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:: PC Perspective . Ryan's Weblog
.:Ryan's Weblog
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
I had a couple of people remind me that it had been just about year since my last "blog" post. Well, rather than let it lapse completely, I'll make this post.
You can STILL hear from me though by keeping up to date on our bi-monthly podcast or by following me on Twitter. Both will give you a mix of personal and professional (website) information so you can keep up with what is going on behind the scenes.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
You will be able to subscribe to it through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE. PC Perspective Podcast 03 - 5/16/07 This week we talk about the newly released AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card, a new 1000 watt (!!) power supply from Ultra, AMD's Phenom processor brand, more upcoming Intel price cuts, DirectX 10 benchmarking issues and much more! How to get the PC Perspective podcast:
Hosts: Ryan Shrout and Jeremy Hellstrom Program length: 53:40
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
You will be able to subscribe to it through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE. PC Perspective Podcast 02 - 5/9/07 This week we talk about the release of CellFactor for AGEIA's PhysX cards, our updated hardware leaderboard for your system component choices and Intel's Santa Rosa launch coupled with NVIDIA's release of their GeForce 8M mobility GPU lineup. We also touch on tech news of the week including Dell installing Linux on some systems, 160 Mbps cable downloads in the US and the possibility of a 24 hour battery life UMPC platform from Intel. How to get the PC Perspective podcast:
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom and Jon Hung Program length: 59:35
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
So, it's been a LONG time since I last posted to the weblog, but we have some great news for you here: we are starting a PC Perspective podcast! You will be able to subscribe to it through iTunes in just a couple days (you can DO IT NOW!!) but you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE. PC Perspective Podcast 01 - 5/3/07 This week we talk about NVIDIA's 8800 Ultra graphics card and their 8600 series as well. We also cover our recent Asus G2P notebook review and the latest OCZ power supply (rated at 1000 watts!) to hit the test bench. How to get the PC Perspective podcast:
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Lee Garbutt and Jeremy Hellstrom Program schedule:
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
I have been running Windows Vista on my personal system now since about January 28th - just a couple of days before official launch. I just so happen to have my system die on me (don't get me started on that...) so I figured the timing was good and I would just move to the new operating system and save myself the trouble of upgrading later. So far, most of my experiences have been good ones. The OS went on without too much hassle and driver support out of the box SEEMED to be pretty good. But now that I am using the OS more and more, I am finding more and more problems. First, the user account control (UAC) is completely useless. After clicking "allow" about a hundred times in the first few days, I decided I'd rather be insecure in my OS than secure and annoyed the whole time. It really puts this Apple ad in perspective... Next, I have had to deal with some nagging graphics driver issues; and I'm not even referring to the problems I found in my Vista Gaming Performance article either. I use two monitors: a 30" Dell and a 20" Dell; (yeah, nice!) and my graphics card is a BFG GeForce 8800 GTS as well. However, after using Vista for several hours I was noticing some flickering across the open Windows on the desktop when changing focus from one to the other. It got quite annoying, has happened several times now after reboots so I decided to see if I could find the problem in the taks manager. So, I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del...
Click to Enlarge And was met with this: a garbled screen that is split down the middle with mirroring images. WTF?? After reboot, the problem went away for a while but did come back. Well, guess I'll wait for another driver update... Did you also notice that Windows Vista has completely killed off any chance your games had of working with multi-channel audio solutions like Creative Lab's EAX? Check out this thread at their site that basically details how the new OS forces the hardware audio processing game to end unless they use another audio codec than DirectSound. Nice, just...nice. Today though, is when I finally got fed up with the whole damn thing. I have several printers, most of which I have been able to get to work, even with Windows XP drivers. However, one of them is attached to a Linksys WPS54G wireless print server device that allows it to act as a local printer in another room on our wireless network. I've had it almost a FULL YEAR and it was working fine under Windows XP. However, looking for a driver for the print server for Vista on Linksys' website, I came up empty so i thought iId try the online support chat thing. Here's where it gets funny...
Ah, okay, a hidden Vista support page on Linksys' website! I'll just head there and find my device... Wait, its not list on the page at all...
Hmmm..."there is no plan to support the product with Windows Vista." Well then. I decided that maybe I'd missed something here and decided to ask what "Anna Liza" thought (btw, does that sound like some l337 / ebonics way of saying "analyzer" to any one else?):
I think that gets the point across pretty well. But no worries, Linksys support has all the answers!!!
Do you?!? Do you really?? Cause I don't think so. I spent $400 on a brand new OS so that I could be one with the universe or something and now I don't even have the ability to print double sided color documents across the house??? So to paraphrase, this $100 print server is now useless; thanks! Windows Vista CAN be a good operating system for users, even today, if everything you have is new or you've checked for software support BEFORE UPGRADING! Otherwise, I'd sit back and chill on your Windows XP machine, knowing that hey, at least your crap works. Feel free to head into this thread in our forums to discuss this rant and your own experiences with Windows Vista.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Believe it not, this year's CES is actually shaping up to be quite a busy one for me. Not because of some elaborate launch plans from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel, but mostly because of the alarmingly high amount of meetings that I have setup for a three day time span. Currently I am 28 -- that's nearly 10 a day and considering all the issues involved with getting around the city of Las Vegas in a timely fashion, I have a feeling I am going to be doing quite a bit of sprinting. If you haven't looked at the recent articles on the site, you should. We have the Killer NIC review up, a new product from a company called Bigfoot Networks that promises to bring higher frame rates and faster ping times to your online gaming. I also recently finished a review of the BFG Tech 8800 GTS card in single and in SLI configurations -- it might be the best card for your dollar this new year. Lee finished up a review of the Fatal1ty case from Zalman as well as a 700 watt power supply from OCZ., both of which got pretty positive reviews. David Pohl, a guest author from German, put up a very good article that summarizes his research in ray tracing in modern games, and how close we can get to real-time ray tracing with Intel's quad-core QX6700 processor. If you are a tech-nerd like the rest of us, this article is definitely worth the time. We should have plenty of content coming in the next several months in cooling, power, motherboards, GPUs, notebooks and more! With CES around the corner, you can be sure that hte news is going to pick up quite a bit as well!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
As I sit here this morning, there are numerous people in my kitchen preparing a huge meal just for me...okay, for the rest of the family too, but I get to eat some of it! I am definitely looking forward to a day a sitting on my butt and doing nothing but watching football on the big screen and maybe taking a drive in the car with the windows down and the heat on high. Now that doesn't mean we are taking the WHOLE weekend off here at PC Perspective; in fact we have lots of stuff to do on Black Friday besides going shopping ta 5am; hopefully none of you are doing that anyway... We have several reviews lined up for you and I have some articles pending on 8800 GTX SLI, PureVideo HD, a couple of new motherboards, and hopefully our latest editorial addtion will have some of his first work ready next week as well. But for today, I hope the rest of you that are celebrating Thanksgiving will take some time off to spend with your family (or with your TV) instead of slaving over any kind of work. Happy Thanksgiving!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
As it turned out, this was an even crazier weekend with the console releases than I had thought. PS3 caused shootings and fights, while the Nintendo Wii seemed to in just as high demand, with slightly higher availability. One thing that did irk me though was that EBGames (Gamestop), where I preordered my Wii, didn't have the extra controllers, classic controllers, component cables or even the copy of Zelda I had ordered! They apparently only got 3 copies in of Zelda, though they had preordered more than a dozen. So I headed over to the Toys R Us across the street and found several Zelda games there, along with a handful of Wii Remotes; though still no nunchucks or classics. How Nintendo could not be able to produce enough games for this launch is beyond me... In other nerd news, I found out today that my home cable Internet access had been upgraded for free! The letter claimed I was moving from 4 Mb down and 384 Kb up to 10 Mb down and 1 Mb up! Sure that's a marketing ploy...?
Well, maybe not! These results came from the very popular Speakeasy Speed Test. Of course, latency hasn't gotten any better, so gaming online won't be drastically improved, but hopefully downloads will. And consider that the local phone DSL service is 1.5 Mb down and 768 Kb up for the same price, I'd have to say this is a great deal. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, but unfortunately I don't get much off time as the likes of Asus, NVIDIA, AMD and others are keeping me busy through the holiday week. What tragedy?? Do I really have to play with SLI 8800 GTX cards??? Yes, I know, sometimes this work seems a bit unfair. :) Seriously though, I want to wish everyone who reads this and PC Perspective to have a very safe, full and happy Turkey day!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Sorry for the long gap between writings -- I won't bother giving any excuses and just get right to the meat. In the world of PC hardware, a lot has happened since IDF in September, including the introdution of quad core processors, a new unified architecture DX10 GPU from NVIDIA and an impressive notebook from Alienware using both SLI and RAID. At IDF we were introduced to the Intel Kentsfield processor, the first quad core desktop processor, and it was finally unveiled to the world in early November as the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700. Performance was fantastic in situations where more than 2 threads were active, but even some two-thread applications saw some performance loss when move from the dual core to the quad core. In the end, I decided that quad cores were a great idea for enthusiasts that are gaming in addition to doing movie work, 3D work or something of similar pro-sumer level. Games certainly aren't using quad cores -- yet. The Alienware m9700 notebook that Jon reviewed for us last month is one impressive mobile device. It uses not one, but TWO GPUs in an SLI configuration and uses not one but TWO hard drives in RAID configuration! It is definitely not a cheap system, but if you want incredible performance this is one place you must look. Last week was a big one for NVIDIA as well -- they released not just a new GPU architecture, but a new Intel-based chipset that promises to finally overtake the Intel 975X dominance in the enthusiast market and offer extreme overclocking. The GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 GTS graphics cards are a brand new architecture, know as G80, that is the first unified architecture that supports the upcoming DX10 features that Microsoft is releasing with Vista this month. It offered absolutely stunning performance, as much as 2x faster than the 7900 GTX single card and runs away from anything currently available. The nForce 680i chipset was also damn impressive -- not only matching performance of the 975X chipset but easily allowing us to overclock the FSB on our X6800 processor to over 2000 MHz!! The feature set is very similar to what we saw in the nForce 500 series, but with a totally re-done memory controller and bus control system to allow for overclocking that is beyond anything I have seen; and easy to use! In other news, I don't know if you knew it but apparently there are some new consoles coming out? Both the Nintendo Wii and the Sony Playstation 3 are due out very soon and the world of console gaming is just blowing up for the holidays. I have recently bought Guitar Hero 2, Bully, Tiger Woods 2007, Call of Duty 3, Gears of War and am eagerly awaiting to pick up my Nintendo Wii!! But with all this dang work piling up, I haven't had much time to play them... What I have played of Gears of War has been very impressive, combining the ease of play of Call of Duty with graphics that look like early Unreal Engine 3 shots. I was excited about the PS3 release, but honestly with all the trouble in getting one, I just decided to give up; I have enough to do any way. :) Have a great week!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
I am currently sitting in my hotel room, several blocks from the San Francisco convention center (Moscone), awaiting the beginnings of the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum. What can you expect here? Two words: quad core. Yep, its going to be every where; in fact I already saw it last night and a pre-IDF press meeting. There they showed off a Kentsfield core processor and a new quad-threaded gaming engine created by Futuremark call "Ice Storm Fighters". Hopefully they come up with a better title than that. I'll be making some news posts/article posts as the day goes on today, so be sure to check back on our page often for updates; I'll try to keep them frequent and informative.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Today is one of those rare days in my life where I have to sit back and relax for a long while and just think. It has been five years since that fateful day we now know simply as "9/11" and too many, the thougths of the day are still ripe in our minds. I am one of those people; not because I lost a loved one in the event or lived in NY or anything like that, but just because I am usually one of the most patriotic people I am around. The attacks made me angry, MAKE me angry, and all the constant bickering and whining that goes on TO THIS DAY about the events, their cause, who's at fault, and what to do about simply aggrivate me beyond belief. Whatever your thoughts on the issue though, I would recommend that you sit down, read the paper, watch a news story or just close your eyes and contemplate what you can about that day. Remember who is responsible and what needs to be done to stop it again. Too many have already forgotten. In site-related news, I just posted up Lee's review of the latest Koolance case, the Koolance PC4-1025BK 1kW Liquid Cooling System. You'll definitely want to check out this review as it is a VERY slick system indeed. Last week I posted up my first full system review in the form of the Alienware Aurora 7500 system, powered by an FX-62 and a GeForce 7950 GX2. It was definitely a beast, but the debate continues on whether these boutique builder's will ever replace or replace the majority of gaming system home builds...? We have several other items due up this week, including the second part of NVIDIA's fall-refresh that started with the 7900 GS. The 7950 GT is going to be release this week and though you might think this is another dual-GPU part, it isn't; but still expect some great performacne for around $300! Have a great week, but just remember to take time out today to remember what makes America great.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
The past several weeks have been very hectic around the Shrout household. Besides the normal work-related time constraints, such as Quad SLI technology review and the much anticipated Asus Crosshair motherboard review, some personal issues crept up that demanded my attention. My 10-and-a-half year old golden retriever, Casey, was suddenly ill and required emergency surgery in order to remove something from her intestines that would have been fatal within the next 48 hours (according to my vet afterwards). Having not known the seriousness of it at the time, the move to go ahead with the surgery was the right one.
Casey, at the tender age of 8 or so She actually lives with my mother now, who wouldn't admit it, but would be lost without this friend with her every day. Needless to say, this experience has brought her age and frailty into my view and I even though she doesn't live with me, I know that I would desperately miss this friend that has been around since I was 14. Kelly and I adopted an adorable 5-year old black lab (mixed, too small for a full lab) that lives with us and keeps us plenty busy.
Reese, staring at her tennis ball, waiting for me to quit working I have become more than attached to Reese over the last two years and with Casey's recent problems, I wonder about her life span, sicknesses and troubles ahead with mixed emotions. Why set ourselves up for such things? Sorry, don't mean to get too deep here, this is a tech site, right?
Reese's Halloween Costume: meet Bat-Reese Back to techy-related things, we have lots planned for the coming weeks including a new GPU launch this week (I am hard at work on it as I type this), a new Asus Core Duo notebook review, some hardcore Thermalright HSF action and hopefully some ATI Radoeon XPress 3200 motherboard reviews to tie it all in. We are also starting a new move in the direction of PC Perspective and the forums with some upgrades and drastic feature enhancements in the beginning planning stages. I'll let you know more as we want to make it publicly available. Maybe those that read the blog will get the first view of it? More to come!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
I have gotten several complaints about a lack of updates on my blog, so here it is: FINALLY! First, a lot of work has been going on at PC Perspective, if you haven't noticed already. Probalby most interesting of which has been the change in Intel's processor lineup with the introduction of Core 2 Duo. I reviewed the desktop aspects of the new core while Jon has been using a Merom processor to test out its effects on current Core Duo systems such as the Asus Z96J and the Dell XPS M1710. Lee has been busy as well on the power and cooling front, with both a new TEC cooler from Vigor Gaming and Corsair's new 620 watt modular power supply getting a lot of attention. I have some great motherboard reviews coming up this month as well as some Quad SLI action and even an Alienware desktop system review. Finally, I thought I would share some photos of the completed deck work that I started WAY back in May.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Okay, okay, I think that is my longest gap between blog posts....man I just suck at this don't I? With everything else going on in work and in my personal life, getting here to update this just keeps getting passed over. I apologize to anyone that gives enough of a sh*t about this page for my lack of updates!!! As you have probably already read, the new AMD platform known as AM2 was finally released on May 23. I have coverage up of the new flagship processor, the FX-62 as well as a seperate article on the latest chipsets from both NVIDIA and ATI that support the new AM2 platform. The big change here is a move from a DDR to a DDR2 controller on the new AM2 processors, a move that AMD carefully planned when DDR2 memory was on equal footing in both performance and pricing. AMD ended up executing this new platform launching pretty well, with lots of models of procesors being released and having good support from NVIDIA on the chipset front. This doesn't mean AMD is free and clear though, as the Intel Conroe-based Core 2 Duo processors are just around the corner. At E3 this May, I caught a glimpse of an upcoming Dell XPS system that sports both the Conroe processor and Quad SLI. This could be the fastest gaming machine in existance... Speaking of E3, the show this year was kind of a disappointment from the PC perspective (heh) though the new Wii console was surprisingly fun. The biggest news to be found was on the new AGEIA PhysX processors being launched. We have a review of the BFG branded PhysX card online already, as well as some great videos of the PhysX card at work on the new Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter game. Yes, it's been busy. On the personal front, I have been hard at work building a deck onto the house, trying to get it completed before I head out for Computex this Saturday. It's already a more-than-one-month project since I can't dedicate a large portion of time continuously to it, but I think so far its turned out pretty damn good. What do you think?
It is being built with the latest Trex synthetic decking called "Brasilia" and is supposed to mimic the look of Brazilian hardwood. Plus, it never need staining, etc etc. Maintainance free is good by me! My sister also gave birth to her third child, Carson, pictured below.
Yes that is yours truly holding him, but I swear, I still don't have any kids!! :D Computex is just around the corner, as I only have three more days until I head out for the always enticing 24 hours of traveling to get to Taiwan...joy. Have a great week!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
I am sitting here at the IDF keynotes this morning waiting for them to begin. We have some decent Internet access this time around so I'll try to make some updates here in my blog when interesting news bits come out. Read it here first! Update 1: I have a lot more information on the Merom and Conroe cores (mobile and desktop, respectively) but too much to put in here, so I'll be making a quick one-page article on it here in the next hour so after I get some slide pictures edited down for you all read. Make sure you look for it, as you'll see a dual processor, quad core CineBench 2003 rendering run as well on Intel's upcoming server platforms for 2007. Update 2: The first Spring 2006 IDF article is posted with lots of details and information on the new micro architecture and the desktop, mobile and server parts that are based off of it. Unfortunately we are short on details such as clock speeds, cache sizes and transistor counts that can give us a more specific idea of what to expect in the second half of 2006 but I'll be here for two full days and will get the info when available.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
To say I have been busy as of late would be a slight understatement. I am in California for third time in three weeks today, getting ready for the spring 2006 IDF to begin tomorrow morning. Actually I am going to an Intel mobile product showcase here in a little bit, but I think it's going to be stuff we already saw announced at CES. This week will see the launch of not one, not two but four new GPUs from our friends in red and green. Also, since the RD580 launch I have been doing some testing and investigate into all those benchmarks that ATI sent to the media about how inefficient the NF4 SLI X16 chipset was, and I think the results will surprise you. I'll try to have that up sometime tomorrow. Oh, and I know I promised you all a couple of reviews about the Western Digital Raptor X and the Gigabyte iRAM -- our storage test bed has been done for a while so those should be around very soon. Maybe I'll find some time to write those while I am out in SFO. I'll try to get some updates online during the show as some new information be available on Intel's next-generation micro architecture.
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Well I did! I recently was forced to manually edit some large Apache log files, one at nearly 2 GB and one around 750 MB in size. I had to do a global find/replace on a date string, so after downloading the zipped files and opening them both up on my new Athlon X2 4800+ system, this is what I was greeted with:
Yep, that's two WordPad applications spiking out a dual core Athlon X2 running at 2.4 GHz and using up nearly all of my 2 GB of memory! And here all this time I thought I didn't need this kind of horsepower. ;)
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
People keep yelling at me to update this, so here you go. Okay, well maybe not really, but you really have to get some background on it before you'll agree. If you haven't jumped on the Chuck Norris bandwagon as of late, then you really should check out this link and this link. After laughing a bit at those quotes and trying not to tear up, have a look at these:
See? Like I said, best shirt EVAR! On to other things of interest that pertain more to the focus of this website. The rest of the team and I were very busy during the month of January, as is evident by the number of articles posted this month that cover a wide array of topics and products. Quad SLI, the new FX-60 processor, CES, NVIDIA's 6800 GS, 3DMark06, ATI's X1900 series, our Reader's Choice Awards and another addition to the sound card market. Phew. February won't be letting up as Jon has an Epox-based NF4 SLI Intel motherboard ready and I am prepping the review of the new AGP video card from a certain green company for tomorrow morning. And I have a bleep-ton of stuff in the office here waiting for some attention as well -- I am hoping to get a couple of storage reviews up this month including the Gigabyte iRAM that introduces the mainstream PC user with solid state storage and the new Western Digital 150 GB Raptor X drives. X1900 AIWs are here, a couple CrossFire motherboards and SLI X16 motherboards too; lots to do you can see. Jeremy is back from his holiday and is again furiously posting news on the PC Perspective home page for you look through and get your daily over-dosage of hardware news and reviews. The gang in the PC Perspective Forums are keeping things kicking in our always-busy discussion area. Did you know that PC Perspective is now the home to a Newegg representative to help with any buyer concerns right here in the forum? Newegg has been a dedicated sponsor here at PC Perspective since the beginning and support like this really makes us feel good about the relationship. I'm off to do more GPU testing, but drop me a line if you have any questions for comments about the site or articles. Have a good hump-day!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Well it's that time of the year again -- the annual Consumer Electronics Show is going live tomorrow morning in Las Vegas. If you have watched the news at all, you've probably already seen some plugs and coverage of it on channels like CNN and CNBC. I got here this morning and have been prepping for the event and already met up with a few of the industry reps to chit chat. I'll have some cool news stories as they develop throughout the week. One other thing I am going to try at this years show is to bring you all some HD video footage from the show floor. Of course I am going to get the PC-related goods that are here but I am also going to try and snag some cool video of new TVs, HD DVDs in action and more. If you have any requests, please feel free to email me and I'll see if I can swing it!
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective
Just thought I would make a quick post here to wish all of our readers a very merry holiday season, be it Christmas or whatever. Thank you for making PC Perspective a part of your life and keeping it a part of ours.
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