It’s all well and good to have next-gen hardware—if it makes sense. And right now, with a format war raging and hardware and media costs still sky high, next-gen optical is a foolish choice for most folks. The majority of disc-burning and -reading needs are best handled by a good old-fashioned DVD burner, and Samsung’s SH-S203B is our fave in this category, offering a SATA interface, 20x write speeds, and a competitive price.
(Reviewed October 2007) $70, www.samsung.com
While we’re still admirers of the large 1920x1200 native-res LCDs we’ve been recommending the last few years, the widespread adoption of these screens has definitely diminished their cachet. So we’re thrilled that a really, really high-res screen is now a viable option. Thanks to Gateway’s XHD3000, power users can enjoy all the benefits of a 30-inch, 2560x1600 panel without suffering any of the indignities inherent to other 30-inch LCDs. The XHD3000’s unique use of an internal scaler means you can choose among multiple interface options, adjust the screen’s image in a variety of ways, and play high-def content at its intended res. Righteous!
(Reviewed on here) $1,700, www.gateway.com
It’s been a long wait, but 802.11n wireless routers are finally worth buying—even if the IEEE hasn’t published the final spec. After testing models from every major vendor, we found that D-Link’s DIR-655 offers the best combination of features and performance. With unparalleled tweakability, customizable quality-of-service settings, best-in-class range and throughput, and a built-in Gigabit Ethernet switch, no other router comes close.
(Reviewed November 2007) $130, www.dlink.com
Let’s get the messy details out of the way first: The single-drive FreeAgent Pro is slower than Western Digital’s RAID-enabled MyBook Pro Edition II. But that’s only if you consider the storage mediums themselves. The MyBook Pro II supports only USB and FireWire connections, while the FreeAgent Pro provides support for both those specs as well as eSATA, making it the ultimate winner for file transferring. And unlike the MyBook, it works perfectly in Vista!
(Reviewed here) 300, www.seagate.com
We were inches away from declaring Hitachi’s 7K1000 terabyte drive the best hard drive of 2007, when—whammo!—terabyte offerings from Western Digital and Seagate hit the Lab within a day of each other. Storage competition makes us salivate, so we couldn’t wait to run the drives through our benchmark obstacle course.
It’s a good thing we did: Seagate’s four-platter Barracuda 7200.11 drive is the fastest terabyte drive we’ve ever tested, with an average read speed of 86.6MB/s—a whole 15 megabytes a second faster than the 7K1000. Attribute the win to the Barracuda’s increased areal density. At 250MB per platter, the ’Cuda packs more for a decisive read/write punch!
(Reviewed Holiday 2007) $330, www.seagate.com
Comments are closed on this article
tampatip
May 03, 2008 at 11:08pm
I thought at one point in time, that you kept the Best of the Best column updated on a monthly basis, so as you made new reviews, you would update with it. What ever happened to that concept?
Lord Chrome
January 24, 2008 at 12:51am
I read your information on the Asus’s EN8800 GTX and I noticed you put it in your new bench mark system in SLI with a pair of GTX’s. But in your review of the best motherboard you chose the P5E3 Deluxe motherboard and decided not to go with SLI. Because the single card is so damn fast and the benchmarks with the QX9650 and QX850 were in the 200 to 350 FPS range. The benchmarks for the GTX GTS and GT cards in SLI are showing 99-111 for the GTS in SLI and 65-95 in SLI for the GTX range why is this? One problem I saw is some of the reviews done on the 8800 GTS and GT are with and with anti lasing or AA and shadows set at different levels and sometimes not at all. It would be nice to see a consistent review of the 8800 GT, GTS and GTX in the benchmark system and with the QX9650 and QX850 with the DRAM 3 and everything engaged to see which configuration is the best solution. I could also see if the price justification is worth it like you guys did with the 8800 GTX and the ultra which clearly show the increased price does not justify the small performance gain. But I’d really like to see the difference in the QX950 and QX850 if those numbers are that high why bother with SLI at all. It would seem like the single card with quad and DDR3 ram is three times faster? But I also heard that the eye can only see about 30 FPS any thoughts?
nedwards
January 15, 2008 at 11:12am
Hi Link,
This story was from the December 2007 issue, which means it was written in September or early October.
Neither the GT nor the new GTS were out then.
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