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4488 PC Building 501How To Shame The Pros

5522 Building The Ultimate PCTwo Cores, Two Video Cards, Four Hard Drives, Crazy Power

Frontside6 Whats Happening12 Digital Economy14 The Saint

From Russia With Love

July 2005 Vol 5 Issue 7

Copyright 2005 by Sandhills Publishing Company. Computer Power User is a trademark of Sandhills PublishingCompany. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing in Computer Power User is strictly prohibitedwithout written permission. Printed in the U.S.A. GST # 123482788RT0001 (ISSN 1536-7568) CPU ComputerPower User USPS 020-801 is published monthly for $29 per year by Sandhills Publishing Company, 131 WestGrand Drive, P.O. Box 82667, Lincoln, NE 68501. Subscriber Services: (800) 424-7900. Periodicals postage paid atLincoln, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Computer Power User, P.O. Box 82667, Lincoln, NE 68501.

The Experts

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

Rob CmdrTacoMaldaThe DepartmentOf Stuffpage 83

Pete LoshinOpen Saucepage 79

Joan WoodForward Slashpage 84

Kyle Bennett[H]ard Talkpage 28

Alex Sharky RossThe Shark Tankpage 27

Alex St. JohnThe Saintpage 14

Chris PirilloDialogue Boxpage 78

Anand Lal ShimpiAnands Cornerpage 26

Mike MageeShavings From The Rumour Millpage 97

Spotlight

Hard Hat AreaPC Modder

30 Tips & Tutorials31 Stylized Input

Custom Painting A Keyboard & Mouse36 Mad Reader Mod

Box It Up

38 Advanced Q&A Corner42 X-ray Vision: Blinkx TV

Reworking Data Searches44 White Paper: Tracking & Identifying

PedestriansForget Big Brother, Try Big Business

Loading Zone68 The Bleeding Edge Of Software

Inside The World Of Betas70 Up To Speed

Upgrades Thatll Keep You Humming Along

71 Port AuthoritiesSix Software Firewalls That Proved Effective

75 Apple Computer GarageBand 2.0.176 CyberLink PowerDVD 6 Deluxe

Electric Pocket Busker MP3 PlayerWEB MobiMate WorldMate Professional78 Dialogue Box

The Industrys Instant Messaging Mess79 Open Sauce

Free Stuff That Doesnt Suck

Caught In The Web80 Sony PSP Becomes The Webs Favorite

New ToyA Hackers Delight

83 The Department Of Stuffmassives.txt

84 Forward SlashGEOSS: IT, Phone Home

Heavy Gear15 Dream Hardware

16 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+

17 ATI Radeon X800 XL 512MB

18 Alienware Aurora: Star Wars Edition

20 Seagate 400GB Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive

Diamond Xtreme TV PVR 550

21 Creative Live! Ultra vs. Logitech QuickCam Orbit

Ear-Bud Noise-Canceling Headphones

22 Memory Modules Square Off

24 Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840AMD Sempron 3300+

26 Anands CornerThoughts On Xbox 360Im Stoked

27 The Shark TankWidescreen Gaming

28 [H]ard TalkXbox 360

Digital Living86 Road Warrior

New Nokia Camera Phones, The Libretto Returns, Bluetooth & UWB Hooking Up & More From The Mobile Front

88 At Your LeisurePlug In, Sit Back & Fire Away

Tips & Tricks93 Software Tips & Projects

Re-Imagining The PSP95 Warm Up To Penguins

Page Layout With Scribus

Whats Cooking97 Shavings From The Rumour Mill

AMD Pips Intel To Performance Post98 Technically Speaking

An Interview With Jimmy Wales, The Wizard Of Wikipedia

106 Under DevelopmentA Peek At Whats Brewing In The Laboratory

Back Door108 Q&A With Shane Carruth

Make Your Own Indie Film Gem For $7,000

Infinite LoopsStrange stats and other oddballitems from computing's periphery

82, 94, 96

CORRECTIONS: Our bad: In virtually every situation, a single-link cable is enough for 1,920x 1,200 resolutions at 60Hz. For a more thor-ough explanation, see our updated Web version.

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Gulick / Andrew Leibman / Vince Cogley / Samuel Evans /Jennifer Johnson WWeebb SSttaaffff:: Missy Fletcher / Brandie Humphrey/ Laura Curry / Travis Brock CCuussttoommeerr SSeerrvviiccee:: Lindsay Albers /Becky Rezabek / Lana Matic SSuubbssccrriippttiioonn RReenneewwaallss:: Liz Kohout

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Marcy Gunn / Jen Clausen / Scot Banks / Ashley Hannant / Luke Vavricek

G R E E T I N G S F R O M S A M I T L A N D

T ime is flying by at ludicrous speeds with our issue deadline this month; our in-house team is attacking things with gusto to get the mag out the door a few daysearly so we can get out the door to E3, which kicks off tomorrow (and seems to fallon a CPU deadline every year). Last night we watched the E3 press junkets that pitted thenew consolesMicrosoft Xbox 360 with graphics by ATI vs. Sony PlayStation 3 withgraphics by NVIDIAagainst each other. These behemoths sound like ber PCs, so youcan expect more coverage in the future. ATI touted Microsofts HD gaming concept, andNVIDIA pointed out how its new PS3 graphics chip outperforms dual GeForce 6800 Ultravideo cards. The processing power of these machines is incredible, and both are vying heavi-ly for a prime spot in your living room. Youve seen our previous comments on Sonys Cellprocessor; this month you can see what Anand and Kyle have to say about Xbox 360 (pages26 and 28, respectively). I look forward to these next-gen consoles because I think theyllspeed up the development of multithreaded apps for the PC. And before long, Im surewell hear the familiar PC death knell that inevitably follows the launch of new consoles.Stick it out. Consoles have their place (Ill be hitting wife Choudhuri up for both), but thePC isnt going anywhere (other than receiving massive gains in performance). I think wellsee a lot more interoperability between the PC and consoles in coming years.

Speaking of PCs, dont miss our 12-page extravaganza on building your ultimate PC(page 52). The PC we built is very fast. Its made from the best components you can buy, andits a rig you could throw together in an evening. Naturally, ultimate PCs are fleeting, andwe may have to revisit this after the next big shift in technology. The graphics horsepower ismassive: two $1,000 BFG 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultrasrunning in SLI. Processing comes courtesy of an AMD Athlon 64X2 4800+ dual-core CPU (review on page 17). If fast PCs makeyou hot under the collar, take a cold shower and then dive in.Naturally, we have a ton more content, including hacking the SonyPSP for more than just gaming, a 64-bit driver update, and more.

As always, Im too long-winded, and we need to get back to get-ting this issue in your hands. Let us know what you like and what youdont. Your feedback is important to us. Also, a quick shout out toMarco at HotHardware.comhe just married Adrienne and is offto Antigua. Hey, its the marriage special issue (page 9), so Id beremiss in not sending out another shout to our pal Chris Angeliniand Alicia. Congrats all. OK, well catch you back here nextmonth. Until then!

Samit G. Choudhuri, Publication Editor, CPU

Gotcha.Here it is.

Compiled by Steve Smith

W h a t s H a p p e n i n g H a r d w a r e

Whoa, Dude! Theres ASubwoofer In My HeadThat throbbing in your brain may not be an aneurismafter all if you have a pair of the ominously namedHeadbanger Audio Ear Subs and Head Subs (www.headbangeraudio.com). Thats right, these $39.99 models forPC music and game play, as well as iPods and PSPs, havean Electronic Amplified Subwoofer attached to thecord that claims to produce deeper bass without over-whelming the upper and midrange registers of youraudio tracks. Hey, we miss the bass line as much as thenext guy when we put on a set of cans for private listen-ing, but you dont usually associate headbanger andsubwoofer with anything you plant in or around the

ear canal. Call us dweebishcowards, but were goingto test these at low volumes first.

The Big Two-fer: ECS PF88 Extreme MakesAMD & Intel Live TogetherIf you really, really cant decide between building an AMD orIntel-based PC, then the ECS PF88 dual-platform motherboard is the ultimate solution for vacillators. The base Intel LGA775motherboard has all the usual accoutrements (DDR2-667 memory

slots, a 1,066 FSB, andSATA II drive connec-tors), but you can add a SIMA (SimplySmart) converter cardthat switches the sys-tem to an AMD sock-et 939 PC. The twomodes share a SiS965southbridge, but theAMD card has its ownSiS756 northbridge, as well as DDR400memory slots andFSB2000T support.Switching betweenplatforms requiresjumper changes andinserting the right

BIOS ROM, but that beats installing a new motherboard. ThePF88 will accommodate dual-core CPUs from both Intel andAMD, so you can bring your indecisiveness into the next genera-tion of processors, as well.

The Skype Is The Limit WithInternet Phone WizardTechies like us have embraced the excellent Skype software phonesystem, which runs telephony over a P2P network. Unfortunately,Skype tethers you to your PC with the requisite headset. Actiontecs(www.actiontec.com) solution is the new Internet Phone Wizard withSkype ($79.99). The adapter plugs into your broadband-connectedPCs USB port and directly into standard landline phones, which canalso stay connected to your traditional phone lines. Pick up the phoneto hear your usual dial tone and tap a couple of keys to tell the Wizardthat you want to make this call via Skype. Calling any other Skype useris free, and rates for dialing non-Skype phones start at 2 cents perminute. Beat that Verizon!

Actiontecs new device connects your existing phones to the SkypeP2P Internet phone network.

Headbanger Audio plans to rattle your nogginwith headphones and ear buds powered byportable subwoofers.

The PF88 motherboard accommodatesthe ultimate PC switcheroo, from Intelto AMD platforms, with the addition ofa converter card.

6 July 2005 / www.computerpoweruser.com

W h a t s H a p p e n i n g H a r d w a r e

Bluetooth & UWB Get Compatible

Bluetooth is finally getting well-deserved respect as a user-friendly peer-to-peer wireless protocol that pumpsup to 3Mbps. Safeguarding itself against obsolescence, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (www.bluetooth.com) will work with developers of the upcoming UWB (Ultra-Wideband) protocol to ensureBluetooth compatibility. UWB promises massive 100Mbps short-range wireless connectivity among PC andconsumer electronic devices, but two rival technologies are vying to become the official standard. Bluetooth isworking with both until a winner is declared. Down the road this means that your Bluetooth cell phone maybe able to speak with and program your TiVo and HDTV. (NOTE: For additional info see page 87.)

Next-Gen DVD Peace At Hand

The spirit of format cooperation seems to be in the air (see Bluetooth & UWB Get Compatible) as the stalemate betweenSony-backed Blu-ray and Toshiba-backed HD-DVD formats may be resolved as you read this. Japanese media reports that thetwo giants, who represent rival camps of manufacturers, are close to a compromise format that relies primarily on Sonys Blu-rayplan for 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer DVDs but uses Toshibas copy protection and data transfer. Toshiba was quickto deny that such a technology compromise was imminent, even though everyone seems to agree now to the obvious, that a sin-gle next-gen DVD standard would clarify the market and accelerate adoption for everyone.

Sonys DVD Burner Goes Double & Dual

Two is the magic number now in a PC industry that hawks twinvideo card SLI arrays, dual-core CPUs, and even two-platform moth-erboards. (See The Big Two-fer: ECS PF88 Extreme Makes AMD &Intel Live Together.) And now Sony doubles down to offer both 4XDVD-R dual-layer and 4X DVD+R double-layer recording in thesame drive. The $130 internal DRU-800A unit and $210 externalDRX-800UL models can now use both sides of the latest DVDrecordable media to fit 8.5GB of data (up to four hours of video) on adisc. In the hands of some misguided home video moguls, that trans-lates into more crushingly boring family footage in one sitting than wecare to imagine.

HH aa rr dd ww aa rr ee MM oo ll ee

Will The Tablet PC Float In The Mainstream? Two years after launching its pen-based variant of Windows XP, Microsoft finally cancrow about having 1 million Tablet PCs in the market. Some health care and construc-tion niches bought in pen-based computing, but Microsoft executives say they now wantto mainstream the Tablet onto more consumer and enterprise notebooks. Convertiblenotebook/Tablets, such as Toshibas Satellite R15 ($1,599) and upcoming HP models,have lower price points because Microsoft helps OEMs find less expensive ways to addstylus and touch-sensitive hardware. The aim is to mainstream the Tablet option, saysMicrosoft product managers, so that pen-based interfaces become more of a low-costvalue add for notebook buyers. In fact, an IBM filing with the FCC reveals that aThinkPad X41 Tablet line of convertibles is forthcoming, which may also give the plat-form new credibility in the enterprise.

Toshibas Satellite R15

Sonys latest burner now supports two-sided recordingin both DVD-R and DVD+R formats for four hours ofvideo on a single disc.

CPU / July 2005 7

Watching The Chips Fall

Here is pricing information for AMD and Intel CPUs.

W h a t s H a p p e n i n g C h i p W a t c hCompiled by Dean Takahashi

Matrix Takes 3D Memory To The Next Floor

Matrix Semiconductor has been successfully shippingits 3DM (3D Memory) chips for the past year forapplications such as Mattels Juice Box personal mediaplayer. The company figured out how to stack transis-tors vertically and create memories in a read-only for-mat; by stacking them so, the company can cut costsand pack transistors much more densely than on stan-dard ROM chips. Now Matrix has fabricated a 1Gb3DM chip that uses hybrid scaling, or the combina-tion of different manufacturing processes on differentlayers of the same chip. Matrix has also built memory on top of logic, allowing it to save25% on chip size, in a technique it calls Segmented Wordline architecture. The compa-ny says it has more than 100 patents related to 3D memory.

Rosum Finds You When GPS Falls Short

The weakness of GPS is that satellites arent very good at tracking an individual with a nav-igation system who moves indoors or goes into a deep urban canyon surrounded by sky-scrapers. But James Spilker, one of the original GPS pioneers, has figured out a way to usethe synchronization data in a TV signal to triangulate on a position. He co-foundedRosum, a company based in Redwood City, Calif., to create chips and modules that enableTV-based tracking as a complement to GPS. Rosum CEO Skip Speaks says that you canbuild the companys chips into GPS navigation devices for about $40. Those chips basical-ly perform a calculation similar to the way GPS triangulates with satellites; they measurethe distance the signal has traveled from a TV station antenna to the Rosum gadget. Bycomparing the data to known signals, Rosum gets a fix on the gadgets location. It works inurban canyons and even in the basement of the San Francisco Public Library, says DennisWorkman, a vice president at Trimble Navigation. Trimble will launch a navigation devicein 2006 that uses Rosums TV location system, as well as GPS. Speaks says Rosum will beperfect for monitoring fleets of delivery trucks in big cities or monitoring the movements ofparolees when they disappear inside buildings, for example.

Raza Microelectronics Resurfaces With Communications Chips

Atiq Raza has quite a resume; he was CEO of NexGen, which AMD bought for more than$500 million to compete with Intel, and president of AMD but left in 1999 to cash in onthe communications chip boom inspired by the Internet bubble. His Raza Foundries fund-ed many high-profile companies, but some ran out of steam in the bust. However, Razatook three of the companies he funded and created a single communications chip compa-ny, Raza Microelectronics, in 2002. Three years later the company is preparing to launchtwo families of chips. One is a general-purpose MIPS-based processor family dubbed XLR.The chip has 333 million transistors and has eight processing cores, each capable of run-ning four threads. It basically replaces the need for a network processor and its associatedcoprocessors in all sorts of communicationsinfrastructure boxes, from Cisco routers tophone company switches. The second familyis Orion, an access processor for processingvoice, video, and data traffic simultaneously.The company will ship both families in vol-ume in the third quarter, Raza says.

Released Original Current Last month's price price price

AMD Athlon 64 2800+1/6/2004 $193** $104 $106 AMD Athlon 64 3400+1/6/2004 $417** $183 $209 AMD Athlon 64 3500+6/1/2004 $500** $255 $255 AMD Athlon 64 3700+6/1/2004 $710** $330 $322*AMD Athlon 64 3800+6/1/2004 $720** $359 $365 AMD Athlon 64 4000+10/19/2004 $729** $482 $529*AMD Athlon 64 FX-533/18/2004 $733** $727 $727 AMD Athlon 64 FX-5510/19/2004 $827** $809* $813*Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB2/2/2004 $999** $995* $999*Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB11/2/2004 $999** $985* $985*Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB2/21/2005 $999** $1,016* $1,067*Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 3.2GHz dual core4/18/2005 $999** $999** N/AIntel Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm6/27/2004 $178** $163* $150*Intel Pentium 4 530 3GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm6/27/2004 $218** $165* $165*Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm6/27/2004 $278** $189* $200*Intel Pentium 4 550 3.4GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm6/27/2004 $417** $289* $280*Intel Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm6/27/2004 $637** $394* $412*Intel Pentium 4 570 3.8GHz 1MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm11/15/2004 $637** $659* $699*Intel Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm2/21/2005 $273** $276* $276*Intel Pentium 4 650 3.4GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm2/21/2005 $401** $370* $406*Intel Pentium 4 660 3.6GHz 2MB cache 800MHz FSB 90nm2/21/2005 $605** $610* $587** Retail price

** Manufacturer's price per 1,000 units

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


W h a t s H a p p e n i n g I n t e r n e t

NN ee wwOO nn TT hh ee NN ee tt

Compiled by Trista Kunce

Why Knot Register Amazon-Style?So, you did it; you proposed because you knew yoursweetheart was the one, and now you also know that

your wallet is a little thinner. No worries,youll soon marry your true loveand get

a bunch of gifts. The trick to gettingwhat you need and want for your newlife together is to register for the giftsyou want before the wedding, whichwill also help those wedding guestswho need a little gift guidance.Although driving to Target, grab-bing a scanner, and pretendingyoure 007 killing stealthy enemiesas you point and scan the latest gasgrill to put on your registry couldseem like a fun way to spendyour afternoon, why not save

your gas money and shop onlineinstead at Amazon Wedding (www.amazon.com/wedding). Not only can you register for gifts on AmazonWedding with its interactive registry, but you and yoursoon-to-be also can access a wedding advice list andplanning checklist to direct you through the completeprocess, guides (more than 150), and other lists to helpyou keep track of everything from engagement partyinvitations to thank you notes. Youll also be able tosearch for caterers, florists, and photographers in yourarea using the A9 Yellow Pages. Amazon Wedding is agreat one-stop Web site for everything wedding. Theonly thing the site wont do is remind you that the cor-rect answer to any wedding question is usually, Yes,honey, whatever you think is best.

Train To Be An RPS MasterWhat better way to spend your summer than playing agame by the pool, and why not a game you could playinside and outside of the pool? Were not talking MarcoPolo here. Were talking RPS (rock, paper, scissors). TheWorld RPS Society Web site (www.worldrps.com) is seri-ous about helping you win the latest RPS tournaments this summer; however, if theresnot a tournament in your area, check out the site FAQs on how to set up a local tourna-ment. Before you get your agile-handed friends together, be sure to read The OfficialRock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide and, as with any other society, buy a T-shirt.

Grokker: Seeing SpotsIf you are tired of the same old vertical, serialized search interfaces, you needto circle back to Grokker (www.grokker.com). Grokker is a search tool thatvisualizes your search results into globular blobs. Like typical search engines,such as Google and Yahoo!, you enter a keyword into the search box, andthe engine locates information related to your keyword. With Grokker,however, after you click the GROK button, you get a cluster of colorful cir-cles on a black background separated into categories pertaining to yourtopic. Click a larger circle, and you will see more smaller circles and maybeeven some, gasp!, squares. Click the smaller circles to explore more subcat-egories. But lets say you like to think outside the circle. Place your mousepointer over a square to see the prcis of the contents of a link before youclick it. Now, go ahead; click the square. You will then see its contentsin a sidebar on the right side of the browser window. Finally, click theimage or URL to open the Web site in a separate window. Ultimate-ly, searching with Grokker is a visually appealing way to find whatyoure looking for on the Internet.

Get A Four-Hour Pod ShowAs you prepare for that upcoming RPS tour-nament, relax and listen to Adam CurrysPodShow (www.podshow.com). The creatorof podcasting and former MTV VJ hookedup with Sirius to create a four-hour radioand Internet show dedicated to podcasting.Hey, if you dont like it, just call in or sendCurry your comments via the Net.

CPU / July 2005 9

W h a t s H a p p e n i n g S o f t w a r e

3D BrowsingA new Web browser, dubbed 3B (free; www.3b.net), aims to dramatically change theway people use the Web by putting the browse back in browser. The program uses a3D interface to let you walk amongst Web sites: The result looks more like a first-personshooter than a traditional Web browser. The Windows-only browser divides the Webinto cities aimed at particular demographics such as women, urban life, and vacationplanners. The softwares maker also lets Web site owners build their own cities. Its aninteresting concept, but the program boxes you in to preselected Web sites, so somehowwe dont think that Firefox and Internet Explorer have much to worry about from thisnew competition.

Plain, Ol Browsing, But Cool UpdatesIf you prefer a more mainstream browser, Opera version 8 ($39; www.opera.com) isworth checking out. Available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, the program adds aunique security information field that indicates the trustworthiness of banking and shop-ping sites. Voice integration lets users control the browser with voice commands andreads Web pages content aloud. A new page-resizing function adapts Web pages to fitthe width of any window. The program continues to offer powerful features that make ita favorite among power users, including support for mouse gestures, tabbed browsing,and the ability to save browsing sessions.

Find TV On Your PCSo you missed last nights episode of Lostnow what? Sure, you might be able todownload it with BitTorrent, but navigating the slow, ad-infested Torrent tracker sitescan be a hassle. Smart developers are making it easier to find and download televisionshows. Videora (www.videora.com) combines BitTorrent and RSS to automatically findand download the videos that you want to see. The program was designed to let youdownload anime, video clips, and other legal content sources, but we were able to findepisodes of Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, and other mainstream TV.Videora costs $22.95, and a free trial version is available.

Hello, Windows Mobile 5.0Microsoft has updated its OS for portable devices. Windows Mobile 5.0 (www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/5/default.mspx) runs on both PDAs and mobile phones,replacing Microsofts Pocket PC moniker for its PDA OS and the Smartphone brand formobile phones. Windows Mobile 5.0 adds a PowerPoint viewer, support for internalhard drives, better Bluetooth compatibility, and improved support for digital camerasand other hardware.

Sweet Office SuiteCorel WordPerfect Office 12 Small Business Edition ($349; www.wordperfect.com)is taking on the Microsoft Office behemoth. The suite includes a word processor,spreadsheet, presentation app, photo editor, and security software. The new versionadds a new email application, which includes a shared calendar, spam blocker, andRSS viewer. The package also includes the Paint Shop Pro 9 image editor andQuattro Pro 12 spreadsheet application.

Compiled by Kevin Savetz

3B makes browsing the Web more likeexploring a 3D shopping mall.

Opera 8s security features let you verify theprivacy of the data you transmit.

Videora combines BitTorrent with RSS foreasier video downloads.

Keep Prying Eyes Out

Whether youre keeping trade secretson your laptop or just dont want yourspouse to find your secret birthdayshopping list, strong encryption isessential to keeping prying eyes out ofyour PC. A new version of SteganosSafe ($29.95; www.steganos.com)provides 256-bit AES protection and asecure file shredder. It also makes iteasy to take your encrypted data withyou by saving it directly to a USBmemory stick, digital camera memo-ry, or cell phone.


W h a t s H a p p e n i n g S o f t w a r e

MP3s & MusicIf your meager MP3 collection consists only of a handful of hits from the 80s, Indy(free; indy.tv) can help you discover new music that youll love. When you launch theprogram, it quickly downloads and begins playing music from an eclectic mix ofindependent artists. As you listen give the songs a rating on a scale from one to fivestars. The program uses collaborative filtering to figure out what other music yourelikely to enjoy. After just a little while, youll have a directory full of MP3s that youlllove. The program is available for both Mac OS and Windows.

On the other hand, if your MP3 collection is out of control, Magix mp3 maker 10deLuxe ($29.99; www.magix.com) can help tame it. The programs music organiza-tion tools include the ability to repair MP3 files and convert all of your files to yourpreferred format (including Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and mp3PRO). The program alsosupports Windows Media DRM, making it possible to play, archive, copy, and burnfiles that youve downloaded from many online music stores. The auto backup featurecan automatically save your entire music collection to CD or DVD.

Wi-Fi FinderMany cities offer hundreds of free Wi-Fi hotspots, which are great for a quick email fixwhen youre on the road, but finding a strong and unsecured signal can be a chore.Wi-Fi Companion for Pocket PCs ($24.99; www.socketcom.com) makes it easier tofind reliable hotspots with your Pocket PC. The application deter-mines the presence and strength of wireless coverage, whether securityis enabled, and the type of encryption used. Once youre connected its ping and traceroute tools let you check the speed and latency of theconnection.

Virtual DiskPGP has also released a new version of its powerful encryption soft-ware, PGP Desktop Home 9.0 ($69; www.pgp.com). Aimed at homeusers and home businesses that use an ISP for email, the programincludes five encryption tools for securing private email, selected files, and AOL Instant Messenger traffic. The PGP Virtual Disk soft-ware lets users create an encrypted partition, the contents of whichare gibberish to anyone who doesnt have the proper password.

BIOS Upgrades Available OnlineBefore you send another motherboard to the landfill, consider upgrading the BIOS and giving your PC a new outlook on life. Here are a few recently released upgrades. Readers can check out www.cpumag.com/cpujul05/bios to see our entire upgrade list.

Motherboard Date Available URLABIT IS-10 05/04/2005 www.abit-usa.com/downloads/bios/bios_revision.php?categories=1&model=137AOpen i915Gm-PL 05/06/2005 download.aopen.com.tw/userdownload_List.aspx?RecNo=9039&Model=i915Gm-PLBiostar U8668 D 04/12/2005 www.biostar-usa.com/mbdownloads.asp?model=u8668+dECS 661FX-M7 05/06/2005 www.ecsusa.com/downloads/downloads_main.cfm?to=MotherboardGIGABYTE GA-K8NSC-939 05/06/2005 tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-K8NSC-939.htmIntel D925XEBC2 05/10/2005 www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bc2/bc2_bios.htm

Compiled by Kevin Savetz

Behind Indys simple interface is anintelligent filtering system that can figure out your musical tastes.

Virtual Disk, part of PGP Desktop Home9.0, can encrypt and password protect adirectory full of files.

CPU / July 2005 11

Compiled by Steve Smith

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What Are You Doing On That Phone, Anyway?Americans are finally starting to make good use of all those feature-rich cellphones they bought by the millions last year. After feverish handset buying in late2004, customers really dove into next-gen phone services in the first months of2005. Just between January and February, research firm M:Metrics registeredabout a 5% jump in text message alert usage and mobile IM among U.S. mobilesubscribers, while phone-based gaming lurched more than 8%. About 65 millionpeople now use SMS messaging regularly. In order to take advantage of thissudden hunger for phone content, top carriers Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint haveaccelerated new content offerings and the roll out of high-speed 3G networksthat run them.

PPrroojjeecctteedd MMoonntthhllyy RReeaacchh PPeerrcceennttaaggee OOff MMoobbiillee CCuussttoommeerrss


From Russia With LoveII recently attended the Moscow GameDeveloper Conference, which was a veryinteresting experience. It was at the CosmosHotel, which was a towering, Cold War-eramonument to the collapse of communism.Across the street was a park dedicated to theachievements of the Soviet people undercommunism. It was largely derelict; theextravagant buildings that had once housedSputnik were now full of consumer electron-ics shops. I had been warned by one of ourRussian studios to keep my wallet close andnot to drink the water. When I got to thehotel the day before the conference, itseemed relatively deserted, but in spite ofhaving no other guests to serve, it still tookthem over an hour to check me in. The hotelhad security people guarding every entranceto the guest elevators.

The Game Developer Conference itselfwas a disorganized shambles. The confer-ence was half over before the enormous lineof attendees trying to register had finallydied down. Nobody was really checkingbadges anyway, so not being able to registerdidnt actually seem to impede attendance.Oddly, I found the whole experience some-what reminiscent of the early days of PCgaming here in the United States before theCGDC came under professional manage-ment. It was an event for gamers run bygamers who were very passionate about it, if not very organized.

After my experiences in China, I had ex-pected the Russians to be just as inexperi-enced at PC game development as most ofAsia is. Like China, Russia has no consolegame market. However, unlike China, Rus-sian developers were producing some of themost spectacular 3D graphics on the PC Ive seen in years. Many of these impressive-looking titles were being published exclu-sively in Russia. When I asked one ofMoscows emerging game publishers how he dealt with the piracy issues that plagueWestern game publishers in Russia, heexplained that they just call the pirates andask them not to steal their games. In Russiathe emerging game publishers got their startpirating Western games and distributing

them before they started creating contentthemselves; its just a courtesy not to piratefrom each other.

There were many small game developers atthe show looking for Western publishingpartners. I arranged meetings with several ofthem to try to get a feel for their talent andlevel of sophistication.

One developer I visited had offices thatmost of us would consider to be abandonedwarehouse space. They had 40+ peopleworking in a labyrinth of dark hallways androoms, chain-smoking cigarettes, and pro-gramming on old, partially assembled com-puters. They had been in business producinggames for major U.S. publishers for over 12years. The average salary for a good gameengineer was around $1,000/month. I inter-viewed some of their developers to see howgood they were. One was a former nuclearphysicist who had worked on Russias mis-sile systems during the Cold War. I askedwhat he did now, and he pointed at theunderwater scene on his computer screenwith some disdain and muttered: I makethe fish swim.

Another Russian developer was a bright kid who was very proud of his leading-edge3D engine. The engine looked good butseemed to suffer from several strange graph-ics artifacts. When I asked him how hed con-structed his engine, I realized he was prettymuch developing in a vacuum. He had nopeers who could guide him in how to solvethe architecture problems he was facing.Furthermore, he only had access to an ATI9600 video chip to test it on.

Later, walking among the show floorbooths, I noticed a monitor showing whatlooked like video of a forest of trees on a hill-side overlooking a windswept ocean. On clos-er examination I realized it was a real-time 3Drendered scene. I asked a 16-year-old kidstanding at the booth who had made thedemo, and he answered in clear English thathe had. Surprised, I asked who did his art, andhe indicated his 13-year-old friend. Another15-year-old friend had done the scene layout.They were at the show hoping to get a devel-opment deal to make their first game.

In Russia theemerging game

publishers gottheir start piratingWestern games

and distributingthem beforethey started

making contentthemselves; itsjust a courtesy

not to pirate fromeach other.

Sent your thoughts to [email protected].

Alex St. John was one of thefounding creators of MicrosoftsDirectX technology. He is thesubject of the book Renegades OfThe Empire about the creationof DirectX and Chromeffects, anearly effort by Microsoft to createa multimedia browser. TodayAlex is President and CEO ofWildTangent Inc., a technologycompany devoted to deliveringCD-ROM quality entertainmentcontent over the Web.

The Saint


These GizmosDont Sing It,They Bring It

I magine you have nothing but time. This is in large partbecause you spent it all on dreamy hardware. Listen tothe hours tick away on your finely appointed watch as a

silent image of a house in the next county plays across

your massive touchscreen. She lives there now. Youre

broke; youre single again; and lets face it, your surveil-

lance is creeping her out.

by Marty Sems

EElleeccttrroopphhyyssiiccss JJaaddee LLRR

Ten and a half miles. Thats how far away the Jade LR canspot youin the dark and in the rain. This $129,000 ther-mal-imaging camera head from Electrophysics (www.electrophysics.com) is tough enough for military and marine use. Itsideal for many types of long-range surveillance jobs (or for the well-heeled, discriminating stalker), picking up infraredradiation in the 3.6m-to-5m spectrum. The Electrophysics14-bit imaging signal is on tap via an analog composite jackfor a CCTV or PVR or through a digital port to interfacewith the companys ALTAIR software for Windows XP.Elsewhere in Electrophysics stable is the ALS-20 infrared illu-minator ($13,900), the brightest flashlight youll never see.

HHaarrrryy WWiinnssttoonn RRaarree TTiimmeeppiieecceess OOppuuss VV

In a more genteel era, fine clockwork was high technology.A collaboration of famed jeweler firm Harry Winston(who is deceased, but the company still bears his name)and young master watchmaker Felix Baumgartner hasresulted in the limited edition Opus V, a mlange of preci-sion mechanics, gemstones, and flat-out presence. Thehours are counted by the numerals on three gymbalingcubes, whose resemblance to tumbling dice seems to lend a cheeky flavor of randomness to that most regular ofquantities, time. They induce in us all sorts of unsettlingthoughts on fate and eternity, so were pleased to reportthat we cant afford a watch like this anyway. This Opuscommands magnum prices, namely $107,000 in rose goldor $137,800 in platinum (www.opus5.ch).

PPaannaassoonniicc TTYY--TTPP6655PP88SS TToouucchh PPaanneell

Monocle, check. Persian cat, check. Enormous plasma dis-play with which to supervise your secret lair of evil, check.But wait! You cant be expected to micromanage your min-ions without marking them up. Youre a hands-on sort ofevil. A touchy feely sort of evil. And we are proud to reportthat your secret, evil deal with Panasonic has borne evilfruit. Prepare yourself for the worlds first 65-inch plasmatouchscreen and whiteboard. Its an unholy union of a TH-65PHD7UY display ($15,495; www.panasonic.com) and aTY-TP65P8S frame accessory ($4,800; not shown), whichuses infrared light to sense the motions of your fingertips orTY-TPEN6 Touch Pen. Now laugh that evil-genius laugh.Soon, a dominated world will nervously laugh with you.

CPU / July 2005 15

HH AA RR DD WW AA RR EE RR EE VV II EE WW SS

L ast month I got to play early dualcore with Intel, and now AMD hasput together its version of a dual-corepreview system for me to look at. Itmight be a few months out, but even atthis early stage its clear that the Athlon64 X2 4800+ dual core will pack anawesome punch. AMD has already letloose its server Opteron version of thesame processor, but Im soon going tobe gaming/working with X2s on mydesktops, too.

Aimed directly at Intels PentiumExtreme Edition 840, the X2 4800+(code-named Toledo) will be clocked at 2.4GHz and each core will have1,024KB worth of L2 cache, but it willnot be cheap (above $1,000). With justover 230 million transistors and a die-size of 199mm, the Toledo core com-pares favorably to Intels Smithfield(233 million transistors and 206mm).Both Intel and AMD utilize a single-memory controller approach. ThePentium 840 shares the FSB with the955/945 chipsets MCH; whereas theX2 makes use of the on-die memorycontroller associated with Athlon 64cores. Obviously there is a marked dif-ference between AMDs and Intelsdual-core techniques. The X2 coreswork with the rest of your system by amemory crossbar switch, which also hasindependent access to HyperTransportlinks, again all of this is done on-die.However, Intels dual-core CPUs have to do this work off chip when

communicating with the MCH on a motherboard because the Smith-field core has no internal data linksbetween its dual cores and all memoryaccesses and system I/O occurs across its shared FSB. The X2 is theoreti-cally allocated 6.4GBps of peak memory bandwidth.

The X2 is based upon the newer90nm SOI process. The addition ofSSE3 support is a welcome one. The pincount also remains at 939, so mother-boards will only need a BIOS update inorder to accommodate the X2. Hence,stepping up for non-X2 owners will not mean throwing out your oldmotherboards. Another factor makingthe upgrade less problematic is slightimprovements made to the memorycontroller. Youll now be able to usemismatched memory DIMMs on thesame channel without having to dropdown to DDR333. Then again, for mytest system, I went full tilt and usedunbuffered high-performance CorsairPro Series DDR400 memory set to CAS2-3-2-5. As far as the platform goes, Iwas able to simply update the BIOS onmy trusty ASUS A8N SLI motherboardto enable the X2.

The X2 4800+ clearly plasters itselfon the top of the benchmark leaderboard table in almost every category.Not only does it beat the FX-55, butIntels Extreme Edition 840 gets somegood left, right, and uppercut combina-tions thrown at it. If AMD can actually

release a full line of X2 processors in atimely fashion, it will have somethingspecial on its hands. For the hardcoregamer, AMDs roadmap still indicatesthat the Athlon 64 FX line will con-tinue with another speed bump or two,but its days are clearly numbered. Thenagain, with almost 90% of the perfor-mance of AMDs best gaming CPU (the FX-55) and with so much promisefor the future, it almost makes sense to go for the dual core over the singlecore. Just wait until prices start to come down. Single-processor coreswont be the way of the future, we allknow that. So there you have it, thefastest-and-most-expensive-desktop-processor-thats-not-quite-yet-avail-able award goes to AMDs Athlon 64 X2 4800+.

by Alex Sharky Ross

Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Preview $1,001AMD(951) 674-4661www.amd.com

Cinebench 2003 - Cinema 4D benchmark (lower is better)

Pentium Extreme Edition 840 43.1Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 40.2Pentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 66.4Athlon 64 4000+ 77.2

Futuremark PCMark04 - CPU ModulePentium Extreme Edition 840 6082Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 6827Pentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 5874Athlon 64 4000+ 4613

Futuremark PCMark04 - OverallPentium Extreme Edition 840 5902Athlon 64 X2 4800+ DNFPentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 6029Athlon 64 4000+ 5033

Windows Media Encoder 9 - MPEG toWMV conversion(lower is better)

Pentium Extreme Edition 840 253 secondsAthlon 64 X2 4800+ 210 secondsPentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 288 secondsAthlon 64 4000+ 340 seconds

Doom 3 - PerformancePentium Extreme Edition 840 83fpsAthlon 64 X2 4800+ 102fpsPentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 88fpsAthlon 64 4000+ 98fps

The First Look Numbers

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+

Specs: 2.4GHz, 90nm, Toledo core, 2X 1,024KB L2 cache



T he 3D graphics scene is a toughracket. One minute youre on top,and the next minute its what have youdone for me lately? In ATIs case, late lastyear it announced the Radeon X800 XL,on paper, a very real and somewhatcheaper challenger to NVIDIAs GeForce6800GT. That was the plan, but the real-ity was somewhat different as the boardshowed up months late and for a prettypenny more than the originally planned$299. So here we go again, maybe? Thistime its the X800 XL with 512MB worthof memory.

Under the hood the board itselfsports the same 0.11-micron 16-pixelpipe RV430 chip architecture as beforeand is even clocked identically to400MHz for the eCore. Even thoughtheres so much more of it, the phat512MB worth of memory is still set to 980MHz (effectively); so no realchanges there. The changes occur in thephysical design of the board because itsnot as simple as just slapping on anextra 256MB. Going with a dual-rankdesign (doubling the population ofRAM chips) on the backside of thePCB, ATI made use of the real estatealready offered and didnt have to resort

to denser and more expensive RAM.The card itself sucks up more power andsports a PCI Express 6-pin power con-nector. (Incidentally, the X800 XL512MB will be a PCI-E only product.)Adding further value over the originalX800 XL, ATI decided to cough up asecond DVI connector, so those of youwith twin TFTs can now rejoice. A RageTheater chip has also been allocated, soyou get Vivo/TiVo, which isnt availableon the X800 XL series. Both of theseadditions are critical because they addvalue to an otherwise overly expensiveproduct (projected at $450). Yes, its thefirst gaming 3D card to sport 512MB,but at the mid/high-end, instead of atthe ultra-high level, one has to questionthe necessity at all of charging a premi-um for said memory. ATI wont sell theX800 XL 512MB, and instead offer it toOEMs, such as GIGABYTE, MSI, andSapphire. (Users may get it by the timeyou read this.) My reference card didsport a slightly different HSF combo,but at this point its unclear just howthe other OEMs will tart their particularboards up.

Clearly there are no real tangible benefits to go from 256MB up to

512MB; not in Far Cry or even inDoom 3 at the ultra-high resolutions.Only when you dabble with extremelyhigh settings, such as 6XAA and 16XAFin Half-Life 2, does a delta appearbetween 256MB- and 512MB-basedboards; however, at those speeds youllbe watching jerkovision even if itspretty. The leap from 256 to 512MBwas/is supposed to be an exciting occur-rence, but instead I cant help feeling abit disappointed because ATIs strategyseems like its more of a nonstarter. Isuppose it had to happen sometime, andperhaps the strategy was to do so beforeNVIDIA, but clearly ATI needs to goback to the drawing board and rethink.Right now the ATI 512MB looks likenothing more than a because we canproduct instead of actually having anyreal advantages over the standard X800XL. Even if you did want to spend anextra $150, there are better choices fromboth ATI and NVIDIA. Obviously thefuture will likely be different, but judg-ing by todays benchmarks and games,thats some time off yet. Clearly theresmuch better and more exciting technol-ogy at the high-end coming from ATIthat will focus on GPU processing pow-er, rather than simply taking a stab atmemory bandwidth improvements.

by Alex Sharky Ross

Radeon X800 XL 512MB$449

ATI(905) 882-2600

www.ati.com

Specs: 0.11-micron RV430 GPU, 512MB, 400MHz eCore

(1,600 x 1,200 4XAA 8XAF)The Numbers

Half-Life 2Doom 3Far CryUT2004

X800XL 512106575970

X800XL98535670

6800GT83676167

ATI Radeon X800 XL 512MB

CPU / July 2005 17


Alienware Aurora: Star Wars EditionI ts a weird time for Star Wars fans.Star Wars Episode III: Revenge OfThe Sith gave us something we hadimagined for decades: Anakin Skywalkersjourney to the Dark Side. Conversely, themovie wrapped up the prequel trilogy,leaving many fans feeling the same as theydid after The Lord of The Rings trilogyended: satisfied but sad.

Thanks to a licensing agreement, how-ever, Alienware has the first-ever officialStar Wars rigs, depicting our favoriteJedi, spaceships, and the hippest wookieever. Each Light Side and Dark SideAurora gaming system sports stickers sodetailed youll think youre looking at apaint job until you get up close.

A 2.61GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-55puts this rig in the game. Alienware adds1GB of PC3200 DDR memory (two512MB DIMMs; two slots still free) andtwo 160GB 7,200RPM IBM Deskstarsin a striped array. Im glad Alienwareresisted the temptation to use smaller,faster drives that might have improved

benchmarks but wouldnt satisfy gamers.The rig has one BFG NVIDIA GeForce6800 Ultra and an ASUS A8N-SLIDeluxe motherboard. To take your gam-ing to the next level down the road, youcan plug another GeForce 6800 Ultrainto the second SLI slot.

If you know Alienware, you should rec-ognize this alien head chassis, which sportssome spooky front-panel lights. Alienwareused a black chassis instead of a green casehere, and the Star Wars stickers coverboth sides with collages of Darth Vader,Emperor Palpatine, and Boba Fett on theDark Side rig. Jedis new and old join HanSolo and others on the Light Side system.Alienware says customer units will havebubble-free, die-cut stickers and a durable,transparent coating.

Our review system, which Alienwarerushed to us near our deadline, lackedsome of the extras customers will get,such as a Star Wars poster and fanclub membership. Our unit did includea Stars Wars Desktop theme (with a

photo of Darth Vader) and a StarWars Start button and icon theme.

The Aurora performed reasonably wellin our benchmarks, posting 11980 in3DMark05 and 24451 in 3DMark03 andscoring 44.5fps (1,600 x 1,200, 4XAA,8XAF) in Half-Life 2. The system han-dled Half-Life 2 well, due in large part to the high-end video card. The Auroraposted an overall SYSmark 2004 score of234 and PCMark04 score of 5065.

Many buyers will probably be moreinterested in the Star Wars theme thanthe rigs internal components, and theywont be disappointed. Heavy-dutygamers, however, will probably desiremore punch than our review unit offered.Alienware keeps these users happy by let-ting them configure more powerful sys-tems on its Web site.

by Joshua Gulick

Aurora: Star Wars Edition$3,478

Alienware (800) 254-3692 (305) 251-9797

www.alienware.com


Seagate 400GB PushbuttonBackup External Hard Drive

I nternal hard drives relatively recently hit400GB (Hitachi has already one-uppedeveryone by announcing a 500GB model).With capacities expanding so rapidly, thesizes of external backup drives simply arentkeeping pace. Nobody wants to mess withtape, and forget about optical. In order toprotect a hard drive, you need another harddrive of comparable proportions.

Thats where Seagates 400GBPushbutton Backup comes into play.Sporting a Barracuda 7200.8 drive with8MB of data buffer and spinning at7,200rpm, the Pushbutton is capable ofduplicating all but the largest internalrepositories. Moreover, USB 2.0 andFireWire interfaces ensure compatibilitywith almost all modern systems.

And its a good thingthat the drive is technicallyproficient because it wontwin awards for good looks.Maxtors OneTouch II isbetter looking, whileWestern Digital can use the excuse thatits Media Center drive has an integratedcard reader.

The same goes for the BounceBackExpress software suite, which is techni-cally capable of duplicating the criticalcomponents on an internal drive, butlacks the ability to preserve open filesand apply security settings to the saveddata. BounceBack Express is intelligentenough to only transfer files that havebeen changed since the last save point.

I f you go by its name, the DiamondXtreme TV PVR 550 sounds verymuch like an ATI product based on theTheater 550 processor. After all, 550 is apretty arbitrary number to slap on as asuffix to a new tuner product. Actually,the Diamond board employs a ConexantCX23416 A/V encoder, which performsmany of the same functions as ATIs solu-tion but doesnt feature the 3D comb fil-ter and the noise-filtering algorithms.

What it lacks in hardware it makes upfor elsewhere. Diamond bundles Snap-Streams Beyond TV 3 and BeyondMedia software with the board. The combination is potent, enabling all of thefunctions youd hope for in a media cen-ter system, such as PVR, DVD playback,an audio player, picture browsing, andTV tuning. The caveat is that the inte-grated program guide expires in 60 daysunless you pay a $5 monthly subscriptionor purchase it for $70.

version, both models are moreevenly matched.

Comparing the two from a qualityperspective is extremely difficult, espe-cially in an environment limited to lack-luster over-the-air reception. However,Diamonds solution shows well againstthe ATI model, especially at the 10-foot range.

If you own Microsoft WinXP MCE2005 and are looking for a fully featuredtuner package to integrate, the DiamondXtreme TV PVR 550 is a solid bid. ButBeyond TV is a hidden cost that quicklypushes the package over ATIs TVWonder Elite with regard to cost.

by Chris Angelini

Xtreme TV PVR 550$130

Diamond(818) 773-9600

www.diamondmm.com

Alternatively, both Max-tor and Western Digital

bundle custom versions of EMC DantzRetrospect, which facilitates saving open files and allows password-pro-tected storage.

Neither Maxtor (300GB) nor WesternDigital (320GB) can compare to Seagates400GB Pushbutton when it comes tocapacity. But where Seagate really edgesahead is price. The $330 tag is lower eventhan Maxtors 250GB model. Overall,though, itd be worth paying a little extra toget the security of open-file backup, unlessraw capacity is your only concern.

by Chris Angelini


Specs: 400GB, 7,200rpm, 8MB data buffer, 350Gs non-operating shock resistance,IEEE 1394a and USB 2.0 interfaces,

Creative WebCam Live! Ultra vs. Logitech QuickCam Orbit

U nder plenty of lighting, the Web-Cam Live! Ultra looks fair enough,but under moderate to low indoor light-ing, particularly at night, video was darkand blocky. The face-tracking capabilities,which rely on not showing border areasaround the images center in order toleave the software room to digitallymaneuver, were poor. As with Logitech,frame rates here were about one per sec-ond with no observable difference in per-formance between USB 1.1 and 2.0.

However, Creatives bundled boomheadset is clear and comfortable, and theWebCam Center software provides for stilland video capture. You can email or FTPscreen grabs. Also, you can compile multi-ple grabs for time lapsing, and motion de-tection enables a makeshift security system.Several included ArcSoft titles delive photo-and video-editing capabilities, as well.

The camera has a manualfocus ring and a three-legged,collapsible base that grabs ontoflat panels fine but slides all overCRTs. The 76-degree wide-angleview may sound tempting, but 76degrees on a VGA-resolution sen-sor means that more objects looksmaller. This isnt a bad consumercamera, but it left me unsatisfied.

Upon first use at night, I found theOrbits video to look noisy, but checkingthe low-light filter option made all the dif-ference. Logitechs optics were remarkablyclear for a consumer Web cam, colorswere decent, and the mechanical facetracking was incomparably better thandigital approaches. Quick movements orstrong backlights will throw it off, though.

With its black, mirrored finish plusoptional nine-inch stand extension, the

Ear-Bud Noise-Canceling Headphones

N oise wears us down everywhere, andthats why I went searching forthree ways to find sweet musical reliefwith noise-canceling headphones.

With a soft rubber flange over each driver, the 6i earphones are made to slipcomfortably into your ear canal and pas-sively block sound from entering your ear.You must have a firm seal within thecanal or else you lose much of the volumeand bass. Etymotic includes an alternateset of tips that are essentially foam earplugs. Compress the foam, shove them in,and let the foam expand in your ear canal.

Etymotics fingernail-sized driverssound remarkable. Although the mids felthollow, and the sound stage a bit narrow,bass response was decent. The highs werea bit too bright but still acceptable. The6is clarity, though, was as dazzling astheir noise isolation.

Save for slightly less bass response,Sonys spin on canal phones soundsalmost identical to the 6i. You get three sizes of rubber flange, an airline

audio-jack adapter, and a volume con-trol built into the inline battery unit.Perhaps because of its shallower insertion,Sony builds in a noise-canceling circuit,although I found this only nominallyeffective. Realistically, the choice ofEtymotic or Sony canal phones shouldcome down to which forms a better, more comfortable fit in your ear.

Short of Boses QuietComfort, youreunlikely to find better over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones than this. Becauseof their feathery 0.14-pound weight(before cable), the PXC 250s can feel a bitloose, but theyre amazingly comfortablefor long listening periods. Sennheiserdelivers a little muddier clarity than thecanal phones but better bass and fullermids. The active noise canceling is superb,the collapsible design is perfect for travel,and theres no awkwardness from ear canalpressure. The bulky 2xAAA inline powerwand is this units only flaw.

by William Van Winkle

WebCam Live! Ultra $99.99

Creativewww.creative.com

QuickCam Orbit$129.95Logitech

www.logitech.com

6i$149

Etymoticwww.etymotic.com

MDR-NC11$149.95

Sonywww.sonystyle.com

PXC 250$169.95

Sennheiserwww.sennheiser.com

Orbit is both stylish and solid. I found thesoftware more intuitive than Creatives, andthe integrated microphone in the basepicked up voices quite well. If both users ateach end enable the hands-free mode, youllget some nasty feedback, but the half-duplex mode or using a headset fixes this.The auto-focusing Orbit is spendy, but itsthe best Web cam Ive seen yet.



CPU / July 2005 21


Memory Modules Square Off

A fter a nearly nine-month wait since Iexpected to do a fair test of PC2-5400 DDR2 modules (see our PC-4300roundup in the November 2004 issue ofCPU on page 16 to 17), I received twoboards that promised to let the 667MHzmodules open up androar: the ASUS P5ND2-SLI (nForce4 SLI IntelEdition) and the IntelD955XBK.

As always happenswith new chipset plat-forms, though, earlymotherboards go throughseemingly daily BIOSrevisions. With the ASUS board, theBIOS and drivers were still too unstableahead of the retail product release. WithIntel, despite a wealth of overdue over-clocking features enabled by the dual-coreExtreme Edition chip, the D955XBK wasstill one or two updates from having aproper voltage range. What to do?

How I TestedKnowing I could still glean useful per-

formance data, I went with the Intelboard and Pentium Extreme Edition 840(3.2GHz) under a Zalman 7700-Cu cool-er. Alongside these were an NVIDIA

reference GeForce 6800GT and a SATAHitachi 160GB Deskstar running Win-dows XP SP2.

My objective was to provide a com-parative sampler of the standard latencyDDR2-667 field. As such, I wasnt

interested in dropping the host busspeed to provide for the highest possiblememory frequencies. Even an Intelmotherboard engineer told me that hedheard of people reaching 30% overclockson the D955XBK. I actually confirmedthis by hitting 27% with some 5-5-5-15Samsung DDR2-667 modules.

For hardcore overclockers the mem-ory scene today has modules such asKingstons HyperX PC2-6000 or evenOCZs PC2-8000. I wanted to give you asense of the relative performance of moremainstream modules that will delivermost of the high-end performance at a

far more reasonable price. Of course, justfor good measure, I did a bit of com-parative overclocking to see how thesemodules would do at the edge of theircomfort zones.

In all cases I used manufacturer specmemory timings. At 667MHz, I used themotherboards automatic voltage set-ting. For 10% over default, I sometimeshad to increase this to 2V or 2.08V to

obtain stability. With each module pair, Iran my first test set at default settings,another set at 10%, and then attemptedto increase memory frequency in steps of5%. (Intel overclocks in megahertz in thiscase.) In many cases Im confident that15% or greater could have been easilyobtained with just a bit more power.

CM2X-5400C4PRO (2 x 512MB)Not to throw out the high point of the

article prematurely, but there was noquestion that the 5400C4PRO was themodule set to have, if youre not pinchingtoo many pennies. First off, with its tworows of top-mounted LED activity indi-cators, the 5400C4PRO is a must forclear-case owners. Moreover, if youredoing much overclocking, heatspreaderLEDs help tell if youre still processing orlocked up.

Although it was a close race among allcontestants at the default 800:667 setting,Corsair clearly pulled ahead at the 10%overclock and was the only vendor todeliver 15% over default. Even sweeterwas that Corsair pulled off this trick atthe default power level of 1.9V. So if youwant hot looks, hotter performance, andcool thermalsat a deliciously low streetpricethe 5400C4PRO is the one to get.

Ballistix (2 x 512MB) Although my finicky Intel board took

some persuading to accept the Ballistix

HyperX DDR2 (PC2-5400) $300

Kingstonwww.kingston.com

CM2X-5400C4PRO (2 x 512MB)$222

Corsairwww.corsairmemory.com

Ballistix (2 x 512MB) $279.99Crucial

www.crucial.com



modules, the results proved worth theeffort. Shod in their metallic-gold heat-spreaders, Crucials premium memoryline pulled in the top default speed scorein 3DMark 2005 and was runner-upwith Doom 3, proving that Ballistix canhold its own in synthetic tests and real-world performance. The Ballistix againwon top honors with Doom 3 in our10% overclock test. Given that themodules sport average pricing withabove-average test scores, Id recom-mend this as one of the better values inthe roundup.

HyperX DDR2 (PC2-5400) I can only hope this was a case of

speed binning gone awry. Kingstonbarely squeaked by on my default tests;although, it did capture the top spot onDoom 3. What surprised me was thisHyperX pairs almost complete lack offrequency headroom. At a 10% over-clock, I couldnt load Windows, and 6% spewed Windows errors every-where, even just loading the Desktop.

As you can see, at 5% my final threetests were unstable, which is doubly odd given that 3DMark is usually thefirst test to fail under stress. No othermanufacturer failed to hit 10% over-clocking for us. I felt that the HyperXPC2-5400 was a bit overpriced andplenty underwhelming.

PC2-5400 GoldI know from past pairings of Corsair

and OCZ that Corsair tends to be morevoltage-efficient, while OCZ ekes outwins for maximum overclocking scores,and the table looked set for just such a repeat event. At default and 10%,

OCZ traded blow for blow with itsblingier rival. In the end, though, wecouldnt get the OCZ Golds to take thatlast step to 15% at 2.08V. Then again,for virtually identical performance,OCZ runs $50 cheaper. And kudos goto OCZ for publicly honoring its life-time warranty for parts that run at up to 2.2V.

M378T6453FG0 (512MB PC2-5400)Yes, there will be a quiz on this model

name. Obviously, Samsung Semicon-ductor has little regard for marketingand sizzle with memory modules. Eventhe recommended CAS 5 timings seemto flout modern convention. Yet themodules stand up right alongside therest and topped my 10% 3DMark testand proved very stable through my over-clocking checkpoint. As Ive seen withpast Samsung memory, these wont wowanyone, but they would save you a gripof cash.


Module Memory Timings FSB:Mem 3DMark05 v1.2 PCMark04 v1.3 Sandra 2005 Quake 3 Arena Doom 3 Games Memory Memory (avg) (6 x 4, high) (6 x 4, high)

5400C4 4-4-4-12 800:667 4839 5383 4941 422.9 91.910% 4901 5971 5468 463.3 102.115% 4924 6213 5700 486.4 106.3

Ballistix 4-4-4-10 800:667 4865 5371 4937 418.1 93.510% 4904 5959 5518 463 104.6

HyperX 4-4-4-10 800:667 4856 5295 4722 417.9 94.15% 4884 5399 crashed 316.9 crashed

PC2-5400 Gold 4-4-4-12 800:667 4832 5385 4941 422.5 91.710% 4904 5964 5469 461.3 102.1

M378T6453FG0 4-4-4-12 800:667 4862 5340 4821 416.2 91.410% 4909 5882 5344 455.8 101.3

PC2-5400 Gold$170OCZ

www.ocztechnology.com

M378T6453FG0 (512MB PC2-5400)$75

Samsungwww.samsung.com

CPU / July 2005 23

H aving played with so much dual coreboth from AMD and Intel over thepast month, the picture is now much clear-er. Although Intel did take some positivesteps forward by bringing its dual-corePentium Extreme Edition 840 processor tothe table first (June CPU; page 28),AMDs Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (see page 17) does an even better job in multithread-ing, gaming, and general usage. Everybenchmark I threw at it ended up morefavorably for the X2 4800+.

Both the X2 and the EE 840 arepriced insanely high (about $1,000), butif you could chose only one, then itprobably wouldnt be the Pentium EE840. Clearly theres more to come fromIntels dual-core strategy, and this is justthe beginning of dual core for both chipcompanies. Intel seems to be taking aleaf out of AMDs book of old on the

mainstream tier products (where its line-up is much stronger) with products suchas the Pentium D 820 and 840 (thesedont support Intels EM64T 64-bittechnology) that bring dual core to themasses at $250 to $300 levels.

Priced at $999, in quantities of 1,000,the Pentium EE 840 processors specsremain unchanged with a pair of 90nmPrescott cores and a clock speed set to3.2GHz. The 800MHz FSB clearly needs aspeed bump up to the 1,066MHz level asseen on previous Extreme Edition proces-sors, but even that likely wont close thegap significantly enough. Its not that theEE 840 does a bad job at this level, far fromit; its just that the X2 does a much betterjob, especially where it counts today in sin-gle-threaded applications and games.

by Alex Sharky Ross

AMD Sempron 3300+

W ith all of the recent 64-bit, dual-core and high-price fisticuffs wenormally associate with new processorreleases, its easy to forget that most of usdont actually travel first class. The budgetCPU market has been a bit quiet, almosttoo quiet on AMDs front. Not since June2004, when AMD released the Socket 754Sempron and the Sempron 3100+ hasthere been a whiff of an update. Withsocket A on its way out, the 754 platformstill deserves some kind of update, andfinally a revamped K8-based core is avail-able in the Sempron 3300+ again aimed atIntel and its Celeron D line.

The 3300+ is based on the new Pal-ermo core and brings (and subtracts) afew new treats to the table. By shrinkingthe die from 0.13-micron to 90nm, AMDtook off half of the previously available256KB of L2 cache; so the 3300+ gets128KBs worth. AMD, however, did seefit to add SSE3 support to the 3300+ and

bumped up the speed to 2GHz.AMD claims that it has alsomade a few enhancements to thememory controller in terms ofloading and mapping to improve efficien-cy. In addition, the Sempron 3300+ costs$127, which compares favorably to theslower Intel Celeron D 345s $133 price.

Its hard to get excited at this level, andCPU readers would do well to look else-where; but if bargain basement is some-thing youre looking for, then clearlyAMD still has it over Intel. For those of

you into overclocking, its not beenunheard of on the Net for users to havegotten an easy 15% overclock, butremember theres no 64-bit computinghere, so dont opt for one of these withthe future in mind.

by Alex Sharky Ross

Sempron 3300+$127AMD

(951) 674-4661www.amd.com


Specs: 3.2GHz, Smithfield core, 2X 1MB L2 cache, 230 million transistors, EM64T support

Specs: 90nm, 128KB L2 cache, SSE3 support

Cinebench 2003 - Cinema 4D benchmark (lower is better)Pentium Extreme Edition 840 43.1Pentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 66.4Athlon 64 4000+ 77.2

Futuremark PCMark04 - CPU ModulePentium Extreme Edition 840 6082Pentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 5874Athlon 64 4000+ 4613

Futuremark PCMark04 - OverallPentium Extreme Edition 840 5902Pentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 6029Athlon 64 4000+ 5033

Windows Media Encoder 9 - MPEG to WMV conversion (lower is better)Pentium Extreme Edition 840 253 secondsPentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 288 secondsAthlon 64 4000+ 340 seconds

Doom 3 - PerformancePentium Extreme Edition 840 83fpsPentium 4 570J 3.8GHz 88fpsAthlon 64 4000+ 98fps

Benchmark Numbers Sempron 3300+ Intel Celeron D 345Sysmark 2K4: Communication 138 125

Sysmark 2K4: Document Creation 152 141

Sysmark 2K4: Data Analysis 107 131

WM9 Video Encoder (lower is better) 240 seconds 254 secondsDoom 3 68 53

UT2004 47 40

Extreme Edition 840$999Intel

(408) 765-8080www.intel.com

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840


Thoughts On Xbox 360 Im StokedAA s I prepare to head down to E3 to actuallyplay around with Microsofts newly an-nounced Xbox 360 at press time, I put togethersome impromptu thoughts on the console.

With the Xbox 360 capable of executingsix simultaneous threads, and the Cell proces-sor in the PlayStation 3 able to handle evenmore, the biggest impact these consoles willhave is on the move to multithreaded gamedevelopment. The unfortunate side of thingsis that developing a game on Xbox 360 andthen porting to PlayStation 3, as well as the

PC, all while usingeach individualplatform to itsmaximumpotential, wontexactly be aneasy task, whichI see as thebiggest limit tothe impact ofthese multi-threaded archi-tectures ongame develop-ment. I thinkthe Xbox 360sarchitecture is afar safer betthan SonysCell approach;

and though itsstill not going to be as

easy to program as theoriginal Xbox, I dont see it

being as much of a pain to extract peak per-formance from as the PlayStation 3. Thatbeing said, Sony could very well still have themore powerful console on paper.

Microsoft appears to have outfitted theconsole with a reasonable amount of memorythis time around. When the first Xbox waslaunched, it was outfitted with 64MB, about aquarter of what most upper midrange PCs hadat that point. With 512MB of memory, theXbox 360 weighs in with about half of whatupper midrange PCs will have by the end of

the yearthat should be just fine because the360 wont have to deal with the overhead of ageneral purpose OS and applications.

The Xbox 360s ATI-designed GPU isvery fitting; take the latest and greatest ATIGPU architecture, outfit it with even moreembedded DRAM than what was in Flipper(ATIs Gamecube GPU), and youre good togo. The 10MB of embedded DRAM shoulddefinitely help reduce main memory bus traf-fic and keep frame rates smooth even at mostgames native 1,280 x 720 resolution.

The move to HD is so critical for theXbox 360; I cant believe that it is 2005 andwe still dont have a console that has gamesrendered at higher resolutions than 640 x480. It was 1997, and I was running gamesat 640 x 480; it has taken almost eight yearsfor the console market to catch up in the res-olution department. Its about time. WhileXbox 360 will work just fine on standarddefinition TVs, it will be best paired with ahigh definition display. The real questionIm wondering is how long will it be before1080p gaming is supported; I dont expect itto be mainstream for at least one more con-sole generation but am curious to see if anydevelopers take advantage of 1080p supportfor early adopters of new 1080p TV sets.

Standard wireless controllers at long last; thereduction in cable clutter alone is going to betremendous. Microsoft has definitely taken apage out of Apples book on this one. Theattraction of the mainstream to the iMac isbecause of its lack of cable clutter, of its visualappeal. It doesnt look like an intimidatingdevice; it looks simple and clean. Take a lookat the Xbox 360 (a soft white exterior, nocables and an entrancing green light) this is abox built for the mainstream.

Im also glad that, at least at first glance,Microsoft hasnt done everything to kill themodding potential of the Xbox 360. Theresstill a hard drive (albeit a removable one), andthe DVD drive can read user-burned media. Itmay very well be that Microsoft is relying onmass Xbox Live adoption to prevent the hack-ing of its latest Xbox.

Microsoft

has definitely

taken a

page out

of Apples

book on

this one.

Talk back to [email protected].

Anand Lal Shimpi has turned afledgling personal page on

GeoCities.com into one of theworlds most visited and trusted

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

old and has since been featured in USA Today, CBS 48

Hours, and Fortune. His sitewww.anandtech.comreceives

more than 55 million page viewsand is read by more than 2 mil-

lion readers per month.

Anands Corner


Widescreen GamingWW hat prompted me to write this months column was none other than our Commander In Chief, Samit. (Soblame him.) When he is not sending meemail chock-a-block with references to spyshots of upcoming Porsches, that instigatorsends links to terrific deals and/or couponsto sites for boys with toys (the consumerelectronic kind). Once in awhile I actuallyclick those links, as I am afraid to mosttimes, knowing full well that credit cardtransactions are almost certainly going totake place. Upon seeing, Dude, youre get-ting a 20.1-inch widescreen Dell TFT for$349!, I couldnt resist and ended up nab-bing two of em. We all know that wide-screen is generally known for being yummy;my TVs have it, my laptop has it, and sowhy not my gaming PC? Widescreen has nottaken off in the PC world like it has withdigital HD-capable TVs, as the majority ofcontent is still optimized for that good ol4:3 format. Perhaps after watching so manyDVD movies in 16:9, a lot of HDTV, andeven playing Halo 2 on the Xbox in wide-screen format, I figured something waswrong with 4:3. Or maybe it was a hintfrom the latest round of high-end 3D cardsfinally sporting dual-DVI outs. (Big browniepoints all around.)

But wait, I am sure many of you haveheard the rumors of ghosting, tearing, wash-ing out of colors, slow response times, andso forth generally associated with TFT gam-ing and all contributing to a horrid gaming experience. Not so with the DellUltraSharp 2005FPW. With a 16msresponse time and brilliant image quality,my first-person-shooter experience was asgrand as ever. Now, what you often do nothear about widescreen LCDs is the fact thatif you veer away from the native resolution(thats 1,680 x 1,050 in the 2005FPWscase), then youre going to make some sacrifices. Your pixels have a choice of get-ting stretched, scaled, or washed out and just downright ugly if you are not in tunewith things. Pixel stretching is unpleasantand has no place in gaming. Probably thebest compromise for image integrity is

insisting in hardware that your monitor notscale at all and just get horizontal and/orvertical black borders, similar to what most of the newer 4:3 TVs do to simulatewidescreen mode. The 2005FPWs in-terface sports a useful scaling selector underImage Properties in the Dell OSD, whereyou can modify the scaling to 1:1. (Takenote gamers.) Fit or Aspect is still available; not that I would try it in gaming.

Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004,World Of Warcraft, and Far Cry all havebuilt-in widescreen 1,680 x 1,050 modes,but for Doom 3 youll need to dig around atad in the .CFG file to set it. There are a few good resources/forums for widescreengaming, one of which is called WidescreenGaming Forum (www.widescreengamingforum.com), funnily enough. There you willfind a lot of FAQs, how tos, and specificgame .CFG or AUTOEXEC.BAT files for games and apps to look the biz on your widescreen monitor. And if you are set on 4:3 for games, the next time you arescrolling through next-generation gamegraphics option menus and see all thosewacky 1,920 x 1,200 or 1,680 x 1,050choices, rest assured that widescreenies will be happy.

I am not going to give you the wholemarketing term that playing in widescreenmakes a game more immersive, but it suredoes make the wife go damn that looks gorgeous as she passes during my trans-fixed-state whilst immersed in the wide-screen Delta Labs, Level 2 North level ofDoom 3. Obviously games are not likemovies (which are shot in widescreen andthen modified down to fit in 4:3 mode, so you miss out on some content), but I likeit all the same. Now all I need to do is to figure out what to do with all of that realestate when not playing games. At 3,360 x1,050, I have one helluva wide Desktop andplenty of nView/Hydravision naughtiness toget my teeth into. Sadly, I can only use oneTFT at a time when playing Doom 3 in SLI-mode, though; so in my case, perhapsgetting a 24-inch 2405FPW would havebeen preferable.

We all know

that widescreen

is generally

known for being

yummy . . .Send your Porsche spy shots to [email protected]

Disrupting Reuters newswire witha cheery Christmas greeting at

age six, Alex Sharky Ross becamean avid computer user/abuser,

eventually founding popular hardware testing/review Web site

SharkyExtreme.com. Exposingshoddy manufacturing practices

and rubbish-spouting marketingweasels while championing

innovative products, illuminatingnew technology, and pioneering

real-world testing methods was justa front for playing with the best

toys. The site acquired, he left in2001. A London native andLondon School of Economics

graduate, Alex currentlyoverclocks/tunes Porsche 996

Turbos with www.akkuratpgi.comwhen hes not tweaking PCs.

The Shark Tank

CPU / July 2005 27

OO n a recent trip to Microsofts offices inRedmond, I had the opportunity to seethe new Xbox 360 and what its all about.Incredibly enough I wasnt shown one newgame demo or allowed to play one. Instead, Ispent the better part of four hours hearingabout how the Xbox 360 is capable of becom-ing the universe surrounding the user whilesatisfying his or her digital needs. While thatsounds like a lofty goal, I have to say I walkedaway very impressed with the depth of theproduct and Im not even an Xbox fan. Do Iwant one now? Yes, I do.

As far as gaming consoles go, they tend tolose their flare with me fairly quickly, as theirpower to deliver upscale, quality contentwanes. The Xbox 360 seems to do some greatthings to address this need. When ToddHolmdahl, vice president of the Xbox ProductGroup, tells you the next-generation Xbox isbuilt with headroom, hes not just blowingmarketing smoke. The Xbox 360 will sport a3.2GHz triple-core IBM-designed PowerPCderivative processor that will be capable ofhandling six threads. If you remember some ofmy previous columns covering dual-core gam-ing, I think it will be a couple years before weeven see multithreaded gaming technologyrefined, much less exploited, so the Xbox 360already has long legs in processor terms.

ATI designed the Xbox 360s GPU, and its a DX9 powerhouse clocked at 500MHz.The console has 512MB of GDDR3 memory,clocked at 700MHz. While details were slim,it was stated that the GPU package wouldcarry 10MB of embedded DRAM with a 3DLogic Unit. It was explained to me that thislogic unit would actually offload the GPU by handling particular code. Also, the GPUwould carry 48 unified shader units that could

process both vertex and pixel shaders. It willcertainly be interesting to find out more aboutthis in the future. All of this fits into a thinand sexy case that certainly didnt hint at thepower tucked inside. Obviously, from thebrief description here, you can see that theXbox 360 wont be lacking in terms of CPUor GPU horsepower for some time to come.

There are a lot of things to do with thatpower besides gaming, and this is whatMicrosoft spent most of the day explaining.Dont fear; there are going to be Xbox 360games that will leave you with your jaw hang-ing. Considering that 100% of Xbox 360games have minimum specifications of HighDefinition 720P video and 5.1 Dolby Digitalsurround sound, this should convey somesense of content quality. Still, as the 360 in the name might suggest, this console willrevolve around your digital needs. Not onlywill it stream digital photos and music offyour networked PC, if you have a MediaCenter PC, it will let you stream recordedvideo content, as well. And it will show youthose pictures and video in HD resolutions.

The Xbox 360 will also let you plug in justabout any digital media device via USB 2.0and stream music or pictures from it, as well. Isaw this done on a couple of Microsofts devel-opers boxes with a Kodak digital camera and aMP3 player. The Xbox 360 even streamed thepictures off the Kodak camera to serve up aslide show with pretty transitions and the op-tion to add background music. For those ofyou wanting to communicate with others, theXbox 360 makes this a priority, too, with somevery deep features that allow for easy videochatting/conferencing.

The Xbox 360 does the job of bringing somuch of our digital media from our PCs andputting it in the living room where everyonewill be able to enjoy it so much more easily.These are only a few of the Xbox 360s fea-tures that will obviously appeal to a very largeaudience. We can put our high-powered PCswith tons of storage in the role of contentservers and not drag them into the livingroom where they really never belonged.

Did I mention there will be games for theXbox 360, too?

. . . I walked

away very

impressed

with the

depth of the

product and

Im not even

an Xbox fan.

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

and most outspoken PC-enthusiastsites on the Web. HardOCP.com isgeared toward users with a passionfor PCs and those who want to get

cutting-edge performance fromtheir systems. Beware, though, Kyle

is known for his strong opinionsand stating them in a no-nonsense

manner while delivering some ofthe most in-depth reviews and PC

hardware news on the 'Net.

[H]ard Talk

You can talk with Kyle at [email protected].


Modding does the body good. A PCs body anyway, inside and out. Here youll findhardware, firmware, tools, tips, and tutorials for modding your rigs performance andappearance. Send us your own mod-related tips and ideas at [email protected].

Tips & Tutorials

M odding enthusiasts have apenchant for the latest toys.Fast processors, powerfulvideo cards, silent SFF enclosures, and rad-ically lit motherboards are all fair gamewhen it comes to a modders creativemind. Recognizing the appeal of uncon-ventional customization, an entire industryhas emerged to support the community.

Mods & Ends

Innovatek V6 Cooler Water Block

Many marriages of performance andsharp aesthetics turn out pretty sour; itshard to be the best and look good at thesame time. Maybe its our affinity for well-built German engines or Innovateks repu-tation for solid watercooling products, butthe V6 Cooler Water Block is a real lookerendowed with proven flow dynamics.

Only two of the six cylinders are func-tional, each sporting 8mm ID/10mm ODconnections. You can also illuminate thetwo cylinder banks using an included lightmodule that features two blue LEDs. Theblocks base is completely copper, yet platedwith nickel for protection (from what werenot sure). Regardless, broad compatibility(Socket A/754/939/940/478/775) adds tothe V6s appeal. Be forewarned that youllneed a restraining system to go along with

the already-pricey ($120) German import,adding $30 to its final cost.

Thermaltake SonicTower

The SonicTower ($55) is huge. It isntfor SFF enthusiasts. Rather, this is a proces-sor heatsink for folks who like their BigMac meals super-sized. Then again, dissi-pating heat from an LGA775, Socket 939,Athlon XP, or Socket 478 processor with-out a fan requires enough surface area toprevent an unfortunate tragedy, justifyingthe Towers dimensions.

The contraption starts with a copperbase, to which six heatpipe assemblies areaffixed. Each is enveloped by an array ofhigh-density, circular, aluminum fans thateffectively transfer heat from the pipes. Ofcourse, despite its size theres no way for theheatsink to perpetually dissipate in excess of100W into its surrounding atmosphere.Thus, Thermaltake advises using a systemfan (preferably a high-output 120mmdesign) pulling air from the Tower and out.Theres also an included fan mount toaccommodate a 120mm fan on one side ofthe Tower. Thats the route wed take,especially in a dual-core machine.

Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 Rev. 2

Last month we introduced the ATISilencer, a heatsink-fan combination thatreplaces the stock implementation onATIs highest-end model. This month itsthe NV Silencer 5 ($33), designed specifi-cally to fit AGP and PCI Express GeForce6800 GT and 6800 Ultra cards.

The 72mm fan spins at only 2,000rpm.As such, its significantly quieter than

NVIDIAs stock, blower-type unit. Surely,Arctic Coolings ceramic bearing technolo-gy plays a role in reducing noise, as well.Theres purportedly even an integrated fil-ter to keep motor noise to a minimum.

The heatsink has a 3.5mm copper base,which covers memory modules mountedon the front of its host card with aluminumfins. Its a substantial hunk of metal, and ifyoure mounting the NV Silencer to a 6800GT, youll sacrifice a second PCI slot tothose large fins. The extra cooling capacityshould be worth it, though, whether youreoverclocking or just looking to stifle noise.

Fashionably Fresh Firmware

Epson P-2000 Photo Viewer

Version 02.02 lets Epsons photo vieweropen JPEGs from SLRs up to 17.8MP andadds RAW support and a histogram.

www.epson.com

iPod Updater 2005-03-23

This firmware update includes iPod soft-ware v1.1 for color displays, bringing thatparticular model up-to-date with all others.

www.apple.com

Tableau Forensic Bridge

The latest update for Tableaus family ofbridges adds host query capabilities, whichmakes it easier for third-party apps todetect the presence of an attached bridge.

www.tableau.com

Sony PSP Japanese Version

If you couldnt wait for the PSP tolaunch in the States and acquired a Japanesemodel, update the firmware to 1.50. U.S.models already have the latest version,which boasts expanded language support.

www.playstation.jp

by Chris Angelini

Its no McLarenpower plant, butInnovateks V6 is asolid water block.

Quiet that 6800 down. The NV Silencer spinsat a conservative 2,000RPM.


O ne of the easiest ways to personalize your rig is to give it a custompaint job. A few coats of a unique color or even some flashy patternscan turn a boring rig into a head-turner at the next LAN party.When we say rig, we dont mean just your case. There are a plethora of otherparts that can use a bit of customization, as well. For example, when was the lasttime you saw

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