput to 68billion bilinear ltered texels per second.


Digging into the Radeon HD 5870At its core is a no-compromise GPU more efcient than any in graphics history

One of the more intriguing aspects of the Radeon HD 5870 is itsmultiple-display capabilities, something AMD dubs “Eyenity.”The rst shipping HD 5870 comes with four display connectors:two DVI, one DisplayPort, and one HDMI. Up to three monitorscan be connected to any three of the four connectors. (Due totiming limitations, all four connectors can’t be used simultane-ously.) Later this year, AMD will ship a card with six DisplayPortadapters, capable of connecting up to six DisplayPort-equippedmonitors at the same time.

For cards supporting up to three displays, usage scenarios

might include three widescreen displays in portrait mode, sideby side. Cards capable of driving six simultaneous digital moni-tors could support a variety of display options: 3x2 landscape,2x2, or oddball scenarios such as 3x1 with another on top as anextended display (for ight sims, for example).

One underlying technology making a six-display congura-tion possible is DisplayPort. The display controller in the RV870generates only two timing signals, suitable for DVI or VGA.DisplayPort can source external timing signals, and DisplayPort-equipped monitors can act as timing sources.

MULTI-MON MADNESS

Six Monitors, One Card

RADEON H D 5 8 7 0

Radeon HD 4890 Radeon HD 5870

Die Size 263mm 2 334mm 2

Transistor Count 956 million 2.15 billion

Manufacturing Process 55nm 40nm

Stream Processors 800 1,600

Maximum Board Power (TDP) 160W 188W

Idle Power 90W 27W

RADEON GPUS COMPARED



The L2 cache sizes have been increasedto 128KB to facilitate the additional through-put generated by the increased number oftexture units. Raw cache performance has

also been improved, upping the L1 texturefetch bandwidth to one terabyte per second.Each SIMD engine has dedicated L1 cache,and the bandwidth between these exclusivecaches and the shared L2 cache is 435GB/s.Also, maximum texture size has been in-creased to 16Kx16K, to support DirectX 11.

IMAGE QUALITYIn the past, there were complaints thatRadeon GPUs’ texture ltering was inferiorto the equivalent Nvidia GPUs’. AMD’sgraphics architects took those criticisms to

heart and redesigned the texture lteringunits. The key is a new anisotropic lteringalgorithm that no longer depends on theangle of view. This new, high-quality aniso-tropic ltering comes with no performancehit when compared to the older method.

The combination of raw computehorsepower, improved ltering algorithms,and double the texture units also gives theRV870 incredible antialiasing performance.AMD estimates the performance hit from

going to 8x AA from 4x AA ranges from justa couple percentage points to less than 20percent. All that graphics performance ontap has allowed AMD to implement super-sampling antialiasing, a feature it actually

removed a few years back.

DIRECTX 11 ON TAPThe Radeon HD 5800 chip implements all ofDirectX 11 in hardware. This includes:

Hardware tessellation This is theability to generate geometry froman abstract description of the objectdened by patches. Triangles can

be interpolated within the patches,adding large amounts of geometricdetail without the artist needing toexplicitly create new artwork. Shader Model 5.0 DirectX 11 now

sports a unied shader languageacross all types of shaders: vertex,hull, domain, geometry, pixel, andthe new compute shaders. Object-oriented programmingmodel The era of writing hugeshader programs may be past.Instead, programmers can workin more familiar ways, creatingshader objects that can be called byparent programs. It’s easier to write,

RADEON HD 5870

GPGPU

GPU Compute Comes of AgeUsing graphics chips for general-purpose computing is still a pretty

new concept. But there’s growing interest in apps that operate on

large amounts of data in parallel, and traditional CPUs are geared

toward high performance with applications that crunch data serially.

Video transcoding, photo and video effects lters, plus tools

like noise reduction and image cleanup have a ravenous appetite

for parallel oating-point compute power. The HD 5870 offers upto 2.7 trillion single-precision oating-point operations per sec-

ond and up to 544 billion double-precision FP operations every

second. To put that in context, Intel’s fastest CPU today, the Core

i7-975, is capable of about 85 billion FLOPs. Floating-point calcu-

lations are now IEEE 754–compliant, which makes life easier for

application developers and end users.

AMD built in the hooks to make the 5800 series a better general-

purpose compute engine than past Radeons. This includes full

hardware implementation of OpenCL and DirectCompute 11, IEEE

754-2008 oating-point compliance, better memory handling for

general applications, and global synchronization and data sharing.

While Nvidia has been pushing its proprietary CUDA ar-

chitecture hard over the past several years, only a handful of

consumer-level applications have really taken advantage of GPU

compute. But now we have two emerging standards, both with

strong organizations backing them: OpenCL and DirectCompute.

OpenCL, backed by the Khronos Group, which is also respon-sible for the OpenGL graphics standard, is available on a variety

of operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

DirectCompute is part of Microsoft’s DirectX 11 API and fully sup-

ports the unied Shader Model 5 language.

Now that two strong standards have taken root, we’ll likely

see GPU computing gain traction. Upcoming DirectX 11 games

will use DirectCompute for physics, deferred shading, and

graphics post-processing. Companies like CyberLink are building

consumer video and photo editing applications around OpenCL,

moving away from CUDA and embracing standards.

40 | MA IMU M P | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

The HD 5870 Graphics EngineCOMMAND PROCESSOR

ULTRA-THREADED DISPATCH PROCESSOR

HierarchicalZ

Rasterizer GeomentryAssembler

Tessella tor VertexAssembler

HierarchicalZ

HierarchicalZ

The Radeon 5870 graphics engine supports the longer graphics pipeline of DirectX 11, includinghardware tessellation.


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With each succeeding generation, games are making heavier

user of programmable shaders. It’s no wonder AMD and itscompetition are increasingly focusing on this key aspect of theGPU. At the heart of the beast that is the HD 5870 programmableengine are thread processors.

The thread processors (consisting of four stream cores andsupport units) were redesigned, streamlining some key instruc-tions, adding DirectX 11 bit-level operations, and implement-ing a fused multiply-add capability. All of these increase thenumber of instructions per clock cycle for each thread processor;the 5870 has ve stream cores (including the special functionscore) for each thread processor, 16 thread processors per SIMD

engine, of which there are 20, for a total of 320 thread processors

and 1,600 stream cores. The SIMD engine is the smallest logicalfunctional unit, and it’s likely that future DirectX 11 GPUs willpare the GPU at the SIMD engine level to build lower-cost cards.

Each thread processor consists of four stream cores and onespecial function core, a branch unit, and a number of general-purpose registers. The four stream cores together can pumpout four 32-bit oating-point multiply-adds per clock cycle, orgenerate a pair of FP multiplies. AMD also implemented a mathfeature called Sum of Absolute Differences, which is useful invideo encoding and computer vision applications. A variety ofDirectX 11 bit-level operations are also built in.

UNDER THE HOOD

Anatomy of a Shader Processor

RADEON HD 5870

document, and debug. Order-independent transparency Previously, transparency washandled by alpha blending, or

by the application doing expen-sive traversal of the geometry tounderstand the order of the tri-angles. Order-independent trans-parency makes creating complexsubjects with many transparentelements easier. Multithreading The DirectX API isfully multithreaded, and the driverscan now be more fully multithread-ed, taking advantage of multicoreCPUs. This feature will actually helpspeed up applications on older-generation GPUs, once DirectX 11

and new drivers are released. DirectX 11 Compute This is thenew term for compute shaders.Now DirectX programmers havea standard interface for addinggeneral-purpose compute elementsto games, such as physics, post-processing, and even alternativerenderers, like ray tracing andradiosity rendering.

All these features are enabled inthe RV870 hardware, making the newGPU the first fully compliant DirectX 11graphics chip available.

GDDR5 MEMORYSince the Radeon HD 5870 essentially dou-bles the computational power available forgraphics, ATI needed a very fast memorysubsystem. The new card uses GDDR5memory running at 1,200MHz (effective),225MHz faster than the same type of videoRAM used on the older HD 4890. Accordingto ATI, this now results in a balanced graph-ics card; the 4890 ofen was shader-bound,meaning that available memory bandwidthwent unused. The card itself also makesuse of a GDDR5 feature called lower power

strobe mode. This is part of what enablesthe 5870 to idle at a miserly 27W.

THE PRICE OF GLORYThe best news about the Radeon HD 5800series is the pricing. AMD’s target price for theRadeon HD 5870’s target price is $380. That’san incredible price for a card this fast.

While $380 is a lot of money for a high-end board, the era of shipping the mostcapable GPU on the planet in a $600 boardseems to be over.

The body and internalparts of this mechare transparent, yetlook correct, due toorder-independenttransparency.



Radeon HD 5870 Crushes Nvidia’s 285 GTXIn our GPU cage match, AMD’s new graphics processor delivers a stunningKO against the heavily overclocked competition

It’s a classic graphics-card cage match.In one corner, the feisty but unprovennewcomer; in the other corner glowersthe grizzled veteran. The newcomer, ofcourse, is AMD’s shiny new Radeon HD5870, weighing in at 2.15 billion tran-istors. The grizzled veteran is Nvidia’s

285 GTX. But this is no ordinary 285GTX. We pitted the Radeon against aouped-up EVGA 285 GTX SSC.

e 285 GTX SSC runs its core

ore than eight48MHz;

progeny looks like it has the chopsto take on Nvidia. But we’ve beendisappointed by promising GPUs fromAMD’s graphics division in the past.

NOT THIS TIMEWe tested three cards (also tossing inAMD’s previous best, the Radeon HD4890) in a Core i7-975 system with6GB of RAM, running on an Asus

Rampage II X58 motherboard. All thatCPU horsepower is to ensure that the

enchmarks stress the graphics card,e held back by CPU or

Ultimate

performance differences aren’t minor,they’re huge: The Radeon HD 5870 was63 percent faster in Crysis, 32 percentfaster in Far Cry 2, 33 percent faster inSTALKER, and even 24 percent fasterin BattleForge, an RTS that’s arguablymore dependent on CPU than graphics.

This round of the endless GPUwars, then, is clearly owned by AMD,at least for single-GPU cards. Andwith performance like this, who wants

the heat and power consumption of adual-GPU card?

n the other hand, we won’t countNvidia out. While Nvidia’s currenthigh end is now relegated to the statusof also-rans, the company is slaving

its DirectX 11 GPU, code-

h.

Best scores are bolded. All benchmarks run at 1920x1200 with 4x AA enabled and all graphics settings maxed out unless otherwise specied. Full load system power was taken during a 3DMark Vantage run at 2560x1600with extreme settings.

Radeon HD 5870 Radeon HD 4890 EVGA 285 GTX SSCCrysis (fps) 36 22 22

Far Cry 2 (fps) 74 51 56

STALKER Clear Sky (fps) 36 24 27

BattleForge (fps) 57 36 46

3DMark Vantage Performance 17,032 12,128 13,941

3DMark Vantage Extreme 8,252 6,276 4,955

Idle System Power (W) 119 160 142

Full Load System Power (W) 293 363 307

BENCHMARKS



Imagine a Wonderland where the most powerful components in

existence are free for the asking. You’d have the speediest CPU on themarket; two or three of the newest, most outrageous videocards; thefastest, most capacious drive available; as much top-drawer memory asyour operating system of choice could address; and, of course, multiple30-inch at-panel displays.

Now, grow up and face life, Alice. The state of the economy is no fan-tasy, so you’ll probably need to make more realistic component choices.The good news on the display front is that manufacturers haven’t beensitting on their mushrooms smoking hookahs; they’ve been innovatingand driving down costs to the point where 23- and 24-inch widescreenLCDs are the new sweet spot.

Before you set out on your next monitor-shopping adventure, how-ever, make sure you have a rm understanding of the most importantspecications, features, and quality and performance criteria, lest youfall prey to the industry’s Jabberwocky. Rest assured, we’ll guide youthrough the th icket. We’ve also dug up a number of specications thatmanufacturers have taken to omitting from their published data sheets.

Even the most thorough checklist can’t reveal how a monitor willperform in the real world, so we gathered eight of the top manufacturer’slatest models and put them through a benchmark wringer. Our test bedconsisted of an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 running at 3.33GHz, an AsusP5Q3 Deluxe motherboard, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 videocard.We relied on DisplayMate Multimedia with Test Photos Edition ( www.displaymate.com ) for diagnostic testing and analysis. And since we useour monitors for entertainment as much as anything else, we also usedFallout 3 to test gaming per formance and the Blu-ray edition of Watchmen for movie performance.

Let’s head down the rabbit hole.

Throughthe lookingglass Trying to choose an LCD monitorfrom the ever-growing, ever-affordableselection available can be maddening.Our reviews of eight new panels helpmake sense of it allBY MICHAEL BROWN


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BACKLIGHTAll LCD monitors require a source of il-lumination, with cold-cathode uorescentlamps (CCFL) being the most common(every display in this roundup uses one).White LED backlights are one alternativesolution, found most commonly in mobiledisplays. Some high-end displays useRGB LEDs, which enable them to delivera wider color gamut. CCFL and both types

of LED backlights have drawbacks: CCFLbacklights deliver a narrower color gamut,while LEDs can age at d ifferent rates, caus-ing color and white-point shi s over time.

COLOR DEPTHColor depth indicates the number of bitsthe panel uses to represent the colorof one pixel. A display that uses eightbits each for the red, green, and bluechannels (2 8) can produce 256 shades ofeach color for a total of 16,777,216 colors(256x256x256). Most LCD monitors basedon twisted nematic (TN) technology, how-ever, cannot transition eight bits per pixelquickly enough to compensate for fastmotion, resulting in unacceptable blurringand smearing while displaying moviesand games. To get around this problem,mass-market LCD panels use six bitsper pixel (2 6) to represent the RGB colorspace. Since this reduces the total numberof displayable colors to just 262,144(64x64x64), many panels use frame-ratecontrol (a dithering method) to have eachpixel display a slightly different shade

with each successive screen refresh.Frame-rate control can enable a six-bitpanel to simulate 16,194,277 colors.

COLOR GAMUTColor gamut describes a subset of a denedcolor space that a display is capable of pro-ducing. For the purposes of this compari-son, we asked each manufacturer to reportits display’s color gamut as a percentage ofthe NTSC color space. Most of the manu-facturers claimed their displays delivered72 percent of the NTSC color space.

CONTRAST RATIOContrast ratio is supposed to measure therelative magnitude between the bright-est (white) and darkest (black) colors thedisplay can produce. Unfortunately, themanufacturers’ propensity for using differ-ent methodologies and unstated variablesin their measurements has effectively ren-dered this specication meaningless. Theindustry has further muddied the waters

by introducing entirely new variations ofthis measurement, such as dynamic con-trast ratio. We recommend you ignore thisspec when comparing LCD monitors.

INPUTSNearly all the monitors in this roundupsupport the two most common digitalvideo interfaces, DVI and HDMI (withHDCP copy protection, so you can watchBlu-ray movies at full resolution usingeither one). None of them, however, usethe DisplayPort digital interface. In termsof analog display interfaces, every moni-tor has an old-school VGA port, but theSamsung P2370HD is the only monitor toalso feature composite and componentvideo inputs (useful for connecting suchanalog sources as VCRs and older set-topboxes and DVD players). None has anS-Video input.

PANEL TYPEVirtually every consumer LCD monitoruses thin-lm transistor (TFT) technology

these days, but it’s important to considerthe subsets of that classication. Twistednematic (TN) is the most common becauseit’s the easiest and least expensive toproduce (all the displays in this roundupare TN panels). TN panels boast very fastresponse times, but are typically limitedto six-bit color depth. The next two mostcommon subsets are super in-planeswitching (S-IPS, developed by Hitachi,although LG also uses it) and super pat-terned vertical alignment (S-PVA, jointlydeveloped by Samsung and Sony). BothS-IPS and S-IPA panels support eight-bit

color, but have much slower responsetimes than TN panels.

RESPONSE TIMEResponse time measures how long ittakes an LCD monitor’s pixels to transitionfrom one state to another and is measuredin milliseconds. A monitor with a lowresponse time will display fewer motionartifacts with movies and games. In orderto make apples-to-apples comparisons,we asked each manufacturer to reportits display’s gray-to-gray response time,because that is the most common real-

world transition.

STAND FUNCTIONSThe LCD monitor manufacturers in thisroundup have all but abandoned ergo-nomic considerations. Each display in thisroundup has a stand that tilts, but onlythree of the eight swivel le to right andonly two offer a height adjustment. NEC’sEA241WM is the only monitor we re-viewed that pivots to enable you to switchbetween landscape and portrait modes.

Spec SpeakIt pays to understand the features manufacturers tout as well the ones most

don’t disclose in their spec charts

The triangle in the center of this chromacity diagram represents the NTSC color gamut,used to measure the color output of LCDs.

MONITOR ROUNDUP


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Acer H235H

It’s pretty; pretty vacant

Asus VH242HL-PUp, down, and almost all around

The Asus VH242HL-P is one of only twomonitors we tested with a stand that tilts,swivels, and is height-adjustable. The23.6-inch display is based on a six-bit TNpanel with FRC and a native resolution of1920x1080.

The monitor’s default setting preventschanges to brightness and contrast, so weswitched to User Mode to tune the monitorwhen using DisplayMate. Red, green, andblue were all set to 100 percent here, but

the entire display nonetheless over-emphasized blue. We also ran into aproblem with the gamma measurementtest, which indicated a serious color-tracking error. We nally put the monitorinto sRGB mode and sacriced brightnesscontrol in the interest of color accuracy.

The VH242HL-P exhibited a nicely uni-form black level with very little backlightintrusion, but we observed blooms of inten-sity in the corners and in the middle of thescreen while displaying high-intensity blueand cyan as well as low-intensity green.Compared to the rest of the eld, Display-Mate’s high-resolution digital photographslooked markedly more subdued on theAsus display. But the VH242HL-P did aspectacular job of displaying text; evennine-point serif fonts were clearly legible.

We didn’t encounter any dead or

discolored pixels in our review, but buyersshould note that Asus’s three-year war-ranty kicks in only if there are more thanve of the former orthree of the latter.

The Acer H235H is typical of this class ofdisplays: It’s based on a six-bit TN panel thatuses frame-rate control to augment its colordepth. The screen delivers 23 inches of view-able area at a native resolution of 1920x1080.

As with nearly all the monitors wetested, we found it necessary to makesignicant adjustments to the display’sbrightness and contrast settings to make themonitor look its best with our DisplayMatebenchmark so ware. But the ve touch-

sensitive buttons in the Acer’s glossy blackbezel and the obtuse icons in its onscreendisplay make this process extremelyfrustrating; the onscreen icons don’t line upprecisely with the physical buttons and ittakes too many button presses to drill downinto each menu choice. It takes ve buttonpresses, for instance, to make a singlebrightness adjustment.

The H235H performed well in Display-Mate’s dark-screen test, with almost no

backlight leakage around the perimeter ofthe display, but we noticed signicant band-ing in the 128-step grayscale test. It also dida poor job of reproducing low-saturatedcolors against light-gray backgrounds.

The display had no problems with smear-ing or blurring in our Blu-ray movie andgame tests, but poor contrast resulted ina signicant loss of visual detail in the

opening scene of Watchmen .The Acer H235H’s features and perfor-

mance put it in the middle of the pack, butits three-year warranty is unusual in that itdoes not coverthe backlight.

H235H display looks as attractive in back as itdoes in front, with a removable panel to hide

the ports.

Call us old-fashioned, but we like the reassur-ing tactile feedback that the Asus VH242HL-P’smechanical switches provide.

Viewable Area 23 inches

Native Resolution 1920x1080

Color Gamut 72 percent of NTSC

Color Depth Six-bit with FRC

Gray-to-Gray Response Time 2ms

Inputs DVI, HDMI, VGA

SPECS

Viewable Area 23.6 inches






SPECS

VERDICT5 $240, www.acer.com

VERDICT7 $220, www.asus.com

MONITOR ROUNDUP



Gateway’s 23-inch FHX2300 truly is alooking glass: The glossy screen producesextremely distracting glare and specu-lar reections. Don’t use this monitor ifthere’s a window or any other strong lightsource directly behind your seat.

The panel we used for our evaluationhad a discolored pixel that glowed greenwhen DisplayMate was producing solidblack, gray, or low-intensity cyan andmagenta backgrounds; it glowed yellow

when the background was solid red.Gateway sent us a replacement unit, butconsumers might not be so lucky: Thecompany’s one-year warranty coversdead pixels (meaning pixels that don’tfunction at all), but it expressly does not

cover discolored pixels.Once we positioned the Gateway to

minimize its glare problems and ignoredthe discolored pixel on the solid-blackbackground, we noticed signicant

backlight leakage on the bottom and le -hand sides. Apart from those issues, theFHX2300 delivered solid performancewith the rest of our DisplayMate tests,particularly in the areas of grayscaleproduction and screen uniformity. Thedisplay delivers six-bit color depth withframe-rate control and ve-millisecondresponse time, so we didn’t encounter

any signicant motion-blur or othervisual artifacts in our game and Blu-raymovie tests.

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IM | 4

Gateway FHX2300Mirror, mirror on my desk

HP 2709mMeaty, beaty, big, and bouncy

HP’s new 27-inch 2709m is considerablylarger than the rest of these displays; it’s alsomore expensive ($400).

The 2709m offers the same nativeresolution as the rest of the eld, so it spreadsthe same number of pixels over a muchlarger area. As a result, DisplayMate’s high-

resolution sample photos looked just a bitso er than they did on the smaller monitors.The HP also did a poor job of rendering verysmall text.

Those criticisms don’t matter whenyou’re watching a Blu-ray movie or gaming—this big screen shines here, and you needn’tworry about your videocard supporting aninsanely high resolution as you would witha 30-inch display. Unfortunately, the 2709msuffers from the same specular reection

problems as Gateway’s mirror-like FHX2300.HP tells us the 2709m is outtted with awider color-range backlight and color lter,which enables it to produce 92 percent of theNTSC color gamut (compared to the rest ofthe eld’s 72 percent) but we didn’t perceiveany signicant difference. We didn’t encoun-ter any backlight leakage, but DisplayMate’sScreen Uniformity and Color Purity testsrevealed a dark band across the top of thedisplay with light grays and colors at mid-range intensity.

We also found a discolored pixel on

the 2709m (HP calls this a “bright sub-pixeldefect” and doesn’t cover it under warrantyunless there are twoor more).

The Gateway FHX2300 did a superb job of

rendering skin tones in DisplayMate’s high-resolution digital photos.

In addition to being the largest display wetested, HP’s 27-inch 2709m was also the only monitor to feature two HDMI inputs. And itsstand swivels as well as tilts.

Viewable Area 23 inchesNative Resolution 1920x1080Color Gamut 72 percent of NTSCColor Depth Six-bit with FRCGray-to-Gray Response Time 5msInputs DVI, HDMI, VGA

SPECS

Viewable Area 27 inchesNative Resolution 1920x1080Color Gamut 92 percent of NTSCColor Depth Six-bit with FRCGray-to-Gray Response Time 3ms

Inputs DVI, HDMI (2), VGA

SPECS

VERDICT5 $230, www.gateway.com

VERDICT7 $400, www.hp.com



NEC’s EA241WM has a number offeatures that set it apart from the restof the displays in this field: It’s the onlymodel to support a full complement ofergonomic features (tilt, swivel, pivot,and height adjustment); it’s the onlymodel with an integrated USB 2.0 hub;

and compared to its competition’s flimsyconstruction, this monitor is built like aMack truck.

It’s also the most expensive and least

consumer-oriented model we tested, withan MSRP of $450 and native resolutionof 1920x1200 (versus 1920x1080). Andwhile the monitor does support HDCP, it’snot equipped with an HDMI port (NECwill provide a free DVI-to-HDMI adapter,but doesn’t put one in the box).

The EA241WM’s tiny thumb-stickcontroller is one of the best tools we’veused for making minute adjustments to adisplay’s brightness and contrast levels.The NEC performed better than anyof the other monitors in DisplayMate’sblack-level test, with virtually no back-light contamination of a black screen. Inspite of its precision controls, this moni-tor performed poorly when it came todifferentiating between black and darkshades of both gray and colors. This wasparticularly bothersome in the opening

scene of Watchmen , because importantdetails were lost in the dark shadows.

VERDICT6 $450, www.necdisplay.com

| MA IM M P | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

LG insists its W2353V-PF is based on atrue eight-bit TN panel, a feature thatwould make it unique in this roundup,so we were surprised at how poorly thedisplay performed with several of ourDisplayMate benchmarks. We were alsoirritated by the display’s gimmick ofrendering a black screen by turning offits backlight. This might be acceptable ifthe transition was instantaneous—a er

all, there’s no better way to achieve trueblack—but the fade takes at least twoseconds, which exposes the trick.

The LG produced inconsistent coloruniformity, with colors near the top of thedisplay appearing signicantly darkerthan the same colors shown in the middleand bottom of the screen. This same awalso manifested itself in DisplayMate’sgraduated grayscale tests.

The monitor had trouble with our

other grayscale tests, as well, with peakwhite exhibiting a pinkish tinge. We noteda similar shi toward pink in facial skintones when we studied high-res digitalphotographs of faces. And we encoun-tered color-tracking errors, with red huesshi ing toward orange as they increasedin intensity.

The W2353V-PF did perform wellin our game and movies tests, thanksto its two-millisecond gray-to-grayresponse time.

LG’s W2353V-PF was the only monitor in thisroundup that didn’t come with a digital video

cable (neither DVI nor HDMI).

The NEC EA241WM comes with NEC’s NaviSetsoftware, which provides a graphical userinterface for controlling the monitor’s bright-ness, contrast, and color environment.

Viewable Area 23 inchesNative Resolution 1920x1080Color Gamut 72 percent of NTSCColor Depth eight-bitGray-to-Gray Response Time 2ms


SPECS

Viewable Area 23 inchesNative Resolution 1920x1200Color Gamut 72 percent of NTSCColor Depth 6-bit with FRCGray-to-Gray Response Time 5msInputs DVI, HDMI (via adapter), VGA

SPECS

VERDICT4 $240, www.lge.com

MONITOR ROUNDUP

LG W2353V-PFYou sure about that?

NEC MultiSync EA241WMYou don’t always get what you pay for



VERDICT8 $350, www.samsung.com


Samsung P2370HDDo wehave to buy the tuner?

ViewSonic VX2433wmA steaming pile of mediocrityNone of the monitors we examined was

awless, but the ViewSonic VX2433wmsurprised us with how poorly it fared inmany of our DisplayMate benchmarks,even a er an intense round of button-mashing. In the color-uniformity test,for instance, the monitor should havedisplayed a consistent wash of color fromedge to edge; what it delivered instead wasa mottled, blotchy mess.

The VX2433wm had trouble with

all four test colors (red, green, blue, andgray), but the distortion was particularlyobjectionable with green and blue—it wasalmost like staring at a Rorschach inkblot(ironic, considering we used Watchmen for our Blu-ray movie test). The ViewSonicturned in another poor performance when

displaying low-saturated colors against thehigh end of the grayscale, with red, green,and blue at two-percent saturation disap-pearing into the background.

The digital photos we examinedappeared washed out and subdued, asthough they’d been drained of their colorand vibrancy; the display’s Blu-ray per-formance was equally bland. Our resultsnally improved with our gaming tests,thanks to the panel’s two-millisecondresponse time (among the fastest of allthe monitors tested), but that one bright

spot doesn’t compensate for this display’sotherwise lackluster qualities.

Samsung’s heritage as a consumer-electronics manufacturer is readily appar-ent in its P2370HD monitor. This is the onlydisplay we looked at that included not onlyan integrated HDTV (ATSC) tuner, but alsocomposite and component video inputs,S/PDIF audio output, and support forDolby Digital Plus.

The P2370HD was also the easiestdisplay to set up and congure, thanks

to a very useful remote control, a built-ingraphical user interface that steps youthrough the process, and input ports thatare set at right angles, instead of parallel, toits back. The port conguration lets you seehow the DVI and HDMI ports are orientedwithout having to turn the entire monitorupside down.

Samsung claims its proprietary frame-rate control technology (Hi-FRC) enablesthis six-bit panel to produce the same

number of colors as an eight-bit panel(16,777,216), and that it covers a broaderswath of the NTSC color gamut (80 per-cent). We found the difference just barelyperceptible: It did render DisplayMate’shigh-res digital photos slightly warmerthan the rest of the eld, but we reallyhad to stare.

Don’t need the TV tuner? Don’t buy

Samsung’s P2370 model thinking you’ll geteverything but. That model is limited toDVI and VGA video inputs (no HDMI),and it has no speakers, headphone jack,or remote.

The interior edge of the Samsung P2370HD’sbezel has an unpleasant propensity to reect ob-

jects appearing at the display’s outermost edges.

We had difculty associating the ViewSonicVX2433wm’s side-mounted controls with itsonscreen display.

Viewable Area 23 inches



Color Depth six-bit with Hi-FRC


Video Inputs DVI, HDMI, VGA, Composite,Component

SPECS

Viewable Area 23.6 inches






SPECS

VERDICT4 $300, www.viewsonic.com

MONITOR ROUNDUP


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Calibrating your monitor will make certainyour photographic prints match what yousee on your display. It will also ensure thatthe games you play and the movies youwatch will look as their creators intended.The most foolproof means of calibrating yourmonitor is to use a colorimeter, an instru-ment you attach to the front of the displayand control with related so ware runningon the host PC. The so ware sends variouscolors, shades of gray, and brightness levels,to the display, and the sensor analyzes and

evaluates them. These devices used to be quitecostly, but we’ve achieved terric results withPantone’s inexpensive HueyPro (you can readour review online at http://bit.ly/4gmAq2 ).This colorimeter/so ware combo is currentlystreet-priced at less than $100.

FREE ALTERNATIVESIf only a free solution will do, there areseveral excellent options. Tom Niemann, ofePaperPress.com, has produced an onlineapplication that can step you through themonitor-calibration process by makingadjustments to your display’s brightnessand contrast settings. He’s also developed atool for determining your monitor’s gammasetting. Niemann has also developed a freetool for calibrating your printer. You cannd his tools at http://bit.ly/18eFYu .

Torben Rasmussen, of Flatpanelshd.com, has developed a larger collectionof test images for evaluating backlightcontamination, defective pixels, color uni-formity, banding problems, text reproduc-tion, and lots more. You’ll nd his onlinemonitor tests, including a downloadable

executable version, at http://t .vanity.dk .

CALIBRATIONPREPARATIONS Whether you calibrate your monitorusing a hardware colorimeter or one ofthe free alternatives we’ve describedabove, it is essential that you rst prepareyour display and your work area toachieve the best results.

1 Set the monitor to its native resolu-tion, and make sure your videocard is

operating in either 24- or 32-bit mode.

2 Clean your monitor thoroughly. If themanufacturer doesn’t provide clean-

ing instructions, try this: Turn it off and letit cool. Remove any surface dust and loosecontaminants with a can of compressed air,and then wipe the surface with a so , cleancloth. Now, mix a little isopropyl alcoholwith tap water (the alcohol will help dissolvegrease and ngerprints), sprinkle a little ontothe cloth, and wipe the screen. Never sprayliquids directly onto the display.

3 Turn the display back on and let itwarm up for 15 to 30 minutes, but

turn off any screensaver or energy-management utilities you might berunning, so that the calibration process

won’t be interrupted.

4 Remove any color proles you mighthave previously created for the dis-

play. In Vista, right-click on the desktop,select Personalize, choose Display Set-tings, and then Advanced Settings. Clickthe Color Management tab and then theColor Management button, select anycolor prole listed, and click Remove.Restart the computer.

5 Set up your ambient lighting so thatit’s consistent with the environment

you typically work in. Make sure the

display is not reecting light from awindow or other strong source of il-lumination. Close any drapes or angle themonitor to eliminate reections.

Move any brightly patterned, shiny, orcolorful objects off your work surface, orat least out of your direct line of sight, sothey won’t compete with the display foryour attention.

6 Launch your calibration tool of choiceand follow its instructions.

7 Primarily interested in calibratingyour display so that the colors in your

digital photos match those you print out?Here’s one quick-and-dirty solution: Find

a photo you really like, print it out as an8x10, and place it next to your display.Tweak your monitor’s brightness, contrast,and color values until the image on yourscreen looks as close to the print as youcan make it.

Winging it this way won’t produceresults as accurate as you’d achieve witha colorimeter, but it’s certainly betterthan nothing. You should also be awarethat your monitor’s performance willchange over time and decline as it ages,so you can’t just set it and forget it. Agood rule of thumb is to recalibrate your

display once each month .

Calibrating Your MonitorEven the best screens can use a little help in achieving peak performance

Flatpanelshd.com has a very useful online collection of test images for calibrating andmeasuring the performance of your display for free.



AMD’s new 45nm Propus core is at the heartof the new $99 Athlon II X4 quad-core.



One Even the Intel fanboys have to hand it to AMD once in

a while. A er Intel de ly dropped a Core i5 anvil onPhenom II’s head, AMD did a quick drop to oor and nowres back slo-mo style with its own chip: a $99 quad-core.

Dubbed the Athlon II X4 620, this 2.6GHz quad-coreisn’t just le over parts swept off the factory oor, either.The Athlon II X4 is based on the familiar K10 microarchi-tecture in the Phenom and Phenom II, but it’s actually anewer, smaller die. In fact, the new chip has fewer thanhalf the transistors of a Phenom II X4 processor. Muchof the shrinkage comes at the expense of cache. Whilethe Phenom II packs 6MB of L3, the budget Athlon II X4features none.

The TDP of the new Athlon II X4 chips (there aretwo, but only one is sub $100) is also considerably lowerthan the top-end Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition chip at95 watts versus 140 watts. Other than the TDP and lackof L3 cache, the CPUs are essentially the same as theirPhenom predecessors.

In fact, some Athlon II procs may actually be thesame as Phenom II. Although the majority of Athlon IIs

will be the smaller Propus cores, AMD will double-sourcethe chips by taking some cores that might have beenturned into Phenom II X4s and switching off the L3.Other than that, these chips will be virtually the same asa Propus—same TDP, same L2 cache, same clocks. Whileit might seem unusual, AMD says the practice is not un-precedented and happens quite o en with budget CPUs.Because both the would-be Deneb and Propus cores are45nm and essentially the same microarchitecture, it’sunlikely this will have any practical impact on the enduser, the company says.

Still, the breakthrough here is not technology, butprice. Up to now, the closest a budget user could get toa quad-core was the stale Phenom X4 9650. At one timerestricted to OEM sales, these elderly parts are nowavailable to consumers for about $110. The Phenom X49650 has 2MB of L3, but its slower Hyper Transport speed(3.6GHz vs. the Athlon II X4’s 4GHz), lack of AM3 support(and thus DDR3), and its use of the older 65nm processtechnology make it a less attractive option.

In Intel land, the Athlon II X4’s main competition

Athlon II X4 breaks the $100 quad-core barrier BY GORDON MAH UNGCheap Chip



isn’t even close. Intel’s cheapest quad-corepart today is the Core 2 Quad Q8200.Like the Athlon II X4, the Q8200’s lowprice is the result of a shrunken die size

made possible by cutting cache. Whilethe $220 Core 2 Quad Q9550 has 12MBof L2 cache, the $150 Core 2 Quad Q8200has but 4MB of L2 cache.

Higher up the food chain, Intel madea signicant technology and price break-through with the Core i5-750, but at $200for the chip itself, it’s for folks with richertastes. The extra $100 you can savewith an Athlon II X4 is enough to buy anentry-level motherboard and the RAM togo with it.

TO QUAD OR NOT?The budget buyer’s toughest question iswhether to even opt for quad. Since priceis the primary concern for the budgetbuyer, it’s tough to ignore all the variousdual-core options. You could, for example,skip the Athlon II X4 620 in favor of theAthlon II X2 250. This would give you a

3GHz dual-core instead of the 2.6GHzquad-core and save you about $13. Evencheaper, there’s AMD’s Athlon II X2 240,a 2.8GHz dual-core that’s listed at $60.

We didn’t run the performancenumbers on these chips as we alreadyknow the answer: Which chip you buyshould depend on what you do. Since thevast majority of games are not optimizedfor quad-core, a 3GHz dual-core willactually outperform a 2.6GHz quad-corein gaming. The same can be said if youspend the bulk of your day in a browseror Microso Word: The two additionalcores just don’t get you anything. Onthe other hand, if you encode media,edit photos, or you’re even an advancedMicroso Excel user, a quad-core is well

worth the dough. You don’t get doublethe performance everywhere, but forwell-optimized apps, you could seesubstantial gains. How substantial? If anencoding job takes three hours on your3GHz dual-core, it could take 1.6 hourson a 2.6GHz quad-core.

Quad-cores will also pay dividends if

you’re a heavy multitasker running morethan one compute-intensive applicationat a time. Our nal message to you onthe topic is that a quad-core machine

might actually get faster over time. That’sbecause apps are being continually up-graded and coding for four or more coresis a factor on most developers’ radar. Thattranslates into faster performance onyour quad-core as the apps get updated.

PERFORMANCEWe don’t want to telegraph the winnerof this budget grudge-match, but theAthlon II X4 accomplishes what AMDwanted: It’s not the fastest game in town,nor the sexiest, but it’s certainly the

cheapest and it can hold its own againstIntel’s current offerings. Of course, that’sif you factor in price as a big component.We can tell you this: There isn’t onesingle thing the Athlon II X4 is faster atthan the Core i5. Not one. However, theAthlon II X4 is half the price, and in thiseconomy, well, that can mean a lot.

2.66GHz 2.66GHz 2.33GHz 3.4GHz 2.8GHz 2.6GHzCore i7-920 Core i5-750 Core 2 Quad Q8200 Phenom II X4 965 BE Athlon II X4 630 Athlon II X4 620

Socket LGA1366 LGA1156 LGA775 AM3 AM3 AM3

Price (volume) $284 $199 $163 $245 $122 $99

Street Price August ’09 $280 N/A $150 $245 $122 $99

TDP 130 watts 95 watts 95 watts 140 watts 95 watts 95 watts

Code-name Bloomfield Lynnfield Yorkfield Deneb Propus* Propus*

QPI/HT 4.8GT/s 4.8GT/s N/A 4GHz 4GHz 4GHz

Core Clock 2.66GHz 2.66GHz 2.33GHz 3.4GHz 2.8GHz 2.6GHz

Turbo Boost (max one core) 2.93GHz 3.2GHz N/A N/A N/A N/A

HyperThreading Yes No N/A N/A N/A N/A

Cores/Threads 4/8 4/4 4/4 4/4 4 /4 4 /4

L1 Cache 256KB 256KB 256KB 512KB 512KB 512KB

L2 Cache 1MB 1MB 4MB 2MB 2MB 2MB

L3 Cache 8MB 8MB N/A 6MB N/A N/A

Memory Controller Tri-channel Dual-channel N/A Dual-channel Dual-channel Dual-channel

Die Size (mm 2) 263 296 164 258 169 169

Transistor Count (million) 731 774 456 758 300 300

Process (nanometer) 45 45 45 45 45 45

BUDGET Q U A D -CO RE

Q

QUADS COMPARED

*Some Athlon II X4’s will use Deneb cores with L3 cache disabled.



BBENCHMARKS

*Bold score denotes the winner, but only between the Core 2 Quad and Athlon II X4. The Core i5 trounces both the Athlon II X4 and Core 2 Quad in every benchmark but we included it for reference.

2.6GHz Athlon II 2.33GHz Core 2 2.66GHzX4 620 Quad Q8200 Core i5-750*

Main Concept Reference 1.0 (sec) 1,772 1,976 1,337

Premiere Pro CS3 (sec) 899 888 620

Cinebench 10 9,941 10,184 14,442

HandBrake (sec) 1,559 1,681 1,198

PCMark Vantage Overall 5,792 5,299 7,208

POV Ray 2,334 2,191 2,773

Photoshop CS3 (sec) 165 146 128

ProShow Producer (sec) 1,224 997 700

Everest Ultimate MEM Read (MB/s) 8,544 7,511 12,867

Everest Ultimate MEM Write (MB/s) 6,960 7,059 9,881

Everest Ultimate MEM Copy (MB/s) 10,028 7,397 14,684

Everest Ultimate MEM Latency (ns) 52.5 66.7 31

Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s) 12.3 7.2 16.8

Fritz Chess Benchmark 12.93 13.79 17.38

3DMark Vantage Overall 13,727 14,260 14,947

3DMark Vantage GPU 11,371 11,840 12,249

3DMark Vantage CPU 36,269 36,863 44,066

Valve Particle Test (fps) 71 81 124

Valve Map Compilation (sec) 157 163 121

Crysis (fps) 83.1 99.5 147

Resident Evil 5 (fps) 70.7 70.3 109

World in Conflict (fps) 137 155 266

WinRar 3.20 RAW files (sec) 1,067 1,110 706

BUDGET Q U A D -CO RE

For our benchmark analysis we tested threeof the relevant CPUs: Intel’s $150 Core 2 QuadQ8200, AMD’s $99 Athlon II X4 620, and Intel’s$200 Core i5-750. All three platforms usedan EVGA GeForce GTX 280 card, WindowsVista Home Premium in 64-bit avor, anda 150GB Western Digital Raptor drive. Weused an Asus Maximus II Formula board with4GB of DDR2/1066 for the Core 2 Quad, aGigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UDF5P with 4GB ofDDR3/1333 for the Athlon II X4, and a Giga-

byte GA-P55-UD6 for the Core i5-750 proces-sor. Our benchmark suite ran the gamut, frombandwidth-intensive to compute-limited toreal-world performance tests.

First: There’s simply no comparison be-tween the Core i5 and either the Core 2 Quador Athlon II X4. There’s not a single benchmarkamong those we ran where the Core 2 Quador Athlon II could outgun the Core i5. TheCore i5 is easily faster than those two chips bydouble-digit percentages, generally around 30percent faster. But you knew that. A er all, itcosts twice as much as the Athlon II and about25 percent more than the Core 2 Quad.

Between the Core 2 Quad and AthlonII X4, it’s an interesting mix. Generally, theAthlon II X4 is signicantly faster in encod-ing than the Core 2 Quad. But in gaming, it’ssignicantly slower. However, that’s based onrunning the game at low resolution and withfeatures turned off to take the GPU out of theequation. At normal resolutions or with a dual-GPU setup, you’d likely see little differencebetween the two chips.

Considering the Athlon II X4’s advantagein encoding tasks we’re going to declare it thewinner. Even taking into account that it was

slower in our two photo-oriented tasks—Pro-Show Producer and Photoshop CS3—we stillthink the Athlon II X4 has the edge. Besides,it’s 50 percent cheaper than the Core 2 Quad.And at half the price of the Core i5, this one isan easy win for AMD .

Ménage à QuadThree cheap chips do battle in the benchmark arena


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ERR&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE

Organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs,are o en touted as the next big thingin display technology, offering brighter

colors, true black, lower power consumption,and off-axis viewing than traditional LCD

screens. They’ve popped up in gadgets fromhigh-concept to mundane: The infamous Opti-mus Maximus keyboard, for example, utilizesmany tiny OLED screens in its programmableand customizable keycaps, and both Sony’snew X-series Walkman and Microso ’s newZune HD have OLED screens. OLED technol-ogy has made great strides in the past 10years, and cheaper and better manufacturingprocesses mean they’ve started appearing ineverything from media players to phones tohigh-denition televisions—even keyboards.But what are OLEDs?

WHAT’S INSIDEIn the simplest terms, LEDs (light-emittingdiodes) emit light by running an electri-cal current through a diode. Diodes createunidirectional electric ow, moving electronsfrom the negatively charged cathode to thepositively charged anode, creating electronholes, or spaces where electrons could be.Electrons owing in drop into these holes andemit light. An organic light-emitting diodeuses the same principle, but between thecathode and anode are two layers of organicsemiconductor compounds: the emissive

layer, near the cathode, and the conductivelayer, near the anode (organic compounds arechemical compounds that contain carbon). Thecathode sends (negatively charged) electronsinto the emissive layer, while the anode drawselectrons from the conductive layer, leavingpositively charged “electron holes.” This cre-ates a negatively charged emissive layer and apositively charged conductive layer, which at-tract each other, drawing electron holes to theemissive layer. The positive-charged holes andnegative-charged electrons recombine, lower-ing the energy levels of the electrons, emittinglight as a by-product. Simple, right?

From a development standpoint, OLEDs

have a lot of potential. Organic chemistryis a fairly well-understood science—reds,blues, and greens were developed in a muchshorter time frame in OLEDs than in regularLEDs. And new molecules that can be used

in the layers, which have longer lifetimesand produce brighter colors, are being dis-covered frequently.

It turns out that OLEDs are great for usein displays, because the organic moleculesthat comprise the emissive and conductivelayers can be deposited in very thin, largesheets onto a variety of substrates—fromglass to metal to ber—so that millions ofindividual OLEDs can be crammed together,row by row and column by column, intoa very small space. Each of these OLEDs

becomes one pixel of the display. The organiccompounds can be deposited using severalmethods, depending on the type of organicmolecule used in the display.

There are two types of OLEDs currently in

production and development, differentiatedby the size of the molecules in their organiccompounds. Small-molecule OLEDs are usu-ally manufactured via organic vapor phasedeposition (OVPD)—the organic moleculesare evaporated and carried via inert gas, thendeposited on a substrate through a series ofvery small nozzles held near the substrate’ssurface. Large-molecule, or polymer OLEDs,can be created via a process similar to inkjetprinting—the polymers are dissolved into asolution and “printed” onto the substrate.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens offer better picture quality anddraw less power than traditional LCDs. But what are OLEDs?–NATHAN EDWARDS

Anatomy of an OLEDHOW IT WORKS

In an OLED, an electrical current causes electrons (-) to move from the cathode to the emissivelayer, creating a negative charge in the emissive layer. The positively charged anode attractselectrons from the conductive layer, creating a positive charge in the conductive layer. Electronholes (+) in the conductive layer attract electrons from the emissive layer, which recombine withthe electron holes, lowering the energy level of the electrons and emitting light as a by-p roduct.

DIODECathode AnodeEmissive

LayerConductive

Layer



ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGESThe advantages of OLEDs over traditionalLCDs are many. First, unlike liquid-crystal

displays, OLED pixels actually emit light, sothey don’t require backlighting. TraditionalLCD screens o en utilize traditional LEDs orCCFLs for backlighting, which—in additionto increasing the thickness of the display toaccommodate a light source—prevents thedisplay from rendering true black, as even“black” LCD pixels are backlit. Since OLEDpixels produce light when on and don’tproduce light (or draw power) when off, adarker, richer black can be created. Havinglight-emitting pixels also enables richer colors,a broader color gamut, higher contrast, anda greater viewing angle than an LCD screen.

Because “off” pixels don’t draw power, andbecause there’s no need for a separate lightsource, OLED displays require less energy torun. And because the organic molecules canbe printed onto a variety of substrates, exibledisplays are possible.

OLEDs, however, are not without theirdisadvantages. The manufacturing processis still expensive, so large OLED displays arerare—most OLEDs are used in small-screenapplications, such as media players and smart-phones, though HD displays up to 40-incheshave been demonstrated. And the materialsused in OLEDs don’t necessarily last as long asregular LCD displays—another reason they’remore frequently found on phones and mediaplayers, rather than computer monitors andtelevisions. Monitors are typically turned onfor much longer stretches of time. And nally,the organic materials in OLEDs are extremelysusceptible to water damage, so displays mustbe well-sealed.

OLED TO THE FUTUREWhat’s next for OLED technology? The Eu-ropean Union, among others, is investigatingthe use of OLEDs as cheap solid-state lighting

to replace incandescent bulbs. Their statedgoal is to create a 100x100cm square of OLEDmaterial that creates 100 lumens per wattof power, has a working lifespan of at least100,000 hours, and costs less than 100 eurosper square meter to produce.

OLEDs have found their way into conceptcars, lighting xtures, PMPs, and laptopprototypes, with the latter expected to enterproduction by Q3 2010. As manufacturingprocesses become less expensive, OLEDdisplays could start to replace LCDs, not justin media players and phones, but also in note-book computers, monitors, and televisions, on

a much larger scale.

AUTOPSY

AC Power AdapterYour gadgets run on direct current, but your power outlet delivers onlyalternating current, so you rely on AC power adapters to give your gearthe juice it needs. We took apart a dead laptop’s power brick to see

where the magic comes from. Warning: Don’t do this at home—youcould get fried.

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MA IM P | 6

TRANSFORMERSTransformers use copperwire wrapped around ironcores to raise or lower ACvoltages, exploiting electro-magnetic principles. Thesetransformers begin thework of turning the 120V ACcoming in to the 20V DC thelaptop requires.

SUBMIT YOUR IDEAEver wonder what the inside of a power supply looks like?Don’t take a chance on destroying your own rig; instead, let us do the dirtywork. Tell us what we should crack open for a future autopsy by writing [email protected].

RECTIFIER Beneath this metalcowling is a rectier, whichconverts alternating currentto direct current via a series ofdiodes. Diodes only allow electriccurrent to ow in one direction,

so they’re useful for convertinga positive/negative AC wave

into a direct current.

SMOOTHINGCAPICITORS After therectier has transformedthe alternating current to directcurrent, some variation remains inthe strength of the current. This isknown as ripple, which can causecrashes or even damage equip-ment. Three smoothing capacitorsreduce ripple and provide muchmore stable voltage.

DC OUTPUTThe nalresult? A 120V 3.9Aalternating currenthas been transformedinto a 20V 9A (180W)direct current.



CHROME IS STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Guides toImproving Your PC

SUBMIT YOUR IDEA Have a great idea for a How Toproject? Tell us about it by writing [email protected].

64 AUTOMATE PHOTOSHOP TASKS

66 MAKE A TILT-SHIFT PICTURE

70 COMPOSITE A HIGH DYNAMIC

RANGE PHOTO

THIS MONTH WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH

Kill the Windows Key Keyboard shortcuts can occasionally be

inconvenient; accidentally hitting the Windows

key while gaming can kick you back to the

Desktop. Disable the effects of the Windows key

by downloading and running the following registry

le: http://bit.ly/10pZHI . To re-enable the shortcut,

download and run this registry le: http://bit.ly/

GwfMV. You’ll need to restart your computer after

running either le.

he recently un-leashed 3.0 versionof Chrome marks

the 15th offi cial updateGoogle has made to itsminimalistic browser.Color me unimpressed.Sure, Chrome 3.0 touts a25 percent speed boostin its Javascript engineand includes a newlyredesigned Tab page, but these updates alone won’tconvince me to abandon Firefox. The major featurewe’re all waiting for from Chrome, of course, isextension support. That isn’t to say it’s not in theworks—the publicly available Chrome developerbuilds have supported extensions for months. Butuntil this feature goes mainstream, we won’t seean explosion of extensions from the community tomatch Firefox’s massive Add-on library.

So, where do the Chrome faithful go to gettheir custom-features x? Since Chrome is open

source, we recommend trying out third-partybuilds of the browser. ChromePlus ( www.chromeplus.org ), for example, is a custom-developed version of Chrome that includes built-in support for mouse gestures, an IE tab, and otherinterface tweaks. Like its name implies, it’s every-thing that’s great about Chrome, plus more.

NORMAN CHAN

ONLINE EDITOR


R&D



You know the story: After a whirlwindvacation around the world, you havetoo many photos to color-correct, resize,and publish to the web. Though thereare numerous photo-editing p rogramsthat can batch-process files with basicactions, none are as customizable as theActions feature in Adobe Photoshop.

Actions is perhaps one of the mostuseful Photoshop features, allowing youto customize and automate most of theprogram’s image-manipulation tools.

These prerecorded macros perform themonotonous tasks for you, allowing youto step away while your computer doesthe image-editing dirty work. We’ll showyou how to record your own Actionsin Photoshop, and help you prep yourphotos for viewing in less time than ittakes you to get over your jet lag.–FLORENCE ION

1PREPARE PHOTOSHOP TORECORD AN ACTIONOpen an image le in Photoshop.

We’re going to use this image to teachPhotoshop the individual steps of the newAction. Since this image is only going to beused to create the Action, it doesn’t need tocome from the photo gallery you want toeventually batch process.

Under the Window menu option, makesure that the Action tab is open, or bring itup by pressing Alt+F9. At the bottom of the

Action tab, click the Create a New Actionbutton. A dialog box will appear asking youto give it a name. You also have the optionof giving this Action its own shortcut key,which is useful if you plan on using the

macro frequently.

After naming your Action, be preparedto start recording. From this point on, everytool and menu selection you make willbecome programmed into the Action, soit’s a good idea to plan out what you wantto beforehand.

2RECORD YOUR ACTIONFor the first step of our Action, we’regoing to resize our photo. Find the

image resizing tool under Image > Image

Automate Photoshop Tasks


R&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE



Size, or hit Ctrl+Alt+I. A box will pop up

with resizing options; make sure yourmeasuring point is in pixels and that theConstrain Proportions box is checked.Photoshop will automatically resize yourphoto to fit the height based on the widthinput. If you plan on uploading yourimages to a photo-sharing site like Flickr,we suggest keeping the width and heightbelow 600x400 for quicker uploads. Ifyou’re going to process a batch of photoswith varying aspect ratios (i.e., bothportrait and landscape), the Action willmaintain the original aspect ratios and justscale all photos to the new image width.

Next, we want to enhance the contrastand colors of each photo. We could adjusteach image individually, but that is usu-ally very time-consuming and sometimesineffective. Go to Image > Adjustmentsand select Auto Levels. This will automati-cally set the input and output levels forall color schemes of the photo based on itshistogram. Auto Levels combines the AutoContrast and Auto Color features, so youdon’t need to add those individually.

When you’re finished, save this imageto your Desktop using the Save As com-mand, Ctrl+Shift+S. Choose the file formatyou want to save the image in, such asweb-friendly JPEGs or PNGs, and chooseyour desired save-quality settings. Wewant the Action to record this so it knowshow to save each file after i ts done pro-cessing the photo. Finally, press the Stopbutton in your Actions menu window.

3EXECUTE YOUR ACTION

Click File > Automate > Batch to beginyour batch process. A new window

will pop up with many batch processingoptions. Find your saved Action under theAction dropdown menu. Under the Sourceoption, choose Folder, and click the Choosebutton to select the original le location.Alternatively, you can open all the imagesbeforehand in Photoshop and choose theOpened Files source option. Importing les

from an attached digital camera or AdobeBridge works, as well.

Under Destination, choose Folder andselect a destination folder to hold the newlyprocessed images. Make sure that the Over-ride “Save As” Commands box is checked—we want to use this since we included a

“Save As” step in our macro.

To give your new photos more identi-

able monikers, you can set up Photoshop toautomatically name them for you, adding asequential serial number as well. For this proj-ect, we created the name “vacationphotos,”chose 2 Digit Serial Number, and opted fora lowercase le extension, which outputles named vacationphotos01.jpg, vacation-photos02.jpg, etc.

Choose “Stop for Errors” in the Error eldand then click OK to begin the batch process.You can watch as Photoshop glides throughyour photo gallery, or you can minimize the

program to multitask while your photos arebeing color-corrected and resized.

There are a few tricks that are useful to

know when creating Actions. One is thatyou can add the same steps with differentsettings, that can then be selectively enabledor disabled. You can also record new stepsinto an Action a er its original creation. Forexample, using the Record button in the Ac-tions menu, you can insert another Save Asstep, this time choosing to save as a bitmap.Now, you can switch between the two SaveAs steps depending on which le type youprefer. Additionally, you can double-clickindividual steps to tweak their details.

The Actions feature can yield power-ful macros and save you a lot of time—we

encourage you to experiment with it!





Tilt-shift photography produces imagesthat have a sharp focus but al so havea very shallow depth of field, makingthe landscape, buildings, and figuresin the photo look like a miniaturizedtoy representation of its actual-sizecounterpart. To shoot genuine tilt-shiftphotos, you need a small- or medium-format camera with special lenses, andthe image composition requires preciserotation of the lens parallel to the imageplane and a proper orientation of theplane of focus—in other words, you needto be a professional photographer withsome pricey equipment.

Fortunately, it is still possible fornovice photographers to emulate this lookon the cheap using Photoshop. With theright source photo and the application ofa few filters, you’ll be able to simulate thetilt-shift look, making cars look like MicroMachines and houses look like miniature-scale models made out of cardboard andtoothpicks. –FLORENCE ION

1CHOOSE AN APPROPRIATEPHOTOChoosing the right photo for this

faux-miniature model is perhaps the most

important step in this process. When youselect your photo, make sure it has an elevatedviewpoint—more than 30 degrees—and thatit has a reasonably wide-angle eld of view.Additionally, tilt-shi images look best whenthey’re populated with lots of small guressuch as cars, pedestrians, and foliage.

2ENTER MASK MODEEnter Quick Mask mode by press-ing Q; you will notice that the top of

your photo’s status bar window will nowdisplay Quick Mask Mode. Press G to selectthe Gradient tool and check to see that thePaint Bucket tool is not selected on the toolbar (they share the same shortcut). In thetoolbar at the top of your screen, make surethe Reflected Gradient option is selected,which is the fourth icon from the left. Foryour gradient color scheme, choose the firstgradient style selection, which should sayForeground to Background Color when youhover your mouse over it.

Next, choose a point on your imagewhere your want the nal photo to be fo-

Make a Tilt-Shift Picture





cused. Starting from that point, draw a vertical

line, ending where you want the photo totransition out of focus. The area of focus shouldnow have a red overlay. The gradient schemeyou chose will ensure that the parts that aren’tred will be blurred, and your focus area will bethe foreground. To get the focus area just right,you may have to try drawing the gradient lineseveral times. For most tilt-shif photos, the in-focus space should take no more than a third ofthe entire image.

3BLUR YOUR PHOTO

Exit Quick Mask mode by pressing Q;Photoshop will convert your gradientinto a selection path. Leaving it active, pointyour cursor to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur; awindow will pop up with a preview of yourphoto with options on the right side. Belowthe Preview checkbox, select More Accurate,and under Iris, the shape should be Hexagon,with a Radius of 20, zero Blade Curvature,and 360-degree Rotation. Under Specular

Highlights, set Brightness to 11and Threshold to 255, with noNoise. Photoshop may havealready defaulted to some of

these figures for you. Click OKto apply these changes andapply the blurring effect. You’llnotice that your area of focus isperfectly visible, while the sur-rounding area is blurred.

4INCREASESATURATION

Deselect the photo and openthe Hue/Saturation menu underImage and Adjustments, or by hit-ting Ctrl+U. You’ll want to amp upthe Saturation so your photo looksmore vibrant, matching the tone oftilt-shif photos. For this particularimage, we set the Saturation to 40.

5TWEAK THE CURVE

Almost done! The last step isto adjust the tone and contrastof the photo with the Curves tool, ac-cessed with Ctrl+M. In our example,we tweaked our settings only slightlyat the top to increase contrast anddarken the photo. Follow the underly-ing histogram to determine how toset your curve. Again, this settingdepends on the photo that you’reworking with and your own prefer-ences. When you’re finished, acceptthe changes and save your photo.


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R&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USER&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is aphotography technique that expandsthe range of luminance and contrast in aphoto outside of what would be possiblewith a standard digital camera. Even witha high-end DSLR, fixed contrast forcesyour photos to sacrifice tonal qualityin the highlights or shadows of a scene.With HDR enhancements, your photoslook more like how the naked eye sees ascene, as opposed to the limited tones of afixed camera exposure setting. Photoshop

includes a plugin to create HDR images,and we’ll show how to properly shootphotos and utilize this fe ature, evenwithout an expensive camera.– NORMAN CHAN

1PHOTOGRAPH A RANGEOF EXPOSURESPhotoshop’s HDR utility works by merg-

ing photos of the same scene with varyingexposure settings. You’ll need a digital camera

that will let you manually adjust at least twostops of exposure range. Most DLSRs havean exposure bracketing mode that will shootthree photos of varying stops in succession,but we can simulate that mode on a point-and-shoot by using a tripod.

Affi x your camera to a tripod and point itat your target scene. The scenes that work bestfor HDR imaging have a good balance of deepshadows and bright highlights, like a cityscapeat sundown. Take at least three photos, eachone stop apart. You should have at least oneunderexposed photo and one overexposed

photo. The underexposed image captures thedetails lost in the highlights and the overex-posed shot captures details lost in shadows.Saving your photos as RAW images is recom-mended, but JPEGs work, as well.

2IMPORT INTO PHOTOSHOPPut all your photos in a folder and openPhotoshop. Go to File > Automate and

select Merge to HDR. A window will pop upasking for you to locate source les. Locatethe photos you took and import them into thiswindow, then click OK.

If you didn’t use a tripod, check the Attemptto Automatically Align Source Images check-box and Photoshop will try to compensate forany minor differences in your series of photos.As long as they’re not wildly different and don’t

Composite a High Dynamic Range Photo

Underexposed

Overexposed


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have large moving objects, the photos shouldmerge without any problems.

3WEED OUT THE BADSOURCE IMAGESA er the photos are merged, you’ll

see a window with the new 32-bit compos-ite image. The individual source les willshow up on the le in a lmstrip—use thecheckboxes here to exclude any sourcephotos that add blurriness to your compos-ite (such as from camera shake). The White

Point Preview slider on the right lets youmake tonal adjustments, but it’s also verysensitive to any changes. Save your changesnow in the .psd format.

4DOWNSAMPLE YOURCOMPOSITE TO 8-BITTo be able to share your image on-

line, you’ll need to convert it to eight-bit.Click Image > Mode > 8 bit to begin theconversion, which will open up an HDR

Conversion window. Here, you’re offeredfour ways to adjust the tonal quality ofyour image: Exposure and Gamma, High-light Compression, Equalize Histogram,and Local Adaptation. Only the first andlast options give you configurable set-tings. Exposure and Gamma, the defaultmethod, is the simpler of the two to use.Move the slider bar for Exposure to adjustthe image brightness, and change theGamma value to adjust the image con-trast. There isn’t one set of settings thatworks best for all images, so you’ll have toexperiment a bit. A desirable HDR image

will have highlights thatdon’t look washed outand shadows that don’tobscure details.

Local Adaptation is alittle trickier. The toningcurve is mapped on top ofa histogram, which youshould use as a guide to

make your adjustments. Click on pointsof the curve to create anchor points,shifting them up and down brings outdetails from the dark part of the photoand accents the contrast between theforeground and background.

Use the Radius and Threshold slidersto reduce the glow around bright edges.Once again, there is no setting that fits allphotos, so be patient with trial and error.

When you’re satisfied with how yourphoto looks, click OK. Depending on howwell the source images were aligned, theresult may look a little blown out. As afinal tweak, apply the Sharpen Filter to re-move any blurriness. Now you’re done!

Final



REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE IN THE LAB

Tested. Reviewed. VerdictizedINSIDE

ONLINE

74 VELOCITY MICRO SIGNATUREEDITION

76 WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB DRIVE

78 GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD MOBO

80 SCYTHE MUGEN 2 AIR COOLER

82 TOSHIBA NB205 NETBOOK

84 MICROSOFT ZUNE HDMEDIA PLAYER

86 PLEXTOR PX-B320SA

87 LOGITECH G500 GAMING MOUSE

88 KINGSTON SSDNOW V+ 256GB

90 BATMAN

91 LAB NOTES

EVEN MORE REVIEWS!

BEST OF THE BEST

EDITORS’ BLOGS

NO BS PODCAST



IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

It is, perhaps, tting that Velocity Micro’snew rig is called a Raptor.

That’s because anyone who has everseen the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor in personand on a erburner knows just how overkill

the F-22 is.The same can be said of Velocity Micro’s

Raptor Signature Edition. With peopleoverjoyed just to have a $99 Athlon II X4 620,Velocity Micro decided to go shock-and-awe onthe spec lists—and the wallet.

First up is Intel’s stellar Core i7-975 ExtremeEdition. With a stock speed of 3.33GHz, VelocityMicro uses a custom CoolIt Domino ALC to getthe processor to a very stable 4.2GHz. To “bal-ance” this $1,000 CPU, Velocity Micro throwsin probably $1,500 in GPUs in the form of threeEVGA GeForce GTX 285s. Still not impressed?How about four SLC-based Intel X25-E Extreme64GB SSD drives in RAID 0?

Mind you, these are not the pedestrianX25-M consumer drives; they’re enterprise-class drives that offer more than twice thewrite performance of the X-25M version andpeg the read speeds at the SATA 3Gb/s limit. Ifyou’re afraid of a four-drive RAID 0, you mightfeel better that the X25-E’s are designed forserver use and should have 10 times the life ofa consumer drive.

Storage is handled by a single 1.5TB Seagateand two optical drives, one a Blu-ray burner. Theentire rig is based on EVGA’s X58 SLI Classied

motherboard. RAM is le to 6GB of Kingston

DDR3/1600 modules. And, of course, there’sWindows 7 Ultimate in 64-bit mode, to boot.We’ve been taking a drubbing from the Macfanatics for some time over Vista, but Win7 xesall that and may even plant a Windows logo’dboot up OSX’s rear.

As much love as we have for Win7, it madecomparisons with other systems diffi cult—upto now all the desktops we’ve reviewed haveused Vista. On the other hand, the comparisonsare valid as a PC purchased four months agois likely still running Vista. If you buy into thatline of reasoning, we can tell you that the RaptorSE is now the benchmark king in ve of oursix benchmarks. For a more direct comparison,we looked at the numbers from our SeptemberDream Machines, which ran Windows 7, and asexpected, those three boxes couldn’t touch theRaptor SE. For example, our midrange Core i7Dream Machine (our new desktop zero point)puts out 37fps in Crysis at 1920x1200—theVelocity Micro pushes 70fps. The Raptor SE turnsin no less than double-digit percentage gains inevery test.

So, what’s the problem? Just like the F-22,

which just got its ticket punched by a penny-

pinching Pentagon and Congress—the price. At$9000, this is one of the most expensive rigs we’veever tested. With the 64GB X25-E drives each cost-ing $800, a $1,000 CPU, and $1,500 in GPUs, thestratospheric price of the Raptor SE is enough tomake even a DoD procurement clerk with use ofthe never-ending government Visa card cringe.

Still, we understand the need to be on top ofthe benchmarks, and respect that. We just wishit didn’t have to cost as much as a small nation’sGDP. – GORDON MAH UNG

Velocity MicroRaptor SignatureEditionFirst Windows 7 rig makesa smashingly fast, andpricey, debut

Quad-core, quad SSDs, and tri-SLI make theRaptor SE one fast—and expensive—machine.

SPECIFICATIONS

Processor Intel 3.33GHz Core i7-975 [email protected]

Mobo EVGA X58 SLI Classified

RAM 6GB Kingston DDR3/1600

Videocard Three EVGA GeForce GTX 285 in tri-SLI

Soundcard N/A

Storage Four 64GB X25-E Intel SSDs in RAID 0,Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11

Optical LG GGW-H20L, LG GH22LS40

Case/PSU Custom Lian Li, 1,200W modular PSU

+ -

VERDICT

9,000, www.velocitymicro.com

9This rig is built forbear and breaks nearlyevery benchmark.

Price that’s as easy topass as a gallstone.

AFTERBURNERS

VELOCITY MICRO RAPTORSIGNATURE EDITION

SUNBURN

410

65

832

275

56

70

WINDOWS 7 BENCHMARKSZERO POINT

Premiere Pro CS3 496 sec

Photoshop CS3 94 sec

ProShow 513 sec

MainConcept 977 sec

CRYSIS 37 fps

Unreal Tournament 3 198 fps

0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.66GHz, 6GB of Patriot DDR33/1333, a Radeon HD 4870 X2,and a 1.5TB 7,200rpm Seagate 7200.11 hard drive. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UDR3 motherboard and a Corsair TX850 PSU. OS is Windows 7 in 64-bit mode.




Western Digital CaviarBlack 2TBFaster than a VelociRaptor, and six times the capacity

Aer months of making do with 5,400rpmand 5,900rpm 2TB drives and odd-bird1.5TB drives, it’s nally happening:

7,200rpm two-terabyte hard drives are comingto rigs near you. First out of the gate and into ourgreedy arms is Western Digital’s 2TB Caviar Black,the performance cousin to the 2TB Caviar Greenwe reviewed in May ( http://bit.ly/3wKLRl ). Andbrother, it’s just what we’ve been waiting for.

The 2TB Caviar Black is spec’d to impress,

with four 500GB platters, two processors, 64MB ofcache, and a dual-stage actuator system that puts ane-tuned piezoelectric actuator head at the end ofthe standard magnetic actuator, enabling ne-tunedtracking for speedy seek times. The Caviar Blackalso comes with WD’s standard No-Touch ramploader, so the read/write head never comes in con-tact with the platters, increasing the drive’s lifespan.

All these little extras add up, and the 2TBCaviar Black offers the speediest sustained reads andwrites—exceeding 112MB/s each—of any consumermagnetic hard drive we’ve ever tested. That’s 15percent faster than the Seagate Barracuda 7200.111.5TB’s read speeds. The 1.5TB Barracuda, previouslyour high-capacity speed champion, couldn’t keepup in sustained writes, either—here the Caviar wasnearly 30 percent faster. And thanks to the greater ar-eal density of the Caviar drive, its random-access readand write times are just 7.6ms and 5.0ms, respectively.You won’t nd faster seeks short of a VelociRaptoror solid state drive. Of course, solid state drives offerthe best performance—the $370 Patriot Torqx, ourBest of the Best SSD, achieves sustained reads of over200MB/s, sustained writes of over 175MB/s, and seektimes measured in the tenths of milliseconds.

The 2TB Caviar Black has an MSRP of $300, thesame price that low-powered 2TB drives like the

Caviar Green and Barracuda LP debuted at earlierthis year. Street prices, of course, will be lower, andkeep falling—the rst waves of 2TB drives, the“green” ones, are already selling for as low as $200.And the Caviar Black’s sustained reads and writestrump the fastest of those green drives by 20MB/s.

The 1.5TB Barracuda held a spot on our Bestof the Best list for more than a year, but now it’sbeen rmly supplanted—the 2TB Caviar Black isoffi cially our favorite hard drive.

Expect 7,200rpm 2TB drives from Hitachi,Seagate, and others in the next few months as well,with the aim of high performance. But if you buya capacity hard drive today, next week, or evenhalf a year from now, you can’t go wrong with thisCaviar Black. It has the fastest sustained read andwrite speeds of any consumer magnetic hard drivewe’ve ever tested. It’s faster in any benchmark thanall standard hard drives save the WD VelociRap-tor, which still holds the edge in burst speeds andrandom-access times— barely . Think about that fora second: You can get VelociRaptor-busting speed

and six-and-a-half times thecapacity for $300. We’re sold.–NATHAN EDWARDS

+ -

VERDICT

$300, www.wdc.com

9Stupid-fast; heaps ofcache; dual-actionactuator arm.

Random-accesswrites; burst speedsstill slightly slowerthan VelociRaptor.

LENNON

WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR BLACK 2TB

LENIN

76 | MAXIMUM PC | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

BENCHMARKSWD

CaviarBlack 2TB

SeagateBarracuda

7200.11 1.5TB

WDVelociRaptor

300GB

PatriotTorqx128GB

h2benchw Average Sustained TransferRate Read (MB/s) 112.3 98.2 98.31 205.4

h2benchw Average Sustained TransferRate Write (MB/s) 112.2 85.7 98.22 175.1

h2benchw Random Access Read (ms) 7.6 12.5 7.24 0.11

h2benchw Random Access Write (ms) 5.0 5.3 3.42 0.31

HDTach Burst Read (MB/s) 213.7 209.3 249.7 163.0

PCMark Vantage Overall Score 6,452 5,241 6,082 21,247

Best scores are bolded. All drives were tested on our standard test bed using a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, EVGA 680i SLI board. HDTach 3.0.1.0, h2benchw,and Premiere Pro CS3 scores were obtained in Windows XP; PCMark Vantage 2005 scores were obtained in Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.


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If this is the shape of7,200rpm drives to come,we’re wetting ourselveswith excitement.



If you thought Intel’s new budgetNehalem meant rock-bottom,feature-stripped motherboards

to match, think again.Gigabyte’s GA-P55-UD6 jams just

about every feature you could think of intothe new LGA1156 platform. There are the derigueur updated power-saving utilities and thedual BIOS, which can save your bacon should

your BIOS get corrupted.And then there’s a whole kitchen sink

of new features, such as the ability to securethe system using the onboard TPM moduleand then have it unlock when the computerdetects your Bluetooth phone nearby. Thesame Bluetooth phone can also be used to putthe system in standby or hibernate if you walkaway, to save power.

Two other features are probably a bitmore useful: As part of the board’s SmartSix apps, the BIOS QuickBoot feature allowsyou to set the BIOS to initialize much fasterif no hardware has been changed. With thefeature turned on, we saw the system go froma 30-second POST-to-OS load to 15 seconds.That’s pretty spectacular. The OS QuickBootpromises faster boots, too, but as far as wecan tell, it’s simply a different way to invokeVista’s Hybrid Sleep mode.

In the odd-feature department, the SmartRecorder function can log power ons and offsand which les are moved off of the computer.(Not trustful of your roommate?) Even odder

is the Smart Dual BIOS feature that letsyou store passwords and up to 12 importantdates in the BIOS. Why? We don’t know.

On the physical front, the board ups thearms race in power regulation with a 24-phasepower feature. A typical budget board featuresfour-phase power circuits—Gigabyte saysthe 24-phase helps keep the board cooler byspreading the workload among more com-ponents and can also aid in delivering higherand more reliable voltage. Gigabyte also says itused two ounces of copper to build the tracesin the board instead of the typical one ounce inbudget boards. In theory, this should lower theresistance and also thermals.

Of course, there’s also 12 SATA ports (but noSATA 6) and eight USB ports (no USB 3.0), as wellas SLI and CrossFire X support. Oh, and did wemention the six DIMM slots? That’s the featurethat will get the most attention. Since Lynneldis dual-channel, the majority of boards for theCPU feature four DIMM slots. The six-slots,though, aren’t as useful as you would think, rightnow. To populate all six, you must include four

single-sided DIMMs. What that translates to withtoday’s RAM is four 1GB DDR3 sticks combinedwith, say, two 2GB DIMMs, for a total of 8GB.That’s the same as you would get from a four-slotboard. The extra slots might be handy in 12 to 18months, when RAM density has increased, butnot today. We tested the GA-P55-UD6 with sixDIMMS to see if populating all of the slots wouldhurt performance, and it didn’t. In fact, we sawslightly better performance with 8GB using sixDIMMs than 8GB using four DIMMs.

We used the GA-P55-UD6 for the majorityof our Lynneld testing (November) and didn’texperience any issues, and performance wasquite good when compared to X58 and i920.

Even the cost of the board is quite accept-able. If this were an X58 board, it would push$350, but at $240 MSRP the GA-P55-UD6 isa decent value. The fact that the board is cur-

rently selling for more than it lists tells you howhot is right now. – GORDON MAH UNG

GigabyteGA-P55-UD6A P55 motherboardthat spares no amenity

+ -

VERDICT

$240, www.gigabyte.us

9Short POST timesand SATA and USBports for days.

Can’t access resetbutton with two GPUsinstalled.

IGABYTE

GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD6

IBIBYTE


Gigabyte’s P55 board is the rst to sport sixDIMM slots for the Core i5.

P55 VS. X582.66GHz

Core i5-750 on P552.66GHz

Core i7-920 on X58

Everest Ultimate MEM Read (MB/s) 12,867 14,387

Everest Ultimate MEM Write (MB/s) 9,881 11,639

Everest Ultimate MEM Copy (MB/s) 14,684 15,790

Everest Ultimate MEM Latency (ns) 30.9 61

PC Mark Vantage 7,208 6,929

3DMark Vantage Overall 14,947 15,008

3DMark Vantage GPU 12,249 12,306

3DMark Vantage CPU 44,066 44,002

Crysis CPU (fps) 147 146

Resident Evil 5 fixed DX9 (fps) 109 114

World in Conflict (fps) 266 221

Our Core i7 rig used a GA-EX58-UD5R with 6GB of DDR3/1066 in tri-channel mode. Our Core i5 rig used a GA-P55-UD5 with 4GB of DDR3/1333 in d ual-channel mode. Both systems were running a GeForce GTX 280 card, a WD Raptor 150 hard drive, and 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium.




Scythe Mugen 2Bulky, but it gets the job done

They just keep getting bigger andbigger. Now that CPU air-coolingmanufacturers have seemingly

settled on the skyscraper school of heatsinkdesign, there seems to be a competition overwho can cram the most cooling ns into thelargest area. Scythe’s Mugen 2 air cooler, thefollow-up to its popular Mugen series, is oneof the largest coolers of this type that we’veever tested. But can it match the cooling

power of its slightly smaller cousins, such asThermalright’s U-120 eXtreme?

The Mugen 2 is a he y hunk of a cooler,at 5.1 inches wide, 5 inches deep (with theincluded 12cm fan), and 6.2 inches high;it weighs nearly two pounds. It’s not theheaviest cooler we’ve ever tested, nor themost unwieldy, but its girth could certainlyprevent you from installing it in all orienta-

tions on all motherboards. We had troubletting it in some orientations on our EVGA680i SLI board—our usual preference beingto install the cooler fan parallel with therear exhaust fan. On our board, though,there wasn’t room; we resorted to attach-ing the cooler fan perpendicular to the rearexhaust fan. Thankfully, this didn’t seem toimpact performance, as the Mugen 2 per-

formed slightly better in our tests than theThermalright U120-eXtreme—about 2.25 Ccooler at both idle and full CPU burn.

The Mugen 2 ships with mountingbrackets for LGA1366, 775, and AMDboards; the rst two use the same bracketand backplate but different screw holes.Support for the new LGA1156 socket wasn’tavailable at the time of this review, but thecompany states it is in the works. Instal-

lation requires motherboard removal or amotherboard tray with a backplane cutout.Each of its ve copper heat pipes rises intoits own separate stack of cooling ns, allow-ing airow between the stacks.

If you opt to use the included 12cm fan,you might have to tweak your motherboardfan control settings due to its four-pin PWMconnector. We manually set the fan controlto 100 percent for testing, a er the mother-

board’s fan control resulted in signicantlyhigher temperatures.

You can attach up to four 12cm fans tothe Mugen 2—one to each face of the finarray—using the familiar thin wire clipsfound on similar coolers. Whether thisactually helps, of course, is up for debate.We didn’t see any performance gains whenwe experimented with multiple fans on the

Noctua NH-U12P and Ther-malright U-120 eXtreme.

For laudable performance,a relatively easy install com-pared to its peers, and alower price point, we’reawarding the Scythe Mugen 2our Kick Ass Award. However,this is clearly the upper limit

of how big a cooler can be and still earn ahigh recommendation. Hear that, vendors?Scale ‘em down a bit. – NATHAN EDWARDS

+ -

VERDICT

50, www.scythe-usa.com

9Kick-ass cooling at akick-ass price. Relativelyeasy installation for acooler of this type.

Manual mode getsbest results; mas-sive.

MUGISON

SCYTHE MUGEN 2

MURGATROYD


BENCHMARKSScythe

Mugen 2ThermalrightU120-eXtreme Stock Cooler

Idle (C) 27.75 29.75 33.75

100% Burn (C) 43 45.25 61

Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity; load tempera-tures were measured after an hour’s worth of CPU Burn-In (four instances). Test system consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard inside a Cooler Master ATCS 840 casewith stock fans.



The Mugen 2 pushes the upper

limit on air-cooler size, but we’llallow it. This time.



Toshiba waited a long time to enter thenetbook market, but as the NB205proves, taking some time to learn from

your competitors can be a good thing. TheNB205 offers everything we expect from anetbook, as well as some unexpected bonusfeatures, and does so for less than $400. Weliked the NB205 when we used it in our net-book upgrading feature (October); here wegive it a full review.

The NB205 has a matte-silver plasticchassis and a textured matte lid, available

in blue, pink, black, white, or brown. Weappreciate that Toshiba has bucked the glossyngerprint-magnet trend here. The netbookis solidly constructed, with a color-matchedglossy bezel and hinge. The included six-cellbattery protrudes about a half an inch beyondthe back of the netbook, and is slightly wobblyto the touch, but given the 6:45 (hr:min) bat-tery life, a little wobble doesn’t bother us.

As we discovered in our netbook upgrad-ing feature, both RAM and hard drive are easilyaccessible, although the hard drive panel usesTORX-6 fasteners rather than the more commonPhillips head screws found on the RAM compart-ment. Still, if you’re ponying up for an SSD orlarger hard drive for your netbook, you can prob-ably spare a few bucks for a TORX-6 driver, too.

The NB205 sports the standard array ofports: three USB 2.0, VGA, audio jacks, 10/100Ethernet, and an SD card reader. Rememberthe bonus features we talked about? One of theUSB ports is a Sleep-and-Charge port, so youcan charge your phone or other USB-poweredgadget even when the computer is off. It’s anaddition so obvious we wish more netbookmakers included it. We also appreciate the harddrive movement sensor.

The chiclet keyboard is easy to type on—thekeys are more widely spaced than most, soyou’re less likely to hit the wrong key. It’s notperfect, though—some keys are in strange places(for example, the tilde key is between Alt and the

space bar), and pushing too hard on a center keycauses the whole keyboard to ex slightly. Thetouchpad is textured, and as wide as the spacebar, while the buttons are responsive and clicky,albeit identical in texture to the chassis.

Because the NB205 has the same guts asevery other non-Ion Atom N280 netbook outthere, we expected it to perform at least aswell as our favorite 10-incher, the Asus Eee1000HE, and slightly faster than our N270-bound zero-point system, the 12-inch LenovoS12 (reviewed last month). And it did performbetween three and ve percent better than thezero point in our Photoshop, MainConcept,and Quake III tests. I t’s a nice (if small) boost;the equivalent of winning a 100-meter dash bya hundredth of a second—the netbook world

has yet to nd its Usain Bolt.With a lap weight of two pounds, 15ounces, the NB205 is rmly in the middle ofthe netbook weight class. Its price, batterylife, aesthetics, and performance put it near

the top of the current generation, and we ap-preciate perks like Sleep-and-Charge. It’s oneof the best netbooks on the market today. ButTORX screws on the hard drive compartment?Toshiba, you were so close. – NATHAN EDWARDS

Toshiba NB205Getting it right the rst time

The NB205 looks good and runs well. But why is the tilde key down between the Alt key and thespace bar?

SPECIFICATIONS

Display 10.1-inch TruBrite BacklitLED@1024x600

Processor 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280

Chipset Intel 945GSE

Graphics Intel GMA950

RAM 1GB DDR2/553

S orage 160GB HDD (5,400rpm)

Ports hree USB 2.0 (one w/ Sleep &Charge), audio in/out, SD card,VGA, 10/100 Ethernet

Wireless 02.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1L p/Carry lbs 15 oz / 3 lbs 10 oz

+ -

VERDICT

400, www.toshiba.com

8Excellent battery life;good looks; good perfor-mance; competitive price;Sleep-and-Charge USB.

Totally unnecessaryuse of TORX screws;slightly odd keyboard.

NOTABLE

TOSHIBA NB205

NO THX


ZERO POINT

708 sec

251 min

60.9 fps

255.0 min

Our zero point netbook is a Lenovo IdeaPad S12 with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB of DDR2/667 RAM, 160GB hard drive, Intel GMA950 integrated graphicschipset, and Windows XP Home (SP3).

Photoshop CS3

MainConcept

Quake

Battery Life

0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

BENCHMARKS

73

241

3.1

05




Zune HD

If at rst you don’tsucceed...

P revious Zune devices were prettygood music players, but lacked the“wow factor” necessary to lure the

masses away from the iPod juggernaut. Withthe Zune HD, Microsoft has finally deliveredthe kind of exciting device that should makeeven the most ardent iPod fan take notice.It’s sleek, small, thin, and surprisingly light,with the rare quality of looking as good as

an Apple product without looking like anApple knockoff.

It’s also the first product to hit themarket with Nvidia’s Tegra system-on-chip, which packs a pair of ARM11 CPUcores with lots of individual processorsfor audio and video encoding and decod-ing, 3D graphics, etc. This is paired with a3.3-inch, 16:9, multitouch OLED screen thatis as accurate and responsive as any we’vetested, and downright gorgeous. It’s the firstmainstream portable with support for HDRadio, which you can pump out over HDMIto your home theater along with 720p video.It’s an impressive and surprisingly energy-efficient hardware package. The specs say33 hours of music or 8.5 hours of video, butlike all battery specs, this is a pipe dreamthat doesn’t reflect real usage scenarios. Ourbattery lasted for just over 10 hours of heavyand varied use with Wi-Fi enabled, which isbetter than most devices of this type.

Is this yet another impressive pieceof hardware with a mediocre interface?Anything but! The Zune HD interface isfast, smooth, artful, and intuitive, but itdoes require a short period of adjustment

if you’re used to an iPod Touch or iPhone.The incredibly useful Quickplay menu is asimple and elegant solution to a big problemwith multifunction portable devices: gettingto your most frequently used stuff quickly.If you’ve ever used the abomination that isIE for Windows Mobile, you’ll be surprisedand delighted to hear that the Zune HDbrowser is way better, and almost the equalof Safari on iPhone.

If there’s an Achilles’ heel to the ZuneHD, it’s apps. There are only nine apps in

the marketplace at launch, seven of themgames and all of them free. They’re nice forthe price, but pale in comparison to whatyou can get in Apple’s App Store. Others aredue soon, including Project Gotham Racing,Vans SK8, and Audiosurf Tilt, in addition toFacebook and Twitter. That’s good, but thisis a device that desperately needs a realapp marketplace.

So, is the Zune HD better than the iPodTouch against which it competes? It alldepends on what you’re looking for. If youwant a portable player primarily for media,the Zune HD trounces the iPod Touch withsimilar music, video, and podcast offer-ings, but a host of additional features andan honest-to-goodness superior interface.If you want a pocket computer to run appsand play games, with just occasional musicor video playing, the robust App Store onthe iPod Touch still makes it the obviouschoice. – JASON CROSS

+ -

VERDICT

$230 (16GB), $290 (32GB), www.zune.net

9Awesome interface;gorgeous OLED screen;HD Radio; Zune Pass;720p video.

MS Points; no appmarketplace; nocamera or micro-phone built in.

JOHN COLTRANE

ZUNE HD

KENNY G


Version 4.0 of the Zune desktop software isspruced up with a clean library and marketplaceinterface that organizes content better thaniTunes 9.



With the Zune HD, Microsoftnally gets the portablemedia player right.




Blu-ray has yet to prove itself as asensible storage medium—there are just too many less-costly solutions

for backing up data. But just because you’resatised with a standard DVD drive for yourburning chores, doesn’t mean you should bedenied the enjoyment of watching Blu-raymovies on your PC—especially now thatlarge 1920x1080 monitors are so affordable.

Enter Plextor’s PX-B320SA DVD burner/BD-ROM combo. We can’t say it offers thebest of both worlds, but it strikes a nice bal-ance. The drive’s DVD speeds aren’t up to the

likes of, say, Samung’s SH-S223 performanceDVD drive. For example, the Plextor is ratedat 16x for DVD+R writes compared with the

Samsung’s 22x. In our tests, that amountedto a 5:20 (min:sec) time to ll a single-layerdisc vs. 4:46—not such a big deal. Withdouble-layer media, the Plextor took 16:58vs. the Samsung’s 13:16—yes, over time thoseminutes can add up.

Of course, Samsung’s drive won’t playyour Blu-ray movies. In the realm of combodrives, Plextor’s PX-B320SA trumps LG’sGCC-H20L, the combo drive in our Lab testbeds. Single-layer DVD+R write times forthe two drives were virtually the same, butPlextor’s drive was more than 50 percent

faster at writing to dual-layer discs, wherethe LG drive took 27:27. The Plextor drivealso surpassed the LG drive in our DVD rip-

ping test by nearly50 percent, taking just 10:47 to copya dual-layer moviedisc to our harddrive, versus theLG’s 15:17.

Now, LG hassince replaced theGCC-H20L with theGBC-H20L, whichlacks the former’s

support for also reading HD DVD discs (forobvious reasons) but otherwise boasts thesame specs. We can’t say for certain thatthat drive performs the same as its GCCpredecessor, but even so, we’re inclined tofavor the Plextor PX-B320SA. After all, at$230, the LG GBC-H20L is a mere $20 lessthan our favorite full-fledged BD burner(Pioneer’s BDR-2203).

Even if you don’t have any interest inthat functionality, it would be tough to turndown the added value for such a measlysavings. At $180, Plextor’s drive at least

saves you $70—money you could actuallydo something with. – KATHERINE STEVENSON

Plextor PX-B320SA Combo DriveBurn DVDs and watch Blu-ray movies

Plextor adds a bit of splashto its PX-B320SA with aglossy front bezel.

+ -

VERDICT

180, www.plextor.com

8Respectable DVD writingand ripping times;competitive price fora combo drive.

Forgoing BD burnsdoesn’t save youas much as youmight expect.

FEASTING

PLEXTOR PX-B320SA COMBO DRIVE

FASTING

BENCHMARKSPlextor PX-B320SA LG GGC-H20L

DVD+R Write Speed Average 11.99x 12.09x

DVD+R Read Speed Average 12.07x 9.24x

Access Time (Random/Full) 111/210ms 100/178ms

DVD+DL Write Speed Average 6.86x 3.95x

DVD Ripping (min:sec) 10:4 15:17

Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a Windows XP SP3 machine using a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, 2GB of Corsair DDR2/800 RAM on an EVGA 680 SLI motherboard, one EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS card, a Western Digital 500GBCaviar hard drive, and a PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool PSU. All tests were conducted using Verbatim media and Nero DiscSpeed, except the ripping test, wherein we time how long it takes to copy the contents of a dual-layer DVDto a VelociRaptor hard drive.



At rst glance, Logitech’s new G500mouse looks like yesterday’s model.Its chassis is almost identical to

the classic G5, which was in turn a slightredesign of the MX510/518 series. TheG500 takes the classic hump design of theMX510/518 and updates the sensor withone similar to the sensor used in the newerG9x line of mice. That’s very nice.

When we say the same laser sensor asthe G9x (reviewed June 2009), we reallymean that Logitech included an ever-so-slightly upgraded version of the G9x’s sen-

sor. The G500’s adjustable sensor lets youselect a setting from 200–5,700dpi, whilethe G9x limits you to 200–5,000dpi. Thisisn’t really a signicant upgrade, as eventhe 5,000dpi setting is unplayable outsidethe small subset of games that let you setan incredibly low sensitivity. Still, we lovethe silky-smooth action of this mouse.

With ve programmable buttons, plus theclicky mouse-wheel, there are plenty of op-tions for the button-crazed gamer. We’re notnecessarily fans of the triple thumb-buttoncluster, though; it sacrices simplicity andthe ability to instantly know which buttonyou’re pressing for an extra button that we

rarely use. Still, players of macro-friendlygames—like RTSes and World of Warcra —will nd that it’s simple to program, althoughgetting the timing perfect can be tricky. Weabsolutely love that the switch that alternatesthe mouse wheel between its detente-lesssmooth scroll setting and the more traditionalone-click stop setting is squarely front andcenter—on top of the mouse, directly belowthe scroll wheel. However, its placement doesmean that it’s possible to accidently clickshould you lose your grip.

Like the other G-series mice from

Logitech, the G500 includes a weight tray,allowing you to customize the weight of yourmouse in increments of 2g or 5g. Additionally,like the G9 and G9x, you can store prolescontaining everything from button assign-ments to dpi and mouse polling settings onthe mouse. This lets you utilize your customproles on whatever computer you’re playingon. This is perfect for LAN parties, where youmay or may not be competing on a computeryou built. While you can save multiple proleson the G500, you can’t manually switchbetween them on the mouse itself. It’s a minorfeature, but something we liked with theG9-series mice. We were able to set as many

as ve different sensitivity settings in theLogitech control panel app, but we couldn’taccess more than three in our tests with theactual hardware. Which three could we use?No idea, the mouse simply tells you whetheryou’re using the slow, medium, or fast setting,without displaying the actual dpi settingyou’re using.

Where does that leave the G500? Whilewe love the classic shape of the G500, wemiss the G9-series’ ability to switch betweenproles using just the mouse. If you absolutelydetest the shape and interchangeable bodies

of the G9 mice, this is an acceptable rodent.However, if you can adjust to the G9x, it’s asuperior product. – WILL SMITH

Logitech G500This throwback laser mouse is sure to please fans of the classic MX518

Logitech’s G500 gaming mousetakes the gamer-friendly sensor of the G9x and putsit in a mouse reminiscentof the classic MX518.

+ -

VERDICT

$70, www.logitech.com

8Great sensor; classicshape; quick-switchdual-mode scroll-wheel.

Requires softwareto change profiles;expensive; too manythumb buttons.

GEEKS

LOGITECH G500

FREAKS

www.maximumpc.com | DEC 09 | MAXIMUMPC | 8




Kingston SSDNow V+ 256GBA Samsung SSD by any other name...

You might think GPU and CPU upgradeshappen quickly, but they’re practicallyglacial compared to the SSD market, where

a platform can go from Kick Ass Award–winningperformance to merely good in a few months.

Witness Kingston’s SSDNow V+ 256GB, es-sentially a rebadge of Samsung’s 256GB drive,to which we gave a Kick Ass Award back in July.The Samsung and Kingston drives, as well asCorsair’s P256 rebadge, all use 256GB of Samsung

NAND chips, with the Samsung S3C29RBB01controller and 128MB of onboard DDR cache toprevent random-write stuttering.

The SSDNow’s sustained average readspeeds clocked in at 193.8MB/s, slightly higherthan the OEM Samsung version but not quite upto the 209MB/s established by the 160GB IntelX-25M we reviewed in November. Its averagesustained writes of 153MB/s trailed behindIndilinx-controlled devices like the PatriotTorqx, with its 175MB/s sustained writes, whilethe X-25M’s mere 79MB/s seem positively pre-historic by comparison.

Random-access read and write speeds onthe SSDNow are similar to those of the OEMSamsung drive and Patriot Torqx at .16ms laten-cy for random reads and .24 for random writes.Here, the Intel drive remains king, with .11msreads and blistering-fast .08ms writes. PremierePro scores were similarly middle-of-the-pack forthe SSDNow.

The most unusual aspect of the Kingstondrive’s benchmarks involved PCMark VantageHDD, which tests the drive’s performancerunning Windows-based applications, such asWindows Defender, Media Player, applicationlaunches, etc. The rst time we ran PCMark

Vantage on the drive, we were confronted with astunningly low score of 5,303 PCMarks—barelyhigher than a traditional 2TB drive. The secondtime, much to our surprise, the score jumped to13,289. A er a few more runs, it settled comfort-ably into a range around 18,400—a little lowerthan some of its peers, like the rst-gen IntelX-25M and Patriot Torqx, but at least in the sameneighborhood. None of the other drives we’vetested that house this Samsung controller showed

similar symptoms, and at press time Kingston’stechs were still trying to duplicate the problem.

The Kingston SSDNow V+ 256GB is a goodSSD, built on a solid controller, with excellentperformance. But we’re not granting this drivea Kick Ass Award, as we did its predecessors.Why? Well, rst, the Indilinx-controlled driveswe’ve reviewed since July offer slightly bet-ter performance, despite their smaller cachesize. And Corsair’s P256 SSD, which is virtuallyidentical to the Kingston drive, is $30 cheaper.And considering the still-high price-per-gigabytethat remains the biggest hurdle in SSD adoption,every penny helps. – NATHAN EDWARDS


BENCHMARKSKingston

SSDNow V+PatriotTorqx

IntelX25-M G2

Capacity 256GB 128GB 160GB

Average Sustained Transfer Rate Read (MB/s) 193.8 205.4 209.1

Average Sustained Transfer Rate Write (MB/s) 153.7 175.1 79.5

Random Access Read (ms) 0.16 0.11 0.13

Random Access Write 0.24 0.31 0.08

Premiere Pro 696 674 696

PCMark Vantage Overall Score 18,393* 21,247 23,288

Best scores are bolded. All drives were tested on our standard test bed using a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 and EVGA 680i SLI board. HDTach 3.0.1.0,h2benchw, and Premiere Pro CS3 scores were obtained in Windows XP; PCMark Vantage 2005 scores were obtained in Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.*Results after multiple runs; see review.

+ -

VERDICT

$700, www.kingston.com

8The same blisteringsustained reads/writesas the Corsair P256...

...Because it’s thesame drive—exceptthe Kingston is moreexpensive.

JAMAICA

KINGSTON SSDNOW V+ 256GB

JICAMA



The Kingston SSDNow V+ 256GB isa rebadged version of the Samsungdrive we reviewed in July.




We’ve been saying it for years: Themoment they stop messing aroundwith rushed, under-funded movie

tie-ins and make a real Batman game, we’llhave a huge hit on our hands. With ArkhamAsylum, Rocksteady has proved us right—thisgame nally does justice to the Dark Knight by

recreating the monstrous foes, the dark, grittyatmosphere, and Batman’s legendary ghtingskills to near perfection.

Arch nemesis Joker, in particular, is amasterpiece. Voiced by Mark Hamill (repris-ing the role from Batman: The Animated

Series ) and modeled and animated withsome astonishing detail and lighting, he’sgenuinely convincing as the deranged,murderous clown who turns the tableson Batman by seizing control of Arkham,Gotham’s supervillain lock-up.

Arkham itself is a joy to explore. It’s asemi-open world that grows as new areasare unlocked by the story and by Batman’sexpanding array of gadgetry; each sectionis loaded with unique details and secretsplanted by the Riddler, and subtle (and somenot-so-subtle) changes every time you passthrough prevent it from ever getting dull.With PhysX turned on, cosmetic improve-

ments like loose papers picked up by thewind, swaying cobwebs, and crumbling stonewalls enhance the atmosphere noticeably.

The single best part of the game—theone that will have you playing over and overin challenge mode—is its amazing ghtingsystem. Anyone can jump in right away andfeel like a great ghter taking on a group ofve or six of Joker’s thugs, with some basicbutton-mashing resulting in surprisinglysmooth and owing combat animations.With practice, you’ll get the hang of the nerpoints of combos and timing, turning you intoan unstoppable ghting machine capable ofbeating the crap out of a dozen or more op-ponents without them laying a hand on you.Rarely does a game make you feel like thismuch of a badass.

Being a bullet-permeable hero, Batmantakes an entirely different approach to armedthugs. Using stealth (and convenient stone gar-goyle perches) the goal is to isolate and pickthe baddies off one at a time. It can be frustrat-ing for players who prefer a d irect approach,but Batman has a secret weapon to speed upthe process considerably: Detective Mode.Switching this on allows you to see all nearbyenemies through walls, so as long as you lookbefore you leap you’ll never be caught withyour pants down when you make your move.It’s so effective, in fact, that we felt guilty usingit and le it switched off most of the time. Itmakes a gorgeous game look ugly, anyway.

If not for some repetitious mini-bossghts, the barely interactive “detectivework,” and the checkpoint save system,we’d have virtually nothing negative to sayabout Arkham Asylum. Even the mouse andkeyboard controls, o en a weak point ofcross-platform third-person action games, areelegantly done and arguably better than thegamepad. This is Batman at his best, and you

don’t get much better thanthat. – DAN STAPLETON

Batman: Arkham Asylum

The Bat is back

+ -

VERDICT

$50, www.batmanarkhamasylum.com, ESRB: T

9Awesome voice acting,graphics, atmosphere,combat, and controls.

Checkpoint saves;repetitive mini-bosses.

HRISTOPHER NOLAN

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM

JOEL SCHUMACHER

Sonar’s for wimps. Detective vision can see henchmen’s tiny brains.

Fights against these 'roid-raging thugs are exciting, but the game goes back to this well a few times

too often.



, Disguise?Gordon digs into the upsides of having a pre-Propus core

AMD’s late news that it would use boththe new, smaller Propus cores as wellas some would-be Deneb/Phenom II

cores for the budget Athlon II X4 has certainlypiqued the interest of hardware hackers.

That’s because just as AMD didn’t make itdiffi cult to unlock the fourth core on its tri-coreCPUs, the company might be just as BarneyFife about stopping you from unlocking the

disabled L3 cache on these pre-Propus, akaDeneb, cores. By unlocking the disabled L3cache, you essentially get yourself a $99 Phenom II. Who can complain?

Over at the ultra-tweaker site, Xtremesystems.org, user Chinook hasposted a shot of a “Propus” with its L3 unlocked (see the accompanyingscreenshot). We had no such luck with our Athlon II X4 620.

AMD, of course, says it does not recommend overclocking or unlock-ing cores or cache on procs that have them disabled—but the company’snot exactly going to sic the attack dogs on you. AMD is essentially givingthe wink-wink, nod-nod to hardware hackers who like to tweak theirprocs, as it knows the vast majority of people who buy these CPUs willnever actually unlock the locked features.

KATHERINE STEVENSON

DEPUTY EDITOR

With the holidays justaround the corner, thatcan mean only onething—that everyone’slaunching new prod-ucts. We’ve seen newthin-and-light note-books, monitors, net-books, videocards, andeven a $99 quad-coreCPU. It’s a glorioustime of year if you’rea hardware nerd,and it’s the perfectantidote to the droughtof new gear that hitsevery June and lasts’til September.

Having to wait the 20days between Batman:Arkham Asylum’sconsole and PC releaseturned out to be worth it,but I can’t help but stillbe irked that more pub-lishers are increasing thedelay period betweenconsole releases andWindows ports (as withResident Evil 5 and RedFaction: Guerilla). Delaysto add extra gameplaycontent is OK, but thevalue of trivial add-onslike proprietary physicsis debatable.

I’m looking forward togetting my hands onHP’s new Envy note-books, particularly the15-inch model, whichnot only looks sharp,and very slim, but alsofeatures Intel’s just-released ClarkseldCPU, a mobile versionof Core i7 that boastsa 45W TDP—half theheat output of anydesktop i7. And fromwhat I’m told, TurboMode gures promi-nently in the mobilei7’s performance.

This month, I learnedto use Excel so I couldkeep track of thescoreboard for theoffi ce’s classic-gamestournament. Andyou know what? AsI was guring outhow to do all mannerof sorting, color-ing, and graphingtricks in Microso ’sspreadsheet program,I actually started tohave fun. I’m startingto worry that my truecalling in life is to bean accountant.

This month I’ve discov-ered several new things:rst, I’m miserably badat both Galaga andDonkey Kong. Second,playing Batman:Arkham Asylum is moreimportant than sleeping.And third, the onlything that consistentlycrashes my Windows 7machine is iTunes. Oh,and OLEDs are awe-some. I’m getting themimplanted beneath myskin as soon as feasiblypossible. Nothing couldpossibly go wrong.

ALEX CASTLE

ASSOCIATE ONLINE EDITOR

NATHAN EDWARDS

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

WILL SMITHEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

NORMAN CHAN

ONLINE EDITOR

GORDON MAH UNG

SENIOR EDITOR




Post Office Notice: Statement of Ownership, Managementand Circulation for Periodicals class privileges as requiredby 39 USC3685: 1. Publication Title: Maximum PC. 2.Publication No. 1522-4279. 3. Filing Date: 9/30/09. 4.Issue Frequency: Monthly plus Holiday issue followingDecember issue. 5. Number of issues published annually:13. 6. Annual subscription price: $30.00. 7. Completemailing address of known office of publication: 4000Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA94080. 8/9. Complete address of the headquarters ofgeneral business offices of the publisher, editor andmanaging editor: Publisher: Simon Wear - same address,Editor: Will Smith - same address, Managing Editor:Katherine Stevenson - same address. 10. Owner: FutureUS, Inc, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South SanFrancisco, CA 94080; Shareholder: Future PLC, BeaufordCourt, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, U.K. BA12BW. 11/12.N/A. 13. Publication title: Maximum PC. 14. Issue date forCirculation Data below: November 2009. 15. Extent andnature of circulation given in this order, number of average

copies each issue during preceding 12 months followedby actual number of copies published nearest filing date:a. Total number of copies: 382,986; 376,625. b. Paid and/or Requested Circulation: (1) Mail Subscriptions Outside-County: 205,662; 197,260. (2) Paid In-County Subscriptions:0, 0. (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors,counter sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution:43,992; 43,000. (4) Other Classes Mailed Through USPS:0, 0. c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 249,654;240,260. d. Free Distribution by Mail: (1) Outside County:1,414; 1,421. (2) In-County: 0, 0. (3) Other Classes MailedThrough the USPS: 0, 0. (4). Free Distribution Outsidethe Mail: 73; 0. e. Total Free Distribution: 1,487; 1,421.f. Total Distribution: 251,141; 241,681. g. Copies notDistributed: 131,845; 134,944. h. Total: 382,986; 376,625.i. Percent Paid: 99%; 99%. 16. Publication of Statementof Ownership is required and is printed in this issue ofthis publication: December 2009. 17. I certify that thestatements made by me above are correct and complete:Crystal Hudson, Circulation Director.

MAXIMUM PC STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/22-incredible-applications-and-games-to-install 67/7094 | MAXIMUM PC | DEC 09 | www.maximumpc.com

The BestWindows Ever?So, you guys call Windows7 “unquestionably the bestversion of Windows thatMicrosoft has ever released”

(November 2009, page 56),yet you give it a lower rat-ing than you gave WindowsXP back in 2001? Good luckexplaining that one away.

—George Harris

Editor-in-Chief WillSmith responds: I actu-ally discussed that veryissue at length with theother editors before wepublished the review, andthere are a few things thathelped me settle on the 9/Kick Ass score (versus a 10/Kick Ass) for Win7. First,Windows XP representeda HUGE improvement overthe 16-bit 95/98/ME genera-tion. While Windows 7 is asignificant step forward, it isstill an incremental update toVista. Additionally, I remainunhappy enough with theunnecessary differentiationof product SKUs in Windows

7 and the increasinglyannoying activation pro-cess that I decided to dockWindows 7 that final pointfor those shortcomings.

You also need to realizethat products evolve overtime. Would XP w/SP3 ratea 10/Kick Ass if I were toreview it today? Probably not.It was great in 2001, but com-pared to other more modernOSes, it lacks support for keytechnologies. Besides, if every

product that supplants its pre-

decessors gets a higher score,we’d be handing out 10/KickAsses to virtually everythingwe review, instead of a half-dozen or so a year.

Netbook Identity CrisisWhen netbooks came out acouple years ago, they weretiny—something like seveninches across. Now we’re see-ing “netbooks” with screensthat are 11.6 inches or 12inches. I thought the wholepoint of netbooks was thatthey were small and porta-ble? Why get a netbook whenit’s gonna be the same sizeas a regular notebook? Are12-inch netbooks just cheap,low-powered portables?

—Logan Baldwin

Associate Editor NathanEdwards responds: We’veoften wondered the samething ourselves. And thoughwe’re big into netbooks, we’venoticed that we get a lot morework done on a machine witha slightly bigger screen. TheLenovo S12 we reviewed inNovember, for example, has

a resolution of 1280x800, andwe found the extra screenspace vital. Considering itdidn’t weigh much more orcost much more than youraverage 10-inch netbook, wecan definitely see the appeal.But you’re right, the lines aredefinitely blurring, especiallyas we move away from AtomN270- and N280-based modelsand into “netbooks” and cheapultraportables powered by VIANano, Ion, or Intel CULV chips.

Deciding what is and what is

not a netbook will get evenmore difficult. But ultimately,the legacy of the netbookwill be that it introduced thesub-$500, sub–three pound,ultraportable. Cheap, tiny, and

reasonably powerful com-puters are here to stay, even ifa 12-inch screen isn’t exactlytiny anymore.

The Form also hasa FunctionI just read your review ofthe Vantec ezShare adapter(October). Really? A ratingof a 9? And the reason for

withholding a 10 verdict or aKick Ass Award was, “Has allthe style and grace of a plainwhite USB cable.” So, you

If you’ve jumped onthe Google Android band-wagon, chances are thatyou’re using T-Mobile’sG1—a smartphone thatcan be hacked to runcustom software.We show you how toeasily root yourphone to installcommunity-developed Androidinterface ROMsand add featureslike storing andrunning Androidapps off of a SDmemory card.Read ourguide at:http://bit.ly/1S6d0I

NOW ONLINE

Hack Your Android G1

We tackle tough reader questions on...

Windows 7 Verdict an oys

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COMMENTS YOU WRITE, WE RESPOND



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BEST OF THE BEST A PART-BY-PART GUIDE TO BUILDING A BETTER PC

70There’s a new GPU

king and its specs areastounding. With 2.15 billion transistors and 1,600 streamprocessors, the Radeon HD5870 sports more than twiceas much power as AMD’s last-generation card, while actuallydrawing signicantly less idlepower than the HD 4890.Topping off this boost in raw

horsepower is full hardwaresupport for DirectX 11, includ-ing Shader Model 5.0 andhardware tessellation. In real-world performance testing,the 5870 stomps Nvidia’s GTX285, besting it with double-digit percentage performancedeltas. And with a $380 pricetag, the 5870 handily seizesthe GPU crown.www.ati.com

THE REST OF THE BEST

Games we are playing

■ Batman: ArkhamAsylum

www.batmanarkhamasylum.com

■ ARMA 2www.arma2.com

■ Borderlandswww.borderlandsthegame.com

■ High-End ProcessorIntel 3.33GHz Core i7-975www.intel.com

■ Midrange ProcessorIntel 2.8GHz Core i7-860www.intel.com

■ Budget Processor

Intel 2.66GHz Core i5-750www.intel.com

■ LGA1156 MotherboardGigabyte GA-P55-UD6www.gigabyte.us

■ Socket AM2 MotherboardMSI K9A2 Platinumwww.msi.com.tw

■ $250 VideocardNvidia GeForce GTX 275www.nvidia.com

■ Performance StoragePatriot Torqx 128GBwww.patriotmemory.com

■ Mainstream StorageSeagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TBwww.seagate.com

■ Capacity Hard Drive

Western Digital CaviarBlack 2TBwww.wdc.com

■ Blu-ray DrivePioneer BDR-2203www.pioneerelectronics.com

■ Full-Tower CaseCooler Master ATCS 840www.coolermaster.com

■ Mid-Tower Case

Silverstone Fortresswww.silverstonetek.com