For my first blog, I’m going to do a rough overview on budget PC building. No, not your run-of-the-mill budget PC building, I’m writing about college-kid’s-budget gaming PC building, since college kids like me belong to a fantastic little niche, filled with people in situations I like to describe as, “Mommy, I have no money but I love expensive things.”

However, I’m not going to go into too much detail, both because this is my first post, and also because there are plenty of sources for that kind of neck-deep technical stuff already. Instead, I’m going to go over the lessons I’ve learned in building my first budget gaming PC, a rather peckish $1,000 affair with which I am now 90% satisfied. The other 10%, of course, belongs to the group of people I like to describe as, “I’m filthy rich and want more more more more frames.” If only.

Anyway, let’s start off with the specifications of my rig.

For my monitor, I got a 25″ Hanns-G 2ms LCD at 1080p. Deals, deals, deals.

For my CPU, I got an AMD Phenom II X4 at 3.2Ghz. I have yet to overclock this, although I’ve been feeling the bottleneck lately and will probably aim for 3.8 once I get a nice new cooler. Although to be honest, the “stock” cooler included with the processor was surprisingly large and effective. (I promise I’ll have pictures for my next post.)

For my GPU, I got an XFX Radeon 5770. I’ve been having some driver issues with this card (see forum for details), so I’ve been unable to overclock it; however, I’ve heard good stories of >1Ghz overclocks, so I’m holding out for now. I’m also planning on another 5770 in the near future and some Crossfire goodness, if budget allows.

For my motherboard, I have the Gigabyte 790X AM3 USB3 SATA6. Quite a nice futureproof motherboard for about $150.

And for RAM, OCZ 2×2Gb DDR3-1600. Everything else is the usual.

My first piece of advice when looking for a budget rig is to never, ever, ever look at top-of-the-line parts. They will make you feel bad, and you will not be able to afford them. Instead, bump it down a notch. For example, instead of the Phenom II X6, show some love for an X4. Instead of an i7, grab yourself a nice, fat hunk of i5. AMD chips tend to be on the cheaper side as compared to Intel, although they’re naturally outperformed, as well. I would personally never pay more than $200 for a budget PC’s processor, but then again, it’s up to your budget.

My second piece of advice is to get the most expensive mid-range graphics card you can afford. Don’t even bother looking at the 5970, or even the 5870 for that matter; instead, go for a nice mid-range 5770. Keep in mind that the price margin between the 5770 and the 5850 is roughly 40% (i.e. the 5770 is 40% cheaper than the 5850), but, in a brilliant stroke of marketing genius by ATI, you sacrifice about the same amount of performance. I chose the 5770 because $150 fit my budget, but again, it’s up to you.

My third piece of advice is to get a good, futureproof motherboard. I’m not particularly familiar with Intel motherboards, so I won’t say much about them, but I’ve heard horror stories about socket compatibility with the newest i7 chips; make sure you do your research before you invest in a motherboard that will become incompatible with new chips in a year or two. A good idea is to invest in the top-of-the-line previous generation motherboard; they are usually relatively futureproof, as well as extensively tested and reliable.

My fourth piece of advice is to never skimp on essential components. You can skimp on a case if you’d like to, or get a cheap-ish power supply, or settle for value DDR3 RAM, but as far as your CPU and GPU are concerned, you should never go low-end. Remember, you’re building a budget gaming PC, not a budget bucket-o’-bolts. All the savings in the world won’t matter when you dent your tower with a sledgehammer fist out of frustration.

My last piece of advice is to wait for good deals. It’s not always financially prudent to order all of your parts at the same time, and certainly not from the same vendor; you’ll often find fantastic deals on parts from all over the place, and more often than not, it will be worth your time to order your parts piecemeal and hunt for deals. You’d be surprised at how much you could save just by building your rig over the span of a week or two instead of a single day.

Well, that’s all for me for now. If you’re a cash-strapped college student, I hope you found this first post somewhat useful; I doubt all you rich folks with i7s will find much to glean from this.

Till next time,

TheDramaLlama

Factors contributing to unreliable test results that can be controlled by the tester:

• Air temperature and humidity: When doing a comparison, temperature and humidity should be kept the same, or at least as close as possible.
• Location: Testing should be done in an area that has little air movement or an area with a reasonably controllable environment.
• Sunlight: Testing in direct sunlight will skew results.
• Electronic devices: Most electronic devices expel heat. Avoid testing near such devices, if this is unavoidable, make sure that the device is in the same state for all testing; preferably off.
• Other environmental considerations: Consider air movement; as limiting air movement will eliminate many variables.

1. If central air is being used, the testing should be done near the thermostatic control unit as this will limit many of the temperature variances that occur in a structure between on/off cycles.
2. Fans: Box, osculating, ceiling or any other type of fan should be turned off.
3. The testing should not be near an air duct.

Eliminating the biggest contributor to inaccurate results (the computer):

The computer needs to be eliminated from the equation if a heat sink is to be tested accurately.

• Background operations that are controlled through the services settings panel in the administrative control panel need to be completely eliminated, as these may cause random CPU cycles.
• Legacy buses (dumb buses) need to be disabled as they are polled by the CPU.
• Motherboard monitoring hardware and software are not always dependable and accurate.
• CPUs and Chipsets have been known to have temperature monitoring issues.

Building an external test unit is the only way to eliminate the factors that are beyond the tester’s control.

Components and tools used for testing. Only the fan headers are used on the motherboard. Molex to fan header adapters are available.

A water tight pan and standard PSU are used for testing as well.

Transfer blocks need to be lapped and mounted with thermal transfer adhesive.

A hole needs to be drilled for thermocouple insertion. The hole above is 7/8" deep with a 5/8" counter bore to allow the thermocouple ball to fit tightly.

Using non-conductive thermal paste allows the gaps to be filled and better results to be obtained.

A thermocouple can be used if you wish to test specific points on the HSF for variance, which can indicate a poor performing or bad/damaged HSF.

Variance testing

Variance testing

Probing areas

The probes need to be cleaned and thermal paste used for every test.

Insertion of thermocouples should be done before adding water.

Using water as a heat transfer medium allows for more control of environmental factors that are otherwise left unchecked.

1. Humidity is controlled and maximized
2. Temperatures are controlled (as long as air movement is eliminated)
3. Air density is affected but will not be a factor that can be readily measured.

A control thermocouple (black) is used to monitor the base temperature.

1-2mm of water needs to be above the plate.

Using water will allow for repeatability in testing. This allows the temperatures to be easily stabilized and the maximum temperature will usually be in a predictable range; thus allowing for data sets to be formulated. After a point, head to head tests will no longer be necessary.

Keeping the meters on during the heating process can help identify trends in HSF units and also identify potential problems.

If only one unit is to be the focus, then a probe can be affixed to the HSF itself.

Testing temperature scaling and humidity is a necessity as they will work together to give a more controlled testing environment.

Testing room and zone temperatures is helpful if a database is to be made for comparison.

Bring up the temperature and humidity

The air temperatures in the test zone should stabilize and be maintainable and repeatable.

Using a humidity of 90-100% in the testing zone will help better control temperature for dependable and repeatable results.

Though the temperatures should remain uniform, there is no guarantee. ALWAYS CHECK TEMPERATURES AT MORE THAN ONE POINT!

Water temperature variance test point #1.

Water temperature variance test point 2

Video of fan on a cool down run.

Testing:

• Although a passive test, the process of heating up the HSF shows the ability to absorb and dissipate heat with no fan assistance.
• Variance testing will show the HSF’s ability to evenly spread it’s heat (this is best done with the fan off), which is critical for the HSF to respond to rapid changes in heat output. If there is a large variance between the closest point to the CPU and the furthest point away from it, then the HSF generally will not deal well with rapid heat output changes or the high heat output from overclocking.
• Testing of heat pipe efficiency is similar to standard variance testing. Testing the heat pipe at the points closest to and the furthest from the CPU will show the efficiency of the heat pipes.
• Building on the heat pipe test, a heat pipe to fin variance test shows the efficiency of the bond between the two materials/components of the HSF. This test shows design weaknesses and may show manufacturing flaws that show up from time to time in production runs. The causes for this are dependent on many factors, and if a HSF is found to be poorly made, the manufacturer should be contacted so that it can be corrected. It is never the intent of a major manufacturer to sell a bad product. If it is found to be a poor design then the tester or reviewer has little choice, a spade is a spade and a bad product should be shown for what it is.
• The fan on test shows which HSF is more capable of dispersing heat into the surrounding environment.

There are many other types of tests that can be done with an out of the box setup. The testing above is just a start.

Data collection: Keeping track of information allows the tester to build a database of results. By studying the variances, from run to run, choose a control heat sink to work with as a standard for comparison; a benchmark of sorts. The best way to record and store the information is with a meter that will log the information and allow output in a standard form that can be used in something like Excel or Open Office.

Obtaining a testing pan and plate: Most of these items are easy to acquire, save the box or pan. Local fabrication shops usually have plenty of scrap around and will usually sell it at a discount rate. If you are a product tester, the shop may cut you a break for a little free advertising in your review/blog, or you can part with the ~ $70 – $200 and just have it made.

That is all for now. Feel free to comment or ask questions and I will be happy to help in any way that I can.

So what is really needed for minor work such as converting your video collection to digital format?

A computer meeting the minimum standards of your capture device, the capture device, DVD+/-RW and an external HDD (if you want to carry your movies with you).

The components used for this article were the ASUS N270 NetBook, ADS DVD-ExpressDX2, a Lite-On external DVD-RW and a WD 500GB External HDD. This setup is affordable, extremely portable and flexible.

Working with home videos may necessitate a higher end device and better than bundled software, this example is great for the basics only.

Capturing movies will take some time. The included software may not have a timer option and therefore it may be necessary to be present to stop the video and recording manually.

Below are pictures of the setup and the  process of simple video capture and DVD creation with the included Cap Wiz utility.

First, all hardware needs to be brought together and hooked up.

Decide what unit will be used for working with the capture and begin hooking everything up to it.

Hook up the capture device.

Probably most important, hook up the output device. Here a PSP UMD disk is being converted to DVD format. This is also great for putting downloaded digital content on to DVD.

This NetBook has no DVD drive, necessitating the use for an external unit. An external HDD is also a great addition for moving media to your HTPC or other media device.

Next, go with the flow. The process is fairly simple and all of the tasks are pretty straight forward as far as getting content on the disk.

The initial screen allows setting of the regional video standard.

Next indicate what type of input will be used.

Choosing the destination for the capture is next. You will need to name the file and, if not burning direct to disk, you will need to choose a location for the file.

Probably one of the better features of these types of devices is the ability to save to various formats.

After the initial setup, power up the device that will be outputting original content. You do not begin to play the content, though the directions for the unit say otherwise.

This is the capture screen for the software. From this screen, access to captured videos is available and burning them to disc is also an option. Here the preview is used to access the device output and then one can start to play and record content.

One of the tools of this software is a brightness control that can be very helpful with older videos.

With the direct to disk pop-up, first choose the format and then the location for the file to be burned.

On the final Direct to Disk screen, the name of the movie and chapter length are set, as well as an option for recording time if the exact length of the video is known.

That is about it. Though hardware and the bundled software vary, most stick to basics in line with what is above. If you want to get your movies off of the VHS and more… then this is the only way to do it without breaking the bank. Just remember, if you are a novice you should read plenty of reviews and tailor your purchase to your needs. Many retailers have user reviews of the products that can be very helpful. Just remember, even when a product gets some bad reviews, that does not necessarily indicate that there is something wrong with the product. It is usually a user error…like the user not reading the manual. I always read the manuals as a last resort.

The features of the DX2 capture device are:

Effortlessly Save & Share Memories on DVD or CD
Transfer video from VHS tapes, digital or analog camcorders directly
to DVD or CD*
Real-Time hardware conversion produces the best DVD quality results
Make Movies for your Sony PSP, Apple iPod or Zen Vision!

Features
Capture audio and video via the USB port to your computer hard drive or “Direct to Disc” (C6666D or DVD disc)
Capture video directly to popular video formats; DVD (MPEG-2), SVCD, VCD (MPEG-1), MPEG-4.
Capture directly to Sony PSP video and Apple iPod video formats
Use the Included CapWiz application for easy video capture direct to your desired video compression format
Record to your computer hard drive or “Direct to Disc”
Exclusive Hardware Encoding chip inside DVD Xpress creates the highest quality video without putting extra strain on your PC

The DX2 is available here.

Some of the features of the bundled software (Ulead VideoStudio™ 9 SE DVD) are:
Features and Benefits
• Movie Wizard is ideal for users new to video editing. Select from 30+ theme styles to get started then let auto-editing make the first edits. Have complete movies with only three steps. Use the new auto pan & zoom to help create entertaining photo slideshows.
• VideoStudio Editor is complete with all the powerful tools needed to produce great-looking home movies while using an intuitive, step-by-step workflow. Spend time being creative rather than learning the program.

Full product description: http://www.ulead.com/events/ati/UVS9_FB_SE_DVD_062405.pdf

This is an older version and newer versions usually have more features. I wont complain as it was a bundle.

Do realize that this is a low end model and it is all that I needed. The prices and features are varied as is the bundled software. I would advise reading reviews and comparing features so that you get the device that best meets your needs.

Just as a little side note: Why do I use a NetBook? Portability! I have kids and when we travel, movies keep them happy. With a 160GB HDD, that is a lot of content to keep them happy. Sure you can buy one of those All-in-one 10 inch portable DVD players for $179, but compared to $249 for the netbook (that will allow you to watch streaming content in the hotel, check your e-mail, update your social networking site and the like, in addition to watching stored movies); I just see the DVD player as a waste of money.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/26/guide-converting-your-vhs-collection-to-digital-and-a-little-more/feed/ 0 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/12/guide-air-cooling-101-fans/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=guide-air-cooling-101-fans http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/12/guide-air-cooling-101-fans/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 02:40:04 +0000 mav2000 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=6497 Fans

Welcome to the next edition of our Air Cooling 101 series of guides. In case you missed part 1 on CPU cooling, you can find it here. We move on to a topic in which there are consistently a lot of discussions around the net.

When we buy fans, we look at three main criteria:

1. CFM – Cubic Feet per Minute, or in simpler words, the amount of air that the fan can push/pull in a minute.
2. Static Pressure – The force with which the fan generates this airflow.
3. dBA – This is the sound rating of a fan and it gives you an idea of how quiet or noisy a fan is.

Most manufacturers tend to publish data on their fan’s with respect to these three criteria, however, most of the figures quoted by manufacturers tend to be a bit optimistic and I would take them with a pinch of salt.

With these basics in place, let us now take a quick look at the type of fans that are currently available in the market:

1. Sleeve Bearings – The cheapest to produce; most of the budget fans are made with sleeve bearings. The fan motor basically has two cylinders with a lubricant in between. The inner cylinder is covered with the lubricant and the fan runs when the inner cylinder turns within the outer one. This type of bearing, while initially fairly quiet, does tend to get noisier as it gets older and can also fail completely over time.

2. Ball Bearings – These fans use a ball bearing inside a pair of metal rings to turn the the fan blades. Ball bearing fans are more resilient over time and tend to last longer than sleeve bearing fans of a similar profile. The downside is that it’s also slightly more noisy. The quality of the bearings and lubricant are the two most important factors for this type of fan.

3. Fluid Bearing – Fluid bearings are made with two cylinders separated by a thin layer of liquid or gas. Since these surfaces do not make contact with each other, they tend to have an almost unlimited life and require very little maintenance. They are also relatively quiet as compared to the above two types.

4. Magnetic bearing – A magnetic bearing uses magnetic levitation caused by similar poles to keep the two sleeves apart. Again, these types of fans are very quiet and in theory have an unlimited life, as there is no contact between the sleeves. These are the most expensive of the lot .

Before we get into specific fan models that we recommend, it is important to note the most commonly used fans in a computer chassis, from an enthusiast point of view:

1. 120 x 25mm – This is the most common size that we see in a computer, either as case fans or for use as heat sink fans.

2. 120 x 38mm – This size is mainly used for heat sinks. The extra width of the fan’s case or shell helps to create more air pressure and therefore provide better cooling.

3. 140 x 25mm – These are used mainly as case fans as most heat sinks are not large enough to accept them. There are 140mm fans that have the 120mm type mounting points and are compatible with a large number of heat sinks and cases. The advantage of 140mm fans is that they need far fewer revolutions per minute to push the same amount of air as a 120mm fan of similar CFM rating can. This essentially leads to lower noise levels.

With the basics covered, we can start by looking at some of the fans that we suggest you use with a heat sink.

Heat Sink Fans

38mm

1. Sanyo Denki 109R H1011 – These are probably some of the most sought after fans for heat sink use and are considered the best amongst it’s peers, simply because it’s high static pressure at almost 6.6mm H2O and it’s acceptable noise levels. It puts out close to 102 CFM and is relatively quiet for this kind of airflow at 39dBA. Most of the extreme air coolers around the net will vouch for it’s performance. Extremely difficult to find at a decent price.

Link to product: Sanyo Denki 109R H1011

2. Delta AFB1212HHE – Rated at 120 CFM and 44dBA, these fans can push air at an amazing 9mm H2O. These are lot more noisy for daily use and need to be controlled with a fan controller if you intend to keep your hearing intact. They are great value for the money.

Link to product: Delta AFB1212HHE

There are a lot of other fans in this section, specifically Scythe Ultra Kaze’s and Panaflo’s, but these are the two that we have tested and have found to be extremely good. Any one of these would be capable of providing approximately the same amount of cooling that a pair of 25mm fans in a push/pull arrangement would provide.

25 mm

Now lets take a look at the 25 mm list.

1. Scythe Gentle Typhoons D1225C12B4AP-15 – The very high speed version has probably the best noise to airflow/pressure ratios available on the market today. They are very quiet, and while they do not move a lot of air in CFM terms, they do move the air with a decent amount of pressure. They are also highly rated for use with radiators. The very high speed version pushes around 58 CFM at a quiet 28dBA and runs on a hydro bearing. I could really go on and on about these fans as they are my personal favorites at the moment.

Link to product: Scythe Gentle Typhoons D1225C12B4AP-15

2. Delta AFC1212SH – PWM – A high speed, loud fan, but in the 25mm variety. Does a great job on heat sinks and is a PWM fan to boot, so you can turn it down using either your bios options or other software. It pushes close to 113 CFM at 46.5 dBA. Great for those who don’t have fan controllers.

Link to product: Delta AFC1212SH

3. Cooler Master Excalibur – Great fans, but a bit expensive for what they are. They have probably the best accessories package in this list as well as removable blades for cleaning. They are a bit noisy at full speed, but work well with fan controllers. They do about 86 CFM at 2000 rpm and most of the noise is generated due to the open air design of the frame more than the motor. These fans come with barometric ball bearings, which are somewhere between the ball bearing models and the magnetic models.

Link to product: Cooler Master Excalibur

4. Yateloon High Speed D12SH-12 – Another superb fan, though it can also get a bit noisy. They come with closed ended corners, so a bit of modding may be required to attach them to a heat sink or radiator. They run silently when undervolted and they don’t have any clicking sounds when turned down. Pushing 88 CFM at around 40dBA, these run on sleeve bearings.

Link to product: Yateloon High Speed D12SH-12

This is a fairly comprehensive list of the fans that we have tested within the last 12 months and should work well with any air cooling heat sink setup or water cooling radiator.

Case Fans

The reason for having a separate sub section for case fans is that while all of the above would work well as case fans, high air pressure is not generally needed in open air. Low pressure, high CFM fans generally work fine and therefore, you should not need to spend as much on high pressure 38mm fans. This is a list of fans that we have tested in the past and have found to be excellent at increasing air flow in a case.

1. Cooler Master R4 – They come in three different colors, with wonderful translucent cables and push close to 90 CFM. What more could you ask for in a case fan with some bling? They tend to be a bit noisy on side panels, but otherwise they are quite decent in terms of noise levels, but don’t believe the official rating of 19dBA or the manufacturer stated CFM numbers. Great, cheap case fans which are readily available.

Link to product: Cooler Master R4

2. Yateloon Medium Speed D12SM-12 – Great fans and very cheap at that. They are a lot less noisy than their higher flowing brothers and do a wonderful job as case fans, as well as heat sink fans. Easily one of the cheapest options around. Remember that these are sleeve bearing fans, so some amount of motor whine is to be expected.

Link to product: Yateloon Medium Speed D12SM-12

3. Xigmatek XLF-F1253 – Very quiet, these fans push a decent amount of air and have all the bling that you could want. They come in a couple of different colors, so you can match them to whatever theme you are using in your case. Great case fans, but not so good when strapped on to a heat sink.

Link to product: Xigmatek XLF-F1253

4. Enermax Apollish – Again, great fans with a whole lot of bling. They come in three different colors and most modders should love the style quotient. The only thing I don’t like about these fans are the thermal controls. They push about 71 CFM at full tilt and are a bit noisy when running at max.

Link to product: Enermax Apollish

Again, there are a number of other fans that you could look at, but these in my opinion should be amongst the best around, both in terms of performance and style.

That brings us to the end of another section of the Air Cooling 101 series. We will be back next time to take a look at Thermal Interface Materials.

As always we recommended Performance-PCs for all of your case and cooling needs as they offer some of the best service and product selection that we have seen.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/12/guide-air-cooling-101-fans/feed/ 0 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/07/guide-air-cooling-101-cpu-cooling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=guide-air-cooling-101-cpu-cooling http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/07/guide-air-cooling-101-cpu-cooling/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 18:00:47 +0000 mav2000 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=5174 Hello and welcome to the first article in my series on Air Cooling.

Over the last year or so, I have reviewed a number of air coolers and also a number of different fans and cooling setups. I thought that sharing my experiences would be useful to a lot of people and this is the reasoning behind the writing of this series. This series will cover a number of topics and to start with we will take a look at CPU cooling, which is by far the most important part of our computers.

So, why do we need to cool our CPU’s?

Well let’s look at it this way. A single core of a CPU is made up of millions of transistors, which operate continuously to complete any command. The moment we open a word file, for example, we are running a command which involves thousands of operations on each of these transistors, every second. The operation of these transistors within the core is what causes the CPU heat up. The greater the number of cores, the greater the power that is required to run it and the greater the heat produced.

If unchecked this heat can cause damage to our expensive CPU’s and that’s the main reason to keep it cool. That is where increased air cooling comes into play. Heat always moves from a warmer mass to a cooler mass, and in this case it is air which helps to move this heat away from the CPU.

All processor manufacturers provide some type of a heat sink solution for use with their processors.

What we see above is a heat sink which is slightly better than a stock all-aluminum heat sink. Let’s look at how each part of this heat sink works to keep a CPU cool.

At the bottom of the heat sink, we have a copper base which is in direct contact with the CPU. Through this base run a number of copper “pipes” known as heat pipes. The heat pipes are basically tubes of copper which are filled with a pressurized fluid and a wick. The heat pipes then run through a series of aluminum fins, and right on top of all of this is a single fan. Now let’s see how this works.

The copper base of the heat sink is in direct contact with the surface of the CPU. The heat from the CPU is conducted to the copper base, which then causes the fluid in the copper tubes to heat up and vaporize. This vapor travels to the top of the heat pipes, where with the help of the fan and the fins, cools down and turns back to it’s original liquid form and travels back to the base of the heat sink.

* Image from wikipedia

The aluminum fins help to increase the total area of the heat sink, which in turn helps to dissipate the heat faster.

Now that we have the basics in place, the next question is, why do we need an after market cooler? Well, there are two main reasons to get an after market heat sink:

1. To reduce the amount of noise – The basic heat sink shipped with all CPU’s tend to be extremely noisy, especially when the CPU is running at a high load. Remember that most of these heat sinks come with puny 60mm-80mm fans, and these need to run a lot faster to produce the same airflow that a larger 120 mm fan can produce.
2. To look at safely increasing the speed of the processor through overclocking – The stock heat sink should be capable of running the CPU at decent temperatures as long as the CPU is running at it’s rated speed. The moment we increase this speed, even by 10-15%, the amount of heat generated by the CPU increases and the stock heat sink may not be able to keep the CPU within it’s predefined temperature threshold.

So, taking all of this into consideration, let’s look at some suggested aftermarket heat sinks:

High performance

1. Cogage Arrow- The Cogage Arrow is a dual tower solution with the capability to use up to three fans. It’s made by a sister company of Thermalright and the design is based off of the IFX-14. It uses four 8mm heat pipes, which are very capable of pulling heat away from the CPU. We have done a thorough review on this heat sink on the AMD Phenom II platform, and in our tests, it beats it’s nearest competition (the Noctua NH-D14) by a very small margin. It is currently the best cooler money can buy.

Link to the product: Cogage Arrow

2. Noctua NH-D14 – The current king of the hill, but not by much. It costs an arm and a leg, and your case better have a lot of space as this is one big cooler. Please check clearances around the motherboard before buying this. It is just slightly behind the Cogage in temperatures, but it does come as a complete setup (including fan) and you do not need to spend anything extra to get this cooler up and running.

Link to the product: Noctua NH-D14

3. Thermalright Venomous-X – The Venomous-X is by far the best single tower design to date. It even manages to beat the previous king of the hill, the Prolimatech Megahalems. The Venomous-X comes ready with two sets of fan clips and an excellent thermal paste. I just wish they would concentrate more on the finish as the base is not up to par with offerings from Noctua. The best solution for those who cannot fit either a Noctua or Cogage in their cabinets.

Link to the product: Thermalright Venomous-X

4. Prolimatech Megahalems – The Megahalems and the Megashadow are the last entrants in the high end list. The Megahalems was the first cooler to dethrone the TRUE and held on to the crown of the best air cooler for almost a year. It is still rated highly amongst the top five coolers.

Link to the product: Prolimatech Megahalems

After the top four we have a number of players, but the more noticeable are the Noctua NH-U12P, the Prolimatech Armageddon and the Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer. You can also look at the H50 from Corsair. It’s a nice piece of hardware, but I would rate it more as air cooling than liquid cooling. Remember, that it’s not going to beat the top four air coolers, but it does tend to keep the rest of your case rather clutter free and therefore keeps the motherboard a lot cooler.

Budget Coolers

1. Thermolab Baram -The Thermolab Baram is one of those coolers that never got the right amount of marketing behind it. It’s one of the best budget coolers around, and at its price, it’s really very hard to beat. It has a very good fit and finish, and a great mounting system.

Link to product: Thermolab Baram

2. OCZ Vendetta 2 – The V2 is by far one of the best coolers for dual and triple cores available on the market. The three direct touch 8mm heat pipes do a wonderful job and it’s a snap to install on an AMD board. For a dual or triple core look no further as this cooler can handle your overclocks pretty well. The stock fan is good, but the stock TIM should be avoided.

Link to product: OCZ Vendetta 2

3. Cooler Master Hyper 212+ – The “+” version of this cooler is wonderful for dual and triple cores. One of the few budget HDT coolers that have the ability to handle a push-pull setup, and the included fan and TIM provided is pretty good as well. The mounting system is a bit difficult to use, but it does it’s job and gives a very tight fit. I have seen a fair number of high Phenom II overclocks using this cool which should tell you not to judge this cooler by it’s price.

Link to the product: Hyper 212 Plus

4. Xigmatek S1283 – Like the TRUE, the Xigmatek S1283 is legendary. This cooler has spawned a lot of look-a-likes, including the OCZ Vendetta 2. Both are similar in terms of their specifications and even share the same fan. The OCZ V2 has a larger fin area and that’s where it wins.

Link to the product: XIGMATEK S1283

Another heat sink that is worthy of mention is the Scythe Mugen 2, and the only reason that I did not add this to the list above is that we have not had the opportunity to test it ourselves.

That brings us to the end of the first part of this write up, we hope it provided you with a solid guide for your air cooling solutions. Part two will concentrate on fans for case and CPU cooling.

As always we recommended Performance-PCs for all of your case and cooling needs as they offer some of the best service and product selection that we have seen.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/07/guide-air-cooling-101-cpu-cooling/feed/ 1 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/04/19/review-seven-way-am3-cooler-shootout-winner-takes-all/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-seven-way-am3-cooler-shootout-winner-takes-all http://www.techreaction.net/2010/04/19/review-seven-way-am3-cooler-shootout-winner-takes-all/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:25:20 +0000 mav2000 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=6099 Introduction

Hello and welcome back to the last installment of the AM3 round up for this half of the year. Over the last year, we have done a number of cooler reviews on the AM3 platform and this review will look to add to these results. But before we begin, we would like to thank Noctua and Thermalright for helping us to put this extensive shootout together.

Over the last two years, there have been a number of changes in the rankings of the top air coolers. The TRUE was at the top for a long time before the Megahalems came along. The Megahalems held on to the top spot for a while, but then it saw some intense competition from a number of new products, mainly the Thermalright Venomous X, the Noctua NH D14 and then later from the Cogage Arrow. The last year has seen a lot of competition for the top spot, with some innovative designs and ideas coming into play as well. Today, these three are widely regarded as the top dogs of air cooling and we are going to take a look at these, plus another four coolers to see who will take the top spot. Most of us have seen these coolers fight it out for the top spot on the various Intel platforms, but we rarely see an AM2+/AM3 shootout, even though the Phenom II line up has had considerable success in the market. This review should help all AMD users in making a better decision when looking for a new high end cooler.

Let’s take a look at the seven competitors for today’s shootout:

1. Thermalright TRUE RevC
2. Noctua NH D14
3. Cogage Arrow
4. Thermalright Venomous X
5. Thermolab Baram
6. Coolink Corator DS
7. Corsair H50

We have a nice looking list which comprises of three twin tower coolers, each working on a different idea, three single tower coolers and one closed loop water cooling setup.

Now lets take a short look at the three new entrants before moving on to the test bed. For the other four, please check previous reviews in this section.

Thermalright TRUE Rev C

The TRUE Rev C has been one of the all time greats in the air cooling world and it was important for us to add this to our list of coolers, simply to see whether it still had enough to run with the top dogs. The new Venomous X is a reincarnation of the Rev C, and both share a lot of features with each other. Let’s take a look at the specifications before going ahead:

Features

* Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme Ready
* Intel Core i7 Ready
* AM2 & AM3 Ready
* Quiet and powerful cooling due to multiple heat pipes and large aluminum fin area
* Proprietary bent winglet design to minimize airflow resistance
* Heat pipes soldered to base (nickel plated)and fins for optimum heat transfer
* Includes thermal paste Chill Factor

Technical Spec

* Dimension: L63.44 x W132 x H160.5 mm (heatsink only)
* Weight: 790g (heatsink only)
* Recommended Fan: All 120mm

Compatibility

* INTEL: LGA775/LGA1366/LGA1156 (Optional)
* AMD: Socket AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 Processor

The TRUE comes in a plain brown box with only the name written on it. All of Thermalright’s products used to be packaged in the same way till the Venomous X came along. Once we open the box, we are greeted by the cooler itself along with a box of accessories.

The cooler itself traveled all the way from Taiwan. Since it reached me without a single scratch or dent, I am pretty happy with the kind of safety that this package ensures to the product. Let’s now take a look at the list of accessories. As you may remember, the company decided to go all out with the kit on the TRUE Rev C and included every possible piece of equipment other than a fan.

The only thing that I can think of that would be good for this kit is an additional set of fan clips. Other than that, Thermalright have got the setup spot on and I wish they had carried this forward to the Venomous X and included the AM2+/AM3 bolt through kit with it as well.

The cooler itself is a massive piece of work and weighs in at a pretty impressive 790 grams, and that’s without a fan attached. It follows the design of the previous versions of the TRUE, so there’s not much to discuss on that front. The fins are evenly spaced out and as has been proven, it should do a good job with even low pressure fans. It has six 6mm heat pipes to help dissipate the heat and they seem to do a good job going by the results. The heat pipes are staggered, to allow for maximum airflow to reach each individual heat pipe.

The overall fit and finish is not as good as a Noctua product and as you can see from the base below, it’s a bit rough when compared to the finish on the newer coolers we see these days. The base has a slight curve to it and this is actually by design to improve performance.

I wish Thermalright would spend more time on the final finish as this is a common complaint that I have against all the coolers that the company makes. The base on the TRUE still has the scuff marks from machining and a nice shiny chrome finish would have looked much better here.

The cooler is a bit painful to install on an AM2+/AM3 platform as you do need to make sure that your motherboard is outside the case. Secondly, the cooler tends to move a bit even with screws all the way down and you do need to move it around a bit even during installation. The same installation is carried on to the Venomous X and the Cogage line up. Thermalright should look at a better mounting system that is more user-friendly.

Lets now move on to the Noctua NH D14.

The Noctua NH D14

Let’s take a look at this beautiful piece of engineering from Noctua.

The NH D14 has been hailed across various forums as the cooler to beat and it comes into this round up with some massive expectations. It has been topping the charts over the last few months and it certainly appears that this is one cooler you need to keep your eye on. First we’ll start with the specifications:

Noctua NH-D14 Heatsink Specifications:

* Socket compatibility: AM2, AM3, 775, 1156 and 1366
* Height (with fan): 160mm
* Width (with fan): 140 mm
* Depth (with fan): 158mm
* Weight (with fan): 1070/1240g
* Material: Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating
* 1x NF-P14 premium fan
* 1x NF-P12 premium fan
* 2x Ultra-Low-Noise Adaptor (U.L.N.A.) Y-Split Cables
* NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound
* SecuFirm2 Mounting Kits
* Fan compatibility: 140×140x25 & 120×120x25mm

Fan Specifications – Noctua NF-P14 & Noctua NF-P12:

* Dimensions: 120 x 120 x 25mm
* Bearing: SSO-Bearing
* Blade Geometry: Straight-Blade-Design
* Rotational Speed: 1200 / 1300 RPM
* Rotational Speed w/ ULNA: 900 / 900 RPM
* Airflow: 64.7 / 54.3 CFM
* Airflow w/ ULNA: 41.7 / 37.3 CFM
* Acoustical Noise: 19.6 / 19.8 dBA
* Acoustical Noise w/ ULNA: 13.2 / 12.6 dBA
* Input Power: 1.2 / 1.08 W

This is a great example of a complete setup, with the fans as well as every single mounting accessory thrown in. At this price, this package is hard to beat. The cooler is also way easier to install as compared to the Thermalright line up. Let’s now take a look at the packaging.

The cooler comes in an attractive box with a picture of the cooler as well as a few lines on the most important features. Once we open the box, we are greeted by the accessories box, under which lies the cooler, safely packaged in two sets of cardboard boxes.

The accessories for the NH D14, as mentioned earlier, leave nothing out. You get a whole kit, including a set of two fans.

Noctua also added a screwdriver to make it easier to install the cooler. Once we take the cooler out of the box, the first thing that hits you is it’s size and weight. All put together, with the fans, this cooler weighs in at close to 1.24 kilos and that’s no joke.

The cooler comes installed with both fans, and only the middle 140 mm needs to be removed for installation of the cooler. Now we’ll take the fans off and take a closer look at the cooler itself.

This cooler is simply massive. The primary components here are the six 6mm heat pipes, which are evenly coated in chrome. The heat pipes run in such a way as to make sure that each and every one of them gets direct airflow from the fans. This helps to cool down the heat pipes much faster. Again, the fins have sufficient space between them to provide good cooling even with medium pressure fans. The whole idea of this cooler is to give great results with relatively low noise.

Looking at the NH-D14 from the side, we can see that the cooler only has place for a 25mm fan here and that is a bit of a disappointment. What is not, is the absolutely wonderful finish of the cooler itself.

As you can see, the cooler comes completely prepared for mounting with even the fan dampeners in place.

The base is finished in chrome and comes with a slight curvature. Again, this is a due to the design and Noctua does not advise any lapping to the base.

Overall, it’s got quite a few positives going into the test, including the wonderful finish of every single part and the fact that its a complete package. The only thing missing is an extra set of fan clips and you can mount only a maximum of two fans with the included kit. Also, taking the clips off of the fans is a bit of a task in itself, so be prepared to spend some time if you want to change the fans out. The clips will also hold only open corner fans, so I had to use rubber bands to keep the GT’s running on them.

Keep in mind that the installation may be very simple, but it will block any ram with large heat sinks. Luckily I am using an OCZ platinum kit and that helped in making things easier. You will want to install the ram before the cooler as otherwise there is barely any space to work with. Overall, it is a much easier install than the Thermalright coolers.

Lets now move on to our third new comer.

The Cogage Arrow

The Cogage Arrow came in as a wild card entry and was not supposed to be a part of this shoot out to begin with. But with the rave reviews that it has been getting across the globe, we were more than happy to put it on the test bench. The Cogage is a twin tower cooler with the added advantage of being able to accommodate a 32mm fan in the center. We did do some testing with a 32mm fan on all the coolers, but since this one was able to get it in the right spot, the results really showed. Here are the specifications before going ahead:

Features:

* 4 X 8mm large sintered heat-pipes efficiently remove excessive heat away from the CPU, allowing for great Overclocking potential
* Nickel Plated Base and Heatpipes, increase the longevity of the heatsink by slowing oxidation and deterioration rates… maintained performance over time
* Double fin stack design, provides each tower with an impressive 147 x 103mm of surface area for heat dissipation
* Special Arrow fin design, which allows cool air to pass through while rapidly moving heat away and maintaining a quiet operating volume
* Soldered Heat-pipes, Fins and Copper Base, ensure all components maintain the higest of Thermal Efficiency
* Support for Multiple-Platforms: Intel Socket 1366/1156/775 and AMD Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3
* Includes a Quiet 120 x 25mm PWM controlled fan 1000-1800 rpm
* Capable of supporting up to three fans (2x 120×25mm or 140×25mm fans) for the Ultimate Enthusiast (1x 120×38mm fan will fit between the two towers)

Specifications:

* Cooler Dimensions: Length 147mm x Width 123mm x Height 160mm
* Cooler weight: 825 g (excluding Retention Hardware and Fan)
* Heat-pipe: 4, 8mm Sintered Heat-pipes
* Cooler Base Material: C1100 Pure Copper with Nickel Plating

The cooler comes with a full setup, but unfortunately it does not include an AM3 mounting kit. It however does include three pairs of fan mounting clips and that’s a big plus point right there.

The Cogage Arrow comes in a nice black box with the picture of the cooler dominating the front.

The box clearly says that this cooler is made for a variety of Intel socket types, but you can use the same AM2+/AM3 bolt through kit to get this running on an AMD setup as well. Once we open the box, we are greeted by a cardboard placeholder which holds both the cooler as well as all the accessories that go with it. Lets take a quick look at the accessories before going ahead.

The accessories list is quite extensive as you can see and it comes with everything other than the AM3 mounting kit. The fan is pretty decent, but we will not be using it for the testing up ahead. Overall, the kit is in line with what we get from Thermalright, which makes sense.

The fan is held securely between the two towers and overall the packaging, though not as flashy or well done as the Noctua, did a good job in keeping the products secure.

The cooler itself is a twin tower design, with the capacity to hold a 38mm fan in the middle slot. So, an overly extreme setup can be done with 3 X 38mm fans. This is achieved in almost the same dimensions as the Noctua by keeping the towers a little smaller in depth.

This cooler is different from the previous two in that it makes use of four large 8mm heat pipes rather than six 6mm. The fins are also more closely spaced and a high pressure fan will be required to bring out the best in them. The fit and finish, while not up to Noctua’s mark is pretty decent. The heat pipes are placed in such a way as to make sure that all of them get the best possible air flow and this helps in the final analysis.

The base is very similar to the Venomous X, and again, has a small curvature in the center by design. The sample we got had a small line on one side, but that did not affect it’s performance in any way.

Overall it is a much better made cooler than the TRUE, but there is room for improvement in the finish and the package as a whole.

The cooler is as difficult to install as the TRUE or the Venomous X, as it uses the exact same mounting system. Due to the size, it is recommended to take the motherboard out of the case, as a run away screwdriver can cause a whole lot of issues to your board. The fan clip system needs to be installed before you install the cooler as it is very difficult to install this with no way of looking at the bottom of the cooler.

Lets now move on to the test setup.

Test Setup And Methodology

The test setup will be the same as with the previous reviews and we will look at three mounts per cooler. The best of the three results will then be taken as the final result. Each cooler will be tested at stock clocks and an overclock of 4Ghz at 1.525V. The test will be run on OCCT for 30 minutes per test.

The results will be calculated with a base ambient and additions and subtractions will be made to the results taking this number. So if the base ambient is 25 degrees, then a cooler tested at 27 degrees will have 2 degrees deducted from its final readings. All testing will be done in a closed case environment.

Now moving on to the test bench, which will remain the same for all the coolers that we have tested so far and for a few more in the near future.

Test Setup

CPU: AMD 965 BE @ 3.4Ghz (1.30V) and 4Ghz (1.525V), CPU NB @ 2.6Ghz (1.20V)
Memory: OCZ 1600Mhz Platinum @ 1333Mhz 1.65V
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Motherboard: MSI GD70 790FX
PSU: OCZ Modextreme 700W Modular
Case: Coolermaster Sniper with 3X120, 1X200 Intakes and 3X120 Exhausts
GPU: Sapphire 5850 @ Stock
Fans: 2 X Scythe Gentle Typhoons 1850 in Push/Pull

Test Results

Moving on to the main part of the review. Let us first take a look at the results at 3.4 Ghz, 1.30V.

Kicking off at stock clocks with a slight under volt, the Coolink Corator DS gets the lowest idle temperatures at 29.5 degrees. This is closely followed by the Noctua and the Cogage Arrow. Our contender from a previous generation, the TRUE comes in at last place in the idle test.

Moving on to the load results, the lowest temperature was recorded using the Cogage Arrow, with the Venomous X coming in at a close second. The Noctua rounds up the top three, and the Thermalright Rev C manages to beat the Thermolab Baram in the load test, but only by a whisker to take 6th place.

If we look closely at these figures, we will see that the difference between the best and the worst cooler on load at stock settings is a very meager three and a half degrees. So for anyone planning a mild overclock, any of these will do just as well as the other and be a lot more quiet than the stock AMD heat sink.

Now let’s turn the heat up and separate the men from the boys.

I am sure this is the part of the review that most people want to see, so here we go.

The NH-D14 leads the pack in terms of idle temperatures at just 34.5 degrees, with the Venomous X and the Coolink following closely behind. The total difference between the best and the worst temperature is around 3.5 degrees, which again is not that high.

When we move on to the load tests, surprise surprise, it’s the Cogage Arrow which leads the pack with a load temperature of just 56.5 degrees. It is closely followed by the Noctua in second place with a temperature of 57.3 degrees with the Venomous X rounding off the top three at 58 degrees. The difference between the top and bottom spots now opens up to around 5 degrees. The Corsair H50 comes in at last place with a maximum recorded temperature of 63 degrees.

Conclusion

The Cogage Arrow was the surprise package, beating it’s more well known sibling the Venomous X, as well as the Noctua NH-D14. Keep in mind that the temperature difference amongst the top three is around 1.5 degrees, but all the same, the Cogage Arrow is the new top dog for the AMD platform.

The Noctua comes in second to the Cogage and the Thermalright Venomous X comes in at a not too shabby third. The Venomous X manages to beat the third twin tower cooler, the Corator DS, as well as the other three coolers that we tested. For a single tower cooler, this is not bad at all and for those looking for that extra bit of space on their motherboards, this would be the top cooler for now.

The Cogage Arrow receives the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!

But if I were to buy a new cooler today, space not being a constraint, I would happily go for the Noctua NH-D14, simply because of it’s overall package, ease of installation and the fact that it comes with a good set of fans. The Noctua is still a bit ahead of Thermalright in terms of their build quality and ease of use and that’s one reason that they will see me coming back to them in the future. For now, I’m back to my Venomous X, which gives me top rate performance at probably half the size.

The Noctua NH-D14 receives the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!

The TRUE is clearly showing its age and finishes near the bottom in both the tests. But it does manage to edge out the H50 in the final test and that’s the number that we are more interested in.

All of the coolers we tested were able to keep the CPU within it’s thermal limits, but when it comes to the final few Mhz that we need for a benchmark attempt, it’s the top three that will go the distance.

Finally, coming to the price, the Noctua rightfully charges close to $85-$90 depending on where you shop, with the Venomous X and the Cogage Arrow both at the $65-$70 price mark. Remember to keep an extra $10 for the AMD mounting kit though. Taking this into consideration, all three coolers from the top three cost nearly the same. The Baram is the cheapest cooler we used in this review and it comes in at around $40, which makes it a great value proposition.

Thank you for reading and I hope this review helps you in making the right cooling choice.

You can also check out Performance-PC’s to purchase either the NH-D14 or the Cogage Arrow.

————————————————————–

• Horizontal size (hypotenuse) of screen
• Aspect ratio

————————————————————–

For my example, I’m going to use a 19″ 16:9 aspect ratio screen. We are going to be using the formulae

———————————————————-

• sin(tan-1 height/width aspect ratio)*diagonal for height, and
• cos(tan-1 height/width aspect ration)*diagonal for width

• Fistly, 9/16 to get a decimal aspect ratio: 0.5625
• Using tan-1, we can work out the diagonal angle of the screen. tan-1 0.5625 = 29.358 , meaning the angle is 29.358° from horizontal.
• Use the following formula: sin (tan-1 result) * (diagonal size, hypotenuse) : sin 29.358 * 19: sin 29.358 = (0.49067565355234651434427338183771) * 19 = 9.3228374174945837725411942549166 = 9.32″ high
• Use the following formula: cos (tan-1 result) * (diagonal size, hypotenuse) : cos 29.358 * 19: cos 29.358 = 0.87157342826278517733892936862199 * 19 = 16.559895136992918369439658003818 = 16.56″ wide

———————————————————-

So we can see that the HxW of a 19″ 16:9 widescreen monitor is 9.32″ x 16.56″

How often do you see people referring to 2 x 19″ monitors side by side as an effective 38″? This is incorrect, to get 38″ diagonal you have to QUADRUPLE the area – i.e. double the 9.32″ height to 18.64″ as well as the width from 16.56″ to 33.12″. To calculate the actual diagonal of two monitors (using the specifications from the above example), we use the following formula, otherwise known as Pythagoras’ Theorem:

———————————————————-

• a² + b² = c² , where c is the hypotenuse

———————————————————-

For two 19″ monitors side by side, we retain a height of 9.32″ and double our width to 33.12″
To work out our new hypotenuse, or diagonal size, we can do the following:

———————————————————-

• ((9.32²)+(33.12²))sqrt, or
• ((9.32² = 86.8624) + (33.12² = 1096.9344) = 1183.7968) sqrt = 34.406348251449179331286630792993 = 34.41″ = 34.5″

———————————————————-

I hope that clears things up for anyone interested. If you have any questions or other areas (pun intended) you’d like covered, feel free to leave a comment.

The High End | Virtual Reality | The Human Body Becomes the Interface 

The buzz for 3D television is a mental smokescreen, the future is revealed when it is combined with a 3D interface and a powerful visual computing engine.  Natal for the PC is the other half of the tipping point for the virtual experience. The XBOX 360 is too stoggy a platform for virtual reality and social simulation. The PC will be the innovation hotbed, and the innovation in virtual experiences is going to be mindbending. Today’s consols will start to show their age as Natal and superior PC 3D capabilities raise the bar and force consols to start to make compromises. You know of what i speak. 720P instead of 1080p. Lower frame rates. You will wish it were easier to overclock your console. Fortunately for the PC – not a problem.

Just as Boxee, an innovative seed for video consumption, finds adoption on the PC, so will virtual experience applications fueled by the full body interface of Natal and it will catapult the massively multiplayer virtual experience. Natal is the wrong interface for shooters but the right one for second, third, and fourth lives. Don’t worry, no one else believs that the PC running Natal is going to change the world. Or that Natal is going to change the PC. Yet I believe that the demands of full virtual environments, 3D display, and an intelligent full motion interface will define a new role for the high end PC – in the living room.

The X86 TV Becomes a Platform For All | Implications Beyond Crushing Cable

Mass integration of web video access in televisions is cute but doesn’t change the game. However, the rules change when every TV has integrated video access, video playback, and god-knows-what applications on it running on an industry standard platform (x86+Google/MS) that allows the media engine and applications to be updated. Today’s STB’s are bricks that fail to deliver new format support and evolved capability. From the cable guys, Uverse is one of the few to break the mold but the platform innovation beyond video delivery remains minimal. The iPhone is the analogue transforming the cell phone into our intelligent travelling companion. The same phenominon is happening in living rooms everywhere as people transform their screen into dynamic entertainment platforms, either by piecing together a home theater PC experience or though one of the more capable, platform-esque, but still limited set top boxes – Popcorn Hour comes to mind.

The deciding factor is not the will of content owners to direct content through profitable pipes (cable) rather the unruly web and unruly end-customers who are tired of paying for “access.” Access services like cable create waste, as it forces consumers to pay for availability rather than content. When the market moves, in mass, to paying only for the content it wants (analogous to paying for singles rather than albums, or paying a low flat rate for access to ALL content) there will be the great video content apocalypse. Money will move out of cable and out of content development. That’s fine, there’s too much content, too much competition to build and market content as Mark said in the keynote. The solution is not cable. The solution the market will choose is direct, on demand internet access to video. The consequences are less (rapid growth in) high-budget content, a shift toward monetization of bandwidth, a new social contract with content makers (the music tax), and other preposterous changes forced, not asked for, by the slippery slope of web-direct content. The transformation will be complete by 2015. I also suggest checking out the Mark Cuban (Broadcast.com founder) and Avner Ronen (Boxee founder) slugfest, debating the future of television, watch the video or read about it here.

And I do not need to talk about 3D television. It comes. What will make it compelling is interactivity. That interactivity, high definition display, real-time 3D simulation, and oustanding 3D graphics are the design goal and target of only one industry, the PC industry, and it will bind the PC and the TV together at last. Not every solution will have high-end compute, but the bar is going to be substantially above where it is for today’s entry-level dedicated PC’s.

The Social Web Enters The Living Room | Two Way Video At Last

Why is video telephony a service not provided by cable companies? As soon as the TV and an open software platform come to the TV the shackles of innovation will be broken and the hold of access providers who wish to monetize all uses will be undone. The social, video web will replace it. A webcam on your PC is cute. A webcam on your TV pushes the obscurity of video based social media into every home. It may help to stratify the television space, creating premium tiers as virtual presence and the visual social web will require additional compute and consumer expertise, enabling a market for premium compute in mainstream televisions.

The Unruly Rue the Day

Together we have the new uses of the living room television driving the innovations “that in 10 years I can argue is old news just like we argue about internet video today.” Virtual reality will come to the living room and rekindle X86 as it will demand compute we do not yet have. Overclockers will once again rejoice as benchmarks that reflect real uses yet pose impossible challenges come to be. The Television will become an application platform, just as important as the smart phone but with much more bandwidth and a new kinship with every other connected device. These will help the social web extend to all screens enabled by applications and video, creating new rules for the social web and the way content is produced and distributed through increasingly social networks. The fact that Facebook is now a top destination has implications not just for the social web, but for how content is marketed, distributed, and ultimately consumed. The platformization of the television and the new applications for the living room will create demand and a viable ecosystem for high computational capability and diverse applications. And if you doubt that anyone wants their television to turn into a broad scope computing device, look down at your cell phone.

If you wish to follow this story as it unfolds, you can read more about the evolution of PC technology at AMD, follow on Twitter or join me at www.omnixedia.com

Note: This blog has been revised for a lot of good reasons.

Simon Solotko works for AMD but his views and unconvential view of the future are truly his own.

NOTE: This is just Anti-Virus software. If you are looking for Anti-Spyware and Anti-Malware, two free solutions I recommend are SUPERAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes. Check them out!

Today I will be looking at ways to help protect your computer without spending money for all different types of software. Currently, there are many free alternative software choices that do almost as good (in some cases as good) as ones that are subscription based. I’d like to provide a run down of anti-virus choices that are known to be worthy.

Before I do so, I’d just like to mention that I will have some information about paid solutions as well. Though I will not include these products in my blog as a whole, it is definitely worth looking at some of the paid programs if you don’t mind spending the money.

To start off, here is a chart provided by AV-Comparatives that gives you a run down on the pros and cons of the leading Anti-Virus software.

Currently, AV-Comparatives has Symantec, Kaspersky, and ESET NOD32 ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively. I suggest checking these out if you are not just looking at free solutions.

avast!

avast! has just recently updated to v5. This new update has provided many new upgrades from their previous version. Here are some of the major improvements:

• Better detection rates
• Lower number of false alarms
• Faster scanning speeds
• New GUI interface for easier use

avast! has high malware detection rates, fast scanning speeds, and best of all, avast! is free for Home use.

For more information, please visit www.avast.com

AVG

AVG has just recently been updated to v9.0. This update has brought some improved features, but unfortunately has not kept up with comparable solutions. AV-Comparatives says, “AVG did not score as well as we expected this year, although it was still good.” Like avast!, AVG is free for Home use. AVG is very easy to manage. Some of AVG’s main features:

• Easy to use and navigate
• LinkScanner – prevents you from visiting risky websites
• Many more features through an upgrade

For more information, please visit free.avg.com

AVIRA

Avira earned AV-Comaparatives’ Product of the Year award in 2008. Avira’s main features:

• High detection rates
• WebShield
• Low system performance impact
• New version due sometime in 2010

Unfortunately, Avira does have a high rate of false-positives (found something that is actually safe), but with the award it has received, do not leave Avira out of the question!

For more information, please visit www.free-av.com

Microsoft Security Essentials

MSE is the newest solution from Microsoft. In the past, Microsoft has released Defender and OneCare. Both of these have been replaced by a free alternative known as Microsoft Security Essentials. Unlike Defender, MSE does both Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware. Some of MSE’s features include:

• Extremely easy to use
• Easy install
• Uploads programs you download to improve definitions

MSE is a large improvement over it’s predecessors and is a worthwhile choice.

For more information, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Summary

These are the four leading anti-virus solutions that you can obtain for free. They provide the basic needs to keep your computer secure. Purchasing a paid solution will provide even more security if you feel that you need it. The best way to fight off infection is to keep yourself knowledgeable and understanding. The most beneficial security is yourself. I hope this will help you when trying to answer the question, “Which Anti-Virus software is the best?”

For more Anti-Virus software choices, please visit the Five Best Anti-Virus Applications.

I highly recommend that you read the AV-Comparatives website for further information on anti-virus software testing.

-cralor

Images: av-comparatives.org, tricks-collections.com, softpedia.com

What are we doing?
There are 2 different mods we can do, both of them will increase the voltage going to fan resulting in a higher fan speed. Fans are meant to run at 12v. We are going to run these fans at 17v and 24v. 

Are their any risks?
Of course there are risks, its called overclocking for a reason. It will not be that risky though because we are not dealing with enough electricity that will cause harm to the body. Always proceed with caution though. The main risk here is the risk of killing a fan. 120mm fans will have a harder time running at 24v than an 80mm fan because they have more air resistance. I recommend not running 24v with your 120mm fan,i would limit yourself to 17v. With an 80mm fan, i would say go ahead and go all the way up to 24v.

There is also a small risk of frying a PSU, just make sure all the wires that you have are NOT exposed and are wrapped in electrical tape. If the wires touch the side of the case you may burn out your PSU.  This is not probable because modern PSU’s have things in them to stop from being shorted out, however i would still take the precaution.

Even if the fans last the initial boot up, do NOT expect them to last long running at 24v. I would give them a couple months on a system that people turn on and off. I do not recommend running any of these fans 24/7.

What all do i need for the mod?
You do not need much for this mod. If you have a computer you have every thing you need. If at all possible though, i would practice on an old PC, then move onto your main rig. You don’t want to screw up and fry your main PSU.

You need a…
80 or 120mm fan
and a PSU with a 20 or 24 pin motherboard connector.

How do I do it?

The mod is fairly simple and shouldn’t take more than 1/2 hr.

I will try to make this as simple as possible and write it in steps so that the general user will be able to complete this mod. [:lectrocrew:6]

1. Gather a PSU and an old or new fan.

2. Cut the 3 pin molex off of the fan, so that you are only left with 3 loan wires. A red one, a black one, and a yellow one.

Here is what it should look like at this point:

3. Chose what mod you want to do. A 17v mod or a 24v mod. A 17v mod will give it less power but it will also last longer. A 24v mod will not last long at all.

4. What we are going to do is mod the 24 pin connector so that we can run more voltage into the fan. Find the wires on your 24 (or 20 pin) connector that you need to splice into. Here is a picture of the ones that you need to splice. There is one pin that has 2 wires going into it, one brown and one orange … Using my diagram count how many pins over you will need to do the mod on.

17v mod:

This example is a 24 pin connector, if you have a 20 pin connector, then ignore the last 4pins. The mod is still the same though.

24v mod:

Yes, you will never need to do anything with the yellow fan wire.

5. Scrape off some of the insulation on the wires that you need to splice into until you see a decent amount of bare metal.

6. Wrap the exposed metal on your fan wires around the exposed metal that is on the 24 pin connector’s wires then tape them off with electrical tap really tight. You may need to strip some of the insulation off the fan wire in order to get a little more room. If you have more skill you can solder them on.

Here is what it should look like at this point:

7. Do the same thing for the other fan wire, then you are done! Boot up and watch your fans spin like a bat out of hell.