MaximumPC 2008 11

MaximumPC 2008 11, MaximumPC

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//-->SOLID-STATE SHOWDOWNFlash-based hard drives are here!BIOS TWEAKS FOR POWER USERSInstant upgrade: Give your PC a free speed boost!MINIMUM BS • NOVEMBER 200835Use Google to SpyAmazingThings(You Didn't Know Your PC Could Do)PCPCPCCreate Your OwnON YOURSELFPC LOCKPICKRINGTONESMake aCheck Your Doors& WindowsREMOTELYDownload & SaveYOUTUBEVIDEOSPLUS30 MOREINGENIOUSHOW-TOS!Our New FaveMotherboard:HOW TOREVIEWED INSIDE!Play WindowsGamesON LINUXUnleash 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 STUFFCONTENTSNOVEMBERFEATURES2235 Amazing ThingsDon’t limit yourself to playing games andgenerating spreadsheets. Use your rig toimprove your life.40Solid-State Drives52BIOS TweaksDEPARTMENTSIs this speedy storage medium worth the price?We break down the tech and review seven SSDs.40Learn how to dig deep within the BIOS to get thebest performance from your rig.QuickStart08NEWSThe ins and outs of H.264 encoding14THE LISTThe nine most powerful computers ofall time16DEATHMATCHStand-alone GPS vs. cellphone-based GPSR&D66WHITE PAPERFinding your way with a GPS67AUTOPSYJabra BT5010 bluetooth headset68HOW TOPlay games on your Linux rigIn the Lab79REVIEWS90LAB NOTES96RIG OF THE MONTHLETTERS18WATCHDOG72DOCTOR94COMMENTSwww.maximumpc.com|NOV 08|MAXIMUM PC|05MAXIMU PXIMUMEDITORIALEDITORIAL DIRECTORJon PhillipsEDITOR IN CHIEFWill SmithDEPUTY EDITORKatherine StevensonMANAGING EDITORTom EdwardsSENIOR EDITORGordon Mah UngONLINE EDITORNorman ChanASSOCIATE EDITORDavid MurphyEDITOR AT LARGEMichael BrownCONTRIBUTING EDITORNathan EdwardsEDITORIAL ASSISTANTSBenson Hong, Reed PorterCONTRIBUTING WRITERSJean-Paul Connock, Tom Halfhill,Thomas McDonald, Quinn Norton, Dan StapletonEDITOR EMERITUSAndrew SanchezARTART DIRECTORNatalie JedayASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORBoni UzilevskyPHOTO EDITORMark MadeoASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHERSamantha BergCONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERCaydie McCumberCONTRIBUTING ARTISTMartin AbelBUSINESSVICE PRESIDENT/PUBLISHING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY,PREGNANCY AND CYCLINGStacey Levy650-238-2319, slevy@futureus.comGROUP SALES DIRECTORGabe Rogol650-238-2409, grogol@futureus.comWESTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTORDave Lynn949-360-4443, dlynn@futureus.comEASTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTORJustin Schiller646-723-5453, jschiller@futureus.comEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CONSUMER SALESJim Schiekofer646-723-5410, jschiekofer@futureus.comEAST COAST MANAGER CONSUMER SALESMark Zenker646-723-5476, mzenker@futureus.comWEST COAST MANAGER CONSUMER SALESNadine Weiss310-424-2254, nweiss@futureus.comMIDWEST MANAGER CONSUMER SALESJodi Sosna212-217-1358, jsosna@futureus.comMARKETING MANAGERKathleen Castaillac650-238-9218, kcastaillac@futureus.comADVERTISING COORDINATORJose Urrutia650-238-2498, jurrutia@futureus.comPRODUCTIONPRODUCTION DIRECTORRichie LesovoyPRODUCTION COORDINATORDan MalloryPRINT ORDER COORDINATORJennifer LimCONSUMER MARKETINGDIRECTOR CONSUMER MARKETINGRich McCarthyGROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTORPeter KellyNEWSSTAND DIRECTORBill SheweyCONSUMER MARKETING OPERATIONS DIRECTORLisa RadlerRENEWAL AND BILLING MANAGERMike HillBUSINESS MANAGERElliot KigerSR. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTORJennifer TrinkerCUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERMike ManriqueFUTURE US, INC4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080www.futureus-inc.comPRESIDENTJonathan Simpson-BintVICE PRESIDENT/CFOJohn SuttonSENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/PUBLISHINGDIRECTORSimon WhitcombeVICE PRESIDENT INTERNETDEVELOPMENTTyson DaughertyGENERAL COUNSELCharlotte FallaEDITORIAL DIRECTOR/GAMES GROUPStephen PierceEDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSICBrad TolinskiHUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTORNancy DurlesterFuture US, Inc. is part of Future plc.Future produces carefully targeted special-interest magazines,websites and events for people who share a passion. We aim to sat-isfy that passion by creating titles offering value for money, reliableinformation, smart buying advice and which are a pleasure to reador visit. Today we publish more than 150 magazines, 65 websites anda growing number of events in the US, UK, France and Italy. Over100 international editions of our magazines are also published in 30other 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: 1522-4279MAXIMUMPCA THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWOED WORDSometimes theBest Things inLifeAreFreet’s a routine every power user goes through upon building a new rig: install-ing a host of trusty, must-have applications. I just went through it myself andwas surprised by how many of my favorite apps are free or open source. Foryour edification, I now submit my list—and ask you to ponder whether you’remaking as much use of free, open-source software as I am.Firefox 3.OK, this is a no-brainer. Internet Explorer is usable, andOpera is nice, but Firefox 3 remains my browser of choice. The 3.0 release actu-ally fixed many of the memory issues that plagued the previous version, andthe new features significantly upgrade my browsing experience.www.firefox.comFilezilla.I find myself using FTP on a daily basis. Whetherit’s to exchange files with colleagues outside my office or uploadconfiguration tweaks to the official Maximum PC Team Fortress 2server, Filezilla fulfills my FTP needs.VirtualBox.Sun just purchased this open-source virtual ma-Amazing Things!chine project, which makes it easy to build virtual machines for Win-page 22dows, Linux, or any other OS. Oh, and it also supports the virtualiza-tion extensions of modern CPUs.www.virtualbox.orgSolid-State DrivesHandbrake.I haven’t talked about this killer app enough. Itpage 40makes ripping unencrypted DVDs to H.264 files a snap, and if youpair it with DVD43, you’ve got a completely free DVD-ripping so-Game with Linuxlution to decrypt and convert DVDs to any format you could want.page 68www.handbrake.fr, www.dvd43.comOpenOffice.org.I use Office at work, but I use OpenOffice athome. The few features OpenOffice doesn’t support just don’t matter enough forme to purchase a Microsoft Office license.www.openoffice.orgWinDirStat.OK, I don’t install this immediately after building a machine,but I install it the moment I run low on disk space. WinDirStat gives me a to-scalemap of my drive’s contents, usually showing that my hard drive is full of picturesof my dog.www.windirstat.infoPidgin.There are definitely prettier multiservice IM clients available—wereally wish the Pidgin dev team would add more skinning support to the app—butfor speed and reliability, it’s tough to beat Pidgin.www.pidgin.im7-Zip.Ever need to create a bz2 archive? What about any of the esoteric for-mats that WinZip doesn’t support? That’s where 7-Zip comes in.www.7-zip.org.Got a favorite open-source app that I missed? Email me atwill@maximumpc.com.I’ll run the best user-submitted tips online later this year.IMUYCALIENTE!WRITE TO WILLPlease send comments, questions, andshepherd’s pie towill@maximumpc.com.Include your full name,city of residence, and phone number with your correspondence.Unfortunately, Will is unable to respond personally to all queries.www.maximumpc.com|NOV 08|MAXIMUMPC|07MAXIMUPXIMUMTHE NEWSVideoThe Rise of H.264Encoders.264, aka MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video-compression standard that enableshigh-quality video at very low bitrates(substantially lower than MPEG-2). At therisk of gross over-simplification, the codeccompresses video by dividing each frame intoa matrix of blocks, analyzing each block, anddiscarding any redundant information.Decoding H.264 video is a relativelylight task, computationally speaking; in fact,decoding low-resolution H.264 video can beperformed on a device as simple as an iPod.Encodingvideo using H.264, on the other hand,is computationally intense. Nvidia and AMD’sATI division are making the case that theirGPUs are just the ticket for H.264 encoding—all that’s needed is some clever software.Industry analyst Jon Peddie agrees—to anextent. “When the GPU is used, it’s mostly usedfor transcoding; e.g., getting from MPEG-2 toH.264. You can do that on a CPU, but it takesa long time; the GPU is about 5 to 10 timesfaster.” Elemental Technologies is working ontwo software products that will run on Nvidia’sCUDA-compatible GeForce architecture: theRapiHD Accelerator for commercial encodingapplications (a plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro)and Badaboom, for consumers interested intranscoding video. Although neither productwas shipping at press time, Elemental hadreleased a public beta version of Badaboom. “Itdefinitely shows the future,” Peddie said of thesoftware. “It’s still early in its development, theUI needs work, and there are some additionalfeatures they will add, but it’s fun to play with.”AMD, meanwhile, is working on its ownencoding solutions. “We’ve been studyinghow to best merge CPU and GPU processinginto a cohesive solution,” said AMDspokesperson Jay Marsden. AMD’sAccelerated Video Transcoding (AVT)technology will tap the power of thecompany’s new Radeon 4800 series GPUs totranscode 1080p video files to H.264 andQUICKSTARTTHE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLA killer app for the general-purpose GPU, or does this task call forsomething more specialized?—MICHAEL BROWNHElemental Technologies’ consumer-oriented Badaboom media converter harnesses the power ofNvidia’s CUDA-compatible GPUs to transcodes video to H.264.MPEG-2 at 1.8 times real time. The transcod-ing software will initially be incorporatedinto Cyberlink’s PowerDirector consumervideo-editing software. AMD is alsoworking on a professional-quality H.264encoder that will come in the form of aplugin for Adobe Premiere Pro.The fabless semiconductor manufacturerAmbric is taking a wholly differentapproach to H.264 encoding. The companyrecently developed a reference-designH.264 encoder based on its Am2000 chip,which is a massively parallel processorarray (MPPA) consisting of 336 32-bit RISC(reduced instruction set computing)processors. The Am2000 differs from AMD’sand Nvidia’s GPUs in that it is based on aMIMD (multiple instructions, multiple data)architecture compared to the SIMD (singleinstruction, multiple data) architecturecurrent GPUs are based on.While a SIMD chip can support one or afew instruction streams, each processor in aMIMD chip can be operating on a differentinstruction stream simultaneously, witheach processor able to access a dedicatedarea of memory. The processors can passwork to one another via a reconfigurable in-terconnect. But you shouldn’t expect to findthe Am2000 in a consumer product anytimesoon. Pyro AV’s new Pyro Kompressor HD,a hardware/software combo that includesa PCI Express card based on Ambric’s refer-ence design, sells for $3,495.And then there’s Intel. Jon Peddie expectsthe chip giant to compete aggressively in theH.264-encoding space when the company shipsLarrabee. “Larrabee doesn’t have anything spe-cial for encoding,” said Peddie “but it can throw abunch of processors at the problem.”08|MAXIMUMPC|NOV 08|www.maximumpc.comMAXIMUPXIMUM [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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