Ever since its initial launch back in March 2010, NVIDIA has constantly been updating its Fermi line of graphics cards. The problem back then was then when you talk about Fermi cards, you talk about high-end market products which have relatively high price tags. With that in mind, NVIDIA has come up with two video cards – the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 and GT 430. As the names suggest, GTS and GT are NVIDIA’s branding for the entry level market. It’s no surprise that the cards are aimed at budget gamers and HTPC users.

Side by side comparison

GF106 Block Diagram

On a hardware level, the GTS 450 makes use of the GF106 architecture. It has four SM units each with 48 CUDA Cores each adding up to a total of 192 CUDA Cores. It has 32 Texture Units and 16 ROP Units.

GF108 Block Diagram

On the other hand, the GT 430 utilizes the GF108 architecture. It has two SM units each with 48 CUDA Cores adding up to a total of 96 CUDA Cores. It has 16 Texture Units and 4 ROP Units.

Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)

This is what the Streaming Multiprocessor units look like upon closer inspection. This is only a diagram what’s inside the hardware. Do not open your video cards and expect to see this!

Why Is My E-Mail Landing in Friends’ Spam Boxes?
Maybe because you misspelled Viagra.

Seriously, some spelling checkers get suspicious when they see “cute” spellings or unusual characters inserted into words, so it’s best to avoid these.

When possible, use your domain’s outgoing mail server. An outgoing server whose name doesn’t match your domain name raises a red flag, unless it’s a well-known one, like Gmail or Yahoo.

Also, avoid links to graphics on the Web. And visit Robtex (www.robtex.com) to see if your IP address or host name is blacklisted. It happens, even to the innocent.

Is It Safe to Overclock My CPU?
Unless you know what you’re doing, no. A CPU is rated at a certain speed for a reason. The excess heat generated by an overclocked CPU can reduce your PC’s stability, shorten the CPU’s lifespan, damage other components, and introduce data errors. You can counter heat problems with more and better fans and larger heat sinks—but again, you need to know what you’re doing.

If you want to take the risk anyway, first read Kirk Steers’s article, “The Cheapskate’s Guide to Supercharging Your PC” (find.pcworld.com/59720).
Should I Turn Off My PC at Night?
Leaving your PC on permits your system to scan for viruses and to back up data while you sleep, and it lets you avoid the hassle of booting in the morning. But shutting down saves power. What’s more, Windows tends to build up garbage and problems as it runs, and a fresh boot a day keeps the errors away.

You should be aware that compromises are possible. One option is to hibernate the PC, which won’t get rid of the garbage but will save as much power as shutting down the PC. Alternatively, you can put the PC into sleep mode (also known as Standby), which saves some power (though not as much as hibernation does) and allows your PC to wake up very quickly.

If you use the sleep or hibernate option, you can run maintenance programs in the middle of the night. Can I Boot From a USB Drive?
USB flash drives make good emergency and alternative boot devices—unlike CDs and DVDs, they’re writable. Put Linux on a flash drive, and you don’t have to fool with hard-drive dual-boot options.

And you can probably do it. Most modern PCs can boot from a USB device if you set them up to do so.

You’ll need to go into your hardware setup screen to find out whether your system will let you boot from a USB device. When you boot up, watch for a message about entering the setup program. Once in Setup, look for a Boot menu and then for USB options on that menu. You may need to enable booting from a USB drive and place it ahead of the hard drive in the boot order.

What can you boot from a USB drive? Not Windows XP or Vista, which only work from an internal drive. But DOS, Windows PE, programs that are built around Windows PE, and many flavors of Linux will boot from USB devices.

What Are the Best Sites for DRM-Free Music?
I’ve taken the pledge! I will no longer buy music in any form that limits the devices I can play it on once it’s mine. For that matter, I won’t buy music from online stores that insist on installing software on my PC, either.

And upholding that pledge is easier than ever, thanks to sites like Amazon, Audio Lunchbox, and eClassical.

Amazon.com: The big retailer gets the big labels with the big artists. As I write this, Sony BMG is the lone music studio still fighting the DRM-free movement. Amazon offers plenty of artists, both well-known and obscure. Amazon wants you to install its download manager, but it doesn’t insist that you do so. Annoyance: Each selection is handled as a separate purchase—so if you buy ten individual tracks, you have to plod through the purchasing forms ten times.

Audio Lunchbox (audiolunchbox.com): The selection leans heavily toward little-known independents, many of whom deserve a larger audience. The familiar names tend to be well-aged, including greats like Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Jimi Hendrix. Prices for single tracks and albums are a bit higher here than at Amazon, but subscription services can save you a bundle if you buy a lot. Annoyance: You can’t get a single track without being told how much better off you’d be with a subscription.

Classical options: If you’re part of the “Don’t applaud between movements” crowd, you have two excellent specialty sites. eClassical (eclassical.com) offers a huge collection of respected and eccentric recordings at bargain prices—the complete Brandenburg Concertos for $6, for example. But even better for aficionados, the venerable Deutsche Grammophon label (deutschegrammophon.com) now sells its magnificent recordings online in full-throttle 320-mbps MP3 transfers. Selections aren’t cheap— tracks can cost more than $2 each—but hey, its Deutsche Grammophon. (Full disclosure: I’m married to a professional classical musician, and some of the opinions expressed here are hers.)

How Do I Automate Boilerplate Text in My E-Mail?
You can transform anything that you type regularly—such as multiple signatures or your street address—into boilerplate text so that you can insert it anywhere without retyping. Here’s how to set up boilerplate text in Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or any Web-based e-mail system.

Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail support multiple “signatures” that you can insert into any message at will. To set up one of these automated text blocks in Outlook 2003 or 2007, assuming that you aren’t using Word for e-mail, select Tools•Options•Mail Format, and then click the Signatures button. (If you are using Word, you can enlist that program’s AutoCorrect tool to perform boilerplate work.)

In Outlook Express or Windows Mail, simply select  Tools•Options•Signatures.

To insert boilerplate text into a message while using any of these programs, all you have to do is select Insert•Signature and then choose the right signature.

If you do your Web surfing with the Firefox browser, you can use the free Signature add-on (available for downloading at find.pcworld.com/59721) to add boilerplate to Gmail or any other Web-based e-mail program.

How Long Can a PC Go Unprotected, and Yet Uninfected?
In 2004, tests by the SANS Institute Internet Storm Center suggested that a Windows PC with no firewall, no security software, and no router would likely be infected within 20 minutes.

But security expert Ben Edelman calls the SANS 2004 data “too pessimistic.” He says, “These days, infections tend to originate via Web exploits, rather than port-scanning worms. Plus, many glaring security gaps have been closed.”

But how long can an unprotected user wander around online before visiting the wrong Web page? According to a McAfee SiteAdvisor study, “The average search engine user performs 43.1 searches per month and clicks on 2.3 results per search—yielding one dangerous site every 8 days, on average.”

Part 1

Part 2

What’s the Easiest Way to Back Up Data?
Over the Internet—since that approach gives you both a constant, background backup and physical separation.

The easiest Internet backup service I know of is MozyHome (mozy.com/home). Once you set it up, it quietly backs up your files in the background as you work. The first, full backup can take days (you didn’t ask me for the fastest way to back up data, did you?), but you’ll barely notice it after that. Unlimited backup (for one PC) costs just $5 a month.

Should I Scan From a Print or From the Negative?
In theory, you should use the negative. It’s the best version of the picture.

In reality, however, not all scanners support transparencies (negatives and slides). And some that do—my Epson 2480, for instance—don’t produce a satisfactory image that way.

Also, if you’re scanning only a few shots, rather than an entire roll, you’ll find it easier to identify the ones you want from prints than from negatives.

If you do scan from negatives, use a resolution of 2000 dots per inch or greater. A negative contains more information than a print does, but packs the information into a much smaller space.

What Is the Best Way to Create Strong Passwords?
No encryption is secure if the password you use is easy to guess, and these days any word in the dictionary falls into that category—as do your kids’ names.

So use a long string of seemingly random letters and numbers. Make up an easy-to-remember but impossible-to-figure-out formula using family names, birthdays, and memorable words. For instance, you might use your kids’ name spelled backward, with every third letter capitalized, followed by your birthday squared— except that a formula printed in PC World might not be safe either. Come up with your own formula.

For more on the subject, read our forum topic, “How to Create a Strong Password” (find.pcworld.com/59719).

You shouldn’t depend on a single password everywhere you go. Use different ones for various Web sites and bank accounts. Write the passwords—or better yet, the formulas for coding them—on a business card, and carry it in your wallet in case you forget.

Or download Password Safe, a free, open-source password manager, from find. pcworld.com/59831. Then you’ll need to remember only the password for Password Safe itself.

How Can I Get My Wi-Fi Signal to the Far End of My House?
I have plenty of potential solutions to this problem, but no guarantees.

First, try moving the router. The higher you put it, the better. Keep it away from wireless phones, microwave ovens, washers, dryers, and large CD collections.

If that approach doesn’t help, consider buying one of the following items:

A large external antenna. These are very easy to set up and put to work.

A range booster. These tend to be a pain to set up. You have to plug them directly into a PC so you can optimize all of those pesky Wi-Fi settings, and then you have to find a good location for them on the outskirts of your router’s range and near an AC outlet.

An 802.11n router. Installing one solved my range problem—and without a single 802.11n-equipped PC in the house.

Do I Need a 64-Bit PC—And If So, Why?
No, you don’t. Not yet, anyway. And probably not for a long time.

A 64-bit CPU has two strengths: It can run 64-bit apps, and it can handle more than 4GB of RAM. Of course, a 64-bit system won’t run unless you have a 64-bit operating system (like Vista 64-bit).

In the indefinite future 64-bit applications will probably run faster than their 32-bit counterparts, at least for CPU-heavy jobs like video editing. But as yet almost no 64-bit Windows apps exist. Luckily, the 64-bit versions of XP and Vista support 32-bit programs, too.

More RAM improves performance, but we’re not yet at a point where we need more than 4GB. Undoubtedly, you will eventually need more, but you’ll want a whole new computer by then.

Finally, Vista 64-bit has even more compatibility problems than Vista 32-bit has, starting with the fact that it won’t run 16-bit Windows or DOS programs. And since it comes with a 64-bit version of Windows Explorer, standard Explorer extensions won’t work.

Wait a few years. Eventually, 64-bit will become an intelligent choice.

Why Should I Buy a Desktop Instead of Laptop?
If you don’t need a laptop’s portability, a number of factors favor a desktop.

Better price-to-power ratio: You can buy a cheap laptop, and you can buy a cheap desktop, but a cheap desktop has the power of an expensive laptop.

Cheaper ownership costs: Because they are made from off-the-shelf components, desktops are cheaper to upgrade and to repair. They’re less likely to need repairs, too. No one ever drove away after putting a desktop PC on the roof of their car and forgetting it was there.

Less likely to be stolen: Desktops don’t disappear during a bathroom break in a café or a nap at the airport.

Ergonomically friendlier: You can’t have good posture if your keyboard and your monitor are just inches apart, although you can get around this problem by plugging a full keyboard and a mouse into your laptop whenever practical.

On the other hand, laptops use less electricity, and you can take them places.

How Can I Get My PC to Boot at a Scheduled Time?
If you can arrange for your computer to boot at a scheduled time, you can shut it down at the end of the workday and then come back to a freshly booted PC the next morning—or even to a freshly booted PC that has just completed a virus scan.

Your PC’s setup program may let you schedule a boot. To find out, start your computer and watch the screen. Before Windows loads, a message will tell you which key to press to enter Setup. Once the program has loaded, search its menus for an appropriately named option.

If the option isn’t there, consider using Windows’ Scheduled Tasks tool to establish a regular wake-up call for your system. This call will rouse your PC from hibernation or standby mode (called sleep in Vista), but not if the machine is fully shut down.

You’ll find the Task Scheduler inside the Start menu’s System Tools submenu; to get there, select All Programs•Accessories•System Tools. Creating a new task is easy and obvious.

To make any task a wake-up task, check the Wake the computer to run this task option. In XP, that option resides in the Settings tab of the task’s Properties dialog box. In Vista, it’s on the Conditions tab. Scheduled Tasks won’t work in XP unless you have a log-on password.

What Features Are Most Impor-tant in a Digital Camera?
Assuming that you aren’t a professional photographer, consider these essentials:

Resolution: More is better, but don’t get hung up on it. A 4-megapixel picture makes great prints, though it doesn’t leave much flexibility for producing outstanding prints after cropping.

Optical Zoom: Digital zoom is essentially a fancy term for “no zoom.”

Short lag time: You see the perfect shot and press the button; 2 seconds later, your subject has left the frame and your camera clicks. The shorter the lag time, the less often this will happen.

SD Card slot: Since they’re the industry standard, SD Cards are inexpensive and widely available, and you won’t have trouble finding readers for them.

Right size: Does it fit comfortably in your hand and in your pocket? Are the dials large enough that you can set them easily? Is the LCD large enough?

Part 1

Part 3

Over the past 25 years, readers have asked PC World thousands of questions about technology. Some —like “Why won’t DOS recognize my dot-matrix printer?”—have lost a bit of their urgency. But even as the standards and specs change, the central questions of the tech savvy remain remarkably consistent: How do I get my devices to work together, how can I work more safely, and why is Windows so damned annoying?

How we come up with the answers, though, is changing. In the past, responses appeared in the form of personal messages from editors or in my column, Answer Line. But the Web lets us invite you into the conversation. We’ve put all 25 of these questions, with my answers, into PC World.com’s community wiki. I’ve already received some great feedback from our community members. Want to join the discussion? Head to http://forums.pcworld.com. You’ll find documents dedicated to each question.

Is There a Downside to Using Free Security Programs?
Yes, but not so problematic a downside as to make free security programs unacceptable. You lose the convenience of a one-program-does-all security suite. And companies that don’t charge you seldom offer great tech support. (Then again, neither do some companies that do charge you. In fact, some of the biggest hassles readers report about security programs involve billing snafus.) Also, the last time PC World looked at spyware fighters (to see the full report, visit find.pcworld. com/59713), the free programs performed relatively poorly.

Yet if you know what you’re doing, a software combination like Comodo’s fire-wall (find.pcworld.com/59714), AVG’s free antivirus (find.pcworld.com/59715), and Spyware Blaster (find.pcworld.com/ 59716) will probably keep you safe.

Not all free security programs can be trusted. Some are scams and amount to malware themselves. So don’t use one unless you’ve heard good things about it from a reliable source.

For just such a source, consult Preston Gralla’s “15 Great, Free Security Programs” (find.pcworld.com/59717).

How Can I Make Vista’s UAC Less Annoying?
Many Vista users hate User Account Control, the security system that pops up a warning every time they try to do something as serious as installing software or as innocuous as changing the system’s clock. Luckily, a free program called TweakUAC can turn UAC off for Administrator accounts but leave it on for everyone else. Just run the program (which you can download from find.pcworld.com/59829), select Switch UAC to the quiet mode, and click OK.

But this expedient has its risks. Vista deems this setting a problem and so notifies you. Sure, you can turn off the warnings or learn to ignore them—but either way, you risk missing other, more important warnings.

Another option: If you use Vista Pro or Ultra, you can fine-tune your system’s UAC settings. Select Start, type secpol.msc, and press <Enter>. Navigate the left pane to Local Security Settings• Local Policies•Security Options, and scroll to the bottom of the right-hand pane for several User Account Control options. Experiment with them until you find something to your liking.

Why Can’t My XP PC See My Vista PC on the Network?
Microsoft designed Vista’s networking to be both secure and simple. So much for what they intended. Some networking headaches are specific to Vista, and others existed before Vista and continue to exist. To eliminate problems of the latter type, read, “What to Do When Network PCs Don’t See Eye to Eye” (find.pcworld. com/59718).

If that article doesn’t solve your PC’s problem, the issue may hinge on how you share the computer’s folders. Vista’s default setting lets you share folders only with yourself.

Right-click a folder you want to share, and select Share. If Vista responds with the message “This folder is already shared,” click Change sharing permissions.

In the resulting File Sharing dialog box, type everyone into the unnamed field next to the Add button, and press <Enter>. The word “Everyone” will appear in the list of people with whom you can share the folder. On the right side of the dialog box, select the permission level you want to assign to people sharing the data. Click Share to close the dialog box (which may take some time to process your request).

Is TV Burn-In a Real Problem?
Yes, it is—especially for plasma and CRT sets. A static image that remains on screen too long can burn into the screen’s phosphors and remain there, possibly permanently. And if a portion of the screen goes unused for extended periods of time—for instance, if you watch a lot of TV programs in “normal” (that is, 4:3 aspect ratio) mode—the outline of the black bars that your set uses to frame the image could become a permanent part of your television.

If you have a plasma TV, you may want to restrict the amount of time you spend watching stations with permanent logos or ticker tapes, or watching in 4-by-3 mode— or you may want to switch from black bars to the TV’s gray bar option. This is especially true during the first few months you own the set; the older a TV gets, the less likely it is to suffer from burn-in. If you like older TV shows or movies made before the mid1950s, and you prefer to watch programs as they were meant to be seen, you should probably not buy a plasma set. For more information on handling aspect ratios and avoiding burn-in, read Becky Waring’s article, “How to Get the Most Out of Your HDTV” (find.pcworld.com/59830).

LCDs aren’t as susceptible to retaining images as plasmas are, but it can happen. I know of one instance where a new LCD television was permanently damaged by very heavy 4-by-3 viewing (about 6 hours a day). Of course, since they lack phosphors, LCD screens can’t suffer from true burn-in. Call it “image retention” instead, but for all practical purposes it’s the same thing.

With any of these technologies, lowering the set’s brightness and contrast improves your odds of avoiding damage.

As far as I know, DLP sets don’t suffer from image retention problems.

Can Failing to Drain Batteries Completely Before Recharging Them Still Cause Problems?
No. Only nickel cadmium batteries exhibited the notorious “memory effect.” In fact, today’s lithium ion batteries have the opposite problem: Draining the battery can shorten its life. So avoid letting the charge drop below 10 percent.

Heat affects lithium ion batteries, too. A laptop battery will last longer if you remove it before running the notebook for lengthy periods on AC power.

But anything you do merely delays the inevitable. These batteries start wearing out on the factory floor, and eventually they’ll go bad even if they never see an electric current. Remember that before you buy a spare battery as protection against the day your current one dies.

Part 2

Part 3

Hybrid Hard Drives
Innovation: First hard drives with a built-in NAND flash memory cache.
Benefit: Power savings and performance boost for laptops. Samsung and Seagate each have shipped new hard drives that combine traditional hard-disk media with a flash cache to improve both reliability and performance. Our tests of the Samsung Spinpoint MH80 and the Seagate Momentus 5400 PSD showed that the 256MB NAND flash cache provides some clear benefits—particularly in power saving and read speed.

Eye-Fi Card
Innovation: Allows digital cameras to upload wirelessly to photo-sharing sites or your PC.
Benefit: Wi-Fi-enabled SD Card bridges digital photography’s wireless divide.
The Eye-Fi Card (www.eye.fi) does what few digital cameras have done, and what no digital camera has done well: enable wireless uploading to a photo-sharing site. Pop the 2GB SD Card into your camera and fire off a few shots, and the Wi-Fi-enabled card transmits the images to your preferred site—and, if you like, to your PC. The setup is simple, the device imposes no limitations on the image size, and the uploads happen automatically. And you can use the card at any Wi-Fi hotspot that does not require a splash screen.

Panasonic TH-42PZ700U
Innovation: Packs full 1080p highdefinition resolution into today’s most popular size for flat-screen televisions, 42 inches.
Benefit: Stellar image quality.

Though 1080p LCD sets quickly became commonplace in 2007, showing 1080 vertical lines on a plasma TV this small remained technically difficult. Panasonic’s efforts paid off: In our tests the TH-42Z700U earned stellar image-quality marks. With highdefinition content from Blu-Ray and HD DVD sources, the picture is phenomenal; and because it’s a plasma, even standard-definition programs look pretty good.

Media Servers
Innovation: These HDD-packing players feature multiple in/out ports and support a wide range of digital media formats.
Benefit: These boxes can store thousands of movies, music, and photos and then connect directly to your TV/ home entertainment system for playback without having to go through your PC.

The idea of hard drive-based media servers isn’t necessarily new, but compressed media formats are gaining ground. Thanks to compression technology used for creating DivX and Xvid files, you can compress a two-hour DVD movie into a 700MB file without sacrificing much audio or video quality. These boxes can connect to a PC via a number of ways—LAN, wi-fi, or USB—for file transfers into an internal drive, and then play them directly on your TV. DViCO’s TViX players (such as the HD M-4100SH) also sports two USB host ports for connecting other drives for more storage, file transfers, or an external DVD drive for reading/playing DVD discs.

Zoho Notebook
Innovation: Web-only app stores just about any kind of content and allows you to share it with anyone.
Benefit: More full-featured than competing online tools. AdventNet’s Zoho tools include everything from wiki software to customer relations management and project management applications, many of them free. Notebook (free, in public beta; find.pcworld.com/59300) continues the winning streak. You can enter text, graphics, audio, video, and embedded content from other sites onto your notebook’s pages—or use the page as a single word processing document or spreadsheet. Put together everything on a certain subject, and you’re ready to share your work with online compatriots.

‘In Rainbows’ by Radiohead
Innovation: Band allows its fans to pay whatever amount they want for this new album, starting at zilch.
Benefit: Approach calls the bluff of illegal downloaders, who say they’re happy to pay artists but not music studios.
The recording industry is desperate for new ideas about how to sell music. Radiohead’s pay-whatyou-want approach may not work for all acts and the band has remained mum on reports that 62 percent of early downloaders paid nothing for the group’s new album—but the strategy certainly does one thing that most music companies seem loath to do: It respects fans. And all of the voluntary fees go directly to Radiohead, not to a publisher.

Microsoft Popfly
Innovation: Lets you use Microsoft’s Silverlight platform to create Web mashups.
Benefit: Though Popfly is still in early beta, its operation is clearer and its display is more attractive than that of the similar Yahoo Pipes tool.
If you ever played with Legos as a kid, then you should be able to assemble a Web mashup in Popfly. No coding know-how needed—using Popfly is as simple as choosing content sources (such as pictures, video, or news feeds from various online sources) and connecting them to a display model (such as a video player, a dynamic box for text, or a game of whack-a-mole that pops up pictures, for instance). Voilà, you
have your mashup. You can embed the resulting creation in a blog entry or Web page, or just share its URL so others can admire your work. (See find.pcworld.com/59366 for more information.)

Ask.com
Innovation: Melds comprehensive search results more coherently than competing universal searches do.
Benefit: Proves that not every site needs to mimic Google, and that a venerable search engine company can do cool new stuff. Ask.com, a complete redesign of the former Ask Jeeves site, asks very little but gives a lot via its thoughtfully designed interface, including search suggestions as you type. With one query you can retrieve traditional search results as well as news, images, blogs, video, and more.
Once you’ve searched, you can filter the results with useful suggestions to home in on just what you were looking for. The site is visually minimalist, but you can skin it for a new look. If privacy is a concern, AskEraser wipes away private data that search engines typically store (read more at find. pcworld.com/59305).

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Part2

By Billy Joe I. Allardo

AMD’s Spider platform is designed to work optimally by working the Phenom processors and chipsets with ATI’s new HD graphics cards. Here’s a basic run-down of what you’ll need to build a high-end rig based on AMD’s quad-core Phenom X4 processor.

Processor
AMD Phenom X4 9600 2.3GHz

As the system’s central figure, the processor basically dictates what other components belong in the system. Nowadays, a multi-core processor is a must-have inside every new performance PC to ensure that the system can hold its ground when it comes to multitasking environments and resource-heavy applications. The Phenom X4 9600 features a 65nm process that the results to less power use and heat emission and a HyperTransport bandwidth of 1.8GHz. Attach a capable cooling solution and this quad core processor has enough power to handle the workload.

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-MA790-FX-DQ6

The motherboard is the backbone of the PC, so it is important to secure one that provides the best possible features and support for future upgrades, such as multi-core processors, multiple graphics cards and whatever level of connectivity you require. Currently the top dog of AMD’s 700-series chipset, the AMD 790FX chip allows the board to prop up Socket AM2+ processors plus PCI-Express 2.0-based graphics cards that support ATI’s CrossFire X multi-GPU technology. This board also has a number of expansion slots, connectivity ports for external Serial ATA devices, and four PCI Express x16 slots for a multi-GPU configuration.

Graphics Card
ATI Radeon HD 3850 1GB

The Radeon HD 3850, along with the other graphics cards built using ATI’s R600-based cores, slipped to the mainstream bracket after the brawnier Radeon HD 4-series hit the market halfway through this year. Still, the ATI Radeon HD 3850 offers enough punch to take on tough graphics processing tasks and HD videos such as the Blu-ray format. If one card isn’t enough, you can spring for an identical card and run them together on a Crossfire X configuration, which is supported by the motherboard. That should be easier to do from here on out, ever since the emergence of newer HD 4-Series cards have made these performers more affordable.

Hard Drive
Seagate ST3250620NS 250GB

The current crop of games and high-definition movies will require storage. This Seagate drive features a 250GB capacity—probably the minimum you’d want to get for the long run (although more is always better). But it features a reasonably fast 7200rpm spindle and a 16MB cache for quick access times and application loading.

Memory
Corsair DOMINATOR TWIN2x2048-8500C5D2GB 1066MHz

Having at least 2GBs worth of performance memory is, in a way or two, an investment. Especially now that the use of dual- and quad-core processors is becoming prevalent, adequate memory with a high bandwidth is critical for optimizing performance. The bandwidth of this Corsair memory module pair adequately matches the multi-core processor we’re using. These modules are also built with heatsinks to keep down the heat.

Chassis
Cooler Master CM960

The chassis holds everything in, so make sure that it has enough space for your hardware – including future expansions. Intake vents and cooling fans are important for maintaining a stable temperature, while additional connectivity and expansion slots–such as multiple dive bays and accessible connectivity ports–help you in the long run. The Cooler Master CM690 has a spacious interior, and features removable HDD racks, and can fit up to seven 120mm fans.

Power Supply Unit
Cooler Master Real Power M-850

A higher wattage gives the PSU a higher power ceiling, allowing it to accommodate more hardware with high-powered demands. With 850W at its disposal, Cooler Master’s Real Power M-850 gives you the space for additional hardware in the future. It also offers support for high-end systems and features modular cables that allow you to remove unused lines to reduce cable clutter.

Optical Drive
Lite-On 4x BD-ROM

While a CD/DVD burner is almost standard now, a Blu-ray drive should set you up—entertainment wise– for the next few years. A Blu-ray burner also helps with backups; the ability to store more than 25-50GB of data on a disc and out of your hard drive never hurts.

We ran some tests in order to gauge the setup’s performance. It did well and the scores it garnered were far better than the ones posted by our current test bed in the productivity apps. It notched a 127 score in Sysmark 2007 and posted a whopping 3DMark 2006 score of 10586.

The setup got rates of 152 and 57.3 frames per second in First Encounter Assault Recon and Company of Heroes, respectively.

A Quick Look

Performance	( 1024 x 768 )
Sysmark 2007	127
3DMark 2006	10586
FEAR	152
Company of Heroes	57.3

]]> http://pcworld.com.ph/system-build-building-around-amd%e2%80%99s-spider-platform/feed/ 0 http://pcworld.com.ph/coverstory-todays-most-innovative-products-2/ http://pcworld.com.ph/coverstory-todays-most-innovative-products-2/#comments Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:45:06 +0000 blogadmin http://pcworld.com.ph/?p=168

March 16, 2008

Web apps that transcend the Web. PCs that redefine what a PC can do. And oh yeah, a certain cell phone you may have heard of. We pick 25 breakthroughs that you can get your hands on right now.

By the PC World Staff

Published in the March-April 2008 print edition of PC World Philippines

NetGear Digital EntertainerHD EVA8000

Innovation: Only streaming-media device to play protected files in both iTunes and Windows Media formats. Also handles 1080p HD video and acts as a DVR.

Benefit: It makes life easier in a multiple-DRM world. Netgear’s Internet media player busts through the DRM (digital rights management) wall, and even allows you to check your e-mail and watch YouTube videos on your television.

HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC

Innovation: The first all-in-one PC on the market to boast a touch-screen display.

Benefit: Does for the computer what the iPhone has done for mobile handsets. HP’s kitchen-friendly computer is beautifully designed, and its touch screen makes it suitable for use on a countertop as well as a desktop. HP also supplies a software interface, optimized for use with the touch screen,that ties into news, weather, and calendar details, among other daily-living information. The handy, customizable HP control panel lets you quickly access photos, launch a photo editor, and play back music, too.

HTC TyTN II

Innovation: Clever, unique hinge lets you slide the screen up at an angle.

Benefit: Well-positioned QWERTY keyboard results in what looks like a tiny notebook that you can use in your hands or rest on a table.

The tilting screen is the main innovation, but the TyTN II is one of the most powerful phones available, period. Want a quick rundown of the specs? How about the Windows Mobile 6 operating system, a large screen, 3G wireless connectivity, GPS, a three-megapixel camera, and the ability to talk to corporate BlackBerry servers? Top that, iPhone.

Facebook API

Innovation: Platform lets anyone with a good idea and some coding chops add real value to Facebook.

Benefit: Facebook taps developers’ creativity, in turn permitting Facebook users to customize their pages.
Sure, the killer app of Facebook has not been written yet—and many of the ones that exist now are kind of silly. But Facebook has been on a roll in more ways than one, having led to the creation of the Google-backed OpenSocial, which looks likely to result in open platforms’ becoming widespread. Common ground should spark lots of creativity, and it should keep the social networking and media buzz alive.

DeviceVM Splashtop

Innovation: Allows a PC to boot in a few seconds into a simple, secure interface with a Mozilla based browser.

Benefit: Lets you save energy by keeping your PC powered off when you’re not using it.

DeviceVM’s Linux-based technology allows you to boot into its Internet-appliance-like platform in a few seconds, so you don’t have to spend minutes waiting for Windows to start up. If all you want to do is check your Web mail account or make a Skype call, for example, you’ll save both time and watt-hours. Though the technology is currently shipping as a feature only in the Asus P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi AP motherboard, it should be more widely available in desktops, laptops, and additional motherboards in 2008.

Toshiba Portege R500

You don’t have to give up much at all to go truly lightweight. Thin takes on new meaning with the lightweight Portege R500. But you don’t have to sacrifice function for form with this laptop, which is equipped with an ultralow-voltage Intel processor. The stylish 2.4-pound ultraportable manages to include both a rewritable-DVD drive and a 12.1-inch LED-backlit display in its svelte, 0.77-inch-thick chassis. Enough said.

Data Robotics Drobo

Innovation: Highend, redundant storage for the masses.
Benefit: USB 2.0 storage appliance delivers RAID 5 benefits without mindnumbing complexity.
“Redundant array storage” and “sexy” don’t normally go hand-inhand. But Data Robotics’ unique Drobo ($500, find.pcworld.com/59296) offers high-end storage features in a sleek design with software that doesn’t require a master’s degree in IT to figure out. Drobo uses storage virtualization algorithms to provide many of the benefits of RAID 5, but is relatively easy to set up: Just place the drives into the case, plug in the USB cable, install the software, and you’re off.

March 16, 2008

Web apps that transcend the Web. PCs that redefine what a PC can do. And oh yeah, a certain cell phone you may have heard of. We pick 25 breakthroughs that you can get your hands on right now.

By the PC World Staff

Published in the March-April 2008 print edition of PC World Philippines

Make no mistake, the Web is taking over. applications are moving to browsers en masse, and technology to take Web apps offline promises to smooth the road ahead. and let’s not forget breakthrough devices advancing the Web-anywhere world: apple has redefined the phone, and One Laptop per Child’s sub-$200 laptop is delivering Internet-style collaboration to kids in developing nations. But innovation isn’t all on the Web; the PC is evolving as well. apple has reenvisioned backup, HP has created the first useful touch-screen PC, hybrid hard drives boost speed and battery life, and ultraportables have become even more useful. Chosen from the hundreds of products we reviewed in 2007, here are 25 that will change the way you work, communicate, and play this year—and beyond.

Google Gears

Innovation: Plug-in lets Web applications work offline.

Benefit: Tackles the single biggest hurdle to making Web apps truly convenient. Imagine firing up only one application—a Web browser—for handling all of your daily computer tasks. It’s a nice dream, but it has one major problem: What do you do when you’re offline? Google Gears, a Windows application now in beta, solves this problem by allowing service designers to create versions that still work when your PC doesn’t have an Internet connection. Google Reader, Zoho Writer (which added offline editing via Gears in late 2007) and online task manager Remember the Milk already use it, and Google is working to add Gears to other applications in its stable. (If you’re thinking of ditching desktop software entirely, read one writer’s take.)

Asus Eee PC

Best-selling ultraportable is light on the budget, heavy on features

A direct descendant of the OLPC XO and Intel’s low-cost Classmate PC, Asus’ Eee PC also runs on a simplified Linux OS for the consumer market. Performance users might get turned off by the lack of significant internal storage (4GB flash), but students and casual users will appreciate the Eee PC’s Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections, built-in webcam, card reader, three USB ports (for expansion), small, 7-inch frame, and a very budget-friendly price ranging from P17,000-19,000.

Apple iPhone

Innovation: Gee-whiz touch-screen interface and spartan case dial up a mobile revolution.

Benefit: Mac OS–simple software offering slide-and-glide access to bright, colorful menus sets this cell phone apart from its rivals.

The iPhone has taken some criticism for its shortcomings, mainly its lack of 3G connectivity, but you can’t deny that the sleek handset is innovative. Apple made navigating via a touch screen— sure to be a staple in future PDa phones and other small devices—intuitive and fun. iPhone’s Safari browser makes the handset a great mobile Web device (at least when you can get a Wi-F connection). And, sure, many phones play music, but Cover Flow cranks the iPhone up to 11 as a music player.

One Laptop Per Child XO

Innovation: $200 laptop does mesh networking, is sand-and waterproof, and works well in direct sunlight.

Benefit: What every child in the developing world needs; makes you ask, “When will my laptop be able to do that?” Innovation isn’t always about being bigger, better, and faster. One Laptop per Child’s Linux-powered XO laptop, with a 7.5-inch display—designed for children in poor countries—is one of the cheapest, most power-conscious, and sturdy notebooks on the planet. It also has features you might wish you had on your mainstream laptop. One clear standout: XO’s Wi-Fi allows it to function as a mesh-network node that can connect with other XOs, even when no Internet connection is available.

Time Machine, in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Innovation: Backs up changes hourly to an external drive behind the scenes, then lets you “go back in time” to restore data.

Benefit: Makes light work of the one task that every computer user should do and most people put off—and gives the function a pretty face, to boot. Time Machine is the killer feature in Leopard. You’ll either love or hate this wild and wacky space-and-time user interface, but performing backups will never be the same. One question: Why doesn’t Windows Vista have anything this simple and useful? (For more information about the new Mac OS, read our Leopard review.)

Airlive WMU-6500FS

Innovation: Storage box that lets you download from FTP and HTTP sites, and acts as an independent BitTorrent client without having to turn on your PC.

Benefit: Saves you energy by letting you keep your PC turned off during long download sessions. This network-attached storagebox is essentially an external hard drive enclosure that comes with network connectivity ports and a simple Linux-based interface for setting network tweaks and download queues. Costing around $100 (3.5-inch hard drive not included), this affordable multifunction external drive enclosure independently downloads from FTP, HTTP and Torrent clients, features a USB host function, and also serves as a wireless access point for 802.11b/g networks.