PC PC PC EMAIL WINDOWS 8 PREVIEWED: SEVEN KEY NEW FEATURES TESTED! CD 35 +A 25 HOT NEW PRODUCTS: INS WE VIDEOCARDS, HARD DRIVES, NOTEBOOKS, SSD, 5 LIGHTNING-FAST WEE PCs, AND MORE SO ME IDE AP PS MINIMUM BS • JULY 2011 www.maximumpc.
where we put stuff inside JULY 2011 On the Cover Illustrated by Gottfried Moritz table of contents QUICKSTART 08 NEWS What to expect from Windows 8; Intel's new tri-gate transistor; AMD first with USB 3.0. 14 THE LIST FEATURES Nine games that really push a PC. 16 HEAD TO HEAD Dropbox vs. SugarSync in a battle of online storage services. R&D 50 WHITE PAPER Crysis 2 802.11ac: Everything you need to know about the Wi-Fi of the future. 51 AUTOPSY Inside an NZXT Sentry LXE fan controller.
editorial a thing or two about a thing or two MAXIMUMPC TECH GROUP Vice President: Kate Byrne, 650-238-2049 Editorial Director: Jon Phillips EDITORIAL Editor in Chief: George Jones Deputy Editor: Katherine Stevenson Senior Editor: Gordon Mah Ung Senior Associate Editor: Nathan Edwards Online Managing Editor: Alex Castle Online Features Editor: Amber Bouman Online Associate Editor: Alan Fackler Digital Content Producer: Christopher Rogers Contributing Writers: Seamus Bellamy, Loyd Case, Ken Feinstein, Gor
quickstart the begining of the magazine, where the articles are small Windows 8: What We Know Prerelease versions of Windows 8 have leaked to the web. Here’s what they tell us about the upcoming OS RECENTLY LEAKED BUILDS show that Windows 8 will be a very different OS from its forebears, from the kernel to the cloud. ARM processor support, mobile-device optimization, and system-wide menu tweaks abound. Here are some of the most interesting changes we’ve spotted so far.
Tom Halfhill Fast Forward Today’s 32nm transistor passes electricity underneath a gate in a flat plane. On the right is the new 3D transistor which increases surface area, lowers leakage, and increases density. HKMG FOR THE MASSES industry is catching up with Intel. Now, any chip designer can use transistors with high-k metal gates, which enable higher clock speeds and lower power consumption. It’s the biggest advance in transistor technology in 50 years.
quickstart Thomas McDonald Game Theory WHEN THE DEALIN’S DONE thousands of professional Internet gamers were put out of work by the U.S. Justice Department. You didn’t realize there were so many people who derived some or all of their income from online gaming? Well, if poker isn’t a game, then I’m not sure what it is. And thousands of people—many of them college students and the unemployed— played poker online to support themselves, right up until the Justice Department decided to pull the plug.
quickstart Quinn Norton Byte Rights STREISAND'S HOUSE [PICS!] THERE ARE SO MANY PLACES where the law doesn’t get the net, but few are as extreme as the Streisand Effect. Named for the singer/actress, it’s really about how the net responds to censorship. It is insufficient to say the net routes around censorship. The net wedgies censorship and hangs it on the school fence.
quickstart THE 9 BEST GAMES FOR FLEXING YOUR PC’S MUSCLES METRO 2033 Red Faction: Guerilla The game's locations teem with tiny details—dust flecks floating about, makeshift clotheslines, rotting bar tables, and crowds of people. Literally everything in this 3D shooter breaks, making it a perfect demonstration for real-time physics. TOTAL WAR: SHOGUN 2 This series has always been known for its ludicrously large armies and real-time battles. The latest game doesn't disappoint.
quickstart BY ROBERT STROHMEYER Dropbox vs. SugarSync vs. Now that most of us use more than one PC and juggle any number of smartphones and tablets daily, cloud storage and syncing have gone from a nicety to a necessity. While Dropbox has emerged as the almost universally accepted winner in the cloud storage arena, competitors abound. We decided to pit the old favorite against one of its most formidable opponents, SugarSync.
DROPBOX SUGARSYNC Free, 50GB for $10/month, www.dropbox.com Free, 30GB for $5/month, 500GB for $30/month, www.sugarsync.com Round 5: File Protection Accidentally delete a file you wish you’d kept? Made a big, sloppy change you’d like to undo? Both services have you covered. The difference is in how much data is stored and for how long. SugarSync stores the last fi ve versions of any file regardless of date modified. Dropbox stores the last month’s worth of revisions to all your data.
quickstart THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES... Streaming Music Via Web > SSD Reformat > High CPU Temps FTP = RIAA? Would creating an FTP server that contains all my music be a quick way to get a "Go directly to jail" card issued by the RIAA? I really just want to be able to access my data files from any computer; should I leave my music directory out of that? Player (www.amazon.com). It allows you to upload your own fi les and play them back from anywhere via a web browser or smartphone.
For what you do, a quadcore Phenom will work fine; at about $140, the 3.2GHz Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition is a good sweet-spot CPU. If you want to just go ahead and use up the rest of your budget, you can actually get a 2.8GHz Phenom II X6 1055T for about $170. We don’t think you need the hexacore, but there’s something to be said for bragging rights.
e the complete guide to email mastery BY GORDON GOBLE AND SEAMUS BELLAMY THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO EMAIL MASTERY EMAIL. WE ALL HAVE IT. WE ALL HATE IT. FROM OUTLOOK TO GMAIL TO THE GREAT EMAIL BEYOND, HERE’S HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT. 22 MAXIMUMPC JUL 2011 maximumpc.
THEY SAY THAT THE KIDS DON’T USE EMAIL THAT MUCH THESE DAYS. DOESN’T THAT SOUND DREAMY? WE ADULTS, UNFORTUNATELY, HAVE NO SUCH LUXURY. FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, EMAIL IS A MAJOR PART OF OUR PERSONAL AND WORK LIVES. WE’RE TEMPTED TO JUST LEAVE IT AT THAT. BUT THERE’S NO NEED TO FEEL HOPELESS. WE TOOK A GOOD, LONG LOOK AT THE CENTER OF OUR COMMUNICATION UNIVERSE WITH AN EYE TOWARD IMPROVING, UPGRADING, AND (HOPEFULLY) DOMINATING IT. THE FRUITS OF OUR LABOR ARE ON THE NEXT SEVEN PAGES.
the complete guide to email mastery Getting Intimate with Outlook The road to email mastery begins with Microsoft’s ubiquitous email application USING OUTLOOK IS ONE THING. EXPLOITING IT TO ITS FULLEST POTENTIAL IS ANOTHER. OVER THE NEXT TWO PAGES, WE'LL GIVE YOU A FEW WAYS YOU CAN DO JUST THAT, AND THEN SHOW YOU FIVE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN EXIST WITHOUT MICROSOFT'S SEEMINGLY UBIQUITOUS PERSONAL INFORMATION MANAGER.
Christopher Alden I'd love to have a Gmail-style conversation view. READER'S RESPOND: 10 Ways to Fix Microsoft Outlook Clean up your act by using Outlook's Conversation view. Get out of the Import/ Export Business It is not unusual to successfully import and/or export PST files (the critical Outlook file that contains all your irreplaceable personal data) to and from Outlook.
the complete guide to email mastery Suffer Spam No More Dear friend! I am the son of the late Nigeria's former minister of mines and power in the regime of the late former Nigeria's military Head of State. I have discussed with my family attorney how best to provide for you the information on blocking email spam. To unlock these mysteries, you need only supply $2,500 of your United States dollars.
the complete guide to email mastery Gmail, Pro Style Trick out your Gmail experience with these 10 pro-level hacks WHETHER YOU’RE NEW TO USING GMAIL OR A SE ASONED VETER AN, WE’RE POSITIVE THAT YOU’LL FIND AT LE AST ONE OF OUR AWESOME GMAIL TIPS TO BE, WELL, AWESOME. Create Custom Labels Creating custom labels to organize your Gmail inbox is easy. From the mail menu on the left side of your browser window, click the More link, and then Create New Label.
Set Up a Hosted Email Domain with Google Apps A personal hosted email domain for the low, low cost of free? Yes, Please DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN DOMAIN AND/OR WEBSITE? THINKING ABOUT SETTING UP PERSONALIZED EMAIL ADDRESSES TO GO ALONG WITH THEM? WELL, YOU CAN PAY YOUR ISP FOR THE PRIVILEGE, OR YOU CAN QUICKLY SET UP A FREE GOOGLE APPS ACCOUNT THAT’LL PROVIDE YOU WITH A GMAIL ACCOUNT BRANDED WITH YOUR WEBSITE’S DOMAIN, AS WELL AS A NUMBER OF OTHER GOOGLE GOODIES.
the complete guide to email mastery How to Have an Empty, ClutterFree Inbox Welcome to Inbox Zero, an email management philosophy that could change your digital life A 2010 REPORT BY THE R ADICATI GROUP ESTIMATED THAT ROUGHLY 90 TRILLION EMAILS ARE SENT PER YE AR. IF YOU’RE LIKE US, YOU KNOW THAT IT CAN FEEL AS THOUGH E VERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE MESSAGES SOMEHOW MAKES ITS WAY INTO YOUR INBOX IN A BID TO RUIN YOUR DAY OR WEEK BEFORE IT HAS E VEN STARTED. (FOR MANY OF US, THIS PHENOMENON IS CALLED MONDAY.
Drawbacks The Inbox Zero philosophy may not be everyone’s cup of tea. For starters, if you don’t receive large amounts of email on a regular basis, there’s little productivity to be gained in clearing out your inbox on a regular basis, as your volume of mail is already manageable. If this is the case, we will gladly trade places with you.
BIG SMALL FORM FACTOR, SURPRISE From the caliber of their parts to the breadth of their abilities to their unconventional shapes and sizes, today's small form factor PCs are a tasty treat for power users BY GORDON MAH UNG 32 MAXIMUMPC JUL 2011 maximumpc.
I t has long been considered common wisdom that the smaller the size of a PC, the greater its compromises. Notebooks, no matter how fat, for example, will never touch the power of a desktop machine. The same held true for small form factor rigs. But is that still the case? To find out how today’s SFF rigs compare with their full-size desktop brethren, we tasked five top PC makers with sending us their best and brightest, and, well, smallest machines. We didn’t put any hard and fast limits on size or price.
small form factors Falcon Northwest FragBox There isn’t much space to work in the FragBox, but that also means it doesn’t take up much room either. 9 VERDICT $3,975, www.falcon-nw.com 3,049 2,528 LIGHTROOM 2.6 (SEC) 356 300 PROSHOW 4 (SEC) 1,112 883 REFERENCE 1.6 (SEC) 2,113 1,722 STALKER: CoP (FPS) 42.0 83.8 114.4 179.9 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.
AVADirect Compact Gaming PC Tucked in behind the 1,200W PSU are two Radeon HD 6990 dual-GPU cards and a Prolimatech Megahalem. at higher resolutions for longer than 15 minutes and the fans in the system begin to howl at intolerable levels. Like ruinyour-music-or-gaming-experience kind of loud. And that’s really a shame because when we originally uncrated the AVADirect box, we were floored by its configuration.
small form factors CyberPower LAN Party Evo The Evo can’t beat the others here, but a GTX 580 and 2600K in this chassis are impressive nonetheless. games at 1080p resolutions. In app performance, it really isn’t that far behind the other rigs. But against the hardware in this roundup, it’s got no chance of winning any gaming tests. Despite all this, we’re really tickled pink by the LAN Party Evo. It’s quiet, lightweight, and is even relatively easy on the electricity.
small form factors The Origin Chronos was an early bet on which system would be the fastest here, as we’ve seen what other vendors can do in Silverstone’s fabulous FT03 case. Despite it having the same volume as the AVADirect and iBuypower machines, the FT03 occupies a smaller footprint than all others here, including the CyberPower LAN Party Evo, yet it accommodates an incredible amount of hardware. Yeah, we know, it’s tall.
iBuypower LAN Warrior II Air blown directly onto the GPUs seems to tame the noise of the GTX 590 cards. explain that result is the storage subsystem and choice of SSDs. Frankly, the LAN Warrior II’s form factor and performance would have put it in second place to either the AVADirect or Origin machines, but with those two rigs’ intolerable acoustics, the LAN Warrior II leaps to the front of the line by easily clipping the Falcon’s wings in pure frame rates and app performance.
small form factors Small Form Factors: The Final Analysis How a controversial winner emerges from a field full of surprises BELIEVE IT OR NOT, a showdown of full-size super PCs can get pretty boring. What you usually end up with is five systems all packing the same internal components. But a contest among computer makers that restricts physical size? Now that seemed bound to yield some interesting results.
SMALL FORM FACTORS COMPARED CHIP Falcon Northwest FragBox AVADirect Compact Gaming PC CyberPower LAN Party Evo Origin PC Chronos iBuypower LAN Warrior II 3.4GHz Core 3.46GHz 3.4GHz Core 3.4GHz Core 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K Core i7- i7-2600K i7-2600K i7-2600K 990X CPU CLOCK 4.4GHz 4.4GHz 3.4GHz 4.7GHz 4.
feature MAXIMUMPC Challenge Multiscreen THREE OF THE MORE HARDCORE GAMERS ON STAFF SERVED AS OUR INTREPID TESTERS. 44 MAXIMUMPC JUL 2011 maximumpc.
Madness BECAUSE ONE SCREEN IS NEVER ENOUGH! WE SET OUR SIGHTS ON FINDING THE BEST MULTISCREEN SETUP FOR GAMING BY AMBER BOUMAN LAST MONTH’S REVIEW of Samsung’s MD230X6 six-screen Eyefi nity display got us thinking big. We were awestruck by the majesty of so much screen real estate— particularly in games, where a screen confi g of massive proportions provides a level of immersion that a single screen, or even two screens, can’t come close to matching. But the MD230X6 wasn’t perfect, as our review revealed.
multiscreen madness SAMSUNG’S MD230X6 is particularly suited to a six-screen setup, Configuration 1 Six 23-inch Panels SAMSUNG’S MD230X6 IS NICKNAMED "THE BEAST," BUT IS IT THE BEST? Samsung’s MD230X6 brings a whopping 5760x2160 resolution to the table.
DESPITE THE PITFALLS of the MD230X3, we weren’t convinced that multiscreen bliss couldn’t be found with three monitors. Enter NEC’s spanking-new PA301Ws—professional-grade 30-inch screens with a price tag to match at $2,300 each. Besides each boasting a 2560x1600 native resolution, the PA301Ws offer the unique ability among 30-inch monitors to pivot into portrait mode. Set side-by-side in this fashion, you’re looking at a wall of 4800x2560 unabashedly color-accurate pixels.
multiscreen madness WHAT VIDEOCARD DO I NEED? A MULTISCREEN SETUP CALLS FOR ROBUST GRAPHICS. HERE'S A QUICK GUIDE GAMING ON THREE or more monitors is no easy feat. Pushing that many pixels is hugely demanding on a GPU. So if you want to get the most from your multiscreen setup, you’ll need to pair it with adequate graphics power. Using our challenge scenarios as examples, we examine what kind of GPU/s you will need to achieve adequate frame rates and quality settings.
AMD or GeForce GTX 560 Tis for Nvidia—then you can probably get decent frame rates. The 30-inch Solution Assuming you have the monitors and the necessar y stands, you can get an awesome experience from three 30-inch panels in portrait mode. That translates to 4800x2560 resolution, or 12.3 million pixels. You can go with a single AMD card, but don’t expect a good gaming experience. What you really want is a pair of highend, dual-GPU cards.
R&D examining technology and putting it to use BY BILL O’BRIEN 802.11ac With eight transmitting antennas and theoretical data transfer rates of 1Gb/s, Wi-Fi is about to become turbocharged Not much has happened to good old Wi-Fi since 802.11n arrived on the scene about six years ago, but a new protocol that the 802.11 WG (Working Group) is currently stirring up might turn out to be much bigger and way faster than 802.11n. It’s called 802.
autopsy NZXT SENTRY LXE FAN CONTROLLER PRETENDER TO THE THRONE As if we haven’t had enough of competing standards over the years, the 802.11 Working Group is also working on an 802.11ad specifi cation that operates in the 60GHz bandwidth spectrum. Fortunately, it and 802.11ac are not competitive. They can, in fact, be used in complementary situations. For example, using both 5GHz and 60GHz interfaces, it’s possible to carry typical network data on the 802.
R&D STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES TO IMPROVING YOUR PC WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH ALEX CASTLE ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR LESSERKNOWN BROWSER SHORTCUTS PREVIEW YOUR FILES IN WINDOWS EXPLORER IF YOU’RE SORTING PHOTOS, MUSIC, OR OTHER MEDIA AND WANT A LITTLE EXTRA DETAIL WITHOUT ACTUALLY OPENING THE FILES, JUST PRESS CTRL + P. THIS ENABLES THE EXPLORER PREVIEW PANE, WHICH LETS YOU VIEW MEDIA, DOCUMENTS, AND MORE RIGHT IN THE WINDOW.
R&D Make the Start Menu Obsolete with Launchy Forget about clicking—Launchy lets you start programs as fast as you can type –Seamus Bellamy FORTUNATELY, LAUNCHY HAS BEEN HELPING WINDOWS USERS GET BACK UP TO SPEED SINCE 2007. right on through to Windows 7, the Start Menu has always been just a wee bit short of perfection.
in the first few letters of the browser’s name. Launchy allows you to extend this same keystroke-easy search functionality to just about any other file or program on your PC, as well. In order to do this, however, you’ll need to point Launchy in the right direction. Look to the Options pane (image A) and click the Catalog tab. See that button all gussied up with a + symbol? Click it.
R&D Use Multiple Desktop Wallpapers Without Extra Software Spruce up your multiple desktops –Alex Castle has become something of a necessity for serious PC users. You don’t have to take it to the sort of extremes we do in this month’s display challenge (page 44), but anything less than two monitors is risking serious damage to your nerd cred. Unfortunately, running multiple monitors can make it difficult to keep your RUNNING MULTIPLE MONITORS desktops looking nice with custom wallpapers.
R&D Use Dexpot for Free, Windows 7– Integrated Virtual Desktops The next best thing to an extra display –Alex Castle IN THE PREVIOUS HOW-TO, we discussed multiple monitors as a great tool for increased efficiency. However, sometimes multiple displays just don’t work in a cer- tain environment. Fortunately, there’s still a way to get some of the efficiency benefits of having multiple desktops without needing two displays: virtual desktops.
R&D DAVID MURPHY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR A See-Through PC When all of the walls of a system are transparent, where do you hide the cables? Answer: behind all the awesome insides LENGTH OF TIME: 12 HOURS THE MISSION Were there a Mount Everest of PC builds, the see-through PC would likely be it.
INGREDIENTS PART/URL PRICE Case DangerDen DD Tower-21 www.dangerden.com $210 PSU Kingwin LZG-1000 www.kingwin.com $170 Water Block Koolance CPU-370 www.koolance.com $85 Reservoir Swiftech MCRES Micro Rev2 www.swiftech.com $26 Pump Swiftech MCP35X www.swiftech.com $110 Radiator Black Ice GT Stealth 360 X-Flow www.dangerden.com $70 Tubing Tygon 3/8-inch ID tubing (5 feet) www.frozencpu.com $10 Fluid Feser One, UV orange www.frozencpu.com $20 Fans 3x Yate Loon 12x2.
R&D 1 B BUILD THE CASE THE DANGERDEN acrylic case I’m using, the DD Tower-21, comes fully disassembled. The process for assembling your flat-packed parts into a mighty chassis will vary with whatever case you’ve purchased, but two key pointers will always stay the same. First, take precautions to minimize fingerprint smudges. Wearing a pair of soft gloves or using a cloth barrier between you and the panels can keep things clean (image A).
3 4 INSTALL THE EL WIRE EL WIRE, or electroluminescent wire, is thin copper wire that glows a particular color (thanks to a phosphor coating) when you run current through it. After mounting the primary inverter to the rear of the case (image E), right around the hard drive (for maximum concealment), I ran the black wire cabling for my two strands of EL wire through the holes in the rear of the case.
R&D 6 7 INSTALL WATER COOLING I DECIDED to mount the reservoir right below the hard drive, using a mechanism that would allow me to run the reservoir itself parallel to the case. I screwed a mounting bar into a hole previously designed for a hard drive, then screwed a mounting bar attached to the reservoir into the first mounting bar (image K).
1 THE BRAIN T his b uild w o uld n ot b e possible without this rig’s six-channel fan controller. Ever y light and fan in the case (save for the PSU’s) is adjustable (and powered) using this simple series of switches. 2 COOL IT 1 In a d di tio n to p r o v i din g better cooling than air, a liquid-cooling setup provides visual flare, especially with UV-reactive coolant. 2 3 SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY 3 4 I didn’t just pick Koolance’s CPU-370 for its prowess.
in the lab reviews of the latest hardware and software TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED.
in the lab Maingear Shift Super Stock A bronze statue of power HOW FAR CAN YOU TAKE a Sandy Bridge processor? We’ve heard that even extreme overclockers seem to hit a wall just beyond 5GHz with Intel’s darling new chip. Whatever the limitations, Maingear seems content to take its Shift Super Stock to the brink of madness by clocking the 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K to 5GHz. The company credits some of that high overclock to its new partnership with CoolIT and the use of a massive and exclusive 18cm EPIC cooler.
Samsung Series 9 A bold move into Apple territory selling its laptops in North America for the last few years, and while those machines haven’t been bad, they haven’t been remarkable either. But with the Series 9, the company is putting forth a laptop that demands notice. From its sub–three pound, super-slim, and sexy chassis to its spare, sophisticated style, it looks like nothing so much as a MacBook Air. It’s a bold, high-profile move by a company that’s been firmly rooted in the mainstream.
in the lab 3TB Hard Drive Hustle The competition among ultralarge-capacity drives spins up AFTER A LONG STAY at the 2TB highwater mark, manufacturers finally started trickling out 3TB drives in late 2010. For a quick recap of the 2TB bootable partition–size limit and the factors necessary to surpass it (64-bit OS, GPT partitions, UEFI), see our review of the 3TB Caviar Green (http:// bit.ly/dYo2Fs).
BENCHMARKS Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (3TB) Seagate Barracuda XT (3TB) WD Caviar Green (3TB) HDTUNE 4.01 Avg Read (MB/s) 119.5 124 101.5 Random-Access Read (ms) 15.7 17.2 15.7 Avg Write (MB/s) 118.5 122 96.9 Random-Access Write (ms) 15.7 17.3 15.6 Burst Write (MB/s) 315.6 284.8 183.1 PREMIERE PRO ENCODE (SEC) 435 447 530 PCMARK VANTAGE 7,663 6,975 4,910 Best scores are bolded.
in the lab Sony Vaio F21 Beautiful 3D laptop with mediocre graphics performance WHAT YOU DO ALONE in your man cave is your business. If you want to put on a pair of 3D glasses and practice the Na’vi language, more power to you. Sony’s F Series Vaio 3D can make that dream a reality in style, but it lacks the graphics power to deliver first-class stereoscopic 3D gaming.
Among the Playbook’s few redeeming features is its gorgeous—albeit smaller—screen. Blackberry Playbook Pretty impressive—if you don't like email, apps, or games FOR THE RECORD, the Maximum PC Lab keeps both feet planted squarely in the present tense. We don’t believe anyone should buy hardware based solely on its future potential.
in the lab Zotac’s take on the GTX 550 Ti hits the sweet spot for HTPC systems, but gaming performance is lackluster. Sapphire’s Radeon HD 6790 is surprisingly capable, but still an oddball GPU. Attack of the $150 GPUs AMD and Nvidia offer up new videocards for budget buyers NOT CONTENT TO VIE only for the top of the graphics card heap, Nvidia and AMD are both racing to capture the $150 GPU market. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a new chip aimed squarely at the budget GPU market.
full-size DisplayPort 1.2 connector, and an HDMI 1.4a port. The card can fully support three displays, though if you want three 30-inch monsters, they’ll need DisplayPort 1.2 capability. In the end, Sapphire’s Radeon HD 6790 offers decent enough performance in its class, but bear in mind, for just a few bucks more, you can pick up an HD 6850. 8 VERDICT Sapphire Radeon HD 6790 $150, www.sapphiretech.
in the lab Sentey Arvina GS-6400 Big form factor, big value has a lot of things going for it, especially given its $89 price tag. The question is whether a bunch of fans and a ton of space are worth the inclusion of some cheapo parts and a somewhat tacky appearance. Sentey calls the GS-6400 a “high tower,” but we call it a mid-tower. The Arvina has a steel frame and side panels, with plastic trim and a mesh front panel.
The hard drive trays are handy and colorful, but feel flimsy. The two 8cm side intake fans cool the GPU area. With the steel side panels on and the LEDs powered, the Arvina is a pretty sleek-looking case, although opinions about its appearance were mixed in the Lab. maximumpc.
in the lab Intel 320 Series 300GB SSD One of the best 3Gb/s SATA drives we’ve tested IN LAST MONTH’S ROUNDUP of solid-state drives, Intel’s entrant bore Marvell’s 9174 6Gb/s SATA controller, rather than an Intel one. While the Intel 510 SSD performed respectably among its 6Gb/s SATA peers, it’s not the top-to-bottom Intel drive fans have been waiting for.
in the lab The VAIO L Series is wall-mountable, making it a perfect media viewing station. With a 2.8GHz Core i7-860 under the hood and 3D Blu-ray support, MSI’s Wind Top has some muscle. Three Cheers for All-in-One These systems possess surprising polish, but can their innards meet our lofty expectations? USB 3.0? Sandy Bridge? 3D Blu-ray movies and games? Subwoofers? It looks like the lowly all-in-one PC is finally maturing into a class of system that we can get behind.
HP’s Touch Smart is fast, polished, and has a nice screen. It’s also the only system of the batch that tilts up and down. Call of Duty 4 test, which is the fastest of the three systems reviewed here. What’s that, you say? You think 35 frames per second for a 3-year-old game isn’t all that great? Well, welcome to the world of all-in-ones.
in the lab Logitech Z906 5.1 Speaker System A few key features shy of stellar 5.1-channel speaker system was legendary for its beefy amp and beastly subwoofer, its plethora of optical and digital input options, and its ability to decode popular surroundsound codecs. The 5.1-channel Z906 speaker system taking its place at the top of Logitech’s audio lineup is every bit its equal. The Z-5500, however, hit the market in 2004.
in the lab Zalman CNPS11X Flying V: Great guitar. Gimmicky hockey maneuver. Underwhelming cooling configuration JUST FIVE MONTHS AGO, we reviewed Zalman’s superb CNPS9900Max, which marked a return to the circle-of-fins look that has marked the big Z’s bestperforming CPU coolers of the past half-decade or so.
Harman AKG GHS 1 A stylish headset from a newcomer to the field HARMAN’S AUDIO PRODUCTS , which comprise brands like JBL, AKG, and Harman/Kardon are known as much for their high-tech aesthetic as for their audio quality and have never included a gaming headset—until now. We were excited to get the GHS 1 into the Lab to find out whether the designconscious company’s first foray into the gaming peripheral landscape was a success.
in the lab Razer Onza Tournament Edition Razer's gamepad is finally out— was it worth the wait? WE’RE NO FAN OF THE CONSOLE-IFICATION of PC gaming, either, but you’ve got to admit, Microsoft has had the gamepad market locked since it introduced the USB Xbox 360 controller more than fi ve years ago. In that respect, it’s not really surprising that the first real challenger to Microsoft’s super-solid wired controller is, itself, an Xbox 360 controller: the Razer Onza.
Portal 2 Gordon Freeman who? LET’S GET ONE THING straight right away: Portal 2 is not Portal 1. Don’t get us wrong: Portal 2 is still completely brilliant—just in entirely different ways. If Portal 1 was an incredibly witty one-liner, then Portal 2 is a whole night of stand-up. That is to say, it’s still smart, subversive, and riotously funny, but it does manage to drag in a couple areas—if only briefly.
in the lab DCS A-10C and Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Finally, something for flight-sim junkies to get excited about! IT’S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME since flightsim fans were treated to something new and exciting that celebrates their passion. Hell, most virtual flight jockeys are still piloting relics such as Falcon 4.0 (first released in 1998), Lock On, and FSX 10.
everything about this HOTAS looks, feels, and behaves in an authentic manner and helps push DCS A-10C to the edge of the envelope, where game, simulation, and reality blur together. The HOTAS consists of separate throttle and flight stick modules that connect to your PC via USB: Just plug them in, along with your rudder pedals of choice, and you are good to go—the controls are preconfigured to work with the DCS A-10C out of the box (and a control map for the HOTAS is included in the A-10C manual).
in the lab AMBER BOUMAN ONLINE FEATURES EDITOR Big Screens, Big Trouble Testing is easy compared to all the hassles of setting up a bunch of big screens THIS MONTH’S MAXIMUM PC CHALLENGE proved to be quite a timeconsuming endeavor. For once, getting product in was the easy part. It was in the setup and software where things got difficult.
comments you write, we respond WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON... > DDR 1333 vs.
[NEXT MONTH] supervisor, but was told one wasn’t available. So, I went down to my neighborhood AT&T store and explained my situation. The AT&T rep in the store called AT&T and got my unlimited data plan restored. The current situation with wireless carriers is in a sad sate with regard to the consumers. Oh, and by the way, the Atrix is by far the best phone I’ve ever had. –Tom Prossima High-Speed Greed II I enjoyed and related to your editorial on AT&T. If you have not come across a recent U.S.
best of the best a part-by-part guide to building a better pc Sponsored by HARDWARE Get the latest prices at Newegg.com THE REST OF THE BEST High-End Processor Intel 3.46GHz Core i7-990X www.intel.com Budget Processor Intel 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K www.intel.com LGA1155 Motherboard Asus P8P67 Deluxe www.asus.com LGA1366 Motherboard Asus Rampage III Extreme www.asus.com AM3 Motherboard MSI 890FXA-GD70 www.msi.com Price-No-Object GPU Asus GeForce GTX 590 www.asus.com Performance GPU Asus ENGTX570 www.asus.
