MaximumPC 2012 08

MaximumPC 2012 08, MaximumPC

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
//-->COMMODOREREDUXReplica C64outside; modernPC inside!PG. 60SAMSUNGSERIES 9Ultraportabilityin a 15-inchchassis.PG. 70GEFORCEGTX 690Dual GPU is aspowerful as itis purty!PG. 36100MINIMUM BS • AUGUST 2012 •www.maximumpc.comTips andtricks fora smarter,faster OSPG. 24WINDOWS#Manage the run in5Services thatthe background#Set your PC to boot17with greater speed#Search the web43from your Startmenu#Customize your86Favorites folderWAYS TOSPEED UPHOWInstall Android on yourTO:PC—for the heck of it!where we put stuffCOMMODOREREDUXReplica C64outside; modernPC inside!PG. 60SAMSUNGSERIES 9Ultraportabilityin a 15-inchchassis.PG. 70GEFORCEGTX 690Dual GPU is aspowerful as itis purty!PG. 36100MINIMUM BS • AUGUST 2012 •www.maximumpc.comTips andtricks fora smarter,faster OSPG. 24On the CoverIllustration byGiacomo MarchesiinsideAUGUST 20128table of contentsQUICKSTARTNEWSIntel rolls out dual-core IvyBridge; LG announces GoogleTV redux; mobo vendors launchThunderbolt integration.WINDOWS#Manage the run in5Services thatthe background#Set your PC to boot17with greater speed#Search the web43from your Startmenu#Customize your86Favorites folderWAYS TOSPEED UPHOWInstall Android on yourTO:PC—for the heck of it!FEATURES2414THE LISTNine tech rumors that provedwrong.16HEAD TO HEADGoogle Drive vs. SkyDrive.R&D52AUTOPSYIs the Nook Simple Touchsuper-simple to takeapart? We find out.FB buys Twitter. Not.55HOW TOSpeed up boot times withStartup Delayer; installAndroid on your PC.60BUILD ITRelive the days of big hair andspandex by constructing a replicaof the Commodore 64—withsome modern-day upgrades.24SPEED UPWINDOWS100 tips and tricks that will haveyou and your OS performingtasks much more efficiently.Who doesn’t want that?36NVIDIA GTX 690DUAL-GPU CARDImagine the goodness of the GTX680, doubled. If you’re thinkingbenchmark records will bebroken, you’re on the right track.42OUR NEWBENCHMARKSGordon Mah Ung introducesour new zero-point system andbenchmarks for future desktopsystem reviews.LETTERS2092DOCTORCOMMENTSIN THE LAB70SAMSUNGSERIES 9 ULTRABOOK72GIGABYTEGA-Z77X-UD5H74ASUS GEFORCE GTX670 DIRECTCU II TOP87COOLER MASTERTPC 812 CPU COOLERmaximumpc.comAUG 2012MAXIMUMPC5MORE+a thing or two about a thing or twoeditorialMAXIMUMPCARTArt Director:Richard KoscherContributing Photographer:Mark MadeoEDITORIALEditor-in-Chief:Katherine StevensonDeputy Editor:Gordon Mah UngSenior Editor:Nathan EdwardsOnline Managing Editor:Alex CastleContributing Writers:J.R. Bookwalter, Michael Brown, Loyd Case,Brad Chacos, Tom Halfhill, Paul Lilly, Thomas McDonald, GrahamMorrison, David Murphy, Quinn Norton, James StablesCopy Editor:Catherine HunterPodcast Producer:Andy BaumanEditor Emeritus:Andrew SanchezGordonMah UngBUSINESSVice President, Consumer Media:Kelley Corten, kcorten@futureus.comVice President, Sales & Business Development:Nate Hunt,nhunt@futureus.comAssociate National Director of Sales:Isaac Ugay, iugay@futureus.comSales Director, East Coast:Thomas Lundell, tlundell@futureus.comAccount Executive:Austin Park, apark@futureus.comAdvertising Coordinator:Heidi Hapin, hhapin@futureus.comMarketing & Sales Development Director:Rhoda BuenoeCommerce & Fulfillment Director:Lisa RadlerConsumer Marketing Manager:Jong LeeNewsstand Director:Bill SheweyPRODUCTIONProduction Director:Michael HollisterProduction Manager:Larry BrisenoProduction Coordinator:Jose UrrutiaSenior Print Order Coordinator:Jennifer LimFUTURE US, INC.4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080Tel: 650-872-1642, www.futureus.comChief Operating Officer:Rachelle ConsidineVice President & Chief Financial Officer:John SuttonVice President, Internet & Mobile Products:Mark KramerGeneral Counsel:Anne OrtelSUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICEMaximum PC Customer Care,P.O. Box 5159, Harlan, IA 51593-0659Website: www.maximumpc.com/customerserviceTel: 800-274-3421Email: MAXcustserv@cdsfulfillment.comBACK ISSUESWebsite: www.maximumpc.com/shopTel: 800-865-7240REPRINTSFuture US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400,South San Francisco, CA 94080Website: www.futureus.comTel: 650-872-1642, Fax 650-872-2207THANK YOU,COMMODORE 64I COME FROMFuture produces carefully targeted maga-zines, websites and events for people with apassion. We publish more than 180 maga-zines, websites and events and we exportor license our publications to 90 countriesacross the world.Future plc is a publiccompany quoted on theLondon Stock Exchange.www.futureplc.comNon-executive Chairman:Peter AllenChief Executive:Mark WoodGroup Finance Director:Graham HardingTel +44 (0)20 7042 4000 (London)Tel +44 (0)1225 442244 (Bath)©2012 Future US, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this magazinemay be used or reproduced without the written permission of FutureUS, Inc. (owner). All information provided is, as far as Future (owner)is aware, based on information correct at the time of press. Readersare advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with re-gard to products/services referred to in this magazine. We welcomereader submissions, but cannot promise that they will be publishedor returned to you. By submitting materials to us you agree to giveFuture the royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive right to publish andreuse your submission in any form in any and all media and to useyour name and other information in connection with the submission.solid blue-collar roots, andthrowing money around on somethingas frivolous as a personal computer inthe 1980s likely made no sense to myimmigrant parents. Up to that time,their only exposure to technology wasthe spiffy Texas Instruments calculatormy dad bought to literally replace hisabacus.But somehow in 1982 my parentsponied up the $595 to buy me a Com-modore 64. It wasn’t my first computer,either. Jack Tramiel’s C64 followed aVIC-20 purchased two years before for$299.95.To put those purchasing decisionsin perspective, $595 in 1982 buys you$1,418.66 today when adjusted for infl a-tion. That VIC-20? $837.55. While I al-ways thought my incessant whining ledto those large outlays of cash, I knownow that my parents were investing inmy future.That Commodore 64 and VIC-20 ex-posed me to programming concepts andtaught me typing and word processing.And with the 300 Baud VIC modem, Ilearned how to troll—er, debate—peo-ple on dial-up Bulletin Board Systems.I even learned not to be afraid to graba screwdriver when things didn’t work.Tip: RF insulation made from sloppilycut, foil-coated cardboard isn’t a goodidea inside a computer, Mr. Tramiel.With 30 years of computing behind me tolook back on, I can say that $1,418.66 in-vestment has paid for itself many timesover.Amazingly, I believe the life-chang-ing capability of a personal computerstill exists. While other technology toysgrab the headlines today, it’s the per-sonal computer that still has the abilityto take you to magical places. You don’tjust consume with the personal com-puter, either, you can also create. From3D modeling to stunning digital imagesto programming, and yes, of course, togaming, the personal computer takesyou there.My own children are being exposedto technology at a far younger agethan I was, but I’m going to make cer-tain that their tech experiences aren’tjust through game consoles, tablets,or smartphones. A personal computer,with its limitless horizons and, yes, itsneed for maintenance, will also be in mykids’ lives. Perhaps I’ll take home theCommodore 64 from this month’s BuildIt (page 60) and insist that if they wantto check out something on the Internet,they first build the device on which theysearch for it.Gordon Mah Ung is Maximum PC’sdeputy editor, senior hardware expert,and all-around muckraker.↘submit your questions to:comments@maximumpc.commaximumpc.comAUG 2012MAXIMUMPC7quickstartthe beginning of the magazine, where the articles are smallDiablo III: The DarkFuture of PC Gaming?What the launch of Blizzard’s action RPG says about ourfavorite hobbyON MAY 15, MILLIONSofgamers stayed up late,ready to fire up their pre-downloaded copies of DiabloIII. They were excited toreturn to Sanctuary after a12-year absence, and to slayhordes of ghouls, demons,and abominations alongsidetheir fellow adventurers.What they got instead wasa server error—a messageinforming them that becauseBlizzard was struggling withthe huge load of players,they would be unable toplay the game that wassitting, freshly installed,on their hard drives. Eventhesingle-playergamewas unavailable, thanks toBlizzard’s new form of DRMthat requires a constantconnection to its servers forany type of play.The ser ver problems hadbeen mostly resolved by thenext day, but the experienceraised concerns about sev-eral trends in PC gaming.The first is the new breedof DRM that requires a con-stant Internet connection.It’s effective at preventingpiracy and cheating (the Bliz-zard implementation actuallykeeps some core game logicon the servers, preventing asimple crack from circum-venting the need for a con-nection), but bad for gamers.The game cannot be playedanywhere without an Internetconnection, and attemptingto play on an unreliable con-nection is liable to get a gam-Welcome to the real depths of hell in Diablo III.er kicked out of the gamemid-dungeon. Additionally,as the Diablo III launch dem-onstrated, any problems withthe publishers’ servers meanit’s game over for everyone,whether or not they want toplay online.The likely motivation be-hind Blizzard’s new DRM,and another worr ying trendin PC gaming, is the Dia-blo III real-money auctionhouse. Whereas Blizzard’sstance in World of Warcrafthas always been that it’sagainst the terms of ser-vice to trade in-game goodsfor real money, it’s done anabout-face in Diablo III, cre-ating a sanctioned onlineauction house where play-ers can buy and sell gameitems for cold, hard cash.Blizzard will take a por-tion of each sale, amountingto $1 per equipment trans-action, and then take anoth-er 15 percent if you chooseto cash out your accountbalance. Activison Bliz-zard stands to make a lot ofmoney from the real-moneyauction house, as long asthe in-game economy re-mains strong. Of course,nothing can ruin a game’seconomy faster than cheatsand exploits—exactly thesor t of thing Blizzard’s ex-treme new DRM prevents.It could be argued thata more secure online playenvironment benefits ev-er yone, but is it possiblefor any company to maintain100 percent game ser verstability? If anyone coulddo it, you’d think it wouldbe Blizzard, who maintainsWorldofWarcraft—themost popular MMO in theworld, with more than 10million players. Fur ther, thecompany had a good idea ofhow popular the Diablo IIIlaunch would be: It was themost pre-ordered PC gamein histor y on Amazon, andBlizzard itself had givenfree copies of the game toall 1.2 million World of War-craft annual pass subscrib-ers, vir tually guaranteeinga massive launch.If it’s not possible fora company as big as Bliz-zard to keep its ser vers up,what will happen to gamesby smaller studios thatimplement the same DRM?What will happen to oldergames when the companiesthat publish them no longerwant to maintain a ser verfarm? And most impor tant-ly, is any of this fair to gam-ers, who just want reliableaccess to the games theypay for?–Alex Castle8MAXIMUMPCAUG 2012maximumpc.comIvy Bridge:Now with DualCoresLower-power users are finallygetting their taste of Ivy Bridgewith Intel’s new line of dual-coreprocessors based on the 22nm IvyBridge cores. Intel has announcedthat no fewer than 14 dual-coreIvy Bridge processors will join itslineup this summer.Like their quad-core breth-ren, the dual-core chips will offerroughly a 10 percent increase inx86 performance when compareddirectly with Sandy Bridge chips.The graphics core, however, fea-tures far more performance,causing Intel to label the Ivy Bridgea “tick-plus” part. Expect thesechips to be powering the next gen-eration of Ultrabooks, most likelyalongside ultraportables featur-ing AMD’s Trinity APU, which itselfshould debut by the time you readthis.–GUGoogle, MSTrade Wins,LossesThe geek community at large ispretty loyal to the Google brand,but Bing is picking up steam.According to a Hitwise report,Bing now accounts for 30 per-cent of all U.S. web searches,and most of the gains seem tohave come at the expense ofGoogle. While Bing grew its U.S.search queries by an impres-sive 11 percent over the last 12months, Google dropped by theexact same amount.On the other hand, Internetmonitor StatCounter repor tsthat Chrome has finally over-taken Internet Explorer as themost-used browser. Other In-ternet trackers still show IEwith the lead, but Microsoft’sbrowser has clearly lost itsonce-formidable edge.–KSTomHalfhillFastForwardPARALLELPROGRAMMINGFOR DUMMIESseems like rocketscience to most people, but even rocket sci-ence can be made easy. Heck, I was buildingand launching model rockets as a teenager.Intel has invented the model rocket ofparallel programming. An Intel Labs proj-ect, code-named River Trail, has created aJavaScript extension that brings data paral-lelism within reach of millions of ordinaryprogrammers. If an international standardsbody approves, the extension could appearin all web browsers that support JavaScript,which is virtually all web browsers. (Don’tconfuse JavaScript with Java, a completelydifferent language.)River Trail is surprisingly simple andpowerful. It adds one new array type (Paral-lelArray) and nine methods for manipulatingthe array’s data. It’s so simple that Intel’stechnical document is only 17 pages long.(My digital camera manual is 150 pages.)Yet River Trail can use multiple CPU coresper chip, multiple threads per core, multipleprocessors per system, and multiple-datainstructions, such as those in Intel’s SSEand AVX extensions. The latest version evenuses the GPUs in Ivy Bridge processors.The best part is that JavaScript program-mers see none of this complexity. Theysimply put their data into a ParallelArrayand call one of the nine parallel-processingmethods (or multiple methods). At run time,the JavaScript extension finds any parallelresources available in the system and usesthem to crunch the data.Yes, programmers must learn some newconcepts and rewrite some code. River Trailisn’t the long-sought “magic compiler” thatautomatically converts existing sequentialcode into parallel code. And JavaScript is arelatively slow language, so River Trail isn’tthe swiftest solution. It’s a model rocket, nota Saturn V.But the basic technology is applicable toother programming languages, and it reallyworks—I’ve tried it. Someday, River Trailmay bring parallelism to the masses.PARALLEL PROGRAMMINGNvidia Virtualizes KeplerAt May’s GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia revealed the GPU virtualization capa-bility built into its Kepler GPUs. The virtualization technology, dubbed Nvidia VGX,enables GPU acceleration of virtual machines. VGX allows server-side Kepler GPUsto render their frame buffers directly to an on-GPU H.264 encoder, which thenstreams the output to the remote user via, for example, Citrix Receiver. Previous VMand remote-desktop solutions required the local CPU to render the desktop environ-ment, leading to laggy, low-quality desktop environments. The new GPU-acceleratedremote desktops and virtual machines will enable power users to get actual workdone—or allow up to 100 virtual desktops to be rendered by a single card.Nvidia also announced GeForce Grid—a tech to deliver streaming games to con-sumers on thin clients, like phones, tablets, and laptops. Like the enterprise tech,GeForce Grid uses servers with Kepler GPUs to render game video server-side andstream it to clients, relieving the need for powerful hardware on the client end—simi-lar to OnLive’s streaming game service. Nvidia’s GTC demo of GeForce Grid includeda gamer playing Hawken on a TV against one playing on an Ultrabook, using the Gaikaicloud gaming service,which runs on GeForceGrid servers.One thing Nvidia didn’tmention, but we’d liketo see, is whether con-sumer Kepler cards canutilize VGX. We envisiona world in which a gamercan remote into his orher desktop PC from asmartphone or tabletand play games acceler-ated by the desktop GPU.–NEBy encoding the video output to H.264 directly on the GPU, Keplercan stream high-quality GPU-accelerated video to any device.Tom Halfhill was formerly a senioreditor forBytemagazine and is nowan analyst forMicroprocessor Report.maximumpc.comAUG 2012MAXIMUMPC9 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

mement.xlx.pl