BUILD IT
HOME THEATER
& PC GAMING IN A
PC
REVIEWED
ASUS MARS II:
A FREAKY FAST, 2 GPU,
PC
SINGLE BOX 3 SLOT MONSTER!
MINIMUM BS • DECEMBER 2011 www.maximumpc.com
POWER
TACKLING THE UP YOUR
TABLET
CONUNDRUM
From OS to hardware
specs to functionality,
find the tablet that
meets YOUR needs!
4 STEPS
TO A MALWARE
8
FREE PC
TOP
TABLETS
REVIEWED!
PCs FOR COMPUTER PHOBES: YOUR DAYS OF BEING
TECH SUPPORT FOR LOVED ONES COULD BE OVER!
where we put stuff
table of contents
On the Cover
inside
DECEMBER 2011
Photography by
Mark Madeo QUICKSTART
08 NEWS
AMD debuts its FX chip; Windows
8 tablet makes noise at BUILD;
PCIe 4.0 will double bandwidth
by 2013.
FEATURES 14 THE LIST
11 of the most notable dual-GPU
cards.
20 HEAD TO HEAD
Google+ vs. Facebook.
R&D
ATI Radeon
HD 6990
54 WHITE PAPER
GE promises to deliver micro-
holographic disc technology by
2012, but will it be competitive?
55 AUTOPSY
How the Energizer Inductive
Charger delivers delicious juice
to our devices.
57 HOW TO
Create a flexible website with
Drupal Gardens; protect your
22 boot drive with BitLocker.
62 BUILD IT
22 38 46 We construct an HTPC that's
also a kick-ass gaming rig.
TABLET RID YOUR PC OF EASY DOES IT
CONUNDRUM MALWARE Tired of playing tech support
Which one? What kind? Do Viruses, Worms, Trojans.. oh for friends and family? End
I even need a tablet in the my! We show you four tricks those frantic calls for good LETTERS
first place? Our guide to the to send these nasties back to with three machines that even
latest features and models
answers all your questions.
Oz—for good. a computer-phobic cyberclutz
can master.
16 DOCTOR
94 COMMENTS
IN THE LAB
+
MORE
76 74 80 82
ASUS MARS II ULTRAPORTABLE CPU COOLER IoSAFE RUGGED
GRAPHICS CARD NOTEBOOKS ROUNDUP PORTABLE SSD
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 5
a thing or two about a thing or two
editorial
MAXIMUMPC Gordon
Mah Ung
EDITORIAL
Deputy Editor: Katherine Stevenson
Senior Editor: Gordon Mah Ung
Reviews Editor: Michael Brown
Features Editor: Markkus Rovito
Senior Associate Editor: Nathan Edwards
Online Managing Editor: Alex Castle
Online Features Editor: Amber Bouman
Online Associate Editor: Alan Fackler
Contributing Writers: Seamus Bellamy, Loyd Case, Brad Chacos, Tim
Ferrill, Nathan Grayson, Tom Halfhill, Paul Lilly, Thomas McDonald,
David Murphy, Quinn Norton, Bill O’Brien, Jon Phillips, Markkus Rovito
Copy Editor: Catherine Hunter
Podcast Producer: Andy Bauman
Editor Emeritus: Andrew Sanchez
ART
Art Director: Richard Koscher
Contributing Art Director: Boni Uzilevsky
Photo Editor: Mark Madeo
Contributing Photographer: Patrick Kawahara
Contributing Illustrators: Timothy Kucynda, Wesley Bedrosian
GORDON GOES TO APPLE
BUSINESS
Vice President, Consumer Media: Kelley Corten, kcorten@futureus.com
Vice President, Sales & Marketing: Rachelle Considine,
rconsidine@futureus.com
National Sales Director: Anthony Losanno, alosano@futureus.com
Regional Sales Manager, West Coast: Greg Ryder, gryder@futureus.
com
Regional Sales Manager, West Coast: Bryan Plescia, bplescia@ THERE IS AN ANCIENT Vulcan proverb how tablets respond to touch to try to
futureus.com that says, “Only Nixon could go to China.” generate metrics that it can present
Account Executive, East Coast: John Ortenzio, jortenzio@futureus.
com Well, I’m going to say something I to OS makers on how to enhance the
Account Executive, East Coast: Samantha Rady, srady@futureus.com
Advertising Coordinator: Austin Park, apark@futureus.com never thought I would: Apple’s iPad 2 user experience. Interestingly, Intel
offers a superior experience to many says that the classic minimum frame
Marketing & Sales Development Director: Rhoda Bueno
Circulation Director: Crystal Hudson of today’s tablets using Google’s Hon- rate of 60fps for games also applies to
Newsstand Director: Bill Shewey
Consumer Marketing Operations Director: Lisa Radler eycomb OS. In hardware? Certainly not. tablets.
Renewal & Billing Manager: Mike Hill In fact, the iPad 2’s hardware is clearly The upshot is that while the hard-
Marketing Associate: Robbie Montinola
inferior to that in several of the Honey- ware behind Honeycomb tablets has
PRODUCTION
Production Director: Michael Hollister comb tablets in this month’s cover sto- surpassed the iPad 2's, the user ex-
Production Manager: Larry Briseno ry—in camera quality, screen quality perience still ain’t there, folks. What’s
Senior Production Coordinator: Dan Mallory
Print Order Coordinator: Jennifer Lim and resolution, memory card support, crazy is that there's a company that
FUTURE US, INC. GPU, and a number of other areas. already understands that a smooth UI
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 What I’m referring to is the smooth- is the path to beating Apple’s iPad 2 ex-
Tel: 650-872-1642, www.futureus.com
as-butter interface of the iPad2 that perience: Microsoft. I’m not a Windows
President: John Marcom
Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: John Sutton glides along seamlessly without fail. 7 phone user, but I’ve been impressed
Vice President, Internet & Mobile Products: Mark Kramer Part of that is a sleight of hand, where by its gracefully smooth interaction.
General Counsel: Anne Ortel
Human Resources Director: Nancy Dubois Apple would rather sacrifice func- Almost, like, well an Apple mobile de-
SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE tionality such as true multitasking to vice—it’s no surprise that multitask-
Maximum PC Customer Care, give you a smoother experience. For ing wasn’t included with Windows 7
P.O. Box 5159, Harlan, IA 51593-0659
Website: www.maximumpc.com/customerservice example, I’ve been testing a Samsung Phone initially. But what happens if
Tel: 800-274-3421
Email: MAXcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com
Galaxy 10.1 for a few weeks now, and you take Windows 7, err, 8, and drop
while it is generally responsive and that smooth-as-butter experience onto
BACK ISSUES
Website: www.maximumpc.com/shop smooth, occasional hiccups and lag a tablet? You’ll have something that I
Tel: 800-865-7240 immediately tell my eyes that it’s not haven’t seen yet on a Honeycomb.
REPRINTS
Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400,
as smooth as the iPad 2. That’s despite
South San Francisco, CA 94080 the fact that Tegra 2-enhanced games Gordon Mah Ung is Maximum PC’s
Website: www.futureus.com
Tel: 650-872-1642, Fax 650-872-2207 on the Galaxy look far better than any- senior editor, senior hardware expert,
thing I’ve ever seen on the iPad 2. But and senior all-around muckraker.
what good is that if a jerky lag when
switching from a game to the supe-
Future produces carefully targeted maga- rior browser on a Honeycomb tablet
zines, websites and events for people with a
passion. We publish more than 180 maga- breaks the illusion of smoothness?
zines, websites and events and we export
or license our publications to 90 countries That’s a topic Intel has been pushing
across the world. of late: How to measure what people
Future plc is a public Chief Executive: Stevie Spring perceive as performance. Intel says
company quoted on the Non-executive Chairman: Peter Allen
London Stock Exchange. Group Finance Director: John Bowman
that with just a few tweaks to the OS
Tel +44 (0)20 7042 4000 (London) in response and memory bandwidth, it
www.futureplc.com Tel +44 (0)1225 442244 (Bath)
can make an Atom-based tablet seem
©2011 Future US, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine as fluid as the iPad 2. The company
may be used or reproduced without the written permission of
Future US, Inc. (owner). All information provided is, as far as Future has even built fancy rigs that video
(owner) is aware, based on information correct at the time of press.
Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly
with regard to products/services referred to in this magazine. We
welcome reader submissions, but cannot promise that they will
be published or returned to you. By submitting materials to us you
agree to give Future the royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive right submit your questions to: comments@maximumpc.com
to publish and reuse your submission in any form in any and all
media and to use your name and other information in connection
with the submission.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 7
quickstart the beginning of the magazine, where the articles are small
AMD’s Octo-
AMD’s new FX processor will feature the com-
pany’s new “modules,” each of which has two
cores with shared resources.
Cores Arrive
AMD’s FX represents the first major CPU
redesign since the original Athlon 64
IT’S NO SECRET that AMD’s example, a single-threaded
Phenom II cores haven’t held application would be able to
up against Intel’s onslaught of use most of the resources of
Core chips, but the company is the chip. The company is try-
hoping to gain a firmer footing ing to contrast this with Intel’s
against Intel’s parts when its individual cores using Hyper-
new FX chips, previously code- Threading. Hyper-Threading
named “Bulldozer,” make their creates a virtual processor
debut this fall. that shares almost all of the
AMD’s FX chips are being resources of the individual
fabbed on Global Foundries’ core.
new 32nm process. Aimed at Also new in Bulldozer is an dropping thing about Bulldoz- we don’t have numbers, we
enthusiasts, FX chips are a big improved turbo mode called er may be the price, though: suspect Intel’s premiere chips
departure from the company's Max Turbo. On the FX-8150 The company’s highest-end will outperform FX—and cost a
previous CPUs. The most ob- chip, the base clock is 3.6GHz 3.6GHz FX-8150 with eight lot more, too.
vious change is in the core and will turbo up all cores to cores will have a volume price On paper, AMD seems to
count, which increases from 3.9GHz. On lightly threaded of $245. have a CPU that’s at least com-
six cores in the Phenom II X6 apps, the chip can kick it up a That will put the chip some- petitive with Intel’s wildly suc-
to eight cores in two of the new notch, and Max Turbo half of where between Intel’s Core cessful Sandy Bridge CPUs,
FX CPUs. the chip’s cores to 4.2GHz. As i7-2600K and Core i5-2500K in and the company doesn’t seem
The cores themselves also they are aimed at overclock- pricing. But what about per- to be giving up. Next year we’ll
defy tradition. FX chips are ers, all FX chips will be un- formance? AMD says its tests see Piledriver, and then Steam-
made up of blocks of modules, locked. And to prove there’s show that the FX-8150 will out- roller in 2013. The following
each of which features com- headroom, AMD and a team gun a Core i5-2500K and give a year will bring Excavator. With
ponents capable of executing of expert overclockers set a Core i7-2600K a good run for its each year, AMD is forecasting
two simultaneous threads. The new Guiness World Record by money. But what about Intel’s that it will see from 10 to 15 per-
modules share resources, such overclocking an FX to an un- six-core beasts, the Core i7- cent performance bumps either
as the floating-point unit, but precedented 8.429GHz on liq- 990X or the $600 Core i7-980X? through process changes, clock
have their own L1 data and uid helium. Perhaps the bigger question bumps, or other design tweaks.
instruction caches. The de- Each chip will be backward regards Intel’s upcoming Ivy GORDON MAH UNG
sign, AMD says, will help with compatible with existing AM3+ Bridge drop-in replacement
workloads that are not heavily boards and offer dual-channel for Sandy Bridge and the Sandy
threaded. In those cases, for DDR3 support. The most jaw- Bridge Enthusiast chip. While
AMD’S NEW FX CHIPS AT A GLANCE
Model No. Base Clock/Turbo/Max Turbo Cores L2 Cache L3 Cache TDP Price
FX-8150 3.6GHz / 3.9GHz / 4.2GHz 8 8MB 8MB 125W $245
FX-8120 3.1GHz / 3.4GHz / 4 GHz 8 8MB 8MB 125W $205
FX-6100 3.3GHz / 3.6GHz / 3.9GHz 6 6MB 6MB 95W $175
8 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
Tom
Halfhill
Fast
Forward
WHITHER
APPLE, AFTER
STEVE?
Microsoft APPLE IS PRONOUNCED dead every 10
Showcases years or so, inevitably before another
miraculous revival. Although Steve
Windows 8 Tablet Jobs’s recent resignation as CEO didn’t
Microsoft’s BUILD conference for developers was focused squarely on Windows 8. Given provoke the same gloomy predictions as
the audience, much of the content was intended to get the coders the tools they need to the company’s previous setbacks, there
prepare their applications for the new OS, but there were plenty of interesting tidbits for was widespread moaning about Apple’s
the rest of us to digest. future. Conspicuously missing was spec-
The tool making the most noise among BUILD attendees was a Samsung-built tablet ulation about the ways in which Jobs’s
loaded with a developer preview of Windows 8 that was handed out to conference goers. diminished role might improve Apple.
Samsung included an assortment of sensors in the tablet—GPS, NFC, a gyroscope, and To some, any such speculation is her-
the like—to give developers an opportunity to test the latest features and APIs included esy. So first, let me affirm that Jobs is
in Windows 8. The tablet is powered by a second-generation Intel Core i5 paired with 4GB perhaps our brightest entrepreneur. His
of DDR3. marketing savvy is uncanny. His stan-
Windows 8 itself is destined to be a love-it-or-hate-it update to Microsoft’s flagship dards are extraordinarily high, and he
product. The radical new Metro UI is certainly an improvement for touch-based input, but has attracted some of the best talent on
traditional software will be relegated to a classic Windows desktop. The preview build of the planet.
Internet Explorer 10 is a perfect example, as separate versions exist for Metro and stan- Like everyone, however, Jobs is
dard Windows. Also intriguing is Microsoft’s announcement that the Metro version of IE10 flawed. One flaw is well known but is
will not support plugins, such as Adobe Flash, but will rely heavily on HTML5. mainly an internal company matter. An-
Much will be made of Microsoft’s re-entry into the tablet market, particularly with other is less recognized but eventually
long-time nemesis Apple dominating the space. The comparison will become more inter- will harm Apple’s competitiveness.
esting on the hardware side of things when Microsoft delivers on its promise to port Win- The famous fl aw is that Jobs is a hot-
dows 8 to ARM chips, enabling more compact form factors and longer battery life. TF head. At times, his behavior exceeds the
allowances made for a “tough boss.” His
abuse can become unprofessional and
wouldn’t be tolerated at most compa-
1/3 U.S. Adults Gamers nies if he were a middle manager. But
Prefer Texting Succeed Where this character fl aw mainly affects the
relatively few people immediately around
to Talking Scientists Fail him, so it’s tolerable—unless his succes-
sors believe it was a key to his success.
If you end up going straight to It took a group of gamers a mere
His more relevant shortcoming is a
voicemail when calling a friend three weeks to solve a puzzle in AIDS
blind spot for software development.
or co-worker, it doesn't neces- research that scientists have been
Unlike, say, Bill Gates, Jobs never made
sarily mean their phone is dead working on for years.
his mark as a programmer. Apple’s iOS
or even that they're unavailable. Scientists have been stumped
is a restrictive platform that requires
They could be screening calls. for a decade trying to solve the crys-
Objective-C, a programming language
According to a recent study, tal structure of a retrovirus protein,
rarely used elsewhere. Mac OS is more
nearly a third of adult Ameri- and so the University of Washington
open but heavily favors the same non-
cans would rather text message turned to an online folding protein
standard language. This complaint may
back and forth than actually game called Foldit.
seem trifling now, because Apple’s prod-
speak on their mobile device. "We challenged players to pro-
ucts are wildly popular. Over time, how-
Pew Research Center's Internet duce accurate models of the protein.
ever, Apple’s captive developers will de-
& American Life Project discov- Remarkably, [they] were able to gen-
fect to platforms offering more choices.
ered that around 8 out of 10 (83 erate models of sufficient quality for
Apple executives proclaim that they
percent) adult Americans own successful molecular replacement
will follow in Jobs’s footsteps because
cell phones, and of those, 73 and subsequent structure determi-
his DNA is woven into the company. For
percent send and receive text nation. The refined structure provides
the most part, I hope they are right. But
messages. Out of that 73 per- new insights for the design of antiret-
there is always room for improvement.
cent, nearly a third (31 percent) roviral drugs," researchers wrote in a
say they'd rather text than talk. study published in the journal Nature
Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior
–PL Structural & Molecular Biology. –PL
editor for Byte magazine and is now
an analyst for Microprocessor Report.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 9
quickstart
Thomas X79 May
McDonald Disappoint
Game Storage Junkies
Theory Intel’s upcoming X79 chipset for its
enthusiast CPU might hit all the right
THE DARK
marks in RAM and PCIe support, but it
could fall flat for storage nuts.
ALLURE OF
The X79 chipset for LGA2011 CPUs
will feature quad-channel RAM and sup-
TRANSHUMANISM
port for 40 PCIe 2.0 lanes, and has been
rumored to support up to 10 SATA 6Gb/s
ports. But according to some mother-
MODIFICATION of the individual has been at the board vendors, the chipset is now slated
core of the gaming experience since the incep- to offer just a paltry two SATA 6Gb/s
tion of the role-playing genre. It wasn’t until ports. In fact, the peripheral controller
System Shock (1995), however, that designers hub may be essentially the same as that
started probing the deeper issues beneath of the Z68 and P67 chipsets, with two
these newfound powers. System Shock’s spir- SATA 6Gb/s and four SATA 3Gb/s ports.
itual descendants—the BioShock and Deus Ex Why just two SATA 6Gb/s? Vendors say
series—continue to explore this nexus point Intel pulled SAS, or SCSCI attached
where issues of gameplay intersect with one SATA, due to potential compatibility is-
of the developing moral and ethical issues of sues with budget drives. This will leave
our time: what it means to be human. the X79 toothless compared to AMD’s
Humanity finds itself at a crossroads. Hu- chipsets, which feature six native SATA
mans have always used their free will to alter 6Gb/s ports.
the world around them, their own views of Intel didn’t respond to requests for
that world, and even their appearances. The information on the SATA support, but one thing is clear from talking to multiple moth-
parallel acceleration of genetic research and erboard vendors: No one really knows what’s going on at this point. GU
nanotechnology, however, are opening the
building blocks of human life to tampering,
from the moment of conception, and before.
It’s unthinkable that these technologies can GameStop Develops Android Tablet
be deployed without fundamentally redefining Game retailer GameStop plans to brand its own line of Android gaming packages
what it means to be human. featuring a refurbished, third-party Android tablet, preinstalled games, and a
This is the crossroads where Adam Jensen controller that GameStop itself has developed.
finds himself in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, GameStop president Tony Bartel, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, ac-
which takes place only 15 years in the future. knowledged that there aren't many existing Android games made for an external
The game may try to take a neutral stance on controller, but that GameStop will stream big-budget console games—such as
the issue of transhumanism by allowing the Modern Warfare 3—to its tablets, and may partner with developers to make games
player to choose Adam’s reactions, but the utilizing its controller. The idea is that tablet gaming will be more immersive with a
narrative itself makes hash of this neutrality. dedicated hardware controller. Pricing and photos were not available at press time,
These technologies begin with a new golden but GameStop's Android package should be available in early 2012. MR
age in which people are relieved of crippling
disabilities, before they fall prey to the same
old power plays among governments, corpo-
rations, and those who simply refuse to follow
the program.
OCZ Creates Massive Hybrid Drive
Hybrid drives combine large mechanical drives with a small amount of NAND flash
The designers may well be warning about
as speedy cache for your most frequently accessed files. Seagate makes a notebook
the dangers of transhumanism, but the game-
drive with NAND built in, and both Silverstone and Intel have roll-your-own solu-
play itself undercuts this message. After all,
tions. But OCZ Technology’s new RevoDrive Hybrid takes a different approach—com-
your success is based upon Adam getting the
bining a 1TB 5,400rpm
best mods for the job. Adam is ultimately al-
mechanical drive with a
lowed some reflection upon just What It All
100GB SSD on a PCI Ex-
Means, but since he’s spent the past 30 hours
press x4 riser card. The
punching through walls or fading to invisibility,
RevoDrive Hybrid uses
any words of protest against a modified hu-
the same custom Super-
manity sound a bit hollow.
Scale SCSI controller as
The fact is, these mods work out pretty
the RevoDrive 3 X2, with
well for Adam, as they probably will for any
a custom algorithm to
individual. But the chaos engulfing the world
keep frequently used
of Human Revolution shows us that society is
data on the SSD. The
more than the individual.
RevoDrive Hybrid will
sell for $500; we’ll have
Thomas L. McDonald can be found
a review soon. NE
online at stateofplayblog.com.
10 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
GEEK
TESTED &
ePillow Quinn
You know when you're lounging
around in your Snuggie messing
Norton
with a tablet, and your relaxation Byte
is hampered by the effort it takes
to hold up the device? Enter the
Rights
MUSIC
ePillow ($30, www.epillow.net).
It's the Snuggie of tablet ac-
COPYRIGHT VS.
cessories: soft, comforting,
excessive. Just the kind
BASIC CS 2
of arguably unnecessary
luxury that could make
anti-consumerists
cringe. Well, cringe all GOOD NEWS, EVERYBODY! The courts have
you want; the ePillow does what upset music label EMI with a ruling that
it's made to do, which is to make your not only preserves the DMCA safe har-
laptop-replacing tablet more lap-friendly. It bor, but acknowledges basic laws of
cradles and props up any 10-inch tablet so you can physics.
read, browse, email, and watch cat videos in comfort until the EMI was suing Mp3tunes.com, a mu-
tablet battery runs out, and you're forced to turn the TV back on. A sic cloud service founded by Michael
strap on the back of the ePillow lets you sling it to the handle of your Robertson, who also founded the first
roller luggage for fl ights, where the cushion magically does double duty music locker, Mp3.com—that one was
as a... wait for it... actual pillow. MR sued out of existence by Universal Mu-
sic Group in 2000. Plenty of major play-
ers like Amazon, Google, and Apple were
watching Robertson's round two after
PCIe 4.0 to Double Bandwidth, Again launching their own services. Because
moving media from one format to anoth-
PCIe 3.0 isn’t even mainstream yet, but that doesn’t mean the spec stands still.
er is a fair use, some cloud services had
The PCI-SIG already has plans to double the bandwidth by 2013 and beyond with
purportedly stored a copy of the song for
PCIe 4.0.
every user on the system with that song
The PCI-SIG recognizes that very few applications today will scale to use the
in their library to protect themselves
bandwidth available, but some that will include InfiniBand, 40Gb and 100Gb Eth-
from labels. Let that sink in for a second:
ernet, PCIe switches, and SSDs. To try to make it affordable, the PCI-SIG will
Under this legal theory, if Amazon sold
explore whether the spec can be executed in copper, as opposed to optical fiber,
100,000 of Justin Bieber's "U Smile" for
and also look at the possibility of a “pay as you go” model, where the cost of
use in its cloud service, it had to keep
implementation gets pricey only if you need the speed.
100,000 individual identical digital cop-
The PCI-SIG is also looking at a new external PCIe cable spec that will enable
ies on disk at all times.
data to move at PCIe 3.0 speeds. Both plans are expected to see adoption in 2013
It doesn't take a lot of tech savvy to
and beyond. GU
figure out why that is insane. It's a mis-
understanding of what a digital copy is,
as well as 100,000 copies of "U Smile."
The court saw this, and ruled in favor of
Netflix Spins Off DVD Biz Mp3tunes, decency, and CS 101 classes
Hot on the heels of Netflix’ new, and overwhelmingly unpopular, price hikes, the company everywhere.
announced another big change that could have even more customers jumping ship. No Beyond wanting to require pointless
longer will the DVD-by-mail business operate under the Netflix name. It will now be part environmental and cultural waste, EMI
of a separate company known as Qwikster. The real kicker is that this divides the DVD and wanted Mp3tunes to lose its safe harbor
online services into two different accounts for subscribers, including separate websites, on user-uploaded content that might in-
queues, rating systems, billing, etc. While pricing for the services will not change, a vid- fringe because Mp3tunes didn't proac-
eogame option will be added to Qwikster for an extra cost that has yet to be announced. tively filter what people uploaded. The
–KS courts did ding Mp3tunes for not doing
enough to comply with take-down re-
quests, but still didn't require proactive
filtering, since that's the literal opposite
of what the law requires.
Robertson's first baby, Mp3.com,
was killed by a lack of understanding of
digital technology. Eleven years later its
much younger sibling was saved by the
fact that the justice system can learn.
Quinn Norton writes about copy-
right for Wired News and other
publications.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 11
quickstart
11 MOST NOTABLE DUAL GPU CARDS
ATI RADEON HD 4870 X2,
2008
ATI volleyed with the Radeon HD 4870
X2. Faster than the GX2 and Nvidia’s new
GeForce GTX 280, the card’s 750MHz GPUs
had a whopping 2GB of RAM.
NVIDIA GEFORCE
QUANTUM3D OBSIDIAN X-24, 1998 GTX 295, 2009
In 1998, the only thing more badass than dual
Nvidia’s follow-up, the
Voodoo2 cards in SLI was the Obsidian X-24, which
1.8GB GeForce GTX 295,
combined two V2s—each with an incredible 12MB of
wasn’t a knockout with its 576MHz
RAM and a 95MHz clock—in one card!
clocks, but it did the job and most
Image courtesy of hothardware.com
considered it the preferred option.
ATI RAGE FURY MAXX, 1999
It wasn’t fast and its drivers were bad,
but ATI’s Rage Fury Maxx was way ATI RADEON HD
ahead of its time. Its dual 125MHz chips 5970, 2009
each featured an amazing 32MB of Next came the Radeon HD 5970—a
SDRAM RAM! respectably fast card even today,
with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM and
725MHz cores.
3DFX VOODOO 5 5500,
2000 ATI RADEON
It didn’t matter how good this dual- HD 6990, 2011
VSA-100 card was, because most After a year-long break,
folks had already written off 3dfx. ATI came back with its
fast, loud, hot, and
hard-to-get Radeon
HD 6990.
NVIDIA GEFORCE 7950 GX2, 2006
Besides packing 1GB of RAM and 500MHz GPUs,
this card kicked off the quad-SLI wars.
1
ATI RADEON HD
3870 X2, 2008 NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 590, 2011
Sporting 1GB of GDDR3 at Despite its 607MHz cores and 3GB of RAM, the
1,800MHz and 825MHz cores, the GTX 590 is well behaved and runs quieter than
HD 3870 X2 paid dividends in ATI’s its AMD counterpart.
strategy to make slightly slower,
but far cooler chips.
NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800 GX2, 2008
Striking back a few months later, Nvidia
combined two G92 cores to wrest the top-card
title with the GeForce 9800 GX2 and its 600MHz
GPUs and 1GB of RAM.
14 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
quickstart
THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...
>SCREWY CPU
>WIRELESS USB
SSD
>SSD OVERPROVISIONING
Under-Monitor Desktop Screwy CPU and force the load plate closed, wires snaked across the room
I have a 6-year-old HP DC7100 I’m trying to determine via without either the motherboard to reach the new location, so
small-form-factor desktop process of elimination if my or CPU being damaged. Both before I start knocking holes in
computer that I’d like to up- CPU is dead. I have an EVGA still worked once the chip was the wall to route the cables be-
grade to 21st century technol- 680i LT mobo, Intel Core2 Duo rotated back into the correct hind the drywall, is there a way
ogy. I really like the design of E4600 CPU, and 4GB of OCZ orientation. Nevertheless, I can make the printer wireless
the system, especially the fact DDR2, along with a PowerColor CPUs can die. and still use the scanner and
that I can place my monitor on Radeon HD X1950 Pro PCIe Assuming that you didn’t fax functions? A print server
top of the case. Ideally, I’d like card. When I power on my com- somehow swap out a bad seems to only allow you to print;
to upgrade to an Intel Core i7 puter, the CPU fan, case fans, component that was prevent- there are a few “wireless USB
processor and a kick-ass video- power supply fan, and videocard ing a POST during all of your cable” options, but the reviews
card. For the life of me, I cannot fan start, but nothing else. swapping, the CPU is likely the are mixed.
determine if the motherboard is No beeps, no POST, nothing. I culprit. Before you hit eBay for —Bill Selk
upgradable or if it’s a nonstan- cannot access the BIOS, and my another part, though, you might
dard part. Can you make any monitor acts like it’s not even want to take a look at the bot- THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: Canon
upgrade recommendations? plugged into a computer. tom of the chip to see if all the actually has a recommended
—Robert Reid I removed every card except contact points are clear of any wireless kit for your printer
the videocard, with the same debris or coatings that might that is made by Silex and sup-
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: Given result. I replaced the videocard prevent contact with the pins ports printing and scanning
the age of the system and that with another one that I know in the socket. That’s unlikely, for $99. That’s pretty steep
it’s more of a business small works. I even tried both PCIe since the pins are designed to when you consider the price
form factor, upgrading isn’t slots. I removed all the RAM, dig slightly into the CPU itself, of multifunction printers with
really an option. OEM systems and tested each stick individu- but it’s worth a shot. You can built-in wireless these days. It
are generally resistant to ally, and I even tried different even try a fresh pencil eraser just might make more sense
extensive upgrade surgery, too, DIMM slots. I tried a different to gently remove any residue on to buy a new printer with Wi-Fi
as they often use proprietary power supply. I even swapped the chip. built in. If you have a surplus of
motherboards and connectors. the motherboard for an identi- ink for the printer you currently
The good news is that there cal one, to no avail. The only Holes in the Walls own, you might want to opt for
are plenty of thin workstation thing I haven’t tried swapping At the urging of my wife, we re- another Canon printer that also
cases out there. Since you want is the CPU, because I don’t cently purchased new furniture uses that ink.
a kick-ass videocard, you’ll have another Socket 775 CPU. for my home office. The layout
want a case that supports full- But I figured a bad CPU would of the office used to be such Overprovisioning
height PCIe cards, so that limits result in a beeping code from that my computer was located I normally buy my drives (both
how small you can go. You may the motherboard, and I haven’t near the printer. However, my SSD and HDD) as OEM models,
want to look into an HTPC chas- heard any beeps. Could my CPU printer now needs to be located and then buy external enclo-
sis like the Silverstone Grandia be bad? on the other side of the room. sures to use them as portable
GD06 we use for this month’s —Mike Spaeth It’s a Canon MP830 all-in-one. units. This means I have to
Build It (page 62). They’re small It’s a few years old, but it still initialize them and create parti-
enough to go under your moni- THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: CPU works perfectly fine, and I use tions manually in Disk Manage-
tor but large enough to hold a death is rare. The Doctor has the automatic document feeder ment. How big a partition should
modern Core i7 system and a even seen a user insert a Sock- on the scanner frequently. I create? Some sources advise
full-size videocard. et 775 chip rotated 90 degrees There will be no tolerance for leaving a small portion of the
submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com
16 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
from within the OS using the
Asus Update utility.
A Nondestructive
Restore?
I have a Windows 7 com-
puter that I put together myself
around two and a half years
ago. Beginning a few weeks
ago, whenever I would right-
click certain desktop icons,
the loading symbol appeared
and then I received an error
message stating that Windows
Explorer had crashed and
needed to restart. At first it
occurred intermittently, but
eventually it started happening
more frequently. Both sfc scans
and chkdsk found corrupted
files, but after running chkdsk,
This SSD at Disc 0 contains 256GB of NAND flash, but 16GB are reserved for overprovisioning, so
programs like the disk defrag-
only 240GB show up. The system counts in gibibytes, though, so that 240GB appears as 223GB.
menter and the backup system
Don’t worry, though; you’re getting what you paid for.
were no longer functioning. The
sfc scan found corrupted files
drive unallocated for use by 256GB. The extra 16GB are my next build. The P7P55D-E but was unable to repair all the
the drive when bad sectors are reserved for overprovisioning Pro board was shipped with damage. Now the problem is
found, but a 240GB drive usually and wear leveling. The control- Ver. 1302 BIOS and the current so extensive I can’t even run
has only a maximum partition ler handles it automatically. So revision is 1602. Can I skip the cmd as administrator to access
option of about 223GB anyway. you should make your partition revision in between (1502) or the sfc utility—among other
Is there any reason to leave utilize all the available space. should I flash that, and then problems. How am I supposed
a small section of the drive As for your second question, the current? By the way, the rig to repair the damage without a
unallocated when partitioning? we’ve never seen a perfor- still runs just fine, even with the repair or clean install?
Also, is there an advantage to mance difference come from changes. —Jeffrey Johnson
performing a full format on a doing a full format on a new —Mark Beer
new solid-state drive as op- drive rather than a quick for- THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: As-
posed to a quick format? mat. Now, if your SSD has been THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The suming you’ve already tried
—Mark S. Donnell heavily used and doesn’t have classic advice regarding BIOS to repair the damage with a
good garbage collection built updates is that if nothing’s bro- system restore disc (or instal-
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: You into the controller, sometimes ken, you shouldn’t update your lation DVD), and it didn’t work,
don’t need to leave any por- it’ll help to zero out the drive, BIOS, due to the risk of some- our normal advice is to back up
tion of the drive unallocated; but for a new drive, a quick thing going wrong and borking your data, take a deep breath,
modern SSDs already over- format is sufficient. Lastly, if your board. So upgrade at your and go for the clean install.
provision to account for wear you’re using SSDs in external own risk, although we’ve had That said, there’s a way to do a
leveling and bad sectors. That’s enclosures for your mass few problems updating the clean reinstall without losing
all handled at the controller storage needs, wanna buy us BIOS on modern boards. You your data. In fact, we just ran
level, and that’s separate from dinner, Uncle Moneybags? shouldn’t need to flash the a how-to on that subject in the
the 240GB-becoming-223GB intermediate BIOS; you can go October 2011 issue, which you
thing. The 240GB capacity If It Ain’t Broke… right to the most recent. We’ve can find at bit.ly/oX0eqc.
shows the drive’s space mea- I built the Ultimate Gaming PC found the best way to update However, you should really
sured in decimal gigabytes, in on the cover of the November the BIOS on Asus boards is to be asking why this is happen-
which a gigabyte is 10^9 bytes 2010 issue, with a few changes. use the EZ Flash 2 utility in ing. These errors rarely just
(1,000,000,000 bytes), while the This was my first build and I the BIOS. Download the most happen once and then stop
actual formatted capacity is have been happily upgrading recent BIOS to a FAT32- occurring. This may be a
measured in binary gigabytes, continuously since then! I now formatted flash drive, then symptom of an actual hardware
or gibibytes, which are 2^30 have 8GB of memory and a BD reboot into the BIOS. Go to the failure. Is the disk going bad?
bytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). burner. The onboard sound is EZ Flash 2 settings and follow Is the motherboard starting
It’s the exact same number of so-so and I am getting ready the prompts to select your USB to fail? Is it a SATA cable, bad
bytes, and the exact same ca- to install Sound Blaster X-Fi drive and the BIOS file you’ve RAM, or something else? At
pacity either way, just counted Titanium Fatal1ty. With all the just downloaded. Let it run a minimum, you should run
differently. hardware changes, I suspect I (don’t screw with anything!) Memtest86+ (available for free
Overprovisioning is sepa- should flash the BIOS, since I and your computer should from www.memtest.org) on
rate. The actual NAND on a will most likely be making more reboot when the BIOS is done your system. We’d also check
240GB second-gen SandForce changes, and I want this system flashing. If that’s too much for for a cabling issue or even a
drive, if you count it up, is to last a couple of years before you, you can also flash the BIOS hard drive problem.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 17
quickstart
BY BRAD CHACOS
Facebook vs.
Google+
vs. A metaphorical boxing match between two 800-pound
+
gorillas is quickly shaping up in the social network arena.
In one corner: Facebook, the reigning champion. In the
other corner: Google+, a fast-rising up-and-comer with
a big name and deep pockets behind it. At stake: the
time-deprived attention of millions of social network
users. There can be only one victor.
Round 1: User Base Round 2: Privacy Round 3: Games Round 4: Video Chat
The more users a social Both services force us- Games are a major com- Both networks offer free
network has, the more op- ers to sign up with their ponent of Facebook: More video chat services that
portunities there are for real names, a requirement than half of all Facebook us- are incredibly easy to use.
its users to get gabby. No we’re uncomfortable with. ers play games, and Face- Facebook’s Skype-powered
social media network in Facebook’s been plagued book’s game library spans video calling allows you to
history reached 25 million by privacy concerns for approximately a gajillion chat one-on-one with your
users faster than Google+, years now, and although titles. Games showed up late friends and leave video
which achieved the feat changing your privacy set- on Google+, but the dedicat- messages if they aren’t
in its very first month de- tings is easy, its privacy ed games channel and the online. But it can’t hold a
spite being invite-only. It options aren’t as robust ability to post high scores candle to Google+’s Hang-
took Facebook three years as Google+’s. G+ not only are great touches. Google+’s out, which supports up to
to reach that total, but includes more privacy op- initial games include block- 10 people in simultaneous
since then the service has tions, it also lets you choose busters like Angry Birds video chat. Plus, it allows
grown like gangbusters who can see each post you and Dragon Age: Legends. you to watch YouTube vid-
and currently claims an make and which portions Unfortunately, at the time of eos as a group.
utterly ridiculous 750 mil- of your profile are visible to this writing, there were only
lion users. Even your the public. 16 Google+ games available. Winner: Google+
grandmother probably has
a Facebook account. Winner: Google+ Winner: Facebook
+
Winner: Facebook
+
20 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
FACEBOOK GOOGLE+
Round 5: Mobile Apps
Google+’s mobile app for
And the
iPhone and Android devices
gets all the basics right, but
Winner Is…
its highlight is the Huddle
In three out of five rounds, Facebook triumphs over Google+.
feature, a group-chat func-
Sure, it may have some privacy concerns, and it doesn’t have
tion similar to the old AOL
quite as clean a look as Google+, but when it comes down to
chat rooms. Facebook coun-
brass tacks, Facebook’s seniority shows in its deep user base
tered the threat with its new
and myriad options. There’s a lot to like in Google’s fledgling
Mobile Messenger app, which
network, but Facebook just makes it easier to be social.
expands upon the features in
the standard app. Not only is
Facebook’s feature set more
robust, it’s also available
for tons of devices—and it
isn’t plagued by the bugs and
crashes that are sometimes
found on the Google+ app.
Winner: Facebook
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 21
THE
ET
LING
BL
TACK
TA
u
Do yo eed
n
even t?
e
a tabl
If so,
which
one?
the
view of
We re crop
t
curren ainstays.
m
tablet
22 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
UNDRUM
T CON plain t
he
We ex are and
long hardw ures that
Follow a avel t
a
nr
s we u lets OS fea the most.
r
what
tab matte
ally
a re actu
or.
good f
LIPS
N PHIL
BY JO
WHEN A CONSUMER electronics category confuses the their tablets, but others show no interest in them what-
masses, it’s usually because the technology is hard to soever. It all comes down to individual use cases. No
understand on a fundamental level. Have you ever tried one really “needs” a tablet, but many people are discov-
to explain texture fill rates to your GPU-ignorant broth- ering that a tablet is a wonderful supplement to their
er-in-law? Or RAID levels to your mom—who shouldn’t core hardware arsenals. In fact, Maximum-caliber tech
even be asking about RAID in the first place? enthusiasts are often the folks best served by tablets.
Videocards and storage devices can confuse the lay But you need to know what they do well, what they do
consumer, but at least the prospective hardware buyer poorly, and which hardware and software features re-
usually knows he or she needs a videocard or storage ally matter at the end of the day.
device in the first place. Your game won’t play at a high In the following pages, we’ll explain all of that, plus
resolution? A new videocard is probably the answer. review the eight most-talked-about models currently
Your hard drive is full? It’s time for more storage. available. Six of the contenders run Google’s tablet OS,
But tablets are different. From a raw technology Android 3.0 (aka Honeycomb). Another, the iPad 2, runs
standpoint, they’re not particularly hard to understand. the latest version of Apple’s iOS. The final entrant is
They’re closed-box systems, and the specs of compet- RIM’s oddball PlayBook, which is tied to a software eco-
ing devices generally fall within a narrow range. system so funky, the PlayBook can’t really be included
The bigger question concerns whether anyone even in any serious tablet conversation. The most oddball
needs a tablet. TV commercials, tech pundits, and even tablet of all—HP’s WebOS-based TouchPad—was left
the struggling magazine and book industries would out entirely because it was discontinued a few weeks
have you believe that tablets are essential 21st-century before we started working on this article.
gear. But note-book replacements they are not, and this Excited? Anxious? Maybe a little scared? Simmer
has to be reconciled before any tablet purchase. down, amigo. Tablets are a confusing proposition, but
Some Maximum PC staffers couldn’t live without they need not be feared.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 23
tablet conundrum
shooters and action sports
TABLET TALENTS
games, but you won’t find
a better platform for card
games, casino sims, virtual
AND TABLET FAILS pool, trivia challenges, and
digital versions of Scrabble,
Yahtzee, and other “family
BEFORE YOU BEGIN COMPARISON SHOPPING, game night” fare. Tablets are
MAKE SURE A TABLET IS RIGHT FOR YOU also tailor-made for phys-
ics-based games like An-
gry Birds, Cut the Rope, and
Doodle Jump—all use touch
controls and accelerometers
We’ll get into specific use in all, if you want to perform
to fantastic (and addictive)
cases in a moment, but let’s computer-like tasks while ly-
effect. EA just released an
first provide an overview ing on your back, tablets are a
iPad version of Tiger Woods
of how tablets trump note- goshsend.
PGA Tour 12 (tablets are
books, their closest hard- Third, apps. Even in the An-
perfect for golf games), and
ware cousins. droid Market (whose offerings
Gameprom’s pinball sims
First, they’re imminently compare in neither volume nor
are probably the best tab-
more wieldy. By eschewing a quality to those of Apple’s App Tablets absolutely rock for
let games of all. There are
hinged clamshell design and Store), there are hundreds of card and parlor games, sim
currently three tables avail-
mechanical hard drive, a tab- awesome apps that don’t have golf, and pinball—like the fea-
able for Android tablets, and
let is lighter and less delicate. desktop counterparts. Indeed, ture-filled Navy Seals board,
seven for the iPad. All boast
It’s easier to tote in a book bag, some of the most interest- which is part of a $2.99
excellent ball physics, and
and you’ll feel more comfort- ing software development of war-themed pinball pack from
are chock-full of the ramps,
able tossing it on your couch the last two years has been Gameprom (iOS only).
targets, and table toys you’d
or mattress. focused in the tablet space.
find in a late-model Williams
Second, a tablet is the These apps make unique use
pinball machine. weren’t yet available. In to-
perfect device for “kick-back of touch navigation, acceler-
According to a March 2011 day’s climate, where Android
computing.” When you’re chill- ometers, and location aware-
survey conducted by Google’s devices reportedly account for
ing on your couch, supine and ness, and will probably never
AdMob subsidiary, gaming one out of every fi ve tablets
relaxed, you’ll probably find it find a home in your Windows
ranks highest among all tab- sold, we might expect games
easier to hold and manipulate computer.
let use cases. Given the sur- usage to slip just a little—if
a tablet than a note-book. And Now let’s dig a little deep-
vey’s timing, the vast major- only because Honeycomb
thanks to their virtual key- er into what tablets do—and
ity of the 1,400-plus queried supports fewer killer games,
boards, data entry on a tab- don’t do—well.
must have been iPad owners, and the platform is decidedly
let is easier, too—assuming
as Honeycomb-based tablets more utilitarian than iOS. All
you don’t have much to enter [+] CASUAL GAMING Touch con-
(the first real Android tablets) of which leads us to…
(more about that soon). All trols suck for first-person
TABLETS: 3300 BCE
Sumerian Cuneiform Tablets
CA . 1300 BCE
The Ten Commandments
5,300 Years Old and The Sumerians built one of the first The details of Moses’s life are, let's just
Trendier Than Ever! urban societies more than 5,000 years say, highly disputed. Nonetheless, as
ago in Southern Mesopotamia (modern- the story goes, Moses received the Ten
With simmering iPad 2 rumors and daz- day Iraq). And, consistent with urban Commandments from God at the top
zling Honeycomb previews at CES, it was culture, they had their minds on their of Mount Sinai and transcribed them
clear within the first week of 2011 that this money, and their money on their minds. on stone tablets. Upon descending
would be the year of the tablet. But before Sumerians first developed their glyph- the mountain and witnessing his
you settle down to compose a self-con- based writing system with a stylus people worshipping false idols,
gratulatory tweet on your shiny new slate, on a clay tablet in order to document he destroyed the tablets in a
consider that this year’s models are really financial transactions. Their system rage, thus voiding their warranty.
the culmination of some 5,300 years' worth of characters and symbols constantly Moses returned to the mountain
of tablet ingenuity. That’s right: Our current evolved, and was used as late as the and inscribed two fresh
tablet fever can be traced all the way back year 100 CE, long after tablets, which to this day
to the first people to record history on a slab the culture's spoken continue to arouse
of hardware—really hard hardware. OMG, language died out. mixed feelings.
indeed. MARKKUS ROVITO
24 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
[+] WEB BROWSING AND EMAIL In ideal for web-surfing and On the iPad, you can stream
the March AdMob survey, par- emailing from the comfort of the latest ABC video con-
ticipants were asked to name one’s couch, bed, or chaise tent—one of a few video
all the ways in which they use lounge! And this is really how streaming services that just
their tablets. “Playing games” most people—even power isn’t available for Honeycomb.
took the lead with 84 percent, users—use their tablets. To
but this was followed closely wit: A February 2011 In-Stat
by “searching for information” survey ranked emailing and interface, and it’s available
(78 percent) and “emailing” web-browsing as the top two for both Honeycomb and iPad.
(74 percent). What’s more, 82 tablet uses. Face-book makes smart-
percent said they primarily Web surfing and email al- phone apps for both plat-
use their tablets at home. ready top the charts of desk- forms, but hasn’t released
The usphot? Tablets are top use, and tablets simply any versions optimized for
deliver those services without the more generous screen
the inconvenience of ambu- dimensions of tablets. The
latory visits to a stationary company expects you to use
device. So, if you check email its web interface when post-
about 100 times a day, and are ing and liking on tablets, and
unable to survive without con- that’s fine by us, as the site
stant fact-checking on Wiki- renders well in the neighbor- absolutely must assemble the
pedia, IMDB, and the like, then hood of 10 diagonal inches. clan around the big screen.
a tablet might perfectly suit And because Face-book ac- Both tablets have slick
your lifestyle needs. Even bet- tivity rarely involves extended YouTube apps, but Team iPad
ter, many notable news, refer- data input, virtual keyboards pulls ahead of Honeycomb
ence, and cooking sites offer are suitable for anything you when it comes to stream-
slick app wrappers for their may need to post. ing Hollywood movies and TV
web content, providing navi- shows. For example: Netf-
gational experiences that bet- [+] VIDEO You’re not going lix subscribers can stream
ter their own web offerings. to gather the whole family “Watch Instantly” content on
around a tablet for a night of their iPads, but the Lenovo
[+] SOCIAL MEDIA Social media movies and popcorn, but both IdeaPad K1 is the only Honey-
is all about quick check-ins Honeycomb tablets and iPads comb tablet to support Netfl ix
and look-ups wherever and have the rendering power and streaming without a hack. And
Available for both Honeycomb whenever you want, and tab- screen dimensions for sat- then there’s HBO, ABC, and
and iOS, the IMDB app pro- lets suit this activity perfectly. isfying single-person video Xfinity On Demand. All offer
vides access to the world’s Twitter’s eponymous app of- viewing. Both platforms ren- video streaming via iOS apps,
best database for checking fers a UI that’s vastly more der onscreen video at 720p, but Honeycomb support is no-
TV and movie information. feature-rich and user-friend- and Honeycomb tablets can where to be found. Both tab-
ly than the service’s website output 1080p via HDMI, if you let platforms let you rent and
CA . 500 BCE CA . 1600 1960
Greek Wax Tablet Erasable Writing Tablet Etch A Sketch
Developing all that democracy and In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, written 1599- A French electrician in the late
fighting all those Persians required 1601, the tragic protagonist muses, 1950s hatched a plan to make a
much note-taking. The ancient Greeks' “From the table of my memory I’ll drawing toy with a joystick, glass, and
solution? Wooden tablets covered with wipe away all trivial fond records...” aluminum powder. Several degrees
a layer of wax. Writing into the wax Metaphorical? Perhaps. Yet also literal. of separation
with a stylus took much more pressure Small, portable writing tablets with later, the
than writing with ink on parchment, but erasable pages existed in those times. concept ended
wax was all they had, and they used a A mixture of gesso and glue covered up in Bryan, Ohio
straight-edge, spatula-like tool to erase. the pages to make them erasable when where the Ohio
written on with a metal stylus. Very Art Company
convenient when you want to erase redesigned and
“By Christopher manufactured
Marlowe” from it. Five decades
the title page. later, the often
used (but rarely
mastered) Etch A
Sketch continues
to thrive.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 25
tablet conundrum
download content from their credit card processing, so you Both use E Ink, which displays
online stores, but the offer- can use your tablet to collect grayscale text and images
ings in Apple’s App Store are payments on the road. These with soothing, eyeball-friend-
vastly better than what you’ll are all very niche-use cas- ly reflected light. Relative to
find in Android Market. es—but for the people who tablets, dedicated e-readers
All that said, Honeycomb use tablets in these ways, the also perform much better in
tablets do support a wide benefits are profound. direct sunlight, and are im-
variety of video codecs, and Are you sufficiently stoked minently more portable than
because they don’t interface to buy a tablet? Not so fast, even the thinnest, lightest
with the clusterfrack that is laddie. We’ll now describe tablets, such as the iPad 2 and
iTunes, it’s much easier to rip what tablets don’t do well. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
DVDs and quickly place video
files in your Android video [ ] E BOOKS There’s an undeni- [ ] PHOTOS The best smart-
folder. The end result is a very able convenience in loading phone cameras trump the
effective platform for video hundreds of e-books into a best tablet cameras. In fact,
playback—at home, on an air- single hardware device that’s
plane, wherever. already shaped like a book.
But, sorry, we’re not fans of
If you’re looking to read
[+] RANDOM NICHE APPS Ap- reading long-form content
Junior astronomers can use e-books into the wee hours of
ple’s “There’s an app for that” on tablets. Projected-light
Google Sky Map on their Hon- the night, eschew a tablet for
campaign positions the iPad displays (like the LCDs found
eycomb devices. Just point an e-reader like the Barnes
as a platform for sundry life- in all tablets) often cause dis-
your tablet to the heavens, & Noble Nook. The “first edi-
style activities one can only comfort and eyestrain dur-
and see what stars lie above! tion” version displays sooth-
imagine. That’s an optimistic ing long periods of extended,
ing E Ink for reading, while
promise. If you buy a tablet, continuous use. So, while
a secondary screen uses a
you’ll find almost all your ac- we’re happy to use tablets to
color LCD for navigation.
tivity in the realm of gam- meetings. Or let’s say you’re catch up on the latest news
ing, email, and web brows- a hardcore astronomy nerd. headlines, we’ll not so happily
ing. Having said that, certain With Star Walk (iOS only), you partake in an all-day George
eclectic souls may stumble can point your iPad 2 at the R.R. Martin marathon.
upon a niche, highly focused skies for augmented reality If you really want to get
tablet app that dovetails just overlays of constellation and your e-book on, invest in a
perfectly with their own busi- satellite information. Google dedicated e-reader like
ness or enthusiast needs. Sky Map performs a similar the Amazon Kin-
For example, OmniGraffle function for Honeycomb, but dle or Barnes
(iOS only) is perfect for cre- without augmented reality & Noble
ating flowcharts, diagrams, features. Other apps special- Nook.
and other quasi-freehand ize in music and art creation,
drawings during business medical services, and even
1967 1979 1987 2005
Star Trek Electronic Apple Graphics Tablet Star Trek PADD
Clipboard Made for the Apple II desktop Beginning with Star Trek: The
While we’re still impatiently awaiting computer and Utopia Graphics Next Generation in 1987, the PADD
teleportation, the original Star System software, the Apple Graphics (Personal Access Display Device)
Trek series predicted a number Tablet with wired stylus cost a imagined the potential of tablet
of technologies with varying down-to-earth $650. But it didn’t sell computing before real-world
degrees of accuracy. While well, and Apple discontinued it after technology could manifest it.
it was ultimately a crudely the FCC discovered it caused radio Throughout that series, as well as
made prop, the electronic frequency interference. D’oh! in Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and
clipboard’s depiction of a Enterprise, the PADDs continued
multitouch computer input to evolve, as citizens of
device was truly the United
fantastical for Federation
the time. And of Planets
if you were demanded
paying more attention to better push
the device (later named the PADD) notifications
than to Uhuru, you’re a true nerd. and unlimited
data plans.
26 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
tablet conundrum
the camera on the iPhone 4 is quite convenient—for YouTube
one of the best phone cameras vlogging and similarly low-
available, while the camera on level video projects.
the iPad 2 is one of the worst
cameras you’ll find on any tab- [ ] TYPING AND OFFICE/PRODUC
let. That should tell you what TIVITY Tapping out sentences
the market-leading tablet on the virtual keyboard of a tab-
vendor thinks of cameras on let beats smartphone data in-
its larger mobile devices. put any day, but we don’t know
Tablet cameras are gen- anyone who can touch-type
erally crappy, suffering from on either iPad or Honeycomb
compression artifacting, color tablets. Besides lacking tactile
shifts, and other image-qual-
ity problems. And once you
consider the truism that the f e e db a c k ,
best camera is the one you the auto-correction
have with you, then we have features of both iOS and
to ask why anyone would ever Android lead to vexing spelling
carry around a big-honking mistakes. Even worse: Turning Sure, you can buy a keyboard
tablet for photo-acquisition off auto-correction leads to dock for the Asus EeePad
purposes. Use your phone in- text that looks like something Transformer, but you still
stead. It’s in your pocket. Latka Gravas might utter in his won’t be able to use any
Having said that, we’ll re- native tongue. Windows apps.
serve just a wee bit of respect Yes, you can connect to a
for the video creation capa- Bluetooth keyboard (rarely a
bilities of any Android device satisfying or even reliable solu- on the EeePad—it’s quite vexing
that comes with Google’s tion), and some tablets—notably in and of itself). The upshot is that
Movie Studio app. Chasing the the Asus EeePad Transformer— neither tablet platform makes
action with a 10-inch tablet in can be teamed with physical key- sense for extended typing proj-
your hands may not be easy, board dock accessories. But to ects, and a tablet just can’t serve
but the app lets you quickly what end? You might be approxi- as your only computing device
grab all the video clips al- mating a computer workstation, when you’re working out of hotel
ready sitting in your device, but iOS and Honeycomb don’t rooms on the road.
The virtual keyboards on
edit them with titles, still support any office, productivity,
tablets offer generous lay-
photos, transition effects, or serious content creation apps [ ] GAMES REAL GAMES There’s
outs, but you won’t receive
and audio tracks, and then that would make you want to no iOS or Honeycomb version of
any tactile feedback—and
output everything to a single ditch your desktop or even note- Steam, and you’ll find no Dead
auto-correction can lead to
new video in one fell swoop. book (and don’t even mention Island, Portal, or WoW. Get our
many mistakes.
It’s plenty adequate—and Polaris on Office, which comes drift? ‘Nuff said.
1989 1992 1993
Grid Systems GridPad Compaq Concerto Newton MessagePad 100
This portable tablet PC (one of the first) One of the early models to run Windows Who could forget the Newton OS,
had a 10-inch monochrome screen, for Pen Computing (Microsoft’s first Apple's first tablet platform? Its
tethered pen, 1MB RAM, and a price tag attempt at a tablet OS), the Concerto cost popularity was somewhere between
of about $3,000, including software. Its an intimidating $2,500. Even a $1,000 the current Apple iOS and voluntary
4.5-pound weight was considered svelte, price drop didn’t do the trick, and Concerto castration. Although widely considered
and it sold pretty well while collecting fizzled out in 1994. The computer itself a failure, the Newton OS hung
good reviews. But business happens, is hidden behind the display, so the around for five years after the initial
and after AST took over ownership and keyboard can be fully detached, allowing MessagePad
tanked in the users to pen-compute themselves into 100. After Apple
mid-‘90s, an altered state discontinued
the GridPad somewhere Newton in 1998,
went down between blithe Steve Jobs
with the ship. indifference and reabsorbed the
total apathy. technology, and
two ex-Newton
developers created
the OS for the
original iPod.
28 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
ball lag in the Honeycomb ver-
PLATFORM BATTLE: sion of Pinball HD, and Honey-
comb’s Xfinity app supports
“play now” streaming for only a
WHICH OS IS BEST FOR YOU? single device.
Words of wiz: Check Android
Central’s Honeycomb app list
THE DECISION BETWEEN AN IPAD 2 AND A (bit.ly/qFgbil) and also look
HONEYCOMB TABLET COMES DOWN TO YOUR carefully at the apps that come
PERSONALITY TYPE AND YOUR PRIORITIES preinstalled on the Honeycomb
tablet you’re thinking of buying.
If your brain can’t resolve the
Don’t worry, we’re not going to droid Market. Apple’s iOS is limited offerings of what you
make you read this whole sec- also more intuitive and easier find, then buy an iPad 2 instead.
tion just to find out if you should to use than Honeycomb. All in
align yourself with iOS or Hon- all, if you’re a Mac user—or just CORE APPS For those people
eycomb. It basically comes the type who subscribes to that who intend to use their tablets
Nvidia is promoting 19 games
down to this: As a platform, “let’s sacrifice power and flex- only for email and information
in its Tegra Zone app. Not
Honeycomb offers greater UI ibility for simplicity” ethos— searches, Honeycomb might
much to see here, folks. But,
flexibility and user controls then get yourself an iPad 2. be the better platform. Honey-
hey, at least someone is
than iOS. It also bests iOS in With that as a preamble, let’s comb’s built-in Browser app is
trying to promote gaming on
web browsing (perhaps the compare iPad 2 with the Honey- a dead ringer for Chrome, and
Honeycomb.
most important tablet service) comb cartel in five key areas, supports tabbed windows, di-
and has superior hooks into and we’ll also explain why Win- rect hooks into Google voice
all Google products, apps, and dows and BlackBerry tablets reported 121,807 iPad apps as search, and (most importantly)
features. Honeycomb isn’t a can’t even be considered. of 2:15 PST on Sept. 12, 2011. Adobe Flash. These three fea-
refined OS, per se, and it does Honeycomb’s most painful tures are missing from the iOS
suffer some vexing user expe- APP ECOSYSTEM The number of app shortcoming is a dearth of browser.
rience issues. But it’s the OS we apps designed for iPad and iPad killer games. Nvidia is trying to If you’re an iPad user, you
recommend for hardcore PC 2 so rudely dominates the num- support Honeycomb as a gam- can download a third-party iOS
types who value a more Win- ber of apps designed for Honey- ing platform via its Tegra Zone browser that supports tabs, but
dows-like experience in terms comb, we’re almost tempted to shopping center, but with a cur- none are very fast or even sat-
of multitasking, file transfers, say, “Oh, flunk it—just run down rent inventory of just 19 games, isfying. But it’s the lack of Ado-
and UI tweakage. to your local Apple Store and this gateway to fun isn’t really be Flash that really hurts iOS.
The iPad 2, meanwhile, can’t throw down.” According to a hopping. Adding insult to in- Web developers have instituted
be beat for its app support: By running list on Androidcentral. jury, various Honeycomb apps Flash workarounds in anticipa-
huge leaps and bounds, the com, there are currently 292 aren’t as polished or complete tion of all the iOS devices that
offerings in Apple’s App Store apps optimized for Honeycomb. as their iPad counterparts. For will access their sites, but we
crush what you’ll find in An- The Apple Store, meanwhile, example, there’s noticeable still find web content that won’t
1996 2001 2004
USRobotics (Palm) Pilot Tablet PC Microsoft Ultra-Mobile PC
5000 COMDEX, Fall 2001: Bill Gates delivers Some five years after Bill Gates promised
Anyone of a certain age remembers his annual keynote speech, unveils a Tablet PC dominance, Microsoft’s tablet
when the Palm Pilot had the lockdown slew of tablet prototypes, and decrees OS was updated to Windows XP Tablet
on the PDA market and a future filled that “Tablet PCs” will rule the landscape PC Edition 2005, and slotted for smaller,
with nothing but sunny skies. The Pilot in five years. In short order, the industry stylus-dependent touch-screen devices
5000 launched in March 1996 (when releases devices like the HP TC-1100 called Ultra-Mobile PCs, or UMPCs.
Palm was a subsidiary of USRobotics). It pictured here, and tech geeks discover The Samsung Q1 was one of the first,
made waves with its Graffiti handwriting that Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, which and initially cost $1,100. Sadly, Windows
recognition, and adoption requires stylus-driven text input, isn’t wasn’t very well adapted to the
of apps before apps were really easy to use. Tablets suffer a bad tiny screens, and
even, err, apps. The four name for approximately UMPC hardware
main apps—date book, seven more years— lacked the juice
address book, to-do list, proving Bill is quite the to power the OS
and memo pad—seem optimistic soothsayer very well.
pedestrian now, but vis-à-vis when things
they were a revelation will rule.
15 years ago.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 29
tablet conundrum
video rendering in progress.
BLACKBERRY? In iOS and iMovie, you would
NO, NOT AN OPTION never get the alert in the first
Despite rumors that RIM is place, and if you decided to
planning to discontinue its jump over to your Mail app on
much-less-than-celebrated a lark, your iMovie rendering
tablet offering, the Black- would suspend until you re-
Berry PlayBook continues turned.
to putter along. This gives And then there are desktop
RIM’s QNX-based OS plat- Widgets. Apple doesn’t like
form a little bit of breathing Both tablet platforms have a Google Maps app, but the Honeycomb a cluttered desktop. You can
room before the inevitable version comes with extra features—like the Places tool, which have icons on it or dead space,
axe falls and provides shop- helps you quickly find food, drink, and other sorts of merriment. and that’s it. But Honeycomb
pers in BlackBerry App supports a thriving ecosystem
World with a 7-inch tablet on for desktop widgets that show
which to download software. load on our iPads. to-correction pain out of text everything from your latest
Yep, 7 inches. That’s the The iPad has a fine email chat in the Talk app. incoming email and tweets,
size of the current PlayBook, app, but like all iOS apps, you to snazzy graphical represen-
and all indicators suggest a have to exit the app and enter FLEXIBILITY AND CUSTOMIZA tations of the current time,
10-inch version will never be an OS-level Settings app to TION The more we use Hon- weather, news headlines, and
offered. Instead, BlackBerry manipulate fine controls (e.g., eycomb, the more we appre- more. It all puts a vibrant, real-
is working on a dual-core font size). In Honeycomb apps, ciate the freedom it affords time spin on your desktop, and
über-phone that would be all settings are quickly avail- Maximum-caliber power us- it’s a key reason to buy a Hon-
running the QNX-based OS able in the app itself. We also ers. As stated above, settings eycomb tablet over an iPad.
(a different OS than the one appreciate that Google voice menus are located in-app; But for true power users,
powering current Black- input is immediately acces- no trips to a central Settings the rebels among us, simply
Berry smartphones). So, as sible in so many Honeycomb app are required. Honeycomb being able to avoid iTunes for
a tablet platform, the Play- apps. Besides using it to dic- also supports true multitask- file management may be the
Book doesn’t have legs. And tate browser searches, you’ll ing, whereas iOS does not. best reason of all to join Team
as a current tablet option, also find it surfaced in Maps For example, let’s say you’re Honeycomb. Sure, if you’ve
the PlayBook really can’t be (a much richer Google Maps rendering a time-consuming spent your whole life playing
considered. It’s too small, its experience than you’ll find on video project in Movie Studio. in the walled garden of iTunes,
app universe can’t compete iPad); Talk (an instant messag- An alert for an important email you might be OK with the dra-
with iOS or Android, and ing client); Navigation (a turn- pops up in your Honeycomb conian limits and convoluted
(worst of all) to access email by-turn directions apps); and system tray (the system tray is operating procedures that
and calendar, you have to on the virtual keyboard itself. another feature not yet avail- Apple imposes on music and
use a wireless tether to your Voice control is surprisingly able in iOS), and you can jet on video transfers. But Honey-
damn Blackberry phone! adept at identifying common over to your Gmail app to read comb tablets ain’t having none
words, and it takes all the au- it—all without suspending the of that—you can simply drag
2007 2009 2010
Axiotron Modbook The Avatar Tablet Apple iPad
It’s the touch-screen Mac (yes, Mac) that All kinds of anguished teens and Perhaps you’ve heard of the iPad.
Apple never made, and probably never other goofs reported being clinically Apple has sold 15 million units of
will. Axiotron, sick of seeing Windows bummed out after seeing Avatar the world’s first “post-PC” tablet.
users have all the Tablet PC fun, created because they had to live on Earth As the first runaway tablet success
the Modbook, which is basically the guts rather than Pandora. But the true in what we’ll call the post-PDA
and OS of a MacBook converted into a torment came when tech geeks world, the iPad set a high bar for the
touch-screen tablet computer. Axiotron realized they couldn’t have access to myriad tablet competitors that have
charged $800 in 2007 (and $900 now) to RDA Corporation’s slick transparent come since—or have yet to surface.
modify a customer’s Apple laptop into a tablet computer. That thing was The iPad’s intuitive interface and
tablet. Even today, Mac users who want seriously badass. Full multitouch huge library of third-party apps has
to get touchy-feely with “real” software and brilliant color emanated from a endeared it to a huge population of
rather than just apps have no other seemingly ordinary non-computer enthusiasts.
options. piece of Plexiglas
powered wirelessly
by the pain and
suffering of giant
blue humanoids.
30 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
and drop music and video files But Honeycomb tablets offer within the simple GUI of what-
from your PC to a tablet. It’s a a 1280x800 resolution where ever iOS app you’ve launched. WINDOWS TABLETS?
revelation. Traveling to Asia? the iPads clock in at 1024x768. Honeycomb, meanwhile, TOO SLOW, TOO
Just rip 18 hours of movies to The extra resolution is appre- isn’t “difficult,” per se (and CLUNKY
a compatible codec, drop it on ciated for greater pixel density certainly not to Maximum-ech- We sometimes forget there’s
your Honeycomb tablet, and in visual content (132ppi for the elon users), but its interface a tablet version of Windows
you’re good to go. iPads; 160ppi for Honeycomb is more complex, and Android 7—probably because it’s a
tablets), as is Honeycomb’s apps tend to be more clum- big, bloated mess when run-
DISPLAY SUPPORT The size, 16:10 aspect ratio. When you’re sily designed in general. You’re ning on the underpowered
resolution, and aspect ratio watching wide-format HD con- given more user-controlled tablet hardware that suffers
of your tablet’s display affect tent, Honeycomb tablets don’t options across the OS, and this the indignity of running it.
your entire user experience. letterbox nearly as badly as the can lead to confusion among We’ve been playing with it on
Right now, we feel that Hon- iPads. newbs. And while it’s true that the Viewsonic ViewPad 10,
eycomb devices have the up- Rumors say the next-gen using iTunes for the file-man- which dual-boots between
per hand in this area. As far as iPad 3 will have an ultra-high- agement of your personal me- Android 2.2 and Win7, and
total diagonal inches, they’re definition 2048x1536 “retina dia is a PITA, the entire discov- the Win7 side of the experi-
just a tad larger than the iPad display.” That’s peachy, but this ery and downloading process ence is vexing to no end.
(10.1 inches to the iPad’s 9.7). pixel grid would appear in the of store content is easier in iOS It’s difficult to say wheth-
current 9.7-inch screen size. than in Android. er the tablet’s 1.66GHz In-
With more than 100,000 apps But Honeycomb’s biggest tel Pine Trail processor is
coded for a 4:3 aspect ratio, it user-experience problem is woefully underpowered for
would be madness for Apple to “system fragmentation.” Not the OS, or if touch naviga-
switch to a widescreen format all Honeycomb updates are tion in Win7 is a rushed-out,
at this late a date, and a display available for all Honeycomb kludge job. But the bottom
larger than 10 inches would tablets at the same time. As a line is that the OS doesn’t
make for an unwieldy beast. result, the current field of Hon- offer any of the multitouch
eycomb devices is fragmented gestures available in iOS or
EASE OF USE As we’ve said be- between OS versions 3.1 and Honeycomb. Instead, you
fore, it’s easier to just jab your 3.2. Even worse, device sup- use your finger to move a
power button and begin, um, port for Honeycomb apps can cursor, and this operation
“doing stuff” on an iPad rela- also be staggered. A glaring is both slow and impre-
tive to a Honeycomb device. example: At press time, only cise. And when the tablet
Apple’s desktop is cleaner and the Asus EeePad Transformer is churning away in apps, it
In Honeycomb, you can fill
doesn’t suffer much “What am and Lenovo IdeaPad K1 were just plain chugs.
up to five desktop panels
I supposed to do now?” am- approved to run streaming vid- Forget about Win7. If
with interactive widgets
biguity. Because it exposes eo content in the Netflix app. Microsoft has any future
that update in real-time. It’s
nothing more than app icons, Bottom line: If you’re buying in tablets, it will be tied to
like viewing an app without
operation is a simple matter a tablet for a tech-challenged Win8.
loading an app.
of hitting an icon and working loved one, get an iPad 2.
2010 2011 2011
Samsung Galaxy Tab Motorola Xoom Apple iPad 2
While it wasn’t the first “serious iPad The first tablet to really challenge the The second-gen iPad adds front and
competitor,” the Galaxy Tab was the iPad, the Motorola Xoom launched rear cameras, a dual-core processor,
best of 2010’s crop of iPad opponents. a few weeks before the iPad 2 with and some new software extras. It’s also
It ran Android 2.2, had front and rear a 10.1-inch screen and Android 3.0 thinner and lighter. While not an earth-
cameras, a beautiful 7-inch screen, (Honeycomb). While it has impressive shattering update, the iPad 2 sold out
and a zippy 1GHz Samsung processor. hardware, including much better in a day and waiting lists were still up
Although the screen still didn’t offer cameras than the iPad 2, the battle for to three weeks long a month after its
enough real estate to make the iPad tablet supremacy may come down to release. The runaway iPad freight train
tremble in its dock and pee a little, it the quality and quantity of available now simply thrives off momentum. With
suggested good things to come. apps. Honeycomb-optimized apps are such a following and a huge, established
still extremely sparse, while the iPad developer base,
counts more than 65,000 native apps. it will take a true
tablet superhero
to derail this baby.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 31
tablet conundrum
HARDWARE SPECS:
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
YOU WON’T FIND MUCH VARIATION IN INTERNAL
COMPONENTS, MAKING HEAD TO HEAD HARDWARE
COMPARISONS THAT MUCH MORE DIFFICULT
The Toshiba Thrive stands alone in offering both full-size USB
and HDMI ports.
OK, so you’re sold on buying a and dull (and fraught with bad ready have 3G service built into tablet include—micro, mini,
tablet, and you’ve even chosen off-axis viewing), some critics our smartphones. If we need to full, or none at all? What about
between the iPad 2 and a suspect Motorola is using infe- check email or look up a piece HDMI—micro, mini, full, or
Honeycomb variant. Now it’s rior twisted-nematic (TN) dis- of information in an area with- none at all? Full-port support
time to arm yourself with specs play technology. Bottom line: out free Wi-Fi, we’ll use our for both USB and HDMI are
knowledge for comparison All Honeycomb tablets bear phones. There’s no reason to most welcome. SD card sup-
shopping. Most tablets are the same screen dimensions avoid a tablet with 3G support, port is also a plus. And get
markedly similar, but here’s and resolution, so make sure and it’s nice to have that sup- this: The Toshiba Thrive has a
what matters most. the one you purchase looks port in a pinch. But if you’re user-swappable battery.
great on a pixel-by-pixel basis. pinching pennies, it’s probably Unfortunately, all of the
CPU/RAM Every Honeycomb As for the iPad 2, it uses not worth the investment. tablets we discuss in this
tablet released thus far con- the same 9.7-inch, 1024-x768 article depend on different
tains the same 1GHz Nvidia display found in the original CAMERAS As we stated before, proprietary power connec-
Tegra 2 chip and 1GB of RAM. iPad. Its brightness and color there are very few reasons tors, and none of the tablets
This dual-core Nvidia silicon accuracy are laudable, but we to care much about camera with USB ports can charge
is based on the ARM Cortex prefer the greater resolution quality. Still, all modern tab- via these ports. The downside
A9 architecture. The iPad 2 and 16:10 aspect ratio of the lets come with both front- and is that you may find yourself
also contains a 1GHz dual-core Honeycomb models. rear-facing cameras, so you powerless and SOL when the
chip—the Apple A5—and it is might as well get the best inevitable cable misplace-
also of the A9 persuasion. The STORAGE Today’s tablets typi- cameras possible. Front cam- ment occurs.
iPad 2, however, comes with cally offer 8, 16, 32, or 64 gigs of eras are only appropriate for
just 512MB of RAM. Smart- solid-state storage. Want more (grainy) video chat, and usu- CHASSIS We know we’ll catch
phones are already shipping storage? Then buy a more ex- ally range between 1.2MP and heat for saying this, but we
with 1.2GHz dual-core chips, pensive model. And if you sus- 2MP. Rear cameras typically don’t think a tablet’s weight is
so expect next-gen tablets to pect that you’ll be wanting a lot fall right at 5MP, but we say to that important. Just how weak
scale accordingly. of storage space—and storage focus on image quality instead do you have to be to quibble
flexibility—look for of cold, hard megapixel num- over the 1.65 pounds of the
a Honeycomb tablet bers. And if you really must Lenovo K1 relative to the 1.33
that supports SD give a damn about your tab- pounds of the iPad 2? We’re
cards (giving a sec- let’s camera, you may as well much more interested in a
ond life to all those get one with LED fl ash. tablet’s thinness (the iPad 2
random memory and Galaxy Tab 10.1 rule this
cards sitting in I/O Android tablets are rela- roost), and its backing mate-
the bottom of your tively cookie-cutter—except rial. In fact, we rather like the
camera bag). The when it comes to ports, car grippy, rubberized back pan-
Toshiba Thrive even slots, and power cables. What els of the Toshiba and Lenovo
supports a full-size kind of USB ports does your tablets.
SD card, good for
Every Honeycomb we’ve
128GB of extra
tested comes with the same
storage.
1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 chip.
The Lenovo
WI FI/3G Every tablet includes
tablet has a rub-
DISPLAY All Honeycomb tablets Wi-Fi support. Some include
bery back panel
ship with a 10.1-inch, 1280x800 3G support as an option, and
that’s less cold
display—per the Android 3.0 some (like the Asus Trans-
to the touch
spec. What differs, however, is former) currently don’t offer
and easier to
screen quality. The display of a 3G version at all. This is our
grip than what
the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is take on tablet 3G service: It’s
you’ll find on
bright, vibrant, and relatively expensive. It can’t be rolled
snazzier-looking
true. The screen of the Motor- up into our existing smart-
competitors.
ola Xoom, meanwhile, is so dim phone data plans. And we al-
32 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
tablet conundrum
HARDWARE HEAD TO HEAD
(to Head, to Head, to Head, to Head, to Head…)
APPLE IPAD 2 MOTOROLA XOOM SAMSUNG ASUS EEEPAD
GALAXY TAB 10.1 TRANSFORMER
iPad Part Deux is the slick- When we reviewed the Hands down, the Tab 10.1 For folks who really think
est, most idiot-proof, most world’s first Honeycomb boasts the most impressive a Honeycomb tablet can
aesthetically striking tablet tablet in March, we gave it industrial design of any Hon- replace a note-book, Asus
around. It hooks directly a 9 verdict for all the great eycomb tablet, and its depth delivers the EeePad Trans-
into the greatest App Store things that Honeycomb does and weight (0.34 inches, 1.24 former. Paired with an op-
in the world, and software well. Some five tablets later, pounds) actually beat the tional keyboard dock ($150
developer support from however, the Xoom doesn’t iPad 2—at least in the weight MSRP), this Android 3.2
both big-name studios and quite zoom the way it used department, which we don’t tablet delivers the tactile
indies isn’t showing any to. It’s been updated to An- care about much, but still. response of real-world
signs of fatigue. This sec- droid 3.1, and there’s now More importantly, the Tab chiclets, and provides
ond iPad version includes a 3G version available, but 10.1 offers the best display in extra battery life, some
a 1GHz dual-core CPU, and the base hardware doesn’t this entire tablet hoedown. quick-launch keys, and two
comes in a wide variety of match up to specs you’ll find Samsung doesn’t promote USB ports, to boot. After
storage and data connec- in newer competitors. it as one of its extra-fancy many months of use, we
tivity configurations (16GB, USB is limited to a Mi- “Super TFT” displays, but concede that the included
32GB, or 64GB, with or with- cro USB port, the 5MP rear it’s noticeably brighter, more Polaris Office suite isn’t a
out 3G support). Hardware- camera isn’t as good as vibrant, and just plain more viable long-term substitute
wise, though, all iterations those found on competing exciting than any other tablet for MS Office on a Windows
are hobbled by just 512MB models, and industrial de- display we’ve seen. note-book, but it’s better
of RAM and a rear-facing sign is thick and heavy (0.5 If reviewed today, this than nothing in a pinch.
camera that we find to be inches, 1.6 pounds) com- device (currently running At 0.51 inches thick and
craptacular. pared to tablets that offer Android 3.1) would still re- 1.5 pounds, the Transform-
The 9.7-inch display is more hardware doodads. ceive the 9 verdict that we er is thicker and heavier
bright and accurate, but its Most glaringly, the Xoom awarded it in late June. The than the iPad 2 and Tab
pixel density isn’t world- display is the worst among industrial design and LCD 10.1. And thanks to speak-
class, and the 4:3 aspect all Honeycomb devices. It’s still garner high accolades. ers lodged at opposing
ratio seems oh-so-déclas- demonstrably dim com- We will note, however, that ends, it’s also longer by
sé. Still, the iPad 2 is one of pared to the rest of the pack, the Tab 10.1 lacks a few about an inch. But have you
the thinnest, lightest tab- text rendering is grainy, and features that make other seen the price? The Trans-
lets available (0.34 inches, off-axis viewing is poor. The Honeycomb tablets intrigu- former is priced to move.
1.33 pounds), but you’ll pay Xoom would likely receive a ing. Its rear camera is only Reviewed today, this tab-
a premium for its fancy- 6 or 7 verdict if reviewed in 3MP (though image quality let wouldn’t earn a verdict
pants design. You may be today’s environment. doesn’t suffer for it), and you less than an 8, and still may
better served by waiting for won’t find built-in USB and even deserve a 9.
the iPad 3, which could hit SD card ports of any kind.
retail by November.
8 9 9 9
VERDICT VERDICT VERDICT VERDICT
Apple iPad 2 Motorola Xoom Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Asus EeePad
$500 (16GB, Wi-Fi only) to $830 $600 (32GB Wi-Fi+3G version $500 (16GB, Wi-Fi only) to $630 Transformer
(64GB, Wi-Fi+3G), www.apple.com w/o data plan), www.motorola.com (32GB, Wi-Fi+4G LTE), $400 (16GB, Wi-Fi only),
Originally reviewed April 2011 Originally reviewed April 2011 www.samsung.com www.asus.com
Originally reviewed June 2011 Originally reviewed May 2011
34 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
In the following eight reviews, some of which appeared in previous issues, we do our best to differentiate among eight popular (or at
least talked-about) tablets shipping today. The Honeycomb entries bear exceedingly similar specs, so we did our best to tease out
differentiating factors. Please note that at Maximum PC we don’t update our official review scores, even when revisiting products in
more technologically advanced times. You will find, however, that we provide insight on how scores might change.
LENOVO TOSHIBA ACER ICONIA RIM BLACKBERRY
IDEAPAD K1 THRIVE TAB A500 PLAYBOOK
It may not be the slim- What we love: the grippy At this point in the arc of the Can you consider a 7-inch
mest or prettiest Honey- back panel, a user-re- Honeycomb tablet story, tablet viable in a fight
comb device, but the K1 placeable battery (buy a there really isn’t any rea- where everyone else is
is packed with useful fea- second at $90 for double son to consider the Iconia wielding 10-inch devices?
tures. Specs-wise, you get the juice!) and full-size Tab A500, except maybe its And when email is such
a nice (but not world-class) USB, SD, and HDMI ports. bargain-basement street an essential mobility fea-
screen, Android 3.1, a 5MP That’s right: full ports. prices. The tablet is pudgy ture, can you accept a tab-
camera, and microSD and Now you can drag-and- at 0.5 inches deep and 1.6 let that depends on phone
Mini HDMI ports. Weight drop data from USB keys, pounds. It doesn’t have tethering for this service?
and width are portly at 1.65 add up to 128GB of extra full-size HDMI or SD slots. And can you support an
pounds and 0.52 inches, flash storage, and hook There’s no user-swappable app store that makes even
and 3G isn’t enabled in the the Thrive into your living- battery. There aren’t any the Android Market look
U.S., but we dig the back room TV with no adapters. special app packages or like the Mall of America in
panel, which is warm and These are fantastic—albeit Netflix streaming support. terms of inventory volume
grippy. heft-enhancing—features. You get a so-so 5MP rear and variety?
The Lenovo is newbie- What we dislike: The camera, a pretty standard In the case of the Play-
friendly and comes packed chassis is chubby (1.6 display, and microSD and Book, we have to answer
with apps. The home pounds, 0.63 inches) and Micro HDMI ports. Really, no to each question. Pixel
screen is preconfigured screen quality is just so- the most “exciting” thing for pixel, this tablet has
with quick-launch buttons so. It’s also hard to locate of all about the A500 is its a perfectly fine 1024x600
for the browser, as well and operate the on/off full-size USB port (along screen, and we even appre-
as for email, e-books, and button and volume rocker with a second Micro USB). ciate the speedy, fluid OS
music and video playback. without looking straight at And that alone generates (though having to swipe the
But the pièce de résistance them, and the front panel about as much excitement screen perimeter to return
is the preinstalled Netflix is adorned with annoying as a box of raisins on Hal- home is an unnecessary
app—and this version plays LEDs reporting on power, loween. affectation). But we still
streaming video! That’s battery, and wireless sta- Industrial design? Meh. can’t find a single reason
such a win. The K1 doesn’t tus. 3G isn’t available, and Even if you can forgive the to recommend this tablet
have full-size ports, and you won’t find any interest- porkiness of the chassis, outlier—unless you don’t
its screen can’t beat Sam- ing apps installed, à la the we’re left uninspired by the care about apps (especially
sung’s. But we love the Lenovo. But port and juice brushed-aluminum strips games) or are some kind
software build and can for- junkies looking for an inex- flanking the top and bottom of BlackBerry fanboy with
give the chub. It only gets a pensive, solid Android 3.1 of the display. The A500 a nihilistic urge to support
verdict of 8, because Netflix tablet must consider the gets points just for playing, a tablet platform without
streaming isn’t worth a full Thrive. You can even buy an but we don’t know why any- a future. Revisionist his-
verdict point. 8GB version! one would buy one. tory says the PlayBook de-
serves a 5 verdict.
8 8 6 6
VERDICT VERDICT VERDICT VERDICT
RIM BlackBerry
Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Toshiba Thrive Acer Iconia Tab A500 PlayBook
$450/$500 (16B/32GB Wi-Fi only), $380/$400/$480 $450/$500 (16GB/32GB Wi-Fi $500, $600, $700
www.lenovo.com (8GB/16GB/32GB Wi-Fi only), only), (16GB/32GB/64GB Wi-Fi only),
www.toshiba.com www.acer.com www.blackberry.com
Originally reviewed June 2011
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 35
HOW TO RID YOUR PC OF
MALWARE
Four steps MALWARE SUCKS. In the best-case scenario, it craps up your system
with unwanted files and occasionally makes itself known in the form of
that will keep a persistent pop-up window or annoying browser-based toolbar. In the
worst-case scenario, malware completely takes over your desktop or
your PC happy, laptop and ruins your life.
Your system slows to a crawl. You can’t even boot into Windows in the
healthy, and
time it takes you to walk to the kitchen and back. Your data gets sent
off to a faraway Internet land or, worse, your actual keystrokes are re-
crap-free!
corded for some unsavory individual to see. Malware locks down your
browser, making you unable to actually do any browsing without being
carted off to some bogus domain. You can barely run a program in Win-
dows without getting bombarded by fake advertisements, programs,
By David Murphy and dancing people on your desktop.
We can’t make this stuff up.
So what’s a computer enthusiast to do? Step zero: Read this guide,
because we’re going to walk you through all the key details you need
to know to both rid your computer of this junk and keep it free of down-
loaded nasties forevermore.
38 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
1 Don't
Browse
Blindly
WHAT’S THAT? The first step
doesn't inolve files to download
or utilities to blast malware
from your system? Exactly.
The most important thing you
have to realize in order to fight
the great malware war is that
you, and you alone, are the
first line of defense. You have
only yourself to blame if your
computer is completely over-
ridden with problem-causing,
yet preventable, programs.
Much of the more annoying
malware that you can acciden-
tally befriend requires your
cooperation in order to get on
your system in the first place.
You have to download and run
an unknown file or agree to
have a toolbar placed on your
system as part of a software
installation routine. You have The astute among you will notice that this isn’t
to accept certain kinds of Ja- a proper security scan: It’s malware, and it just
vaScript or be fooled by scam made life very difficult for this system’s user.
websites that claim to be run-
ning a virus scan on your sys-
tem (to name one such har- “yes” to it, and don’t let it get
rowing tale). anywhere near your system.
In short, you have to let your Google, Bing, and Yahoo are
guard down. your friends. Use them to find
So how do you protect your- more information about a giv-
self against your own hab- en program before you agree
its? Keep in mind this rule of to let it do anything on your
thumb: If it’s too good to be system. Don’t surf the Inter-
true, if it looks strange, or if net blindly, assuming that ev-
it’s completely unknown to erything on a website is safe
you, don’t run it. Don’t install for your system to digest.
Ignore this warning image (or any variant) when you’re browsing
it. Don’t accept it, don’t hit
the Internet, and you could be in for a world of digital hurt.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 39
malware
2Batten
Down Your
Browser
WE MENTIONED that a bunch one of the Big Three: Internet
Firefox’s No-
of malware can come through Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.
Script add-on is
your browser—‘tis a shame, we But which? Various research
an excellent tool
know. Vulnerabilities in brows- reports have dubbed each of
for preventing
ers and plugins (and user er- these three browsers as the
page plugins
ror) can bring your system to “best in class” against malware
from running on
its digital knees faster than you and other social-driven attacks.
untrusted sites.
can spell the word “crap” in Our personal preference when
“crapware.” So let’s start with it comes to safety is Google’s
the simplest step: Stop using Chrome browser for three rea-
an outdated, insecure brows- sons: First, it’s the only browser
er. Make sure you’re at least to use sandboxing as its primary
sporting the latest version of defense mechanism. This method
combines a JavaScript
virtual machine with
an OS-level sandbox
to prevent success- the latest version of Chrome, a go. Chrome doesn’t have an
ful attacks against the you’re running the latest, most add-on for the same feature, but
browser’s rendering secure versions of Flash and Ac- you can disable JavaScript by
engine from affecting a robat Reader available (click the default in the browser’s Under
user’s file system. Sec- wrench icon and About Google the Hood settings section. And
ond, Chrome has been, Chrome to verify that you’re run- if you want to specifically allow
hands down, the har- ning the latest updates). a site’s JavaScript to function,
diest survivor of each But we’re just getting started. just click the associated X icon in
year’s Pwn2Own hack- JavaScript vulnerabilities—in- the browser’s address bar to set
ing contest at the Can- cluding blatant attacks that up site-specific trust. Or, if you
SecWest security con- rely on a user’s cooperation to don’t mind using a slight variant,
ference: Talk about a work—can just as easily affect you can do your best to mimic
real-world verification your browser. If you’re rocking NoScript-like control using the
of its security capabili- Firefox, grab an extension called NotScripts add-on.
ties, eh? Third, Google NoScript, which will allow you Other extensions and add-
updates the Adobe to disable a page’s plugin ele- ons worth wielding to fight the
Flash and Acrobat ments (including JavaScript and malware fight include Web of
Reader modules itself. Flash!) by default, unless you Trust, KB SSL Enforcer, Adblock,
So if you’re running trust the site enough to give ‘em and HTTPS Everywhere.
Google Chrome uses a sandbox to better protect you from web
attacks. And based on the limited number of successful hacks
over the years, it’s worked!
40 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
3
malware
Use Software
Safeguards
RUNNING A PERFECT brows- Our reasons are simple: It’s feel free to reschedule these ful antispyware app gives you
er setup only goes so far in free and it works. Is it as com- for any time that suits you. Ad- a few more features to tinker
the battle against malware: prehensive as a premium paid ditional options let you set the with than SuperAntiSpyware’s.
Remember, you are your own solution? No, but our ratio- exact parameters for when The hitch with both? No real-
worst enemy. Assuming that nale here is that it’s better to the scanning should start, time protection, so make sure
malware could slip through have free AV that has updated which include the ability to you set a mental task for your-
the gates at some point, what definitions than a paid AV suite restrict virus and malware self to run these apps on a daily
are some of the free software with a lapsed subscription. hunts to periods when your or weekly basis.
tools you can use to equip your Install Security Essentials CPU use is below a certain If you want to get truly hard-
system with powerful protec- and you’ll get instant access threshold. core, be sure to grab Combo-
tion before a rogue app gets to frequent Microsoft virus Some of the very best anti- Fix (www.combofix.org), as well.
out of hand? and spyware updates, in ad- malware apps on the market This app, often considered the
First up, you’ll want a com- dition to a real-time scanning can be had for free, but with “nuke it from orbit” option
prehensive scanner running mechanism that protects your an asterisk: We’re talking, of for certain nefarious bits of
day in and day out to make system from anything you course, about SuperAntiSpyware malware, uses the Windows
sure that each and every bit download from the Internet (www.superantispyware.com) Recovery Console to find and
of software you slap onto your (or, if you’re fancy, anything and Malwarebytes’ Anti-Mal- eliminate annoying malware.
computer gets a quick check. on a USB device from the mo- ware (www.malwarebytes.org). It doesn’t protect your system
For that, we turn to none other ment it’s jacked into your sys- We’re fans of Malwarebytes’ up front, but it’s a great tool to
than Microsoft’s own Security tem). MSE schedules nightly offering, mainly because the have in your back pocket when
Essentials app (bit.ly/f0WWra). scans to run by default, but freeware version of its power- disaster strikes.
EXTREME PRECAUTIONS
So you’re paranoid. We get it. There’s nothing wrong with albox.org), a totally free VM that lets you install any Windows
wanting even stronger security measures than those we’ve version you want.
mentioned in this article. For the best-in-class prevention You can also super-protect your primary system (or brows-
against debilitating malware and viruses, you have two options: ing experience) by running your actions off a live CD. A live CD
a virtual machine or a "live CD." is typically a version of the Linux operating system that’s been
A virtual machine is exactly what it sounds like: a pseudo op- installed on a physical disc or USB key. Restart your computer
erating system that runs within your existing operating system. and boot off a live CD, and you’ll find yourself within a self-
Think Inception. Anything that happens to your OS-inside-an-OS contained OS that’s free of malware and other problems the
cannot break out of the dream. Applications, malware, drive second you boot. Once you’re finished, presto: Your changes
formats, you name it: That which transpires within the virtual can disappear and you’ll be back to a brand-new version of the
machine’s operating system will never affect your actual oper- OS to boot into the next time you need it.
ating system running one layer above it. Beware, though: Some Our recommendation? Check out Xubuntu (www.xubuntu.
malware can tell if it's running on a VM and won't activate if it org). It’s not as graphically interesting as other Linux “buntus,”
is. This can make compromised software seem harmless, and but it does give you a bit more flexibility for running the operat-
could get you to lower your guard and install it on your real ing system on lesser systems—like those with anywhere from
machine, where the malware will activate. 256 to 512 megabytes of RAM.
Our recommendation? Check out VirtualBox (www.virtu-
42 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
4 Recover
from
Disaster
SO YOU’RE INFECTED. Shucks. Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware,
Malware comes in different make sure your definitions are
forms and annoyance levels, updated, and run a full scan
depending on just how well the on your system. If it catches
particular piece of offending an issue, great; if not, and your
software has entangled itself malware problem persists, it’s
into your operating system. time to get a little more cre-
This makes it difficult for us to ative. Fire up the utility RKill
deliver a fix that fits every situ- (www.bleepingcomputer.com),
ation. However, we can at least and use it to try to force-stop
give you a few helpful sugges- any malware processes that
tions for freeing your PC from happen to be running in your
RKill is an excellent tool for detaching malware that won't stop
malware’s clutches. system’s background. Run a
running on your system: If it’s running, it’s not getting deleted by
First off, see if a simple scan full scan with Malwareybytes’
your antimalware apps.
from Windows Security Essen- Anti-Malware one more time.
tials stops your issue dead in its If you’re still out of luck, you’ll
tracks—likely not, but it never want to reboot your system into PC from the operating system for malware and virus re-
hurts to try the simplest solu- safe mode (keep pressing F8 itself: It’s not getting wiped out moval.
tion before you start rolling up as the BIOS loads until you’re because it’s still active (and There are nearly as many
your sleeves a bit more. Update given the option for safe mode) possibly protecting itself from tools for removing malware as
your definitions and select the and repeat the same RKill/Mal- your removal tools). there is malware to infect you.
full-scan option, and then sit warebytes’ Anti-Malware step Still hurting? Fire up The better you can protect your
back and hope that Micro- as before. You’re doing this in ComboFix and let the scan- PC up front, including training
soft’s scanner can fix your an attempt to unhook what- ning and removal tool work its yourself to recognize poten-
problem. No luck? Next, fire up ever malware’s plaguing your magic—if, for some reason, it tial malware when it presents
can’t remove whatever’s af- itself and keeping it off your
fecting your system, you’ll system to begin with, the less
get a lengthy log that you can you’ll have to fool with poten-
post on one of ComboFix’s tially complicated removal
associated web forums for techniques later.
further assistance from quali- But if you have to go down
fied log parsers. At this point, this route, and simple scans
it might be worth your while aren’t getting the job done,
to check out other scanning don’t forget to try ripping active
tools not explicitly mentioned malware processes out of your
in this article, which range operating system and booting
from Spybot Search&Destroy your PC into safe mode. After
(www.safer-networking.org), that, exorcising these software
to McAfee Labs Stinger demons from your system is all
(bit.ly/fLQZGQ), to GMER up to your tenacity, your search
(www.gmer.net), to Sophos engine research skills, and
Anti-Rootkit (www.sophos.com), your knowledge of third-party
and the list goes on. And you removal apps—Or, if worse
might also benefit from grab- comes to worst, your backup
Booting a system into safe mode is a useful technique to prevent bing a few live CDs, like AVG’s schedule. You know, a clean in-
malware from starting—and to ensure that your antimalware Rescue CD (bit.ly/duJOqW) or stall is but a few clicks away!
apps catch it. Hiren’s BootCD (bit.ly/atD4Cz),
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 43
N
O SI A
BEDR
WE SL E Y
TIO N BY
STR A
ILLU
46 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
EASY
DOES IT
HOW TO SET UP THE COMPUTER PHOBE IN
YOUR LIFE WITH TROUBLE FREE COMPUTING
ARE YOU READY FOR THAT 3 A.M. PHONE CALL?
No, not the call from JSOC hoping to get approval to chop-
per in DEVGRU to take out a Tier 1 operative (what that
means even we don't know). What we’re talking about is that
3 a.m. call from your sobbing parent, sibling, or acquain-
tance desperately asking for your help with a computer.
It. Gets. Old.
Let’s admit it, for those computer-phobes, a personal
computer with a fully featured and robust operating sys-
tem isn’t right for either them or you. As wonderful as a PC
with a real operating system is, there’s maintenance to be
done, patches and drivers to be installed, and enough dials,
knobs, and gauges that a computer-phobic cyberklutz can
really bork things up faster than you can say right-click.
But in a world where not having access to email, Face-
book, and the Internet puts you as far off the grid as the
Unabomber, is there a way for these folks to have an easy,
trouble-free computing lifestyle?
To find out, we looked at three machines—the Telikin
Touch, the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, and Apple's iPad
2—that just might be idiot-proof enough to keep even a com-
plete computer-dufus from screwing things up.
BY GORDON MAH UNG
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 47
easy does it
TELIKIN TOUCH
IT FEELS A BIT LIKE A COMPUTER
KIOSK, BUT THAT’S FOR YOUR
PROTECTION
THE TELIKIN IS BILLED AS The Telikin supports Skype,
“quite possibly the world’s eas- Facebook, and POP- and IMAP-
iest computer.” And we can see based email systems. We did hit
why. Originally aimed at non- a snag here: We let the Telikin
tech-savvy elderly folk who configure our Hotmail account,
want a computing experience but it biffed on the outgoing mail
without having to dial-a-nerd port. We corrected it easily, but
every day, the Telikin offers a this would leave a computer-
custom-designed OS to do just newb stumped for months. The
a few things, but do them easily. iPad 2 got this right, while the
The Telikin Touch itself is an Samsung Series 5 Chromebook
off-the-shelf, 18-inch MSI all- didn’t have native client
in-one with a dual-core Atom, support for Hotmail.
a 320GB hard drive, 2GB of Another big fail
RAM, and Wi-Fi. The Telikin’s for the Te-
performance isn’t horribly likin came
slow, but it’s certainly not as soon after our
responsive as the other two first boot: a LibreOffice
devices we're reviewing here fatal error and occasional
and can lag on occasion. The hard locks. The error mes-
Telikin’s main selling point sage itself is enough to send
is its ease of use and senior- a computer-phobe cowering
friendliness. The unit comes in a closet, but the hard locks? The Telikin Touch features a touch
screen and a custom Linux UI and is
with a USB keyboard sporting Inexcusable. We thought it was built with seniors in mind.
very large letters, and there is all over for the Telikin but a call
an option for a keyboard with to the company resulted in a
even larger letters. The OS it- tech logging into the machine ter the 60-day period is up, you rest will have to be Flash-
self is a variant of Linux that’s remotely and applying a quick can still get free support and based. That’s not bad for a
been tweaked to display big, patch. From that point on, the a tech will still remote in, but casual gamer, but the opti-
friendly buttons on one side for error messages and lockups you have to wait longer on the mized iPad 2 games are far
email, browsing, and games. went away. We almost won- phone. There’s also the ability stronger. The machine has
The buttons are large dered if the company planned to back up your data remotely its strengths, though. The
enough that the screen’s touch this as a way to showcase its to Telikin’s servers for $10 a 18-inch screen is certainly
capability works surprisingly tech support—but no, that’s month, and that includes the easier for folks with vision is-
well. The touch screen doesn’t too Machiavellian even for us. VIP support treatment. sues, and the real keyboard
support flick-based scrolling, The machine comes with free Maintenance of the unit is appreciated.
but the big buttons and a UI 60-day VIP support, whereby should be fairly painless, as In video consumption, we
that’s never hidden ensure that you don’t have to wait in the updates are pushed out by could watch Flash-based vid-
the newb can’t get lost. queue to have issues fixed. Af- Telikin as needed, and the eos on Vimeo and YouTube,
company promises to offer but sadly, the Telikin failed on
updates for the life of the both Netflix and Hulu.
unit. We’re still a bit leery about
In ease-of-use, the Telikin the initial error and locks, but
PROS: Large screen with touch capability; friendly to those with is extremely simple—per- frankly, this isn’t a bad solu-
vision issues; easiest photo handling of the three. haps easier than the iPad for tion for a senior who wants a
some. In our attachment test, bigger screen, full keyboard,
CONS: Scary out-of-the-box errors; pricey; multimedia buttons we could open PDF and Word and doesn’t mind something
on keyboard don’t work. files without issue, but Zip that’s not as polished or ex-
files confused it. tensible as the iPad 2.
BEST FOR: Senior computer-newbs; people with vision problems. The Telikin’s main weak-
ness is in gaming. There are
Telikin Touch
a handful of games that come
installed with the OS, but the $700, www.telikin.com
48 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
AD
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 49
easy does it
SAMSUNG SERIES 5 CHROMEBOOK
IT’S AIMED AT NERDS, BUT COMPUTER
PHOBES WILL FIND SOLACE IN THE SIMPLE
BROWSER INTERFACE
OF ALL THE DEVICES here, this nerdware work for a non-
people likely have the most dif- nerd? Yes and no.
ficulty understanding the Sam- One knock against it: It’s
sung Series 5 Chromebook. really optimized for living
Running Google’s Chrome OS, the Google lifestyle of Gmail,
the Series 5 looks like a net- Google Calendar, and Google
book, but it’s not. The secret Docs. Yeah, it’ll work for Ya-
sauce is Google’s Chrome OS. hoo or Hotmail, and anything
Built around a very lightweight else that runs in a browser,
Linux core, Chrome OS is just but it’s got an obvious affinity
enough OS to talk to the hard- for all things G. The nature of
ware, run a browser, and that’s Chrome OS makes it almost
it. There’s no desktop and no entirely reliant upon Internet
icons to be tapped or dragged— access and cloud storage—
it’s all browser, all the time. just a smattering of apps work
Frankly, that’s what we offline. That cuts both
thought made the Chrome- ways. If the Series 5
book the perfect computer- eats a cup of cof-
phobe tool. He or she can’t get fee, no data
lost in some menu or goof up is lost. Buy
a setting because there are another one and
very few options to tweak, and you’re up and running
you can’t exit from the brows- in 60 seconds. Without In-
er. Even though Intel’s lowly ternet, though, you’re SOL (a
dual-core Atom powers the 3G model sells for $100 more, The Series 5 offers excel-
lent instant-on capability
Series 5, the Chromebook has plus the cost of a data plan). and a cloud existence.
a responsive feel to it and will Since it’s really nothing but
boot in four seconds—on the a browser, it’s not surpris-
rare occasions that it even pow- ing that the Series 5 offers
ers down. Most of the time it’ll excellent browsing and web-
It’s certainly better than on Word, Zip, and PDF file at-
be in instant-on mode, which mail support. We were able
the Telikin, which is limited to tachment in a mail file when
works wonderfully. to watch videos on Netfl ix,
a few built-in games, as well viewed from, say, Hotmail
With its nice, spacious key- YouTube, and Hulu without
as Flash- and Java-based and not Gmail. The Series 5
board (which lacks a Caps hitches, but not on Vimeo.
games. Google has been handled the PDF just fine as
Lock key, apparently to prevent Video chat is limited to Google
pushing more Chrome-based an attachment download, but
SHOUTING on the Internet), the Talk, so Skype lovers need not
games, and it shows with the Zip and Word files threw
Series 5 is a truly unique piece apply.
such winners as Angry Birds. it for a loop. To open the Word
of mobile hardware for some- Casual gaming on the Se-
Still, the selection pales in file, you’d need to upload it
one with basic needs. But will ries 5 is actually pretty good.
comparison to the iPad 2’s to Google Docs—not exactly
rich experience. newb-friendly.
Media handling on the We don’t discount the Se-
Chromebook is disappoint- ries 5's usefulness, though.
ing. Chrome OS can now read It’s maintenance free, with
PROS: Fast boot; instant-on; very responsive; full-size keyboard,
an SD card in the Chrome- updates pushed out auto-
very long battery life; zero maintenance.
book’s slot, but we could only matically by Google, but the
upload the files to Picasa. Series 5 is probably suited
CONS: Interface is just plain boring; gaming is good but confined
People have figured out ways for slightly more advanced
to a browser; media handling is poor.
to creatively move files to the computer-phobes, if not out-
SSD, but that definitely ain’t right nerds.
BEST FOR: The computer-phobe who is willing to live an online,
an undertaking for newbs.
Google lifestyle.
We did a simple attach-
Samsung Series 5
ment test to see how well
the Series 5 could handle a $400, www.samsung.com
50 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
easy does it
APPLE IPAD 2
THOUGH A BIT HEAVY, IT OFFERS
COMPUTER NEWBS THE RICHEST
EXPERIENCE
THE SHINING SYMBOL of the tender for computer-phobes.
“post-PC” era is the tablet, It’s easy to set up for email,
and its most prominent repre- the browser is fairly powerful,
sentative is Apple’s iconic iPad and the extensibility through
2. That’s one of the reasons we apps for just about anything
picked the iPad 2 as the tablet you want to do makes it the
to test in this showdown over most feature-rich device in
more feature-rich, but also this roundup. Out of the box,
more complicated Android tab- for example, you can’t open
lets. We had high expectations Zip files or do video Skype,
that the iPad 2 would solve our but a few free apps later, and
computer-phobe problems. your problems are solved. The
Part of that comes from a killer feature of the iPad 2 is in
user interface so easy even a gaming, though. A computer-
Mac user can handle it. phobe may check email or
Right out of the gate we hit a browse a bit, but the games
snag: setup and maintenance. are likely to suck them in. With
You don’t just start using your its vast application bazaar,
iPad 2, you must connect it to a the iPad 2 is one of the stron-
PC with iTunes running. What gest casual gaming platforms
if you don’t have a PC or Mac? available today.
You’re SOL. So what doesn’t work for a
Far worse is the iPad 2’s computer-phobe? While it’s a
need to continually run home good media consumption de-
to mommy. Updates, for ex- vice, you can’t copy photos to
ample, can only be applied it without either using a com-
through iTunes, and for us that puter or paying for a special
was problematic. We eventu- adapter. The lack of a real
ally gave up trying to down- keyboard is also going to de-
load a 647MB patch, leaving ter those who want an email
the iPad open to a very serious device more than a browsing
security certificate hack. Sigh. or gaming device. A Bluetooth
Fortunately, Apple is hoping keyboard can be added, but
to fi x the iPad’s reliance on that increases the cost.
another computer for future And for the computer-
updates, but at press time, no phobe who wants to use a The iPad 2’s unparalleled extensibility
such fi x was available. device for long stretches of through applications gives it a leg up
over its competitors.
As is, though, the iPad 2’s time, the iPad 2 can be a bit
polish makes it a serious con- heavy to hold and the 9.7-inch
screen a bit small—although the iPad 2 here. From its super
the font size scales up nicely application bazaar, to its of-
for those with vision issues. fl ine capability and its overly
PROS: Huge application offering; super-simple interface; easy The screen’s relatively low simplistic interface, the iPad
email setup. 1024x768 resolution also of- is clearly the leading device for
fended our high-tech tastes a computer-phobe—if Apple
CONS: Requires a PC for setup and maintenance; form factor but a computer-phobe is un- could, um, actually not require
is not ideal for heavy use; users cannot easily copy photos to it. likely ever to notice. Plus, the you to own a PC to use this,
iPad 2 has the advantage of um, post-PC device.
BEST FOR: A computer-phobe with light usage patterns and ac- being more agnostic when it
cess to a real PC. comes to web services, unlike
Apple iPad 2
the Samsung Series 5.
Yes, there’s a lot of win for $500, www.apple.com
52 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
THE EASY ANSWER
THERE MIGHT NOT BE ONE PERFECT SOLUTION,
BUT THERE IS A CLEAR WINNER
Let’s be straight, there isn’t a device here that we didn’t find and its gaming and extensible app support is superb.
wanting in some capacity or another. From the Samsung Series So can we declare a winner? Honestly, we think we can. Keep
5’s mediocre handling of media, to the iPad 2’s requirement that in mind that each solution has serious faults, but we think the
you use another computer just to turn it on, to the Telikin’s out- all-around computer-phobe is best served by the iPad 2. We
of-the-box error messages, not one of these machines is the make that decision based on its agnostic web services support,
perfect solution for the computer-phobe in your life. Let’s face its rich gaming, and its ability to meet a computer-phobe's evolv-
it, if completely trouble-free computing existed, there would be ing needs—because let’s face it, the more comfortable a person
no computer-phobes. gets with computing, the more they tend to want to do. For ex-
Still, these devices do get closer to trouble-free computing ample, on the iPad 2 you can edit photos and video locally; not
than a full-fl edged PC, each in its own way. The Telikin Touch so on either the Telikin Touch or Series 5. And let’s not forget
seems perfect for the audience it was originally created for: the generous functionality offered through apps. The iPad 2’s
computer-newb seniors who want a mouse and keyboard and extensibility (with the help of an optional Bluetooth keyboard, of
access to a tech who can fi x any issue remotely. The Samsung course) gives it a leg up over both the Series 5 and the Telikin.
Series 5 is fast, responsive, and likely impossible to break, and The only big fail for the iPad 2 where computer-phobes are con-
it's a good compromise for the phobe who wants a keyboard, cerned is that they may have to come to your house to update
mobility, and zero maintenance. The iPad 2, for its part, offers their devices on your PC once every few months. Still, that’s a
portability and the offl ine functionality that the Series 5 can’t, hell of a lot better than regular 3 a.m. phone calls.
FEATURE COMPARISON
TELIKIN TOUCH SAMSUNG SERIES 5 APPLE IPAD 2
Skype Yes No Yes
Hulu No No Hulu Plus only
Netflix No Yes Yes
YouTube Yes Yes Yes
Vimeo No Yes
IF COMPLETELY Maintenance Automatic updates Automatic updates PC and iTunes required
TROUBLE FREE
Setup Moderate Easy Easy but PC required
Email Fair Good Excellent
COMPUTING Browsing Good Very Good Good
EXISTED, THERE
Social Networks Fair Good Excellent
Photo Viewing Fair Very Good Very Good
WOULD BE NO Photo Import Good Bad Needs adapter
Gaming Mediocre Fair Excellent
COMPUTER Startup Average Excellent Excellent
PHOBES Responsiveness Fair Very good Very good
Shutdown PC-like Excellent Excellent
Typeface size Excellent Good Very good
Native PDF Yes Yes Yes
Native Word Yes No* Yes
Native Zip No No No**
Multiple Accounts Yes Yes No
Price $700 $400 $500
*Must upload file to Google Docs to view or edit
** Must download free .zip app to open
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 53
R&D examining technology and putting it to use
By BILL O'BRIEN
Micro-Holographic
Disc Technology
GE promises to deliver 500GB on a single optical disc
General Electric garnered attention was capable of holding 500GB of data. But the positive holes they’ve left behind.
recently by announcing plans to deliver a GE’s technology doesn’t rely on layered Depending on the balance between the two,
micro-holographic disc product capable of media for this tremendous leap in capacity. an electron will either remain where it is,
storing 500GB of data on a CD-style disc Instead, as the “holographic” portion of return to its point of origin, or spin off. The
that will operate at the speed of today’s the name implies, GE’s technology creates second is a diffusive force that promotes
Blu-ray drives. As amazing an achievement a three-dimensional image within a layer by the electrons moving into areas populated
as that might seem, it’s certainly feasible writing at controlled depths using overlap- by fewer electrons, known as dark areas.
within the boundaries of current technol- ping blue lasers. Coherent light from the The manner in which the immobile or rov-
ogy. So rather than ask, “Is it possible?” the two sources (one a reference beam and the ing electrons interact with these attractive
better question might be “Is it practical?” other a signal beam) causes an interfer- and diffusive forces both determines the
ence pattern within the media. If there is hologram’s strength and changes the disc’s
CURRENT DISCOGRAPHY constructive interference between the two, refraction index.
Conventional optical discs—those used electrons can be coerced to move from the Only one laser (the reference beam) is
for DVD or Blu-ray tasks—use a 4.75-inch material’s valence band (the highest range needed to read information back from the
platter (a 12-inch platter is also part of the of electron energies) to its conduction band. holograms. The refractive-index changes
specification) with either one or two lay- Electrons in the conduction band will en- in the material splits the beam in two, one
ers of substrate. (The technology actually counter two opposing forces that determine of which follows the beam pattern as it was
defines up to four layers, but design com- how they move. The first is an attractive originally created.
plexities and costs have limited commercial force created between the electrons and
designs to two layers.) A laser is used to
alter the reflectivity of the substrate, emu-
lating the pits and lands that are present in
commercially pressed discs.
Each additional substrate adds storage
capacity, but each subsequent layer LASER BEAM PROFILE
also adds complexity. No matter how
tightly focused the laser, and regardless
of whether it’s the standard red or the
narrower blue type, the beam will disturb
the upper layer as it passes through to
reach the one below it. This disturbance
results in undesirable signal deviation—aka
noise—when the disc is read. Electronics
inside the disc drive can compensate for
this noise by filtering it out of the signal, but
each additional layer can compound the ADDRESSED POINT
noise until it swamps these filters.
LAYERS OF WRITTEN DATA
THE GE PLAN
GE Global Research, the technology
development arm of the General Electric
Company, announced in 2009 that it had As the disc spins, a pair of overlapping lasers alters the reflectivity of the disc’s substrate
developed a substrate, which it dubbed at multiple depths along a concentric track to create a three-dimensional image to
“micro-holographic storage material,” that represent bits of data.
54 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
autopsy
Energizer Inductive Charger
Proponents of inductive charging claim that the semi-wireless technology is the future
of charging. Some current iterations are more gimmick than gimme, but inductive
charging does show promise—provided device manufacturers can be convinced to inte-
grate it into their products. The Wireless Power Consortium hopes its Qi standard will
SPEED BUMPS be the one the industry rallies around. But how does inductive charging work? We took
GE appears to be keeping its promise to apart Energizer’s Inductive Charger to find out.
deliver usable discs by 2012. It has also
promised that its micro-holographic SECONDARY COIL
disc players will be backward compat- The secondary coil is housed in the
ible with older optical technologies device to be charged—in this case,
a backplate for the iPhone 4. The
(existing CD, DVD, and BD drives won’t primary coil induces a current into
be capable of reading the new media). the secondary coil, which plugs into
Still, GE’s technology must overcome the iPhone via its connector dock to
charge the phone. Future Qi devices
two significant challenges before it will will have the secondary coil built in,
gain widespread acceptance. so they won’t rely on aftermarket
The first is the operational speed. backplates or cases.
Whether anyone could think that writ-
ing data “as fast” as a BD drive is a
good thing probably depends on the RECEIVER Devices using the Qi
available alternatives. A BD drive can wireless charging standard use a
standardized protocol to communicate
write to a BD disc at about 4.5MB per charge status and other information
second at 1x and up to about 54MB/s between charger and device. The
at 12x. While GE has been somewhat transmitter pings the receiver to
determine if it’s present, and then
coy about exactly what “Blu-ray the receiver tells the transmitter
speed” means, opinions will depend on its charge status and power
whether they’re talking minutes, hours, requirements. Once the device is fully
charged, the circuit shuts off.
or days to fill a 500GB disc.
The second challenge is pricing.
We haven’t heard about pricing for the
drive, but some experts are talking AC JACK The
charger’s wall wart
about media costs approaching $50 per turns AC power into
disc. In a world in which $55 buys a 1TB delicious 9V 2.3A
internal hard drive with twice the capac- DC power, which
gives enough juice to
ity and many times the write speed, a charge three devices
micro-holographic drive just doesn’t simultaneously—two
sound competitive. via inductive charging
and one via USB.
Speaking of hard drives, Hitachi
has just introduced a single-platter,
1TB version of its Deskstar series. PRIMARY COILS
With one platter and reduced heat and Inductive chargers
noise from a lower component count, exploit the property
of electromagnetic
Hitachi’s drive is sure to catch on in the induction—that
same commercial markets at which GE is, a change in an
is aiming its micro-holographic disc object’s magnetic field will
produce a change in the
technology. And then there’s the cloud. object’s electric current. USB PORT
If the industry can resolve the security And electricity produces For those of
issues inherent in cloud computing, a magnetic field. By us still charging
running an electrical our devices the
that market could kill any large-scale current through old-fashioned
corporate appetite for micro-holo- the primary coil, way, the Inductive
graphic drives and discs. Without those the charger Charger includes
creates an a handy USB
deep-pocketed customers to pay back electromagnetic charging port,
GE’s R&D investment, this technology field that induces a as well.
might never become cheap enough to current in the secondary coil,
which charges the device’s
reach the consumer market. battery. The primary coil only
Despite great initial buzz, GE might turns on if it detects a Qi-
very well find itself with a solution enabled receiver device, so
you don’t have to worry about
looking for a problem. To keep that nuking your keys or pocket
from happening, micro-holographic change if they fall on the
technology will need a rapid develop- transmitter.
ment path and affordable pricing right
out of the gate.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 55
R&D
STEP BY STEP GUIDES TO IMPROVING YOUR PC
WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH
ALEX CASTLE
ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR
GET THE
FEATURES
OF WINDOWS
8 RIGHT NOW
AT THE BUILD CONFERENCE,
Microsoft announced some
new features of Windows 8.
MICROMANAGE YOUR PROCESSES And although I’m as excited
as the next guy about the fol-
IS YOUR MASSIVELY MULTICORE PROCESSOR CAUSING PROBLEMS WITH low-up to Windows 7, not all
of the new features look quite
LEGACY APPLICATIONS? YOU CAN RELEGATE A PROCESS TO A SINGLE CPU
so… new. Here are three fea-
CORE BY OPENING THE TASK MANAGER, RIGHT-CLICKING A PARTICULAR tures of Windows 8 that you
can have today:
PROCESS, AND SELECTING SET AFFINITY.
Ambient Data: One of the cool-
est features of the new Metro UI
is tiles that display constantly
updated data. Windows has
tooled with this before with
MAKE USE CREATE
desktop widgets, but if you want
real power, you’ll have to check
out a third-party solution like
Samurize (www.samurize.com).
Cloud Sync: Microsoft is fully
embracing cloud sync in Win-
dows 8, but there’s no reason
you shouldn’t already be using
cloud sync services like Drop-
box (www.dropbox.com)or Sug-
arSync (www.sugarsync.com).
58 60
New, Ugly Windows Explor-
CREATE A FLEXIBLE PROTECT YOUR
er: Just kidding—they can
WEBSITE FOR FREE BOOT DRIVE keep that one.
WITH DRUPAL GARDENS WITH BITLOCKER
submit your How To project idea to: comments@maximumpc.com
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 57
R&D
CREATE A FLEXIBLE WEBSITE WITH
DRUPAL GARDENS –Seamus Bellamy
IN A WORLD WHERE most of us have turned to expressing ourselves in snippets through the use of
WITH services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, there’s still a place in this world for websites. After all,
DRUPAL 140 characters might be enough to push out a message concerning how much you drank last night
and where you think you left your pants, but unless you’re a MAG Poetry Prize winner, you might have
GARDENS, some difficulty expressing the emotions you felt in seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time on your
THERE'S summer vacation. And it goes without saying that for businesses, in particular, having a website to
showcase or offer support for your products is a no-brainer.
NO NEED These days, folks looking to build their own site are spoiled for choice. For those who just want
TO WORRY to throw their pictures and videos up online without worrying about anything more than what tem-
plate to use and an occasional bit of spellchecking, Tumblr, Blogger, and Windows Live Spaces are all
ABOUT great ways to go. If you demand more control over your site’s look and functionality, you can rely on
PAYING open-source content management systems like Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress. Unfortunately, to get
the most out of these, users often need to be prepared to fulfill the role of not only content creator but
SCADS TO A also backend site administrator, dealing with frustrations such as choosing a reputable ISP, setting
TALENTED up your home computer to act as a server, deciding whether or not to download new versions of the
program, and dealing with PHP databases.
WEB Isn’t there a happy middle ground?
DESIGNER There is. Drupal Gardens takes the power and flexibility of the open source Drupal 7 content man-
agement system and combines it with turnkey-style site management, allowing users to go from nil
to an up-and-running site in well under an hour. With Drupal Gardens, there’s no need for worrying
about backend administration, working with frustrating FTP uploads, or paying scads to a talented
web developer for his years of dedicated technical education. Simply sign up for an account, set up
your site, and get posting. How do
you get started? Glad you asked.
A
1 SIGN UP First, visit the Drupal Gardens website (www.
drupalgardens.com) and click Create a Free Site. You’ll be
taken to a sign-up page that asks for a site URL (image A).
As Drupal Gardens is a relatively new service, chances are you
won’t have too much difficulty snagging a domain name that
works for you. Once you’ve settled on your credentials, click
the Continue button.
2 CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON While a blog
might be great for keeping a concise
online record of your cat’s busy life, it
doesn’t do much if you’re trying to promote a
B
product or service. Fortunately, Drupal Gardens
accounts for this by offering a number of stylis-
tic alternatives, including a template optimized
for promoting a product or service and another
designed to help groups discuss or push their
agenda forward (image B). If none of Drupal
Garden’s basic templates do it for you, there’s
also the option to create a template to meet your
particular needs. Must-have features like a ro-
tating banner, an area for your Twitter feed, and
feedback and contact forms can all be turned on
or off with push-button simplicity. When you're
satisfied with the type of site and feature set
you’ve selected, click Continue.
58 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
3 RETICULATING SPINES At this point, as you will see by the
progress bar you’re presented with, your Drupal Gardens
site is well on its way to being set up. Check your inbox: Ac-
quia will have sent you an email when your site is ready to go. When
it shows up, click the link to complete the setup process. You have
seven days to click the link before your Drupal Gardens site and
account are both deleted. Now, let’s move on. This is where things
get interesting.
4 WELCOME HOME While it might not be much to look at
yet, your new Drupal Gardens digs are set up and ready
to be tweaked (image C). Where services like Tumblr
leave you to your own devices, Acquia has been good enough
C
to provide a few sample posts and other filler content to all
new Drupal Gardens sites in order to give users a feel for the
template they’ve chosen. Had enough of a feel? Good—time to
make it your own.
5 MASTER YOUR DOMAIN Drupal Gardens, like Drupal 7, can
be controlled and manipulated via the administration tool-
bar at the top of your browser. Only users who have signed
into the service can see or interact with the administration tool-
tionality with just a few mouse clicks. While some of the modules
must be enabled at all times, Drupal Gardens provides you with
a wide variety of additional modules to help you customize your
site’s look and feel.
bar—it’s not visible to anyone else. Here’s the lowdown on its vari- » Configuration: As the link’s name suggests, from here users
ous functions. are able to configure a wide variety of their site’s functions, includ-
» Dashboard: Clicking this link provides you with an overview of the ing account settings, content authoring defaults, how media such
latest updates to your Drupal Gardens site. as photos, audio, and video are presented, language settings, and
» Contents: Shows a list of your entire site’s content, as well as a number of administrative functions.
who posted it. Here, an administrator can create, publish, unpub- » Reports: With this link, you can check on your site’s stats, re-
lish, edit, or delete any of the site’s posts. cent log messages, and other important site information. For in-
» Structure: Essentially, the structure link lets you decide what dividuals looking to leverage their website for sales, media rela-
appears on your site and where it shows up. From here, you can tions, or product information, these metrics are vital.
configure your Drupal Gardens site’s data structure, content types,
menus, and taxonomy. This is also where you can create simple
content lists.
6
» Appearance: With the options available via the Appearance link,
UPGRADE While Drupal Gardens’ free offerings
you can pimp out your site to your heart’s content, changing the
will sate the website-building appetite of most
site’s layout, color palette, logo, font customization, page borders,
users, Acquia also offers a number of tiers of
themes, and more (image D). For the skilled (or adventurous),
additional service that allow for a variety of finishing
there’s also an option to putter about with Cascading Style Sheets.
touches, like additional storage, one-on-one technical
» People: From here, you can invite new people to your site under
support, additional responses for any of your site’s web
a wide variety of permissions levels. If anyone gets out of line, the
forms, and the use of a custom domain name (image E).
People overlay also provides the ability to block or delete users.
Now that your site is up and running, don’t be afraid to
» Modules: With Drupal, Modules make the magic happen. Noth-
tinker! Drupal’s reputation as a flexible, durable CMS is
ing on your site happens without them. The Modules link makes it
well earned, thanks to the hard work of countless devel-
a cinch to enable or disable modules, adding or taking away func-
opers volunteering their time over the years. The chances
D of you breaking anything are pretty minimal. If you do find
a way to flummox the works, don’t fret: The helpful folks
in the Drupal Gardens forums are standing by to help you
unbugger just about anything you accidentally bugger up.
E
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 59
R&D
PROTECT YOUR BOOT DRIVE
WITH BITLOCKER –Alex Castle
When it comes to protecting the data on your computer, you can’t to use various encryption tools to encrypt individual files or create
do better than strong encryption. Properly encrypted, your files are virtual, encrypted drives. Now, we’ll look at how to get maximum se-
safe even if a ne’er-do-well gains access to your computer, either curity by encrypting your boot disk using the BitLocker full-drive en-
physically or through a network. In the past, we’ve discussed how cryption system that’s built into Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise.
1 ASSESS YOUR SYSTEM Ide-
ally, you have a motherboard
with a Trusted Platform
Module (TPM) chip. A TPM chip
F
securely stores cryptographic
keys, which BitLocker uses to ac-
cess your boot drive before Win-
3
dows even loads. The TPM also detects any early boot files that have been
ENABLE BITLOCKER The actual process of
modified, protecting you from rootkits and other low-level malware. You
enabling BitLocker is straightforward: You can
can check with your motherboard manufacturer to see if you have a TPM,
right-click a drive in Explorer and click Turn On
or you can just attempt to go straight to Step 3. If you don’t see a message
BitLocker, or you can go to the BitLocker section of the
that looks like image F, you’re good to go. Otherwise, you don’t have a TPM
control panel and enable it on any drive from there.
and you’ll need to continue to Step 2.
As long as you’ve followed the previous two steps,
You'll also need an additional, small partition on any boot drive you
you should see a screen asking you for your BitLock-
wish to encrypt in order to use BitLocker. Windows creates this extra
er startup preferences. If you have a TPM, you have
partition by default during installation, but even if you don’t have one, the
three options. If you select “Use BitLocker without ad-
BitLocker software can create it for you.
ditional keys” your startup process will be basically
unchanged. Someone with access to your computer
will be able to get at your data, but you’ll be protected
from rootkits and from people accessing your data
2
remotely. Alternatively, you can choose to enter a PIN
ENABLE USB KEY STORAGE By default, BitLocker requires a TPM
every time you log in.
chip to work. To change this, open the group policy editor by bringing
If you’re using the USB method, you only have ac-
up the Run menu (press Win + R) and then typing gpedit.msc.
cess to the last option, “Require a Startup key at ev-
Navigate through the hierarchy on the left side of the group policy editor,
ery startup.” With this method, you’ll only be able to
selecting the following folders, in order: Computer Configuration > Adminis-
boot your computer while you have a USB drive with a
trative Templates > Windows Components > BitLocker Drive Encryption > Op-
startup key inserted in the machine.
erating System Drives (image G). Once you’ve found the right folder, double-
Once you select an option, you’ll be asked to insert a
click “Require additional authentication at startup” to edit that policy entry.
USB drive to use as the key, and you’ll choose where to
In the policy editor, all you need to do is click the radio button marked En-
store your recovery key, which you'll need if you want to
abled. In the bottom-left, a checkbox labeled “Allow BitLocker without a com-
decrypt your data on a different computer, or if the TPM
patible TPM” should already be checked. If it isn’t, check it. Click OK and exit
detects a problem. It will take some time for BitLocker
the group policy editor.
to encrypt your drive, but once it’s finished, your data is
safe. Anyone attempting to boot from your drive with-
G out the proper key won’t even get to the Windows boot
screen (image H).
H
60 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
R&D
NATHAN EDWARDS SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Get Gaming on
an HTPC
I don't want to watch cable TV. I don't want to use a
controller. I just want to watch 3D Blu-rays and frag people
with a mouse and keyboard, all on a box that fits on my
entertainment center. Is that too much to ask?
LENGTH OF TIME: 2 HOURS LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: INTERMEDIATE
THE MISSION We’ve built our fair share of home theater PCs in bulk (and CableCard) while still supporting Blu-ray 3D. Both of
the past, with all sorts of different use cases in mind. Our Au- those rigs handled their respective tasks well, but what if I don’t
gust 2010 HTPC was a stunner built for 3D, with passively cooled care about cable but do care about gaming? This month’s task
GPU, CPU, and PSU, as well as a four-channel CableCard tuner is to create a kick-ass gaming rig in an HTPC form factor—one
and Blu-ray 3D support. In June 2011, Gordon tried to make a that can handle modern games, as well as 3D Blu-ray and Dolby
small-form-factor HTPC that could cut out the previous build’s TrueHD audio, without sounding like a jet engine.
62 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
The Right Tools for the Job
WHEN BUILDING A PC for the living room, the first thing to con-
sider is the chassis. After testing many cases, including Lian Li’s
PC-P50 and Silverstone’s oldie-but-goodie CW02, I settled on the
Silverstone GD06, a microATX case with three 12cm cooling fans,
front-panel USB 3.0 ports (with internal header!), and two hot-
swap SATA bays. The other cases were roomier, but I wanted to
keep the footprint as small as possible.
The videocard needs to be able to handle Blu-ray 3D and sup-
port HDMI 1.4a for true lossless HD audio. That’s the easy part.
It also has to have the power to play today’s games, and the GTX
560Ti has that. MSI’s Twin Frozr II version is speedy, factory-
overclocked, quiet, and doesn’t draw a lot of power. For Blu-ray
playback, we’re hitting up an old favorite: Plextor’s PX320-SA.
We’re not crippling this rig with an Atom or Fusion board.
Asus’s Maximus IV Gene-Z combines a powerful Z68 gaming plat-
form with easy overclocking, two PCIe x16 slots, onboard 6Gb/s
The GD06's front panel latches when not in use to prevent miscreants
SATA, and X-Fi-branded onboard audio using Realtek codecs. In-
from waltzing off with your drives.
tel’s Core i5-2500K brings four unlocked processors at 3.3GHz.
I picked a speedy 6Gb/s SATA SSD for an OS drive, and a large-
capacity drive for media storage. The case’s front hot-swap SATA
bays make it easy to add more storage later.
INGREDIENTS
PART/URL PRICE
Case Silverstone GD06
www.silverstonetek.com $130
PSU Silverstone Strider Essential ST70F-E 700W
www.silverstonetek.com $85
Mobo Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z
usa.asus.com $180
CPU Intel 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K
www.intel.com $220
CPU cooler Stock Intel
www.intel.com $0
GPU MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti
us.msi.com $240
RAM (2x) 4GB Corsair Dominator DDR3/1600
www.corsair.com $100
Blu-ray combo drive Plextor PX-B320SA
www.plextor.com $110
SSD 120GB Corsair Force GT
www.corsair.com $220
HDD 3TB WD Caviar Green
www.wdc.com $115
OS Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit OEM
www.microsoft.com $100
TOTAL $1,500
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 63
R&D
Putting It All Together
1 PREP THE CASE 2 INSTALL THE PSU
REMOVE THE THREE SCREWS securing the top cover of the GD06, then slide the STICK THE FOUR RUBBER FEET that ship with
cover off of the case. Unlock and open the front-panel bezel. Take out the four little the case onto the underside of the PSU (the side
screws securing the optical drive bay, and remove the bay. Do the same with the with the intake fan). Mount the PSU with the fan
four screws holding the HDD trays. Lift out the bays and set them aside (image A). pointing to the bottom of the case.
A
B
3 INSTALL THE CPU, COOLER, AND RAM
OPEN THE CPU GATE and remove the plastic socket protector. Align the CPU
with the socket and gently lower it into place (image B). Lower the gate and C
secure the CPU. Since we’re using the stock cooler, all you have to do is remove
the plastic cover, make sure the stock thermal pads are in place, and align
the four posts on the heatsink with the mounting holes in the motherboard.
Press down firmly on two opposite pins at a time until you hear a firm click,
then repeat for the other two pins (image C). Make sure the cooler is firmly
attached; it shouldn’t wobble. Connect the CPU fan to the CPU_FAN header.
Mount the RAM in either the red slots or the black slots.
4 MOUNT THE MOTHERBOARD D
INSTALL THE MOTHERBOARD I/O shield in the case, then put
a motherboard standoff into the rightmost center hole (when
viewed from the rear of the case)—this is the only standoff you
need for microATX that isn’t preinstalled in the chassis. Slide the
motherboard into the case (image D), aligning the I/O ports with the
I/O shield, and screw the motherboard screws into the standoffs.
64 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
R&D
E
5 CONNECT CABLES
THE TRICKIEST PART of this build is the wiring. As you perform each
step, keep the next steps in mind. Plan ahead and make sure to coil
excess cable and secure it to tiedowns when possible. G
Connect one end of a black SATA cable to one of the four gray SATA
ports on the motherboard. Connect the PSU’s 24-pin ATX power connec-
tor to the board. Run the 8-pin ATX power cable along the bottom edge
of the motherboard, and then up behind the I/O ports to the AUX input
(image E). Set aside a SATA power cable, the dual-6-pin PCI Express
power cable, and a 4-pin Molex power cable, and tie the remaining PCI F
Express and SATA power cables down in front of the motherboard (image
F) using the cable ties included with the case.
Coil the front-panel connectors until they’re just long enough to reach
the pins, then connect them to the motherboard’s pinout. Install the pinout
onto the board (image G). Tie down the excess cable. Attach the front-
panel audio and USB 3.0 headers, pulling excess cable below the optical
drive bay. Plug the system fans into fan headers on the motherboard.
6 INSTALL THE GPU
REMOVE THE TWO PCI expansion slot covers closest to the I/O ports H
and install the GPU, making sure to run the ATX auxiliary power cable
beneath it. Plug the two PCI-E 6-pin plugs into the ports on the end of
the card (image H).
7 INSTALL THE DRIVES
ATTACH THE SSD to the underside of the hard drive bracket using the
four SSD screws (image I). Plug a 6Gb/s SATA cable into the SSD. Plug
the two SATA cables from the hot-swap bays to two of the mobo’s gray
SATA ports, and attach the other end of the SATA cable from the SSD
into one of the red ports. Attach the two 4-pin Molex connectors from
the hot-swap bays to two of the 4-pin connectors from the PSU (image
J). Attach the end SATA data connector from the cable you moved over
8 INSTALL THE BLU-RAY DRIVE
earlier. Replace the hard drive tray and reattach the four screws that
ATTACH THE OPTICAL drive to the optical drive tray (image K),
hold it in place. Slide your mass storage drive into one of the hot-swap
making sure the mounting holes on the drive are aligned with the
bays and close the door.
front set of mounting holes on the tray. Attach with four optical-
drive mounting screws and plug in the SATA power and SATA data
I cables you previously routed to the area. Reinstall the drive bay
using the four screws you removed in Step 1.
K
J
9 WRAP IT UP
SLOT THE STORAGE DRIVE into one of the front hot-swap bays,
and then replace the case’s top cover. Install OS and drivers,
and away you go!
66 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
The tight quarters
of the GD06 don’t
leave much room
for a fancy wiring
job, but the posi-
tive air pressure
generated by its
three 12cm intake
fans ensures that
the components
stay cool.
IT'S GOT GAME!
I WORRIED THAT AN ACTIVELY via the videocard’s 1.4a-compatible It's also great for games. Some of peripheral recommendations still
cooled gaming rig in an HTPC chas- Mini HDMI port—essential elements us like gaming on a giant screen, and stand, though 3D-compatible TVs
sis would be too noisy, especially in a home theater PC. If you must have we want to use a mouse and keyboard have only gotten easier to come by.
compared to passively cooled rigs cable, you can drop in Ceton’s InfiniTV when we do. And now we can, with There’s more than one way to skin
like our August 2011 machine. But tuner and a CableCard. If you must a box that’s far more powerful than a cat (eww), and my gaming HTPC
all builds involve compromises, and have a dedicated soundcard, you can any console. isn’t the same as yours. What would
I wasn’t willing to give up gaming add in one of those. If you’re really If you’re curious about the rest you change? What essential part did
performance in exchange for a few crazy, you can add both. I prefer to of an HTPC setup—recommended I miss? What totally unnecessary
decibels. Fortunately, the GD06’s go without either and save the $650. remotes, peripherals, sound sys- expense did I incur? Email your cri-
fans are pretty quiet, and MSI’s Twin I still have access to Netflix, Hulu tems, T Vs, and more—check out tiques, build suggestions, and more
Frozr II cooler makes the GTX 560 Ti Plus, and anything I can stream over our guide to the Ultimate 3D HTPC to comments@maximumpc.com!
run quietly, as well. The rig only really my home network. from last year (bit.ly/nvnfdw). The
got loud when I was installing driver
updates from the optical drive. The
drive runs much more quietly when
BENCHMARKS: GAMING HTPC RIG
playing a movie. ZERO POINT
And to my relief, the system Vegas Pro 9 (sec) 3,049 3,411 (-11%)
is pretty speedy. Our zero-point
Lightroom 2.6 (sec) 356 312
machine is an aging-but-still-pow-
erful overclocked Core i7-920 with Proshow 4 (sec) 1,112 986
a dual-GPU videocard. The Sandy Reference 1.6 (sec) 2,113 2,258 (-6%)
Bridge processor and GTX 560 Ti STALKER (fps) 42.0 34.1 (-19%)
helped the gaming HTPC hold its own
Far Cry 2 (fps) 114.4 91.9 (-20%)
reasonably well in the benchmarks
despite a stock-clocked processor
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
sans Hyper-Threading.
The rig plays 3D Blu-ray and offers 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 1,750MHz,
on a Gigabyte X58 motherboard. We are running an ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, a 160GB Intel X25-M SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate.
a protected Dolby TrueHD audio path
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 67
reviews of the latest hardware and software
in the lab
TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED.
INSIDE
70 AVADirect Custom Gaming PC
72 Asus Mars II Graphics Card
74 Ultraportable Notebooks:
Toshiba Portégé R830
and HP Elitebook 2560p
76 OCZ RevoDrive3 X2
PCI Express SSD
78 Rosewill Thor Case
80 Cooler Roundup: NZXT Havik
140, EVGA Superclock,
and Thermaltake Frio OCK
82 IoSafe Rugged Portable SSD
84 Router Roundup: Belkin
N750 DB, D-Link DIR 657,
and Trendnet TEW-692GR
86 LG E2370v Monitor
88 Creative Sound Blaster
Recon3D USB Audio Device
90 Deus Ex: Human Revolution
92 Lab Notes
COOLER
ROUNDUP
PAGE 80
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 69
in the lab
AVADirect
Custom
Gaming PC
AVA finds a way to mix
performance and silence
IN OUR WORLD, performance and silence go on the ENGTX580
together about as well as Aliens and Preda- don’t spool up to any
tors. Each one has its appeal, but put them noticeable level.
together, and you generally get a turd. There’s something
That’s a fact AVADirect has set out to cool about running
disprove with a PC apparently named by tri-SLI or quad-SLI,
U.S. Army logistics command: Custom but it’s also pretty cool—nay, way cool—to Despite its beefy GTX 580 GPU, this is the
Gaming PC, Silent PC, Low-Noise Custom run the Unigine Heaven benchmark at quietest gaming rig we’ve ever not heard.
Computer System. Despite its funktastic 2560x1600 and not hear the GPU make a
name, the AVADirect PC doesn’t disap- peep. We’re so used to noise, either very
In performance, the AVADirect doesn’t
point and seems capable of creating its loud or low-level system noise, during
break any records; in fact, many of the
own alternate reality where performance gaming tests that the AVADirect’s silence is
small form factor boxes we reviewed in
commingles harmoniously with peace and a bit unnerving, in the way hybrid cars can
August (including AVADirect’s shriektastic
quiet. sneak up on you at the crosswalk.
entry) are faster. But none of them are as
Sure, Puget System’s virtually silent The rest of the machine’s specs are laid
quiet, either. And a Core i5-2500K at 4.7GHz
Serenity Mini that we reviewed in our bare in our spec chart, but the highlights
with a GTX 580 is certainly no slouch, no
August issue was certainly fast with its include an Asus P8Z68-V Pro board, 8GB
matter how you cut it.
3.3GHz Core i5-2500K overclocked to of G.Skill DDR3/1600, a 120GB OCZ Vertex
OK, so the AVADirect won’t take any
4.5GHz, but its Radeon HD 5750 didn’t 3, and a 2TB WD Caviar Green. The Caviar
records, but it wins in the one area the
have the ponies for heavy gaming tasks at Green is already silent, but to make sure
company was shooting for. So brew
high resolutions. you can’t hear the HDD at all, AVADirect
yourself a cup of organic herbal tea,
AVADirect took gaming to heart with its seals it up in an enclosure for extra mea-
burn some incense, and start grenade
silent PC. Besides overclocking its 3.3GHz sure. The NZXT H2 itself is an interesting
spamming and sniping away in blissful
Core i5-2500K to 4.7GHz using a Proli- take on the standard bearer of quiet cases:
serenity. GORDON MAH UNG
matech Megahalems cooler, AVADirect Antec’s P180 series. One thing we like is the
9
matches that chip with Asus’s three-slot three-position fan controller that lets you
ENGTX580 card. With its beefy build and toggle the speeds without having to reach in AVADirect Custom Gaming PC
giant fans, the yuge ENGTX580 is gener- back. The NZXT case doesn’t have the fancy
ALIENS Amazingly quiet gam-
ally intended for overclocking, but if you baffles of the P180, but it will take a full-size
ing performance.
don’t overclock, you can run the card qui- ATX board while still being almost as small
etly. So damn quiet, in fact, that the fans as the microATX Mini P180 case. AvP Spooled-up optical drive
gets too loud.
$2,135, www.avadirect.com
BENCHMARKS
ZERO
POINT
Vegas Pro (sec) 3,049 2,611 SPECIFICATIONS
Lightroom 2.6 (sec) 356 280 Processor 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K @ 4.7GHz
Proshow 4 (sec) 1,112 774 Mobo Asus P8Z8-V Pro
Reference 1.6 (sec) 2,113 1,717 RAM 8GB G.Skill DDR3/1600
Stalker: Cop (fps) Videocard Asus ENGTX580
42.0 43.9
Soundcard Onboard
Far Cry 2 (fps) 114.4 109 (-5%)
Storage OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 SSD, WD
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 2TB Caviar Green
Optical LG WH12LS30 BD burner
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 1,750MHz, on a Gigabyte X58 motherboard. We are running an ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, a 160GB Intel X25-M SSD, and the Case/PSU NZXT H2 Classic / Seasonic
64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate. X-660
70 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
Asus Mars II
Two GTX 580s, one gargantuan videocard
IMAGINE A GRAPHICS CARD weighing 5.25 namby-pamby GTX 590, which sacrifices (Asus claims that the binned GPU parts
pounds with three (yes, three) 8-pin clock speed to get a reasonable-size can run even higher—above 800MHz—
PCI Express power connectors. Now card. The Mars II is a pull-out-the-stops, but given that we nearly melted the PSU
imagine this card taking up three PCI full-steam-ahead GTX 580 SLI on a stick. in our test system, we avoided pushing
Express slots and almost sucking the And the cores aren’t just any 580 cores, the card.) As is, it’s no slouch in per-
life out of an 850W power supply. either; they’re top-binned GPU dies that formance, but we were anxious to put
That may be one reason Asus named run at 782MHz—faster than run-of-the- it against a GeForce GTX 590 and AMD
this card after the Roman god of war. mill GTX 580 chips. The 3GB of GDDR5 Radeon HD 6990.
It’s probably the most powerful single ticks along at 1,002MHz. The mythical Radeon HD 6990 won in
graphics card we’ve tested, but that Asus built the card using its Di- just two areas: power consumption and
power comes at a substantial cost. You’ll rectCU thermal system with a pair of Just Cause 2. The GTX 590 eked out a
need the right type of motherboard and 12cm fans. Despite the monster nature single benchmark win in Battle Forge,
case, too—one where you can install a of the card, it was surprisingly quiet which is likely CPU-bound, since the
three-slot-wide card that’s 12.25 inches under load—somewhat noisier than differences overall are small. The Mars
long and 5 inches tall. the GTX 590, but notably less so than II swept the field in everything else. So
Did we mention that it also costs the Radeon HD 6990. The card uses you really can get SLI on a single card, if
$1,400? 21-phase power. As with the Matrix GTX you’re willing to pay a premium.
Now that you’ve recovered from the 580 we reviewed last month, the card That premium, by the way, includes
heart palpitations induced by the price, ships with Asus’s GPU Tweak utility, the right power supply and case. Our
let’s talk about the real meat of this one of the easiest tools we’ve used for Corsair TX850W survived the experi-
card. What Asus engineers have done GPU overclocking. ence, but the 785W that the Mars II
is build a full GTX 580 SLI combo on a So if this monster can actually run, consumed under load set a Lab record
single card. We’re not talking about a then it should run at full SLI speeds. for a single graphics card.
Clearly this card isn’t for everyone.
The massive size, power draw, and price
will discourage all but the most fanati-
BENCHMARKS
cal gamers. But the Mars II will appeal
to those with the moolah, the system
Asus Mars II Asus GTX 590 XFX Radeon HD 6990 to handle it, and the desire to have the
3DMark 2011 Perf 10,328 8,421 8,863 shiniest toy. But get in line—Asus will
3DMark Vantage Perf 31,536 28,261 28,075 only make about 2,000 of these behe-
Unigine Heaven 2.1 (fps) 85 54 50 moths. LOYD CASE
BattleForge DX11 (fps) 143 147 99
9
VERDICT
Far Cry 2 / Long (fps) 154 149 149 Asus Mars II
HAWX 2 DX11 (fps) 201 186 145
GOD OF WAR It’s damn fast,
STALKER: CoP DX11 (fps) 110 86 89
surprisingly quiet, and appeal-
Just Cause 2 (fps) 62 60 72
ing in a monster truck kind of way.
Aliens vs. Predator (fps) 83 67 78
F1 2010 (fps) 100 82 87
THE TRICKSTER The price is stratospher-
ic; huge power draw; massive size.
Metro 2033 (fps) 48 39 39
System Power @ idle (W) 189 174 156 $1,400, www.asus.com
System Power @ full throttle (W) 785 515 501
Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition in an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard
with 6GB of DDR3/1333 and a TX850 Corsair PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows Ultimate. All games are run at 1920x1200 with 4x
AA unless otherwise noted.
72 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
You’ll need a PSU that can supply three 8-pin power
plugs to run the Mars II. The little red button manu-
ally forces all fans to full throttle.
Double-wide GPU? That’s
for wimps. The Mars II will
swallow three slots on your
motherboard.
The gigantic Mars II packs
two 12cm fans and set a new
record in our Lab for power
consumption.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 73
in the lab
Admittedly, the Toshiba R830 is Aluminum-alloy hinges, titanium-alloy
no paragon of industrial design, display latches, and a rubber bumper
but it’s damn portable—without around the screen are just some of the
sacrificing power. touches that make the HP 2560p good
for rough-and-tumble computing.
Business-Portable Power Play
Two premium thin-and-lights go toe-to-toe
IF INTEL HAS ITS WAY, we’re about to be overtaken by a wave of “ultrabooks” sporting Could you upgrade to a larger-capacity
performance specs (including next-gen Sandy Bridge CPUs, natch) in a MacBook Air–style drive in the future? Actually, no. The drive
package that costs less than $1,000. Until that happens, the most attractive performance/ bay is accessible enough through the bot-
portability option for power users is a business-class ultraportable such as one of the two tom of the notebook. What we found in it,
models we review here. KATHERINE STEVENSON though, wasn’t your typical SSD, but rather
a proprietary drive with an unusual ribbon
TOSHIBA PORTÉGÉ R830 than an inch at it thickest. connector. Interestingly, the bay seems
There was a time when Toshiba’s line of Naturally, the extra 1.3GHz of the large enough to have accommodated a
Portégé business ultraportables was the R830’s CPU produced benchmark results standard thin-profile 2.5-inch drive, which
epitome of sleek utility, particularly in the that were substantially superior to those would have been a really nice feature.
days of the R500 and R600. Samsung stole of the Series 9—ranging from 42 percent The memory bay is also accessible.
some of that show when it released the better in Quake III to 112 percent better Toshiba ships the R830 with one 4GB
Series 9 (reviewed in July)—the closest in MainConcept. Against our ultraport- stick of RAM, and you can clearly see the
a PC has come to a MacBook Air to date. able zero-point notebook (last year’s HP results of that single-channel config in our
But while the Portégé R830, much like 2540p), the R830 also fared quite well. Quake III benchmark—the only benchmark
the R700 before it, won’t win any design Its 98.9 percent win in Photoshop not only where the R830 was bested by the zero-
contests, it offers many useful amenities in illustrates the benefits of a Sandy Bridge point, which has a dual-channel config.
a very-portable package. proc over Arrandale, but also the boost Older games really respond to more
Costing exactly the same as the that comes from a solid-state drive. Its memory bandwidth when you’re running
Series 9, the 13.3-inch R830 trumps that read speeds are likely four times those of integrated graphics. In fact, when we
fancy lad with a much faster processor—a the 5,400rpm hard drive in our zero-point. added a second stick of RAM to the R830,
2.7GHz Core i7-2620M vs. a 1.4GHz Core That plus an SSD’s less delicate nature our Quake III score nearly doubled. Even
i5-2537M—a DVD burner, USB 3.0, and helps counterbalance its modest 128GB Quake 4 saw a 25 percent performance
eSATA, while still measuring little more capacity. boost from the upgrade. The nice thing is
74 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
that the R830 offers two easy-to-get-at Of course, it feels like a machine that easy, as the entire underside slides off
RAM slots, if gaming is a priority. can take its licks. HP likes to point out without removing a single screw. Inside,
Speaking of RAM, it’s a little odd that our that the notebook is designed and tested you’ll find a 2.5-inch drive bay presently oc-
review unit shipped with a 32-bit version of to meet Mil-Spec standards for drops, cupied by a 160GB SSD, an empty RAM slot,
Windows 7 Professional, since that renders temperature shock, and altitude changes, and an open Mini PCIe slot.
1GB of the memory unusable. We advise among other stressors. Another nice feature is the Elite Pre-
anyone purchasing this notebook to go with Nestled within the 2560p’s island mium Support that comes included with
the 64-bit option. keyboard is a pointing stick (a la Lenovo’s the purchase of this notebook. It entitles
Despite its minor quirks, we’re still very ThinkPads), which, along with an addi- owners to free 24/7 tech support from a
impressed with the R830. We don’t know tional set of right and left mouse buttons dedicated Elite team, although it’s anyone’s
of a lighter, more powerful laptop, and its below the spacebar, lets you control the guess what happens to that should HP
battery runtime of almost seven hours is a cursor without moving your hands from actually spin off its computer division.
Lab record. the keys. It’s a nice feature for folks who In our battery rundown test, the 2560p
roll that way, but if you’re partial to using lasted four and a half hours playing a video
a touchpad, you might resent how the file in a continuous loop. That’s a decent
9
VERDICT
Toshiba Portégé R830
additional mouse buttons encroach on runtime, but a far cry from the Toshiba’s
$1,650, www.toshiba.com the pad’s surface area. We also found showing.
horizontal and vertical scrolling on the With its sturdy build, strong perfor-
touchpad to be erratic. mance, and upgrade-friendliness, the HP
HP ELITEBOOK 2560P In performance, the 2560p is solid. It 2560p is certainly appealing. But when it
To call HP’s 2560p an “ultraportable” is features a 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-2540M to comes to performance and portability, we’re
pushing it. It has a slightly smaller footprint the Toshiba’s 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M, partial to the Toshiba R830’s lighter carry
than the Toshiba R830, with a screen size and the two trade benchmarks win within weight, longer battery life, and lower price.
of 12.5 inches, but it’s heavier by more fairly close proximity, save Premiere Pro,
than a pound. With its power brick, you’re where the HP was 21 percent faster than
8
VERDICT
HP Elitebook 2560P
looking at more than five pounds, including the Toshiba. Like the Toshiba, the HP fea-
a battery that protrudes a full inch from tures single-channel RAM and thus scored $1,800, www.hp.com
the back of the notebook’s body. This is no lower than our zero-point in Quake III.
dainty package. Upgrading the HP 2560p is supremely
BENCHMARKS: TOSHIBA PORTÉGÉ R830 SPECIFICATIONS: TOSHIBA PORTÉGÉ R830
ZERO
POINT CPU 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec) 1,260 949 RAM 4GB DDR3/1333 in
single-channel mode
Photoshop CS3 (sec) 183.6 92.3
Chipset Intel QM67
Proshow Producer (sec) 1,533 1,035
Display 13.3 inch,1366x768 LCD
MainConcept (sec) 2,530 1,720
Storage 128GB SSD
Quake III (fps) 191.7 155.8 (-18.7%) Optical drive DVD burner
Quake 4 (fps) 17 39.9 (+134.7%) Connectivity HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, USB 3.0,
two USB 2.0 (one with eSATA),
Battery Life (min) 240 380 Express Card slot, headphone
out, mic in, 6-in-1 card reader,
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n, webcam
Our zero-point ultraportable is an HP EliteBook 2540p with a 2.13GHz Intel Core i7-640LM, 4GB of DDR3/1333 RAM, integrated graphics, Lap / Carry 3 lbs, 0.8 oz / 3 lbs, 13.5 oz
a 250GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
BENCHMARKS: HP ELITEBOOK 2560P SPECIFICATIONS: HP ELITEBOOK 2560P
ZERO
POINT
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-2540M
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec) 1,260 780 RAM 4GB DDR3/1333 in single-channel
Photoshop CS3 (sec) 183.6 96.3 mode
Chipset Intel QM67
Proshow Producer (sec) 1,533 1,009
Display 12.5 inch,1366x768 LCD
MainConcept (sec) 2,530 1,721
Storage 160GB SSD
Quake III (fps) 191.7 134.6 (-29.8%)
Optical DVD burner
Quake 4 (fps) 17 37.2 (+118.8%) Connectivity VGA, DisplayPort, Ethernet, modem,
two USB 2.0, one USB 2.0/eSATA,
Battery Life (min) 240 273 Express Card slot, headphone/mic,
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% SD/MMC media reader, Bluetooth,
802.11b/g/n, webcam
Our zero-point ultraportable is an HP EliteBook 2540p with a 2.13GHz Intel Core i7-640LM, 4GB of DDR3/1333 RAM, integrated graphics,
a 250GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Lap / Carry 4 lbs, 4.8 oz / 5 lbs, 2.6 oz
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 75
in the lab
OCZ RevoDrive3 X2
Absurd speed—for
an absurd price
OCZ JUST KEEPS PUSHING the envelope on
its PCI Express SSDs. The first RevoDrive There’s gold
contained two 60GB SF-1200-powered in them thar
SSDs in RAID 0, with a Silicon Image second-gen
PCI-to-SATA controller. The RevoDrive X2 SandForce chips
kept the same architecture, but added a with a custom SCSI
second PCB with two additional controllers controller.
and two more 60GB sets of NAND. OCZ’s
RevoDrive3 X2 updates the platform to
second-generation SandForce, but the new
SSD controller isn’t the only change.
subtest, the 3 X2 scored more than 84,000 level SSD, but you’re on Sandy Bridge
The OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 contains four
PCMarks—that’s nearly twice the score and don’t feel like using up both your
second-gen SandForce SF-2281 solid-state
of a single 6Gb/s SATA SSD. Its PCMark 7 native 6Gb/s SATA ports on a two-disk
drive controllers, each with 16 8GB Micron
secondary storage score, meanwhile, is RAID; or if your motherboard doesn’t
25nm asynchronous NAND modules. The
the highest we’ve seen from anything other have good native 6Gb/s SATA support; or
RevoDrive3 X2 is, then, essentially four
than Vertex 3 drives in RAID. if you don’t want to spend more dough on
120GB OCZ Agility 3 drives in RAID 0. But
We had no trouble installing or booting a hardware RAID controller; or you just
in place of the Silicon Image controller that
from the RevoDrive3 X2, although we still really hate money, the RevoDrive3 X2
powered the first two RevoDrive genera-
had to go through the Device Manager for could be for you. NATHAN EDWARDS
tions, OCZ has opted for a custom “OCZ
the former and use F6 drivers for the latter.
SuperScale” SCSI controller. The company
Once installed, the Revo set a new standard
9
VERDICT
has declined to disclose which OEM is OCZ RevoDrive3 X2
for speed on our system
building the new controller, but it puts out
So does the RevoDrive3 X2’s absurd DEVO Absurdly fast, especially
a lot more heat than the old Silicon Image
speed justify its $1,700 price tag? Yes, for in 4KB random reads and writes;
chip; in fact, OCZ slapped on a heatsink to
workstation and database use, and maybe great real-world results.
prevent it from overheating.
for bleeding-edge enthusiasts. If you just
Earlier RevoDrives were marketed to DEVIL Absurdly expensive: half again the
want 480GB of lightning-fast storage, two
enthusiasts, but you’ll find the RevoDrive3 price of Vertex 3s in RAID.
240GB Vertex 3s in RAID 0 on Intel’s native
X2 under the “Workstation” category $1,700, www.ocz.com
SATA 6Gb/s ports will perform nearly as
on OCZ’s website—with good reason:
well for less than $900. That said, if you
SandForce drives are already optimized
absolutely need the fastest consumer-
for frequent small-file random reads and
writes at high queue depths, and the Revo-
Drive3 X2’s four-drive RAID takes that to BENCHMARKS
absurd levels. Sustained reads and writes
are impressive: We clocked sequential OCZ OCZ RevoDrive OCZ Vertex 3 OCZ Vertex 3
RevoDrive3 X2 X2 (RAID 0)
reads at 771MB/s and writes at 553MB/s in
AS SSD
AS SSD. The same goes for single-queue-
Seq. Read (MB/s) 771.9 631.6 923.7 506.2
depth random access IOPS, but the higher
we pushed the queue depths on our 4KB Seq. Write (MB/s) 553.1 273.8 527.8 280.19
random-write tests, the more the Revo- 4KB Read (IOPS) 6,462 5,693 5,935 5,539
Drive3 X2 liked it. At a queue depth of 64 in 4KB Write (IOPS) 13,494 12,233 12,926 14,263
AS SSD, we clocked 4KB write IOPS over ATTO
100,000. The RevoDrive3 X2 is a fantastic 64KB File Write (MB/s) 888.43 545.08 760.54 505.38
SSD for servers or workstations tasked 64KB File Read (MB/s) 855.56 571.73 611.15 446.47
with constant database access. IOMETER
The 3 X2 did extremely well in each of
4KB Random Write, 32QD 68,344.71 52,603.55 52563.7 85,144.43
our benchmarks, far outpacing not only (IOPS)
the previous-gen RevoDrive X2, but also Max Access Time (ms) 46 48 69 61
a pair of 240GB Vertex 3 drives in RAID 0 Premiere Pro Encode/Write (sec) 417 423 419 422
using Intel’s 6Gb/s SATA ports. This was PCMark Vantage x64 HDD 84,861 48,471 45,081 59,978
the case in every metric except sustained
PCMark 7 x64 Secondary Storage 5,481 5,330 5,602 5,285
reads and writes, in which the Vertex
RAID clocked close to 900MB/s reads and Best scores are bolded. Our current test bed is a 3.1GHz Core i3-2100 processor on an Asus P8 P67 Pro (B3 chipset) running Windows 7
Professional 64-bit. All tests used onboard 6Gb/s SATA ports with latest Intel drivers, unless otherwise noted. PCIe SSDs tested in x16 slots.
550MB/s writes. In PCMark Vantage’s HDD
76 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
Rosewill Thor
Literally the coolest case
we've tested this year
LIKE THE GOD OF THUNDER for which it is need to remove the
named, Rosewill’s Thor is a mighty full- entire front panel to
tower chassis, with phenomenal cooling get to your drive bays.
capabilities and enough power to smite The inside of the
the competition. case is cavernous, and
The Thor is a steel chassis with the motherboard tray
plastic trim along the sides of the front has standoff mounts
and top of the chassis. The front fan for FlexATX, ATX,
filter and optical drive bezels are black microATX, and E-ATX
mesh, and the top of the case includes form factors—even
plastic vent fins that can be opened and XL-ATX boards like the The Thor’s interior is roomy but a bit
closed using a sliding mechanism. If Gigabyte G1.Assassin. The Thor’s 10 confusing at first due to the abundance
that seems familiar, Alienware offered PCI expansion slots have mesh covers. of fan control leads.
a similar, though powered, venting No need to fret if you’ve got a jumbo
system on some of its Aurora PCs. The GPU—we were able to seat a 12-inch
plastic trim on either side of the six card without moving a thing. port, and two fan controller knobs
5.25-inch bays slides out to enable re- The six steel hard drive trays require designated A and B, which each control
moval of the mesh bezels, so you don’t a simple pinch to remove, and they can up to three case fans. The front fan
be attached to your drives via rubber includes red LEDs that dim or brighten
vibration-damping mounts in the bot- in relation to fan speed—a nice touch.
toms of the trays. It’s kind of a bummer It’s a shame there’s no clear plastic
they’re not toolless, but they’re still window on the side panel to show off
easy to use. your innards—Rosewill opted to feature
Wiring the Thor is easy enough. The a mesh side panel with mounting holes
motherboard tray features 10 rubber- for up to four 12cm fans, for additional
grommeted cutouts (that aren’t glued cooling.
in, FYI, so be careful, as they come out We’re quite impressed with the Thor:
easily) for cable management, and a It supports many mobo form factors,
cutout for the 8-pin ATX power cable, has lots of expansion slots and drive
which is nearly too small. The Thor’s bays, and offers exceptional cooling
fan controllers (more on them below) with its stock fans, as well as plenty of
make a clean wiring job trickier, but additional fan mounting options. At just
still possible. $150, it rivals cases that are twice the
The Thor ships with four fans: a price. If you dig the aesthetic, the Thor
14cm rear exhaust fan, a 23cm top ex- is an obvious buy. ALAN FACKLER
haust fan, and 23cm intake fans in the
front and left side panels. The generous
9
VERDICT
Rosewill Thor
loadout pays off; under load, the Thor
is exceptionally cool—our average core MIGHTY THOR Phenomenal
temperature was 55 degrees Celsius, stock cooling; tons of cable cut-
which barely edged out the Thermal- outs; innovative optical drive access; aes-
take Level 10 GT’s 55.75 C average, thetically different.
officially making the Thor the coolest
UNSIGHTLY BORE Wiring can be a little
case we’ve tested all year.
confusing at first; tiny 8-pin power cable cut-
The design aesthetic might not resonate The handsome brushed-metal top
out; rubber grommets fall out easily.
with everyone, but it looks like badass panel features two USB 2.0 ports, two
Nordic armor to us. USB 3.0 pass-through ports, an eSATA $150, www.rosewill.com
78 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
NZXT’s Havik 140
marries two 14cm fans The EVGA Superclock’s
with six heat pipes and direct-contact heat
a passel of fins. pipes can’t make up for
its single fan. It pales in
comparison to the dual-
fan competition.
Turn Down the Heat
Three new CPU coolers face off in our hottest test bed yet
ONE OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS about modern CPUs is that they overclock extremely between those two mounting bars and
well without putting out much heat. Modern Sandy Bridge processors overclock higher and secures with spring screws, pressing the
more easily than first-gen i7 chips, while drawing less power and putting out less heat. But heat exchanger against the CPU. NZXT’s
even Socket 1366 parts overclock well—they just get hotter, so you’ll need a more powerful version of this mounting system isn’t as
cooler. We recently got our hands on three coolers marketed directly to overclockers, so we solid or as easy to use as Prolimatech’s,
clocked our 2.8GHz Core i7-930 up to 3.9GHz and hit it with Intel’s internal stress-testing which remains the gold standard by
utility, which has been known to physically damage motherboards and fry CPUs if used which we measure CPU mounting sys-
improperly. We cranked up the utility until our Hyper 212 Plus (our favorite inexpensive tems, but it’s hardly the trickiest install
cooler) could barely keep up without throttling, and used that as our baseline. Can any of we’ve ever done.
these coolers beat the heat? NATHAN EDWARDS Once mounted, the Havik performed ad-
mirably, besting the Hyper 212 Plus in our
stress test by nearly 18 degrees Celsius
NZXT HAVIK 140 fans use 3-pin power connectors, and the and slightly outcooling the Prolimatech Ar-
NZXT is new to the cooler game, but if the cooler ships with a Y-cable to connect both mageddon, our Best of the Best air cooler.
Havik 140 is any indication, the company fans to the mobo’s fan headers. And it didn’t sound like a jet turbine doing
isn’t being dumb about it. The Havik 140 The cooler stands more than 6.25 so—the fans were remarkably quiet. At
is a hefty cooler in the stacked-fins “sky- inches high from heat exchanger to $75, we’ll accept the slightly cheap-feeling
scraper” style, with six copper heat pipes the ends of the heat pipes, 5.25 inches mounting bracket. NZXT’s first cooler is
rising from the heat exchanger through across, and (with both fans strapped great for overclocking.
4.25 inches of nickel-plated-copper on) 4.75 inches deep. Installation uses
heat-dissipation fins. Two 14cm fans with a now-familiar system—a universal
9
VERDICT
NZXT Havik 140
white, wavy blades and black casings are backplate with four posts mounted in
strapped to the front and back faces of the the appropriate holes for the socket $75, www.nzxt.com
heatsink in push-pull configuration using and plastic spacers on the other side
rubber-band-like straps, which are easier of the motherboard, upon which rest
to use than the standard wire clips. The two mounting bars. A second bar runs
80 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
EVGA SUPERCLOCK
NZXT isn’t the only company branching
into CPU coolers. EVGA—better known for
videocards and motherboards—recently
released its Superclock cooler, with five
direct-contact copper heat pipes, one clear The Thermaltake Frio
12cm fan with red LEDs, and a sharp- OCK’s fan mounting
looking black finish to its skyscraper-style clip is one of the
copper cooling fin stack. best we’ve ever
The Superclock rises to just less than seen. It’s easy to
6 inches high, a little over 5.25 inches attach and remove.
wide, and (with the fan attached), more
than 3 inches deep. The black-plated
copper fins are crimped down at the ends
and around a hole in the center, channel-
ing airflow only to the areas of the fins
near the heat pipes.
Like most coolers these days, the
Superclock’s mounting system uses a
universal backplate with tall, threaded THERMALTAKE FRIO OCK
posts. Four metal nuts are used as spac- We have to hand it to Thermaltake:
ers behind the motherboard, and four in Nearly everything about the Frio OCK is
front of it. The Superclock’s top mounting well thought out. The two 13cm fans are
bracket is preinstalled around the heat secured in a black, red, and blue cowling The fans on the Frio OCK are con-
exchanger and is secured with six spring that clips on and off of the heatsink with nected to a single 3-pin connector and
screws—one at each corner and two ease, eliminating many of the installation a variable speed dial, rather than being
holding the center pressure bar against frustrations inherent in two-fan (or one- motherboard-controlled, so you can only
the back of the heat exchanger. fan) heatsinks. The mounting system—a control them by opening up the chassis.
The 12cm fan is held with wire clips, standard universal backplate, tall posts, At full bore, they’re incredibly effective,
which attach to the heatsink and clip to plastic spacers, crossbars, and spring- cooling our overclocked processor to
the fan (instead of the other way around). screw mounting clips—is packaged in a within a degree of the Prolimatech Arma-
For some reason, the heatsink fins are little box with all parts clearly labeled, geddon. They’re also incredibly loud, to
shaped asymmetrically, so you can only something we hope becomes a trend. the point where we didn’t really want to
mount a fan on one side—there’s no way The six heat pipes go up into two be in the room with our PC at all. That’s
to secure a fan to the other side for push- separate stacks of cooling fins, which a pity, because otherwise this cooler is
pull cooling. rise (with fans attached) 6 inches high solid: The install process isn’t terrible,
That’s a shame, because the Super- and more than 5.5 inches wide and deep. the performance is great, and the fan
clock would benefit from another fan. Or The sides of the cooling fins are crimped shroud is, frankly, the best we’ve seen.
from a quieter fan. The fan uses a 4-pin down around the edges to form a tunnel, If you’re not rocking an over-the-top
PWM connector, and at full blast during maximizing cool airflow over the heat overclock, and can therefore set the Frio
our stress test, it got loud. The Super- fins. The Frio OCK’s two 13cm fans are OCK’s fans to somewhere below full blast,
clock’s one 12cm fan also couldn’t quite mounted to a plastic shroud that slips you’ll find it a fine choice. But it’s just too
hang with the NZXT Havik or Prolimatech over the cooling fins and clips into place, loud to run at full volume all the time.
Armageddon, both of which use two 14cm making the pair of fans easy to install
fans, though the Superclock bested the and remove. This greatly increases ease
8
VERDICT
Thermaltake Frio OCK
Hyper 212 Plus by 10 degrees C. of use, and we wonder why more cooler
At $50, it’s around the midpoint of CPU manufacturers don’t include this sort of $80, www.thermaltakeusa.com
cooler prices, and the performance is de- thing as a standard feature.
cent at high overclocks. Despite its name,
the Superclock runs a little too warm and
loud for really high overclocks, at least BENCHMARKS
on Socket 1366. For Sandy Bridge over-
clocks or stock-clocked chips, it’s quite
NZXT EVGA Thermaltake Prolimatech Hyper 212
good, but it can’t compete with heatsinks Havik 140 Superclock Frio OCK Armageddon Plus
that offer push-pull configuration with
Ambient (C) 24.1 24 23.8 23.2 23.2
larger fans. Still, it’s good value for the
money if you don’t mind a little noise or Idle (C) 42 43.5 41.75 41.5 44.75
plan on replacing the fan with your own. 100% Burn (C) 73.75 81.75 75.5 74.5 92
Best scores are bolded. Ambient represents ambient air temperature in the Lab at time of testing. All coolers tested with a Core i7-930
7
VERDICT
EVGA Superclock overclocked to 3.9GHz on an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard in a Corsair 800D chassis with stock fan, 6GB DDR3 RAM, and a Radeon
HD 5850 GPU. Clock frequencies measured with TMonitor; temps with HWMonitor. Stress tests performed with Intel’s internal testing
utility running at 70 percent load.
$50, www.evga.com
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 81
in the lab
IoSafe
Rugged
Portable
SSD
Waterproof,
shock-resistant, and A thing of beauty is a joy forever,
though a few trips down the stairwell
sandstorm-proof, but not will scuff the aluminum on the Rugged
Portable a little bit.
sledgehammer-proof
THERE’S A HIDDEN PART of each of us temperature specs, and can withstand outside the Rugged Portable’s rated
that revels in destruction. That part a drop of 20 feet onto concrete, as well tolerance), but even if you manage the
of us sees a piece of technology billed as over 2,500 pounds of crushing pres- same, the Rugged Portable comes with
as “rugged” and vows to destroy it. sure. We’ve blasted it with birdshot, a one-year, no-questions-asked war-
Granted, most rugged hard drive crushed it in a vise, thrown it down a ranty and up to $5,000 worth of data
enclosures are a joke—a thin layer of concrete stairwell, hit it with a claw recovery service, like the previously
rubber over a standard plastic chas- hammer, run over it with an SUV, and reviewed SoloPro (which we set on fire).
sis; or a thin aluminum shell, if you’re submerged it in an aquarium—all with- The Rugged Portable is available
lucky, with a 2.5-inch drive held inside. out it skipping a beat. in capacities up to 600GB, and for
They’re meant to survive a drop from a The SSD version ships with an Intel just $1,000 more than the aluminum
desk to the floor, or sometimes just to 320 Series SSD inside. We’re not sure version, you can get a model with a
look cool. IoSafe, on the other hand, is whether it’s the onboard SATA-to-USB titanium chassis that’s rated for 5,000
serious about the “rugged” label, and 3.0 controller or the USB 3.0 controller pounds of crush resistance.
the Rugged Portable SSD is among the on our test motherboard (Asus P8P67 It’s not cheap or light, but if you need
toughest external drives you can get. Pro), but we noticed about a 50-60MB/s a rugged hard drive, they don’t come
Challenge accepted. slowdown on sequential tests using the much more rugged than the IoSafe
The Rugged Portable consists of a Rugged Portable SSD versus a bare Rugged Portable SSD. Just don’t hit
two-part, milled-aluminum chassis. Intel 320 Series SSD. Still, with sequen- it with a sledgehammer. What kind of
Its only external features are a USB tial read speeds around 200MB/s and monster are you? NATHAN EDWARDS
3.0 SuperSpeed port (a FireWire model sequential writes around 130MB/s, the
is coming soon), a status LED, and a Rugged Portable is darn fast.
9
IoSafe Rugged Portable SSD
Kensington lock port. Four Phillips- The base model, with an aluminum
head screws and a rubber gasket seal chassis and 120GB SSD, is $500, or CAPTAIN HAMMER Speedy,
the two sides together, and the chassis about $300 more than a 120GB SSD beautiful, and virtually inde-
is rated for up to three days of submer- and basic enclosure, but you get what structible; one year of free data
sion in 30 feet of water. It can withstand you pay for. For all normal use cases recovery.
a dunking in 12 feet of diesel fuel for and some extreme ones, the Rugged
DOCTOR HORRIBLE Expensive, especially
up to an hour—great news for those of Portable is nigh indestructible. We
titanium version; not actually indestructible.
us who work near open vats of fuel. It managed to completely break ours with
meets military sandstorm, altitude, and a 20-pound-head sledgehammer (well $500, www.iosafe.com
82 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
D-Link’s DIR-657 is pretty
enough, but its performance
leaves us cold.
Router
Prefer to lay your router flat? Too bad!
The base on Belkin’s N750 DB is perma-
nently attached.
Wrangling
5GHz radio, which operates on a much less
crowded frequency (actually, Belkin doesn’t
give you a choice in the matter).
The N750 DB would be a much better
value if it delivered faster performance on
Different tools for the 2.4GHz frequency band. As it stands,
it’s a good choice for inexperienced users
different tasks with simpler needs, or if you just need a
router that can share a printer and network
storage. Advanced users will want some-
thing that delivers faster throughput and
Looking to replace your aging wireless router? We benchmarked three brand-new models
more freedom to tweak.
at Maximum PC Lab North, but each one is so different from the others that this shouldn’t
be considered a three-way comparison. Belkin’s N750 DB is a dual-band model promising
7
VERDICT
throughput of 300Mb/s on its 2.4GHz radio and 450Mb/s on its 5GHz radio, while D-Link’s Belkin N750 DB
DIR-657 is a more conventional single-band (2.4GHz) model claiming throughput of $100 (street), www.belkin.com
300Mb/s. And Trendnet’s EW-692GR is the first dual-band router to deliver three 150Mb/s
spatial streams (450Mb/s in aggregate) on both its 2.4- and 5GHz radios. MICHAEL BROWN
D LINK DIR 657
BELKIN N750 DB while barring guests from accessing other D-Link markets this single-band
Belkin’s N750 DB offers a better-than- computers or storage on your network. The (2.4GHz) router as particularly well suit-
average feature set, but the router’s guest network, however, operates on only ed for gaming and media streaming, and
performance is a mixed bag. At most of our the 2.4GHz band. it is endowed with very good quality-of-
test stations, it delivered very good perfor- Belkin describes its Video Mover feature service features, but QoS can’t magically
mance from its 5GHz radio but mediocre as an app that enables you to “play videos render the 2.4GHz frequency band any
throughput from its 2.4GHz radio. Belkin from your library on your TV—wirelessly— less crowded. And given our relatively
arrives at the N750 model number by add- through devices like… a DLNA-compliant pristine test environment, the best word
ing the 300Mb/s theoretical throughput on Blu-ray player,” but the N750 DB itself is to describe the DIR-657’s range and TCP
its 2.4GHz radio to the 450Mb/s theoretical not DLNA certified, and the router is very throughput is pathetic.
throughput of its 5GHz radio. This is non- light in terms of quality-of-service fea- And while we realize that our room-
sense, of course, because you can’t bond tures. There are no provisions for shaping within-a-room home theater presents
the two together to achieve throughput that network traffic to assign audio and video a signifi cant challenge to most 5GHz
even approaches 750Mb/s. streams higher priority than a torrent, for routers, the 2.4GHz DIR-657 could
The features include dual USB 2.0 example. And while it does have a UPnP barely send music streams there wire-
ports to enable network sharing of both server, none of the server’s features are lessly; streaming video to our TV was a
a printer and attached storage (drives exposed to the end user for tweaking. nonstarter. The router couldn’t connect
can be formatted with either FAT16/32 or Belkin ships the N750 DB with channel to the client located in our second out-
NTFS). Belkin provides software that will bonding disabled on its 2.4GHz radio to door test location at all—it’s been a long
automatically back up the hard drives on eliminate the chance it might stomp on your time since we experienced that problem
attached clients. The N750 DB supports neighbor’s wireless network. Since we don’t with a router operating on the 2.4GHz
a guest network, too, which gives you the have any neighbors, we turned it on for our frequency band.
power to share your broadband connection tests. Channel bonding is enabled on the D-Link’s DIR-657 is certifi ed by the
84 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
Wi-Fi Alliance, too (as is Belkin’s N750 we can’t recommend this product in its
DB), so the D-Link (and the Belkin) current state.
ships with channel bonding disabled.
We turned it on for our tests—and then
6
VERDICT
DLink DIR-657
triple-checked it to make sure it was
actually on, because the numbers we got $100 (street), www.dlink.com
were so low: just 48Mb/s with the client
sitting a mere 10 feet from the router.
Performance curiously jumped by more TRENDNET TEW 692GR
than 20Mb/s when we moved the client Trendnet was first-to-market with a dual-
to the kitchen, doubling the distance band USB adapter capable of supporting
and putting a wall in between the router three 150Mb/s spatial streams on both the
and client, but it went off a cliff—to just 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands, and now
11Mb/s—when we moved the client out it’s first-to-market with a router that does
to the patio. the same.
D-Link deserves credit for going to If you’re just looking for a fast wireless
the trouble and expense of obtaining router, the TEW-692GR is a good choice
DLNA certification. This interoperability and it’s priced right, too. But if you want a
standard has proliferated throughout speedy wireless router that boasts all the
the consumer electronics industry dur- latest bells and whistles, keep looking: This
ing the past couple of years, providing one doesn’t have a USB port, it provides
confidence that your computers, TVs, very little in the way of quality-of-service
media streamers, and other networked tweakage, and we don’t like the way
devices will play nice together. The Trendnet implements guest networks. If you’re willing to give up a few
DIR-657 is also outfitted with a USB slot Actually, the missing USB port doesn’t features, Trendnet’s TEW-692GR
for sharing mass storage devices on bother us all that much. If you want stor- delivers plenty of speed.
your network, and it has an SD Card slot age attached to your network, a NAS box
to make it easy to transfer your digital or a home-brew rig running Windows
photos, movies, and music to other Home Server are vastly superior alterna- set up multiple guest networks by estab-
devices on your network. The aforemen- tives to plugging a USB drive into your lishing up to three additional SSIDs on
tioned quality-of-service features come router. And if you need to share a printer each band (assigning them separate logins
courtesy of Ubicom, which has long de- on your network, networked inkjets are and passwords, or leaving them open, if
livered the best automatic QoS tools in incredibly cheap these days. that’s how you swing), but Trendnet doesn’t
the industry. If you want to tweak these Some of the other missing features are provide any means of restricting guests
settings on your own, D-Link provides 10 more serious: The router has the typical to Internet access—leaving your network
sets of controls for doing so. UPnP server, for instance, but it doesn’t somewhat insecure.
Perhaps a firmware update will come with the peace of mind that DLNA Aside from a stunted feature list, it’s
change our opinion of the DIR-657, but certification provides. And while you can hard to argue with this router’s wireless
performance. At the time of our review,
the TEW-692GR was street-priced just $5
BENCHMARKS: BELKIN N750 DB
more than our current favorite, Netgear’s
WNDR-3700, and it was considerably faster
2.4GHz Band 5GHz Band
on both frequency bands—at least at close
Belkin N750 Netgear Belkin N750 Netgear
range. Netgear’s product boasts many
DB WNDR3700 DB WNDR3700
more features, however, and it delivers
Bedroom, 10 feet (Mb/s) 76 101 135 109
slightly better range.
Kitchen, 20 feet (Mb/s) 46.3 85.8 100 103
Patio, 38 feet (Mb/s) 61 67 61.4 65.9
8
VERDICT
Home Theater, 35 feet (Mb/s) 41.2 38.2 0.6 6.4
Trendnet TEW-692GR
Outdoors, 85 feet (Mb/s) 7.3 4.2 N/C 5.3 $135 (street), www.trendnet.com
BENCHMARKS: DLINK DIR 657 BENCHMARKS: TRENDNET TEW 692GR
2.4GHz Band 5GHz Band
2.4GHz Band
Trendnet Netgear Trendnet Netgear
D-Link DIR-657 Netgear TEW-692GR WNDR3700 TEW-692GR WNDR3700
WNDR3700
Bedroom, 10 feet
Bedroom, 10 feet (Mb/s) 48 101 (Mb/s) 121 101 141 109
Kitchen, 20 feet (Mb/s) 69 85.8 Kitchen, 20 feet
(Mb/s) 99.4 85.8 103 103
Patio, 38 feet (Mb/s) 11 67
Patio, 38 feet
Home Theater, 35 feet (Mb/s) 1.9 38.2 (Mb/s) 55.1 67.0 53 65.9
Outdoors, 85 feet (Mb/s) 0.1 4.2 Home Theater,
35 feet (Mb/s) 31.9 38.2 4.9 6.4
Best scores are bolded. TCP throughput measured using JPerf. N/C indicates no connection at that location. Additional benchmarking methodology at http://bit.ly/16w27O.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 85
in the lab
LG
E2370v
Detail so
razor-sharp
it'll cut you
BACK IN DECEMBER, we reviewed LG’s
E2350v—a serviceable display that fea-
tured a two-way stand and an energy-
efficient design but had poor-quality
black reproduction and a frustrating
menu experience—so it was with a
skeptical eye that we tackled its big
brother, the E2370v. An IPS display with
a slim, brushed-aluminum bezel, the
E2370v is nothing like its little brother.
At 23 inches and running a standard
resolution of 1920x1080, the E2370v
also features LED backlighting, two
HDMI inputs, one DVI and one VGA
input, and a remote. That’s right—a
remote. Used to control brightness,
volume, inputs, aspect ratio, picture-
in-picture, Thru Mode (to optimize
reaction time of video content while
gaming), and more, the remote is a The E2370v is well worth its price tag, producing exceptional detail and clarity.
nice touch. While some reviewers have
said the stand feels cheap and wob-
bly, we didn’t experience any troubles
ages—however, we didn’t see that prob- among them—they never interfered
with it while testing, although we were
lem reproduced in our Blu-ray or game with the user experience in real-life
disappointed in its range of movement:
testing. The E2370v also produced a video watching or gameplay. Indeed,
The E2370v tilts back a bit but does not
true, deep black without any significant this is a worthy contender and a sig-
swivel left to right, adjust for height, or
loss of detail—a major win, especially nificant improvement over the E2350v.
go into portrait mode (Why? Why, cruel
considering that the display suffers More importantly, with a street price
world?!). It also lacks a DisplayPort and
from some light leakage in the corners. of $240, it’s difficult to see buying a TN
USB input.
The crisp, sharp images, super color panel when such a good IPS is available
Fortunately, its performance far
representation, and solid black made for just a little more. AMBER BOUMAN
makes up for any lacking features—
for a quality experience while watching
from start to finish, the E2370v offered
V for Vendetta, where it handled dark
9
VERDICT
a superb image in both clarity and LG E2370v
scenes and action scenes effortlessly
color. It aced the majority of our Dis-
and produced amazing brightness and SWITCHBLADE Incredible
playMate tests, doing a superb job in
clarity. While playing Batman: Arkham clarity, detail, color, and black
color tracking, primary color repro-
Asylum, the E2370v never stuttered, representation; cheap for an IPS.
duction, color scales, and color purity
providing us with a solid gaming experi-
and uniformity tests, which all indicate BUTTER KNIFE Lack of movement; no
ence with no ghosting (and we never
true, accurate color representation. DisplayPort or USB input.
even turned on the Thru Mode).
However, it stumbled some during the $280, www.lg.com
Overall, the E2370v gave us a stun-
grayscale tests, specifically the 256-
ning image with colors that popped
intensity-level ramp, where there was
and impressive details in dark scenes.
some vertical banding, which could
Although it has its drawbacks—the light
produce lines or streaking through im-
leakage and stingy range of movement
86 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
Creative Sound Blaster
Recon3D
Creative hedges it bets
IS CREATIVE buying into the notion of software suite consisting of programs the years, but we still prefer discrete
the post-PC world? The Sound Blaster for producing virtual surround sound hardware. And on that score, a true
Recon3D is a powerful USB audio de- on stereo devices, such as headphones; soundcard—such as Creative’s X-Fi
vice based on Creative’s all-new Sound for enhancing the sound of compressed Titanium Fatal1ty Pro—doesn’t cost
Core3D chip. But you can also connect audio material, such as iTunes tracks much more, provides most of the same
the Recon3D to an Xbox 360, PS3, or and MP3 files; for enhancing the dialog features, and delivers slightly better
even an Intel-based Mac. Creative tells in movie soundtracks; and for boosting sound quality.
us the Sound Core3D doesn’t boast bass response for playback on small But if your primary computer is a
the naked power of the company’s speakers. Crystal Voice is great for laptop, or if you frequently game on a
previous-generation audio processor, online games and VoIP calls. It has a laptop, Recon3D is a great choice. The
but that it is extremely efficient—it noise-reduction algorithm that we found same goes for PS3 or Xbox 360 gam-
draws all the power it needs from a to be extremely effective at blocking ers and those who play on both PCs
single USB port. background noise—from cooling fans to and consoles, because it's possible to
The Recon3D has an optical S/PDIF keyboard taps—from being picked up by create user profiles on the device that
input, a 1/8-inch audio output to drive our headset mic. An echo-cancellation work on both platforms.
a pair of speakers or headphones, and feature prevents echoes during Skype All that makes it difficult to assign
a 1/8-inch input to support a wired sessions, and if you swing from speak- a final verdict, so you should consider
headset’s microphone. It can also be ing in hushed, tense whispers to violent this a qualified buy recommendation.
upgraded to support Creative’s new outbursts, Smart Volume will equalize The Recon3D is a solid audio solution;
Tactic3D Omega wireless headset. All your voice so that it comes across at a but if you have an open PCIe slot in
the cables you might need are included consistent level. Lastly, there’s a real- your machine, stick with a true sound-
in the box. time effects mode that can transform card. ALEX CASTLE
We found that the Recon3D delivers your voice to match your character—
plenty of bang for the buck, especially your game character, that is.
9
VERDICT
Creative Sound Blaster
for gaming. While it’s technically not a Scout Mode is one of the Recon3D’s
Recon3D
soundcard—the Sound Core3D chip at most original features. Designed pri-
its heart consists of several digital sig- marily for FPS players, this algorithm MASTER BLASTER Solid
nal processors; a 24-bit, six-channel boosts faint sounds in games—such as sound enhancement at a low price; pow-
DAC (digital-to-analog converter); and the footsteps of an enemy sneaking up erful hardware; works with both PCs
a four-channel ADC (analog-to-digital on you. We found the effect somewhat and consoles.
converter), but no waveform genera- noticeable, but not immediately useful.
AUNTY ENTITY No support for
tors—the Recon3D can perform amaz- Pro gamers looking for the slight-
5.1-channel speakers or headphones;
ing tricks with whatever audio you feed est edge might find Scout Mode more
less potent than an internal soundcard.
it. Creative, for its part, describes the satisfying, but regular Joes shouldn’t
device as a “USB audio enhancer.” expect it to deliver miracles. $130, www.creative.com
The Recon3D can decode a Dolby We like the audio-processing suite,
Digital bit stream, and it runs several and if you’re using onboard audio,
audio-processing programs, includ- you’ll absolutely hear a difference
ing THX TruStudio Pro, Crystal Voice, when you plug in the Recon3D. Onboard
and Scout Mode. THX TruStudio Pro is a audio has improved considerably over
88 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
You can customize
your audio profile
with the included
software, and then
use that profile on
any device—no driv-
ers necessary.
The Recon3D puts basic
controls—like volume
control, mute, and mic
volume—close at hand.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 89
in the lab
Deus Ex: Human
Revolution
Not quite a revolution, but
pretty damn close
DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION gave us over your troubles? Where other games
a game-over screen seconds after the reply, “Invisible wall, filthy ground peas-
opening credits, and we loved it. We were ant,” Human Revolution politely says,
about to tiptoe into our first mission— “Go right ahead.”
puzzle, and—odds
deftly defusing a hostage crisis—when we Really, that’s Human Revolution in
are—you won’t get
encountered a trio of friendly SWAT guards. a nutshell. Sure, it’s a series of linear
it right on the first
“Good guys,” said our brain. “No can hurt,” missions—separated, mind you, by a
try. Occasionally,
it concluded in caveman. There is, however, few absolutely gorgeous hub areas—but
it’s genuinely frustrat-
a certain comedic appeal in watching large you’re granted an almost absurd degree of
ing. A large part of the game’s excellence,
objects bounce harmlessly off people’s freedom within those bounds. Most games
though, stems from that experimental
faces, so we assisted a nearby garbage try to erect a giant baby pen around the ex-
spirit. Sure, you died, but what did you learn
can out of earth’s pesky gravitational pull. perience—to say, “No, don’t do this crazy/
in the process? What did your brain sponge
THWACK. Immediately, the three future stupid/everyone’s-on-fire thing because
up—aside from bullets?
musketeers whipped out their firearms it’s not precisely how we want you to play
Hell, even Human Revolution’s con-
and turned us into cybernetically enhanced the game.” Human Revolution, on the other
versations will have your mind firing on
Swiss cheese. That’s when we knew: It was hand, assumes that you will be crazy and
all cylinders and your heart thumping out
love at first murder. stupid and set everything on fire. It gets you
of your chest. These aren’t simple “good
Human Revolution may sport a shiny, drunk on power, rolls out its finest red car-
or evil or snarky” affairs. You have to get
modern coat, but make no mistake: pet, and says, “Here, vomit all your zaniest
inside people’s heads—understand where
Underneath all the pretty lights and plans onto this.”
they’re coming from—or else, say, an inno-
robo-sunglasses beats the heart of PC And then everything goes horribly
cent civilian might get their head blown off.
gaming’s most revered classic. See, unlike wrong. Even with solid shooting, a gener-
In a way, these wars of words are almost
other shooters, Human Revolution actually ally excellent cover system, and a dazzling
boss fights, which makes the game’s
assumes you have a brain. So let’s say array of super-powered “augments” to suit
inclusion of actual boss fights all the more
the obvious paths to your goal—stealth, just about any play style imaginable, you’ll
perplexing. Really, those four infuriating,
hacking, shooting, talking, punching still find yourself cornered and “augment-
keyboard-flinging encounters are the ugli-
holes in walls, and about a million other ed” with a few hundred extra subcutaneous
est blemishes on an otherwise incredible
things—just aren’t panning out. Well, why bullets. In fact, truth be told, there’s quite
game—especially if you’re normally a
not try making your own Tower of Babel out a bit of trial-and-error in Deus Ex. Each
stealth player. Other flaws like inconsis-
of boxes and awkwardly scrambling right area is basically an extremely open-ended
tent AI and occasionally silly writing look
positively minor by comparison.
That particularly painful belly flop aside,
though, Human Revolution is one of our
favorite games to come along in quite some
time. It’s that rare franchise revival that
manages to nod knowingly in its predeces-
sor’s direction while boldly blazing new
trails of its own. Gaming industry, take note:
More of this, please. NATHAN GRAYSON
9
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
NEUROMANCER Tons of free-
dom to play however you please;
augmentations for every occa-
sion; incredibly interesting, well
thought out world.
NEUROLOGICAL DISEASE Terrible boss
fights; all-over-the-place AI; some silly writ-
ing and voice acting.
Augmented arms? Awesome. Augmented eyes? Excellent. Augmented salivary glands? $49, www.deusex.com, ESRB: M
Ewwwww.
90 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
in the lab
BY NATHAN EDWARDS SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR
The Parts That
Wouldn't Fit
Combo GPU/cooling system gets left behind for another build
THIS MONTH’S GAMING HTPC (BUILD IT) IS COOL , but there’s one
component that didn’t make it into the confi g. To max out the
rig’s gaming potential while keeping noise and heat to a bare
minimum, I had hoped to use PNY’s all-in-one liquid-cooled
GTX 580 with CPU cooler. This Asetek-powered dreamboat
combines the water-block, dual fans, and radiators from Cor-
sair’s H70 liquid cooler with an additional heatsink for the GPU.
Alas, this would have meant a much larger chassis, so I
reluctantly left the PNY card behind in favor of a midrange
GTX 560Ti. Never fear, though—I’ll find some place for that
card/cooler combo in a future rig. Provided, that is, that next
month’s review of the part doesn’t reveal some sort of fatal
flaw in the card or cooling. Stay tuned!
Markkus Rovito Amber Bouman Alex Castle Gordon Mah Ung Alan Fackler
Features Editor Online Features Editor Online Managing Editor Senior Editor Online Associate Editor
As a favor to a friend, Finally, a music ser- This month I officially If the desktop is so I’ve been putting to-
I looked up a way to vice I actually like! switched my e-reading dead, how come I’m gether a web story fea-
post simultaneously That’s right, Spotify loyalty. Although I’m tingling with delight turing innovative lap-
to Google+, Face- is my new best buddy. already fairly invested at getting AMD’s FX, tops that have either
book, and Twitter. I’ve only been using it in the iBooks platform aka Bulldozer, and been recently released
You can add SGPlus for about two weeks, (and I do like the vir- Intel’s Sandy Bridge (e.g. the Acer Iconia
to Chrome, Firefox, but I’ve found it in- tual page-turning), I’ve E into the Lab for test- dual-touch screen lap-
or Safari, and after valuable for check- found that the Kindle ing? Yeah, I’m pretty top) or show tremen-
some initial setup, ing out new bands, reader is just a supe- sure we’ll see a quad- dous promise in con-
I’m happy to report streaming old music rior experience. The channel, six-core or cept form. It also looks
that people are now that I no longer have service works better eight-core chip in an back at some of the
ignoring my posts (ahem, 1990s), and over multiple devices, ultra-thin notebook or more groundbreaking
across all three so- giving a listen to new and the selection and tablet any day, right? innovations from the
cial networks. It can albums from artists prices are better. Now, As they say, when pigs mid 90s—it’s scary and
also post to LinkedIn, I already dig. Spotify, if only I could make fly out my butt. eye-opening to see just
but... please. Get it at all the way. purchases in-app on how far we’ve come,
www.sgplus.me. my iPhone…. and how fast.
92 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
comments you write, we respond
WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON...
> GPU Categories
> Smartphones
> Online Video
Where’s My Volume the Startup folder. Startup of us, a $30 difference isn’t things. It seems that there
Icon? is a hidden system file in much. For others, that $30 could've been something
I have tried Alex Castle’s tip Windows 7, but you can get difference would make a PC-related to take up some
to improve the audio icon to it easily by finding it in the system beyond reach. When of those pages, right?
(How To, October 2011) by Start menu, right-clicking you’re pinching pennies, –Derek C.
downloading SndVolPlus the folder icon, and choosing every buckazoid counts.
and copying it to the startup Explore. The other issue is, of course, DEPUTY EDITOR KATHER-
directory. To get your old volume where do you draw the line? INE STEVENSON RESPONDS:
After I used it, I realized icon back, right-click the We draw it at $200. Does that Sorry you didn’t like the
that it does not give me taskbar and choose Proper- mean a $199 card is a budget smartphone feature, Derek.
anything I need, so I wanted ties, then select the Taskbar card and a $201 one isn’t? While our primary focus is
to delete it. Not only can I not tab and click the button Things can get a little gray always on PCs, we know that
delete it, as it is running all labeled Customize. Here right at the borders. But a many PC enthusiasts use
the time, but it still appears you can choose which icons difference of plus or minus smartphones—essentially
in the notification area, and always appear in the taskbar. $20 is significant. miniature computers—and
the original icon for the If your sound icon is missing approach the topic with the
volume is gone and I don't entirely, you can get it back same interest and curiosity
know how to bring it back. by clicking “Turn system Smartphone Feedback they have about the tech in
–Uriel Berchin icons on or off.” I have read every issue from their desktops or laptops.
boot #1 until now and have We don’t intend to make
ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR never been disappointed with smartphones a regular part
ALEX CASTLE RESPONDS: I’ve GPU Price Categories what you have covered. Even of our monthly coverage,
been getting some good I find your Best of the Best if I wasn't that interested but we will continue to delve
mileage out of SndVolPlus, categorization system a tad in the article or feature, it into it them, along with
but I know how frustrating deceiving. The best “budget still conformed to what the other peripheral subjects of
it is to have software run- GPU”—the XFX Radeon HD magazine was designed for. interest to PC power users,
ning on your computer that 6870—costs $190 street Your October issue gave from time to time. Not to
you’d rather wasn’t. Fortu- (isn’t an HD 6450 at 50 bucks us 16 pages (a couple of pick nits, but if you review
nately, SndVolPlus doesn’t more like budget?). Yet the which were ads) of smart- some of your old issues
do anything insidious when it best “midrange GPU”—the phone coverage. Since when of boot, you will see that
installs, so you don’t have to MSI NGTX560 Ti—costs $220 is the magazine called Maxi- PDAs—the smartphones of
use MSConfi g, Revo Unin- street? For relatively similar mum Smartphone? I thought their day—were featured
staller, or any of the other big performance and prices, it’s you all had spun up another prominently in the mag. We
guns to remove it. Just end odd how you group them in magazine for gadgets, which even devoted a cover story
the process using the task such different categories. this article would've been to PDAs in boot #8.
manager (save time by using –Dave Contarino much more suited for. I
Ctrl + Shift + Esc instead haven't subscribed to that F’real?
of Ctrl + Alt + Del) and then CONTRIBUTING WRITER LOYD one yet because I'm not that I recently read Gordon
remove SndVol.exe from CASE RESPONDS: For some interested in that side of Mah Ung’s article about
submit your questions to: comments@maximumpc.com
94 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2011 maximumpc.com
SINCE WHEN IS THE
[NEXT MONTH]
MAGAZINE CALLED ,
COMING IN
MAXIMUM SMARTPHONE?"
CUT, COPY, PASTE
MAXIMUMPC s
NAUGHTY
The How To in our October
issue titled “Transfer Your
AND NICE
Game Data to a New Hard
Drive” was misattributed. It
HOLIDAY
Facebook’s servers (“The SENIOR EDITOR GORDON MAH was written by Brad Chacos.
Power User’s Guide to Social UNG RESPONDS: Facebook is
Media,” November 2011).
Toward the end of the article
happy to open up its ser ver
designs with the public, but
website. Any chance you'll
post some more anytime ISSUE
he breaks down the number it is keeping the total num- soon? I notice that some
of servers being added ber of ser vers a secret. We of you are a little shy in >>
daily to Facebook’s Pineville, can say that the numbers front of the camera; is that
Oregon datacenter. I can’t we repor ted weren’t a why videos have not been 2012 Technology
imagine how this number typo. Now, whether that’s posted? Preview
could possibly be correct. He actually how many ser v- –Vino Don’t buy a new PC until
says each and every workday ers Facebook installs a you read this story! We’ll
four trucks arrive and each year, I don’t know, and it’s SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDI- dish details on Intel’s
truck carries 13 racks and possible that Facebook is TOR NATHAN EDWARDS new Sandy Bridge En-
each rack holds 90 servers. intentionally fuzzing the RESPONDS: We would like thusiast chip and AMD’s
That means each workday numbers to keep it inexact. to do more videos in the Bulldozer part, and give
Facebook gets 4,680 servers. One thing I do know is that I future, but they're time- you the full rundown on
Assuming 250 (rounding got the location of the data- intensive to edit, and we've the state of the art of PC
off) working days a year, center wrong. It’s actually been running shor t-staffed technology.
that would equal 1,216,800 Prineville, Oregon. for a few months. Once
>>
servers just this year. I can’t we staff up again we'll be
conceive how those numbers No More Video? able to do more videos, and Annual
are correct. I'm a fan of the videos that even improve our camera Antivirus
–Scott Barton you all used to post on your charisma a bit. Roundup
At this moment, we are
busy testing all the top
AV apps—both paid-for
[NOW ONLINE] and free—so you can
know which ones do
THE 11 MOST INNOVATIVE NOTEBOOK the best job of keeping
a PC safe!
CONCEPTS YET >>
For all its crazy improvements in speed and power, the desktop computer has had basically
the same form factor for the past two decades or so. The same can't be said of the laptop com-
Battlefield 3 PC
puter. From its bulky, barely portable origins to the sleek ultrabooks of today, the laptop has We’re going to show you
always been a breeding ground for innovative hardware. And while sometimes those inno- how to build a rig that can
vations have stuck (the play BF3 at 1920x1080
clamshell design and and high quality settings
trackpads, for instance), for as little dough as
others have been a little possible.
bizarre. We've collected
11 of our favorite outra-
geous laptop concepts
into one gallery at bit.ly/
qmkVqk.
maximumpc.com DEC 2011 MAXIMUMPC 95
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
Midrange Processor
Intel 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K
www.intel.com
For even more Best of the Best entries, such as more speakers and budget components, go to www.maximumpc.com/best-of-the-best.
Budget Processor
Intel 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K
www.intel.com
LGA1155 Motherboard
Asus P8Z68-V Pro
www.asus.com
LGA1366 Motherboard
Asus Rampage III Extreme
www.asus.com
Price-No-Object GPU
Asus GeForce GTX 590
www.asus.com
Performance GPU
XFX Radeon HD 6970
www.xfxforce.com
Midrange GPU
MSI NGTX560 Ti Twin
Frozr OC
www.msi.com
Budget GPU
XFX Radeon HD 6870
www.xfxforce.com
Performance Hard Drive
OCZ Vertex 3 100GB
www.ocztechnology.com
Capacity Hard Drive
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000
3TB
www.hitachigst.com
Air Cooling
Cooler Master Hyper
212 Plus
www.coolermaster.com
High-End Cooler
Prolimatech Armageddon
AM3 www.prolimatech.com
MOTHERBOARD Blu-ray Drive
Asus M5A99X
Plextor B940SA
www.plextor.com
Evo
Full-Tower Case
Corsair 800D
www.corsair.com
Mid-Tower Case
Corsair White Graphite
With AMD’s new FX just about here, we’re going to update Series 600T
our AM3+ board to something that will work out of the box www.corsair.com
with “Bulldozer,” as well as support SLI. Asus’s M5A99X Midrange Display
LG E2370v
Evo fits the bill with its AM3+ socket, SLI, and UEFI sup- www.lg.com
port. It’s not that we’re saying SLI is preferred over Cross-
FireX—we’re saying that we’d like the freedom to make
that decision on our own. We don’t know how long the
GAMES WE ARE PLAYING
M5A99X Evo will stay on top, as we have a spate of 990FX
boards that may well bump the 990X-based M5A99X from Deus Ex: Human Revolution Portal 2
www.deusex.com www.thinkwithportals.com
our list. But for now, it’s our pick. www.asus.com
Minecraft 1.8 Team Fortress 2
www.minecraft.net www.teamfortress.com
MAXIMUM PC (ISSN 1522-4279) is published 13 times a year, monthly plus US$34.95; Foreign: US$39.95. Canadian and foreign orders must be prepaid. ficial Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, PC Gamer, Revolver,
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