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Where Lies the Point of Diminishing Returns?

Will Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:55:33 -0500

In the July issue, I tested HP’s Mini-Note—the small, cheap notebook is HP’s answer to the subcompact, sub-$500 Asus Eee PC. HP’s tiny notebook got me thinking about the point of diminishing PC returns—the point at which adding more hardware oomph doesn’t deliver a perceptible performance boost to the user.

During the usability portion of my testing—wherein I use the laptop in a variety of real-world scenarios (at my desk, on the kitchen table, on the couch, on the plane, etc.), I was shocked that the Mini-Note seemed fast enough for much of what I do. While the notebook certainly underperformed in our Photoshop benchmark, I didn’t have any major complaints with its performance in my most common activities: web browsing, checking email, writing documents, and listening to music. Is this Mini-Note’s 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU fast enough for me?

Answer: no. After I dug a little deeper, I uncovered some serious performance problems. The rig is simply too slow to play H.264 video at DVD resolution, and without dedicated graphics, I wouldn’t recommend running even the most rudimentary 3D games.

The Mini-Note doesn’t trip the diminishing-returns perimeter wire, but it comes close. It’s too bad HP didn’t include decent onboard graphics (something with basic 3D support and a little bit of video decoding help) because that would make this sub-$1,000 rig everything I need in a portable.

Ironically, it’s at the other end of the PC hardware spectrum that I discovered technology that has indeed reached the point of diminishing returns. And I’m sad to report that that technology is 3D gaming graphics. Take a look at two of the biggest games of last year, Call of Duty 4 and Crysis. Crysis is a technological showcase, utilizing the latest, greatest DirectX 10 graphics technology to render a vibrant, living world. Call of Duty 4, meanwhile, is a showcase of last-generation DirectX 9 technology. This game is technically inferior but deftly executed.

Now, were you to show both titles to a gamer who doesn’t know what subtle, delicious effects to look for in DirectX 10 rendering, there’s absolutely no guarantee that he’ll pick Crysis as the more advanced game. In fact, because there are more characters onscreen at any given time in Call of Duty and because the scripted action is much more intense than it is in Crysis, I’d wager that he’s more likely to select Call of Duty as the more visually sophisticated game.

The upshot is that I think we’re rapidly approaching the limits of what today’s technology can deliver in terms of visual quality increases. In order to make the next jump—the jump to real-time 3D rendering that looks as good as prerendered movie CGI—the hardware vendors and game developers are going to have to try something new. Am I right, wrong, or absolutely crazy? Let me know at will@maximumpc.com.

Psst! Want to Hack Your Hardware? Here's How!

Norman Chan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:15:45 -0500

As much as we would love for our computers to work perfectly, the fact is that PCs and gadgets are complex devices that often fall short of exactly what we want. When confronted with this fact, we’re reminded of the old saw that says if you want something done right, it’s best to do it yourself. And who are we to doubt that kind of wisdom? As power users, we’re not content with hardware the way it comes out of the box; we have an insatiable need to hack our electronics in ways that will improve performance, functionality, and ease of use. And there’s no doubt about it, modifying your hardware will increase your productivity and make your life that much simpler.

The following pages contain a wide selection of hardware projects, ranging from novice-level tweaks to expert-only operations. From cable management and case mobility to LED soldering and firmware upgrades, each of these useful hacks has been tested and verified for effectiveness. Still, you’ll definitely want to read through our step-by-step instructions completely before starting, to avoid any mishaps. If you’re prepared to accept the risks—possibly voiding warranties and damaging your hardware—your efforts will yield some sweet rewards. So let’s get hacking!

Journeyman: Soundproof your Case

Noisy fans and rattling disk drives can be a nuisance, especially if you regularly leave your system powered on overnight. Short of confining your PC to a closet, the best (and most practical) sound-dampening solution we’ve found is to apply sound-absorbing foam to our case’s side panels (on the inside, of course). Acoustic PC (www.acousticpc.com) sells dual-layered foam sheets ($50 for a three-pack) that can easily be adhered to case interiors for priceless peace and quiet. The panels are just 7mm thick, which is convenient for densely packed systems where space is limited.

First, measure the dimensions of your case’s side panels. If a fan is permanently attached to the side panel, create a paper template based on the fan’s dimensions and trace that shape at the appropriate place on the foam.

Cut a sheet of sound-dampening foam based on your measurements. Excess material can be used to line other locations, such as the floor or ceiling of your case; just be careful not to cover any ventilation holes or high-heat areas, such as the power supply.

To apply a large sheet of foam, start from one corner of the panel and slowly move to the opposite end. Press the foam firmly against the panel while slowly removing the thin plastic sheet protecting the self-adhesive gum with your other hand. Avoid creases and air bubbles by peeling and progressing patiently.

Next: Add a Media Reader, Rock Three Monitors, and more!

Novice: Add a Media Reader to Your Case

The floppy disk is dead—we all know that. Yet so many modern computer cases still sport 3.5-inch drive bays that are just begging to be used. Enter the internal media reader. The device not only spruces up your front panel but also gives you a convenient way to deal with today’s plethora of flash memory formats.

We chose Sabrent’s 52-in-1 Multi-Card Reader ($14, www.newegg.com) because of its wide range of supported formats and easy installation. Sporting four memory-card slots along with an extra USB port, this minimalist-looking USB 2.0 reader will let you transfer your digital photos, music, and data at a blazing 480Mb/s.

Installing the media reader is simple. First, remove the front panel from a free 3.5-inch drive bay on your system chassis. Open up your case’s side door and slide the reader into the bay until it’s completely flush with the entire front panel (image A).

Next, take the internal USB adapter and plug the head into an available nine-pin USB port on your motherboard (image B). Don’t plug the head into a similar-looking FireWire port, which could damage both your motherboard and drive. USB and FireWire ports are usually color-coded, but refer to your motherboard manual to be sure. The media reader is powered by USB, so it doesn’t need an external power source.

Windows XP and Vista will automatically detect the media reader upon restart and assign drive letters to its ports. If you’re building a system from scratch, connect the media reader after you’ve booted into Windows to avoid accidentally assigning the “C” drive letter to a flash reader.

Expert: Rock a Triple-Monitor Setup

Most videocards these days have multiple outputs offering support for running two monitors simultaneously, but no more than that. And while doubling up on desktop space is great for productivity, it’s insufficient for “surround-screen” gaming, which requires stretching games to three monitors.

There are a couple different options for running a triple-monitor setup. Some new monitors, such as Samsung’s 940UX, actually have USB input support, nixing the need for a traditional videocard completely. A special display chip inside these monitors compresses high-resolution video (up to 1600x1200) to fit through USB 2.0’s 480Mb/s bandwidth spec. However, high latency and a lack of 3D support (video acceleration is emulated via software) make this route untenable for gaming, not to mention most other power-user practices.

Another option is Matrox’s TripleHead2Go, an external video adapter that allows three monitors to be connected to one videocard output (either VGA or DVI) for a maximum resolution of 3840x1024. Since your graphics card is fooled into thinking that it’s connected to one really wide monitor, gaming across three screens is seamless. The downside to this $330 solution is that your start menu will always be on the leftmost monitor and maximizing a window will stretch it across all three displays. You’ll also need a beefy videocard to single-handedly render games at ultra-high resolutions.

The most practical way to run three monitors at once is to just install a second videocard. If you have a modern motherboard, we recommend that you use two PCI Express videocards, since the limited bandwidth of PCI lanes will prohibit triple-monitor gaming. We also recommend that both videocards be of the same brand to avoid compatibility issues, although ATI and Nvidia accelerators will likely play nice with each other if you use the most recent display drivers.

With three monitors plugged into two videocards, Windows will automatically treat each monitor as an independent controllable desktop. Via Display Properties, you can manipulate each screen’s resolution, orientation, and position without having to worry about which port the monitor is connected to (image B). Many games will recognize a triple-monitor setup and natively accommodate wide resolutions, but one trick to running any game across three screens is to play it in a stretched window. This helps avoid pixel alignment problems when you’re using different-size monitors—you’ll want to adjust “field of vision” settings in first-person shooters if possible to give you the right perspective (we suggest setting the FOV value to 180).

If your monitors use different resolutions, getting a cohesive background across all three screens is a little bit tricky. Windows only lets you either stretch one large wallpaper across your screens or clone an image across all desktops, neither of which produces a satisfying result. To create a tri-monitor-friendly wallpaper, you’ll need to create a test image to help you unscramble your monitor arrangement. Using an image editor, mock up a template that matches the combined resolution of all three displays, color-coding the left, middle, and right sections of the image for reference (image C). Save and set this template as your background and note any alignment problems—for example, the wallpaper starting at your center monitor as opposed to the leftmost one. In the image editor, tweak the template until it displays all three monitor sections correctly as your wallpaper. After working out the alignment kinks, drop your desired images over the template to create your three-screen background.

Triple-Monitor Titles:

The following games natively support three screens:

Flight Simulator X
BioShock
Supreme Commander
Sins of a Solar Empire
ArmA: Armed Assault

Next: Make your Case Moveable, Hook your X-Fi to your Front Panel

Novice: Make your Case Moveable

Sliding your case out from under a desk shouldn’t be a chore—nor should it permanently damage your hardwood floors. The solution is to apply strategically placed felt pads to the bottom of your case. For cases with four plastic feet, you can attach circular felt pads to each foot for guaranteed protection. We found an eight-pack of heavy-duty self-adhering pads for $4 at a local hardware store. You can also buy sheets of felt to cut to your own specification—for use with a case that has rails instead of feet, for example, such as Cooler Master’s Cosmos. On carpeted floors, we like to place our system on a sheet of plastic counter lining ($5 at Home Depot) for an easier slide-out.

Expert: Connect your X-Fi to a Front-Panel Connector

Integrated audio has come a long way since its dodgy beginnings, but we still can’t resist the aural lure of Creative Labs’s X-Fi soundcards. The problem is that these cards don’t have the appropriate plugs to accommodate the front-panel sound ports on most new cases. X-tap.com sells adapters for $30, but it’s also possible to make your own X-Fi harness to maximize acoustic accessibility.

We found all the necessary parts for less than $10 at Digikey.com (image A): a white 10-position, 2mm connector (part no. 455-1151-ND) that snaps into the top of the X-Fi soundcard, small terminal connectors (part no. 455-1127-1-ND) that fit into the white connector, a black connector housing (part no. WM2522-ND) that’ll connect to the case’s front-panel audio connectors, and at least five long terminal connectors (part no. WM2515-ND) that go into this black housing block. The wires themselves can be harvested from an old Ethernet cable. You’ll also need a pair of needle-nose pliers and a set of wire cutters.

Cut a five-inch section of network cable and separate out five individual wires. Strip 2mm of insulation from each end of the wires and carefully crimp one of each connector type (long and short) on either end of each wire (image B).

Now, with the white 10-position connector oriented as shown (image C), insert the wires via the small-connector end. If done properly, the small metal tab on the connector should lock into place when pushed deep enough. You’ll want to insert wires into positions 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8, leaving the other slots empty. Position 1 is ground, 2 is headphone left, 4 is headphone right, 6 is mic input, and 8 is the voltage for the microphone. Now follow the diagram to insert the long-connector end of the wires into the black housing (image C). Wrap some tape around your wires to create a finished cable (image D).

If your case uses a front-panel audio connector that’s individually wired and labeled, matching the five connectors should be easy. Make sure that each wire is insulated from the others with some electrical tape to prevent shorting out your X-Fi. If your case’s front-panel audio connector is a black housing block corresponding to AC’97 or HD audio specs, refer to http://tinyurl.com/47olau for details on how to correctly arrange the prongs in your black housing block to match the front-panel one.

Next: Replace Blue LEDs, Upgrade your Linksys Router

Expert: Replace Blue LEDs

We’re feeling so inundated by all the blue LED lighting emanating from our PC peripherals that we’re starting to long for the green LEDs of yore. Whatever your color preference, it’s possible to swap out the LEDs on any device. We demonstrate with an old keyboard, but this technique applies to optical drives and cases as well. You can find replacement LEDs of various sizes and colors at your local Radio Shack.

To access the original LED, remove all the screws from the back of the keyboard and remove the small circuit board housing the LED (it should be the only circuit board in your keyboard). Using a soldering iron, heat the solder on the back of the board and carefully pull out the old LED.

When you replace an LED it’s important that the polarity on the LED and board are matched. Most boards will have +/- indicators printed on them, and the longer leg of your new LED should align with the positive, or cathode, side. You can also test the polarity by carefully touching the LED’s wires to a 3-volt battery (like the coin batteries used to sustain your motherboard's CMOS) to see which orientation produces light.

Apply a little solder to your iron and carefully solder the new LED from the back of the circuit board. Trim the legs of the LED with a pair of cutters and make sure they’re not touching. Repeat the steps for any additional LEDs you want to change, and then reassemble the keyboard.

Journeyman: Upgrade Your Linksys Router

Navigating through a router’s multitude of menus and configuration settings can be confusing, especially given the obtuse documentation typically bundled with the device. That’s why we prefer third-party open-source firmware, which not only streamlines a router’s graphical user interface but also adds robust functionality. For Linksys routers, our firmware of choice is Tomato (www.polarcloud.com/tomato). As with all third-party firmware upgrades, installing Tomato does come with a slight risk of damaging your router. While we’ve never had any problems with this software, it’ll definitely void your router’s original warranty.

First, verify that your router is compatible with Tomato. Older WRT54G and WRT54GS models (versions 1 to 4) will work, as will all versions of the WRT54GL series, which we recommend (image A). A list of compatible routers is on the Tomato website. Download the latest firmware and unpack it to your desktop. Access your router’s settings with an Internet browser (the default IP is 192.168.1.1) and click the Administration tab. Under Firmware Upgrade, browse to the unpacked firmware folder and pick the matching firmware type—the Tomato package includes different versions of the firmware for different Linksys router models. Hit Apply and wait while your router’s firmware is flashed. Don’t disconnect power to the router during this upgrade.

Once the upgrade is finished, go back into the router configuration and you’ll be greeted with the new interface. If your previous username and password don’t work, try using “admin” (without the quotes) in both forms to get in. We recommend using Firefox to access the GUI to enable all of its features. The newest version of Tomato automatically migrates all of your router settings so you don’t have to reconfigure your network.

To boost your router’s wireless signal, go to the Advanced menu and select the Wireless section. From there, you can adjust the router’s “Transmit Power” value to any number between 1 and 251 (default is 42). We don’t recommend setting a value higher than 70, since sending stronger signals can overheat the router (image B). From this menu, you can also adjust the maximum number of wireless clients and the transmission rate of your wireless network.

Within the Bandwidth menu, you’ll find access to bandwidth monitoring, which lets you scrutinize traffic usage for every wired or wireless connection to your router (image C). Combine this information with the new Access Restriction options and you’ll be able to ensure that your kids aren’t playing World of Warcraft in the middle of the night.

Enabling Quality of Service mode (under the QoS menu) will let you prioritize traffic going through your router depending on the size of data packets and network protocol (i.e., http vs. ftp). Sorting QoS Classification is a complicated process, so you should refer to Tomato’s online documentation to find out what settings will be appropriate for your particular setup.

You can also turn your router into a wireless Ethernet bridge, which lets it act as a wireless network hub for devices that lack wireless network cards, such as the Xbox 360. Under Basic Network settings, scroll down to Wireless Mode and select Wireless Ethernet Bridge. Under SSID and Security, enter the name and network key for your wireless network. With these settings saved, you can plug wired devices into the bridge and tap your home’s wireless network—perfect for streaming movies!

Next: Use an Old PDA as a Second Monitor, Silence your Hard Drives, and More!

Novice: Use an Old PDA as a Second Monitor

With the improved productivity software on smartphones and the iPhone, there’s almost no reason to have a dedicated PDA that you can’t also make calls on. Of course, that leaves early adopters who bought Dell Axims and HP iPAQs in the great PDA surge of 2000 with pricey paperweights and plenty of remorse.

That is, unless you put that old PDA to use in some other fashion. You can, for instance, turn the device into a secondary monitor. Any PocketPC/WindowsCE PDA that uses Microsoft’s ActiveSync software can be reprogrammed to serve as a desktop extension to give you just a little more screen space. To do this, we used a program called SideWindow, ($15, http://tinyurl.com/2pyuj8).

Installing the app is just a matter of connecting your PDA to its cradle, launching ActiveSync, and running the SideWindow executable. With the program installed, we launched its configuration utility and adjusted the display resolution. Most PocketPCs have a native resolution of 240x320, but SideWindow can scale a virtual resolution of up to 768x1024 to fit your screen. Our Dell Axim X50v actually has a native resolution of 480x640, but we found that anything above 300x400 made text very difficult to read.

Windows treated our PDA like any other monitor, so we could arrange it to either the left or right of our primary display and extend our desktop accordingly. Since the hack runs display information over USB, there can be a bit of lag when moving objects around in the new window—we don’t recommend watching video on the PDA screen! SideWindow is best for keeping tabs on buddy lists or cheat codes when playing games, hosting to-do lists, and displaying media player information when running a movie at full screen (just drag the desired windows over to the new screen).

Windows XP users should also check out ZoneOS's Zonescreen, a freeware app that'll let you extend your desktop to an old laptop through your home network.

Journeyman: Silence your Hard Drives

Aside from your CPU fan, one of the noisiest components in your PC is the hard drive. Spinning platters can rattle the drive against its mounting bracket. Some cases, such as Cooler Master’s Cosmos 1000, come with hard drive racks that already sport rubber dampeners (image A), but adding some of your own is fairly easy too. We’ve found that rubber washers are effective at cushioning a drive and taming its noise output. Hardware stores sell rubber washers fairly cheaply, but in our experience the premade variety are often either too thick or have too large an internal diameter for tiny hard-drive-cage screws. So we make our own rubber washers by cutting them out of thin rubber strips. A roll of linerless rubber splicer tape will do the job and is available at Home Depot for $3 a pop. Use a dime as a stencil for your washers and trace and cut several circles from the tape (image B). The rubber liner tape is 0.03 inches thick, so you should stack two washers to create an effective dampener. Cut a small hole in the middle with a knife or tiny hole-punch (image C). Affix these washers between the hard drive and the mounting rack of your case (image D). The rubber washers serve as a buffer between the metal of your drive and case to prevent noise from reverberating through the case.

Journeyman: Create a Charging Station

Just because you’re a gadget junkie doesn’t mean you have to be a sloth. We know that managing the power cords for your PDA, cellphone, MP3 player, and digital camera can create a tangled mess on your desk, so we’ve devised a way to keep your chargers elegantly organized to avoid scaring off the ladies (image A - the ladies are just offscreen)

For this project, you’ll need a sizable box that can fit a power strip, heavy-duty scissors or a cutting blade, some craft glue, some small decorative frames, and the aforementioned power strip (image B). We picked up a nice-looking storage box from a craft store, but a plain shoe box will do if you don’t care about aesthetics. We also bought our tiny decorative frames from a craft store. We’ll use these to stylize the ports of our charging station—just keep in mind that each hole has to be large enough to fit at least one end of your charging cable.

Using a metal frame, stencil several holes on the lid of the box, where the charging cables will eventually emerge (image C). Also stencil a hole on the side of the box for the power strip’s power cable. Using the markings as a guide, score the box with a sharp blade. The box we bought was pretty thick, so it was impossible to cut through with one pass. Instead, we glued the frames on top of the scored areas before making deeper cuts to punch out the holes—the frames help guide our cuts and hide any imperfections.

Once the holes are created, plug your gadgets’ chargers into the power strip. You should bundle and tie up the cables for each charger with a zip tie as well, so cords aren’t tangled with each other in the box (image D). String the other end of each charger through a hole. For USB-powered devices, we plugged a generic powered-USB hub into the power strip (Belkin sells one for $20) and wired USB cables through the box lid.

With the box finished, you can accent it with stickers or labels to match your desktop setup.

Next: Stealth Your Cables and Make a Wi-Fi Extender

Novice: Stealth Your Cables

The unkempt mess of cords and cables under any power user’s desk is a horrific no-man’s-land of dust and disarray. The easiest way to sheathe and organize computer cords is to use foam pipe-insulation. We found a 6-foot-long tube at a local hardware store for less than $2!

Start by deciding which cables to bundle together. Power cables should never be bundled with audio or video cables, since AC current distorts sound and video signals. We recommend grouping your USB and peripheral cables, your power and network cables, and your speaker cables separately.

Measure and cut off a section of insulation tube that’s long enough to house your cables while leaving about a foot of slack at each end. Some tubes are precut or perforated along their ridges, while others will have to be sliced open like a hot dog bun. Lay the bundled cables down along the length of the foam tube. When you release the walls of the tube, they will envelop the cables, keeping them out of sight.

The great thing about these tubes is that the cables can “exit” at any point, so they don’t all have to come out at one end. Use some strong tape or staples to affix the tube underneath your desk. Who knew cable management could be so easy?!

Journeyman: Make a Wi-Fi Extender

Plagued by unreliable Wi-Fi connectivity? We’ve found a cheap and relatively easy way to boost a wireless router’s signal strength by creating a simple parabolic reflector dish to direct Wi-Fi signals to your intended receivers.

All you need is some paper, foil, scissors, glue, and a cutout template that you can find at www.freeantennas.com/projects /template2/ (image A). This Windsurfer antenna design focuses your router’s signals in one direction, which not only helps increase your signal by about 10dB but also improves your wireless privacy by reducing the amount of stray signal headed toward nosy neighbors.

Print out the template on a sheet of regular paper. You can actually scale the image to a larger size—while maintaining the relative dimensions—for a stronger focus. First, cut out the template pieces (images B), then use a glue stick to affix foil to the front of each piece. Use a knife to make cuts on the indicated slits and bend the reflector to fit the six tabs into the respective holes.

Slide the booster over the existing antenna of your router and point it in the desired direction (image C). Your results may vary depending on the build quality of your reflector, and making two dishes will give you better boost if your router has two antennas. Use a free network-performance measurement tool such as NetStumbler (www.netstumbler.com) or Qcheck (http://tinyurl.com/3csl3l) to test your router’s throughput.

Next: Half-Baked Hacks - Please Don't Try These

Half-Baked Hacks

Modifying your hardware beyond its intended use doesn’t always deliver desirable results. Here are a few hacks that didn’t sound viable on paper, and would probably be supremely disastrous in practice. Definitely don’t try these at home!

Wall Mount a CRT

In the future, we’ll all be using wall-mounted displays for convenient viewing-angle adjustment and an ultra-sleek look. But we’ll all be using LCD displays, as well. That’s why wall-mounting a CRT not only looks obnoxious but is also probably the quickest way to tear a hole out of your wall. Never mind that CRTs don’t have mounting holes on their backs, their forward-heavy weight would snap off any mounting arm before you could finish screwing it in.

Upgrade Your Optical Drive’s Laser

Craving the glorious visual fidelity of high-definition movies but don’t have the budget for a Blu-ray drive? Maybe replacing the red laser diode of your standard DVD player with a blue LED will do the trick. You wish! Hacking your optical drive’s laser isn’t just inadvisable—it simply won’t work. Sorry, Charlie.

Use an Energy Drink as Coolant

Brawndo’s got electrolytes. What are electrolytes? We’re not sure, but they’re extremely awesome. And they’re what CPUs crave. They crave electrolytes. And Brawndo is full of them. And that’s why CPUs crave Brawndo. Not water, like from the toilet. We’ve never seen CPUs cooled in a toilet. Get Brawndo—the CPU Thirst Mutilator! Not!

How To: Create a Custom Internet Radio Station

Will Smith — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:03:43 -0500

Your IT department won’t let you copy MP3s onto your work PC, and your iPod won’t hold your massive music collection, but you need to listen to tunes while you toil away at the day’s labor. What’s an audiophile to do? The answer is simple: Stream the collection you have stored on your rig at home to your PC at work.

Sure, you could fire up a streaming service such as Pandora, Last.fm, or any one of the thousands of radio stations that simulcast their programming on the Internet, but then you’d have to either listen to a fairly random playlist based on your typical listening habits or to someone else’s playlist instead of your own. It can be fun to hear new tracks and find new artists, until you get stuck with a band you just hate—like Linkin Park. Sometimes you just want to fire up a favorite album and listen to the whole thing from start to finish. That’s where your own personal streaming station comes into play.

It’s easy to build a private streaming radio station that you can connect to from anywhere on the net using free software and services. We wouldn’t suggest deleting your Pandora account and just jamming to your private station, but personalized web radio is a great alternative for days when other streaming services just don’t cut it.

Time = 42 Min

What you Need

Two PCs
SqueezeCenter software
Free, www.slimdevices.com
A DynDNS Account
Free, www.dyndns.com
DynDNS Updater
Free, www.dyndns.com
Awesome Music

1. Install SqueezeCenter

The secret sauce in our streaming scheme is SqueezeCenter, the open-source software that powers the Squeezebox. Formerly known as SlimServer, SqueezeCenter extends beyond the basic chores you’d expect from streaming-box software. For starters, it works with more than just the Squeezebox—you can stream your music to any PC with a copy of WinAmp, iTunes, or Windows Media Player installed. The application serves as an impressive web-based music jukebox that you can use to navigate your library and play virtually any DRM-free music format ever created.

The first order of business is to select the rig to install SqueezeCenter on. Remember that it will need to run 24/7, so you probably don’t want to use your monster gaming rig for a server—unless you enjoy paying $300 a month for electricity. We recommend an older laptop or another rig that sips power.

Once that’s decided, download and install SqueezeCenter. The installer will prompt you for the location of your music files and playlists, and then it will scan your library for supported music files, including MP3, FLAC, M4A, OGG, and WMA files. The scanning process can take a long time, especially if you have a massive collection, so now would be a great time to step away from the PC and go for a walk.

Quick Tip: SqueezeCenter will look for album art in both folder.jpg files and inside the ID3 tags themselves. You can easily update your music’s album art using iTunes’s Get Album Art feature or the excellent Album Art Downloader utility (http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art).

2. Configure SqueezeCenter

Before you can stream, you need to configure SqueezeCenter to accept connections from other PCs. The software allows password-free access to the web interface by default, but only from the computer it’s installed on. We have to change that.
Open your web browser and connect to http://127.0.0.1:9000. Then click the Settings button in the lower-right corner of the interface and select the Advanced tab. Pull down the menu and select the Security tab. You’ll want to enable password protection and set up a username and password for access.

Next, you need to configure the allowed IP addresses. It’s a good idea to give the PCs on your home network access to the SqueezeCenter interface so you can change playlists remotely. To determine the IP addresses that get access to SqueezeCenter, you need to find out what IP range your home network uses. The easiest way to find your IP on XP or Vista is to open a command line (Start > Run > cmd.exe) and type ipconfig. You should see a list of your active network connections, but most home users will see one IP address. To enable access to other computers, you need to tell SqueezeCenter which IP addresses are safe by using a wildcard. Take your IP address and replace the numbers following the final period with an * and put that number into SqueezeCenter’s Allowed IP Addresses field. Then click Apply.

Next: Configure Your Router

3. Configure Your Router

At this point, SqueezeCenter should be properly configured to work on your internal network, but machines outside the loving embrace of your router won’t be able to access the web interface or the convenient streaming file. To enable external access, you’ll need to open up your router’s configuration interface and configure port forwarding for the ports SqueezeCenter uses.

Your router’s IP address will usually be the same as the default gateway that ipconfig displays. Type that address into your web browser and log into the router using the password you created when you first configured your router. Next, you’ll need to look for a section labeled Port or Application Forwarding. It’s usually in the Advanced section of the router’s control panel. If your router lets you specify port forwarding based on a rig’s name that will update as your computer’s IP address changes, you can simply specify the rig that will be used for streaming, set it to forward incoming TCP traffic to port 9000 on the server rig, and save your settings.

If your router doesn’t let you specify port forwarding by rig name, you’ll need to configure your server’s IP address manually. Open your Network control panel, right-click your network connection’s icon, and select Properties. Double-click TCP/IP and you can manually specify the IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, and DNS server info. Your default gateway is the same IP as your router and the subnet mask is usually 255.255.255.0. You’ll need to pick an IP for yourself; most routers reserve the range from x.x.x.2-x.x.x.99 for static IPs. You can choose any unused number in that range. You should be able to get your DNS server info from the WAN or Internet setup section in your router’s control panel. Once you’ve set up a static IP, go back to your router’s forwarding menu and forward the appropriate ports to your new address.

4. Set Up DynDNS

You should now be able to connect to SqueezeCenter from outside your home network, but only if you know your external IP address, which your provider can dynamically change from time to time. We’re going to use the free DynDNS service to automatically forward traffic from a custom URL to our home network—the program updates the IP address every time your provider changes it. Before you proceed, you’ll need to set up a free account at www.dyndns.com.

Once you’ve activated your account, log into the site and go to My Account. Then click the Add Host Services link and select a hostname and URL. We went with radiowill.kicks-ass.net Input the IP address currently assigned by your ISP (which you can get from www.whatismyip.com). Be sure to save your settings!

5. Install the DynDNS Updater

Next, you need to download the DynDNS Updater, which you can download from www.dyndns.com, as well. Install it on your server machine and follow the prompts. It will ask you for your DynDNS username and password and then ask you which of your DynDNS domains you want forwarded. Make sure you check the Enable Automatic Updates option; we recommend you run the Updater as a service, which will force it to start when Windows starts whether a user is logged in or not.

That’s it! To listen to your stream, open your favorite MP3 player and go to the Open Stream option (the shortcut is Ctrl+U in both iTunes and Windows Media Player). The URL you’ll use is http://yourcustomdomaingoeshere:9000/. Once you’ve connected to the stream, open the SqueezeCenter interface in your web browser using the same URL. Then you can select the tracks you want to listen to and rock out!

Stream to Your Pals—Legally!

Now your stream is set up, but your friends want in on the Internet radio action. Unfortunately, copyright law doesn’t allow you to legally stream your tunes to anyone but yourself. If you want to stream to others, you can—but you have to pay. To get a license to broadcast, go to www.ascap.com/weblicense/. If you’re choosing songs for your friends yourself and not running ads, you’re eligible to use Schedule A of the Non-Interactive 5.0 ASCAP license, which costs $288 a year. Or you could just tell them to make their own station.

Alienware Area-51 m15x

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:49:22 -0500

It’s easy to be seduced by Alienware’s m15x notebook. From its handsome silver-gray case to its cool-yet-tasteful LED accents to its comfortable lap weight of less than eight pounds, this 15.4-inch machine had us at hello. Of course, only excellent performance would keep us interested.

Our hopes were high. The m15x came to us sporting Intel’s new 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme X9000 mobile CPU and Nvidia’s GeForce 8800M GTX videocard. Those are the highest performing mobile parts in their respective categories—a caliber typically reserved for larger, heavier 17-inch models.

For comparison’s sake, we turned to the Asus C90S notebook we reviewed in October 2007, rerunning all of our notebook benchmarks on Vista. The C90S is unique in that it uses Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6700 desktop CPU. Clocked at 2.66GHz on a 1,066MHz front-side bus, the E6700 seemed like a worthy competitor to the X9000 mobile part, which has a modest 140GHz clock-speed advantage but a slower 800MHz front-side bus.

Turns out, however, the fight wasn’t really all that fair. The X9000 part has the benefit of Intel’s 45nm Penryn core, as well as 6MB of L2 cache (compared with the 4MB found in the E6700), and apparently that makes all the difference. In our CPU-dependent benchmarks, the m15x performed 11 percent to 31 percent faster than the C90S.

The two notebooks were divided even further by our gaming benchmarks. The m15x’s 8800M GTX walloped the C90S’s 8600M GT, most dramatically in Quake 4, where it did 178 percent better.

When this type of all-out graphics power isn’t needed, you can reboot and switch from the videocard to the chipset’s integrated graphics to preserve battery power. It’s a nifty idea, but in our own battery rundown test—playing a standard-def DVD until power is depleted—we gained just nine additional minutes using the integrated graphics (for a total of one hour and 35 minutes). The m15x also offers a Stealth mode, which lets you throttle back the CPU and GPU for power savings and quieter operation.

The m15x came to us with a 200GB 7,200rpm hard drive and a Blu-ray burner, but the latter can be easily popped out of its Smart Bay and hot-swapped with an optional 320GB 5,400rpm secondary drive ($300) or secondary battery ($150).

In another nod to customization, a software Command Center lets you change the colors of the m15x’s various LED lights, making the power button glow red, for instance, while the keyboard backlighting glows green and the illuminated piping around the notebook’s lid glows blue. A row of touch-sensitive buttons above the keyboard contributes to the m15x’s light show, but while they look cool, they’re not especially reliable—we sometimes had to press them several times to get a response.

We have no complaints, however, about the m15x’s 1920x1200 screen, which offers a 1920x1080 option for use with high-def content. Available ports consist of three USB ports, a FireWire port, HDMI, Ethernet, and mic. Sadly, no eSATA.

In the end, our infatuation with the m15x remains strong. It’s as powerful as any 17-inch notebook out there and much easier to carry around. And it looks good, to boot. Consider us sold—even if the price does break us.

Fast Forward: VIA's new Isaiah Processor

Tom Halfhill — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:22:10 -0500

These are exciting times for mobile PCs. A new category of sub-$500 subnotebook computers is emerging, inspired by last year’s Asus Eee PC (see March column) and the Everex Cloudbook. By the end of this year, you’ll find a dozen or more different models of teeny-weeny PCs in stores. Some prices will fall below $300.

As I wrote last month, Intel and VIA Technologies are introducing new low-power x86 processors for these systems. In affluent markets, Intel and VIA hope their OEM customers will sell these new PCs to people who already own a regular desktop PC and perhaps a regular notebook as well. In developing markets, the targets are first-time buyers. Intel nicknamed the subnotebook computers “netbooks,” emphasizing their built-in wireless Internet connectivity. Even smaller are handheld computers called MIDs (mobile Internet devices).

VIA’s Isaiah processor is definitely a contender in this game. It’s a completely new x86 design from VIA’s Texas-based Centaur subsidiary. To some degree—although VIA doesn’t welcome the comparison—Isaiah will compete with Intel’s new Silverthorne processor, recently named Atom, which I’ll talk about next month.

In recent weeks, I have carefully analyzed Isaiah. Unlike VIA’s Centaur C7 series, Isaiah is a full-featured 64-bit x86 processor with three-way superscalar pipelines, out-of-order instruction processing, speculative execution, the latest virtualization extensions, strong multimedia performance, and a fast FPU. Isaiah can deliver two to four times more throughput than the C7-M when running at the same clock frequency.

Although Isaiah still isn’t as fast as Intel’s Core 2 processors, it consumes much less power. Remarkably, Isaiah holds the line on power, relative to the C7-M. Initially, Isaiah will draw only about 3.5W at 1GHz or 6W at 1.5GHz. Those specs are worst-case thermal design power (TDP)—typical power consumption is lower. The initial version of Isaiah can reach 2GHz, but power rises to 16W. Ultralow-voltage versions will consume only about 5W TDP at 1.2GHz.

Isaiah is more power-hungry than Intel’s Atom, but early benchmarks suggest it’s faster. Both chips should thrive in subnotebooks. Soon we’ll have our choice of affordable PCs small and light enough to fit comfortably in a backpack or airline carry-on bag without displacing other stuff—and with longer battery life, too.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

Maximum PC's Sixth Annual Softy Awards

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:40:43 -0500

Yes, it’s that time of year again when we pay tribute to software. For without it, our badass rigs would have nothing to do to but look pretty. Indeed, it’s the programs we run that show us what our machines are truly capable of. The challenge, of course, is in deciding which applications and utilities are most deserving of special honor, not to mention a coveted silver-esque statue.

There’s no secret ballot, there’s no peer-review process, and the public doesn’t get to call in with their votes. The deciders in this contest are the Maximum PC editors. As always, the award candidates are culled from our own personal software libraries—we nominate only the programs we actually use on a regular basis because of their proven performance and reliability. As a group, we whittle down the entrants to the very best of the bunch—the nine exceptional apps and utilities featured here. What makes the whole process even more wonderful is that many of them are free!

Let’s hand out some Softy Awards!

KeePass Password Safe

Why stress your noggin trying to remember your login?

The Password Generator’s multitude of options will satisfy even the most paranoid users.

These days, you can’t get very far on a computer without amassing a bunch of user names and passwords (surely, you’re not using the same password for every account you register!). KeePass Password Safe helps you keep all that information straight.

This free open-source program lets you manage all your passwords using an encrypted database that is kept safe from prying eyes by a single master password (the only one you need to remember!) and the one-two of AES and Twofish encryption. From the straightforward interface, to the random password generator, to the ability to easily create login scripts for the sites you visit, this app takes all the annoyance out of registered accounts. For ultra convenience keep the lightweight program on a USB key that you take with you anywhere.
Free, http://keepass.info/index.html

Fraps

The gamer’s ultimate benchmarking and multimedia companion!

The movie-creation feature comes with plenty of options to address hard drive space and sound-quality concerns.

It’s hard not to love Fraps. We’re just not sure which part of the popular program we love most. The fact is, this all-in-one application should be a mainstay of any gamer’s desktop rig. For the frame-rate-oriented gamer, the program lets you overlay frame rate, so you can monitor performance in-game. Amateur directors love the program’s movie-capturing feature, which lets you record what you’re doing in a game—you can achieve better-than-HD quality! And rounding out the list of fine features is the program’s screenshot function. We love being able to capture stills of our favorite game moments—frame rate included—with just the touch of a button!
$40, www.fraps.com

Adobe Photoshop Elements

Make your pictures better without the brain strain

Common editing chores, such as color-cast correction, are effortless with Elements 6.0.

Sometimes the ends do justify the means. Take Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 6.0, for instance.

Normally, after we complete a software review, the app is uninstalled and the disc filed away. Not so with Photoshop Elements 6.0. We often find ourselves reaching for this program even over a full-fledged photo editor such as Photoshop CS3. It simply gets us the results we need with less time and hassle. That’s a big win in our book because less time editing means more time shooting. And frankly, unless you’re a Photoshop CS3 whiz, Elements may actually yield better results. And the app isn’t lacking advanced functionality, either. You still get access to Adobe Camera RAW updates, for example—a major leg up over other newb-centric photo editors.
$100, www.adobe.com

AutoGK

Ripping DVDs can be fast, easy, and free!

Quick DVD-to-DivX rips are great, but the power-user features are what really get us excited.

Ripping DVDs used to be a major hassle. It took ages and required pricey software—and at the end of three hours of work you may or may not have created a file that played properly. AutoGK (along with cheap multicore systems) has changed that.

AutoGK works its mojo by corralling a motley collection of utilities into a cohesive package. One app extracts the video from the VOB file, one syncs the audio with the video, and yet another recompresses the video down to a fraction of its original size. While this might seem complex, AutoGK makes it simple enough that any user can rip a disc. Still, hidden away in a secret menu (press Ctrl+F9 to access it) there’s a whole host of power-user-friendly options just waiting to be tweaked. That’s what the Softys are all about!
Free, www.autogk.me.uk

Auslogics Disk Defrag

Kiss Vista’s crappy defragger goodbye!

We don’t actually know how long Vista’s defrag takes because we always lose patience with it. With Disk Defrag it takes a mere 15 minutes.

What’s worse than Apple not giving its users defragmentation support in OSX? The support in Windows Vista—clearly the slowest defragmentation application ever. We’re talking since the Winchester hard drive was invented in 1956. It’s as though the sectors are first squeezed through a quantum singularity and then beamed back and reassembled into a contiguous file by an angry shop of sector elves two steps away from a strike. For those of you who are mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore, there’s Auslogics Disk Defrag. Install this free defragger on your Vista OS and your blood pressure will drop instead of rise every time you defrag. XP users can benefit too—the app is also much faster than Window XP’s freebie tool.
Free, www.auslogics.com

DoubleTwist

An iTunes DRM stripper—and more!

Facebook fiends will love the way DoubleTwist enables simple file sharing, but its DRM-stripping and sync features are pretty cool, too.

So you got suckered into buying a bunch of DRM-shackled songs from iTunes—just so you could easily manage them on your iPod. But now you’re ready to cut that leash so you can move to a more flexible player. Download DoubleTwist, give it access to your iTunes folder, and you won’t lose that costly investment. The process occurs in real time, but it works.

But this ingenious—and free—program does a lot more than that. It can also automatically grab photos from your friends’ Facebook profiles and synchronize them to your PC and your smartphone or MP3 player. What’s more, you can also share those tunes (and pictures and videos, too) with all your Facebook friends. Cool!
Free, www.doubletwist.com

VMware Workstation 6

Host every OS you can think of on a single machine!

Store profiles for any number of virtual machines, then switch among your collection of operating systems.

VMware workstation rocks due to its ability to let you run multiple operating systems on one PC. Install Linux, Solaris, and other desktop environments right alongside any Windows version—including those as far back as Windows 3.1 (provided you have the licenses, of course).

VMware’s features trump those of a typical virtual machine environment. You can use the program to take snapshots and roll back your computer to a previous state, and you can take screenshots and videos of your system’s activities, which comes in handy if you’re trying to help someone with a troubleshooting issue.

While this app comes with a hefty price tag, we’d rather have a program that does everything than a lesser, cheaper alternative.
$190, www.vmware.com

Radiotracker

Build a massive MP3 library on the cheap

Someone, somewhere on the Internet is playing your favorite song right now. Radiotracker can not only find it but also automatically rip it to your hard drive.

If you don’t mind compromising a smidgen on audio quality, Radiotracker offers an incredibly easy way to build a huge library of free—and legally acquired—digital music. The program works by monitoring Internet radio streams for the types of music you like. You can configure it to target specific genres (Americana, world, jazz, acid rock, etc.), particular artists, or even specific songs, and it will scan thousands of stations looking for just that.

When Radiotracker encounters songs that fit the profile you’ve created, it automatically records them to your hard drive in MP3 format—it even grabs ID3 tags and album artwork. The audio quality is limited to whatever bitrate the station is streaming at, but the tunes are free and legal!
$40, www.radiotracker.com

ThreatFire

Why waste time scanning for bad apps when you can simply block suspicious behavior instead?

Threatfire watches over your system to make sure malicious apps don’t infect your PC.

Old-school antivirus and anti-spyware applications work in a very simple and predictable way. They scan every file you download and every app you install on your PC for malicious behavior. This worked really well back in the days when there were just four or five new threats every week. Today, hundreds of new threats surface regularly, and the old “scan for known baddies” approach simply doesn’t cut it. That’s where ThreatFire comes in.

Instead of scanning against a known database of viruses and malware, ThreatFire monitors applications for naughty behavior. When an app does something suspicious, ThreatFire locks it down and prompts the user to take action. Yes, we’ve been promised this type of protection before, but ThreatFire actually works, and it’s less of a system hog than more traditional scanners. That’s what we like to see!
Free, www.threatfire.com

Favorites of the Future?

Will these three apps be top dogs when final versions are released?

uTorrent

It’s not that we’re unhappy with the current version of uTorrent. The program has proven itself to be one of the top-notch apps in our downloading arsenal. Its scheduling and automated features make pulling files across the Internet a breeze, and the app makes nary a dent in our system resources.

Still, uTorrent can only get better with the coming upgrade to the BitTorrent protocol that runs underneath this amazing bit of software. BitTorrent developers are currently at work on a new encryption method to thwart the bandwidth throttling methods of a number of popular Internet service providers—Comcast included!
www.utorrent.com

Trillian Astra

Long ago, Trillian was our favorite instant messaging client, until Pidgin displaced it. Now we think it might be time to revisit our earlier flame, given what we know of Trillian Astra and its IM-anywhere design. In addition to serving as a traditional desktop client for both Mac and PC platforms, Astra comes in a browser-friendly version that works anywhere. All your relevant info syncs across platforms and machines, so all you need to do is log in to Astra, and everything from your AIM, MSN, and Google Talk settings to your buddy icon will be there at the ready.
www.trillianastra.com

Firefox 3

We’re anxiously awaiting the release of Firefox 3—currently in beta—for a number of reasons. The nascent browser includes some truly revolutionary features. For one, it supercharges the traditional bookmark paradigm, storing your bookmarks in an easily searchable database that’s integrated with the rest of the browser’s search features. Firefox 3’s renderer seems to be speedier than it was in Firefox 2, too. Of course, all the improvements will be for naught if the development team can’t squash the memory leaks that presently plague the Deuce. For now, we’re hopeful.
www.firefox.com

The 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award

AnyDVD!

Don’t confuse our Lifetime Achievement Award with those of other awards shows, where the recipient is nearing the end of his or her career and being tossed a sappy sympathy tribute. Far from it. SlySoft’s AnyDVD is in the prime of its life and getting better all the time. In fact, it’s precisely because of this application’s steadfast commitment to service that we honor it here.

For many years now, AnyDVD has given law-abiding consumers an easy way to circumvent the copy protection on their movie discs in order to create backup copies or play the content on other devices. And just as soon as new DRM is implemented, AnyDVD is right there with an update. Case in point: the AnyDVD HD upgrade, which offers Blu-ray and HD DVD support. Bravo!

AnyDVD will be accepting its award from an undisclosed overseas location.
49 euros, www.slysoft.com

RAID Controllers Compared!

David Murphy — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:17:20 -0500

In the November 2007 issue, we took an in-depth look at RAID—short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks—and broke down the pros, cons, and most importantly, speeds of the various RAID permutations you would find on a typical multidrive setup. Here we’ll examine the medium itself: the RAID controller, which tells the drives in a RAID setup how to interact. As you’ll see, there are RAID controllers of differing types, technologies, and price points, and we want to learn whether these variations translate into performance differences. After all, even the fastest RAID configuration ultimately depends on the performance capabilities of its physical host.

A RAID array can be set up in one of two ways: You can use the controller that’s built into your motherboard’s chipset (if it includes one), which requires you to hook up your drives as normal and then edit a few BIOS settings, or purchase an external controller card, which boots its configuration menu before your operating system even loads.

Our mission is to test the performance of RAID setups using both low- and high-end RAID cards from five different manufacturers and compare those results against the performance of two common motherboard solutions. Once the dust settles, you’ll know which RAID controller will give you top performance and exactly what features you get for your buck!

Our Testing Methods

Every aspect of our experiment had to be considered in order to ensure meaningful results.

The Controllers

To test the performance of motherboard-based RAID controllers we turned to Nvidia’s nForce 680i chipset and Intel’s P35 chipset. The former represents the typical testing environment we use for all our storage benchmarking and is a solid example of what you’d find on a high-end motherboard. The Intel-based board provides a fair representation of RAID performance on a midrange machine. Given Intel’s dominance in the performance-computing market right now, we didn’t bother testing an AMD-compatible motherboard. What’s the point?

For our controller cards, we picked a combination of host-based and discrete models: With the former, the controller uses the rig’s processor to handle RAID functionality (just as a motherboard chipset does), while discrete controllers remove your computer from the equation by supporting a low-powered processor right on the card. As you might expect, host-based controllers are cheaper than their discrete counterparts. Besides selecting controllers for both card types, we also sought to vary the price points in each category.

The Test Bed

All the testing, save that done on the MSI P35 Neo2-FR motherboard, was conducted using our standard storage benchmarking system: an Intel Q6700 on an EVGA nForce 680i motherboard, a single EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX videocard, and a single 500GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 hosting the Windows XP operating system. Each RAID test uses four Western Digital 150GB Raptor drives.

We elected to use two RAID configurations for benchmarking: RAID 0 (aka striped) and RAID 5. This allowed us to study the price/performance equation from two different mindsets: speed and redundancy. As we noted in our previous RAID feature, you won’t find a faster storage configuration than RAID 0, in which the drives serve as one volume and your data is written and read across them concurrently. A RAID 5 setup balances the performance gains of striped arrays yet still offers a degree of data redundancy.

The Benchmarks

We’re using the same standard suite of benchmarks we normally use for storage testing, with a few changes. We’ve downgraded our HD Tach program to version 3.0.1.0 to ensure we can run both read and write tests on the arrays. This synthetic benchmark bypasses any software on a machine to get right to the drives themselves, measuring the subject’s

For a more real-world test, we’re using PCMark05. We’ll compare the scores from the program’s subset tests—XP Startup, Application Loading, General Usage, Virus Scanning, and File Writing—as well as the overall score given to each test subject.

Finally, we’ve created our own real-world benchmark to further test these arrays under a typical usage scenario. We time how long it takes to write a 1080p multimedia slideshow to the array using Photodex’s ProShow, based on files read from the array, while simultaneously using Adobe Premiere to convert a DVD rip on the array into an uncompressed AVI file. As these tasks also maximize our processor’s usage, it allows us to discern the potential performance pitfalls of a card that uses said processor for its RAID calculations.

Meet the Test Subjects

Our sample population of controllers covers every price point and feature set

Host-Based/Motherboard

EVGA nForce 680i

This motherboard, chosen for the 2007 Maximum PC Dream Machine, comes with support for up to six SATA devices. But it’s not just the potential size of the RAID that gets us going. The motherboard also provides a decent list of configurations to choose from: RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD (just a bunch of disks). It’s a surprisingly generous offering, given the fact that some of the add-in cards we’re testing lack such variety.

Setting up the RAID itself is a breeze—you switch the SATA ports to RAID in the BIOS and then use a handy utility to select the drives, array type, and configuration options you want.
$300, www.evga.com

Host-based/Motherboard

MSI P35 Neo2-FR

MSI’s P35 Neo2-FR is a respectable midrange motherboard that sports the flashin’ new Intel P35 chipset with an ICH9R south bridge. We expect RAID performance with this chipset to rival that of EVGA’s nForce platform, which is an older chipset stuffed onto a more high-end motherboard.

You get only five SATA ports on the P35 Neo2-FR: Four operate under the ICH9R chipset, with one running on an integrated Marvell 88SE6111 controller. This could have some bearing on performance when compared to the EVGA nForce 680i, which uses the south bridge for all six SATA ports.
$120, www.msicomputer.com

Host-based

HighPoint RocketRAID 2300

HighPoint’s entry-level RAID controller card is but a mere PCI Express x1 model—though in many ways, this makes it ideal for a typical motherboard setup. If you have the available connector on your motherboard, you won’t have to burn one of your x8 or x16 slots for the card.

The host-based controller supports five different RAID levels: 0, 1, 5, 1+0, and JBOD. The controller features four ports, allowing you to connect up to four SATA drives using standard SATA cables.

We’re mildly concerned that the controller’s lack of any onboard memory might hurt the card’s performance. But that’s more an issue of the card’s price point—you aren’t going to see memory packed onto entry-level products.
$150, www.highpoint-tech.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x1
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 1+0, JBOD
Processor	None
Memory	None
Connection	Four SATA ports

Host-based

HighPoint RocketRAID 3510

One of the most expensive cards in HighPoint’s line of RAID controllers, the RocketRAID 3510 trumps its lesser cousin, the RocketRAID 2300, with a few key features. You’ll also find a multilane connector on the 3510 rather than a four-port SATA connector, although you get the same effect: The included breakaway cable supports the same number of drives—four.

More importantly, the 3510 controller comes with a built-in Intel IOP 81341 processor. The 800MHz proc pulls RAID actions off your rig’s CPU. We expect this critical difference to shine in our more taxing RAID benchmarks, as we’ll want every bit of our CPU’s power going to the rendering test, not the RAID functionality.

The card also comes with 256MB of onboard DDR2 memory and is fashioned for a PCI Express x8 connection.
$370, www.highpoint-tech.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x8
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0, JBOD
Processor	800MHz
Memory	256MB DDR2
Connection	One multilane connector

Host-based

Adaptec 1430SA

Adaptec’s entry-level 1430SA card supports only four RAID levels: 0, 1, 1+0, and JBOD. Critically missing is any support for a RAID 5 configuration—something all the other entry-level cards we’re testing support. While this automatically disqualifies Adaptec’s card from the RAID 5 portion of our comparative benchmarks, it doesn’t necessarily bump the card to last place. The 1430SA might very well offer the best performance for its price in a RAID 0 configuration—which could be fine for folks interested in only RAID 0, or one of this card’s other configs.

The PCI Express x4-based card comes with no extra frills. There’s no onboard memory, nor is there a dedicated processor on the card to handle RAID requests. You can connect up to four SATA drives to the array via four standard SATA ports.
$125, www.adaptec.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x4
RAID Support	0, 1, 1+0, JBOD
Processor	None
Memory	None
Connection	Four SATA ports

Discrete

Adaptec 5405

If RAID controllers were cars, you’d find Adaptec’s 5405 on a luxury lot. This little device comes packed with every feature, accessory, and upgrade an enthusiast could ask for.

The 5405 sports an onboard 1.2GHz dual-core processor to handle RAID functionality—that’s more CPU than this article’s author has on his laptop. We’re expecting this, as well as the card’s 256MB DDR2 cache, to spit out massive performance. But we’re also curious to see how a card this stacked will benchmark

The 5405 supports an obscene number of RAID levels (0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 1+0, 50, and 60), making it the clear winner in the options category. The card uses a PCI Express x8 interface for the connection mechanism and a multilane port for SATA connections via a breakaway cable.
$425, www.adaptec.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x8
RAID Support	0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 1+0, 50, 60
Processor	1.2GHz dual core
Memory	256MB DDR2
Connection	One multilane connector

Discrete

AMCC 3ware 9650SE-4LPML

The 9650SE-4LPML represents AMCC’s entry-level RAID controller. It runs off a PCI Express x4 interface and supports a decent array of RAID configuration options: 0, 1, 5, 1+0, and JBOD.

The card boasts an onboard 266MHz PowerPC CPU, which does its part to keep your general computer operations separate from the RAID equation. However, we ask ourselves: Is 266MHz enough? In the grand scheme of things, especially given that our test machine runs a quad-core Q6700 processor, will such a relatively underpowered onboard chip have much of an impact on our benchmarks?

The controller also comes with 256MB of onboard DDR2 memory. SATA drives are connected via a single multilane port using an included breakaway cable.
$400, www.3ware.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x4
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 1+0, JBOD
Processor	266MHz
Memory	256MB DDR2
Connection	One multilane connector

Discrete

AMCC 3ware 9650SE-24M8

The high-end version of AMCC’s 9650SE RAID controller is a bit bulkier than the 4LPML card—and that’s due to its extra connection ports. You get three multilane connectors on the large 24M8 card—for a maximum of 24 drives, with the appropriate breakaway cables, of course. The controller attaches to your motherboard using a PCI Express x8 connection.

This card expands upon the 4LPML’s RAID options in a rather dramatic fashion by supporting 0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0, 50, and JBOD. That puts it nearly on par with Adaptec’s 5405 controller.

We’re mildly taken aback by this pricey card’s paltry power potential, as the 24M8 runs a 266MHz processor, just like its far less expensive cousin. While this controller has double the RAM (512MB) of the 4LPML, we’re skeptical that this will provide a huge performance boost.
$1,600, www.3ware.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x8
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0, 50, JBOD
Processor	226MHz
Memory	512MB DDR2
Connection	Three multilane connectors

Host-Based

LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS 8208ELP

On paper, LSI Logic’s MegaRAID SAS 8208ELP controller looks like a respectable contender at the entry-level end of the RAID marketplace. The controller doesn’t use an onboard processor to shuffle RAID duties from your CPU to the card, but it remains to be seen if this will have a demonstrable effect on next-generation computing systems.

The card does come with two separate multilane connectors for adding up to eight SATA devices with the breakaway cables that come included. You can then slap these drives into one of four RAID configurations: 0, 1, 5, or 1+0.

In practice, we found this PCI Express x4-based card to be quite frustrating, primarily because the drivers LSI shipped with the card flat-out didn’t work. A quick run to LSI’s website for updated drivers fixed the problem, but the fact remains: Out of the box, the 8208ELP does not function.
$315, www.lsi.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x4
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 1+0
Processor	None
Memory	None
Connection	Two multilane connectors

Discrete

LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS 8888ELP

Thankfully, the 8888ELP works straight out of the box with the drivers LSI provides. As well it should—this is the company’s high-end RAID product, designed as a discrete-performing controller for handling RAID 1, 5, 6, 1+0, 50, and 60 arrays. The controller itself comes with the same two internal multilane connectors as the 8208ELP, with an additional two external connectors located on the rear of the card.

The 8888ELP attaches to your machine using a PCI Express x8 connector. The CPU itself chugs along at 500MHz. This, plus the controller’s 256MB of DDR2 memory, should help the card hold its own in our RAID benchmark showdown. It will also give us an interesting comparison point: What’s more important, a faster processor or more memory?
$945, www.lsi.com

Specs
Connection	PCI Express x8
RAID Support	0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0, 50, 60
Processor	500 MHz
Memory	256MB
Connection	Four multilane connectors

Performance Results

Yes, there's something to be said for add-in cards, but a costlier controller doesn't necessarily pay off.

Host-Based Performance

It’s only fair that we start our comparisons by looking at the host-based cards and motherboards. The relatively low cost of entry in these two categories makes this the natural starting point for a discussion about how controllers can impact the performance of a RAID. We had high hopes for our motherboards going into the slugfest. After all, these two products each represent pinnacles of performance: EVGA’s nForce-based motherboard is a tried-and-true favorite in our Lab, whereas the MSI board sports one of Intel’s newest chipsets. But even with all that respective might behind them, the two contenders were no match for Adaptec’s 1430SA host-based add-in card. In two of the three official RAID 0 benchmarks, the 1430SA overtook the speediest of our motherboards, MSI’s P35 Neo2-FR.

The only anomaly was a stunning upset by MSI’s P35 Neo2-FR in our real-world encoding benchmark. We were surprised to see the board perform so dramatically better than any other contender in the host-based category. We have two possible explanations: Just considering the two motherboards, the EVGA model uses a single south bridge to control the functions of six SATA ports. The MSI board shuffles a five-port load across two separate onboard controllers. Then there’s the simple possibility that this benchmark performs better on an Intel platform—we’ve seen it happen before and are apt to believe it to be the case this time, given the close performance of the two boards in the two other benchmarks.

Concerning RAID 5 performance, we must first note that the Adaptec 1430SA card was excluded due to its lack of support for RAID 5. It’s a shame, too; HighPoint’s RocketRAID 2300 squeaks out the performance win, but it’s not an outright domination. Given how well the Adaptec card performed on our RAID 0 testing, we believe it would have stood a good chance of taking the crown in the RAID 5 benchmarks as well.

We found that both motherboards had a great deal of trouble with write performance in RAID 5. This killed their scores for all tests across the board, as both of our real-world benchmarks depend on a storage device’s read and write capabilities. This leaves the RocketRAID 2300 as the default winner. In no way would we want to suffer through the abysmal write times of the two motherboards for any length of time.

It was interesting to see virtually no variance whatsoever in CPU usage, regardless of whether our array was being fielded by the motherboard or the host-based controller card. We remain unconvinced that a host-based controller’s performance is hurt in a RAID setup merely because it relies on the CPU—at least, if you’re running a multicore processor. The particulars of the card and the RAID configuration are what ultimately matter—as became apparent during the discrete portion of our testing.

Discrete Performance

If you’re willing to spend the extra dough, the best discrete RAID controllers punish the competition to satisfyingly bloody results—but there are still duds to be found in this category. Both cards that used high-powered processors (800MHz or higher) destroyed the RAID 0 benchmark numbers of their host-based counterparts. While the ultimate winner was Adaptec’s 5405 controller, HighPoint’s RocketRAID 3510 achieved excellent results in our RAID 0 HD Tach and PCMark05 benchmarks. The real-world significance of the card’s power was less apparent in our conversion benchmark, where the RocketRAID 3510 card trumped only the next-best contender by 11 seconds.

By contrast, Adaptec’s 5405 card shined brightly on every individual test we put it to. The card topped all others in our HD Tach read test and utterly blew away the second-place controller by nearly 100MB/s on the write test. The 5405 pulled in awesome numbers in PCMark05 and also did well in our real-world benchmark. This ultimately amounted to a savings of about 50 seconds compared to the RocketRAID 2300, but compared to the nForce chipset, we’re talking about a difference of six minutes.

We were most surprised to see the relatively lukewarm performance of the absurdly expensive 3ware 9650SE-24M8 controller in all of our benchmarks. If anything, this proves that you can’t just toss money at a RAID controller and expect dynamite performance. For a $1,600 (MSRP) contribution to AMCC, you get RAID 0 performance that’s no better than what AMCC’s $400 model is capable of, or even than the $150 entry-level HighPoint RocketRAID 2300 controller. Yikes!
Adaptec’s 5405 controller and HighPoint’s RocketRAID 3510 traded shots during our RAID 5 testing. The former gave us the highest write speeds of any RAID card we tested in this showdown, leading to a squeaks-by-at-the-finish-line victory in our overall PCMark05 benchmark. However, the RocketRAID 3510 had consistently excellent performance across all read-related tests, overtaking Adaptec’s 5405 controller by 14 seconds in our encoding benchmark.

The other cards we tested paled in comparison: 3ware’s high-priced offerings gave us decent RAID 5 performance as compared to, say, a motherboard. They nevertheless showed little variation among the two price points. Adding insult to injury, both cards were topped by the host-based (and far cheaper) HighPoint RocketRAID 2300.

As for LSI’s cards, well, we were amazed to see such an absolute nosedive from both the 8208ELP and 8888ELP controllers. Just to make sure we weren’t flubbing something, we tested these cards in both RAID 0 and RAID 5 arrays on both of the motherboards mentioned in this feature. No dice. Both LSI cards turned in abysmal performances in RAID 5—in fact, their complete inability to perform to reasonable expectations constitutes a failure in our book. And while the 8888ELP functioned in RAID 0, its scores were average at best. We suspect this might be a driver issue of some sort, given the problems we had installing drivers to begin with on the 8208ELP card. However, we can’t argue with the numbers.

Next: The Numbers!

The Benchmarks!

(click the chart to embiggen)

Final Analysis

You have all the data, but we're taking it one step further: Here's what you should buy!

At the end of the day, the RAID equation is pretty simple. You’ve seen the numbers and the analysis, so let’s take a big-picture approach before you rush out and plunk down money at your retailer of choice. The two motherboard-based RAID controllers we tested are perfectly acceptable solutions if you want a little speed boost in a RAID 0 environment, especially since it costs you nothing extra. In fact, depending on the motherboard you have, you may very well see a measurable difference between that and an entry-level host-based card.

If you’re planning to run RAID 5, ignore everything we just said. You will want to have an add-in controller because if the two products we tested are any indication, motherboards just up and die when it comes to RAID 5 performance. You can pick up a host-based controller on the cheap and see a performance boost—provided the card supports RAID 5. In this respect, we have only the RocketRAID 2300 to go by, and based on our results, we think this relatively inexpensive host-based controller card earns its keep. But don’t assume that you’ll get comparable performance from a similarly spec’d/priced alternative. As this roundup has shown, RAID-controller performance varies wildly. You might luck out and score a decently performing product, but you might also select a card that just falls to pieces on your configuration of choice.

The surest way to avoid any pitfalls, especially if you’re planning on testing out multiple RAID configurations, is to pick up a good discrete card. Don’t go after the most expensive one you can find. As we’ve learned here, performance does not necessarily scale with price.

That said, we found great success using Adaptec’s 5405 card in a RAID 0 environment. It was the fastest card in all of the benchmarks, and it offers substantial performance benefits over a similarly configured motherboard RAID environment. You can connect a bevy of hard drives to the card, and it comes with the most bountiful RAID options of any device here. If you don’t mind an excruciatingly long initialization period, this card is perfect for those who want to dabble.

If you’re just looking at RAID 5 performance, however, we have to tip our hat to HighPoint’s RocketRAID 3510. It’s less expensive than Adaptec’s 5405, albeit also less feature-packed. But when it comes time to throw down, the card squeaks out the performance win over Adaptec’s 5405. The 5405 beats the RocketRAID 3510 in RAID 5 write speeds. But it’s still not enough to overtake the Rocket Raid’s speedy reads.

The numbers say it all: We saw only a 14-second difference between the two cards in our real-world encoding test. If you can stomach that loss and want a card with a ton of RAID options, get Adaptec’s 5405. If you just want RAID 5 performance and a card that can also hold its own in RAID 0, opt for the cheaper RocketRAID 3510.

But whatever you do, avoid LSI cards. Two out of two failures across two separate motherboards and a flurry of different hard drives does not a happy storage enthusiast make. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Daniel Klus' Jan Henryk Dabrowski's Castle

Tom Edwards — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:00:31 -0500

A huge fan of the Total War series, 17-year-old Daniel Klus decided to channel his passion for all things medieval by designing a castle case. But his year-long project doesn’t reflect his love for any ol’ generic castle. He based his case on an actual Polish castle design as a tribute to his heritage, his culture, and 18th-century Polish general Jan Henryk Dabrowski.

Klus constructed the sides of the castle out of Spanish cedar; after joining them together, he installed a stained glass window on each side: The left side of the case features Dabrowski’s coat of arms; on the right is the Polish coat of arms.

Klus cut the stones for the castle with a hand router and used a jigsaw to carve out the openings for the door and windows. It’s not quite how they did it back in ye olden days, but it’s certainly more efficient!

There’s no drawbridge on this guy, but the front door actually works! Peeking past the laser-cut ironwork on the front reveals a storage area for games, movies, and other media.

The ancient exterior belies the rig’s modern accoutrements: This castle sports a Core 2 Duo E6850 processor, two SLI Evga 8800 GTX graphics cards, 2GB of memory, and a kilowatt power supply. \

For his winning entry, Daniel wins a $500 gift certificate to fund his modding madness!