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Today Nvidia pulls the wraps off its $650 GK110-based 700 series flagship card, the GeForce GTX 780. This board slides directly into the yawning chasm that exists between the $500 GK104-based GTX 680 and the $1,000 GK110-based GTX Titan, though despite its price it's actually much closer in specs and performance to the Titan than it is to the GTX 680. Like the Titan, the GTX 780 is a GK110 board, so it has all 7.1 billion transistors, a 384-bit memory bus care of six 64-bit memory controllers and two less SMX clusters with 12 for a total of 2,304 CUDA cores. Its 3GB of memory runs at the usual 6GHz clock speed, and its 863MHz core clock speed is just a smidge higher than the Titan’s 836MHz clock. Its 900MHz boost clock is also a bit faster than the Titan’s 876MHz. Overall, it would be fair to refer to the GTX 780 as the so-called Titan LE that has been rumored for a while now, as it’s a basically a slightly neutered version of the Titan, at least as far as gamers are concerned. Performance in games is extremely competitive with the Titan, more so than we thought it would be given its price. When it comes to compute performance, however, the GTX 780 is heavily neutered compared to the Titan, and for good reason. The 1.5 Teraflops of double precision performance that was so welcome in the Titan is nowhere to be seen in the GTX 780, as Nvidia is reserving that feature for the pricier Titan, and is also billing the GTX 780 as strictly a gaming card. The GTX 780 still offers respectable single precision performance though, clocking in at 4 Teraflops compared to the Titan's 4.5 Teraflops. For comparison, the GK104-based GTX 680 can only push 1 Teraflop of single precision, and its double precision performance is just 1/24th of that by Nvidia's design. It wants these "cheap" cards to be used for gaming, period, and its expensive Tesla cards to be used for Compute. This is why the Titan costs $1,000 and the GTX 780 costs $650. Otherwise the card looks, feels, and runs almost exactly like a Titan. It has the same 10.5-inch length, the same six-pin and eight-pin PCIe connectors, and the same HDMI, DisplayPort , and DVI connectors. It supports up to three-way SLI. The minimum power supply required is 600w, and the card's TDP is 250w, just like the Titan. Nvidia is releasing the GTX 780 with a fair bit of cool new technology that helps round out the package a bit, so let's look at each of them one by one. Nvidia's all-new Adaptive Fan Control smooths out the speed at which the fans spin up and down, resulting in less noticeable noise during operation. Even though the GTX Titan was and is a "quiet" GPU by our standards, Nvidia tells us that it's not necessarily fan noise that people notice as much as changes in fan speed, and we have to say there's some truth to that. Once a fan is spinning at a certain RPM we tend to not notice it, especially as the Titan and the GTX 780's fans never really spin very fast. It is certainly noticeable though when the fans spin up or down suddenly; we all hear that. So on the GTX 780 Nvidia has smoothed out the speed at which the fans spin up and down so you don't hear the change in fan speed. ShadowPlay is designed to improve the in-game video recording experience over FRAPS by consuming less system resources and compressing the videos. It will work with any Kepler GPU and will be released this summer. Now this is a cool feature, albeit one we have not tested as it was not available just yet. This is software that only works with Kepler GPUs to record your gaming sessions by using the GPU's built-in H.264 video encoder. The software will just record everything you do and keep only the portion that you just played, hence it's name, as it records everything that you just did, like a shadow. You can tell the software to just keep the last five minutes, 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, and it'll intelligently delete what is not needed, helping keep file sizes down by both deleting unneeded video and also through video compression. Nvidia also claims the peformance hit from turning on Shadowplay is less than five percent, so it's main advantages over FRAPS are that it only records what just happened instead of everything, and it requires less system resources to do so. This software will be rolling out this summer and will be available via Nvidia's GeForce Experience software, and will be supported on any Kepler GPU. It should be noted that beginning with this launch driver, the GeForce Experience software will replace the Nvidia Update software in the driver package, and though users can opt out of installing it, by default it will be installed with all Nvidia drivers going forward. Head on over to page 2 to read about the rest of the new features, see the benchmarks, and our final thoughts. The GTX 780 features GPU Boost 2.0 temperature target settings as well as the ability to overvolt the board. This feature first appeared on the GTX Titan and it works beautifully. Its main goal is to prevent the GPU from throttling itself due to excessive heat, which results in reduced performance. To prevent this from happening, users can now set the peak temperature for a card, which by default is set to 81C but it can be pushed up to 95C if you like (the card can handle it). Nvidia tells us these cards can go all the way up to 105C before the hardware is damaged, but you'd be lucky to push either a Titan or a GTX 780 past 80C typically since their coolers are so effective. However, the GPU will overclock as high as it can until it reaches that pre-determined temperature, so you can nudge the temperature GPU Boost 2.0 also allows for overvolting a card, so you can overclock it as high as you can get away with by pushing the core clock power target, temperature target, memory, and voltage. Only the Titan and the GTX 780 offers these features at this time. If you try to use them on a GTX 680, for example, they are simply greyed out. When we first heard of this card we figured it would land squarely in between the $500 GTX 680 and the $1,000 GTX Titan, both in performance and price. Then Nvidia informed us the card was priced at $650, and we looked at the benchmark charts and thought this was either a very competitively priced product, or the Titan is really overpriced, at least for gamers. Looking at the benchmark chart (below) you can see the GTX 780 is within five to 15 percent of the Titan in all benchmarks, which is seriously impressive given it costs $350 less. In general we run all games at 2560x1600 with 4XAA enabled, which is extremely taxing on even the most hardcore systems, and yet the GTX 780 was just on the cusp of playing all games extremely smoothly, with the exception of Metro: Last Light, which will remain a ball buster for the forseeable future it seems. Even though we'd prefer to have at least 40-50fps, that is just not possible with a single GPU at the resolution we run, and only the Titan can get close to achieving it. That said, the GTX 780 is damn close, and easily puts some distance on both the GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7970, making it the fastest sub-$1,000 GPU available at this time. It should also be noted that the card ran cool and quiet throughout testing, and we were able to run it at 1,084MHz with no problems at all. This is one wicked fast GPU, and if it was $750 or so like we thought it would be you would see us waffling a bit between this card and the Titan. However, at $650 it is very competitive, though we've yet to compare it to dual GTX 660 Ti cards or GTX 670 cards in SLI, but then you have to deal with dual GPUs. Also, add-in board partners will be releasing their own versions of the GTX 780 with custom cooling solutions, but we do not know at this time whether the boards will be overclocked or offer larger frame buffers. In our opinion, the best news about the GTX 780 is at the resolution we use for testing there was no such thing as an affordable GPU that could handle it. The GTX 680 and the HD 7970 were all stuck around 20fps or so for newer games, though the Titan could handle them much better. With the GTX 780 we have a truly semi-affordable card that can run newer games at these resolutions and AA settings just fine. Nvidia says the GTX 780 is 34 percent faster than a GTX 680 and that seems about right to us, and 70 percent faster than a GTX 580, so people with older cards will see quite a jump in performance by upgrading. There also might be other 700-series cards in the pipeline, so anyone looking to upgrade might want to wait just a bit before pulling the trigger on a new card. As far as how AMD will respond, that remains to be seen. The company reminded us that the HD 7970 GHz edition is still the fastest card at its price point of roughly $420, and that is certainly true. Whether or not it will respond with a GCN 2.0 board dubbed Radeon 8790 or similar is anyone's guess, but given the ferocity of the GPU wars as of late we'd be shocked if AMD sat on the sidelines for very long. PS: Here is a promotional video Nvidia sent us that walks you through the GTX 780's hardware and software. Handset makers and wireless carriers love to load up Google's Android platform with custom overlays, user interface tweaks, and third-party programs that don't ship natively with the open source operating system. That's great for them, but most power users would prefer a clean version of Android to work with, which is why the third-party ROM community is popular. Well, following in the footsteps of Samsung and it's custom S4 that was announced at Google I/O, HTC is reportedly kicking around the idea of offering a Google Edition of its One smartphone. News of the custom HTC One comes from Russell Holly over at Geek.com. Citing un-named sources, Holly says the Google Edition device would be offered in the U.S. first, though it's unclear if it would be carried in the Play Store like the Galaxy S4 will be. Other details are equally light and vague, though Holly claims an official announcement could come within the next two weeks, with a release likely planned for sometime this summer. Assuming prices are roughly the same, which would you rather own, a clean version of the HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4?
We were busy little bees this time and could only spare three people: host and Senior Editor Josh Norem, Associate Editor Tom McNamara, and legendary intern Chris Zele. Ironically, we spent most of our time jabbering on about Nvidia's newest high-end video card, the GTX 780. We didn't have the MSRP in time for the taping of episode of #203 of the Maximum PC No BS Podcast, but you can't let missing things like "facts" stop you from having an opinion! We also tackled reader questions, one of which was about the systems we used at home. So if anyone else was on the edge of their seat and waiting for this information, your day has finally arrived. Also, with Gordon unavailable, we had Chris do his rant at the end. We'll let you judge the results. Note: We're having our video-editing monkey slave away at editing the video. Provided he doesn't keel over, we'll embed it as soon as we can! If you want to catch future episodes, you can: Subscribe on iTunes Fan us on Facebook Tweet us on Twitter Subscribe to us on Youtube Check out our Windows 8 app in Microsoft's app store Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com Subscribe to our RSS feed Leave us a voicemail at 877-404-1337 x1337 Thanks for listening! We wouldn't be here without all of your support! -Maximum PC Staff This past weekend Maximum PC had the chance to check out Maker Faire 2013 in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. The event, billing itself as "the greatest show and tell on Earth," is one of the largest DIY conventions in the country and has inventors from all around the globe showing off their latest and greatest doodads. While it is technically an arts and crafts show, technology played a big part of Maker Faire 2013 with inventors showing off everything from interesting PC case mods to robots. You could really feel the spirit of creativity at the festive event. If you didn't have the good fortune of attending Maker Faire 2013, fret not as you can still see some of the unique devices in our extensive picture gallery below. What's your favorite DIY invention here? Let us know in the comments! Netflix has been known to rile up its subscribers on occasion. The biggest example of this is when Netflix tried to sever its DVD-by-mail division into a spinoff called "Qwikster" so that it could focus all its efforts on streaming. That didn't sit very well with consumers, but it wouldn't be the last time the company would make an unpopular decision. Just a few days ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings hinted that his company currently has no plans of developing a BlackBerry 10 app. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Hastings was asked if he'd had a chance to try out any of the new BB10 devices yet. "No. Like many people I was a BlackBerry addict from 1997 or 1998 through to the iPhone but I haven't tried it. We don't currently support streaming on the BlackBerry, it's a unique operating system you have to target, and unfortunately there's just not enough volume for entertainment (apps)," Hastings responded. Hastings conceded it's a "great device" for productivity chores, but when it comes to entertainment, he doesn't believe people interact with BB10 devices the same way they do an iPhone or Android device. His comments sparked some users on the CrackBerry forum to boycott Netflix and to encourage others to cancel all subscriptions, home and mobile. "That's right all and when asked why you are cancelling, make damn sure you tell them [it's because] Netflix will not be on BlackBerry devices," the opening post reads. The post drew support from several users, though not all of them. "BlackBerry is ultimately responsible for its own ecosystem. It might not be fair, and I KNOW y'all won't agree, but while I concede that BlackBerry has worked hard to rectify the app gap, the absence of an app is BlackBerry's responsibility," a forum user posted. "I believe Netflix will come when an agreement is reached." In other words, BlackBerry made its bed, now it has to sleep in it, is what the above poster is saying. It's only been a day since Nvidia announced its GeForce GTX 780 graphics card and as expected, the GPU maker's hardware partners are coming out of the woodwork with custom cooling solutions. We saw it with EVGA and its ACX Cooler, and today Gigabyte is giving us a glimpse of its GeForce GTX 780 OC Edition (GV-N780OC-3GD) graphics card with the latest Windforce 3X dual-slot cooling design. Gigabyte "guarantees gamers an insanely fast, smooth, and whisper-quiet gaming experience," adding that its card is further guaranteed capable of dissipating over 450W of heat. The Windforce 3X chills the GeForce card using three ultra quiet PWM fans, two 8mm copper heat pipes, four 6mm copper heat pipes, and a RAM heatsink. According to Gigabyte, it's 25 percent better than a stock cooling solution. It also looks pretty gnarly, so there's that. Cooling aside, Gigabyte's OC Edition card bests Nvidia's reference design with faster clockspeeds. The GPU runs at 954MHz base and 1,006MHz boost, versus 863MHz and 900MHz, respectively. Memory is untouched at 6,008MHz effective (1,502MHz). No word yet on price or availability. Given its subjective nature, satisfaction isn’t something that readily lends itself to quantification, but that hasn’t stopped the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) from measuring the satisfaction of U.S. customers for more than 19 years now. The latest ACSI update is of particular interest to us because it sheds some light on Windows 8’s impact on Microsoft’s customer satisfaction rating. Windows 8 hasn’t exactly been able to charm PC users off their feet and Microsoft’s latest ACSI rating seems to confirm as much, with the company’s customer satisfaction rating falling one point from last year’s score of 75 and as many as four points from the company’s best of 78, which it achieved in 2011. Things, however, don’t appear to be as bad as they were following the launch of Windows Vista. Back then, Redmond shed three rating points. If we go back another year to 2006, the first time Microsoft appeared on ACSI’s radar, it is clear that the company’s customers are more satisfied with its products now than they were back then. “It seems clear that the release of Windows 8 did not give Microsoft a significant bump, as the release of Windows 7 did, nor did it dramatically lower customer satisfaction in a rather short time frame, as the release of Vista did," David VanAmburg, director of ACSI, told Computerworld.com, adding that if Microsoft’s rating does take a more serious pounding next year then Windows 8 will surely be the one to blame. Follow Pulkit on Google+ Windows 8 is a game changer in more ways than one. Along with a new look and feel, Windows 8 has influenced design changes across the board, even when it comes to peripherals. Witness Microsoft explains. "You don’t have to worry about a tiny USB transceiver since the Sculpt Comfort Mouse uses Bluetooth to connect to your Windows PC or tablet. It also has a comfortable ergonomic design and our BlueTrack technology to be used on pretty much any surface." The Sculpt Mobile Mouse is essentially a Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 with a Windows touch tab. It has a compact design, a wireless USB transceiver, and BlueTrack technology. Microsoft says the Sculpt Comfort Mouse will be available in June for $40 and the Sculpt Mobile Mouse in May for $30. When Microsoft "re-imagined" its Windows platform with a heavy focus on touch computing, its Metro interface was deemed a critical component to the user experience. Ideally, Windows 8 users would find themselves relying less and less on the traditional desktop and start taking advantage of the tiled UI, downloading apps from the Windows Store in the process. However, a new study by Soluto reveals that Windows 8 users rarely touch apps on their Windows 8-based desktops and tablet PCs. Soluto analyzed 10,848 Windows 8 machines and examined more than 313,000 Metro app launches across 9,634 unique Metro apps. The result? On average, a Windows 8 user will launch a Metro app 1.52 times per day. Predictably desktop users are the least active Metro app users with an average of 1.41 launches per day. Just as predictable, tablet users launch the most Metro apps at an average clip of 2.71 per day, besting touch laptop users (2.22 apps) and regular laptop users (1.51 apps). "To put this number into context, we looked at the percent of people who launch a Metro app less than once a day (i.e. less than 7 Metro app launches per week). We found that among desktop and laptop users, 60 percent of users launch a Metro app less than once a day," Soluto said. "This number significantly improves with tablets, but still 44 percent of Windows 8 tablet users launch a Metro app less than once a day." Interestingly, the most engaging app appears to be Yahoo Mail, which is loaded an average of 26.91 times per week by those who use it. Below that, several versions of solitaire rank in the top 10, which might be indicative of the Windows Store needing a bigger and better stockpile of apps. What would a new graphics card launch be without new drivers to help squeeze out the most performance possible? So it goes, Nvidia today not only introduced the world to its GeForce GTX 780 video card -- check out write-up with benchmarks -- the GPU maker also made available new GeForce R320 Series (320.18) drivers that are WHQL certified and primed for Metro: Last Light. The new drivers promise up to a 10 percent boost in performance in Metro: Last Light, and if you use GeForce Experience, Nvidia will take care of detecting optimal game settings with PhysX effects and DirectX 11 tessellation. The highlights for the R320 series are the same as they were for the 320.14 beta drivers, which we covered last week. To quickly recap, you can expect up to 20 percent faster performance in several PC games running on your GeForce 400/500/600 Series GPUs, Nvidia says. You'll also find a bunch of new and updated SLI profiles. |
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Team Green captures the single-GPU crown, again
This is the One for stock Android lovers.
Pictures from one of the largest DIY conventions in the country
Cries of "boycott!" emanate from the BlackBerry 10 camp.
High end graphics card keeps its cool.
A pair of mice made for Windows 8.
Study reveals surprising stats about Windows 8 app usage.
This is the Game Ready driver for Metro: Last Light.
What’s New
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The Eurocom Scorpius lives a dual life. On one hand, it’s a dull-looking workstation; on the other, this highly configurable laptop can also be outfitted with a 3D monitor and killer gaming specs. We opted for the latter. The Scorpius has a backlit keyboard that can change to seven different colors. Along with a 120Hz refresh rate, the 17.3-inch monitor features a built-in 3D emitter that syncs up to a pair of bundled Nvidia 3D Vision 2 glasses. To test the 3D experience, we played the 3D Vision Ready–title Batman: Arkham City and sampled some 3D movie trailers from 3DVisionLive.com. Nvidia’s stereoscopic technology rivals the best that movie theaters have to offer in terms of depth, and never bothered our eyes, but the experience wasn’t perfect. Even though Nvidia purports to have solved the dimming issue with its Vision 2 glasses, you’re still essentially wearing sunglasses, so the experience is going to be darker than viewing content in 2D without glasses. We also feel that wearing glasses in and of itself is cumbersome. The most vexing problem is that when 3D is enabled, performance suffers greatly. Our frame rate dropped by half, from 50s to mid-20s, when playing Batman in 3D as opposed to 2D. In our opinion, these various issues detract too much from the experience; we’d rather play in 2D mode. As for the TN panel in 2D mode, while some sing the praises of 120Hz’s ability to improve even 2D image quality, we didn’t see any noticeable improvement over 60Hz performance when surfing the web, watching videos, or playing games. We had little complaint with our system’s internal specs, however, which included a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-3840QM CPU, 16GB of RAM, and not one, but two GeForce GTX 680Ms in SLI. In our more CPU-intensive tests, the Scorpius scored modest wins of 6–13 percent. However, when it came to the more GPU-intensive applications, our zero-point’s comparatively humble Fermi-based GeForce GTX 670M GPU got severely stung by the Scorpius’s two Kepler beasts. In our STALKER: CoP benchmark, the Scorpius performed an amazing 112.5 percent better than the ZP; the performance gap only widened in our 3DMark 11 test, where it performed an astonishing 248.1 percent better. Because these benchmark stats were so amazing, we loaded up Far Cry 3 to give it a real workout. While the Scorpius wasn’t able to run the super-graphically intensive game on “Ultra” (the game’s highest settings), it ran at “Very High” with frame rates in the mid-40s to low-50s range, and often outperformed a 2.8GHz AMD quad-core gaming desktop armed with a GTX 590. It seems unfair to bring up the fact that the far less expensive ($1,500) GT60 zero-point laptop wasn’t even able to muster a solid 30fps on FC3’s “High” settings. The only performance test where the GT60 bested the Scorpius was in battery life, where Eurocom’s laptop lasted a poor 103 minutes. Something’s got to give when you’re powering two 680Ms. In terms of storage, the laptop comes with two drives: a 128GB mSATA Micron and 512GB SSD. While the two speedy drives are appreciated, the lack of a hefty HDD really limits the overall package. Luckily, the laptop takes up to three 2.5-inch storage drives and installing an additional HDD requires the removal of just one screw from the bottom of the laptop. Users can also access the motherboard from underneath and swap out the RAM. Eurocom has made the main compartment easily removable, with only four screws holding it in place. While the laptop certainly performs well, it still has issues. Its trackpad is unresponsive and can be an exercise in frustration to use. Perhaps a bigger problem is that this thing is heavy. With a carry weight of more than 13 pounds, the Scorpius is in backbreaker territory. Finally, at almost $4,000, it’s very expensive. Fortunately, most of these issues can be mitigated. You can save money by skipping out on the 3D monitor and second SSD. And you can overlook its battery, weight, and trackpad issues by understanding that the Scorpius is best used as a desktop replacement. Its performance is simply off the charts, and complaining about its other problems is like complaining about how a Ferrari is expensive, bad with fuel economy, and doesn’t have enough cup holders. If those issues are enough to bother you, you’re looking at the wrong machine. This laptop is all about performance and here the Scorpius is a stinger. $3,915, www.eurocom.com Smart TVs are basically dumb PCs, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Vizio—one of the world’s most successful HDTV manufacturers—plans to grow by jumping into the all-in-one PC market. The Vizio CA24T-A4 is a surprisingly good rookie effort, but there is room for improvement. The tiny keyboard delivers surprisingly good tactile feedback. The 24-inch, 10-point touchscreen display is crisp, clear, and very thin (about .75 inches). It’s an MVA (multi-domain vertical alignment) model, with an LED backlight. Resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, which is typical of this class of machine (Vizio also offers higher-end models with 27-inch displays at the same resolution). The display is mounted to a thin stalk rising from the pizza-box base that houses the machine’s guts. The display can tilt from minus-5 degrees to plus-20 degrees, which is fine for using the PC from a seated position, but it doesn’t tilt back far enough to use the machine while standing. Unlike the displays on the Asus ET2300 and Lenovo A720, it can’t be folded flat. It also doesn’t pivot or swivel left to right. The CA24T-A4’s base is incredibly small—at just 1-inch high, it’s even thinner than the svelte Lenovo A720—but Vizio removed two important components to achieve that profile: The computer has neither a discrete GPU nor an optical drive. You won’t mind integrated graphics unless you’re a hardcore gamer, and the absence of an optical drive won’t matter if you acquire your movies, music, games, and other software online. But Intel’s dual-core 2.5GHz Core i5-3210M CPU and its HD4000 graphics is a 98-pound weakling when it comes to modern gaming with eye candy turned up, and we were grateful to have a USB DVD drive on hand to install some of our benchmarks. Gaming performance on the box could have been helped with higher-clocked RAM, but alas, Vizio went with DDR3/1333. Vizio outfitted the CA24T-A4 with four USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI inputs (so you can connect both a satellite/cable set-top box and a gaming console or Blu-ray drive), and an eSATA port (which we’d happily trade for Thunderbolt for forward-looking compatibility). Everything except one USB port is in the back of the machine, so you won’t have ugly cables sticking out of its side; and unlike many AiOs we’ve tested, Vizio doesn’t hijack any of its USB ports to host a wireless dongle for keyboard and mouse. Actually, Vizio doesn’t put a mouse in the box—it provides a wireless multitouch trackpad, instead. Vizio tells us that this is to take advantage of Windows 8 gestures, but we can’t say we’re enthused about it: Trackpads are necessary on laptops, but they don’t deliver a lot of benefit paired with a desktop rig (unless you’re using the PC from the couch, and that’s an unlikely scenario with just a 24-inch display). Vizio’s all-in-one delivers much better sound than we’ve heard from most computers, thanks in part to the presence of a subwoofer cleverly integrated into the computer’s detached power supply (Asus offers a sub for its all-in-ones, but at additional cost with most models). There’s a volume control and an HDMI toggle switch conveniently integrated into both the keyboard and the remote control. That’s a much better solution than integrating these features into the display, as Asus and Lenovo do. You can also use the HDMI display without needing to power up the computer (the keyboard controls don’t function in this situation, but the remote does). The Vizio CA24T-A4 delivered very weak benchmark numbers. If you care about performance, the similarly priced Asus E2300 crushes it, thanks to its higher base clock, larger cache, and dedicated GPU. But if you anticipate using the Vizio’s HDMI display capabilities as much as its computing power, it’s the better buy. $1,250, www.vizio.com I upgraded to Windows 8 on my laptop. Can you tell me how to reinstall Windows 7? I tried restoring the system from Windows 8 but did not have any luck. Is there a way to use my recovery discs or will I need to purchase a copy of Windows 7? - Michael De Matteis The Doctor Responds: If the recovery discs are the ones that came with your laptop, you should be able to use them to reinstall Windows 7 (provided that’s what your laptop shipped with). Your product key should still be on the sticker on the bottom of your laptop. If not, you can download the Window 7 ISO that corresponds with your license here and use that to burn a new install disc. If that doesn’t work, due to OEM licensing constraints, contact your laptop manufacturer; they may be able to get you (or sell you) a new recovery disc. Some laptops also have a recovery partition that you can boot into to reinstall Windows—when you boot, keep an eye out for any options to press keys to access a recovery feature. Classic Shell restores the Start button and menu, and even gives you a choice whether to completely eliminate the Start screen or not, so you can ease into it. If you want to downgrade because of program incompatibilities, go ahead and downgrade. But if you just miss the Start menu and hate the Metro interface, there’s a way to keep the performance improvements of Windows 8 and get the classic Start menu back. Several ways, actually, but we like Start8 ($5) or Classic Shell (free). Install it and you can add a Start button back to your taskbar, and even disable Metro entirely. And later, when Metro gets more useful or you feel like experimenting, you can get Metro back without having to downgrade now and upgrade again later. I recently upgraded my old computer with (among other things) an SSD. I don't want to fill it up with unnecessary stuff. I have installed Windows 7 and MS Office on it, but have directed downloads, documents, pictures, videos, etc. to default to a secondary hard drive. I'm wondering about programs. If they aren't frequently used, or maybe just a trial program, is it OK, performance-wise, to put a program on the HDD rather than on the SSD? Would this have any effect on the overall system performance? - Jack Orkin The Doctor Responds: In the future we will all have enough SSD space to install every program we want, but right now few of us can afford an SSD that big, so some programs invariably have to be installed on mechanical drives. This is perfectly fine. Putting your OS and your most frequently used programs on the SSD is the best way to take advantage of your SSD’s access speeds, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with installing less frequently used or trial programs on the HDD. Your instinct is right on the money. They won’t load as fast, of course, but who cares? If you wind up using them all the time, make room on the SSD. Otherwise, they’re fine where they are. A long time ago, there was an article in your magazine dealing with optimal communication/connection arrangements for hard drives and CD-ROMs via E-IDE primary masters/slaves and E-IDE secondary master/slaves. I am building a new rig that has SATA components: two SATA HDDs and two DVD drives. They are plugged into the mobo SATA ports: 0 and 1 for the hard drives, 2 and 3 are empty, and ports 4 and 5 go to the DVD drives. Is there a better way to connect these components to reduce communication bottlenecks? - Sunnie The Doctor Responds: The good news, Sunnie, is that the day of having to manually jumper your hard drives and optical drives are long over (although the Doctor will note that cable select worked pretty well at the end). SATA is point-to-point and does not feature a master and slave relationship like Parallel ATA had, so don’t worry about that aspect. The only thing to really be mindful of when hooking up multiple SATA devices is which controller they go to. Modern boards usually have multiple SATA controller chips. Some go to the board’s south bridge/peripheral controller hub, and others go to discrete controllers put on the board as a value add. Generally the chipset controller is preferred over discrete components. One other thing to consider is whether the port is SATA 6Gb/s. On AMD chipsets, all of the SATA ports are SATA 6Gb/s. On Intel, only two of the six from the chipset proper are SATA 6Gb/s. If you eventually buy an SSD that runs at SATA 6Gb/s you will get the best performance running it on a SATA 6Gb/s port. Since your hard drives and optical drives don’t benefit from this (very much anyway), the Doctor recommends cracking open your motherboard manual and finding out which of the ports are SATA 6Gb/s. Plug your other drives into the SATA 3Gb/s ports and leave the 6Gb/s ports open for the day when you install an SSD. I have a Dell XPS 700 that I purchased in December 2006. I purchased it with a four-year warranty. During that time, the motherboard had to be replaced four times. I ended up buying a new Dell after the warranty period expired and the fifth motherboard failed. XPS 700: To fix or to toss? That is the question. I would like to use the XPS 700 as my spare computer, but for that I need a new motherboard. I called Dell to see about a motherboard. They said they could order one for me, but they want $440 for it. I don’t want to buy another motherboard from them knowing it’ll fail after a year. I don’t know enough about motherboards to buy one that’s compatible with my computer but more reliable, and I don’t know if $440 is too much. Is there a replacement board for this machine I can swap out without being too much of a geek, or should I just bag it? - Clair Bolton The Doctor Responds: $440 is an awful lot to pay to replace a 6-year-old motherboard model. It’s even a lot to pay for a brand-new top-of-the-line motherboard. They don't make motherboards using the nForce chipset any more, or even in that form factor (BTX) any more For that amount of money you could nearly replace the entire XPS 700 with a faster computer—we’ve come a long way in six years. It's possible to get a modern ATX motherboard to work in that great-looking XPS 700 chassis, but it's rather more work than you'd probably like to do (See here). You'd still be stuck with an outdated system unless you replaced the CPU, RAM, and videocard, as well. In which case, as we mentioned, you'd probably just be better off with a new computer—unless you really love that XPS 700 case and own a Dremel that you don’t mind using. I have an old desktop that was given to me a few years ago. It features an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ in a Socket 939 ASRock 939 board with 2GB of DDR, two hard drives, a GeForce 8800 GTS, and 300W PSU. It was running an early build of Windows 7, and one day it would power on but not get through POST. I finally got it running earlier this year after essentially unseating every part in the case and reinstalling it. The last part I reinstalled was the RAM, which seemed to do the trick. I used the rig this entire year until my IDE DVD drive started to act up, and when I powered off my system and replaced it with another IDE drive it wouldn't get to POST or the screen where it shows the BIOS checking your RAM and HDDs. After a bit of work, I was able to get my graphics card to display an image, but it only shows the motherboard checking the RAM then freezing. I personally think that my DIMMs may have gone bad, but after switching the configurations from 2GB (4x 512MB), to 1GB, and then to just one stick, I am beginning to believe it may be something else. I would just get more RAM, but seeing that I'm limited to using DDR (not DDR2, just plain DDR RAM) finding replacement parts has been hard. I cannot afford to build a new rig, which I would rather do than dealing with this crap. What should I do, and what exactly is my problem? - Wayne Strickland The Doctor Responds: The Doc knows that it sounds like a broken record but the two most common failure points in an elderly system (other than HDD) are RAM and power supply. Since you don’t have a spare bucket of parts, you should first try to diagnose with what you have. First, to ensure that your hard drive isn’t going bad and hanging during POST, disconnect both hard drives’ cables from the motherboard. It’s unlikely to be the issue, but disconnect them just to be sure. You have pulled RAM, but how do you know the last stick of RAM in the machine isn’t the one that’s bad? Swap the last stick of RAM with one of the other sticks and try them in different slots. Remember: Power down your system completely and switch off or unplug your PSU for at least 10 seconds before removing RAM or PCIe devices. If that doesn’t work, try resetting the BIOS. If that doesn’t work, manually set the RAM timing in the BIOS to the timings supported by the RAM. With the box running, make sure the fan on the CPU is running and not blocked by cat hair, dust, or a mouse house. If you’re still stuck, the next step will probably take additional parts to troubleshoot. Frankly, the Doctor believes the problem may lie with your PSU. The GeForce 8800 GTS came in numerous configurations, with some consuming more power than others. All of them are probably just a wee bit over-the-top for a 300-watt PSU, especially if it’s a no-name PSU. And even if it has worked fine for many years, a PSU running at 95 percent of peak through long hot summers is likely to have a shorter lifespan than one running at 50 percent its whole life. So, the PSU should be one of your first suspects to replace if you can swing it. Usually when power supplies give up the ghost, they just stop working, but that’s not always the case. It’s possible the PSU has enough juice to POST and get to the RAM check before it gets overloaded and shuts down. Logitech has built more computer speakers over the years than just about any manufacturer, and it’s learned a thing or two about building decent low-cost models. Take the 2.1-channel Logitech Z323 system: We could name any number of speaker systems that sound better, but few that are priced better. The satellites tilt up to project sound at your ears. You can literally see some of the ways that Logitech hit that low price point: The satellite cabinets are made from cheap ABS plastic with permanently attached cables that plug into the subwoofer. Each satellite has dual, 2-inch, concave-dome drivers (one is mounted in the front of the cabinet and the other in the back, to deliver what Logitech describes as “360-degree sound”). So the system performs best if there’s a wall behind the satellites for the sound waves to bounce off. Each satellite also has a front-facing port. There’s a volume control and power switch on the right-hand cabinet, plus one 1/8-inch headphone output and one 1/8-inch stereo input, to support a digital media player. The compact subwoofer cabinet (it measures 8.7x5.9x7.2 inches) is fabricated from the typical medium-density fiberboard. It houses a small amp and a tiny (for a sub) 4-inch down-firing dome woofer. The amp delivers six watts (RMS) to each of the satellites and 18 watts (RMS) to the subwoofer. The sub has its own volume control, along with a pair of RCA jacks that serve as a second auxiliary input for a gaming console, DVD player, or what have you (handy features in a speaker system priced this low). The Z323’s favorable price/performance ratio, however, applies to games much more than music. Playing games such as Borderlands 2, we were pleased with the Z323’s ability to render the sound of gunshots and explosions, and the conversations with friendly characters and the taunts of enemies alike were rendered crisp and clear (well, with the exception of those babbling psychos). When we listened to music, on the other hand, the vocals sounded weirdly detached from the rest of the band—and it didn’t matter whether the singer was male or female or even what style of music was being played. We tried several singer/songwriters, including “Crossing Muddy Waters,” from the John Hiatt album of the same name, Marc Cohn’s “She’s Becoming Gold,” from The Rainy Season, and Nanci Griffith’s cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Techumseh Valley,” from her record Other Voices, Other Rooms (in all three cases, the tracks were ripped from CD and encoded as 16-bit, 44.1kHz FLAC files). This sonic detachment wasn’t as much of a problem with instrumental selections, but that’s not to say the Z323 system delivered a stellar performance. When we played Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, which the composer recently remastered for Bowers & Wilkins’s Society of Sound label, the album (available in both Apple Lossless and 24-bit FLAC formats), sounded somewhat lifeless and flat compared to what we heard on more expensive speakers (including Corsair’s stellar SP2500 system). But you could almost buy four Z323 setups for the cost of one SP2500, so that’s to be expected. f you’re working with a tight budget and need speakers primarily for gaming, Logitech has a good set in the Z323. If listening to music is your core interest, on the other hand, you should keep looking. $70, www.logitech.com It’s hard to talk about the Velocity Micro MultiPlex machine without thinking back more than 15 years ago, to the earliest days of “PC-TVs” and “PC Theaters.” Back in the late 1990s, vendors such as Compaq and Gateway were pushing Pentium II–based PCs capable of watching DVDs, displaying electronic programming guides, and browsing the Internet, along with other futuristic capabilities, on gigantic 36-inch CRT televisions (we say that both literally and sarcastically). The MultiPlex is a traditional HTPC, but fully capable of playing Big Picture Steam games, too. In comparison to those early pioneers of living room PCs, the Velocity Micro MultiPlex is like a starship dropping out of warp speed while you look on from a covered wagon trying to get over Donner Pass without having to eat your fellow travelers. The MultiPlex chassis harkens back to those early PC-TVs, but rather than sporting a 266MHz Pentium II, a whopping 2GB hard drive, 32MB of RAM, and an analog TV tuner, the MultiPlex is pretty much state-of-the-art: liquid-cooled Core i7-3770K clocked up to 4.3GHz, 16GB of DDR3/2000, a GeForce GTX 680, 240GB SSD, and 3.6TB of RAID 5 storage. Besides Gigabit and 802.11n, and the Blu-ray drive, Velocity Micro opted for a Ceton quad-channel CableCARD tuner to help fill that massive RAID 5 array. That RAID array, for the record, is made up of three 2TB WD Caviar Black drives. If one drive fails, you won’t lose it all—we’re just not so sure we’d care if we lost it, though. Since the MultiPlex is intended to quietly sit in the living room sucking up television through the Ceton card, a drive failure wiping out, say, every episode of Glee or The Walking Dead, wouldn’t be as bad as losing 2TB of your family videos and pics. Frankly, we think that a straight 6TB JBOD array would be just fine on a PVR box, but if you do intend to store your memories on the machine, the RAID 5 is warranted. Performance of the box was in line with our expectations. Obviously, up against our zero-point system’s hexa-core and dual-GPU setup, it’s no contest. But against HTPC/gaming boxes like Digital Storm’s Bolt and Falcon Northwest’s Tiki, it’s pretty much a tie, as all three feature overclocked 3770K parts and GeForce GTX 680 cards. Of course, you might wonder if it’s fair to compare the MultiPlex against those much smaller HTPC machines. That’s a good question. Both the Tiki and Bolt are more likely to be used as simple SFF gaming boxes in your office, or in your living room as “Steam Boxes” running Big Picture mode. Recording terabytes of TV isn’t likely to be high on the list of their usage scenarios. That’s actually where the MultiPlex comes in. It’s far more traditional-HTPC shaped and sized for the PVR chores, yet has plenty of firepower to run games at 1080p resolutions. Our one complaint might be that it’s a tad loud for pure PVR duties. If you’re watching, say, a Michael Bay flick, you’d never hear the fan and drive noise, but if you’re trying to catch the nuanced acting in, um, Jane Eyre on Blu-ray, you could find those sounds distracting. This won’t be an issue in gaming, of course, but it’s worth noting. Pricing for the rig is fair. At $3,200 it’s a full grand cheaper than the Falcon Tiki we reviewed last September. The Tiki did, however, pack a pair of 512GB SSDs, which adds up, but then the MultiPlex has three drives plus a CableCARD tuner. Overall, the MultiPlex brings a lot to the table if you’re still living in a cable world—we’re just not sure how many of us there are in today’s post-cable environment. $3,200, www.velocitymicro.com |
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