MaximumPC 2006 12

118 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2006

We tackle tough reader questions on...

PSister Trouble PGPU Confusion

PDVD Copy 5 PPower

THE TRUE COST OF SIBLING RIVALRY

Well, me and my sister got in a bad fight yesterday,

and she ended up going in my room with a big metal

pole and beating my computer while I wasn’t home.

I have a Biostar NF325-A7 and an AMD Athlon 64

3400+. My rig still works after being beat with a metal

pole. The only thing wrong is that three of the PCI slots

don’t work and my videocard is completely dead. A

good thing about that day, though, is that my new

case and SATA cables came. The AGP slot still works

after my sister beat my ATI Radeon 9200 out of it with

the screws and everything still in; I found out by using

my dad’s videocard in the slot and it worked fine.

—Steven Ruk

EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS:

Everyone at Maximum PC would like to express

their condolences for your loss.

ARE PARTS PARTS?

I know you guys do videocard comparisons all the

time, but what the heck is the difference between

cards that use the same GPU but are manufactured

by different vendors? I mean, I can buy an X1950

XTX card from ATI, Asus, Gigabyte, HIS, PowerColor,

or Sapphire at prices ranging from less than $400 to

nearly $500. If the GPU is the same, should the price

tag be the only thing I consider?

—Mike Luehr

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN RESPONDS:

I understand your confusion, Mike; in fact, I

sometimes can’t tell the difference, either. The

GPU is the most important component on a video-

card; and right now, ATI and Nvidia produce the

only GPUs that PC enthusiasts care about. Both

companies create reference designs with oper-

ating specs at which they guarantee the parts

will operate reliably. They sell these processors

to third-party manufacturers, who in turn build

and sell retail products around them (ATI, but

not Nvidia, also sells its reference-design cards

direct to consumers).

These third-party vendors compete by tweak-

ing the reference designs (increasing core and

memory clock speeds, pairing the GPU with larger

or smaller frame buffers, offering different cool-

ing solutions, adding features such as HDCP or

VIVO), bundling free games or other applications,

offering extended warranties (lifetime warranties,

in some cases; although definitions of “lifetime”

vary), and so on. They also compete on price.

Our reviews put bottom-line performance first,

with features a close second. We care less about

warranties and nothing at all about bundles. But

it’s up to you to decide which of these criteria is

most important.

REQUIEM FOR AN IPOD

My very old iPod Mini just died, much to my despair,

so now I’m on a search for a new and improved

media player. I’m looking for something that has a

big screen, yet is small enough to carry around. The

Archos 604 seems like a perfect “kick-ass” buy

[reviewed Holiday 2006], but is it really better than the

legendary iPod video? And after doing some research

on my own, it looks as though Microsoft’s new Zune

media player, Kingston’s new K-PEX 100, and Sony’s

PSP are attractive alternatives. Can you recommend

any of these players, or perhaps suggest an alterna-

tive I haven’t mentioned?

—Pete Dawson

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN RESPONDS:

Well, Peter, it seems like you’ve already written

your own buyers guide. I’m puzzled, however,

that you’d consider the K-PEX along with the

other players you mentioned. I haven’t reviewed

it yet, and I do think there is a place for diminu-

tive players such as this (Creative’s tiny Zen V

Plus is a good example), but you said you want a

LTR-FTW RE:

HDTV DIY

I don’t normally send commentary on articles

I read in magazines, but there’s always a first

time: I think your story about building the

“Ultimate Media Center PC” in your October

issue overlooks a key element: the TV you’re

connecting your media-center PC to. And it’s

not just your magazine; I’ve noticed that in

virtually every system-building article I’ve read,

zero or very little is said about the TV. Come on,

no matter what the capture size of the input

stream, it doesn’t matter if you can’t get it out

to the screen.

—Jeff Crawford

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN

RESPONDS: Multisync computer monitors

have been around since the mid 1980s, but it

took television manufacturers much longer

to address the needs of computer users.

Connecting your PC to any modern HDTV,

such as the ViewSonic N3760w we use for our

video-streaming tests, should be a trivial mat-

ter—they almost universally support the typi-

cal resolutions your videocard can produce.

That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck if you

have an older HDTV display, but you must take

great care; feeding your HDTV a video signal

it can’t handle can permanently damage your

display. In fact, we covered this topic in our

July 2006 “Do-It-Yourself Guide.”

To put that story in a nutshell, you need

to know the horizontal and vertical frequen-

cies your HDTV can handle. If you can’t find

this information in your owners manual, try

setting your videocard to a fairly low resolu-

tion (640x480 or 800x600), connect it to your

TV’s VGA, DVI, or HDMI port, and run EnTech’s

free Monitor Asset Manager. This program

should tell you everything you need to know;

then you can tweak your videocard settings

to match.

inoutYOU WRITE, WE RESPOND