MaximumPC 2008 07

MaximumPC 2008 07, MaximumPC

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//-->MIDRANGE GPU DEATHMATCH$200 videocards tested and verdictized6 BUDGET CASES REVIEWEDWill $100 buy you a killer PC enclosure?MINIMUM BS • JULY 200812PCHardwareHACKSDo-It-YourselfProjects forALLPC EnthusiastsPCPCSOUNDPROOFYourPCSUPERCHARGEYourWi-Fi RouterINSTALLAMedia ReaderScreen SpaceTRIPLEYourPLUS8More How TosThe Best Air CoolerINSIDEWe’ve Ever Tested?Chipsets for IntelTested & ReviewedPERFORMANCEUnleash your PC’s Potential…TryEach issue ofMaximum PC features:IBrutally honest productreviewsIHard-hitting editorialsITips to blast yourmachine’s performanceIInsightful andinnovative How-To’sT2REeFial IssuEsrIA CD loaded with newsoftware, utility andgame demosReserve your2 FREETrial Issues today!There’s no obligation.To order, head to:www.maximumpc.com/archiveWHERE WE PUT STUFFCONTENTSJULYFEATURES22Hardware HacksGet your toolkit! We show you 12 fantastic ways totweak your rig!38Motherboard ShowdownFour motherboards, two chipsets: Who will reignsupreme in this battle?3852Cheap Case RoundupWe’re scraping the bargain bin for this six-casechallenge. Only sub-$100 chassis need apply!DEPARTMENTSQuickStart08NEWSIs ray tracing for real?14THE LIST10 things that are wildly overhyped16DEATHMATCHNvidia GeForce 8800 GTS vs.AMD Radeon HD 3870R&D62WHITE PAPEREthernet: How your rigstalk to each other77807863AUTOPSYHP TouchSmart IQ77064HOW TOOrganize and tag videosIn the Lab73REVIEWS84LAB NOTES96RIG OF THE MONTHLETTERS18WATCHDOG68DOCTOR94COMMENTSwww.maximumpc.com|JUL 08|MAXIMUM PC|05MAXIMU PXIMUMMAXIMUMPCEDITORIALEDITOR IN CHIEFWill SmithDEPUTY EDITORKatherine StevensonMANAGING EDITORTom EdwardsEXECUTIVE EDITORMichael BrownSENIOR EDITORGordon Mah UngASSOCIATE EDITORDavid MurphyWEB CONCIERGENathan EdwardsCONTRIBUTING WRITERSNorm Chan, Tom Halfhill, ThomasMcDonald, Quinn Norton, Mark Edward Soper, Zack SternEDITOR EMERITUSAndrew SanchezARTART DIRECTORNatalie JedayASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORBoni UzilevskyPHOTO EDITORMark MadeoASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHERSamantha BergCONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERCharles CaselaCONTRIBUTING ARTISTSMartin Abel, Marty SmithBUSINESSGROUP PUBLISHERStacey Levy650-238-2319, slevy@futureus.comWESTERN AD DIRECTORDave Lynn949-360-4443, dlynn@futureus.comWESTERN AD MANAGERGabe Rogol650-238-2409, grogol@futureus.comEASTERN AD MANAGERLarry Presser646-723-5459, lpresser@futureus.comEASTERN ACCOUNT MANAGERMarc Zenker646-723-5476, mzenker@futureus.comEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GAMES GROUPDavid Cooper646-723-5447, dcooper@futureus.comADVERTISING DIRECTOR, GAMES GROUPNate Hunt646-723-5416, nhunt@futureus.comADVERTISING COORDINATORJose Urrutia650-238-2498, jurrutia@futureus.comMARKETING COORDINATORKathleen CastaillacPRODUCTIONPRODUCTION DIRECTORRichie LesovoyPRODUCTION COORDINATORDan MalloryCIRCULATIONCIRCULATION DIRECTORPeter KellyNEWSSTAND MANAGERElliott KigerNEWSSTAND COORDINATORAlex GuzmanINTERNET SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING MANAGERBetsy WongFULFILLMENT MANAGERAngi MartinezPRINT ORDER COORDINATORHeidi HalpinFUTURE US, INC4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080www.futureus-inc.comPRESIDENTJonathan Simpson-BintVICE PRESIDENT/COOTom ValentinoCFOJohn SuttonPUBLISHING DIRECTOR/GAMESSimon WhitcombePUBLISHING DIRECTOR/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTDave BarrowEDITORIAL DIRECTORJon PhillipsEDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSICBrad TolinskiDIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCESNancy DurlesterPRODUCTION DIRECTORRichie LesovoyA THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWOED WORDWhere Liesthe Point ofDiminishingReturns?his month, I tested HP’s Mini-Note—the small, cheap notebook is HP’s an-swer to the subcompact, sub-$500 Asus Eee PC. HP’s tiny notebook got methinking about the point of diminishing PC returns—the point at which add-ing more hardware oomph doesn’t deliver a perceptible performance boost to theuser. During the usability portion of my testing—wherein I use the laptop in a va-riety of real-world scenarios (at my desk, on the kitchen table, on the couch, on theplane, etc.), I was shocked that the Mini-Note seemed fast enough for much of whatI do. While the notebook certainly underperformed in our Photoshop benchmark, Ididn’t have any major complaints with its performance in my most common activi-ties: web browsing, checking email, writing documents, and listening to music. Isthis Mini-Note’s 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU fast enough for me?Answer: no. After I dug a little deeper, I uncovered some seriousperformance problems. The rig is simply too slow to play H.264 videoat DVD resolution, and without dedicated graphics, I wouldn’t recom-Killer Hardwaremend running even the most rudimentary 3D games.HacksThe Mini-Note doesn’t trip the diminishing-returns perimeterpage 22wire, but it comes close. It’s too bad HP didn’t include decent onboardgraphics (something with basic 3D support and a little bit of video de-How Ethernet Workscoding help) because that would make this sub-$1,000 rig everythingpage 62I need in a portable.Ironically, it’s at theotherend of the PC hardware spectrum that IThe Companion Cubepage 96discovered technology that has indeed reached the point of diminishingreturns. And I’m sad to report that that technology is 3D gaming graph-ics. Take a look at two of the biggest games of last year, Call of Duty 4and Crysis. Crysis is a technological showcase, utilizing the latest, greatest DirectX 10graphics technology to render a vibrant, living world. Call of Duty 4, meanwhile, is ashowcase of last-generation DirectX 9 technology. This game is technically inferior butdeftly executed.Now, were you to show both titles to a gamer who doesn’t know what subtle, deli-cious effects to look for in DirectX 10 rendering, there’s absolutely no guarantee thathe’ll pick Crysis as the more advanced game. In fact, because there are more charactersonscreen at any given time in Call of Duty and because the scripted action is muchmore intense than it is in Crysis, I’d wager that he’s more likely to select Call of Duty asthe more visually sophisticated game.The upshot is that I think we’re rapidly approaching the limits of what today’stechnology can deliver in terms of visual quality increases. In order to make thenext jump—the jump to real-time 3D rendering that looks as good as prerenderedmovie CGI—the hardware vendors and game developers are going to have to trysomething new. Am I right, wrong, or absolutely crazy? Let me know atwill@maximumpc.com.THOLY COW!www.maximumpc.comFuture US, Inc. is part of Future plc.Future produces carefully targetedspecial-interest magazines, websitesand events for people who share apassion. We aim to satisfy that pas-sion by creating titles offering valuefor money, reliable information, smartbuying advice and which are a plea-sure to read or visit. Today we publishmore than 150 magazines, 65 web-sites and a growing number of events in the US, UK, France and Italy.Over 100 international editions of our magazines are also publishedin 30 other countries across the world.Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange(symbol: FUTR).FUTURE plc30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, Englandwww.futureplc.comTel +44 1225 442244NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN:Roger ParryCHIEF EXECUTIVE:Stevie SpringGROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR:John BowmanTel +44 1225 442244www.futureplc.comREPRINTS:For reprints, contact Marshall Boomer,Reprint Operations Specialist, 717.399.1900 ext. 123or email: marshall.boomer@theygsgroup.comSUBSCRIPTION QUERIES:Please email customerservice@maximumpc.com or call customer service toll-free at 800.274.3421Maximum PC ISSN: 1522-4279LETTERS POLICYPlease send comments, questions, and tacos towill@maximumpc.com.Include your full name, city of residence,and phone number with your correspondence. Unfortunately, Will isunable to respond personally to all queries.|JUL 08|MAXIMUMPC|07MAXIMUPXIMUMTHE NEWSNextIs Ray Tracing theBig Thing?The rumor mill is abuzz with specula-tion that Intel’s upcoming graphicsprocessor, code-named Larrabee,will be a ray-tracing powerhouse—but a98-pound weakling at rasterization, the ren-dering technique used in current games.So what the heck is ray tracing? It’s arendering technique that traces the path oflight as it travels from the camera throughthe pixels in an image plane. An algorithmtests each ray of light to determine if itintersects with any objects in the sceneand then takes into account the materialproperties of those objects to determine thecolor of the pixel it will render. Ray tracingis capable of producing incredibly photo-realistic three-dimensional scenes, but it ismassively expensive from a computationalpoint of view.“As part of its run-up to the Larrabeelaunch, Intel is making a big deal about raytracing,” said industry analyst Jon Peddie.“They’ve been showing ray tracing to IDF[Intel Developer Forum] attendees, softwaredevelopers, analysts, press, and OEMs, try-ing to build up enthusiasm for the concept.QUICKSTARTTHE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLIntel is talking up the graphics technology in preparation of its Larrabeelaunch, but game developers are having none of it—MICHAEL BROWNIntel research scientist Daniel Pohl used a ray-tracing technique to create this conversion of Quake 4.(Image credit: Daniel Pohl, Intel; Quake 4 content by Raven Software.)LARRABEE WILL BE UNLIKEANY SOLUTION THATNVIDIA AND AMD CURRENTLYHAVE TO OFFER.We love ray tracing, but it has been a chal-lenge to implement and is almost impossibleto do in real time.”And, in fact, today’s graphic processors,typified by Nvidia’s GeForce and AMD’s ATIRadeon HD product lines, are based on an en-tirely different rendering technique—raster-ization and shading—and it is this techniquethat the games industry currently revolvesaround. Rasterization takes a three-dimen-sional scene constructed from polygons andrenders it to the two-dimensional surface ofa monitor; shading describes the process ofchanging the color of a polygonbased on its angle to and dis-tance from a light source.But since Intel has beenmaking so much hay aboutray tracing lately, influentialgame developers such asJohn Carmack (id Software) and Cevat Yerli(Crytek) have gone on record to play downthe technique’s value to the games indus-try—at least within the next five years. Intelis expected to demo Larrabee later this year,but the product is not scheduled to launchuntil 2009 or 2010.When we asked Intel’s Nick Knupfferfor comment, he seemed taken aback by theperception that Larrabee would be a weakrasterizing solution: “There would be littlepoint in us creating a discrete graphics partif it was not competitive,” said Knupffer.“We’ve been talking about ray tracing on theone hand and Larrabee on the other, and Ithink people have incorrectly equated thetwo. But Intel has focused on DirectX andOpenGL from day one.”Knupffer also assured us, however, thatLarrabee would be unlike any solution thatNvidia and AMD currently have to offer.“We haven’t disclosed much about thearchitecture,” he said, “but it would be safeto say that it’s a fresh approach to graphicsprocessing.” Jon Peddie speculates that ifIntel is to support rasterization, “It will bevia a unified memory architecture, becauseas far as I know, Larrabee has no graphicscircuitry, and that means it will be intrinsi-cally limited in performance.”08|MAXIMUMPC|JUL 08|www.maximumpc.comMAXIMUPXIMUM [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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