CD22

MUST-INSTALL INTEL'S CRAZY

APPS 6-CORE CPU RAW IMAGE EDITORS
Which Rules Supreme? p. 52

PC
in Our CD Toolkit! Lab Tested and Explained
p. 32
DE
p. xx

INSI

Security
PC
MINIMUM BS
MAY 2010

Software
SEN
ONLIND
MALW E
PACKI ARE
NG!

Showdown
PC
We torture-test 10
antivirus packages
Is our surprise winner protecting YOUR PC?

MID-TOWER CASES
5 enclosures battle to
house your next PC p. 40

ARM PROCESSORS
What makes these low-power,
“system on chip” CPUs tick? p. 62

REVEALED: Secrets of a Hardcore Lab Bench p. 14

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 WHERE WE PUT STUFF
CONTENTS

MAY FEATURES

Quickstart
DEPARTMENTS

In the Lab
22 Protect Your PC! 08 NEWS Why you won’t be able to boot from a 73 REVIEWS
We test 10 of the most popular antivirus
programs. 3TB hard drive; Windows Phone 7 Series.
92 LAB NOTES

32 Intel Rolls a Six

Intel’s new Gulftown hexa-core processor
14 THE LIST Maximum PC workbench
essentials.
96 BEST OF THE BEST

is here. LETTERS
R &D
40 Mid-tower Roundup 62 WHITE PAPER ARM-based processors.
16 DOCTOR
The newest mid-size chassis—there’s 94 COMMENTS
nothing middling about them.
63 AUTOPSY ZyXel
PLA-400 Power-line
52 Photos in the Raw Ethernet Adapter.

What’s the best software to use to process

your DSLR raw data files? 65 HOW TO Protect your
PC with HijackThis;
convert 2D movies to 3D;
print giant Google Maps.

Tribbles provided
by David Gerrold,
MaximumPC.com columnist
and tribble breeder.
Go to www.tribbletoys.com
for yours!

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIM

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MAXIMUMPC
EDITORIAL
A THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWO
ED WORD

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jon Phillips

DEPUTY EDITOR Katherine Stevenson
SENIOR EDITOR Gordon Mah Ung
REVIEWS EDITOR Michael Brown
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Nathan Edwards
ASSOCIATE ONLINE EDITOR Alex Castle

Displays, Not
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Loyd Case, Norman Chan, Nathan
Grayson, Tom Halfhill, Paul Lilly, Thomas McDonald, Quinn
Norton, Bart Salisbury, Ryan Whitwam
COPY EDITOR Mary Ricci

GPUs, Need More

PODCAST PRODUCER Andy Bauman
EDITOR EMERITUS Andrew Sanchez
CONTACT comments@maximumpc.com

ART

Tech Attention
ART DIRECTOR Natalie Jeday
CONTRIBUTING ART DIRECTOR Boni Uzilevsky
PHOTO EDITOR Mark Madeo
ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHER Samantha Berg
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Patrick Kawahara
COVER ILLUSTRATION Oliver Wolfson

A
BUSINESS
VP/ PUBLISHING DIRECTOR TECH AND LIVING Kate Byrne
kbyrne@futureus.com long with the CPU, the GPU is the component that Maximum PC treats
SENIOR REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Dave Lynn
dlynn@futureus.com with the greatest reverence. We gush over performance advancements,
REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR David White
dwhite@futureus.com
and holler ringside during Nvidia-vs.-ATI cage fights. And one really
SALES MANAGER Aida Rodriguez has to give props to the engineers who work on GPUs: The combined transistor
arodriguez@futureus.com
INTEGRATED SALES DIRECTOR Joe Pomparelli count of the five graphics chips I placed on the Bitchin’fast!3D2000 in 1999 (go
jpomparelli@futureus.com
ahead, Google it) is about 3,000 times smaller than the 3 billion–odd transistors on
SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER Andrea Recio-Ang
arecio-ang@futureus.com Nvidia’s upcoming Fermi chip.
MARKETING COORDINATOR Allyson Kardel
akardel@futureus.com But to what end do we celebrate GPUs? While I applaud R&D that deliv-
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia
jurrutia@futureus.com
ers fancier rendering techniques, and while I know these features
are only worth implementing if the GPU can actually deliver them
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Michael Hollister
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Dan Mallory
at 60fps, we still need to acknowledge that GPU cheerleading errs
toward overkill. In the grand scope of history, feature implementa- MAY ISSUE
PRINT ORDER COORDINATOR Jennifer Lim

CONSUMER MARKETING
tion in triple-A games has significantly lagged behind feature support FAVORITES
DIRECTOR CONSUMER MARKETING Rich McCarthy in hardware and drivers. And by the time our favorite games begin
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Crystal Hudson
NEWSSTAND DIRECTOR Bill Shewey
implementing all the newest rendering tricks, our hardware can run Lab Bench
CONSUMER MARKETING OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Lisa Radler them at a bazillion FPS. Secrets
RENEWAL AND BILLING MANAGER Mike Hill
BUSINESS MANAGER Elliot Kiger I would never suggest that gaming-focused GPU development be page 14
SR. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTOR Jennifer Trinker
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Mike Frassica
de-emphasized, even though industry leaders seem to be doing just that
in their efforts to get us interested in GPU compute. (And who could blame Gulftown Lab
FUTURE US, INC them? Now that Farmville is considered a “PC game,” why bother with Results
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
www.futureus-inc.com
discrete graphics?) Nonetheless, it’s time we begin showing more interest page 32
Tel 650.872.1642 in the business end of the video pipeline: our displays.
PRESIDENT John Marcom Maximum PC has never been adequately obsessed with display tech- Tribble Trouble
VP / CFO John Sutton
VP / INTERNET DEVELOPMENT Tyson Daugherty nology. Maybe it’s because the damn things don’t spit out hard-and-fast everywhere!
VP / PUBLISHING DIRECTOR MUSIC Anthony Danzi benchmark scores, and as science nerds we gravitate toward empirical
VP/ PUBLISHING DIRECTOR TECH AND LIVING Kate Byrne
VP / SALES AND MARKETING Rachelle Considine proof of product superiority. But displays are, in fact, the single-most important
GENERAL COUNSEL Charlotte Falla
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR TECH AND LIVING Jon Phillips
interface in our entire computing experience, and as a broad technology category,
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR GAMES GROUP Stephen Pierce there’s incredible need for advancement.
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MUSIC Brad Tolinski
DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES Nancy Durlester DuBois 3D display hoo-hah is just a distraction. Display R&D should really be focused
on delivering higher resolutions. ATI’s Eyefinity technology allows one to run a
Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc. 7680x3200 desktop across a clunky matrix of six 30-inch displays. But what if LCD
Future produces carefully targeted
special-interest magazines, websites manufacturing yields could affordably deliver a single big-screen display with that
and events for people who share a
passion. We aim to satisfy that pas- amazing resolution? Then we’d really have a need for insanely high-performing
sion by creating titles offering value
for money, reliable information,
GPUs! The world also needs widespread deployment of color e-paper, and flexible
smart buying advice and which are displays that can be bent and rolled up at will.
a pleasure to read or visit. Today we
publish more than 150 magazines, 65 websites and a growing num- Those developments are a long way off, but in the immediate future, we’ll be
ber of events in the US, UK, France and Italy. Over 100 international
editions of our magazines are also published in 30 other countries doing our part to push display tech as an area of enthusiast interest. We’re currently
across the world.
working on a story that busts a bundle of myths about consumer displays, so please
Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange
(symbol: FUTR).
email or tweet me your burning questions about display technology. We really want
to know what you think about this under-reported hardware category.
FUTURE plc
30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, England
www.futureplc.com
Tel +44 1225 442244
–JON PHILLIPS @JonPhillipsSF
NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN Roger Parry
CHIEF EXECUTIVE Stevie Spring
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR John Bowman
Tel +44 1225 442244
LETTERS POLICY Please send comments and questions to jon@
www.futureplc.com maximumpc.com. Include your full name, city of residence, and
phone number with your correspondence. Unfortunately, Jon is
REPRINTS For reprints, contact Marshall Boomer,
Reprint Operations Specialist, 717.399.1900 ext. 123
unable to respond personally to all queries.
or email: marshall.boomer@theygsgroup.com

SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES Tel 800.274.3421

www.maximumpc.com/customerservice www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIM
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Maximum PC ISSN: 1522-4279
 QUICKSTART THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

THE NEWS
The PC Hits a 2TB Wall
No easy fixes to getting systems up and running with
hard drives larger than 2TB —GORDON MAH UNG

Y
ou probably don’t know it, but when
hard drive companies introduce their
3TB drives in the coming months, many
systems won’t be able to boot from them.
Why? Given the legacy-riddled PC, that’s
a complicated answer. Partly at fault is the
27-year-old, 32-bit partition table used in
the master boot record on hard drives.
With sector sizes of 512 bytes, the 32-
bit partition table can only address a
maximum two terabytes.
Folks who tried RAIDing four
1TB drives together were the first to
run into this problem, but there has long
been an easy solution for that scenario:
Instead of using a legacy 32-bit partition
table, you can build the RAID using a GPT
partition, which uses 64-bit addressing. Today, most Intel-built boards,
This is where the other part of the such as this DP55KG Kingsberg,
problem comes in: You cannot boot to a have the UEFI capability to boot
from hard drives larger than 2TB.
GPT partition from any 32-bit Windows OS.
The only two desktop Windows OSes that
support booting from GPT partitions are
64-bit Windows Vista with SP1 and 64-bit
Windows 7.
That’s not all, though. Those two OSes will problem fixed along with the 137GB limit? much, as many now use an SSD as their
boot to a GPT partition only if your mother- “[These issues] aren’t fixed until it’s a primary drive. But there are still scenarios,
board has UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware problem,” Coughlin said. “Then they’ll fix it such as in an HTPC, where a single 3TB or
Interface) support, as opposed to the ancient for another five years or so. Then you run 4TB boot drive would be a preferred option.
BIOS-based booting. Today, very few boards, into the issue all over again.” Yes, you can run multiple partitions to get
with the exception of most made by Intel and Coughlin said he expects that it will take around the problem, but that’s not optimal,
some by MSI, even support UEFI. as long as a year for the issue to be ironed out. particularly as drives get ever larger.
But even if your PC has all the dots Large PC OEMs don’t want to deal with com- Windows XP will pose the greatest
connected, you’re not necessarily out of the plaints from customers and will put pressure challenge, as many users still cling to that
woods—applications for backups, cloning, and on hardware vendors to find a solution. OS. The industry is exploring workarounds.
antivirus that expect to see an MBR partition Hard drive makers say they’ve been Western Digital said one that’s being bat-
may cough up a hairball. Overall, it’s a pretty well aware of the issue for some time, but ted around is a new hybrid MBR that uses
lousy spot to be in for an industry that usually getting a fix hasn’t been easy or timely. a legacy partition combined with a GPT
avoids such hard stops. Seagate’s David Burks said 18 months ago partition to let older OSes boot from a high-
Tom Coughlin, a storage expert with would have been a great time to rally the capacity drive.
Coughlin Associates, says it’s not like we troops in search of a fix, but in the wake of Something all parties agree on is that
haven’t been here before. Just a few years the global financial crisis, few companies it’s not a pleasant situation. For now, there
ago, the industry had to grapple with a were putting resources toward fixing a are no high-capacity drives, so the problem
137GB limit on hard drives, BIOSes, and problem for products that didn’t exist yet. is mostly theoretical, but once the first 3TB
OSes. But why wasn’t this current 2TB Enthusiasts might not care about this drives hit shelves, expect a messy transition.

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 FAST FORWARD

GEEK
Razer Vespula TESTED &

The Vespula ($35, http://store.razerzone.com) TOM HALFHILL

is Razer’s first reversible mouse pad—a rigid
plastic plate with a different texture on
either side for two distinct mousing Another Step Toward
feels. We don’t foresee many gamers
pausing mid-match to flip their Vespula Reconfigurable
over, but we do appreciate being given the
choice between “fast” and “faster” mouse
Computing
W
movements. The included gel wrist-rest is a hat if your processors could redesign
dud, but the pad works fine without it. –AC themselves to optimize performance for
the program you’re running at any given
moment? They might spawn additional FPUs if the
program uses floating-point math, or grow more
texture shaders for 3D graphics.
Wiki-Textbooks This is the dream of reconfigurable computing.

on the Way
Today’s processors are programmable, so they can
perform an infinite variety of tasks. But their hard-
ware is fixed, the circuits carved in silicon. Although
DynamicBooks to replace each program uses the same logic gates for different
hard-copy course material purposes, those gates always perform the same
basic functions. In contrast, a reconfigurable proces-
College textbooks are a funny thing. Used textbook more closely fits the course sor can change the functions of the gates, too.
in institutions where forward thinking is syllabus. Students get electronic access, We already have such chips. They’re called
encouraged, they are as old-school as it via computer or Apple’s iPhone (with programmable-logic devices (PLDs) or field-
gets. Besides being expensive, they are plans for iPad availability). And the cost programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and they’ve been
static and typically written for general of DynamicBooks will be lower than around for many years. They are useful for some
audiences. Now, venerable textbook traditional textbooks. For example, things but tend to be large, slow, and expensive.
publisher Macmillan wants to shake Macmillan says a psychology textbook In March, reconfigurable computing took
things up with the DynamicBook. that sells for $134.29 would be available another step toward the future when a Silicon
Due out in August, DynamicBooks as a DynamicBook for $48.76. Valley startup introduced a new kind of PLD. Tabula
are basically wiki-textbooks. Authors Macmillan isn’t being altruistic here. calls it a 3PLD, because it works like a three-
can access them at any time to make It hopes DynamicBooks will kill the dimensional chip with eight layers of logic stacked
changes or updates, so the material used-textbook market, which publishers inside a single chip package. A real stacked chip is
(theoretically) remains current. say is the reason for high book costs. impractical, so Tabula implements the third dimen-
Instructors can access the text, either And, if pricing is low enough, Macmillan sion in slices of time.
adding or deleting material, so the hopes to circumvent pirating. –BS Remember Einstein’s theory of special relativity:
Time is merely another dimension of space. Einstein
called it the space-time continuum; Tabula calls it
Spacetime technology. Tabula’s chips reconfigure

CABLEVISION’S PC-TO-TV MEDIA RELAY themselves so rapidly that each logic gate can per-
form eight different functions instead of one function.
In Tabula’s first-generation chips, the gates reconfig-

Give ’em your content and they’ll sell it back to you ure themselves 1.6 billion times per second.
In effect, the chip seems larger than it really is,

T
om Petty said it best: “The boys upstairs want to see how much you’ll without the cost and power consumption of additional
pay for what you used to get for free.” transistors. Furthermore, in Tabula’s universe, time
New York’s Cablevision plans to sell subscribers to its digital-cable isn’t linear—it’s an endless loop. After each gate
and broadband Internet services a means of channeling videos, photos, and reconfigures itself for the eighth time, it reverts to its
Internet video from their PCs to their TVs. Customers will install software first configuration and starts again.
that encodes the PC’s video output in real time and uploads it to Cablevision’s Tabula’s chips are going into cellular base
servers. The video will then be piped back through the company’s network to stations and other network equipment. They won’t
the subscriber’s TV using a channel dedicated to that customer. appear in PCs anytime soon. But they are another
Of course, you can do this today and control the process (with step toward the day when processors will reconfigure
Cablevision’s system, you’ll need to be in front of your PC to initiate themselves for top performance—without human
streaming and then run back to your TV to watch it). The DIY method is not intervention and at speeds we cannot perceive.
entirely free (you need a router and a media streamer) but it beats paying
subscription fees—and the video stays on your network. –MB Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor
for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for
Microprocessor Report.

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 GAME THEORY
QUICKSTART THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

Win7 Phone A High-Speed

Series Looks Pipe in Every THOMAS MCDONALD

Promising Home
By the time you read
DRM and PC Gaming:
Windows Mobile has
been stagnating for years, this, the FCC will have
presented Congress
an Intervention
and even the oft-delayed
Windows Mobile 6.5 with its National
didn’t bring anything Broadband Plan,
Walmart

P
substantial to the table. an ambitious set of ssst! Yeah, you: PC gaming industry.
Windows 7 Phone Series, proposals intended Buys Vudu C’mere, I wanna talk to you private-like.
announced in February, to make high-speed Amid interest from You know that copy-protection stuff you’ve
aims to change that. It’s a broadband as universal Comcast, Amazon, been trying since the zip-lock bag days? Well, it
completely new OS, and in the United States and Best Buy, troubled doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It never will work.
it s interface looks more as the telephone movie-streaming Glad to see you keep trying, though. That’s the
like the Zune HD’s than system. We know this service Vudu will be ac- spirit. Someone once said that the definition of
any smartphone interface because FCC Chairman quired by Walmart for a insanity was doing the same thing over and over
we’ve seen. Windows 7 Julius Genachowski rumored $100 million. again and expecting different results. I dunno who
Phone Series’ graphical gave the public a The match makes said it. Dr. Phil, probably.
interface will integrate preview of the plan’s a lot of sense. Walmart But seriously: I gotta give mad props to Ubi-
Zune software (like iPhone recommendations, with is the largest seller of soft for creating something so intrusive that even
does iPod), and incorpo- the warning that “the DVDs, but has never dedicated antipiracy and DRM supporters stand
rate Xbox Live info, Twit- rest of the world is not had a platform for back and say, “Whoa!”
ter, Facebook, Outlook sitting around waiting delivery of video over Making people verify a game every time they
email, and more. It’s the for us to catch up.” the Internet. With the play isn’t that big a deal, so people should quit
freshest phone OS we’ve The FCC’s goals are purchase of Vudu, the whining about it. I got five little letters for them:
seen so far, with bright sweeping: 90 percent retailer will have a ma- S-T-E-A-M.
blocks of color replacing broadband adoption ture service with many But making people maintain a live connection
the shrunken-desktop UI rate, at 100Mb/s content deals already throughout the play session, and then killing the
every other smartphone minimum, by 2020; in place. Vudu stopped game if that connection is lost? That’s hardcore.
OS is rocking. Windows increased competition making a stand-alone I think you’re suffering from some kind of
7 Phone Series is due out among broadband hardware box last long-term memory-loss thingy. I remember a game
from a variety of carriers Internet service year, instead focusing that came with a dark purple piece of paper printed
and manufacturers by the providers by 2012; on getting its software with codes in black ink. The codes had to be entered
end of 2010. –NE greater consumer embedded in various when you played the game. The black ink on dark
protections against devices like TVs and paper was supposed to make the thing Xerox-proof.
price gouging, unfair Blu-ray players. Guess It was, literally, “copy protected.”
billing practices, anti- who sells a lot of TVs? It was also a) almost impossible to read, b) a
competitive bundling, It would be reasonable pain in the keister, and c) easily defeated by a magi-
unreasonable to expect Walmart cal hacker technique called “handwriting.”
termination fees, to aggressively push You’ve tried code wheels, page/line/word
and undisclosed Vudu-enabled TVs lookups in manuals, CD checks, registration
interference with and other devices codes, online verification, and now, mandatory
consumers’ service now that it owns the live, uninterrupted Internet connections. They all
within 12 to 18 months; service. Manufactur- have two things in common: 1) they don’t work,
better data collection ers might also be more 2) they piss people off.
standards for market receptive to adding A guy who steals a game by downloading a
analysis by 2010; and the Vudu service to hacked copy is, by definition, a thief and a lowlife. He
rules protecting their products with deserves to be kicked so hard in the groin that he’ll
open markets. behemoth Walmart be wearing his scrotum for a shower cap. You’re not
Once presented, involved. Walmart ef- teaching him a lesson by annoying decent people:
it will be up to fectively drives down You’re just driving the decent folks to consoles.
Congress to turn prices wherever it PC gaming isn’t being killed by piracy: You’re
these reommendations goes—could that also committing suicide.
into policy. –KS hold true in the video- Now c’mon in off that ledge.
streaming space? –RW
Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games
for 17 years. He is an editor at large for Games
magazine.

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 BYTE RIGHTS
QUICKSTART THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

AMD
890GX
Gets QUINN NORTON

Nvidia’s
SATA 6 Their Own Personal
second-gen It’s official: SATA 6 is
Ion is 40 per-
cent smaller
than its pre-
here to stay. AMD has
released a new 890GX
Jesus
I
decessor and chipset that, among f you think writers never suffer for their
plays 1080p other features, has na-
Flash video. readers, know that I just watched 2012 for
tive support for SATA you. Well, most of it. I’m only human. I was
6 drives—and is the

Nvidia’s Ion Updated

watching to see Jesus fall on Rio de Janeiro,
first chipset to offer it. the subject of the latest “Wow, this comedy just
Native support writes itself” copyright case in the news. The

N
vidia’s first-gen Ion chipset brought real gaming is always preferred Catholic archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro is suing
over discrete chips Columbia Pictures for destroying Christ the
power to Atom N270– and N280–based netbooks— on motherboards Redeemer in the movie 2012—that’s the famous
not enough to play Call of Duty 4, perhaps, but enough because it gives you statue of Jesus with arms outstretched over Bra-
to run World of Warcraft or Quake 4. On March 1, Nvidia more ports, generally zil. The archdiocese is claiming the use, which it
has fewer compatibil- prohibited, to be copyright infringement.
announced the second-generation Ion chip, which will ity issues, and makes 2012 wasn’t picky about destruction.
work with Pine Trail netbooks and nettop devices. The OS installation on a Besides Christ, the movie lavishly wrecked
new chips are 40 percent smaller than first-gen Ions, and SATA 6 drive easier. Washington, D.C., and spent a lovingly long time
Besides faster disk dropping Los Angeles into the ocean. But the
incorporate 512MB of discrete DDR3 graphics memory. I/O, the 890GX also archdiocese didn’t want the movie to offend its
Nvidia’s Optimus technology will switch between the has the integrated flock, and now it wants a statement from the
Atom integrated graphics and Ion as necessary, to graphics performance studio saying it meant no offense, as well as
of a Radeon HD 4290 “unspecified damages.”
conserve battery life. Ion 2 will support Flash 10.1 and its GPU, according to Apparently, Columbia Pictures pulled a
hardware acceleration, and play 1080p Flash video. –NE AMD. –GU classic “Mommy said no, let’s go ask Daddy.”
The studio claimed it got permission to wreck
Jesus from the estate of the sculptor, who died
in 1961. After securing this permission “in good
PERIPHERAL VISION
faith,” they went ahead and knocked him over,
once in an earthquake in the movie and then
Thermaltake Gets into Games again for good measure with a tsunami on the
movie poster. But thus far it’s not actually clear
Thermaltake will enter the gaming-peripheral market with its new Tt Esports who owns the copyright on this icon of Brazil
and modern wonder of the world, and who could
product line, including the Challenger Gaming Pro Keyboard pictured here: a
therefore be granting permission. It’s a surpris-
rugged-looking plank with up to 18 macro keys, an antighost key function, 64KB ingly common situation.
of onboard memory, integrated USB ports, and a gold-plated USB connector. The Establishing ownership on works that
boards will be available this spring for $70. –KS predate the 1970s but aren’t old enough to be
public domain can be a legal nightmare, as
can works that might have been done as an
employee of a company, or works done with
online apps—sometimes other people’s tools
means other people’s property, but you don’t
know that unless you read the terms of ser-
vice, which you didn’t. Sometimes uploading
is enough to lose your rights. Look for more
fights about who owns what—it’s a century-old
problem that’s about to get a lot worse in the
age of user-created content.

Quinn Norton writes about copyright for Wired

News and other publications. Her work has
ranged from legal
Tom Halfhill journalism
was formerly to the inner
a senior editorlife
of
forpirate organizations.
Byte magazine and is now an analyst for
Microprocessor Report.

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 QUICKSTART THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

THE LIST 4 ULTRA-X RST

PRO 3 PCV-E
The new burst mode
on the RST Pro 3 memory
tester uses multithreading

Essential Gear
to evaluate your RAM and
get down to the root cause of
those mysterious crashes.
$860, www.uxd.com

on Our PC
Workbench

1 EXTECH POWER
ANALYZER
380803 The
Extech Power Analyzer
380803 lets you see and
log how much power your 1
devices are consuming.
$750, www.extech.com

2 10.8V DREMEL
LI-ION
With up to
35,000rpm, this Li-ion
Dremel can sit in a
drawer for two years and
still be ready when you
need it to slice off a nasty
burr on your case.
$133, www.dremel.com

3 SUREFIRE LX2 LUMAMAX

Whether spotting front-panel
headers or investigating strange
bumps in the night, the SureFire LX2
LumaMax 200-lumen flashlight is a
handy companion.
$195, www.surefire.com

14 | MAXIM
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5 LEATHERMAN
WAVE
Pliers + screwdriver
+ file + knife + more =
ultimate preparedness.
$99, www.leatherman.com

7
2

5
6

7 HIGH-SPEED PC TOP
DECK TECH STATION
Going commando means
using an HSPC Top Deck Tech
Station—swapping out parts has
never been easier.
$140, www.highspeedpc.com

6 SNAP-ON RATCHETING
SCREWDRIVERS
Nothing says happy like a
8 TRICORDER
Demilled Federation tricorder,
useful for finding signs of
carbon-based life forms (mice,
Snap-on screwdriver. lizards, tribbles) in PC enclosures.
$59 (each), www.snapon.com $50, www.entertainmentearth.com

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 DOCTOR IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIME

This month the Doctor tackles...

Freezing
Freezing While Gaming
Sound
Sound
Vanishing Drive Space
Advice
Heat Freezes do the trick. Although heat is
Every time I play a game, I likely the issue, one thing you
get the frozen-screen treat- didn’t mention was your power
ment—sometimes right away, supply. A power supply that is
sometimes a few hours in. I going bad and not providing
get a weird checkerboard pat- enough voltage to the graphics
tern on the screen and I can’t card could also be the source of
Alt+F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, or any- your problem.
thing else but a hard restart
to get back to Windows. I’m Win7 Can’t Find X-Fi
running 32-bit Windows I have an Intel Core i7-940
Vista, an AMD Athlon 64 coupled with an Asus
6000+, a Sapphire Radeon HD P6T Deluxe motherboard
4870 Vapor-X, 4GB Kingston and 6GB of Super Talent
Hyper-X RAM, and two 1TB DDR3/1333 memory. My OS
hard drives, all inside an is 64-bit Windows 7 Home
Antec Nine Hundred case. I’ve Premium with Creative’s X-Fi Turning off AutoPlay can go a long way toward protecting yourself
from malware that spreads via removable media.
tried running with the side of XtremeGamer soundcard. I
the case off and a fan blowing bought an upgrade version
on the card, even though with of Windows 7 and ran the Windows Explorer doesn’t drive for infections. Next, we’re
the case closed I get cool air Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor; bring up the error. going to check out the autorun
out of the back, so I doubt heat it said my audio device was —Thuy Tran entry on your device. Use
is the issue. I’ve reinstalled not compatible. I downloaded Explorer to access the drive, go
video drivers countless times the new Creative drivers and Sounds like the result of to the menu bar and hit Tools >
and the forums don’t seem to still got the same message. AutoPlay trying to do some- Folder Options. Click the view
be much help since I haven’t I have looked all over the thing your computer isn’t tab, then click “Show hidden
seen a thread describing the Internet for a fix and I see a expecting. This is how viruses files and folders.” Uncheck
same error I get. lot of people having the same spread, so the first thing to do “Hide protected operating
—Chris problems with X-Fi cards. is disable AutoPlay on your system files” and hit OK. Then,
—William White USB ports—this is good prac- back in Windows Explorer’s
Chris, the 4870 videocards are tice for anyone. To do this in view of your USB stick, right-
notorious for heat issues—even William, a few days after you Windows XP, download and click autorun.inf and open it
your intrepid Doctor has suf- sent your query to the Doctor, install the Tweak UI PowerToy with Notepad. Make a note of
fered from overheating-related Creative posted a Product from Microsoft (http://bit. whatever files it references,
crashes whenever the weather Identification Module Update ly/18bITQ). Run Tweak UI, and if they’re on the USB stick
gets too warm, no matter how on its website that will then in the menu tree, expand and you don’t recognize them,
much airflow his GPU gets. reportedly fix X-Fi identifica- My Computer, then AutoPlay, delete them, then delete auto-
The Vapor-X versions are sup- tion issues in Windows 7. then click Drives. Uncheck run.inf, just to be on the safe
posed to be less susceptible to You can download it (and any drive letter you don’t want side. You should also consider
overheating given their larger the most recent drivers) at AutoPlay using—we usually updating your Windows XP
fans, but we’ve still heard of http://bit.ly/cxj4R1. deselect everything but the installation to Service Pack 3 for
them overheating. One solu- optical drive. Then hit OK. greater security and reliability.
tion we’ve found is to go into AutoPlay, Go Away Now, plug in your USB
the Catalyst Control Center I have an Acer laptop running drive. The access-denied error Holy Shrinking Free
and manually increase the fan Windows XP Professional SP2. should not appear. But let’s dig a Space, Batman!
speed—we’ve found that 60 When I plug in my USB drive, little deeper. Use your antivirus The hard drive in my recently
percent fan speed, though it I get an “access denied” error. software and Malwarebytes’ built computer keeps filling
sounds like a jet engine, will Accessing the drive through Anti-Malware to scan your USB up without explanation. I am

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running 64-bit Windows 7, latest version, and you should EVGA 750i FTW mother-
an Intel Core i7-920, an MSI be all set. board, and two sticks of
X58 PRO-E motherboard, GSkill DDR2 with timings
6GB of DDR3, and a Seagate Which Port? of 5-5-5-15 2T at 1,066MHz.
Barracuda 7200.12 TB hard Thanks to Maximum PC’s Two weeks ago, I started
drive. I have 625.1GB free out past advice, I have a new rig getting random lockups
of 931GB. When I came home with an ATI Radeon HD 5870 and blue screens. After a
a couple days ago, I found graphics card. It has dual lot of work, it turns out to
that I had only 17KB free on DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort be the RAM, which is pro-
my hard drive. I restarted my connections. I use my rig ducing errors in Memtest.
computer to find that the for photography and video However, in testing it I have
levels of free space had editing. I have a 24-inch Dell found that I am getting
returned to normal. I then monitor with all of the above errors in unlinked mode,
locked my computer and ports. Which is the best one at 800MHz, undervolting,
went out for a meal. When to use and why? overvolting, and moving
I came back, I found I only —Preetham Grandhi the RAM around. The only
had 234.7GB free. Every time time I don’t get errors is
I shut down the computer, Based on what we know of when I run just one stick
the level of free space goes to Dell’s 24-inch monitors, it of RAM. Is this actually a
normal, but then decreases doesn’t matter which connec- RAM problem or do I have
rapidly whenever my com- tion you use, and will mostly a bigger issue?
puter is on. depend on which cable you —Tyler Cook
I ran WinDirStat to try have handy. If you had a
to figure out what the monitor with built-in speakers, The Doc suggests that you
problem was; it showed you would want to opt for move a DIMM that has tested
that the largest chunk of HDMI, which carries both a good around to the different
used space—157GB!—was video and audio signal. It’s also slots to see if it’s a particular
being used by a file called true that monitor makers don’t slot that’s bad. This can
cputime.xml in C:\Program always include HDCP (High- happen when dust or other
Files (x86)\Common Files\ Bandwidth Digital Content debris gets lodged in the slot.
PC Tools\Monitor. Protection) on all ports—HDCP Try cleaning the slots out
—Joseph Koo is necessary for watching copy- with a can of compressed air
and running your test again.
If you still run into issues,
IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY the fault may lie with your
TO INSTALL WINDOWS 7 motherboard or even

ON A SOLID STATE DRIVE, your CPU. Electronics do,

sadly, go bad, especially if
WE SAY, GO FOR IT they have been abused from
overclocking
or exposed to extended
Joseph, this is a known issue protected Blu-ray movies—in periods of oveheating.
with software from PC Tools, which case, you would also
such as Registry Monitor and want to opt for HDMI, which Upgrading Advice
Spyware Doctor, and has been offers that feature. But in the I’m trying to decide whether
fixed in the latest versions. case of Dell’s 24-inch monitors, to upgrade from Windows
Go to the Task Manager and it’s our understanding that XP Professional to Windows
end the SSDMonitor.exe and HDCP is present in all ports. 7 Professional. While I’m no
startmansvc.exe processes, hardcore techie, I can follow
then delete cputime.xml and Do I Have a Bigger directions well and I built
logfile.etl from the “s? monitor” Issue Here? my own system a couple of
folder. Now, uninstall your PC My PC has an Intel 2.4GHz years ago with the thought of
Tools software and reinstall the Core 2 Quad Q6600, an having a system ready for a

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 has
fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve
your technological woes.

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 DOCTOR IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIME

although a quality MLC SSD should Andrew, there are many potential
still last at least as long as your benefits to updating your BIOS.
average mechanical hard drive, BIOS updates typically include
even with steady use. performance increases and sup-
port for hardware that was not
Alcohol and Nude Parts available when your mother-
Is it OK to use alcohol to wipe board launched—like new CPUs
clean an Athlon CPU without and memory. A BIOS update can
a heat spreader? also improve stability and cor-
—Avery Sio rect bugs that the mobo maker
has found since the board was
Yes, the doctor has successfully released. Maximum PC endorses
cleaned many old spreaderless keeping your motherboard BIOS
Athlon and Athlon XP CPUs using up to date. Most modern moth-
alcohol. It’s generally recom- erboard vendors make BIOS-
mended that you use 99 percent flashing utilities that can run
isopropyl alcohol—or even from inside Windows—these are
better, use a CPU cleaner such as available for free from their sup-
ArctiClean to get the job done. port websites; otherwise, you’ll
Remember, those old Athlons have to boot from a floppy disk,
and Athlon XPs can be easily USB drive, or CD.
damaged since there’s nothing There are potential dan-
protecting the core, so don’t be gers to flashing your BIOS, of
Be careful when cleaning CPUs that don’t have heat spreaders—they’re too forceful. course—a botched upgrade
surprisingly easy to break. can totally bork your PC. Still,
BIOS Fear flashing a BIOS today is not as
Are there any benefits to flashing scary as it was 10 years ago
future OS upgrade. My system is a new separate OS drive, would or updating a PC’s BIOS? Are there as many board vendors have
an Asus P5E Deluxe, an Intel Core I be able to use the programs any dangers to my machine by recovery mechanisms in place.
2 Quad Q6700 at 2.66GHz, and already installed on the D: drive doing this? Some even have backup BIOSes
4GB of DDR3.  I have Windows without reinstalling them? —Andrew Wilson should one fail.
XP installed on a 150GB Western —Tom Helinski
Digital Raptor, as well as a 500GB
secondary drive. Tom, you’ll generally want to
Although I have some pro- reinstall your programs every SECOND OPINION
grams installed on the C: drive time you change operating sys-
(ones I can reinstall), most of my
programs have been installed on
tems—they may be unstable oth-
erwise. However, we’ve found that
Hardware Virtualization Denied
the secondary drive. sometimes programs installed on In the March 2010 issue you answered a question about
I have plenty of room on the non-OS drives function fine without
upgrading a laptop CPU to support virtualization. It is
C: drive to partition and install a reinstall. You’ll definitely want to
Win7, but I’m thinking about buy- reinstall your Adobe suite, though— important to realize that you must be certain not only that
ing an SSD to install Windows 7 just remember to deactivate your the CPU supports hardware virtualization, but that the
on. I use Adobe Photoshop CS4 old install before you upgrade. system’s BIOS does as well.
and Painter 11, as well as Adobe As for your question, if you
I recently purchased an Acer Aspire 1810T laptop that
Premiere Elements 8, and I think have the money to install Windows
I would benefit from installing 7 on an SSD, we say, go for it—as has an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor. I intended to
64-bit Windows 7 and adding 4GB long as you have an SSD with run Virtual XP in Windows 7 Professional to support legacy
to 8GB more RAM. TRIM support for clearing deleted business apps. There is no question this processor sup-
I’m really unsure as to how to blocks. You’ll have to think hard ports hardware virtualization. However, I was disappointed
go about this and not sure I really about where you want your scratch
to find out that there is no way to enable virtualization on
want to—I’ve read a number of disk for Photoshop and Premiere
posts on different forums and it Elements, though—lots of random this machine, as there is no option to do so in the BIOS. Un-
seems to me there are mixed feel- writes will cause some SSDs to stut- fortunately, hardware virtualization is disabled by default.
ings about the upgrade. ter and slow down. Look for an SSD Make sure your PC’s BIOS supports hardware
Also, since my programs are with an Indilinx Barefoot controller
virtualization if you are buying or upgrading expressly for
installed on a drive other than my and TRIM support. Also, multilevel
OS drive, if I make a change by cell (MLC) SSDs can tolerate fewer that feature. –DAN GOLDING
partitioning or installing Win7 on read/write cycles than SLC SSDs,

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 For
the
Kill!
We test 10 popular
antivirus apps to
find out which are
best at defeating
today’s myriad
malware menaces
BY PAUL LILLY

Once upon a time, the typical computer virus was annoying, and even a little destruc-
tive, but nowhere near as dangerous as what computer users face today. The stakes are
much higher now, and if you’re not careful or haven’t taken the proper precautions,
you’re a sitting duck for hackers to steal your identity and sell your private informa-
tion to the highest underground bidder. Imagine waking up to find your bank account
drained or your credit destroyed. And lest you think we’re exaggerating, consider that
most U.S. military personnel aren’t even allowed to tote USB thumb drives and other
removable storage devices anymore because of the potential harm of a virus outbreak.
The solution to all this is to not be caught with your virtual pants around your ankles,
and lucky for us, antivirus vendors have stepped up their game with increasingly robust
all-in-one security suites. In fact, unlike other technology categories, the field of AV
continues to expand rather than consolidate, with an overwhelming number of apps
promising protection and unique features. That’s where we come in.
To help you sift through the cruft, we’re going to revisit the latest versions of the
antivirus apps that showed the most promise (or have been granted a mulligan) from
last year’s roundup (January 2009), and we’ll pit them against five of the most reader-
requested antivirus suites we haven’t yet reviewed. You’ll notice we’ve narrowed our
focus to only two freebie apps this time around (Avira, last year’s champ, and Microsoft
Security Essentials, Redmond’s highly anticipated replacement to Windows Live
OneCare), so if you do decide to shell out for paid software, you’ll have a wider variety
of suites to compare. If the app you’re interested in isn’t included here, let us know and
be on the lookout for individual reviews in future issues.

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ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER WOLFSON

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 ANTIVIRUS

Putting AV to the Test

For AV software to make the grade, it has to excel in each of these five areas

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE AND SCAN SPEED If there’s one also looking for any unique (and useful) additions, as well as how
thing we learned from last year’s roundup, it’s that not all security suites intelligently they’re integrated.
are as lean as they claim to be. Nor are all of them speedy. To separate
the praiseworthy from the pretenders, we look at what effect each AV PRICING If we’re being totally honest, PC users can be a stingy bunch.
app has on our system resources, as well as subject each one to a full Don’t believe us? Then explain why BitTorrent is so popular (and no, it’s
PCMark Vantage run and compare the results to that of a pre-AV state. not because everyone is in a rush to download the latest Linux distro).
We also evaluate how long it takes each security suite to sweep through Freebie alternatives hold a clear advantage in this category, but we’re
our system, since an after-hours scan isn’t always an option. willing to concede the value of an effective, all-in-one security suite
over piecing together a mish-mash of free antimalware products. The
ANNOYANCE We fully expect to spend a little time configuring our prices for all the paid apps featured here pertain to a one-year license.
security options and digging through the advanced settings when we
first fire up our AV software, but once we’re finished tweaking, we don’t VIRUS DETECTION This is really what it’s all about, and to
want to be bothered. Security software shouldn’t subject us to useless determine the overall effectiveness of each AV app, we take a
pop-ups and benign notifications. multipronged approach. First, we fire off a pair of synthetic spyware
and virus tests courtesy of www.spycar.org and www.eicar.com. This is
FEATURES AND IMPLEMENTATION It can be a tough sell followed by a bombardment of our own collection of malware. Finally,
convincing users they should shell out for a security suite when free we hit up the seedier side of the web with reckless abandon.
alternatives abound. But let us be clear about one thing: We’re not Once we’re finished with our in-house testing, we compare the
looking for which AV solution can cram the most bullet points on the results with those of Virus Bulletin (www.virusbtn.com), an indepen-
side of the box. We do expect a certain baseline feature-set—spam dent testing lab. We also take into consideration whether an app has
blocking, spyware protection, real-time scanning, etc.—but we’re consistently performed well year after year.

NORTON INTERNET SECURITY 2010

Fast, finely tuned, and a little flawed

We took some heat after awarding last have been validated by

year’s version of Norton Internet Security Symantec and deemed
our coveted Kick Ass award. Some of you trustworthy. The result?
were baffled at how Norton, a notorious After an initial scan time
resource hog and semi-effective scanner, of 16 minutes, 18 sec-
could turn things around in such dramatic onds, NIS then scurried
fashion. Others questioned our geek cred, through our data in just
while a few of you even accused us of four minutes, 47 seconds,
being on the take—ouch. But the truth finishing long before our
is, Symantec deserved every accolade it coffee break did.
received. Could this be the dawn of a new NIS thwarted most
AV dynasty in the Norton camp? of our attempts to find Norton lets you audit your system files and see which ones might
We’re not yet ready to anoint Norton a chink in its armor, be potentially dangerous or performance-hampering.
the savior of security software, and we’ll knocking out spyware
tell you why in a moment. First, let’s focus and batting away disreputable downloads program to disable UAC.
on what NIS 2010 does right. This year’s without skipping a beat. That is, until We have a hard time picturing anyone
update continues NIS’s reborn legacy as we played dirty. We disabled NIS long going through the trouble we did to inten-
a lean and fast scanner. We remain par- enough to download a contaminated ar- tionally inflict harm, but nevertheless, our
ticularly impressed with Norton Insight, chive and then turned it back on. Norton confidence is shaken.
which dramatically reduces system scans. only blocked some of the infected files

7
The first time NIS sweeps through your inside our Pandora’s box, allowing our VERDICT

system, it examines every file. Each time test bed to become infected with a fake NORTON INTERNET SECURITY
$70 (3-PC license), www.symantec.com
thereafter, the scanner skips files that AV scanner. It even allowed the rogue

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ESET SMART SECURITY 4
This newest version brings more of the same, and we’re OK with that

Like Norton, ESET Smart Security walked duce subsequent sweeps,

away with a Kick Ass award in last year’s so it’s not nearly as fast in
roundup, so we were eager to see how the long run.
the two security suites would compare But just when it looked
when pitted against each other in our like Norton might squeak
second annual AV battle royal. out a victory, ESET threw an
Through the first few rounds of testing, uppercut from which Nor-
it was near impossible to declare a winner. ton never recovered. Unlike
Both apps remained light on their feet by its rival, we weren’t able
barely sipping system resources before to dupe ESET into letting
the two began trading blows. ESET won a us turn our test bed into a
round by adding six fewer seconds than haven for pop-ups. We tried Enable the Advanced mode to gain access to things like the Task
Norton did to our system boot time (+14 the same tactic that stymied Scheduler and information about quarantined files.
seconds versus +20 seconds, respectively), Norton—disabling the AV
but Norton’s a more polished fighter. What software just long enough
do we mean? to download an archive brimming with still find a plethora of options in the ad-
ESET lacks a few features found in malware—but ESET stopped us dead in our vanced menu, and malware still stands
Norton, including identity protection tracks before we could unleash a flurry of little chance of running amok.
and parental controls. And while ESET trouble onto our hard drive. Bravo!

9
managed to scan our test bed in a little There really isn’t much to fault in
VERDICT
less than eight minutes, which is half the ESET. Not a whole lot has changed since
time it took Norton during its first run, last year’s version, and in this case, that’s ESET SMART SECURITY 4
$60, www.eset.com
ESET doesn’t skip over trusted files to re- not a bad thing. Experienced users will

AVIRA ANTIVIR FREE EDITION

A serviceable solution if you supply your own smart computing habits

Ask any penny-pinching power user But it wasn’t all peaches

what he thinks about non-free and cream. Based on AntiVir’s
security suites, and he’ll tell you it’s track record, we didn’t expect to
a fool’s solution, plain and simple. run into too much trouble with
After all, what’s the point of paying Trojans. We were wrong. When
for AV software when programs like attempting to download the same
AntiVir offer the same protection sans dirty archive we used throughout
a price tag? this roundup, AntiVir failed to
A valid question, so we set out to detect any of the several pay-
answer it. We combed through the loads inside. Moments later,
data available from two well-known our test bed was in pretty bad
independent testing labs—Virus Bulletin shape. The various viruses dis-
and AV-Comparatives—and in both abled UAC, knocked out access AntiVir’s Expert mode unlocks a bevy of options you
cases, we found that AntiVir historically to the Task Manager, and even wouldn’t expect to find in a freebie security app.
performs well, boasting high detection managed to block AntiVir from
rates. So far, so good. running a scan.
Even better, AntiVir added a bit of Based on our in-house testing, Its ultra-low footprint makes it a service-
basic spyware protection to this year’s it’s tough to recommend AntiVir if able option for anyone who doesn’t
version, addressing one of our primary you’re installing AV software for family want to sacrifice performance; just be
complaints about AntiVir in 2009. Re- for friends. But for power users who sure to tread carefully.
peating some of the same tests we used don’t plan on putting themselves into
last year, this year’s AntiVir did a much too many precarious situations, like

6
VERDICT
better job protecting IE from rogue code romping around the web’s dark alleys
and prevented a few other spyware she- and searching for software via P2P, AVIRA ANTIVIR FREE EDITION
Free, www.free-av.com
nanigans, such as altering our host file. AntiVir still deserves consideration.

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 ANTIVIRUS

MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS

Windows Live OneCare reincarnated for the masses

Someone over at Microsoft must watch

a lot of hockey, because it’s the only
way to explain the company’s recent hat
trick. First there was Bing, the much-
improved “decision” engine that replaced
Live Search. Then Windows 7 launched,
atoning for Vista. Now we have Microsoft
Security Essentials, one of the latest
entries into the field of AV, and another
winning product from Microsoft.
Essentials scored points with us right
off the bat with its supersonic 10-second
install time. Even after downloading the
latest update, we still hadn’t invested more
than a minute or so of our time. And while Microsoft’s no-fuss approach to security means there isn’t a whole lot for power users to
Vista, Internet Explorer, and other Microsoft tinker with.
software made it easy at times to rag on Red-
mond for poor resource management, there minutes, and that time never improved with if there’s a virus outbreak going around, like
would be none of that with Essentials, which subsequent sweeps. That’s more than five the Conficker scare, nor dial things down if it
disappeared quietly into the background. times longer than it took AntiVir—the only starts picking up too many false positives.
When it came time to test Essentials, other freebie AV app in this roundup—to sift These are minor quibbles when you
we checked our expectations at the door through the same files. consider that Essentials won’t tax your wal-
but were nevertheless pleasantly surprised. We’d also like to see Microsoft offer let or your system, while still getting the job
Essentials sailed through our synthetic power users more fine-grain control over done. If you’re a gamer who’d rather spend
spyware and virus testing without so the settings. The basics are there, like $60 on a triple-A title than security software,
much as flinching and fared equally well setting up scheduled scans, and you can does anything else really matter?
at thwarting our attempts to inflict damage choose whether or not to enable real-time
with genuine payloads. protection. You can even tell Essentials to

8
Microsoft did leave plenty of room for skip certain files and locations. But good VERDICT
improvement, however; most notably in the luck trying to dig any deeper than that. For MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS
swiftness of the scan engine, or lack thereof. instance, you’re not able to configure the Free, www.microsoft.com/
Security_Essentials/
Scanning just 60GB of data took nearly 17 real-time module to act more aggressively

CLOUD-BASED SCANNING

The Pros and Cons of an Internet-Based AV Approach

We get it—you’re a power user who pushes the limits of your PC, based scanners tend to always be up to date, and because you’re not
and you’re not about to stuff a full-blown security suite into your installing any software, there’s nothing to rob your system of any
finely tuned rig, no matter how lean the footprint might be. After resources. Groovy, right? Not so fast, Peter Brady. By relying solely
all, if you’re not doing anything risky, then you have little to worry on the cloud, there’s nothing to stop your system from becoming
about, right? infected in the first place, whereas taking a proactive approach
Fair enough, but keep in mind there are some things that are effectively puts up a wall against malware.
simply out of your control. USB keys, digital photo frames, and even When it comes to checking out just a file or two, we especially
driver discs have been found to contain malware. So even if you re- like Virus Total (www.virustotal.com). After you upload the question-
fuse to install AV software, you should consider turning to the cloud able file, Virus Total taps into 40 different updated scan engines, so if
once a month. the file turns out to be dirty, there’s a good chance one of the engines
Almost every major AV vendor offers free online scanning, but will catch it. For more comprehensive scanning, head over to Panda
there are pros and cons to this approach. On the plus side, cloud- ActiveScan 2.0 (http://bit.ly/2T0ite).

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AVAST! INTERNET SECURITY
Still too slow to take seriously

Our last experience with Avast! left us malicious code, not only
utterly annoyed, and for good reason. It did Avast! stop the script
was slow, resource-heavy, and seemed to from executing, it also
suffer from an identity crisis, with a quirky disabled the website to
user interface that looked more like a prevent us from doing any
media player than an AV scanner. harm. But when we turned
That was the free version we looked our attention to seedier
at, and this year, we put Avast!’s full- sides of the web, Avast!
blown security suite under the micro- allowed us to download
scope. A close inspection reveals that a dirty archive brimming
some of our previous complaints remain, with infectious files and
but there have also been a handful of failed to detect any of the Turn on Avast!’s Gaming Mode to disable pop-ups while you’re
busy fragging your friends.
welcome improvements. payloads inside. Where
For starters, Avast! sports brand-new Avast! somewhat redeems
digs, and it’s never looked better. Gone is itself, however, is with its sandbox it’s still saddled with the slowest scan
the goofy media-player façade, replaced mode. Accessible through the right-click engine of the bunch, taking twice as long
by a sleek UI that’s easy to navigate. All context menu, you can run any file in to scan our test bed as the next-slowest
the controls are clearly labeled, so you a virtual environment, including your security suite.
won’t spend time fumbling around looking browser, and then kill the process if it

5
for things like the IM shield or firewall. turns out to be a virus. If you remember
VERDICT
Initially, Avast! did the best job out to use it, it’s like having a persistent
of the bunch at blocking most forms of undo button. AVAST! INTERNET SECURITY
$60 (3-PC license), www.avast.com
malware. If we clicked a link containing But for all of Avast!’s improvements,

MCAFEE INTERNET SECURITY 2010

The Rodney Dangerfield of AV finally earns our respect

When McAfee told us it completely a white list of files it can

re-engineered its security suite from top safely skip. Depending on
to bottom, we agreed to include it in this how clogged your hard
roundup knowing full well we had prob- drive is, McAfee claims
ably been duped like the guy who drives this can result in up to
off the used-car lot without a warranty. eight-times-faster scans
We were wrong. (we saw a 50 percent
To our eyes, this is a completely improvement).
revamped McAfee. MIS 2010 rolls off the Adding value to an al-
lot with a much-improved UI over previ- ready fleshed-out security
ous versions, and manages to balance suite, McAfee includes
McAfee’s redesigned home screen now includes a big green bar
ease of use with a high level of custom- a few thoughtful extras, intended to give you warm fuzzies when your system is free
ization. For those who care to do so, including 1GB of online from malware.
McAfee makes it easy to dig deeper into backup space. There’s also
each of the main menu’s modules, but a QuickClean module, which stream- the fact that it let a program write to our
you’ll never feel lost or overwhelmed. lines the process of deleting tempo- registry worries us, and cost the product
Underneath the hood sits a more rary files, and a file shredder for more a 9 verdict and a Kick Ass award.
performance-oriented engine than securely deleting your data.
what you would expect from a McAfee McAfee cruised through our mal-
product. Where last year’s version felt ware tests with little incident—that is,
like a dilapidated Pinto, the 2010 model until it let a malicious file write a reg-

8
has all the makings of a sporty sedan. To istry entry blocking access to the Task VERDICT

reduce the time it takes to scan a system, Manager. To McAfee’s credit, it did neu- MCAFEE INTERNET SECURITY
$50 (3-PC license), www.mcafee.com
McAfee caches files and puts together tralize the actual virus responsible, but

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 ANTIVIRUS

TREND MICRO INTERNET SECURITY PRO 3.0

The high point of this foul program is its 30-day money-back guarantee

Trend Micro should come with a warning

label that reads, “Caution: May be hazard-
ous to your system’s boot time, overall
performance, and system security. Use at
your own risk.”
Instead, Trend Micro promises “the
most comprehensive, easy-to-use protec-
tion for your personal data,” which just
isn’t true. We have so many complaints
its tough to decide where to begin, so let’s
start with system performance.
Trend Micro added more than half a
minute to our test bed’s boot time—long
enough for some PC components to be-
come obsolete. It also turned in the lowest
PCMark score, although there were other
products with scores nearly as bad. Trend Micro’s dashboard is simple enough, but takes longer to load than other security suites.
We’re far less forgiving of the hoops
you have to jump through to visit a
blocked site. On one hand, Trend Micro only the main page will load; all sub- played dead when we unleashed our ar-
does an excellent job of creating a barrier domains remain blocked. The solution? chive from hell. The Task Manager disap-
between you and a malicious website. But Fire up Trend Micro’s slow-loading main peared, we were cut off from the registry,
if Trend Micro tags a clean site as dirty, console, click your way through to the list and a fake AV scanner kept imploring us
you might as well go pound sand. Blocked of approved websites, add the domain, to cough up our credit card.
sites come with a disclaimer that’s sup- click the “Include all pages of the websites Our time with Trend Micro wasn’t all
posed to allow you to click through after selected” checkbox, apply the changes, bad, and there were some bright spots,
acknowledging you understand the risk, and then restart your browser. Egads! but none brighter than the 30-day money-
but in most cases, all that does is reload There are plenty of other quirks, like back guarantee.
the same warning message. Alternately, having to close the console before you’re

4
you can label the site as trusted by clicking able to view quarantined files, but the
VERDICT
the green button on the installed toolbar, worst part about all this is that you’re
but you can’t refresh the page—you need still susceptible to infection. Trend Micro TREND MICRO INTERNET SECURITY
$70, www.us.trendmicro.com
to manually type in the URL. Even then, started off strong, but rolled over and

ON THE CASE

New Threats Call for a New Breed of Antivirus

Most tech historians credit Richard Skrenta for having written the updates throughout the day rather than one big one every 24
world’s first computer virus. At the time a 15-year-old freshman in hours—have helped, AV vendors have had to get just as creative as
high school, Skrenta wrote what would be called “Elk Cloner” on the hackers they’re trying to combat. AV apps now employ heuristic
an Apple II computer as a practical joke. scanning, whereby the scan engine looks at certain instructions or
Today, there are more than a million viruses in the wild, but commands that are out of the ordinary. A good scanner will also
it’s not just the sheer numbers that pose a problem for antivirus look for signs of suspicious behavior, such as attempting to change
programs. The biggest issue for AV software is how to detect a security settings or copying files to system directories. When it
virus strain never before seen, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. detects pieces of code or behaviors that aren’t consistent with how
Worms like Conficker end up costing corporations millions of dol- most clean programs operate, it’s a red flag that something mali-
lars while continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. cious might be going on.
It’s no longer enough to simply update AV definitions when In the end, the best line of defense is still you, the user. Rely
new threats are detected, and while pulse updates—minor on smart computing first and your AV software second.

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 ANTIVIRUS

BITDEFENDER INTERNET SECURITY 2010

This security suite has more personalities than Robin Williams

Ever been blindsided by what you click of the mouse.

thought was love at first sight, but turned Power users will want
out to be just another pretty face? Even- access to all the bells
tually you find yourself at a crossroads and whistles, and there
having to decide whether to break things are plenty of them. But if
off, or stick around for the fast ride and you’re installing BitDe-
ignore the flaws. fender on Aunt Mildred’s
Such is the position BitDefender machine, you can opt for
puts you in, and you’ll ultimately have a super-simple layout, ef-
to make the same decision. Right off the fectively sweeping all the
bat we encountered a couple red flags fine-grain controls under BitDefender allows you to choose from one of three preset profiles,
or create your own custom layout.
of things to come, including a somewhat the rug in favor of a user-
lengthy install time requiring a restart, friendly dashboard. There’s
and mandatory registration in order to even a middle option for folks who want Even still, BitDefender’s super-fast
activate the license. a little more control but not the whole kit subsequent scan time of two minutes, 30
Once we got past the initial awk- and caboodle. seconds smoked most of the competition
wardness, BitDefender proceeded to But underneath BitDefender’s pretty and had us rethinking our priorities, but
sweep us off our feet by tailoring itself to face are a few niggling annoyances. Surf- we’d always know we settled.
our needs. BitDefender’s configuration ing the web suddenly felt laggy, and
wizard asks you to select from four dif- BitDefender failed five of Spycar.org’s 17

7
ferent layouts based on what type of user spyware tests. It fared much better during VERDICT
you are, including Typical, Parent, Gamer, our real-world virus attack, though it did BITDEFENDER INTERNET SECURITY
or Custom. Should you later change your let a rogue program cut off access to the $50 (3-PC license),
www.bitdefender.com
mind, you can rerun the wizard with a Task Manager.

PANDA INTERNET SECURITY 2010

Pandas aren’t known for their speed, and neither is this one

Panda shredded every threat we threw toward the back of the

at it with the ferocity of, well, anything pack, and whatever
but a panda bear. Spyware, Trojans, concessions are taking
potentially unwanted programs (PUPs)— place under the hood to
you name it, Panda pounced on it like reduce subsequent scans,
a hungry dog that had been thrown a it isn’t enough. Panda
meaty bone. only knocked a little more
This particular Panda can also be a than two minutes off its
little bit needy. By default, Panda alerts time during a second run,
you to every activity under the sun, even putting it in second-to-last
benign attempts by your home network place, trailing only Avast!’s
Need proof your roommate’s surfing habits are putting your PC at
to connect to your PC. Over time, the abysmal half-hour sweep. risk? Show him with Panda’s pie charts.
pop-ups settle down considerably, and for Panda also added 24 sec-
the ones of a more serious nature—like onds to our boot time, a full
those alerting you to a real threat or virus seven seconds longer than the average, your system vulnerable.
attack—Panda makes it easy to adjust and another second-to-last place qualifier. If fast scans and optimized boot times
both the transparency and longevity of the Armchair auditors will love how are of no consequence, Panda quickly
pop-ups. Still, we wish Panda would take Panda lays out security statistics, show- becomes a top-three favorite. Otherwise,
more initiative and not bother us with so ing you exactly what kind of threats look elsewhere.
many alerts. your computing habits tend to attract

7
While Panda put up a seemingly and even arranging them in a pie chart. VERDICT
impenetrable wall, we can’t help but be We also dig the ability to password- PANDA INTERNET SECURITY
peeved with its performance. Panda’s protect certain security features, ensur- $80 (3-PC license),
www.pandasecurity.com
13-and-a-half-minute scan time trended ing a disgruntled coworker doesn’t leave

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 COMODO INTERNET SECURITY PRO
Scans so fast, it should be illegal

There remains a legion of XP users who initially sweep through our

regard Redmond’s nearly decade-old OS test bed, but on the next
as the holy grail of operating systems. lap, Comodo turned on the
And before Windows 7 emerged, we jets and raced through our
would have agreed, but what XP loyal- files in just over a minute.
ists seem to forget is just how suscep- At such a breakneck speed,
tible to Internet threats their beloved OS we wondered if Comodo
was in the early days. Sure, it came with was cutting corners and
a built-in firewall, but before the second would fold once we bom-
Service Pack, it wasn’t turned on by barded it with malicious
default, and it was never able to monitor files. It didn’t.
outbound traffic. So what’s not to like? Be sure to pay attention during installation or Comodo will install
a toolbar, change your default search provider, and redirect
Enter Comodo, a company that built a The interface isn’t as slick your homepage.
following among enthusiasts for its excel- as some of the others in
lent firewall. A lot has changed since then this roundup, but we’re
(including much better firewall integration more perturbed at Comodo’s attempt to offers to scrub your registry and “opti-
in Windows), and it would be a mistake upsell us additional security and “fea- mize” your PC. Not cool when you’ve
to peg Comodo as a one-trick pony. Co- tures.” It started during installation, when already paid for protection.
modo’s full-fledged security suite is more Comodo tried to sneak in a third-party
of an anti-malware stallion, and if overall toolbar, change our homepage, and make

6
scan speed were the Kentucky Derby, this Ask.com our default search provider— VERDICT

would be the thoroughbred to bet on. lame. Then there’s the persistent link in COMODO INTERNET SECURITY PRO
$50 (3-PC license), www.comodo.com
It took Comodo nearly 15 minutes to the UI to purchase LivePCSupport, which

The Final Word

What became all too obvious dur- PERFORMANCE
ing our comparative evaluation of
AV suites is that a strict appraisal SCAN 1 (MIN:SEC) SCAN 2 (MIN:SEC) PCMARK BOOT (SECONDS ADDED)
of feature lists, and even perfor-
mance numbers, tells just part NORTON 16:18 4:47 5,760 +18
of the story. Only by using these
apps in a real-world way were we ESET 7:45 7:43 6,067 +12
able to conclude, for example, that AVIRA 6:37 3:12 6,093 +6
ESET Smart Security remains a MSE 16:56 16:56 5,622 +9
favorite, that the free Microsoft
Security Essentials is a great solu- MCAFEE 13:33 6:45 5,645 +13
tion for cheapskates, that McAfee TREND MICRO 13:00 8:55 5,475 +32
has redeemed itself, and that BITDEFENDER 11:47 2:58 5,801 +18
Trend Micro Internet Security Pro
just plain sucks. PANDA 12:28 11:16 5,738 +24
COMODO 14:56 1:11 5,486 +15

FEATURES
EMAIL IM SPYWARE ROOTKIT IDENTITY SPAM PARENTAL
SCANNING SCANNING PROTECTION PROTECTION HEURISTICS FIREWALL PROTECTION CONTROLS CONTROLS

NORTON Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ESET Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
AVIRA No No Yes Yes Yes No No No No
MSE No No Yes Yes Yes No No No No
AVAST! Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
MCAFEE Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
TREND MICRO Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes
BITDEFENDER Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes
PANDA Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
COMODO No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No

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 INTEL Rolls a

Six
The venerable
chipmaker
gambles on
multithread
madness with
its hexa-core
Core i7-980X
BY GORDON MAH UNG

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Meet the world’s fastest CPU. OK, so we just gave away the will have the same CPU branding as an incompatible existing
big reveal to our report before you even flipped one page, socket. Nor is there the head-scratcher of a very novel, yet very
and without so much as the common courtesy of a spoiler limp, integrated graphics chip in a CPU (Clarkdale), which, by
alert. For that, we do not apologize, because it’s not like you the way, won’t work in boards that lack graphics output ports.
couldn’t have guessed how this one would end up. After all, With Core i7-980X, you update your BIOS, drop the chip
Intel’s new 3.33GHz Core i7-980X (code-name: Gulftown) in, and—voilà—you spend hours rocking a six-core high. Put
builds on all the goodness of the ass-kicking quad-core simply, Core i7-980X is 24-ounces of prime-rib red meat for
3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, but is smaller, cooler, performance enthusiasts who really haven’t had much to
and has an additional two cores under its heat spreader. With gnaw on since the original 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
Hyper-Threading enabled, that’s a cool 12 threads at the came out two years ago.
ready. How could it be anything less than badass? So we’re done, right? You don’t need to read on? Sorry,
In fact, Intel’s Core i7-980X seems to be one of the most there’s still more to learn. If you want to know if your mother-
flawless launches we’ve seen from the company in some time. board works with the new chip, what applications can really
By flawless, we mean there have been no contortionist acts, exploit the six cores, and how this bad boy performs, you’ll
such as explaining to consumers that a new socket (LGA1156) have to turn the page.

INTEL’S TOP PROCS COMPARED

CORE I7-980X CORE I7-975 EXTREME EDITION CORE I7-870

Code-name Gulftown Bloomfield Lynnfield
Clock Speed (on Turbo) 3.33GHz (3.6GHz) 3.33GHz (3.6GHz) 2.93GHz (3.6GHz)
Cores/Threads 6/12 4/8 4/8
L2 Cache 1MB 1MB 1MB
L3 Cache 12MB 8MB 8MB
RAM Support Tri-channel Tri-channel Dual-channel
DDR3/1066 DDR3/1066 DDR3/1333
TDP 130 watts 130 watts 95 watts
Process 32nm 45nm 45nm
Transistor Count 1.17 billion 731 million 774 million
Die Size 248mm2 263mm2 296mm2
Socket LGA1366 LGA1366 LGA1156
Price $999 $999 $562

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WHAT’S IN A NAME? hexa-core Core i9, Intel backed off Nehalem family. All six cores reside on
We know that, by now, enthusiasts when retailers and vendors complained a single contiguous piece of silicon. Like
should be immune to Intel’s confusing of too many blasted brands. And as to the original Nehalem CPUs, each core
model numbers, but there’s one thing why it isn’t a 999X or 9900X, Intel said has 2MB of L3 available to it, giving the
that sticks in our craw about the Core such gestures are unnecessary. The part CPU a total of 12MB of L3 cache. The
i7-980X: Despite it being the world’s is designed for enthusiasts and the folks cache is shared across all the individual
first consumer x86 hexa-core, and who buy it will know that it’s not a mere cores, which means a single core can
despite it using the latest 32nm process, five clicks better than a Core i7-975. have up to 12MB of L3 cache if the other
it’s label is a mere five notches greater five cores are sleeping.
than the quad-core Core i7-975 Extreme As is the case with all Extreme proces-
Edition part it ostensibly replaces. BENEATH THE SURFACE sors, the chip is fully unlocked, allowing
Surely, all the goodness of two Fortunately, the chip is fairly simple you to change multipliers as well as Turbo
more cores and a total 12 threads of to understand. It uses the new 32nm Boost ratios. Turbo Boost is present but not
computing warrant a Core i9 designa- process that was introduced with the as pedal-to-the-firewall as in the LGA1156
tion, or at the very least, a much higher dual-core Core i5/Core i3 Clarkdale parts. The Core i7-980X will give you a
model number, right? No, Intel officials CPUs. For code-name junkies, that Turbo Boost up to 133MHz if more than
told us. The company said that, despite makes Gulftown part of the Westmere one core is active. With single-threaded
previous reports that it would call its family—not part of the original 45nm apps, the CPU will Turbo Boost up to

APPLICATION SUPPORT

Even 100 Cores Won’t Help Lazy Code

Multiple cores are only useful if there’s software that takes that changing soon, because writing code for multiple cores is
advantage of them. Thus, we queried a couple of leading soft- hard and the development world is moving away from hard and
ware developers about where they see the multicore sweet toward easy. I think the trend is due to the same old brute-force
spot to be. Their answers shed interesting light on the quest single-core speed improvements that have been happening
for more threads. combined with how cheap computers are now. Why rewrite
Jeff Stephens, president of Bibble Labs: “Bibble 5 ‘sup- for more cores when you can wait a year and get a CPU that is
ports’ unlimited cores, and with fast enough disks and efficient another 20 percent faster?
OS-level scheduling, we can scale up to
about 30 CPUs (performance benefits
stop there, so 32 CPUs runs as fast as
30—right now). Without sounding glib,
the reason no one else is doing this is
because it’s hard.… To scale beyond four
or so threads, all aspects of a program
must be built around parallel processing
of huge amounts of data, efficient sched-
uling of processing tasks, and disk reads/
writes to prevent starving CPUs of work
to do by waiting for data, et cetera.”
Paul Schmidt, president of Photo-
dex: “In my opinion, more cores don’t
solve the biggest problem. The biggest
problem is how the code is written—
most code just isn’t written to take
advantage of more cores. I don’t see With the Core i7-980X, 12 threads can be processed simultaneously, but only if a given app supports them.

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 UNDER THE HEAT SPREADER

A Close-up Look at the Core i7-980X

All six cores of Intel’s Core i7-980X share 12MB of L3 cache on the die. The 1.17 billion–transistor CPU also has two QPI
connections but only one is enabled on consumer CPUs. The second QPI is use for multi-CPU Xeon configurations.

Memory Controller

Core Core Core Queue and Uncore Core Core Core

Misc 1/0 and QPI

Misc 1/0 and QPI

Shared L3 Cache Shared L3 Cache

266MHz. That’s boring compared to 2011 or 2012, when Intel introduces its performed multiple benchmark runs
the Core i7-870, which will boost from Sandy Bridge CPUs. Where Westmere is without incident. Mind you, this was
2.93GHz to 3.6GHz, or about 733MHz. a tick, Sandy Bridge will be a tock, intro- without tweaking core voltage for the
We’d be remiss, though, if we didn’t ducing a new microarchitecture that will CPU, the QPI, RAM, or other various
point out that the Core i7-870 starts out include advanced vector extensions as knobs we could have turned to get more
at a much lower clock speed. well as other enhancements. For entry- reliability. We even got the machine to
level CPUs, Sandy Bridge will also move
the GPU core onto the die. Initial Sandy
TICK-TOCK Bridge chips will be 32nm, with a shrink BESIDES THE PROCESS
Keeping with Intel’s tick-tock model, to 22nm (another tick) due soon after. SHRINK, THERE’S VERY
with ticks being little jumps and tocks
LITTLE CHANGED FROM
NEHALEM TO WESTMERE
being huge leaps, 980X is a tick. For
the most part, besides the process PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES
shrink, there’s very little that’s changed Normally, a smaller process leads to
from Nehalem to Westmere. The most enhanced overclocking, and the same POST at 4.5GHz on air-cooling, but then
notable new feature is the inclusion holds true for the Core i7-980X. With it crashed. The verdict is that the Core
of advanced encryption instructions, the original Core i7-965, we’ve never i7-980X looks to be a wonderful over-
which accelerate encryption. exceeded 4GHz on air. The D0-step clocker. (For a review of an overclocked
Overall, Westmere is just a smaller, Core i7-975 improved overclock- production Core i7-980X see page 74.)
denser 45nm Nehalem. How much ing, but even there, we’ve never seen
smaller? The Core i7-975 Extreme Edi- production machines exceed 4.2GHz
tion weighs in at 731 million transistors reliably—and that’s with water-cooling. EARLY ADOPTERS GET
and occupies 263mm2 of die space. Core With the Core i7-980X, we went into THE RESPECT
i7-980X has 1.17 billion transistors but the BIOS and dialed the base clock up Let’s face it: When Intel introduced its
occupies just 248mm2 of die space. until the processor was at 4GHz. From LGA1156 Lynnfield CPUs last year, every
Westmere will run its course until there, we had no stability issues and single person who bought into the Core i7

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CPUs and LGA1366 motherboards had You’ll still have to update the BIOS part that it will slowly replace.
a panic attack. Would Intel, as some before dropping in a Core i7-980X, but we When will Intel offer a friendlier-
feared, abandon the LGA1366 platform haven’t heard of any LGA1366 mother- priced hexa-core? The company won’t
altogether in favor of the more cost- boards not working with the new chip. talk about unannounced products,
conscious new socket? It’s happened That’s quite an accomplishment for Intel, but several Internet rumor sites have
before. Think of Intel’s short-lived Socket which has a history of burning people reported that Intel has a hexa-core
423 and AMD’s original Socket 940. With when new CPUs are launched. We don’t Core i7-970 in the $500 range on tap
those, early adopters got one or two want to rehash ancient history, but let’s for the end of the year.
just say we’re happy it worked out for
TO GET A HEXA-CORE early adopters for once.
IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL
TODAY, YOU’LL HAVE TO THEY COME?
PAY FOR AN EXTREME SERIES EXTREME EXCLUSIVITY If you think it’s all sunshine and
Intel has long had a dilemma with lollipops for hexa-core computing,
upgrades and then were left waving its Extreme series of CPUs. Only folks it’s not. As always, the problem is
their DIMMs in the wind. with deep pockets actually purchased finding applications that will actually
Fortunately, users who chose the the Core i7-975—most consumers use the available threads. That was
early-adopter route will be rewarded just bought the poor-boy Core i7-920 a problem with the original dual-
for once. The Core i7-980X is an and overclocked that puppy up to the cores and quad-cores; now with a
LGA1366 CPU that should drop into 3.7GHz+ range. There was simply very hexa-core and Hyper-Threading, the
nearly any LGA1366 motherboard. little incentive to buy the top-end part situation persists. The apps aren’t
To keep things compatible, Intel even when the low-end part overclocked nonexistent, but they’re certainly not
kept the official spec for the Core i7- so well. That little cheat no longer as prevalent as you would hope. That
980X to DDR3/1066 only. Even though works, though. To get a hexa-core chip makes upgrading to the Core i7-980X
the CPU is quite capable of supporting today, you’ll have to pay for an Extreme something you’ll want to think about
memory at far higher speeds, Intel series. That’s why we were actually first. Certainly, if you are a mega-
said it didn’t want to require mother- surprised when Intel priced the Core multitasker, more cores don’t hurt.
boards makers to recertify boards for i7-980X at $999. Sure, it’s still too rich for But if your primary applications are
higher speeds of RAM. For what it’s most, but as the only game in town, we single- or dual-threaded, the extra
worth, we tested both the Bloomfield expected Intel to charge $1,500 for the cores will just sit idle, so you’ll need to
and Gulftown LGA1366 Core i7s at CPU. At $999, the Core i7-980X is actu- seriously consider whether paying for
DDR3/1333. ally the same price as the Core i7-975 a hexa-core makes sense.

THE CHALLENGER

AMD Responds with Phenom II X6

By now, we’ve pretty much become accustomed be mandatory for the new chip.
to AMD taking a back seat to Intel, particularly in One other trick AMD may have up its sleeve—if
matters of core-count and performance. This year, a news report from Xbit Labs is correct—is its own
however, it doesn’t look like AMD fans will have to spin on Turbo Boost. Using so-called Dynamic Speed
wait as long for a six-core proc. Boost, Phenom II X6 processors may overclock
AMD expects to release its own hexa-core pro- individual cores when the full complement of cores
cessor, the Phenom II X6, hot on the heels of Core is not in use.
i7-980X this spring. The chip will be a derivative of AMD is also continuing to forge ahead with its
the company’s Istanbul CPU that’s been available Bulldozer core, which the company hopes will put it
for some time in Opteron-based servers. The chip is back on a competitive edge with Intel. Bulldozer’s
likely to have 6MB of L3 and will be compatible with new microarchitecture will support advanced vec-
AM3 sockets. It’s not clear if the new chip will work tor extensions and will be built on a 32nm process.
in AM2+ boards, as we’ve been told that DDR3 will Bulldozer is expected to be available in early 2011.

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Let the Benchmarks Begin!
Intel’s new hexa-core a favorite in all multithreaded events

For our showdown, we decided that the new hexa- 55 percent. Encoding was also given a healthy 25 percent per-
core has two primary competitors: the Core i7-975 formance boost. Likewise, video editing saw the hexa-
Extreme Edition and the LGA1156-bound Core core achieve anywhere from 10 percent to 25 percent
i7-870. We considered adding AMD’s Phenom performance boosts. In applications where multi-
II X4 965 to the mix, but the pricing ($185) and threading is minimal, the Core i7-980X was usually
performance of that CPU put it in a different tied with the similarly clocked Core i7-975. We do sus-
class than the three Intel chips. When AMD’s pect that the larger L3 cache of the Core i7-980X paid
Phenom II X6 hexa-core hits in the near future, off dividends in several of our gaming benchmarks.
we’ll certainly test it against the competition. One figure we couldn’t quite square was
For our tests, we used both older and newer the memory performance of the Core i7-980X. We ex-
benchmarks to stretch the Core i7-980X. We turned to pected its memory bandwidth in the synthetic tests to be
both synthetic and real-world applications for video edit- equal to the Core i7-975’s, but the hexa-core was at a dis-
ing, encoding, 3D rendering, and memory tests, along with a advantage. The lower memory bandwidth didn’t seem to hurt in
handful of gaming benchmarks. Be advised, when we review a the other benchmarks, though.
CPU, we set resolutions fairly low in order to remove the GPU In the final analysis, this is a CPU that turns in performance
from the equation. that is, at its worst, equivalent to the Core i7-975 it replaces. At
The verdict: We have no problem proclaiming the Core its best, the i7-980X offers up to 50 percent more performance
i7-980X as the world’s fastest. Obviously, it shined the brightest in our than its closest competitor. That’s pretty much unprecedented
multithreaded 3D-rendering benchmarks, where its performance and certainly helps the Core i7-980X earn its crown as the new
surmounted the already ludicrously fast Core i7-975 by 37 percent to performance king.

BENCHMARKS
3.33GHZ 3.33GHZ CORE I7-975 2.93GHZ
CORE I7-980X EXTREME EDITION CORE I7-870
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec) 453 504 539
Sony Vegas Pro 9.0c (sec) 2,675 3,244 3,531
Cinebench 10 64-bit 27,479 20,147 19,197
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit 8.92 5.99 5.54
POV Ray 3.7 6,556.5 4,235.9 4,496.7
HandBrake 0.9.4, DVD to iPhone (sec) 941 1,170 1,247
Main Concept 1.6 (sec) 1,827 2,308 2,486
Photoshop CS3 (sec) 89 91 100
Adobe Lightroom 2.6 (sec) 419 418 422
ProShow Producer 4 (sec) 1,092 1,208 1,290
Bibble 5.02 (sec) 97.2 120 122
PCMark Vantage 64-bit Overall 10,470 9,260 9,120
Everest Ultimate 5.30.1900 Mem Copy (MB/s) 13,086 17,712 14,693
Everest Ultimate5.30.1900 Mem Latency (ns) 61.3 59.8 52.5
Fritz Chess Benchmark (KiloNodes/s) 12,733 12,738 11,995
Valve Map Compilation (sec) 99 100 106
SiSoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s) 19.7 22.7 17.1
3DMark Vantage Overall 15,404 15,184 14,795
3DMark Vantage GPU 12,307 12,297 12,164
3DMark Vantage CPU 62,893 51,321 48,816
Valve Particle test (fps) 259 174 159
Resident Evil 5, low res (fps) 134.1 130.7 126.6
World in Conflict, low res (fps) 358 317 253
Dirt 2, low res (fps) 155.7 157.0 153.3
Far Cry 2, low res (fps) 158.6 158.2 153.3

Best scores are bolded. We tested both LGA1366 CPUs using an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard with 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1333, an EVGA GeForce GTX 280, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. The LGA1156 CPU was
tested with a Gigabyte P55A-UD6 motherboard, 8GB of Corsair DDR3/1333, an EVGA GeForce GTX 280, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. Both configurations used a 150GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive.

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 How Much
Really Fit
Can You

In a Mid-Tower Case?
Five mid-size enclosures vie for the honor of housing your coveted gear
BY NATHAN EDWARDS

It seems obvious, right? The more stuff you have, the bigger the box you need to put it in.
And in computer-land, you have options ranging from tiny micro-ATX cases the size of a
hardback book to enormous full-tower cases into which you could cram every computer
part you’ve ever owned. But not everybody needs or wants a full-tower case. Medium-size
cases, or mid-towers, take up less space, weigh less, are more portable, and (hopefully) cost
less than their full-tower brethren. What’s more, features that were once exclusive to full-
tower cases, like dust filters, toolless construction, and CPU cutouts, are now finding their
way into mid-size chassis—and not always accompanied by price increases. Indeed, just
because you have two 5970 videocards and want to water-cool your CPU, it doesn’t mean
you have to go with a full-tower anymore; some mid-towers have radiator mount points
and room for your beefiest cards.
We have certain criteria for testing any computer chassis, and no case is exempt. Cas-
es gain points for build quality, ease of installation, toolless mounting—but only if it’s
sturdy!—stock-cooling ability, cable-routing options,
and extra features like support for water-cooling
installs, space for extra-long videocards, filtered
intakes, and SSD brackets. Bonus points are
earned for style and going above-and-beyond
the expected. Points are deducted for thought-
less design flaws, poor build quality, bad
cooling performance, lack of room for essential parts, and general
suckitude. We don’t automatically add or subtract points for LEDs
or other aesthetic flourishes, though tasteful use is appreciated.
This month, Maximum PC tests five of the newest and
hottest mid-tower cases out there, from budget to luxe, steel
to aluminum, tiny to nearly full-tower-size. These enclosures have their differences, but
some of the similarities are surprising. All the cases in this roundup, for example, have CPU
backplate cutouts in the motherboard tray (a first), and all have very similar front-panel
connections. From the small and sub-$100 Zalman Z7 Plus to the big, beautiful, expensive
Silverstone Fortress FT02, Maximum PC is, shall we say, on the case.

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 MID-TOWER ROUNDUP

Zalman Z7 Plus
The Z7 Plus’s pluses don’t quite make up for its minuses
Zalman, a company better known for its
CPU coolers than chassis, hasn’t released
a new case in a while, and its previous
ATX-compatible entrants were not with-
out flaws. But now Zalman’s back with a
miniscule, low-cost mid-tower that sports
some surprising features. So, what do 75
smackeroons get you these days? More
than you might expect.
The Zalman Z7 Plus is one of the
smallest and lightest steel mid-towers
in our roundup, at 18.6 inches high by
19.5 inches deep by 8.8 inches wide, and
a mere 17 pounds. And though it’s not
as rock-solid as, say, the Fortress FT02
or as light as the Lian Li PC-B25F, it’s a
perfectly acceptable middle ground, es-
pecially given the price. For $75, you get
four case fans—one 14cm rear exhaust
fan, one 12cm LED intake fan attached
to the hard drive cage, and two 12cm in-
take fans for the left side panel, only one
of which comes installed by default, but
both of which can be controlled via a dial
on the side panel. The case also features
a cutout in the motherboard tray for CPU
coolers that require backplanes, a genius
feature that would not have appeared Given how much room there is behind the motherboard tray, we’re baffled that it doesn’t
in a budget case a few years ago, but is have a single cable-routing cutout.
thankfully becoming standard. Further-
more, the Z7 Plus comes with four tool- less optical drive bays and toolless PCI
The Zalman Z7
Plus is one of expansion-slot retention clips, as well as
the better look- a five-drive hard drive bay that you can
ing budget cases raise and lower at will.
we’ve tested.
The hard drive bay is not tool-
less—you have to unscrew eight screws
to remove it, then use four screws and
four rubber grommets to install each
drive. But the bay can be moved higher
in the case to accommodate extra-long
videocards. That’s right: You can put two
This fan-control dial works the two 12cm
optical drives at the top of the case, install side-panel fans included with the Z7 Plus.
the hard drive bay directly below that,
and have room for multiple ATI Radeon
5970s—the longest cards on the market, the top or bottom of the case, or a place to
at more than 12 inches. Why you’re put- put a water-cooling radiator. Or a painted
ting one or more $700 cards into a $75 interior. And build quality, while accept-
case is, of course, your business. able, isn’t rock-solid. Still, for $75, it’s a lot
And on that note, there are things you more case than we were expecting.
won’t be getting with this budget chassis.
Like easy-to-remove dust filters. Or cable-

7
VERDICT
routing cutouts in the motherboard tray—
a pity, because there’s plenty of room ZALMAN Z7 PLUS
$75, www.zalman.com
behind the motherboard tray. Or vents in

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 MID-TOWER ROUNDUP

NZXT Hades
A surprising amount of bang for your Benjamin
Sartre said that hell is other people. We
don’t know about that, but we know
what Hades is—a steel mid-tower
chassis that’s full of surprises, nearly
all of them pleasant.
At 7.9 inches wide by 16.9 inches
high by 19.7 inches deep, the Hades is
skinnier than the Zalman Z7 Plus, though
otherwise similar in size. It’s all black,
inside and out, and the motherboard
tray includes a CPU backplate cutout
as well as rubber-rimmed cable-routing
cutouts. The front and side fans are 20cm
monsters, and the top of the chassis has
mounting holes for two 14cm or 12cm
fans, as well as for a dual-fan radiator, if
your tastes swing to water-cooling.
The Hades’ nine 5.25-inch drive
bays include five toolless optical-drive
retention mechanisms, and in lieu of
dedicated hard drive cages, the Hades
comes with four sets of mounting
brackets, so you can install one 3.5-
inch hard drive per optical drive bay.
The floppy drive bay at the bottom
of the case also includes an adapter A painted interior and accommodations for cable-routing help this case seem roomier
that can hold two 2.5-inch SSDs (or inside than it is.
notebook hard drives, if you prefer).
Because of the Hades’ flexibility with handle foot-long videocards like the ATI
regards to hard drive installation, it can Radeon HD 5970.
The Hades’ front door has a magnetic
latch and includes a small LCD with
three temperature readouts in Celsius
or Fahrenheit—one for each of the three
thermal probes included with the case
(for hard drive, CPU, and motherboard).
This is not a standard feature on any case
we’ve tested, much less one that retails for
$100. The LCD readout, though, is pretty
dim, and hard to see in most normal use
scenarios. And while we’re huge fans of, The three temperature displays on the
front-panel LCD connect directly to three
well, huge fans, we don’t see the need for interior sensors.
front-panel doors, even ones as appeal-
ingly Vaderesque as the Hades’. That’s just
personal preference, though.
The Hades’ biggest downside is its But the Hades is a lot of case for $100,
cramped quarters. To route the 8-pin and it’s nice to have options for large vid-
motherboard power cable behind the eocards, SSD mounting, and water-cool-
motherboard tray, we had to move the ing in the same mid-tower case. And hey,
top 14cm exhaust fan forward to the the temperature readout doesn’t hurt.
other top mount; the side-panel fan and
sub-eight-inch width of the case limit

9
VERDICT
CPU cooler height to less than six inches;
Between the four fans and the front-panel temp readouts, the and we would prefer an easier hard drive NZXT HADES
$100, www.nzxt.com
Hades’ internals won’t get infernally hot. mounting system.

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Cooler Master 690 II Advanced
Great style and build quality, but where’s the love for long cards?
The Cooler Master 690 II Advanced is every CM case of the past two years,
the ambitious sequel to the 690, the though a two-SSD bracket included
popular mid-tower chassis of a few in the topmost tray is a new feature.
years ago. If you’ve seen a Cooler Mas- And in addition to a top-panel eSATA
ter mid-tower lately, much of the 690 port, the CM 690 II has a unique and
II’s internals will be familiar to you. ingenious “X-Data” port—full SATA
The exterior of the case is all black power and data connectors at the top
steel and plastic trim, with black mesh of the chassis. The port’s cover won’t fit
running from the bottom of the front over even a 2.5-inch drive, though, so
panel to the back of the top panel. It’s it’s more for quick data recovery than
classic Cooler Master, from the 14cm permanent storage. But it’s innovative
front LED fan (with top-panel LED on/ and we love it.
off switch), 14cm top fan, and 12cm There’s room for a dual radiator
rear fan, to the drive bays and filtered between the top of the chassis frame
intake fans. and the plastic top panel, and another
Unlike the original CM 690, the at the bottom of the case if you remove
8.4x20.1x20.8-inch sequel has a fully the lower four hard drive bays. But one
painted interior, with a CPU cutout thing there isn’t room for is a 12-inch
and cable-routing holes and tie-downs videocard—not without compromises,
on the motherboard tray. The case has that is. If you are content running your
four toolless optical drive clamps, but videocard in a lower PCI-E slot and
of a simpler design than CM’s previous you remove the lower four hard drive
push-button mechanisms. The 690 II’s bays, you can fit an ATI Radeon HD
Good looks, but not enough fans. Compromise turns this great
six hard drive trays are familiar from 5970, but otherwise you’re out of luck. case into a merely good one.

For folks with standard-size video-

cards, installation is easy, with plenty
of cable-routing options and room for
scads of fans. CM touts room for up to
seven more fans than it ships with—
there’s even an 8cm fan mount on the
right side panel behind the CPU cooler
cutout. We wish the 690 II shipped
with more fans, actually. Would a side
fan have killed you, guys?

The top “X-Data” port is genius. Who needs eSATA when you
have real SATA?

8
VERDICT

COOLER MASTER 690 II

$100, www.coolermaster.com
Plenty of room for two dual-fan radiators, if water-cooling’s your thing, but not for a 5970.

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 MID-TOWER ROUNDUP

Lian Li PC-B25F
Floats like a butterfly, stings like a butterfly
Sing it with us: “If you like aluminum because shiny unpainted aluminum
chassis / and a whole lot of fans / if looks a lot better than unpainted steel.
you want premium airflow / and have The motherboard tray includes the now-
plenty of clams…” then, well, you might requisite CPU backplate cutout, as well
find that Lian Li’s PC-B25F mid-tower as cable-routing holes, tie downs, and
is what you’re looking for. At 8.2 inches even a few PSU cable–routing clips.
wide by 19.5 inches high by 19.3 inches We’re disappointed with the lack
wide, it’s a mid-size mid-tower, but its of 5.25-inch bays and the either/or
aluminum construction makes it the proposition regarding hard drives and
lightest of the bunch. The PC-B25F is extra-long videocards—you either
Like all Lian Li cases, the PC-B25F is all
completely toolless, if you so choose: have a six-drive hard drive cage or aluminum, beautiful, and full of fans, if not
The motherboard standoffs are prein- you have an extra-long videocard. many of the perks we’re used to.
stalled (for ATX, anyway) and the mobo The hard drive cage’s mechanism is a
screws are all thumbscrews. familiar one: Thumbscrews and rubber
The exterior of the B25F is com- grommets thread into the hard drives,
pletely black, except for a circle of blue and slide into rails in the cage. There’s
light at the bottom of the front panel. even a slider to keep the drives secure
It’s the only light on the case (except the once they’re in place. The PCI reten-
power and drive activity lights) and we tion mechanism holds expansion cards
like it that way. The B25F’s interior is un- more firmly than plastic versions. Even
painted, but we’re willing to forgive that, the PSU mount has a retention bracket
Lian Li’s attention to detail shows in
the PSU mounting clamp and cable-
management clip.

to clamp it to the anti-vibration foam-

rubber pads on the standoffs.
One place Lian Li has never
skimped, besides the price of its cases,
is in the number of fans that accom-
pany each enclosure. The PC-B25F
comes with two 12cm front intake fans,
two top 14cm exhaust fans (mounted
between the removable top-panel cover
and the top panel), and a rear 12cm
exhaust fan. The front fans have remov-
able filters, and you can add a filter for
the PSU fan, too.
We appreciate Lian Li’s rubber
grommets on everything that could
vibrate, from fans to optical drive
mounts to hard drive mounts, and the
construction and aesthetics of this case
are, of course, top-notch. But $180 for
a case with only two optical bays, no
radiator mounts, and no support for
extra-long videocards is too steep. But
then, that’s sort of Lian Li’s thing.

7
VERDICT

LIAN LI PC-B25F
$180, www.lian-li.com
Massive airflow makes up for many of the PC-B25F’s shortcomings.

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 MID-TOWER ROUNDUP

Silverstone Fortress FT02

Built Fortress tough, with a Silverstone price tag

Going on name alone, one would Maximum PC’s offices as to whether

expect the Silverstone Fortress FT02 the FT02 is a mid-tower at all. It’s
to be an updated version of our Best certainly got mid-tower width and
of the Best mid-tower case, last year’s height—8.3 inches wide and 19.5
Fortress FT01. And while it shares a inches high are in line with the rest
few of the FT01’s traits (like a unibody of the mid-tower market—but its
aluminum frame, acoustic padding, depth, at 24 inches, makes it practi-
and some stylistic cues like black cally a full-tower on its side. In fact,
metal mesh), the vast majority of its it’s virtually identical inside and out
DNA comes from the Raven RV02. to the RV02, and inherits many of its
In fact, it’s the homo sapiens to the traits, from the three filtered 18cm
RV02’s chimpanzee. fans that blow air from the bottom of
There was some debate in the case up to the top, to the rotated
motherboard configuration that
brings the normal rear panel to the
top of the case. The SSD mount that
attaches to the left side of the opti-
cal bays has carried over from the
Raven, as well. The rotated motherboard placement and right-
The few changes the Fortress panel window mean the Fortress FT02, like
the Raven RV02, looks strange at first glance.
FT02 brings to the table are positive
ones: an aluminum unibody chassis
We still like these individual speed switches for the rather than a steel one, and a steel frustrating hard drive cage in favor of
bottom fans.
body rather than plastic. Gone is the five slide-out trays—it’s about time.
The FT02 fits 12.2-inch graphics cards,
such as the 5970, if you remove the
center fan guard, or it can support a
dual radiator for water-cooling, but
this is an either/or proposition—add-
ing a radiator drops the maximum
card length to 10 inches. And while
we approve of the rotated mother-
board positioning, which makes case
wiring much easier in addition to
transferring the weight of hefty GPUs
from the motherboard to the case,
we still don’t like the idea of hanging
a power supply from the top of the
case. It’s not going to fall on anything
important if all four screws, the reten-
tion strap, and the retaining clip fail,
but it still makes us a little uneasy.
All told, however, the FT02 is a
hell of a case. It’s sturdy, extremely
attractive, great for cable manage-
ment, has good airflow, and supports
water-cooling radiators or long video-
cards. But it’s $250 and nearly the size
of a full-tower. But then, the slightly
smaller FT01 isn’t much cheaper.

9
VERDICT

SILVERSTONE FORTRESS FT02

Generous cooling power and intuitive cable-routing make us wonder why nobody thought of $250, www.silverstonetek.com
this motherboard-orientation thing before Silverstone.

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 Cooler Master ATC 110

Making a Case
for Change
From beige to bling, how PC enclosures
have evolved through the ages

Since 1995, ATX has been the de facto standard for motherboards, power supplies, and
cases. The aging formfactor has informed the past decade-and-a-half of case design,
from the bland beige-box era to today’s enormous water-cooled, windowed monstrosi-
ties. While the formfactor has stayed the same, enthusiast parts and attitudes have
propelled cases to new heights of usefulness and blingitude.
Cooler Master’s ATC aluminum chassis series, starting with the ATC 200 in early
2000, was the kiss of death for the beige box. With four 8cm fans, six hard drive bays,
and a removable motherboard tray, the ATC series proved that the chassis wasn’t just
a commodity part to hold your real hardware, but an essential part of your rig—one
you could be OK spending $250 on.
Soon, case manufacturers realized that builders could be just as proud of their
rigs’ exteriors as their interiors, but not everyone wanted to manually cut windows and
add LEDs to their stock enclosures, so the race to add acrylic windows, LEDs, and fans
was on. NZXT’s first case, the 2004-era Guardian, exemplifies this trend. It features a
molded plastic and “chrome” case door in the shape of an armored mask,
red and blue lights that emit illuminated patterns, a side case fan with
flame décor, a chromed dragon emblem, and tricolor LEDs.
It wasn’t all about looks, though—the Guardian’s interior featured
ahead-of-its-time toolless PCI expansion card holders, optical drive
bays, and hard drive bays. Many modern
cases eschew the LEDs but keep the tool-
less interiors.
Both the ATC 201 and the Guardian
have their modern descendents—the ATCS
840 and Guardian 921, respectively. Despite
a brief flirtation with BTX in the middle of
the decade, modern PCs still use the ATX
formfactor, so case design, while hardly
stagnant, has remained consistent for years.
Thermaltake’s Level 10 concept chassis
(reviewed December 2009) maintains ATX
compatibility while mounting all compo-
nents in separate boxes hanging from a
central pillar. It’s one of the most innovative
cases we’ve seen recently.
So what’s the future of case design? All indica-
tions are that ATX will remain the dominant formfactor
for the build-your-own set (at least in the near future), while
smaller formfactors gain in popularity. Maximum PC expects
nettops, all-in-one machines, and Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX formfac- NZXT
Guardian
tor HTPCs to increase market share in the kitchen, living room, and media center, while
full-size PCs reign in the enthusiast market. Antec representative Veronica Feldmeier
says, “Mini-ITX continues to advance as the next big thing.” Both Feldmeier and Cooler
Master’s Bryant Nguyen say that future cases will feature greater airflow and cooling—
witness Cooler Master’s HAF high-airflow series, including the upcoming HAF X, and
Antec’s Skeleton and upcoming LanBoy Air cases. Nguyen adds, “As systems continue to
grow in power, Cooler Master’s chassis must continue to innovate, to include ample cable
management, increased expandability, and excellent cooling.”

Thermaltake Level 10
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 in the JPEG format, such
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Some
Like It
Raw
Forget about JPEGs. You should be working with raw
files, editing your photos at their most molecular level.
We compare five raw image–conversion and editing
apps that promise to take your photography to a higher
plane of awesomeness BY LOYD CASE

It’s all about control—and when you set your DSLR to capture images in the JPEG
format, you’re giving up a whole mess of control. Sure, those images may look pretty
good, but your final JPEG output never accurately reflects what your camera sensor
actually sees, regardless of how well it converts data into the final picture.
A digital camera captures data on an electronic sensor. At its lowest level, this
data is known as the raw file. It’s sensor data at its purist, virtually free of modifica-
tions and any digital conversions. All the sensor does is catch photons on millions of
receptors and write the data to files. That data is literally raw—and DSLRs and some
high-end point-and-shoot cameras give you access to this data in order to manipu-
late your photos with tremendous control.
Don’t like the ISO setting? Tweak it! White balance doesn’t seem right? Correct
it! Editing raw files lets you work directly with pure sensor data, making decisions
about exposure, shutter speed, fill light, and more, all after the image has been
actually shot.
But the downside to control is complexity. Raw files often look “wrong” to your
eye. You see every bit of noise, color is off, white balance looks weird. The upshot is
that you’ll need good software tools to get the most out of your raw files. Instead of
the camera making the decisions about color, exposure, and other details, you get to
do that.
In the following pages, we’ll look at five software tools for editing raw images.
Two are from Nikon and Canon, who together hold the lion’s share of the DSLR
camera market. The other three are third-party apps: Bibble 5 Pro, Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom, and Adobe Camera Raw. Which is best for your photographic workflow?
Which has the most robust features? And what about processing performance? To
gauge how well the apps take advantage of modern, multithreaded CPUs, we ran
batch-processing tests on a Core i7-975 Extreme system running at 3.3GHz with
Hyper-Threading enabled, converting 100 raw files to JPEG—just bare JPEG
conversion, with no tweaks or filters applied.

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RAW

Canon Digital Photo Professional

Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP)
ships with every Canon DSLR. It’s a simple,
straightforward editing tool that pretty
much supports just the basics: adjusting col-
or temperature, batch conversions to other
file formats, and simple noise reduction. It
lacks the sophistication of its competitors,
but since it comes free with every Canon
DSLR, it’s tough to be too harsh.
The main interface is simple and unclut-
tered—arguably too uncluttered, as DDP hides
much of its functionality under the menus.
Want to crop? Pull down the tool menu and
launch the trimming tool. Need spot repairs to
remove dust specks? Fire up the stamp tool.
Once in a tool, you can’t do anything else until
you finish, then close the tool.
The main photographic touch-up capa-
bilities are available when you begin editing Canon’s Digital Photo Professional offers basic editing of Canon RAW files and comes bundled with
an image. You can easily adjust white every Canon DSLR.
balance, brightness, contrast saturation,
and tone curves in a tabbed panel alongside sions of the same tools that you get onboard Batch-converting Canon raw files to
the image being edited. It’s easy to pop up a Canon DSLR. Canon seems to realize the JPEG was a lengthy process: 100 EOS 5D
a window that compares the original to the limitations of DPP by integrating it with Mark II images (21 megapixels each) took
edited image, so you don’t have to always Photoshop. A tools menu selection allows for 12 minutes, 14 seconds to convert. Our CPU
eyeball the changes from memory. one-click transfer to Photoshop; the image is meter had all threads pegged just a small
While the noise-reduction capability is loaded into Photoshop as a 16-bit-per-pixel fraction of the time.
limited, Canon at least gives you control over TIFF image, bypassing Adobe Camera Raw.

6
both luminance and chrominance noise, Employing this feature means you’ll be creat- VERDICT
something the more sophisticated Nikon ing an additional TIFF file, which must be CANON DIGITAL PHOTO PRO
Capture NX2 fails to deliver. In essence, what separately loaded back into DPP if you want Free with canon DSLR,
www.canon.com
Canon gives you in DPP are software ver- to continue to edit in the Canon app.

SAFE KEEPING

Storage and Backup Strategies for Your Raw Files

Raw files consume vast amounts of hard drive space. In fact, lot of material for other people, you’ll need a better solution.
we’ve accumulated 320GB of raw files in just the last three A good start would be an automated backup to an external
years. The upshot is that you’ll need lots of fast storage if you network storage device that’s set up as RAID 1 or RAID 5
decide to start living life in the raw. redundant drives. In fact, it’s a good idea to have your main
First bit of advice: Don’t just dump all your raw images storage drive be RAID 1, so a single hard drive failure doesn’t
onto a single big drive. That’s dangerous, as there are two take you down.
types of computer users: those who have lost data and those If you’re a pro or semi-pro shooter, you also need to
who will lose data. So what you really need is a robust, reliable think about offsite storage. One natural disaster or fire can
storage and backup strategy. destroy both your computer and your backup drives if they’re
If you shoot mostly personal photos, a good external hard in the same location. One approach is to back up your backup
drive with a decent backup program can get the job done. Run to archival-quality optical discs, then store them at another
the backup on a regular basis. If your main hard drive does go physical location. And if you really need long-term archiving,
down, it’s easy to restore from the external drive. converting proprietary raw formats, like Canon or Nikon raw
Now, if you’re a professional photographer, or just shoot a files, to open DNG or TIFF files is probably a good idea.

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 Nikon Capture NX2
Unlike Canon’s bundled-in editor, Capture
NX2 is an added-cost option, though Nikon
will occasionally include it as a freebie with
DSLRs during sales promos. The pricing
might be justified for members of the Nikon
nation, as Capture NX2 offers considerable
sophistication when editing Nikon-sourced
raw files.
The original Capture NX had an obtuse
user interface, but the latest version cleans
up many of the UI issues. How you go about
editing images still takes some effort to
learn, but once mastered, certain types of
edits are much quicker to make than in a
traditional app, like Photoshop.
The number of options can be over-
whelming, and it’s easy to wander into the
weeds and get completely lost. However,
Capture NX2 is a nondestructive editor,
making it easy to revert to earlier versions. The adjustment panels on the main Capture NX2 screen offer highly granular control over the image.
Every setting has an undo button, and if
you load up a saved file, there’s even a way
to revert to the original. Capture NX2 saves includes non-sky pixels, since the control As with the Canon software, Capture
all the changed data in the main NEF file point itself is in the sky color. NX2 makes poor use of modern multi-
(Nikon’s raw-image file format), so the saved Control points can also be used to easily threaded CPUs. Converting 100 Nikon NEF
file is larger than the original raw file shot set layers, letting you quickly remove or files shot with a D300s (12 megapixels
by the camera. change background colors. In addition to color each) crawled along at eight minutes, eight
Perhaps one of the coolest features is control points, you can set white, neutral, and seconds. Still, if the app’s specific features
something Nikon calls control points, a black control points for maximum control provide exactly what you’re looking for,
tool for masking off and making changes of white balance, highlight, and contrast. it might be worth buying if you’re already
to specific areas of an image without the Capture NX2 also integrates tightly with committed to the Nikonian way of life.
tedious selection process required in an newer Nikon cameras, including support for
app like Photoshop. Want a more saturated D-Lighting (if that feature is turned on in the

7
blue sky in your landscape? Pop a control camera). D-Lighting underexposes brighter
VERDICT
point onto the sky area, select everything areas to preserve details. Using NX2 allows
NIKON CAPTURE NX2
with sky in it, and move some sliders. It you to tune the image to brighten up the un- $120, www.nikonimaging.com
doesn’t matter if some of your selection derexposed parts while maintaining detail.

Using control points made it easy to alter the sky saturation (original image at left).

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RAW

Adobe Camera Raw

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) isn’t a stand-alone
app, but rather an add-on built into Adobe
Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Despite
its add-on status, ACR offers a rich set of
features for tweaking raw files. You can eas-
ily adjust exposure, make lens corrections,
fix white balance, and do some basic image
editing. When you click “done,” Camera
Raw creates an XMP file (also known as a
“sidecar file”) that reflects the changes you
made nondestructively; the actual raw file
hasn’t been altered. However, once loaded
into Photoshop, any changes made are de-
structive, and you can’t save the file as a raw
file—not even a DNG-variant raw file.
While ACR offers settings for both
luminance and color-noise reduction, their
overall impact can be hard to discern. ACR’s
noise reduction certainly isn’t in the same Adobe Camera Raw is the conduit by which raw images are imported into Adobe’s photo editors,
but it’s also a useful application in its own right.
class as Bibble’s Noise Ninja. And since ACR
is itself an add-on, it doesn’t have its own
set of aftermarket filters. Indeed, at its heart, atop the adjustment panel are actually app makes it an odd duck. At a minimum,
ACR is really just a one-dimensional app for tabs that take you to other panels. Also, you need to buy a copy of Photoshop Ele-
modifying the specific properties intrinsic to you can’t have multiple panels open at ments in order to even play with ACR. To
raw files. It’s got some limited image-editing once. Performance-wise, ACR is pretty this extent, if you want ACR’s functionality,
tools—like crop and straighten—but its real damn speedy: Version 5.6 converted 100 but don’t want a version of Photoshop, you’d
strength lies in easily adjusting basic photo- 12-megapixel Nikon raw files in just two do better to invest in Adobe Lightroom.
graphic attributes, like exposure and white minutes, 56 seconds. Our CPU meter

6
balance. Its feature set is limited. always ran with all threads, though the bars VERDICT
The user interface is a bit confusing, surged and dropped to zero repeatedly. ADOBE CAMERA RAW
and it takes awhile to realize that the icons The inability to run ACR as a stand-alone Included in Photoshop/Elements
$600/$99, www.adobe.com

ARCHIVAL INTEGRITY

Adobe DNG vs. Raw

DNG, or Digital Negative, is Adobe’s attempt at a unified only use “linear DNG,” a version of the DNG spec that
raw format—a format that will be supported into perpetu- doesn’t actually include raw sensor data. Rather, the raw
ity, guaranteeing that the images you shoot today can be data undergoes a conversion process—and once the data
opened and edited any time in the future. DNG is a freely is converted, it can’t revert back to raw. Yes, you can
licensed spec that Adobe has opened up to all software continue to adjust all that linear DNG metadata in a raw
developers and camera manufacturers. The Library of application, but the data you’re adjusting won’t be raw,
Congress has even suggested that DNG be used as an undiluted sensor data.
archive format for digital photos. Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Olympus don’t support DNG.
The DNG spec is based on a version of the venerable However, Casio, Pentax, Leica, Ricoh, Samsung, and
TIFF format, but adds a wrapper that includes extra meta- Hasselblad do support the pure DNG spec, and if you’re using
data (that can be tweaked in raw editors) and supports one of their cameras, shooting DNG files is an easy choice.
major color-filter technologies. The drawback? Well, the If you’re shooting with Nikon, Canon, Sony, et al, you can
Foveon digital sensor employed by Sigma cameras can convert to “pure” DNG using Adobe’s own converter.

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RAW

Adobe Lightroom
Adobe’s stand-alone raw app gives you all
the granular photo-hacking horsepower of
ACR, plus even more sophisticated photo-
graphic adjustments tools and a powerful
database tool for managing your collection.
And like any good raw app, Lightroom is
a nondestructive editor, saving changes to
metadata settings, rather than changing the
pixels themselves, as Photoshop does.
If you’re only familiar with image
editors like Photoshop, Lightroom takes
Lightroom’s user interface makes full use of dual displays.
some adjustment. For one thing, there’s no
“save” function; if you want to save to an-
other format, like a JPEG or TIFF file, you’ll room as possible. All Lightroom edits are raw file is still present, but doesn’t have any
need to use export. The version we tested, nondestructive, but once you load an image of the changes made in Photoshop itself.
2.6, is fully 64-bit and robustly supports into Photoshop, it’s loaded as a 16-bit-per- Photoshop users may find the selec-
dual displays. pixel TIFF file. Any edits in Photoshop are tion of Lightroom filters to be limiting.
Version 2 of Lightroom is more tightly baked into the pixels, and when you save Lightroom’s nondestructive nature required
integrated with Photoshop, but we recom- and exit, the TIFF file shows up in Lightroom many commercial filters to be rewritten,
mend that you do as much work in Light- with the Photoshop changes. The original and many filters still aren’t available. The
app doesn’t boast a single standout tool, like
Capture NX2’s control points, but we dig
the ability to create and share presets for
automated routines. Need to create more
interesting skies, punch up a portrait, or
achieve sublime B&W conversion? A large
community of Lightroom users is there to
help with freely distributed presets. Creat-
ing fantastic-looking images is easy once
you’re familiar with how the tools work, but
as with all apps except Bibble 5 Pro, noise
reduction in Lightroom is limited.
Because Lightroom is built on top of the
Camera Raw engine, we expected perfor-
mance similar to ACR in our JPEG conver-
sion test. However, Lightroom actually took
11 fewer seconds than ACR 5.6 to convert
100 12-megapixel files, finishing the job in
two minutes, 45 seconds.
Besides raw performance, Lightroom
has great printing features, giving you
robust control over print layout, multipage
printing, and color management. Workflow
and file-management capabilities are
similar to that of Adobe Bridge, but with
a UI that’s consistent with the rest of
Lightroom. In fact, it’s possible to use
Lightroom as a replacement for both Bridge
and Camera Raw—but
you’ll still need Photoshop
or Photoshop Elements for
a complete solution.

9
VERDICT

ADOBE LIGHTROOM
Before and after shots after using Lightroom’s graduated filters and tweaking the tone curve $200, www.adobe.com
(original on top).

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Bibble 5 Pro
Bibble 5 Pro—one of the first applications to
marry sophisticated raw editing with robust
workflow management—has a loyal fol-
lowing among professional shooters. Earlier
versions were criticized for an overly busy
and inconsistent user interface, but version
5 has cleaned up most of those issues.
While its pure image-editing tools
aren’t as extensive as Photoshop’s, Bibble 5
Pro does have most of the basic cropping,
selection, and layering tools you’d need for
digital photo editing—it’s a photographer’s
tool, not a general image editor. On the raw
side of life, Bibble 5 gives you meticulous
control over exposure, color correction,
vignette correction, and a host of other
parameters, allowing you to fine-tune a
photo’s final look. As with Lightroom, Bibble
5 Pro is nondestructive, so if you get lost and Bibble 5 offers a complete environment for digital photography workflow.
don’t like what you’ve done, reverting back
to the original is easy.
One of the app’s strong suits is noise in format conversion, processing our 100 the hang of it, it’s easy to selectively edit
reduction, since it includes the basic version 12-megapixel Nikon raw files in a stun- sections of the photo. In the end, Bibble 5
of the highly regarded Noise Ninja plugin. ning 48.3 seconds. To wit: Bibble 5’s blazing Pro is a full-time tool for full-time photog-
Bibble 5 Pro also includes several other cool conversion process was six times faster raphers, but it’s been somewhat eclipsed by
plugins, including Andrea’s film-simulation than anything else! During the conversion Adobe’s Lightroom, even though it’s argu-
plugin (perfect if you’ve ever wanted your process, all eight processor threads were ably more powerful.
photo to look like it was shot on Ilford FP4 completely pegged 100 percent of the time.
film and printed on BN Afga MultiContrast Bibble 5 Pro is a shining example of an

9
paper). That said, Bibble lacks Photoshop efficiently threaded application.
VERDICT
integration, so loses out on that rich set of It takes a little time to adapt to Bibble’s
BIBBLE 5 PRO
filter possibilities. use of layers and selections, particularly if $200, www.bibblelabs.com
Where Bibble 5 Pro really shines is you’re used to Photoshop, but once you get

RAW MEAT Which Flavor is Best?

Canon’s Digital Photo Professional is a tidy, complete package, although we output along with other features. Toss
a serviceable tool for basic manipula- do have some concerns about its stabil- in 64-bit and useful multimonitor
tion of Canon raw files, but it’s the most ity under 64-bit Windows. support, and you’ve got a great tool.
limited app we tested—you really will Adobe Camera Raw requires the As a stand-alone app, Lightroom 2 is
need something better for robust photo purchase of Photoshop or Photoshop incredibly useful if all you do is crank
editing. Nikon’s Capture NX2 offers a Elements, as it’s really an integrated out large volumes of photos for clients,
couple of very cool features (particu- add-on. The current version offers rich using presets to automate tasks. But it’s
larly control points), but the software’s raw-file manipulation, but it’s not really best used in conjunction with Photo-
price might be hard to justify for some. a useful stand-alone tool. However, if shop or Elements.
All three of the “non-camera- you’re already a Photoshop or Photo- You can get excellent results from
affiliated” raw apps have strengths and shop Elements user, Adobe’s Lightroom 2 all these tools; some will just take a
weaknesses. If you’re committed to is a must-have. Its workflow manage- little extra effort. Once you’re past
buying just a single tool, Bibble 5 Pro is ment eclipses that of Adobe Bridge the learning curve for a particular
a compelling choice. Its rich feature set, (included with Photoshop), it integrates app, however, you’ll be able to create
speedy performance, workflow man- all the features of Adobe Camera Raw, jaw-dropping photos that people will
agement, and layering support make for and adds superb management of print cherish for years.

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 R&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE

WHITE PAPER
ARM-Based Processors
More ARM CPUs are sold than all x86 processors combined. They live in
your phone, your set-top box, your TV, and more –LOYD CASE

I
ntel likes to talk up its Atom line of CPUs individual cores can ramp up to high frequen- company. The designers can mod the CPU or not,
these days. Mostly found in netbooks, the cies when needed, then drop down quickly. depending on what they want to accomplish.
latest version of Atom is an SoC—system on So what you find in an ARM-based SoC is a
chip. While Atom runs at speeds up to 1.8GHz, relatively small, highly integrated part that con- CASE STUDY: TI OMAP
Intel mostly talks about its power efficiency. sumes little power, but delivers the performance TI’s OMAP 3430 is built around an ARM Cortex
Developers who build SoCs around ARM when needed. Even the GPUs are designed for A8 core, and powers several cell phones, includ-
(www.arm.com) processor cores laugh at small platforms, using tile-based rendering, for ing the highly regarded Palm Pre.
this—they’ve been building low-power system example, to minimize memory use and band- While the OMAP 3430 is an SoC, it still
on chips for years. And with the latest Cortex width costs. The GPU can deliver 30–60fps in a needs a ton of interfaces to the outside world.
A9 cores, ARM processors are arguably more game if it’s running at just 320x240 or a similarly Unlike some competing products, this genera-
powerful than any Atom, albeit not compatible low resolution. tion of OMAP doesn’t integrate GPS or Wi-Fi
with x86 code. When a company implements an ARM core capability into the main die. However, it does
An SoC integrates all the functionality into its chip-level product, it actually gets the IP build in an Imagination Technologies PowerVR
you’d expect in a computer: CPU, GPU, mem- in the form of a macro cell that can be dropped SGX GPU core for integrated 2D/3D graph-
ory controller, cache, peripheral interfaces into the electronic design tools used by the OEM ics. Also integrated is the IVA 2+ multimedia
like USB and disk I/O, PCI Express, and more.
Some SoCs even include onboard memory.
Your cell phone has an SoC, your HDTV has
HOW IT WORKS
one, and SoCs live in your car. They’re unseen,
omnipresent, and handle virtually all the com-
puting chores needed for daily digital life. Inside Nvidia’s Tegra APX 2600
ARM is one of the largest developers
of embedded CPU cores; the company also
designs embedded graphics processors and
ARM11 ARM7
complete SoCs. It does not, however, sell MP
chips. Instead, it licenses the CPU designs to
other companies, who are free to modify and
add on to the ARM intellectual property to HD HD AUDIO
target specific applications. VIDEO VIDEO
DECODER ENCODER

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS

ARM-based processors deliver complete system GPU 2D IMAGING
functionality in tiny die packages—ranging
from 20mm2 to 60mm2. Contrast that with the
latest Atom N450, which is 66mm2. Better yet,
compare that to the 195mm2 combined die size USB UART SPI DISPLAY HDMI
for Intel’s 32nm Clarkdale plus graphics, and you SDIO
get an idea of just how small these SoCs can be.
The thermal and power envelopes for
these processors are extremely tight. Battery- MIPI NAND MOBILE SECURITY 12S
life requirements for cell phones are stringent, DSI/CSI/ FLASH DDR ENGINE 12C
so you typically can’t run them at very high HSI
frequencies, even if the chip is capable of
high clock speeds. However, ARM and its chip
design partners have built in aggressive power Nvidia’s Tegra APX 2600 includes two different ARM cores (ARM11 and ARM7), plus a propri-
management. Various parts of the chip can go etary GPU, as wells as video and audio processors. A robust set of I/O interconnects are also
supported. The ARM11 is single-core, not multicore. The ARM7 is used for low-power audio,
“dark” when not needed, and clock gating is but not for rendering audio effects or multichannel audio.
used wherever necessary. By the same token,

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 AUTOPSY

accelerator, which supports resolutions

up to 720p, and can encode or decode HD
Power-line Ethernet Adapter
MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV9 at 720x480. Power-line Ethernet adapters are the ultimate “no new wires”
This can easily drive the Palm Pre’s networking technology, rendering your home’s existing electrical
320x480 LCD display. The Cortex A8 wiring capable of carrying Ethernet traffic. We dismantled ZyXel’s
core drives the Pre’s ability to multitask
PLA-400 to find out what’s happening behind the scenes.
using Palm’s WebOS, something lacking
in competing smartphones—especially
Apple’s iPhone.
One of the coolest things about the
OMAP is the hardware encryption/decryp-
tion engine, supporting AES, DES, PKA,
SHA-1, and other encryption algorithms.
This allows for secure communication in a
wireless-enabled environment.

CASE STUDY: NVIDIA

MIXED-SIGNAL
TEGRA APX 2600 FRONT END This
The Tegra APX 2600 is used by Microsoft’s Analog Devices
Zune HD portable media player. The APX AD9865 integrates
a 10-bit digital-to-
2600 actually uses two different ARM cores. analog converter,
The ARM11 core is the general- a 10-bit analog-to-
purpose compute core, while the ARM7 digital converter,
TRANSFORMER This and a line driver (an
handles additional audio and video amplifier that boosts
is a transformer for
chores. The ARM11 runs at 600MHz, with the switch-mode transmission quality
64KB of L1 cache (32KB instruction, 32KB power supply (SMPS) over long cable runs).
data.) The CPU also includes 256KB of that converts AC
power to DC.
shared L2 cache.
While the ARM7 handles some audio
chores, the APX 2600 also includes sepa-
rate HD video encode and decode sections
on the chip, plus an Nvidia-designed GPU.
The CPU has the usual sets of interfaces to
SDRAM MEMORY
flash memory, USB, HDMI, and so on. Two 64Mb SDRAM
All this fits into the tiny Zune HD pack- chips (the second is
age, which includes 720p HD video output on the underside of
the daughterboard)
through HDMI, 3D support for handheld
are used for program
gaming, and web-browsing capability. execution and data
buffering.
ARM EVERYWHERE
As we’ve seen from our two case studies,
ARM processor cores are used in some
of the coolest gadgets available. Other INTELLON PROCESSOR
Intellon’s INT6000 handles the
products use ARM technologies, such bulk of the data processing,
as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon CPU, found including Ethernet, PCI,
in Google’s Nexus One Android-based memory, and MPEG data-
transport streams. It’s
smartphone. Even tinier chips using lower HomePlug AV-compliant
power and less-capable ARM implementa- and serves as the bridge
tions are used for dedicated tasks in au- between power-line and
Ethernet network topologies,
tomobiles, home electronics, and simpler delivering theoretical
mobile phones. throughput of 200Mb/s.
Given the prevalence of ARM-based (Intellon’s technology forms
the basis of the IEEE P1901
CPUs, as well as the depth of the software
standard. The company
development community, we’re even start- was acquired by Atheros in
ing to see PC-like ARM systems, such as the December 2009.)
Apple iPad and the Linux-based smartbooks
on display at CES. As Intel tries harder to
push into more embedded systems with the
x86 Atom, it should be no surprise that ARM SUBMIT YOUR IDEA Ever wonder what the inside of a power supply looks like?
will try to push back. Maybe “ARM inside” Don’t take a chance on destroying your own rig; instead, let us do the dirty
work. Tell us what we should crack open for a future autopsy by writing to
will be the logo on your next laptop. comments@maximumpc.com.

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 R&D EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE

HOW TOGuides to
Step-by-Step
Improving Your PC
THIS MONTH WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH

66 PROTECT YOUR PC WITH HIJACKTHIS

68 CONVERT 2D MOVIES TO 3D
Access the Resource Monitor
70 PRINT GIANT GOOGLE MAPS

BOOKMARKLET BENEFITS

I
like to custom-
ize my web
browser with
plugins as much as
the next geek, but
between the instal-
lation, updating,
and compatibility
issues, sometimes ALEX CASTLE
it’s a bit of a hassle. ASSOICATE ONLINE
EDITOR
That’s why book-
marklets are great. If
you’re not familiar
with them, bookmarklets are like mini-
plugins for your browser—little snippets
of javascript code that your browser saves
as a bookmark. To “install” a bookmarklet,
you just drag it onto your bookmark bar. You’ve probably used the Windows Task Manager,
To run it, just give it a click.
One of my favorites is the Google
Reader bookmarklet (http://bit.ly/18R1nM), but did you know that there’s a more advanced
which subscribes you to whichever RSS
feed you’re viewing. I also like the Bit.ly
bookmarklet (http://bit.ly/fK5e), which lets
version available in Windows Vista and 7 called
you shorten a URL without leaving the page,
and a bookmarklet called Readbility (http:// the Resource Monitor? To access a ton of extra
bit.ly/Dpnsv), which can alter any online
article to use your preferred formatting.
information about your CPU, RAM, disk, and net-

work usage, click the Resource Monitor button in

SUBMIT YOUR IDEA Have a great the Task Manager’s Performance tab.

 idea for a How To project? Tell us

about it by writing to comments@
maximumpc.com.

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 Decimate Stubborn Malware
with HijackThis!
Trying to fix a badly infected PC without the program. But don’t worry, HijackThis is If you consider yourself a savvy user, you
HijackThis is sort of like going into surgery still free and you can download it at http:// can scroll through the settings on your own
without a scalpel; this free utility is the only free.antivirus.com/hijackthis, where you’ll and look for any suspicious or harmful set-
tool for the job when all other measures find both a stable and beta version, the latter tings. In some cases, these will be obvious, but
fail. New spyware strains and increasingly of which presumably has additional features not always, so you want to be sure to Google
complex viruses emerge every day, and your and functionality. We haven’t run into much (or Bing) any entries you’re unsure about
PC’s immune system (i.e., antivirus software) trouble using the beta, but it’s currently only before nuking them.
isn’t always able to keep up. And if you’re available as an installer. With the stable ver-

3
performing emergency surgery on someone sion, you have the option of downloading just
else’s PC, you may find that they didn’t have the executable and plopping it on your USB HOP ONLINE FOR A
any AV software installed to begin with. thumb drive. SECOND OPINION
No matter how bad the infection, Once installed, fire up the program and No matter what your level of exper-
HijackThis gives you the means to dig choose “Do a system scan and save a logfile” tise, it never hurts to get a second opinion.
deep into Windows to root out whatever (image A). After you do this, you should see One way to do this is by posting your log
it is that’s wreaking havoc. It’s not a cure- a bunch of seemingly obscure settings in the contents to a trusted PC tech-support forum.
all, however, or even a cure-little. In fact, Mash the AnalyzeThis
HijackThis doesn’t cure anything on its button at the bottom of
own. What HijackThis does do is give you the HijackThis log file
a snapshot of the system’s registry and file to see a list of forums
settings, putting particular emphasis on the to choose from, or just
browser. It doesn’t discern between safe hop over to the forums
and malicious settings, so it’s possible to at MaximumPC.com.
unintentionally inflict real harm if you don’t If you strike out
know what you’re doing. Follow along as we
on a bulletin board
show you how to properly wield HijackThis
or need instanta-
on an ailing machine. –PAUL LILLY
neous feedback, try
the German website

1
www.hijackthis.de.
DOWNLOAD AND RUN Just copy your entire
HIJACK THIS log contents to your
Originally developed by Dutch clipboard (right-click
programmer Merijn Bellekom, HijackThis has > select all > copy),
since been acquired by Trend Micro, a security paste it into the site’s
firm better equipped to maintain and update textbox, and press the
Analyze button. Within
a few moments, the
B

program’s main window (image B), which will

also be listed in a separate text file generated
on the fly. Sometimes with the beta version
of the app, the text file that appears will be
empty; if that’s the case, try using the stable
release instead.

2
REVIEW THE RESULTS
Keep in mind what we said earlier:
HijackThis doesn’t discern between
safe and malicious entries. Even on a badly
infected system, many, if not most, of the
settings will be legit and altering them could
A affect the functionality of your PC. C
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 4
GET OFFLINE vidual entries than the online sites do, but
for the ones it does recognize, it tends to
HELP WITH
be a bit more informative. No matter which
HIJACK method you use (or combination thereof),
READER it’s a good idea to double-check any iffy
The problem with relying entries with Google before you go blasting
on a website to sift through away registry and system settings.
your HijackThis log
is that an infected
PC doesn’t always
grant you access to
the Internet. And
even in cases when
you are able to hop
online, your web
browsing attempts
D might be constantly
rerouted, or pages
could load too
site will spit out the results and alert you slowly to be of any help.
to any potential problem areas (image C). In this case, arm yourself E
Anything with a green checkmark is most with HijackReader (http://bit.ly/
likely safe, while the opposite holds true dAOLK8), another free third-party
for any red Xs that are displayed. You may app that works in conjunction
also see orange question marks, which with HijackThis. There’s no instal-
are unknown files or entries that require lation necessary—just unzip the
further investigation. archive to your hard drive or por-
Rather than toss all your eggs in one table flash drive and run Hijack-
basket, double-check these results by Reader.exe. Copy the HijackThis
heading over to http://hjt.networktechs. log file to your clipboard and mash
com. Just like before, you’ll paste your log Paste log, followed by the Check!
file’s contents and press the Parse button. button (image E).
All the results are color coded so you can When HijackReader finishes,
see any potential pitfalls at a glance (image it will save the results as an HTML
D). Hover your mouse cursor over these to file and prompt you to give it a
learn why they’re being flagged and what name. Open this file to see the
the recommended course of action is. results (image F). HijackReader
tends to know less about indi- F

TROUBLESHOOTING

Diagnose Your PC with a Clean Boot

Still having trouble weeding out problematic processes? Try System Configu-
identifying the culprit with a clean boot. To perform a clean ration Utility, re-
boot in Windows Vista or 7, do the following: enable half of the
Open the System Configuration Utility by typing msconfig services you dis-
into the Start Search Bar, and click the Selective Startup abled, and reboot.
radial button. Click the Services tab, then select Hide All If the problem
Microsoft Services and click Disable All. Restart your com- is back, then the
puter—if your problem is solved, then its cause is one of guilty party is one of the services you just enabled. If it isn’t,
your startup services. then it’s one of the other half. By repeating this halving process
To figure out which service is the culprit, go back into the several times, you’ll be able to pinpoint the troublemaker.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIM

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 Convert 2D Movies to 3D
Unless you’ve been living under a rock allowing media viewers such
for the last year, you know that 3D is this as Windows Media Player to
year’s entertainment buzzword. With 3D understand AviSynth scripts,
blockbusters like Avatar scoring mega- in the form of AVS files.
bucks in the theaters, 3D cinema’s jump As you might have
to the living room is all but a foregone guessed, we’re going to use
conclusion. But where does that leave all one such AVS script to up-
your old 2D files and DVDs? convert our 2D file to 3D. It’s
Thanks to a couple of very cool not magic—the script simply
programs and some clever scripting, exploits some common visual
there’s hope for them yet. In this article, cues to take a decent stab at
we’re going to show you how to use the applying a 3D effect to a 2D
free programs AviSynth and VirtualDub, movie. The script was written
along with a script from the 3D Vision by the author of the 3D Vision
Blog, to give any 2D film the 3D treat- Blog, and is available here:
ment. –ALEX CASTLE http://bit.ly/6a1fgp. Go to the
site, copy the script (it’s the
B

1
CONVERT TO 3D
WITH AVISYNTH
To convert our movies to 3D, we’re
going to start with a program called Avi-
Synth, so point your browser to http://bit.
ly/2EO5A2 and download the newest ver-
sion, then run the installer. You’re probably
used to running most new programs after
you install them, but don’t bother trying
with AviSynth—it doesn’t have a user
interface. Instead, it functions as a codec,

first big chunk of code) and (such as Windows Media Player) and
paste it into Notepad. tell it to open your .avi file. Assuming
Before we can use you’ve done everything right so far,
the script, it needs a you should see an extra-wide version
little customization. First, of your video, with two slightly different
change the filename at the frames playing side by side (image C).
beginning of the script from This is the 3D file, formatted to play
“Avatar_Trailer_HD.avi” to with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology.
the filename of the video If you would prefer to view your
you want to upconvert (im- movie in anaglyph (red/cyan) 3D for
age A). Save the script with use with a pair of filter glasses, you
an .avs filename extension need to make a quick modification to
to the same directory as the your script. Find the line in the script
video file you’re converting that says StackHorizontal(f2, f1)
(image B). and comment it out by adding a # to the
At this point, you’re beginning of the line. Then, uncom-
all set to view your movie ment the line that says # MergeRGB
in 3D. To do so, simply (f2.ShowRed, f1.ShowGreen,
open a media player that f1.ShowBlue) by removing the #.
A works with AVS scripts

68 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com

2
The next step of the process is to
SAVE YOUR 3D VIDEO
make sure that VirtualDub has the tools
WITH VIRTUALDUB it needs to make a high-quality copy of
So, we’re looking at our video in the 3D movie. More specifically, it needs
3D—we must be done, right? Not quite. codecs—one for video and one for audio.
AviSynth works in real time, synthesizing The Xvid MP4 and LAME MP3 codecs
an AVI (get it?) from a source file and a are excellent, open-source examples of
script, frame by frame, as the media player each. If you don’t already have these
requests those frames. This is hard on your codecs installed for use with some other
CPU, and means that if you want to view media program, you’ll need to get them
now. The Xvid
codec can be
found at www.
xvid.org, and
the LAME
codec can be
downloaded
here: http://
bit.ly/8VHgfr.
Once you’ve
downloaded
both, run the
installers to
register the
D codecs in
Windows.
the file on any other computer, you’ll need Set VirtualDub to use Xvid by going to
to install AviSynth first. Instead, we’ll now Video > Compression… and then selecting
show you how to permanently save the 3D Xvid MPEG-4 Codec (image D). Set it up for
video to your hard drive. audio by first clicking Audio > Full process-
To save the movie, you’ll need a ing mode and then clicking Audio > Com-
program called VirtualDub. VirtualDub is a pression… and selecting MPEG Layer 3.
lightweight, open-source video editor that Finally, open the .avs file for your
is especially good at quickly re-encoding 3D video, and click File > Save as AVI.
videos. Download the program from http:// Give your file a name, and you’re done
virtualdub.org and extract the program. (image E).

E
 Print Giant Google Maps
Google Maps is great—it’s got tons of will prompt you to save the
convenient, frequently updated infor- map image as a series of map
mation about pretty much any place tile .png files, and one large,
in the world. There’s just one problem: stitched-together composite
It’s stuck on the Internet. Or at least it image. Be sure to create a folder
was. But now, with Google Map Buddy, for your map, because depend-
you can print Google Maps of any size, ing on the zoom level, you may
whether you want to put together your end up with a lot of map tiles.
own old-fashioned road map or make a Once you’ve named and
giant geographical mural for you wall. saved your file, Map Buddy will
In this article, we’ll show you how to use prompt you to select the maps
this neat tool. –ALEX CASTLE you wish to download. You can
choose Road Map, Satellite,

1
Terrain, or Hybrid (image B). If
DOWNLOAD GOOGLE you’re planning to print out a
MAP BUDDY
B map for your car, for instance, a
To get started, download Google road map will suffice. So, check
Map Buddy (http://bit.ly/42Jvqj). You don’t “Will be downloaded” next to
need to install it, just unzip it and run a drop-down menu will appear, prompting road map, and select OK. Map Buddy will
the program. you to select a zoom level (image A). In the ask if you want to delete the individual map
upper-right corner of the Toolbar, you’ll see tiles in your output folder. Since you’ll most

2
a zoom-level number that corresponds to likely want to print these tiles as individual
GENERATE YOUR MAP how zoomed in you are in Google maps. The pages, select No.
FILES zoom number you pick from the drop-down
The first thing you’ll see is a toolbar must be larger than the zoom
that prompts you to go to Google Maps. number displayed in the upper-
Click this button, then hit Go after select- right, and the greater the differ-
ing your country, and Google Map Buddy ence between the two, the larger
will open Google Maps in its own browser. your printable map will be. The
Using this browser, find an area you would number of printed pages goes up
like to map, and hit the Select Area but- exponentially as the difference
ton. This will allow you to draw a rectangle in zoom levels increases, so start
around the area you would like to include small and work your way up.
in your map. Finally, select Create Map Im-
Once you’ve selected your map’s area, age from the Toolbar. Map Buddy

3
PRINT YOUR MAP
Finally, you’re ready
to print out all the
individual map tiles (image C).
Since most printers can’t print all
the way to the edge of the page,
you’ll need some way to trim off
the white borders around the
sides before you tape the sheets
together—a paper cutter or a
razor blade and a straight edge
will work.

A
70 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com
 REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
IN THE LAB

REVIEWS
Tested. Reviewed.
Verdictized.
INSIDE

74 DIGITAL STORM HAILSTORM

75 KINGSTON SSDNOW V+

76 XFX RADEON HD 5870 XXX EDITION

78 ASUS N61J NOTEBOOK

80 ACER GD235HZ MONITOR

82 GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 MOBO

84 TOSHIBA NB305 NETBOOK

86 NETGEAR RANGEMAX WNDR3700

WIRELESS ROUTER

87 THERMALTAKE CONTAC 29 COOLER

89 VANTEC NEXSTAR 3 SUPERSPEED

USB 3.0 HARD DRIVE ENCLOSURE

90 BIOSHOCK 2

91 BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2

ONLINE

 EVEN MORE REVIEWS!

 BEST OF THE BEST

 BREAKING TECH NEWS

 NO BS PODCAST

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIM

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XIMUM P | 73
UM PC
 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Digital Storm
HailStorm
Hexa-core system has its way
with our benchmarks

W
hen we introduced our new system should also
benchmarks last month, we thought mention
it might be at least six months before that for the
review machines began stomping the holy crap amount of
out of them. Unfortunately for us, Digital Storm hardware the HailStorm
couldn’t wait to pile it on. The company has packs, it’s one of the
unleashed a rig so damned powerful that we’re quietest machine’s
wondering if our new benchmarks and zero- we’ve tested.
point system aren’t already obsolete. A single
But what would you expect of a rig named second-gen 160GB
HailStorm Black Ops Edition that’s equipped Intel X25-M com-
with Intel’s new hexa-core Core i7-980X bined with two 1.5TB
CPU? The Core i7-980X normally clocks in at Seagate Barracudas Despite a full rack of hardware and off-the-scale performance,
3.33GHz, but Digital Storm pushes the CPU handle all storage matters. A mas- the HailStorm is amazingly quiet.
to 4.4GHz, with the help of an impressive sive 1,500W Silverstone PSU runs
dual-radiator and large ID hose water-cooling the whole show. There are other
system. For graphics, the company combines amenities such as a Sound Blaster
three Radeon HD 5870 cards, which have been X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion sound- match against the HailStorm’s three Radeon
clock-bumped as well, thanks to the beefy card, an LG Blu-ray combo drive, and 6GB of HD 5870s, which bested our rig by 83 percent
water-cooling. Along with the CPU and GPU DDR3/1600 bearing the Digital Storm brand. in STALKER: CoP and 75 percent in Far Cry 2.
cooling, Digital Storm water-cools the chipset The case is Corsair’s killer 800D enclosure with You can see why we’re ready to start cry-
and voltage regulators on the EVGA X58 Clas- a custom high-gloss paint job. If we had to ding ing about our smashed and shattered bench-
sified motherboard. We still haven’t reviewed the machine for anything, it’s that the paint marks. If the first performance rig we test can
one of these EVGA boards, but its selection by job, while nice, certainly isn’t the caliber of make such a mockery of our tests, we can only
several high-profile OEMs is making us want those found on Falcon Northwest’s or Smooth look forward to further humiliation. Sigh.
in on that action. Get the hint, EVGA? We Creations’ PCs. So, what’s not to like? Two glaring things
Even though our zero-point rig is no about the HailStorm make it less than perfect.
SPECIFICATIONS slouch—a Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, The first is the rig’s weight. We’ve actually
Processor Intel 3.33GHz Core i7-980X with a Radeon HD 5970 and Intel G2 SSD— hurt our backs lifting previous Digital Storm
(overclocked to 4.4GHz) the HailStorm smashed it to pieces in the systems and this one is just as heavy. Let’s just
Mobo EVGA Classifi ed X58 benchmarks. In our Sony Vegas Pro 9 video- say you should plan to have help unpacking
RAM 6GB DDR3/1600 in tri-channel mode editing test, the HailStorm was a shocking 45 your new rig. The second imperfection is also
Videocard Three ATI Radeon HD 5870 in percent faster. In MainConcept Reference 1.6, painful: the price. At $7,818, the HailStorm
CrossFireX
the HailStorm achieved a 46 percent faster ain’t no big-box impulse buy.
Soundcard X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
encode. And in the photo arenas of Lightroom But that’s always been the story, hasn’t it?
Storage 160GB X25-M Intel SSD, two Seagate
Barracuda 7200.12 1.5TB hard drives 2.6 and ProShow 4, the HailStorm turned in To get this kind of benchmark-crushing perfor-
Optical LG Blu-ray combo drive, Lite-on 22x scores that were 24 percent and 27 percent mance, you have to pay to play. The HailStorm
DVD+R faster, respectively. Our Radeon HD 5970, makes it well worth it.
Case/PSU Corsair 800D / Silverstone 1,500W the most powerful card on the planet, was no –GORDON MAH UNG
PSU

9
BENCHMARKS
ZERO POINT
VERDICT
Vegas Pro 9 (sec) 3,049 2,103
Lightroom 2.6 (sec) 356 286
DIGITAL STORM HAILSTORM
ProShow 4 (sec) 1,112 873
Reference 1.6 (sec) 2,113 1,450
+ HEXAGON - PENTAGRAM
STALKER: CoP (fps) 42.0 77.0
Six-core processor; Weighs as much as a
Far Cry 2 (fps) 114.4 200.6 quiet; tri-CrossFireX! small car—costs as
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% much, too.

Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1333 overclocked to 1750MHz, on a $7,818, www.digitalstormonline.com
Gigabyte X58 motherboard. We are running an ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, a 160GB Intel X25-M SSD, and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate.

74 | MAXIM
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 Kingston SSDNow V+
No, we haven’t already reviewed this one

I
t seemed like déjà vu to us, too—didn’t and Premiere Pro encoding times were The second-gen Kingston SSDNow
we review a Kingston SSDNow V+ as similar to those of the Torqx. V+ is a strong performer and it gets
recently as December? Turns out we’re Astute readers will note that these brownie points for the included upgrade
not crazy (at least in this respect); that scores aren’t the same as previously kit, as well as native TRIM support. It
was the first-generation SSDNow V+, built given for the Torqx—we’ve recently up- doesn’t offer a huge jump in perfor-
on the same Samsung controller as the graded our SSD test station and re-tested mance, but users won’t be disappointed.
Corsair P256. The second-gen SSDNow the Torqx under the same conditions as And it’s less expensive than many other
V+, by contrast, uses Toshiba’s T6UG1XBG the Kingston drive. We’ve also moved to 128GB SSDs with similar performance.
SSD controller, which features TRIM sup- Windows 7 for all of our benchmarks, –NATHAN EDWARDS
port (for clearing deleted blocks) and has which tends to give slightly lower sus-
theoretical maximum reads and writes of tained speeds in our benchmarks than
230MB/s and 180MB/s, respectively. does Windows XP.
On the outside, the SSDNow V+ looks,
well, like every other SSD out there. Un-
like most of them, however, the second-
gen SSDNow V+ comes as a Performance
Upgrade Kit, which includes Acronis-
based drive-cloning software, a USB exter-
nal enclosure, a SATA cable, and adapter
rails for 3.5-inch hard drive bays. Sure,
you can get all of those things elsewhere,
but it’s a thoughtful kit for the upgrader.
Toshiba’s controller, like the Indilinx
Barefoot controller that powers the Patriot
Torqx, contains 128MB DDR DRAM cache
to eliminate jitters, and we didn’t experi-
ence any during testing. In our h2benchw
tests, the SSDNow V+ achieved aver-
age sustained read speeds greater than
180MB/s, and average sustained writes
of 175.3MB/s, with burst reads up to
223MB/s—close to the claimed maximum.
The 128GB Patriot Torqx, by contrast, got
167.6MB/s reads and 164.4MB/s sustained
writes. The Torqx still triumphs in random-
access times, though—the Kingston’s ran-
dom reads averaged .28ms to the Torqx’s
.11ms, while average random writes took
.4ms, to the .3ms random writes offered
by the Torqx. Of course, differences in the Kingston’s second-gen SSDNow V+ is
upgrade-friendly—it comes with an
tens of milliseconds won’t be noticeable to external USB enclosure, cloning software,
the average user. PCMark Vantage scores cables, and 3.5-inch adapter rails.

BENCHMARKS

8
Kingston Patriot
SSDNow V+ Torqx
VERDICT
Capacity 128GB 128GB
Average Sustained Transfer-Rate Read (MB/s) 180.1 167.6
KINGSTON SSDNOW V+
Average Sustained Transfer-Rate Write (MB/s) 175.3 164.4
Random-Access Read (ms) .28 .11
Random-Access Write (ms) .40 .30 + KING GEEDORAH - KING KOOPA
HDTach Burst Speed (MB/s) 223.9 144.4 TRIM support; fast reads Not world-changing;
Premiere Pro (sec) 613 636 and writes; included random-access times
upgrade and connectivity lag behind Indilinx
PCMark Vantage x64 Overall 22,019 23,626
kit; competitive pricing. and Intel controllers.
Best scores are bolded. All drives re-tested on our new hard drive test rig: a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-750 on
an Asus P7P55D-Premium motherboard. HDTach 3.0.1.0, h2benchw, PCMark Vantage x64, and Premiere Pro $340, www.kingston.com
CS3 benchmarks were obtained in 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIMUMPC | 75

 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX Edition

Overclocked to be the fastest card you can buy today

W
e’ve never been major advocates 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate. The PSU is a BENCHMARKS
of GPU overclocking, as the minor Corsair TX850W 850W unit. We ran the Radeon HD Radeon HD
gains you achieve often don’t justify benchmarks at 1920x1200, eye candy 5870 XXX 5870

the added heat and instability. But there’s a maxed out, with and without 4x AA en- 3DMarkVantage Extreme 9,181 8,312

clear difference between Billy Joe doing a abled. The scores look pretty much as we Battle Forge / AA on (fps) 33 31

maximum overclock on his GPU and a vendor expected, given the slight core and more FC2 / Action, AA on (fps) 64 63

overclocking the part at the factory. substantial memory clock boost. FC2 / Ranch Long, AA on (fps) 75 72

So when XFX offered up its XXX Edition Yes, the XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX HAWX / AA on (fps) 84 81

of the already-fast Radeon HD 5870, we were Edition wins in all of the game bench- STALKER CoP / AA, tess on (fps) 42 39

naturally curious. XFX pushes the HD 5870 to marks, but the margins, while consistent, Crysis / AA on (fps) 32 32

875MHz (3 percent over the stock 850MHz) are so small as to be almost meaningless. Best scores are bolded. Our test system uses a 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition in
and juices the memory to 1,300MHz (8.3 per- It is the first time we’ve seen a single vid- an Asus Rampage II Extreme X58 motherboard, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1333, a Corsair
TX850 PSU, a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme cooler, a 1TB Seagate 7200.12 hard
drive, and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate. All test runs were performed at 1920x1200.
cent over the stock 1,200MHz). At first blush, eocard score greater than 100fps in Far

8
a 3 percent core overclock seems minimal. Cry 2 at 1920x1200 (with AA disabled).
Given that the card costs about $430, versus On average, the XXX Edition yields a 4
VERDICT
about $405 for the stock XFX variant, is it percent gain in performance for a 6 percent
worth the extra jingle? increase in price.
XFX RADEON HD 5870 XXX EDITION
To find out, we compared the performance For consumers who are worried about
of the XXX Edition to a standard XFX Radeon the long-term impact of an overclocked card,
HD 5870, which is a stock card in every XFX’s warranty might reassure you. It’s simply
+ X GAMES - VIN DIESEL
respect. Save for clock speeds, the two cards the best in the business at five years, with the Fastest single-GPU Pricier than stock
card we’ve tested; cards; higher idle
are identical: memory (1GB), ports (two DVI, ability to transfer the warranty once, should XFX warranty. power usage; stock
one DisplayPort, one HDMI), and the reference the original owner resell the card. The card cards are plenty fast.
cooling system. Because of the speed bumps to is definitely fast, and if you have to have the $430, www.xfxforce.com
the XXX Edition’s core and memory clocks, its fastest GPU on the block, you may find the up-
system idle power usage varies from the stock tick worth it. But the standard card is a better
card, reaching 148W versus 141W. deal in the end—almost as fast, more power-
Our tests were run on a Core i7-975 efficient, and lower-priced. –LOYD CASE
Extreme Edition with 6GB of DDR3/1333 and

Is an overclocked GPU worth

the extra ducats?

76 | MAXIM
MAXIMU
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P | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com
 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Asus N61J
Optimus and Arrandale join forces

I
n and of itself, the Asus N61J wouldn’t most noteworthy. So, despite its 800MHz clock
normally enter our radar. Let’s face it: A disadvantage, the Core i5-430M performed
$900 16-inch desktop replacement is wholly slightly better than our zero-point’s 3.06GHz
pedestrian—an affront to the sensibilities of Core 2 Duo Mobile T9900 CPU in all the con-
most power users. But the N61J has the distinc- tent creation benchmarks that are multithread-
tion of boasting one unique feature that, at the friendly. Photoshop shows no such bias, leav-
time of this writing, wasn’t available in a more ing the older Core 2 Duo out front.
enthusiast-class rig, but which most enthusiasts Still other features that make the N61J at-
are sure to take interest in: Nvidia’s brand-new tractive are a multitouch touch pad, a speaker
Optimus technology, which changes the land- that doesn’t suck as much as some notebooks’,
scape of hybrid graphics. one-touch volume controls, HDMI, eSATA,
To summarize, hybrid graphics make and integrated USB 3.0 in one of the note-
it possible to switch between a notebook’s book’s three USB ports. Sadly, the two USB 2.0
integrated graphics and discrete videocard ports are not close enough together to accom-
based on need. The concept is hardly new, but modate dual-head cables without use of an
Optimus streamlines it. Rather than the user extension cable.
having to shut down applications, manually For its size, the N61J is quite manageable.
enact the switch, and then reboot—a nuisance It’s fairly thin, and its lap weight of six pounds
no matter how you slice it—Optimus intuits is half that of our 15.4-inch zero-point. Part
the correct graphics solution for the task at of the weight savings might come from the
hand and implements it seamlessly. N61J’s battery. Given that the notebook
In our experience with the N61J, the features two power-saving technologies
technology worked as advertised. When in Optimus and Arrandale, we expected a
running our gaming benchmarks, the discrete relatively long runtime, but the N61J barely
card kicked in without any effort on our part. surpassed the two-hour mark in our battery-
Unfortunately, Optimus couldn’t elevate the rundown test, suggesting that its 8-cell bat-
N61J’s gaming performance beyond mid- tery is not all that burly.
dling. The notebook’s GeForce GT 325M might If you want a desktop replacement that
be based on a new GPU architecture using a truly does everything, there are more powerful
smaller 40nm process, but the mainstream card portables to be had, albeit at a higher price.
is still an amateur compared to the older GTX But if you’re looking to save some dough, and
260M in our zero-point notebook. Moderately you’re not a fanatic about gaming, the N61J is a
demanding games like Far Cry 2 are playable, pretty good bargain. –KATHERINE STEVENSON
to be sure, but only when run at the notebook’s
native 1366x768 resolution with quality set at

8
medium, which yielded 36.75fps.
The N61J is more impressive at productiv- VERDICT
ity chores. Its 2.26GHz Core i5-430M is part
of Intel’s new Arrandale family of mobile ASUS N61J
processors. It’s built on the same 32nm process
as Intel’s Clarkdale desktop procs, which + GRAPPLE - LEMATO
include an integrated graphics chip in the CPU. Optimus hybrid Battery life isn’t
graphics; portable great; unfriendly
There are numerous other improvements the proportions; to dual-head USB
Core i5 chips offer over the Core 2 Duo, with HyperThreading; cables; mediocre at
USB 3.0. games.
integrated memory controller, better power
$900, www.asus.com
management, and HyperThreading among the

78 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com

 BENCHMARKS SPECIFICATIONS
ZERO POINT
CPU 2.26GHz Core i5-430M
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec) 1,320 1,260
RAM 4GB DDR3/1066
Photoshop CS3 (sec) 153 164 (-6.7%)
Chipset Intel HM55
Proshow Producer (sec) 1,524 1,482
Hard Drive 500GB Seagate ST9500420AS (7,200rpm)
MainConcept (sec) 2,695 2,453
GPU Nvidia GeForce GT 325M / Intel GMA
Far Cry 2 (fps) 32.7 13 (-60.2%) graphics
Call of Duty (fps) 58.2 25.5 (-56.2%) Ports VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, one USB 3.0, two
USB 2.0, eSATA, two analog in/out, 5-in-1
Battery Life (min) 100.0 125
media reader, Express Card/34 slot
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Lap/Carry 6 lbs / 7 lbs
Our zero point notebook is an iBuypower M865TU with a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo T9900, 4GB DDR3/1066 RAM, a 500GB Seagate hard drive, a GeForce GTX 260M,
and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. Far Cry 2 tested at 1680x1050 with 4x AA; Call of Duty 4 tested at 1680x1050 with 4x AA and anisotropic filtering.

A glossy screen,
rubberized palm rest,
and chicklet keyboard
lend upmarket touches
to this budget notebook.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIMUMPC | 79

 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Acer GD235HZ
This second-generation 120Hz panel makes the leap to full HD

W
e can count on one hand
the number of people we
know who have bought into
Nvidia’s 3D Vision gaming system—
those shutter goggles haven’t exactly
been selling like hotcakes.
The lackluster response to this
3D-gaming renaissance is no doubt
due in part to the 3D Vision kit’s $200
admission price. On top of that, early
adopters were also likely put off by the
technological limitations of the req-
uisite 120Hz monitors—another $400
wallet-draining investment—which
maxed out at just 22 inches and a paltry
1650x1080 resolution.
Acer’s GD235HZ is a second-
generation 120Hz panel that sheds those
constraints, measuring 23.6 inches and run-
ning natively at 1920x1080 pixels.
In a pleasant surprise, the GD235HZ
doesn’t cost any more than last year’s 22-
inch $400 asking price. To keep the price in
check, Acer omitted extras like USB ports
and component inputs from this model. And
aside from the 120Hz refresh rate, this is a
pretty standard TN panel. Color fidelity fared
respectably in our tests and contrast (rated
at 1000:1) looked better in the darks than the Acer’s GD235HZ is a step up
lights. We didn’t notice any color banding from lower-res 3D-ready
panels, offering more screen
defects at various settings, either. But like real estate and a higher native res.
most LCDs, we could spot a bit of backlight
bleed along the edges of the screen, though
this was only noticeable with the lights off scenes with high contrast, such as Modern even the best TN panel we’ve reviewed. We
and a very dark image on the screen. We also Warfare 2’s snow level. still think it’s a product for early adopters,
thought that text looked a little off, with very Full-screen 3D videos downloaded but at least the technology is moving in the
light shadowing between characters. Tweak- from Nvidia’s website looked glorious, and right direction. –NORMAN CHAN
ing Windows 7’s ClearType settings helped HDCP support means that the GD235HZ is
alleviate this issue. suitable for 3D Blu-ray movies. But we were

8
But this monitor isn’t for Photoshop art- bummed that the monitor has just three vid-
ists or Excel monkeys—it was made for 3D eo inputs (dual-link DVI, HDMI, and VGA), VERDICT
gaming. So, it was no surprise that the extra which limits the number of devices that can
real estate made a big difference in-game. use this as a primary display. The lack of a ACER GD235HZ
The wider 16:9 aspect ratio helped improve USB hub is also frustrating, since that would
the illusion of depth when we sat close be useful for the 3D Vision’s IR emitter. + CAPTAIN EO - JAWS 3D
enough that the sides of the screen were As it stands, the GD235HZ is the best
1920x1080 resolution; Limited display
just beyond our peripheral vision. However, monitor you can find for desktop 3D gam- fast response time; inputs; no USB ports;
we encountered some ghosting in games, a ing or stereo 3D photographers. But it’s still good contrast in both some ghosting in 3D;
lights and darks. restrictive stand.
familiar consequence of shutter-based 3D considerably more expensive than a 60Hz
configurations. This was most apparent in monitor of a comparable size, and it isn’t $400, www.acer.com

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 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6
SATA 6 and USB 3.0 come aboard—but at a price

G
igabyte’s original GA-P55-UD6 (reviewed the board’s third PCI-E slot to x4 mode would dis-
December 2009) held the distinction of not able the board’s two other x1 PCI-E lanes. Sigh.
only being the first board we tested with For those who don’t intend to fully load up a
Intel’s LGA1156 socket, but also our preferred go-to rig with multiple GPUs, a P55-based GA-P55A-
board for months on end. It was only after Asus’s UD6 is a fine board. You get all the things we
beautiful Maximus III Formula showed up in our loved about the original plus USB 3.0 speed and
March issue that the GA-P55-UD6 was dethroned. SATA 6—and hell, it’s still the only P55 board
It didn’t take Gigabyte long to fire a shot with six DIMM slots (although, you can’t run
back, though, with its GA-P55A-UD6 board. At double-sided DIMMs in all, so be aware.)
first glance, you’d think there was no difference But if you really want to build up a system
between it and its predecessor. But up close, you with enough hardware that you can barely
can see slight changes to the board that make move your PC, you should opt for an X58-based
room for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 chips, as well as a board, where there are enough PCI-E lanes to
slight repositioning of the PCB-mounted reset choke on. Because let’s face it, when you’re
button. The most obvious physical change is the shelling out $250 on a board like the GA-P55A-
reduction in the number of inboard SATA ports. UD6, it’s going to be hard not to want a “real”
The GA-P55-UD6 had 10 ports whereas the GA- board using X58 instead. –GORDON MAH UNG
P55A-UD6 has eight. Both boards
have two eSATA ports, compliments
BENCHMARKS
of a JMicron JMB362 part. Gigabyte Asus Maximus
The reduction in SATA ports is GA-P55A-UD6 III Formula
likely due to the Marvell 88SE9128 PCMark Vantage 64-bit Overall 9,120 9,441
SATA 6 controller’s support of just Everest Ultimate 5.30.1900 Mem Read (MB/s) 14,799 13,351
two ports. The 88SE9128 supports
Everest Ultimate 5.30.1900 Mem Write (MB/s) 11,143 12,776
both IDE and AHCI modes, as well as
Everest Ultimate 5.30.1900 Mem Copy (MB/s) 14,693 14,694
a two-drive array RAID 0 and RAID 1.
Our major concern with the Everest Ultimate 5.30.1900 Mem Latency (ns) 52.5 53.1

GA-P55A-UD6 isn’t really the fault SiSoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s) 17.1 17.0
of Gigabyte, but rather Intel. The 3DMark Vantage Overall 14,795 15,002
P55 chipset doesn’t come with 3DMark Vantage GPU 12,164 12,203
enough PCI Express lanes for a 3DMark Vantage CPU 48,816 48,091
true enthusiast platform. If you
Valve Particle test (fps) 159 161
remember, with LGA1156, PCI-E
Resident Evil 5 low-res (fps) 126.6 120.4
is moved into the CPU. That gives
you 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes, which World in Conflict low-res (fps) 253 260

operate as either a single x16 World in Conflict (fps) 189 230

for one GPU or as two x8 for two Best scores are bolded. For our tests we used a 2.93GHz Core i7-870, 8GB of Corsair DDR3/1333, a 150GB
WD Raptor, an EVGA GeForce GTX 280, a PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 1200, and 64-bit Windows
GPUs. The P55’s PCH controller has 7 Professional. For SATA 6 compliance, we used a Seagate Barracuda XT SATA 6 drive, and for USB 3.0
compliance, we used a Western Digital MyBook USB 3.0 drive.
another eight x1 PCI-E 2.0 lanes.
However, according to Intel’s data

7
sheets, they operate at 2.5GT/s, not the 5GT/s
we’ve come to expect of real PCI-E 2.0 ports. VERDICT
That didn’t matter as much before USB 3.0 and
SATA 6 came along, but a typical P55 board GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6
today will be starved for data.
For example, with two EVGA GeForce GTX + LOVE BITE - DOG BITE
280 cards installed, the board’s SATA controller USB 3.0 and SATA 6; Too few PCI-E lanes
maxed out 165MB/s in HDTach. When one of the packed with features. to support a fully
loaded system.
GPUs was removed, the board gave us SATA 6
burst speeds of 283MB/s. Want more proof there’s
$250, www.gigabyte.com.tw
not enough PCI-E bandwidth? Manually setting

82 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com

 Nearly identical to the
much-beloved GA-P55-UD6,
the “A” version brings next-
gen I/O to the table.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIMUMPC | 83

 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Toshiba NB305
The Pine Trail version of Toshiba’s
excellent vanilla netbook

L
et’s talk about love. When you love
something, you love it for what it is, not
what it isn’t. We love netbooks; we don’t
care that they can’t really do games, or HD
Flash video, or any media encoding to speak
of. We know what we want—all-day comput-
ing in a formfactor small enough to toss into a
knapsack or messenger bag and barely know
it’s there, and cheap enough to be viable as
a secondary PC. Toshiba’s first netbook, the
NB205, came out in the latter half of 2009,
but was immediately lauded as a shining
exemplar of netbook craft. So, can the NB305,
its Atom N450–toting successor, replicate the
NB205’s success?
With the NB305, Toshiba has opted for a
gentle refinement of the 205 rather than an
all-out reimagining. Aside from the new Pine The NB305’s keyboard is its weakest point—it looks like the NB205’s, but it’s less crisp and the
Trail N450 CPU and the Windows 7 Starter OS, space bar doesn’t always register hits.
the NB305 is virtually identical to its predeces-
sor. Both share standard netbook specs: 1GB
DDR2 RAM, a 250GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and expected them to—the space bar in particular smaller hard drive, and no sleep-and-charge
a 10.1-inch 1024x600 screen. And the 305 rep- isn’t as sensitive as we would like and didn’t USB port, or the $400 Windows 7 Starter version
licates the NB205’s styling almost identically, always pick up on our hits. reviewed here. You’ll have to decide for your-
from the matte-silver plastic chassis, textured Pine Trail’s power efficiency is what self, though, whether an added half-hour of bat-
lid, and matching bezel to the striped touch drives the NB305’s truly excellent bat- tery life and a sleep-and-charge port are worth
pad and chiclet keyboard. tery life. In our full-screen DVD-quality the $100 premium you’ll pay over the Acer
Two of our favorite features from the video-playback test, running at 50 percent Aspire One AO532h (reviewed April 2010)—
NB205 carry over into the sequel: hard drive screen brightness and 50 percent volume, especially given the NB305’s wonky keyboard
vibration detection and plug-and-charge the NB305 lasted more than seven and a half and lack of Bluetooth. –NATHAN EDWARDS
USB. One improvement: Thanks to the hours, 79 percent longer than our zero-point
N450’s lower energy requirements and re- and fully half an hour more than the next SPECIFICATIONS
finements by Toshiba, the NB305’s 6-cell bat- best netbook we’ve tested. In the rest of our
Processor 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450
tery doesn’t protrude from the back of the benchmarks, the NB305’s numbers were a Chipset Intel NM10 Express
chassis like its predecessor’s did. The chassis little more down to earth, with performance Graphics Intel GMA 3150
is a bit slimmer, too, and the ports have been ranging from 3 percent slower than our Display 10.1-inch LED-backlit TFT LCD@1024x600
shifted slightly—the SD card reader is on the zero-point (in Quake III) to 14 percent faster RAM 1GB DDR2/667
left, instead of the front, and the audio jacks (a still-unplayable 4.1fps in Quake 4). Storage 250GB HDD (5,400rpm)
Ports Three USB 2.0, audio in/out, SD reader,
are on the right. As a vanilla netbook—one without VGA, 10/100 Ethernet Wireless: 802.11b/g/n
The NB305’s keyboard, while fairly roomy, Nvidia’s Ion netbook gaming platform—the
Lap/Carry 2 lbs, 14.4 oz / 3lbs, 7.6 oz
is less crisp than the 205’s. We found key- NB305 performs well. It ships in two configu-
strokes wouldn’t always register the way we rations: a $350 version with Windows XP, a

BENCHMARKS

Premiere Pro CS3 (sec)

Main Concept (min)
ZERO POINT

708
251
667.0
246.0
TOSHIBA NB305

+ NOTA BENE -
VERDICT

NIHIL NOVI
7
Quake 3 (fps) 60.9 58.9 (-3.3%)
4.1
Incremental improve- Win 7 Starter; no
Quake 4 (fps) 3.6
ments to solid platform; Bluetooth; wonky
Battery Life (min) 255 457.0 great battery life; sleep- keyboard (especially
and-charge USB port. space bar); expensive.
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Our zero-point netbook is a Lenovo IdeaPad S12 with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB of DDR2/667 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Intel GMA950 integrated graphics $400, www.toshiba.com
chipset, and Windows XP Home SP3.

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 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Netgear Rangemax
WNDR3700
Meet our new favorite wireless router

A
s many readers have pointed out, router, with support for drives format-
it’s long past time for us to pick a ted with FAT16/32, NTFS, or Ext2/3 file
new Wi-Fi router for our Best of the systems. A built-in DLNA media server
Best list (the previous title holder, Linksys’s enables you to stream music, video,
WRT600N, having disappeared off store and digital photos to remote clients, in-
shelves several months ago). Folks, we have cluding gaming consoles like the Xbox
a winner: Netgear’s Rangemax WNDR3700 360 and network-enabled A/V receiv-
is packed with features and it performs like ers. You can access USB storage over
a thoroughbred. the Internet using either HTTP (uploads
First, let’s discuss features. This is a only) or FTP (uploads and downloads).
dual-band 802.11n router, which means The USB port cannot, however, be used
it’s outfitted with two radios—one that to share a printer over the network.
operates on the 2.4GHz frequency band The absence of a switch or firm-
and a second that operates on the less- ware setting that can turn off the
crowded 5.0GHz band—so you can operate WNDR3700’s router feature to convert
two wireless networks simultaneously. it into a wireless access point is un-
Most people will use the former for data usual, especially since each of its radios
traffic and the latter for media streaming can be reconfigured to operate as a
(especially since the 5.0GHz radio has a wireless repeater or bridge (using the
video quality-of-service feature designed WDS—Wireless Distribution System—
to reduce packet loss and jitter that’s not standard). You can also tweak each of
found on the 2.4GHz radio). the radios’ transmission power settings,
You can also operate guest networks in case the router stomps on your
on each radio (each with its own SSID and neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks. Activate
security mode), which allows you to grant the router’s parental-controls feature
visitors Internet access while your data and the device will automatically
network remains safely isolated. And if block access to sites that the folks
you’re looking for a new wireless router for at Netgear-partner OpenDNS
your small business, the WNDR3700 sup- consider “objectionable.” We’ve
ports WPA/WPA2 Enterprise encryption in never been fans of this type of
addition to the more typical WEP and WPA/ technology, but to each his own.
WPA2 pre-shared key. Wi-Fi Protected In our performance benchmarks,
Setup is also supported, so you have no ex- the WNDR3700 placed a distant second
cuse for not protecting your network with to the now-discontinued WRT600N at Netgear’s WNDR3700 can operate horizontally
a complex password. As is common of rout- close range, delivering TCP/IP throughput or vertically (using the provided stand), or you
ers in this class, the WNDR3700 is equipped of 85.9Mb/s compared to the Linksys’s can mount it to a wall.
with a four-port gigabit Ethernet switch. 116Mb/s in our kitchen test, and 48.4Mb/s
Plugging a hard drive into the USB 2.0 with the client on the patio compared to the
port adds NAS-like functionality to the Linksys’s 86Mb/s. But the Netgear walloped

9
the Linksys when the client was placed
BENCHMARKS in the bedroom (63.9Mb/s vs. 26.7Mb/s)
Netgear Linksys and in our two outdoor spots (deliver- VERDICT
WNDR3700 WRT600N
ing TCP/IP throughput of 22.7Mb/s and
Kitchen, 20 feet (Mb/s) 85.9 116.0 NETGEAR RANGEMAX WNDR3700
5Mb/s, respectively, compared to just
Enclosed Patio, 38 feet (Mb/s) 48.4 86.0
0.2Mb/s and 0.4Mb/s).
Media Room, 35 feet (Mb/s) 63.9 26.7
If you don’t need dual-band, Buffalo’s + DISRAELI GEARS - JAMMED GEARS
Bedroom, 60 feet (Mb/s) 26.8 21.5 Dual 2.4GHz/5.0GHZ radi- Can’t share a USB
WZR-HP-G300NH is a better value, espe-
Outdoors 1, 90 feet (Mb/s) 22.7 0.2 os; guest networks; DLNA printer over the net-
cially at long range; but if you’re looking media server; very good work; no BitTorrent
Outdoors 2, 85 feet (Mb/s) 5.0 0.4 range; USB drive sharing. client.
for a router with almost everything,
Best scores are bolded. TCP throughput measured using IPerf. N/C indicates Netgear’s WNDR3700 is the one to buy.
no connection at that location. Read more about our testing methodology at $190, www.netgear.com
http://bit.ly/16w27O. –MICHAEL BROWN

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 If it had a better
mounting bracket
and used wire clips
instead of rubber
plugs, the Contact 29
would earn a Kick Ass
award, for sure.

Thermaltake Contac 29
Direct-contact heat pipes must work!

W
hen the wimpy-looking Cooler pipes on the Hyper and Contac contact the frustrations with the Contac—they’re hard
Master Hyper 212+ (reviewed CPU heat spreader directly, instead of be- to remove and harder to put back, which is a
Holiday 2009) came along and ing embedded in a blocky heat-exchanger. deal-breaker when you have to remove the
matched performance with the best air The direct-contact method seems effec- fan to install the darn thing. We much prefer
coolers on the market, we wondered if its tive; in our tests, the Contac 29 matched the simpler wire-clip method. Thermaltake
direct-contact heat pipes were respon- the Hyper 212+’s performance to within at least includes a second set of these plugs,
sible, and if so, how soon we’d start seeing one degree Celsius at full burn, and per- if you want to add an additional fan.
imitators. It didn’t take long. Thermal- formed identically when idling. With cooling power, footprint, and
take’s Contac 29 is a near–carbon copy The Contac 29, though very similar to price commensurate to the Hyper 212+,
of that little wonder, with a few subtle the Hyper 212+, has its unique quirks. Un- the Contac 29 is a damn-fine cooler. But
refinements and one colossal pain. like the Hyper’s mounting system, with its we’ll stick with the Hyper 212+’s more-
Like the Hyper 212+, the Contac 29 backplates, bolts, and screws, the Contac secure installation and better fan-retention
features three heat pipes that run from 29 uses the same plastic push pins as Intel’s mechanism, thank you. –NATHAN EDWARDS
a heat exchanger up through a stack of stock coolers. This makes installation easy,

9
thin aluminum fins, paired with a single or it should—we prefer sturdier mounting
12cm fan (as well as room for another, if brackets, though. The last few millimeters of
you want to push/pull air). Differing from the fins are bent 90 degrees to direct airflow VERDICT
most skyscraper-type coolers, the heat and prevent leakage at the sides.
Instead of wire clips to hold the THERMALTAKE CONTAC 29
BENCHMARKS
cooling fans, the Contac 29 uses
Thermaltake
Contac 29
CoolerMaster
Hyper 212+
Stock
Cooler rubber plugs that slide through + CONTACT - STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT

Idle (C) 30.25 30.25 35 channels in the cooling fins and Top-tier perfor- Tetchy push-pin
mance; similar install; frustrating fan
100% Burn (C) 45.75 45 62.5 secure the fan loosely. These plugs price/size as CM attachments.
were the source of most of our Hyper 212+.
Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity;
load temperatures 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 $30, www.thermaltakeusa.com
inside a Corsair 800D case with stock fans.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIMUMPC | 87

 Vantec NexStar 3
SuperSpeed
This USB 3.0 chassis will
slash your backup times

E
xternal hard drive enclosures are great NEC PCI-E to
if you have to move large amounts of USB 3.0 control-
data around frequently or easily add ler that shipped
storage to a packed desktop system. with the WD
With USB 2.0, though, transfers have My Book 3.0.
always been capped at 33MB/s at best, making We com-
huge data backups a real snooze-fest. On the pared the results
plus side, this meant your primary disk’s trans- against those of
fer speed didn’t matter at all—any reads and both drives connected
writes were limited by USB 2.0’s bandwidth directly to the motherboard
limit. Those days will be drawing to a close using a SATA cable.
as USB 3.0 takes hold. We’ve already tested Transfer speeds from the NexStar
one USB 3.0 external hard drive: the WD My 3 were much lower than the theoretical
Book 3.0 (reviewed April 2009). That was a throughput of 5Gb/s listed on the box. In fact,
fine product, but what if you already have a both drives had lower transfer speeds via USB
high-capacity backup drive and you just want 3.0 than they did via SATA, with the biggest
to speed up your transfer times? slowdowns coming from the Kingston drive.
In that case, you may want to peep The drive’s reads bumped up against 180MB/s The NexStar 3 SuperSpeed can’t keep up
Vantec’s NexStar 3 SuperSpeed hard drive using SATA but barely reached 111MB/s when with an SSD’s SATA speeds, but it does well
with mechanical hard drives.
enclosure. As its name implies, it’s USB 3.0 connected with the NexStar. The Barracuda
compliant. Like its predecessors, the NexStar 3 went from 103.3MB/s reads and 102MB/s
is an aluminum enclosure featuring an on/off writes using SATA to 91.2MB/s reads and
switch, power/drive activity LED, power cable, 82.9MB/s writes on the NexStar. Burst speeds mechanical drive is nothing to sneeze at.
and USB port. It includes a stand for stable suffered on both drives, too—the Barracuda’s As an external hard drive enclosure, the
vertical storage and little rubber feet on one near-200MB/s bursts dropped to just over Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed succeeds—if
side so it can sit horizontally. The faceplate of 100MB/s, while the Kingston went from your rig is USB 3.0 capable. It’s nice to be
the enclosure is attached to the drive tray. Both 224MB/s to just 117MB/s. able to throw your backup drive into a
the faceplate and drive tray slide out of the It’s worth noting that both drives out- speedy external chassis and triple your
case to allow a 3.5-inch drive to be slotted onto performed the My Book 3.0, with its 1TB transfer speeds. It won’t match speeds with
the SATA connector and then secured to the Caviar drive, and both roughly tripled USB a drive connected directly to your rig, but if
tray with four screws. Indeed, the only way 2.0’s best speeds. It’s probably too early in you need a better chassis for your backup
the NexStar 3 SuperSpeed differs from its kin USB 3.0’s lifespan to expect performance drive, this is it. And swapping in a different
is that it includes USB 3.0 instead of just 2.0. anywhere near the theoretical maximum, drive takes only a few minutes. We wouldn’t
We tested the NexStar 3 SuperSpeed of course. This version of the NexStar is de- put an SSD in this enclosure for longer than
with two drives: the 128GB Kingston signed for 3.5-inch mechanical hard drives; it takes to clone a drive; but you’d have to
SSDNow V+ (reviewed on page 75), and a it’s possible that Vantec’s upcoming 2.5-inch be crazy to use SSDs for external storage,
1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, a speedy version will be better. Still, for now, getting anyway. –NATHAN EDWARDS
last-gen mechanical hard drive. We used the near-internal speeds from your external

8
BENCHMARKS
Kingston SSDNow V+ Kingston Seagate Barracuda Seagate Barracuda VERDICT
(Vantex on USB 3.0) SSDNow V+(SATA)
(SATA) 7200.11 (Vantec on USB 3.0) 7200.11 (SATA)

Capacity 128GB 128GB 1.5TB 1.5TB VANTEC NEXSTAR 3 SUPERSPEED

HDTach Avg. Read (MB/s) 111.4 188.1 91.2 103.3
HDTach Avg. Write (MB/s) 97.1 168.0 82.9 102.1 + VANGUARD - VAGABOND
HDTach Burst (MB/s) 117.6 223.9 109.6 196.1 Well-constructed, Performance
HDTach CPU Utilization 5% 4% 5% 8% good-looking chas- nowhere near USB
sis; quiet. 3.0’s theoretical
HDTach Random Access (ms) .3 .3 16.0 15.7 maximum.

Best scores are bolded. HD Tach version 3.0.1.0 used. Tested on our hard drive test bench: an Asus P7P55D Premium running an Intel Core i5-750 @2.67GHz $35, www.vantecusa.com
with 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

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 IN THE LAB REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

BioShock 2
Not as shocking as the first game, but still a worthy sequel

T
he first BioShock managed quite a feat:
It was that rare game that both opened
and closed the book on a strange, new
environment. For the most part, it left very few
questions unanswered, and despite its flaws,
the general consensus was that gamers’ first
go-round on the bathysphere should also have
been their last. For all intents and purposes,
the game was a complete experience that
didn’t need a sequel. But it got one, anyway.
And yet, for all the talk of BioShock 2 be-
ing nothing more than a quick cash-grab, the
game is actually quite good—great, even. But
is it a worthy successor to a modern classic?
Yes, surprisingly enough.
BioShock 2 stuffs you into the hulking
diving suit of the first Big Daddy—roughly
40 percent of which is composed of a gigan-
tic, face-perforating drill. Yeah, you’re not just
some wimpy, fish-out-of-water human this
time around. And the changes don’t end there.
BioShock. Geddit?
Rapture’s been overtaken by a veritable army of
little-girl-kidnapping Big Sisters, and it’s up to you
to put a stop to their maniacal plan. What follows, other half—the story—is where BioShock sonality to keep things fresh, yet it’s traditional
then, is a whirlwind adventure of drilling, Splicer 2 doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights oc- enough to remain accessible. Plasmid powers
shooting, Adam-harvesting, and more drilling. cupied by its predecessor. Here’s the thing, are the main draw, of course, but the possibil-
And it’s tons of fun. The brand-new ability though: By normal standards, BioShock 2’s ity of one player assuming control of a Big
to simultaneously wield both weapons and all story is pretty great. Fantastic, even. And, Daddy during the match ensures that things
manner of fire-spewing, tornado-conjuring, fret not, philosophy majors, because many of never grow dull. Really, our only problem with
baddie-blasting plasmid powers adds a new the game’s themes are even more interest- the multiplayer stems from its use of a Modern
layer of strategy to the series’ chaotic battles. ing than BioShock’s. Execution, however, is Warfare–like unlock system. For weapons,
Good thing, too, because the game’s genetically another story. Whereas BioShock was full that’s fine, but BioShock 2 forces you to unlock
mutated enemies—known as Splicers—have of memorable set pieces and moments, Bio- many of its coolest powers, which means the
only gotten bigger and nastier during the 10 Shock 2’s tend to run together—up until the multiplayer doesn’t truly shine until you’ve
years that have elapsed in Rapture time. last couple of hours, which, without spoiling played it for many hours.
But off-the-wall, super-powered combat anything, are amazing. Ultimately, though, our complaints are
is only half the BioShock equation. The In some cases, this is actually a good thing, as minor. BioShock 2 actually manages to surpass
BioShock 2 is much its predecessor in a number of ways and—in
more consistent than our book—is simply more fun to play. Sure,
its predecessor. Sure, déjà vu might creep up on you every once in a
it rarely reaches the while, but you’ll probably be too busy drilling
heights of the a hole in its face to care. –NATHAN GRAYSON
first game’s early

9
sequences, but
neither does it ever
plunge to the depths VERDICT
of the first game’s
sub-par ending. BIOSHOCK 2

BioShock 2’s
multiplayer, mean- + WOULD YOU KINDLY? - NO, I’D RATHER NOT

while, is a pleasant Combat balances tac- Set pieces not as engag-

tics and outright chaos; ing as BioShock’s; mul-
surprise. It’s injected excellent level design; tiplayer unlock system
with just enough surprisingly enjoyable initially bars players
multiplayer. from its main draw.
of BioShock’s
$49, www.bioshock2.com, ESRB: M
We’re pretty sure he needs first aid more than we do. atmosphere and per-

90 | MAXIM
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Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Just don’t call it Battlefield 3

W
e hold the Battlefield franchise close
to our hearts—Battlefield 1942
revolutionized online warfare, and
Battlefield 2 is one of the best multiplayer shoot-
ers of all time. But the series hasn’t fostered
another winner in recent memory. That’s why
we were a little apprehensive about playing the
newest Battlefield game, Bad Company 2 (a se-
quel to a console-only spin-off title). But despite
fears that this was just going to be a knockoff of
Activision’s Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2
stands on its own as a refined Battlefield experi-
ence that’s worthy of its pedigree.
In fact, Bad Company 2 prides itself in
being different from Modern Warfare 2,
something it goes out of its way to point out
in the 13-mission single-player campaign.
That’s right—this is the first PC Battlefield
game with a story. The Bad Company in the
game’s name refers to you and your squad of
four misfit soldiers, sent across snowy moun- A three-dimensional battlefield is recreated through Battlefield’s always-excellent vehicle integration,
such as this helicopter insertion into a hot landing zone.
tains and humid jungles in search of a stolen
Japanese superweapon.
This fanciful MacGuffin serves to drop ment and cover, there’s not much else to Bad In each gameplay type, we found that
you and your AI-controlled squadmates into Company 2’s campaign that sets it apart from the best teams were the ones that effectively
firefights where the game can show off its big other shooters. Extremely linear map design, used the squad system, sending Engineers in
technical achievement: destructible environ- an overabundance of rail-shooter segments, the lead with vehicles, Assault-class soldiers
ments. Entire buildings can crumble to ruins and generically incompetent enemies make around buildings to flank, and Recon snipers
under the force of grenades or tank shells, the game feel like a dated console port. We to safe vantage points to spot enemies. The
making the safety of cover feel very ephem- had the impression that the developers were lone-wolf mentality won’t take you far. In
eral during the frequent firefights. We could be so intent on showcasing level destruction in this regard, the game doesn’t differ much
sniping enemies from the window of a house the action scenes that they didn’t have time to from previous Battlefield games, but it’s
and a second later that entire side of the housedevelop any other innovations. nonetheless great fun.
might be blown away. Alternatively, we also It’s also peculiar that the single-player Bad Company 2 plays like an evolu-
found that we could blow holes in walls to campaign doesn’t train you for the multiplayer tionary step in the series, taking what we
escape from deadly situations, too. game, which is where Bad Company 2 really loved about Battlefield 2 and streamlining
But aside from this novel use of environ- shines. This is pure Battlefield—16-vs.-16 it in a game that appeals to both PC and
matches that em- console gamers. We just wish the developers
phasize teamwork, dropped the solo campaign entirely to bring
tactics, and solider- some real innovation to the multiplayer
class specialization. game. But for that, we’ll just have to wait for
The Rush mode, for Battlefield 3. –NORMAN CHAN
example, sends a
team of attackers

8
to destroy a series
of targets, each VERDICT
successful assault
opening the map to BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2
additional objec-
tives. Squad Death- + OMEGLE - CHATROULETTE
match is another Brilliant multiplayer Uninspired single-player;
uniquely fun mode game modes; balanced slow multiplayer-server
soldier kits; destruc- browser; check-point
that pits four teams tible environments. save games.
against each other
$50, www.battlefieldbadcompany2.com, ESRB: M
Armed UAVs make a deadly reappearance in Bad Company 2. in a free-for-all.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MAXIM

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 IN THE LAB HANDS ON WITH THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

LAB NOTES
Eye of the Beholder
Why we didn’t test image quality in our roundup of raw photo editors

R
aw image editors work with digital
images in the same way sculptors
start with bare stone or metal. The
final product is utterly unlike the initial raw
material. So, when I was looking at how the
five different raw file editors handled batch
conversions, I threw out the idea of examin-
ing the image quality of the final JPEGs.
Each batch converter handles the LOYD CASE
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
conversion process differently. Adobe
Camera Raw allows you to easily alter every
parameter, while Nikon’s Capture NX2’s batch process is bare-bones.
Just doing default batch conversions then pixel-peeping at the JPEG
results wouldn’t have revealed anything about the final image quality.
It’s the tools themselves, their robust features—or lack thereof—
for altering the raw image that generates the final photograph. Each
gives you a different path to photographic creativity. Format conver-
sions are just the end of the pipeline.

GORDON MAH UNG MICHAEL BROWN NATHAN EDWARDS ALEX CASTLE KATHERINE STEVENSON
SENIOR EDITOR REVIEWS EDITOR SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ASSOCIATE ONLINE EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR

I’ve seen all kinds of My view that HDCP is I’ve been neck- This month has been Despite my pester-
weirdness in our Lab, mature enough now deep in mid-tower an amazing month ing, Dell says it can’t
but I recently booted that new products chassis—I keep for strategy gamers, get me its new highly
a mobo with the shouldn’t have prob- wanting to plural- with Napoleon: Total portable 11.6-inch
RAM not fully seated lems with it might be ize it to “chasses.” War, Supreme Com- Alienware M11x
that would report the optimistic: PowerDVD I have a perfectly mander 2, Command gaming notebook in
correct amount of 9 is refusing to send good rig at home and Conquer 4, and time for next month’s
RAM but would only encrypted Blu-ray built into the Cooler the StarCraft 2 beta issue. So instead I’ll be
run in single-channel video from my home- Master Storm Sniper all coming out within swinging to the other
mode. It would even theater rig to a new case, but now I want a matter of weeks. extreme and hoisting
run Windows and Rocketfish wireless to upgrade to the I’m excited about AVADirect’s new
benchmarks. Only HDMI adapter I’m Fortress 2 or the all these games, but X8100 onto my Lab
after reseating the testing. The adapter NZXT Hades. Bad, I wish they’d been bench. Does an 18.4-
RAM did the board works fine with a Nathan. I also made spaced out better— inch Core i7 rig with
finally boot in dual- stand-alone Blu-ray an SSD bracket out there’s not enough two GTX 285M cards
channel mode. player. I’ll have more of cardboard in lieu time to play them all! in SLI even qualify as
details in my review of an actual mount- a notebook?
in the June issue. ing bracket.

92 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com

 COMMENTS YOU WRITE, WE RESPOND

We tackle tough reader questions on...

 Torchlight
Energy
Energy Conservation
Profanity-free Podcasts?
Speed up Win7 literally. As an energy and crunch numbers for medical I thought Torchlight sounded
I’m trying to improve the foreign policy strategist, research. The Maximum PC interesting, so I downloaded
startup speed of my PC and as well as hardcore gamer team (ID: 11108) currently the demo. After about five
wanted to know how you use with a screamer rig, I would ranks third on the Folding@ seconds, I realized I was
Windows 7’s built-in perfor- argue that the power user home scoring chart! playing the game Fate, from
mance tool to measure it (“In community should always WildTangent. It isn’t just
Search of the Sub–30 Second be advocating for saving The Game That Won’t similar, it is exactly the same
Boot,” March 2010)? energy in our energy-hun- Die Award game with newer graphics.
—Devin Shanks gry machines. That means Having read your gaming I like Fate and have played
demanding innovation from awards article (March 2010), it on and off for years, but I
Senior Editor Gordon manufacturers (efficient
Mah Ung Responds: It’s power supplies, etc.), better
pretty easy. Click the Start coding from devs, and, yes,
button and search for Event good energy-consuming
NOW ONLINE
Viewer. Launch Event Viewer habits from users!
and then drill down into —Chris Ajemian

30 Useful (and Unknown)

Applications and Services
Logs > Microsoft > Windows Editorial Director Jon

Web Apps
> Diagnostics-Performance, Phillips Responds: Chris,
and then click Operational. as you suspected, Norm was
In the Task Category column, being facetious when he
look for Boot Performance damned energy savings in We hate to say it, but hardware is becoming less
Monitoring and select it. favor of running his PC non- important with each passing day, as more and more
Boot Duration indicates how stop. Also, keep in mind that software moves onto the Internet. We’re not looking
long it took the system to the Maximum PC offices are forward to the day that our PCs become Chrome OS–
boot in milliseconds. located in the San Francisco style thin clients, but we have to admit, some web
Bay Area, where we face a apps are pretty awesome.
Norman Chan: steady barrage of scornful To help you prepare for a future in the cloud,
Environmental finger-wagging: Compost we’ve put together a list of 30 of our favorite web
Scofflaw? your food waste. Don’t burn apps and services. We’ve tried to keep them on the
Love your commentary firewood. If it’s yellow, let it lesser-known side, but a few of the classics snuck
and tips, but I want to take mellow. Sometimes a guy just their way in: http://bit.ly/bkBb2H.
issue with Norman Chan’s wants to defy the killjoys and
March 2010 How To section let his machine run freely—like
comment that energy sav- a wild stallion. And of course,
ings “be damned,” which we use our idle CPU cycles to
I’m sure he didn’t mean help our Folding@home team

CUTCOPYPASTE
 In our review of the HIS Radeon HD 5970
(March 2010), we posted the wrong benchmark
chart. The correct benchmark scores can be
found here: http://bit.ly/aHpAuA.

 In our How To guide to water-cooling (April 2010), we

mistakenly referred to the Corsair Obsidian 800D as the
Cooler Master 800D.

94 | MAXIMUMPC | MAY 2010 | www.maximumpc.com

 NEXT MONTH

COMING IN
MAXIMUMPC’s
COMING IN
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
MAXIMUMPC’s
don’t see how anyone can
give an award to a game that
in a year or so, and Fate didn’t
have one of those, did it?
to warn people that it’s not
safe for work or children. We
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
STILL IN 2D
AND PROUD
has been around for so long, attempted to have cuss-free
unless it’s the Game That Keep It Clean, Please podcasts in the past, but that
Won’t Die Award. I love your magazine. I have didn’t get very far. Instead, I’m

OF IT

JUNE
—John Kirk every issue since 2006, and thinking we could implement

Senior Associate Editor

really value the opinions
from every editor. I do have
a system similar to President
Carter’s response to the gas
ISSUE

1
Nathan Edwards Responds: one small complaint, though. embargo. Thus, we would cuss
John, Torchlight is Fate in the I listen to your podcasts only every other podcast, let-
same sense that Torchlight
is Mythos or Fate is Diablo—
while working from home
sometimes and… well, I
ting the pro-cuss people listen
to the cuss versions (with extra XXXXXXXXXXX
they’re all action-RPGs, games
in a genre that might as well be
have small children that like
to play in my office and the
cuss) and the anti-cuss people
listen to the cleaned-up ver-
XXXXXXXXXX
called “Diablo clones.” They expletives are progressively sion. (To see if I’m serious, look
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ISSUE
all share similar gameplay, getting stronger and more for the Maximum PC No BS
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and similar characteristics, frequent. I also have custom- Podcast on iTunes.)

4
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and often the same creators. ers walking into my store-
Torchlight developer, Runic front and it is not something Why No ‘Best’ PSU? WIN7 TIPS: THE
Games, consists of Fate
designer Travis Baldree, as well
I want them to have to listen
to while using my services.
How about adding a power
supply category to the Best of HARDCORE
XXX XXXXX
as Erich and Max Schaefer,
who designed the first two
Now, I am not at all the per-
son to preach or even sound
the Best section?
—Michael Decker
EDITION
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Looking for vanilla OS tips?
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Diablo games. And, of course, like a saint, so I hate to even
You won’t find them next
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Senior Editor Gordon Mah

2
the entire Mythos team. ask. The issue is that as a pro-
month. Our editors share only
xxxxxxxxx
Torchlight is very similar fessional organization, this Ung Responds: Michael,
to Fate, of course—just look at language is very uncalled for we’ve long resisted adding
their most coveted, secret,
the fishing and pet mechan- and you probably have more a power supply to our Best devastatingly cool Win7 hacks.
ics—but it’s not absolutely fans than you think who of the Best list because it’s XXXXXXXXXXX
SSDXXXXXXXXXX
identical. Fate doesn’t really would love to listen to your not a component we regularly
have character classes or tal- podcasts but have children review. In the past, when we
ent trees. But that’s not really
important. Torchlight is a
or customers in or nearby
to contend with. You can do
ran power supply roundups we
used the old standby strategy SHOWDOWN
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Armed xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
with larger capacities

5
polished game that fills a very as you wish, but I cannot of building a system, loading
important role in our hearts, continue to listen, though I it up with hardware, and then and full Windows 7 support,
and not just because we need would really like to. cranking the room’s thermostat how do the latest solid-
something to play while we
wait for Diablo III. Torchlight
—Mark Cheshier to 99 degrees. Things have
gotten a lot more sophisticated,
XXX XXXXX
state screamers perform
in our gauntlet of
has a robust editor, with plen- Senior Editor Gordon Mah
Ung Responds: Your letter
though. Reviewing a power XXXXXXXXXXXXX
storage benchmarks?
ty of user-created dungeons supply today could require Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and mods available. And it reminds me of the scene in the use of a temperature- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
does have a different story
than Fate, if you’re into story.
The Big Lebowski when Sam
Elliott sits next to The Dude
controlled electronics oven
to properly “bake” it, and BATTLE OF THExxxxxxxxx

3
If you’re just into action-RPG
click-fests and loot-grinding,
and tells him he likes his style,
“but do you have to use so
nothing short of extremely
expensive test equipment,
BUDGET CPUs
Gordon Mah Ung pits Intel’s
well, Torchlight’s still a great
game. And hey, the MMO ver-
many cuss words?” Be that as
it may, we do label the pod-
some of which runs up into
the six-figure range—a tall XXXXXXXXXXX
Core i3-530 against AMD’s
sion of Torchlight comes out cast on iTunes as “explicit” order in this economy. XXXXXXXXXX
Athlon II X4 630. Even with their
prices combined, that’s just
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
$213 of CPU! A winner crowned,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LETTERS POLICY Please send your questions and comments to comments@ comments@maxi- a loser humiliated.

 maximumpc.com.
mumpc.com. Include
Include
your your
full name,
full name,
city ofcity
residence,
of residence,
and phone
and phone
numbernumber
with your xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
correspondence.
with your correspondence.
Letters may
Letters
be edited
may for
be edited
space and
for space
clarity.and
Dueclarity.
to theDue
amount
to theof xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
mail we of
amount receive,
mail we
wereceive,
are unable
we are
to respond
unable to personally
respond personally
to all queries.
to all queries.

www.maximumpc.com | MAY 2010 | MA

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Unleash your PC’s Potential…
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 BEST OF THE BEST A PAR T - B Y - PA R T G U I D E TO B U I L D I N G A B E T T E R P C

WI-FI
Netgear ROUTER
Rangemax
WNDR3700
N etgear’s Rangemax WNDR3700 dual-band wireless router
isn’t as fast at close range as our previous fave—Linksys’s
WRT600N—but it delivers far better range and a stronger
feature set than any router we’ve tested to date.
The WNDR3700 has all the standard high-end features,
and then some: You can run an independent guest network
on each radio, there’s a DLNA media server in addition to the
more typical UPnP server, and the USB port provides enough
power to support a 500GB external hard drive. See the full
review on page 86.
This isn’t the least expensive router on the market, but we
think it’s worth every cent. www.netgear.com

THE REST OF THE BEST

■ High-End Processor ■ LGA1156 ■ $150 Videocard ■ Full-Tower Case Games we are playing
Intel 3.33GHz Core Motherboard ATI Radeon 5770 Corsair 800D ■ Battlefield: Bad
i7-980X Asus Maximus III www.ati.com www.corsair.com Company 2
www.intel.com Formula badcompany.ea.com
www.asus.com ■ Capacity Hard Drive ■Mid-Tower Case
■ Midrange Processor Western Digital Caviar NZXT Hades
Intel 2.8GHz Core i7-860 ■ Socket AM2 Black 2TB www.nzxt.com ■ Supreme Commander 2
www.intel.com Motherboard www.wdc.com www.supremecommander2.
com
MSI K9A2 Platinum ■30-Inch Display
■ Budget Processor www.msi.com.tw ■ Performance Storage NEC LCD3090
Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD ■ Mass Effect 2
Intel 2.66GHz Core www.nec.com
www.patriotmem.com www.masseffect.bioware.
i5-750 ■ High-End Videocard com
www.intel.com ATI Radeon HD 5970 ■ Gaming Mouse
www.ati.com ■ DVD Burner Logitech G9x Laser Mouse
Samsung SH-S223 ■Napoleon: Total War
■ LGA1366 www.logitech.com
www.samsung.com www.totalwar.com
Motherboard ■ $250 Videocard
MSI Eclipse SLI ATI Radeon 5850 ■ 2.1 Speakers
www.msi.com www.ati.com ■ Blu-ray Drive Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 Wireless
Plextor B940SA www.klipsch.com
www.plextor.com

For even more Best of the Best entries, such as speakers and budget components, go to http://www.maximumpc.com/best-of-the-best

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