19 Upgrades
34 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2007
WIRELESS GAMING RECEIVER
ENJOY CONSOLE-STYLE GOODNESS ON YOUR PC, SANS CORDST
he Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows ($20,
http://www.gamesforwindows.com) plugs into a USB port and
allows you to use any wireless peripheral for the 360 with your
PC. Right now, the list of peripherals includes the wireless
gamepad, headset, and racing wheel.
All Games for Windows titles should work out of the box
with the receiver and the Xbox 360 wireless gamepad (the king
of gamepads, in our opinion) without confi guring any buttons.
And indeed, Lego Star Wars II did just that. In minutes we had
our receiver installed and our Xbox 360 gamepad synched and
were reveling in our new
cordless freedom.
Most newer games
recognize the pad and auto-
matically confi gure them-
selves to work. However, in
older games that pre-date
the Games for Windows
initiative, you’ll lose the out-
of-the-box button confi gs,
making this no different
than any other gamepad.UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER
SUPPLY
THINK OF A UPS AS A FIREWALL FOR YOUR ELECTRICITYF
olks in the western United
States face the possibility of
rolling blackouts, and folks in the
East face the threat of storms
and lightning strikes. Whatever
your locale, if you’re not running
an uninterruptible power supply
(UPS), you could be looking at
losing hours of work and thou-
sands of dollars should your PC
suddenly go dark.
Belkin’s 1500VA ($200, http://www.
belkin.com) unit provides the mini-
mum protection you should have on
a machine today. Using a dual-core
Athlon 64 FX-60 with 2GB of RAM,
a GeForce 7950, a 400GB drive, a
19-inch CRT, and a TEC cooler, we
managed to drain the 1500VA’s bat-
tery fl at in 6:48 (minutes:seconds).
A competing brand gave us half that amount of time, and time is
of the essence when you’re trying to prevent catastrophe.CASE LIGHTING
THIS LITTLE RIG OF MINE / I’M GONNA LET IT SHINEC
ase lighting is what truly separates the nerd from the geek.
While the former relies on boring, basement-style fl uorescent
lights to illuminate his computer’s innards (and pasty skin), the lat-
ter uses lit-up bits of awesomeness to add artistic fl air to his rig’s
glimmering guts. But with so many glowing accessories out there,
where does one begin?
We turned to FrozenCPU (www.frozencpu.com) and grabbed
Logisys’s sound-activated
cathode kit ($12). With but
one plug of a molex, the glow-
ing tube illuminates a hearty
chunk of your case. Combine
that with a Firefl y modifi cation
($4) and make even the molex
connectors glow.
When it comes to glowing
case fans, we like Sunbeam’s
cathode-based designs ($11,
pictured here). Toss in a
Logisys 5-LED Lazer ($8) and
you’ll be quasi blind from the
lovely brightness.Getting your computer
all aglow can be a wiring
nightmare, but the result is
worth it.FAST MEDIA READER
DATA TRANSFER TOO SLOW? IT MAY BE YOUR CARD READERY
ou may have a
really fast 16GB fl ash
memory card, but is your
card reader up to snuff?
Probably not. We tested
a half-dozen card read-
ers, some with brand
names some without, to
fi nd the fastest one.
USB proponents
might be miffed, but
SanDisk’s Extreme FireWire reader ($80, http://www.sandisk.com) slayed
all the USB units. Even though we couldn’t get our FireWire 800
card running at full speed, we still saw read speeds of nearly
28MB/s and write speeds of 21.2MB/s. The next closest was the
FireWire reader’s sibling—the SanDisk Extreme USB reader—with
16.5MB/s reads and about 14MB/s writes. The other so-called
high-speed USB readers tested in the sub-6MB/s range or took
so long we gave up on them.
You’ll have to choose carefully though; while the $
Extreme FireWire is the fastest unit in town with UDMA sup-
port, it’s limited to CF—no SD. That might make the SanDisk’s
slower $25 Extreme USB reader, which has dual-media capa-
bility, a more attractive choice.SanDisk’s Extreme FireWire Reader
whips the USB-based units.Now you can go cordless with
a 360 gamepad on your PC—
take that, console fanboys!Belkin’s 1500VA tower
unit gave us almost
double the run time of
competing products.