General Gaming Article

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• Ask the Doctor: Storage Diagnostics, Blu-ray Playback, PCIe Compatibility
• Ask the Doctor: SSD Migration, Water Cooling, GPU Drivers
• SourceForge Tries to Win Back Trust of Open-Source Developers
• Corsair Graphite Series 380T Review
• Newegg Daily Deals: Acer XB270HU 27-Inch G-Sync Monitor, Corsair 1,000W PSU, and More!
• AMD Radeon 300 Series Prices Leak Ahead of Launch
• Asus Strix DCU2 OC GTX 960 Review
• Apple Brings Home-Brewed Metal API to Mac via OS X El Capitan
• Ask the Doctor: VGA Cooling, GPU Upgrades, Sluggish PCs
• Computex 2015 Day 3: BitFenix Builds a Bigger Pandora Case [Video]
• Microsoft Aims to Remove Legal Speak from License Agreements
• Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Amp Extreme Edition Review
• Ask the Doctor: SATAe vs. M.2, Boot Problems, XL Cases
• Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard Review
• President Barack Obama Cites Need for Updated Government PCs to Fend Off Hackers
• Get More Speed for Free!
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster X7 Review
• Microsoft Releases ISOs for Windows 10 Build 10130
• Chrome Will Soon Begin Blocking Non-Essential Flash Content
• The Gearhead's Guide to Minecraft

Ask the Doctor: Storage Diagnostics, Blu-ray Playback, PCIe Compatibility Posted: 08 Jun 2015 03:11 PM PDT The Doctor answers your questions about second monitors, USB testing, Blu-ray codecs, PCI issues, and display crashes Multiple Displays I like to keep websites open or watch a movie on my secondary monitor while gaming. Would using a USB-attached device like an HP DisplayPort for the second display give me much of a performance increase, while having the videocard drive one monitor? Or could the USB setup even be detrimental? —Christopher Kashuba The Doctor Responds: Almost certainly, you're best-off driving both monitors from your graphics card. But the definitive answer isn't as simple. The Doc believes you're talking about using DisplayLink technology to attach a second display (HP sells a DisplayLink-equipped screen called the U160 with a native resolution of 1366x768). This involves compressing screen updates and sending them off over USB. Certain apps are well-suited to this, others aren't. A website won't change much over time, so it won't require much host processing or peripheral bandwidth. Movie playback, however, will be laggy, full of artifacts, and much more resource-intensive—not a good fit for DisplayLink. Even if you have to play your game in Windowed (Fullscreen) mode so you can drag your mouse to the other monitor without "tabbing out," which could sacrifice performance, connecting a second monitor to your graphics card would be the Doc's tip. We'd only consider a USB-attached display as a productivity tool for word processing or email on the go. Testing Times I've obtained some used SATA hard drives. I'd like to run a thorough test on each one to help me judge whether to put them back into use. I'm wondering which utility software (free or for purchase) you'd recommend I could put on a bootable CD or USB flash drive to test them? Thanks for your great magazine. —Brandon Coale The Doctor Responds: You're right to be wary of putting used mechanical disks back into action. Fortunately, this is one of those cases when free software should address your needs. Without knowing which company manufactured the drives, the Doc suggests you visit the vendor-in-question's support site and download whatever tools you can find for proactively identifying damaged disks. Seagate, for instance, offers its SeaTools for Windows utility, supporting the company's internal and external storage products (the app is compatible with Maxtor and Samsung drives as well). It'll attempt to fix any bad sectors it encounters, prompt you when a firmware update is found, write zeros across a drive to erase it, or let you restore the password on an FDE-capable disk. Western Digital's equivalent is called WinDLG (for Data Lifeguard), while Toshiba publishes a Windows Diagnostic Tool for Fujitsu-branded hard drives, too. There's also a handful of useful third-party utilities. HDDScan, for example, performs a number of different tests, presents S.M.A.R.T attributes, provides access to power management settings, and monitors temperature information. The free version of HD Tune includes some of the same functionality, but adds a low-level benchmark for gauging the performance of your hard drive. Plenty of other options exist. But between the manufacturer-supplied tools and the best freeware utilities, you should get a good sense of drive health. The Blu-ray Blues Dear Doc, I need some serious help. I cannot play any type of Blu-rays through VLC, Roxio CinePlayer, or anything. I have searched the Internet, forums, and everything known to man. You should have been my first to contact. VLC keeps saying this: "Blu-ray error: This Blu-ray Disc needs a library for AACS decoding, and your system does not have it. Your input can't be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'bluray://D:/'. Check the log for details." Can you please help me? –John The Doctor Responds: Roxio's CinePlayer software is designed for DVD playback (pre-Blu-ray) under Windows Vista or XP. VLC, the Doc's own favorite freely available media player, does come with the libdvdcss library for reading CSS-encrypted DVDs, but doesn't natively include the keys for decrypting the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). At least by default, neither of those media players are going to work. The same goes for Windows Media Player. Now, we're all enthusiasts here, so the Doc won't pretend the two files needed to get VLC working with most Blu-ray discs aren't all over the Internet. In fact, you'll find instructions at the top of VLC's own forum for Windows. But circumventing AACS this way isn't legal. And newer movies employ updated protection mechanisms that frequently thwart workarounds. Your best bet is finding Blu-ray playback software you'd be comfortable paying for. CyberLink's PowerDVD and Corel's WinDVD are two Windows-based options. Regular updates ensure you can play the latest releases and get support for next-gen formats like HEVC. Alternatively, you could buy SlySoft's AnyDVD HD, which defeats AACS, allowing players to read decrypted audio and video formats. The software's legality is unclear, but it remains available for $73. Regular updates, published through a subscription system, keep AnyDVD current with the latest protections schemes. The Doc isn't trying to hawk software here. Sometimes freeware gets the job done. But part of being a power user is recognizing when a purpose-built solution is the way to go. There's no shame in dropping $50 on good decoder software. A good Blu-ray decoder like PowerDVD avoids legally-questionable workarounds. PCI Problems I have an Intel DH61CR motherboard (with current BIOS revision), a Core i3-2100 CPU, and 4GB of RAM. The CPU has on-die graphics, but I decided to install an EVGA GeForce GTS 450 videocard. The motherboard BIOS did not recognize it, though. I finally found an Intel document on the company's download site stating this: "PCI cards that utilize a PCI Express to PCI bridge component may not work with Intel Desktop Boards based on the Intel 6 Series Chipset." My problem is how I purchase a videocard and know if it will work as most places don't allow returns after they've been used. Can you help? I'm interested in the GeForce GT 730 or similar, but not sure it will work? –JB The Doctor Responds: As far as the Doc's seen, there's no PCI Express to PCI bridge chip on the GeForce GTS 450—your graphics card should sport a GF106 GPU, with native support for PCIe 2.0. Moreover, Intel's manual is pretty specific that the board's BIOS automatically detects and configures add-in cards. You don't need to mess with firmware settings to get your card working. Good news, right? So, what else could be wrong? Time to troubleshoot! You'll have to excuse the Doc if some of this sounds obvious. Diagnosing a problem is all about eliminating possibilities. Start with the power. EVGA's GeForce GTS 450 lineup has a 400W minimum power supply requirement, with at least 22A of current on the +12V rail. Check your PSU's specs to compare. Does your model (EVGA lists nine versions on its site) have a six-pin power connector? If so, that needs to be connected. Make sure the card is seated properly, too. Confirm the GeForce's fan spins up when you apply power. How about your monitor configuration? You plugged your display into the add-in card, rather than the mobo's integrated output, right? And if you switched from, say, VGAout to DVI, or DVI to mini-HDMI, did you ensure the monitor is set to the right input? There's always the chance your card is dead or your mobo's slot is damaged. Don't let that dissuade you from trying again, though. Standards like PCI Express exist to facilitate compatibility between host and client devices. In short, there's no technical reason why your motherboard and graphics card, both PCIe-compatible, shouldn't work together. Intel's DH61CR mobo sports a 16-lane second-gen PCIe slot, which should have no problem supporting Nvidia's GeForce GTS 450 GPU. Graphics Woes Hi MaxPC! I love the magazine! Thanks to you, I've built a heck of a gaming PC! But… I have an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with Windows 7 64-bit and a Radeon HD 6770M videocard. All updates and drivers are up to date. It works great except that Microsoft Access frequently crashes the display driver. The screen goes black, blinks, and then resets with a dialog box telling me the display driver has crashed and recovered. I can leave Access open, unattended, without an issue. But just typing text into a field can set it off. Typing s-l-o-w-l-y doesn't cause a crash. Any idea how to fix this very annoying problem? Thanks! –Ken Sexton The Doctor Responds: There are multiple possible culprits when a display driver stops responding. AMD does a great job of explaining what's happening on its support site: "The issue occurs when the Timeout Detection and Recovery feature available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 detects the graphics card has not responded within a predetermined period of time and reinitializes it with the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) to prevent the need to reboot." Because your issue is specific to Access, that application might be responsible. Is it fully patched? If so, have you tried removing and adding it back? DirectX is a possible suspect as well; try reinstalling the latest version. You mentioned the drivers are up to date, but what about your BIOS? How about Windows? Depending on how many times you've updated your Radeon drivers, and how thoroughly AMD's uninstall routine cleaned your system along the way, you could have older corrupted files interfering with the latest and greatest. The Doc has crushed a number of display bugs on well-used systems by running a utility called Display Driver Uninstaller. You'll have to run it at your own risk, and then update to the latest supported drivers from HP. Once you work your way through symptoms related to software, it's time to consider hardware-based explanations. Have you ever cleaned out your notebook's air vents? Check the graphics processor's temperature using GPU-Z and the CPU with Core Temp. If they're too hot, it may be time to expose the dv7's innards. Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario is that your graphics module, one of the SO-DIMMs, or some other component, is simply at the end of its life, in which case it could be time to start shopping for a new laptop. Submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com

Ask the Doctor: SSD Migration, Water Cooling, GPU Drivers Posted: 08 Jun 2015 03:09 PM PDT The doctor answers your questions about bloated systems, transferring SSDs, water cooling, maximizing performance, and fixing graphics cards Feeling Bloated Doc, I'm looking to upgrade my rig. Currently, the hardware is liquid-cooled. I'm running an Asus P9X79 motherboard, an Intel 256GB SSD, three WD My Book External hard drives and one 250GB WD hard drive, a Core i7-3930K at 3.2GHz, 32GB of RAM, an EVGA GTX 750 Ti Superclocked graphics card, and a Sound Blaster X-Fi. Also, I'm using Norton Internet Security and Malwarebytes. I keep my signatures and scans up to date, but my system hesitates. I don't know what's causing this. I've Reimage Plus and WinZip Driver Updater installed. I keep getting errors from Reimage that the wzdu25.exe files are threats. Neither company is able to help. The scan on Reimage won't complete. Is there anything you'd suggest? –Marty Anisko The Doctor Responds: That's a lot of capable hardware, Marty. There's no reason its performance should be suffering. As far as upgrades go, the Doc sees two subsystems you could balance out a bit. If you're into gaming, that GeForce GTX 750 Ti is limiting your maximum resolution and detail settings. A GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290 are better matches to Intel's Core i7-3930K. Both are capable of pushing smooth frame rates at 2560x1440, even in the most demanding games. And on the subject of your Sandy Bridge-E-based host processor, it'd probably run well at 4GHz or higher if you wanted to try overclocking. Although additional storage won't improve responsiveness, I can't help but notice the 256GB SSD and 250GB hard drive. Big disks are cheap; adding 3TB for $100 would help clean up the external enclosures. Onto the software. The Doc is a staunch minimalist. You don't need all those apps. WinZip Driver Updater should be first to go. Nvidia's GeForce Experience utility already tells you when new drivers are available. Chipset drivers are far less common, and the X-Fi won't be receiving any development attention from Creative. Even if this resolves the conflict with Reimage, consider uninstalling that utility as well. Norton Internet Security can be downright intrusive, though the Doc understands antivirus software is mandatory nowadays. If you don't trust your PC to Microsoft Security Essentials, leaving Malwarebytes might be necessary. Meanwhile, the Doc keeps it simple with Windows Defender and cautious habits. SSD Migration Hi Doc. I've been a reader for a long time, and am writing about an upgrade for my laptop. I own an HP Pavilion DV7-3024ca, which served me well for years but is sadly not running as briskly as it used to. My first upgrade was 4GB of RAM. I keep my antivirus software up to date, and I use CCleaner regularly. I've the original Win7 64-bit install on a 5,400rpm hard drive, but the disk has seen better days and I'd like to replace it with a 240 to 480GB SSD. Is there a way to clone the hard drive with its restore partition intact? I watched a few videos, but most suggest using a fresh copy of Windows. I don't have installation media though, just the restore partition and key. Can everything, including those restore files, be cloned onto a new drive? Thanks Doc! –Christopher Leach The Doctor Responds: Yes, it's possible to take a mechanical disk and migrate it, sector by sector, to an SSD. Some SSDs even include the necessary hardware/software. If you'd rather not tie yourself to specific bundles, check out Apricorn's SATA Wire 3.0. It's a USB 3.0-to-SATA interface packaged with the company's EZ Gig IV software for $29. The way it works is simple. Connect your SSD to the SATA side, plug in to the laptop's USB port, run the software to clone all of the information from one repository to the other, and then swap the drives. That's all good if your mechanical disk is the same size. But what if it's larger? EZ Gig, along with other data migration utilities, includes a provision for picking the files and folders to exclude. Using a simple USB-to-SATA adapter and some software, you can painlessly transition from hard drive to SSD. To Water Cool Or Not I recently finished a build I'm fairly pleased with. It includes a Core i5-4670K, Asus Z87-PRO motherboard, 16GB of RAM, a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB, two 2x PNY GeForce GTX 780 cards, an Asus Blu-ray reader, SeaSonic's 850W PSU, an NZXT Phantom 410 case, and Cooler Master's Hyper 212 EVO cooler. After modest overclocking, the rig is stable and quiet. However, I want to try water cooling to see how much further I can push it. Here's what's holding me back. I work for the US Department of State, and I live overseas. I can expect to move every two or three years. A colleague of mine advised against water cooling because he thought it'd be a pain to disassemble when I get relocated. Do you agree? I will tell you that I'm a gamer. Currently playing The Witcher 2 at 1440p. As I said, I'm pretty happy with my rig. –Alain DeWitt The Doctor Responds: The Doc is a gamer as well, Alain. But he's also very busy. That means big air coolers get preferential treatment in his ATX cases, while closed-loop liquid coolers like Corsair's Hydro H60 are easier to fit into the compact machines he builds. Spending extra on a water cooling kit in the hopes of coaxing another 100 or 200MHz from a CPU just doesn't seem practical. In fact, it counters one fundamental goal of overclocking: improve value by boosting the performance of more affordable components. But many power users swear by water cooling. Some take that route for improved thermal performance. Beefy radiators and pumps aggressively dissipate heat from high-end host processors and graphics cards. Other enthusiasts like the aesthetic impact. It's hard not to be impressed by neatly routed tubing filled with UV-reactive coolant behind a windowed side panel. And believe it or not, water-cooling kits can be easier to transport. Heavy heatsinks strapped to fragile sockets tug on motherboards, warp retention mechanisms, and even pull CPUs out of place. You asked the Doc's opinion though, so here it is. The Hyper 212 EVO already strapped to your Core i5 represents a great compromise between size and cooling, particularly at its price point. If you're already nursing a reasonable overclock, sinking hundreds into water-cooling hardware will only serve to erode the value of that tuned chip. Why not treat yourself to a couple of extra games instead? NVMe Disappointment I recently purchased Samsung's XP941 M.2 SSD during a moment of risky early adopter-ness. But I became suspicious of performance issues shortly after assembling my new Asus X99-Deluxe/Core i7-5930K rig. Far Cry 4 wasn't loading any faster than it did on my Z97/Samsung 840 EVO-based system. Even Word didn't act snappier. Now I read in your April issue that the NVMe party hasn't started yet. Color me depressed. What can I do to maximize the XP941's performance? Could a NVMe-capable firmware flash to either/both components address the problem? –Chris Ajemian The Doctor Responds: Although the Doc has heard of issues with the XP941 performing erratically after waking up from a sleep state, he's not aware of any responsiveness issues. A little expectation management may be in order, though. The 840 EVO is a quick SSD. The XP941 boasts incredible sequential throughput, but it won't stand out as prominently from the SATA 6Gb/s crowd as synthetic storage benchmarks suggest. Early in March, Asus did publish an NVMe-capable firmware for its X99-Deluxe. But the XP941 employs AHCI, as does Samsung's SM951. Until desktop-oriented drives with NVMe support start showing up, enthusiasts are must gawk at the enterpriseclass SSDs and drool. Busted Graphics Card Thanks to some "help" from my children, my old Radeon HD 6950 graphics card is broken. I'm looking at upgrading to either a Radeon R9 285 or GeForce GTX 960. Since I don't have my old card to boot from, which would allow me to uninstall the old drivers, should I stick with AMD to avoid a headache? I'm running an Asus Crosshair Formula V, with 16GB of RAM, an FX-8150 processor, and Windows 7 64-bit. School is starting soon, so any advice would be appreciated. –Jonathon Hardin The Doctor Responds: Let's get you past that driver issue first, Jonathon. Go grab Display Driver Uninstaller at www.wagnardmobile.com. As long as you're able to boot Windows to Safe Mode, the utility will find and eradicate Registry entries, folders, and files related to the existing Catalyst installation. From there, you shouldn't have any problem getting back into Windows. Of course, that's been the Doc's experience. The tool's author takes no responsibility for anything that goes wrong. Assuming DDU does its job, you're free to choose between the Maxwell-based GeForce or Radeon with AMD's Tonga GPU. The Radeon is more expensive. However, it's available with significant rebates. Both cards are similarly quick. The Doc thinks Nvidia has the advantage in this battle, though. Its GM206 GPU comes equipped with 1,024 CUDA cores and is complemented by 2GB of GDDR5 memory, making it most suitable for gaming at 1920x1080. But the board is only rated for 120W, meaning it can get away with a single 6-pin power connector. You're already used to the 200W Radeon HD 6950, so this card would kick out less heat (and run more quietly). If you plan to record your gaming sessions, ShadowPlay is proving to be a popular bit of software. And Nvidia's Multi-Frame Anti-Aliasing technology reduces jaggies at a lower performance cost than other techniques. In contrast, AMD specifies its Radeon R9 285 for 190W, necessitating two 6-pin connectors. Game recording is supported through a bundled third-party app called Raptr, and a recent beta driver gave us our first look at FreeSync, which synchronizes a compatible display's refresh rate to the R9 285's output, eliminating the compromises imposed by V-Sync. Nvidia matches that capability with its own proprietary G-Sync. But both companies' implementations require you buy a compatible monitor. Nvidia's G-Sync technology is proprietary; AMD's FreeSync isn't. As a result, FreeSynccompatible panels should be less expensive. Submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com

SourceForge Tries to Win Back Trust of Open-Source Developers Posted: 08 Jun 2015 02:47 PM PDT After drawing the ire of the open-source community over the past couple of weeks, SourceForge published a blog post today explaining how it will generate ad revenue going forward. The online software repository landed itself in hot water after it was found to be bundling adware with free and open-source software downloads, most notably the Windows version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). In the blog post, SourceForge said that the adware bundling was part of a test to see how palatable the ads would be. "SourceForge also recently ran a test of presenting easy-to-decline third-party offers with a small number (5) of projects mirrored on our site," the blog post said. "This included gimp-win, but did not include nmap. Based on the community feedback, we promptly discontinued this test based on community reaction." In a blog post from May 31, the GIMP project chastised SourceForge for what it had done, and indicated that the trust the community had placed in the website had been irreparably damaged: "To us, this firmly places SourceForge among the dodgy crowd of download sites. SourceForge are abusing the trust that we and our users had put into their service in the past. We don't believe that this is a fixable situation," the post said. "Even if they promise to adhere to the set of guidelines outlined below, these promises are likely to become worthless with any upcoming management change at SourceForge." "As a company, we at SourceForge pride ourselves on being highly responsive to our community members," SourceForge's post said. "With that in mind and in an effort to facilitate feedback and ensure our responsiveness to the community, we have established a forum in which we encourage you to share your ideas and suggestions."

Corsair Graphite Series 380T Review Posted: 08 Jun 2015 02:35 PM PDT Float like a butterfly, look like a bee at a glance (+) Honey-baked Ham Surprising roominess; lots of cooling options; pleasing aesthetics. (-) Breakfast Syrup Priced on the high side; handle can obstruct CPU coolers. Performance enthusiasts like big stuff. Big cases, big videocards, big monitors. But we also enjoy the challenge of fitting a lot into a little. Sometimes it's putting a Porsche engine into a vintage VW Beetle. Other times, it's putting a high-grade gaming machine into a Mini-ITX cube case. Corsair came out with the Obsidian 250D last year, and now it's time for something a little less boxy. The 380T fits the bill, and also delivers a compelling design. You'll notice one design decision right away. The side panels are tool-less—just pull the handle at the top of the windows and they come off. Almost all of it is a grill, about 10 inches tall and 12 inches wide, so you have some serious ventilation. The front intake grill is about 8.5 inches wide and 9.5 inches tall, and a 140mm fan comes pre-installed. But as you've probably guessed by its sheer dimensions, you can also fit two 120mm fans, or one 200mm fan. You also get a 120mm exhaust fan pre-installed in the rear. Lastly, the power supply gets a grill with a slide-out dust filter. The front and rear grills are also fitted with a fine mesh to keep out dust. If that's not enough, the 380T has an integrated three-speed fan controller that can connect up to three fans, and it accommodates three- and four-pin fan cables. This gadget is especially handy in an ITX case, because this size of motherboard rarely has more than two fan headers, one of which is reserved for the CPU cooler. The controller is accessed from a button on the front of the case, which also sports two USB 3.0 ports, a large reset button, and a power button. If you want to add a tower-style CPU cooler, you're limited to a max height of 150mm, but there's a bracket on the right side of the case that will hold a 120mm or 240mm radiator (or two 120mm fans). We installed a Corsair Hydro H100i cooler during testing, and it fit, just. But you do have to install the cooler on the mobo before putting the motherboard in, because the central handle on the top of the case is pretty wide and will block most screwdrivers. It might be better if the handle section was removable, but that could take away the handle's ability to accommodate the case's weight. (Check out this month's "Build It," on page 68, for even more on building into this case.) Your New Squeeze? On the bright side, you can fit a videocard up to 11.4 inches long. We'd recommend a shorter one to make your cable routing a little easier; when space is this tight, every square inch counts. But it's nice to have the option to install a full-length videocard. For an ITX case, the 380T also has some pretty solid storage options. You have two 3.5-inch bays in a removable drive cage that sits in front of the power supply, and two 2.5-inch slots to the left of the power supply. If you need more, an adapter in a 3.5-inch tray will let it accommodate two 2.5-inch drives. We wouldn't recommend a beefy power supply—the practical limit is about 150mm, unless you remove the drive cage. But with space for just one videocard, you won't be pulling much juice anyway. We don't see a scenario where you'd need more than a 600-watt unit. With a street price of about $140, you could get a pretty slick mid-tower or even a respectable full tower case. So the 380T needs to do some convincing. For what it's worth. we think it's one of the best ITX cases we've seen. You have lots of cooling, space, portability, and eye-catching design (though beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Maybe keep an eye out for a sale on this little bumblebee. $140 (street), www.corsair.com Specifications Dimensions (W x H x D) 11.5 x 14 x 15.5 inches Included Fans 14cm front, 12cm rear Drive Bays 2x 2.5-inch, 3x 3.5-inch Max GPU Length 90mm Max Cooler Height 150mm Max PSU Length 160mm Mobo Support Mini-ITX Connectors 2x USB 3.0, headphone, mic, three-speed fan control Weight 12.2lb

Newegg Daily Deals: Acer XB270HU 27-Inch G-Sync Monitor, Corsair 1,000W PSU, and More! Posted: 08 Jun 2015 12:37 PM PDT Top Deal: Why put up with screen tearing and stuttering during game play if you don't have to? If you're rocking an old monitor that stinks for gaming, it's time to kick that LCD (or CRT, if it's really old) to the curb and get something new. And if you want buttery smooth game play, check out today's top deal for an Acer XB270HU bprz 27-inch G-Sync Monitor for $780 with free shipping (normally $800 - use coupon code: [EMCATAS75]). Not only does it boast G-Sync, but this is an IPS panel with a 144Hz refresh rate. Other Deals: Samsung SE360 Series S27E360H White 27-inch 4ms Monitor for $200 with free shipping (normally $220 - use coupon code: [EMCATAS34]) Corsair RM1000 1000W 80 PLUS GOLD Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply for $150 with free shipping (normally $170 - use coupon code: [EMCATAS29]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate) Seagate Hybrid Drives 500GB MLC/8GB NCQ 2.5-inch Laptop SSHD for $60 with free shipping (normally $62 - use coupon code: [ESCATAS25]) Seagate 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Retail Kit for $50 with free shipping (normally $60 - use coupon code: [ESCATAS24])

AMD Radeon 300 Series Prices Leak Ahead of Launch Posted: 08 Jun 2015 12:21 PM PDT Aggressive pricing We have good news and we have bad news. Starting with the bad, it doesn't look like any of AMD's forthcoming Radeon 300 series graphics card will feature the company's Fiji GPU with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Instead, it looks as though AMD is tweaking and rebadging existing cards. That's a bummer, but on the plus side, aggressive pricing seems to be the name of the game. The folks at WCCFTech managed to obtain pricing info on the new cards ahead of launch, and they're so confident in their source, they've decided to do away with the rumor tag and consider the MSRPs as confirmed. We're not willing to go quite as far, but given that WCCFTech has been right in the past, we'll pass along their MSRP claims. Here's goes: Radeon R9 390X 8GB (Enhanced Hawaii XT): $389 Radeon R9 390 8GB (Enhanced Hawaii Pro): $329 Radeon R9 380X 3GB/6GB (Tonga XT): Not confirmed Radeon R9 380 4GB (Tonga Pro): $235 Radeon R9 380 2GB (Tonga Pro): $195 Radeon R7 370 4GB (Pitcairn): $175 Radeon R7 370 2GB (Pitcairn): $135 Radeon R7 360 2GB (Bonaire): $107 The two Hawaii-based cards are labeled as Enthusiast and the rest fall into the Performance segment. On the upper end, the R9 390X will replace the R9 290X with faster clocks, likely making it more competitive with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 970 when running at 1920x1080. It will also have double the amount of GDDR5 memory. While these aren't the Fury cards that gamers have been waiting for, the high bang-for-buck of these rebadges will have to suffice for the time being.

Asus Strix DCU2 OC GTX 960 Review Posted: 08 Jun 2015 12:19 PM PDT Nvidia's Maxwell generation hits a sweet spot at a glance (+) Aces of Spades Great price-performance ratio; runs cool and quiet; power-efficient. (-) Snake Eyes AMD's Omega drivers steal some thunder. One of the nice things about PCs is that your budget has a wide range of entry points. If you don't need the heavy lifting of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 or an AMD Radeon R9 290X, you don't have to cough up hundreds of dollars for one. Both companies offer a variety of GPUs to fit your budget. Historically, Nvidia's cards ending in "60"—like the 560, 660, and 760—have offered performance in between the premium cards and the more economical choices, putting them in a "Goldilocks zone" of balanced price and performance. Nvidia's latest, the GTX 960, is no exception. With a 128-bit memory bus, a little over a thousand shader cores, and 2GB of VRAM, it's not designed to be a giant leap over the GTX 660. But it's not modest, either. Let's take a look at the Asus Strix DirectCU II OC Edition of the GTX 960. This mouthful of a card comes overclocked out of the box, and the company claims a 12 percent average increase in performance, versus Nvidia's "reference" model. It features dual fans sitting on top of heatsinks that are fed by several heat pipes, and these fans are made to not spin until the GPU core heats up to 65 degrees Celsius. When it does, the Strix fans are designed to operate quietly, yet still run the chip cooler than the stock version. About 30 percent chillier, in fact. "DirectCU" refers to the copper heat pipes that are in direct contact with the GPU core. The GTX 960 has a TDP of just 120 watts and only needs a six-pin PCI Express power cable (there are some eight-pin GTX 960s out there, though). Despite that, the Asus card also has an "OC mode" setting that increases its core clock speed to 1,253MHz and its boost clock to 1,317MHz. The default clock speeds of the GTX 960 are 1,126MHz and 1,178MHz, respectively, so it's a sizable jump, but it still stays within the available power envelope of 150 watts (75W from the slot, and another 75W from the cable). Smooth Operator We tried something a little different this time and ran our benchmarks at 2560x1440 using Dynamic Super Resolution, instead of using an actual 1440p monitor. Technically, DSR uses ordered-grid super-sample antialiasing with a 13-tap Gaussian filter. In more straightforward terms, DSR takes a higher resolution than your monitor can display, squishes it down to fit, and applies a filter to enhance smoothness on the edges of objects in the game world. It can scale up to 3840x2160, also known as "4K," and can stop at points in between, such as 2560x1440. A 1440p monitor has roughly 80 percent more pixels than a 1080p monitor, and it's a common resolution for gamers with deeper pockets. AMD uses Virtual Super Resolution, which is more or less the same thing. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, however, didn't cooperate with either DSR or VSR, so 2880x1620 was our closest alternative there. We pitted this card primarily against AMD's Radeon R9 285, which has roughly the same price point (though this ITX version is a bit higher). The GTX 960 has a 128-bit memory bus, while the 285 has a 256-bit bus, but it doesn't make as much of a difference as you might think, thanks to some clever data compression techniques and improved shader core performance versus Nvidia's older Kepler generation. Whether it was 1920x1080 or 2560x1440, the GTX 960 had little trouble keeping up. In fact, the 960 does a bit better in Tomb Raider, which is an AMD-backed game. The GTX 960's biggest threat is arguably the R9 290, which offers GTX 970–level performance at around $250—though we recommend no less than a 600-watt power supply, because the 290 has a TDP of 275 watts, and it's not bluffing. More recently AMD's "Omega" drivers have made some frankly unexpected strides in performance. Still, the GTX 960 produces pretty much the results it was designed to, at a price that we expected. It doesn't hurt that this Asus Strix version runs super cool and quiet, despite being aggressively overclocked out-of-the-box. $210, www.asus.com Specifcations CUDA Cores 1,024 Memory Clock 7,200Mhz (GDDR5) Memory Bus 128-bit Interface 1x DVI-I, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort Dimensions (H x D x W) 1.6 x 4.8 x 8.5 inches Benchmarks Asus Strix DCU2 OC GTX 960 MSI Twin Frozr III GTX 660 Asus GTX 970 DC Mini Sapphire R9 285 ITX Compact AMD Radeon R9 290 Tomb Raider (fps) 55 37 80 54 80 Metro: Last Light (fps) 34 23 47 34 48 Batman: Arkham Origins (fps) 45 36 68 51 75 Hitman: Absolution (fps) 23 17 39 30 50 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (fps) 30 25 44 33 44 Price (street) $210 $160 $350 $240 $250 Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition in an Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard with 16GB of DDR3/1600 and a Corsair AX1200 1,200-watt PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows 8.1. All games are run at 2560x1440 via DSR, except for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which was tested at 2880x1620.

Apple Brings Home-Brewed Metal API to Mac via OS X El Capitan Posted: 08 Jun 2015 11:34 AM PDT Mac wants to be taken seriously as a gaming platform Apple seems to be interested in making the Mac a more viable gaming platform. We're reading a bit between the lines to arrive at that conclusion, but it makes sense, considering the Cupertino company has baked its own Metal API into the next version of its desktop OS, Mac OS X El Capitan. First launched on iOS 8 last year, Metal for Mac works much in the same way, Apple announced at its WWDC event in San Francisco today. It essentially combines the raw compute power of OpenCL with the graphics capabilities of OpenGL into a single core-level graphics API that boasts built-in support for both. The upside for developers is they gain low-level access to the GPU with minimal overhead. In that way, it's similar to AMD's Mantle and Microsoft's DirectX 12 APIs. Apple claims that performance gains are substantial. More specifically, Apple says Metal will provide up to 50 percent faster rendering performance. Apps will purportedly load 14 times faster and switch twice as fast, and for the CPU, Apple says Metal is 40 percent more efficient than OpenGL. While you can play games on a Mac, it hasn't been the most popular platform -- Windows still holds the crown for computer gaming. This is where Metal comes into play.  Epic Games, the company behind Unreal Engine, showed off the possibilities of Metal via Fortnight, a new zombie-shooter that's due out for PCs and Macs later this year. The Metal API is integrated into Unreal Engine 4 and allowed Epic Games to make significant graphical changes to its title in real time. Other developers are ready to manipulate Metal as well, including 2K Games, Blizzard, The Foundry, and more.

Ask the Doctor: VGA Cooling, GPU Upgrades, Sluggish PCs Posted: 08 Jun 2015 10:57 AM PDT The Doctor tackles busted coolers, bad GPUs, and PCs in need of some cleaning Busted Frozr Doc, I've got an aging Nvidia GTX 570 card from MSI that came with a Twin Frozr II cooler. While considering the possibility of either an upgrade or SLI configuration, I noticed the temperatures on my GPU were getting very high according to the monitoring software I use, especially under load. After investigating, I discovered one of the fans on my card had completely seized up while the other stuttered and barely ran at all. I've since removed and cleaned the card, disassembled the Twin Frozr II assembly to gain access to the fans' rear area in an attempt to perform a lube, and reinstalled everything. After all that I discovered I'd completely failed to coax either fan back to life. I now have a quasi-serviceable video card that lacks a working cooler (I found one option to buy a replacement fan bundle, but it's sourced in China and comes with hefty import fees). As things stand, anything more taxing than short streaming videos pushes temps up to and beyond 90 C. My rig has been hobbled, and I don't like it. I'm now seeing phantom longevity issues with heatsink/fan combination coolers wherever I look. I'm needing some reassurances that if I buy a new card today, I won't end up in the same situation a few years down the road. Also, an explanation as to why no one seems to offer an off-the-shelf water cooling solution for GPUs would be good. —Brandon Kalaskie The Doctor Responds: Our main advice is to examine the manufacturer's warranty before purchase. For video cards, warranties typically range from three to five years, which should be sufficient given how fast technology advances, but we realize some people aren't always able to upgrade. If your product fails once it's past that warranty period, well, there's not much you can do. Many of us actually look forward to such a failure, as it gives us a spouse-proof excuse to upgrade. For your case, there are aftermarket solutions both in the air and water realms. For air coolers there are a ton of options that fall under the Google phrase "VGA cooling." Arctic Cooling is the most prolific, as it's been making add-on coolers for GPUs for as long as we can remember. The primary consideration for these coolers is to make sure they're able to cool the onboard components and memory of the card, as they can get just as hot as the GPU at full load. Most coolers have heatsinks you can apply to the memory modules and an airflow pattern that washes over the rest of the components, but make sure you're not ignoring the overall board temps in favor of just monitoring your GPU temp. Also, our Google Fu shows us the Zalman VF3000 is specifically designed for your GTX 570 card, and there are a few of them for sale on eBay. On the liquid cooling front you have a few options. First NXZT makes a GPU cooling system called the Kraken G10 that's compatible with the GTX 570 and costs $30. You still need to bring your own closed-loop liquid cooler (CLC), but it'll work with a variety listed on the product page: http://bit.ly/krakeng10. Its thermal coverage isn't as good as a block designed for custom liquid cooling, but going that route would cost as much as simply replacing the card. You'll need a fan mount inside your case for the G10's CLC, too, so make sure your case can accommodate this. Corsair has also announced a liquid cooling solution for GPUs named the HG10. It also requires you purchase a seperate Hydro Series liquid CPU cooler, just like with the NZXT. Sadly the Corsair cooler is vaporware at this point, and we've no idea when it will appear on the retail horizon. There are plenty of aftermarket options for GPU cooling, including air and water-based setups. SLI Gone Bad I have a Dell XPS 730 that had dual Nvidia GeForce 9800GT cards in SLI Mode. A week ago my screen went haywire so I removed one card at a time and found one to be the culprit. I had great performance with both cards in SLI mode. Now that I have just one card, perfomance is much worse. Since I don't have a whole lot of money to spend (maybe up to the mid-toupper $300 range), what would be a good replacement card(s) that meet or exceed the dual 9800GT SLI performance? —Robert Orsino The Doctor Responds: According to an exhaustive Google scouring, the Dell XPS 730 uses an ancient Intel Core 2 Quad CPU. While we could recommend a decent video card in the $250-$300 range, it'll be bottlenecked by that sluggish CPU. It's always important to match your CPU's overall power with your GPU's. Given your CPU's level, we think you'll get better value out of a midrange GPU such as the AMD Radeon R9 285 or the Nvidia GeForce GTX 760. Super Slow Hey doc, I hope you can give me some direction on this. So, my parents bought a new Dell PC about four years ago. It's running Windows 7, has 6GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD, a graphics card (not sure which one), and most of all an AMD Phenom X6 CPU at 3GHz. It was a great deal when my dad found it, and for what they do, I thought it would be perfect! I thought the Phenom X6 would be blazing fast. My mom mostly surfs the net and does some light picture editing. Well, a little while after they got it, my mom complained about how slow it seemed, so I went over there one weekend and attempted to use their PC. It took over five minutes to see the start of the desktop and another five minutes before I could click on anything. Then Internet Explorer kept freezing on me. The HDD is only 15 percent full, so I know a full HDD isn't the problem. I bet there is some bloatware that could be removed, but it just seems SO slow that there has to be something else going on. Any recommendations on where to start? Do you think maybe the HDD is just that slow? I mentioned an SSD to them and reinstalling the OS, but they're not sure they want to do that unless it's the only way. Any help would be wonderful. —Jarod Myrick The Doctor Responds: First off Jarod, we're positive many people reading this are feeling PTSD symptoms from having to fix a slow PC for relatives. It's probably the most common ailment for your garden variety rig out there in the wild, and back when The Doc was a PC repair technician the number one problem we had to deal with—PCs full of bloatware, viruses, toolbars, antivirus programs, and worse. Seeing those PCs in such a sorry state always broke our hearts. The good news is we have some baseline tactics. First, comb through the Programs and Features menu in the Control Panel and remove any program not being used. Sometimes Malware likes to hide in plain sight. Next take a look at what's starting automatically by typing "msconfig" into the search box in the Windows Start menu. This will display services and programs that start automatically every time your PC boots. You'll want to check the box labeled "Hide all Microsoft services" before purging, but once those are cleared just examine the list and use your judgement. You probably need your antivirus or fan control service to start automatically, but not an app that checks for updates on a piece of software you give zero effs about. When it comes to the Startup tab, this is where you'll see a real difference in boot times and overall readiness after boot. Be careful here, but keep in mind that whatever you uncheck can always be rechecked if a problem arises. We also recommend downloading and installing the excellent free utility CCleaner, as it can quickly and easily remove excess files. As a bonus it also has a built-in Startup utility that is much more extensive than the one included with Windows. It can be found under the Tools menu. With those basics out of the way, we gotta say your parents' PC sounds like it has an old skool virus or malware infestation. We recommend starting off with Malwarebytes, which is free and great at ferreting out malware. Next scan with SuperAntiSpyware, which is also free and generally excellent. For a virus scan, instead of going to the store (virtual or brick), just run a browser-based scan like the one available from Bitdefender. It's free, fast, and can help. If you do all of the above you should see an improvement. For boot times, we would normally expect a Windows 7-based "mom and dad" rig to boot in about a minute with an HDD running the show. Installing an SSD could drop that to 30 seconds or so, but not even an SSD can overcome a total system infestation. Our advice is to clean the system, then install an SSD to help keep the system running at breakneck speed so you don't have to go over there anymore. In addition to removing unwanted files from your PC, the excellent and free CCleaner also has a powerful Startup examination utility. Submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com

Computex 2015 Day 3: BitFenix Builds a Bigger Pandora Case [Video] Posted: 08 Jun 2015 10:54 AM PDT A Pandora for larger builds BitFenix introduced its Pandora case last September, a stylish and compact case for smaller builds. Some users complained that it was too compact and pleaded with BitFenix to construct a bigger version for more meatier builds, and that's what they did. Meet the Pandora ATX, a much larger version that can supports up to E-ATX motherboards. For the Pandora ATX, BitFenix went with steel side panels instead of brushed aluminum like its predecessor. While some will bemoan that decision, the upside is that the new case costs the same as its little brother. One thing that BitFenix kept the same is the ability to load your own custom graphic on the front panel. That feature's been retained for the Pandora ATX. You can look for the Panodra ATX to debut for around $110 in August. BitFenix also showed us its Nova case and a revised Atlas chassis. The Atlas is the more interesting of the two. Compared to the first version, this new edition is a little bit smaller, a decision BitFenix made to get the price down and reduce shipping costs. Have a look:

Microsoft Aims to Remove Legal Speak from License Agreements Posted: 08 Jun 2015 10:48 AM PDT Plain English, please! Let's be real, few of us take the time to actually read through long and boring service agreements, and many of us skip privacy statements until someone raises hell on the Internet that a company has overstepped its bounds. Maybe that will change for users of Microsoft's various services once the Redmond outfit consolidates and simplifies the language. Microsoft is expanding its Services Agreement to cover most of its consumer services, like Bing, Cortana, Microsoft accounts, OneDrive, Outlook.com, Skype, Xbox Live, and others. At the same time, Microsoft is refreshing its Privacy Statement, all in an effort to be more transparent, make things easier to understand, and avoid the repetitiveness that came about from having separate documents for multiple services. "In a world of more personalized computing, customers need meaningful transparency and privacy protections. And those aren't possible unless we get the basics right," Microsoft said in a blog post. "For consumer services, that starts with clear terms and policies that both respect individual privacy and don't require a law degree to read." In other words, expect more plain English language and less of the stuffy legalese that these things are typically known for. Microsoft said the altered documents will hit the web on August 1 and will cover new technologies such as Windows 10.

Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Amp Extreme Edition Review Posted: 08 Jun 2015 09:44 AM PDT at a glance (+) Bratwurst High performance; minimal noise; pleasing aesthetics. (-) Veggie Dog Relatively expensive; a little on the husky side. Feet firmly planted in Serious Business territory Nvidia's new Maxwell generation of video cards breaks down into two categories: the GTX 970 and GTX 980. As its numbering implies, the 970 is the less-expensive and not-as-fast option, coming in at around $330 for the basic model. As you can see from the photo, Zotac's Amp Extreme Edition is anything but basic, with an appropriately higher street price of about $400. What does that extra cheddar get you? Aside from performance that can pretty much guarantee 60fps at 1080p, the Amp Extreme (one tier above Zotac's "Omega") gets you some massive cooling. Since the GTX 970 is only rated to need 145 watts before overclocking, it's not putting out a lot of heat, by video card standards. With this jumbo-sized heatsink helping things along, the trio of fans never has to work that hard, so the result is a very quiet piece of hardware, no matter how hard you push it. The Amp Extreme already has an aggressive overclock before you plug it in; theGPU core clock is pushed from 1,050MHz to 1,203MHz, which pushes the "boost" clock from 1,178MHz to 1,355MHz. The 4GB of GDDR5 RAM on the card is also overclocked from 7,000MHz to 7,200MHz. If that seems a lot, we were able to push things even further, to a core clock of 1,400MHz and a memory clock of 8,000MHz. Even this far above its factory specifications, the GPU never got above 70 C during our tests. The actual rise in performance is not linear, since your GPU still depends on other parts of the computer to keep up. But this is a hefty amount of headroom made possible by Zotac's considerable cooling design, and by some adjustments it's made to the circuitry of the card underneath. Core Performance Despite all of this added beef, though, the Extreme Edition still can't quite reach the performance of the basic GTX 980. This is largely due to the 970 having 1,664 shader cores, while the 980 has 2,048. (This is still much lower than the older GTX 780, but performance per core is much higher with the newer cards.) Still, it gets quite close for about $150 less (which means about $200 for less fancy models). So, as this issue went to press, 970s were in short supply no matter what their price. Meanwhile, AMD slashed the price of its comparable Radeon R9 290 and 290X cards, and you can now find them for as little as $250 and $300, respectively. These two cards have TDPs ranging from 250 to 300 watts, though, so you can't add a second one unless you have a beefy power supply. The bottom line is there's an aggressive price war going on, and the price points will probably have evolved further by the time you read this. Another factor is the game bundles, which also change frequently. At any rate, with a card the size of the Amp Extreme, you have to make compromises. It's 12-inches long and 2.5 card slots wide. It won't fit in some smaller cases, and some mobos don't have their PCIe slots spaced far enough apart to accommodate this card's huge heatsink, in which case adding a second card for SLI is off the table. This Extreme Edition also requires two 8-pin PCIe power cables (the base model uses two 6-pin cables), but that's pretty common these days, as long as your power supply is rated for at least 500 watts. If you're firmly on the Nvidia side, then the Amp Extreme is a tempting piece of gear. If you have no affiliation, the Radeon R9 290 is arguably better value, at least versus the $400 version of the GTX 970. The 290 isn't as fast, but it can be a lot cheaper if you shop around. For pure performance regardless of cost, the GTX 980 is still your best bet. $400 (street), www.zotac.com Specifications Interface 16x PCIe 3.0 Cores 1,664 Core Clock 1,203MHz (base); 1,355MHz (boost) Memory Clock 7,200MHz Memory Type GDDR5 Memory Size 4GB Ports 1x DVI; 1x HDMI; 3x DisplayPort; VGA Benchmarks Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Amp Extreme MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G Asus ROG Matrix Radeon R9 290X Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition Tomb Raider (fps) 30 35 26 25 25 Metro: Last Light (fps) 44 53 30 29 25 Batman: Arkham Origins (fps) 68 80 65 62 71 Hitman: Absolution 38 43 51 49 45 Unigine Valley 1.0 (fps) 39 47 41 39 48 Unigine Heaven 4.0 (fps) 34 42 33 34 39 3D Mark Fire Strike 10,143 11,480 9,837 9,602 9,695 Price (street) $400 $570 $430 $315 discontinued Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition in an Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard with 16GB of DDR3/1600 and a Thermaltake ToughPower 1,050W PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows 8.1. All games are run at 2560x1600, except for 3DMark.

Ask the Doctor: SATAe vs. M.2, Boot Problems, XL Cases Posted: 08 Jun 2015 09:25 AM PDT The Doctor answers your questions about gaming mobos, multiple GPUs, boot delays, oversized towers, and home-brew PCs Life in the Fast Lanes I'm a gamer looking to upgrade soon. I'm running an Intel Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4GHz with a Corsair H55 liquid cooler on an Asus P8Z68-V Pro mobo, with 32GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and a 120GB SSD, with two Nvidia GTX 760s in SLI overclocked to 1,300MHz. I'm looking to upgrade my mobo and CPU because LGA1155 is outdated. I really want to find a mobo that'll give me the most for those graphics cards because right now mine is PCIe 2.0 x8/x8. Is there a mobo that can run PCIe 3.0 x16/x16? I've a $400 budget, so should I get one now or wait 'til SATA Express comes out? —Tim Toavs The Doctor Responds: You can upgrade for $400, but you won't be getting dual x16 SLI action, at least not on the Intel platform. That type of bandwidth is reserved for the "big boy sockets" like X79 and X99 chipsets, and they need Intel's Core i7 CPUs. To get the full 40 lanes of PCIe the X99 chipset offers, you'll need to move up to the Core i7-5930K, which is $600. You'll have to stick with the consumer-grade chipset, which is Intel's new Z97. You can get a mobo from all the usual suspects for $150, and then grab a Core i5-4690K "Devil's Canyon" CPU for $210 and you'll be set for at least a few years, as these motherboards (LGA 1150) are compatible with Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPUs, too. This chipset (and CPUs) only offer 16 lanes of PCIe, so you can run one card at x16 or two at x8. It shouldn't impact performance much, as most modern videocards aren't handicapped by x8 bandwidth. As for SATA Express, our guess is M.2 will become the favored interface—it's simple and offers the same performance as SATAe. Even better, you can buy an M.2 SSD now, though selection is very limited. Our tip is don't wait for SATAe. Get a board with an M.2 slot and you'll be set. One GPU or Two? My system is about two years old. I've an EVGA GTX 670 superclocked 4GB videocard. It runs great and plays all the latest games with no issues. I'd like to buy another GTX 670 and run them in SLI. Currently I can buy a slightly used one for about $150 or new for $300. My system is an Intel Core i7-3770K, 32GB of Patriot memory, an Asus P8Z77-V LE mobo, and a Samsung 256GB 840 Pro SSD running Windows 8.1. Should I buy the second GTX 670, or look into a GTX 980 instead? I'd like to keep this system at least two more years and want my videocard to run current games until then. — Jim Catan The Doctor Responds: This is a tough call, Jim, but we'd probably stick with a second GTX 670 SLI as it will be very close to a GTX 980 in performance, and cost you a fraction of the price. Plus, since you have the 4GB version, you're all set for 4K gaming. Of course, SLI has always been a bit more problematic to run than a single card, though both AMD and Nvidia have done a generally excellent job of providing driver profiles for AAA games the day of launch, so those concerns have gotten easier to deal with. Perhaps the biggest question is whether you can handle double the heat and noise in your case, and whether your power supply is capable of running SLI? These are all issues that SLI-runners must deal with, which is why many people just want to run a single GPU, as there are zero hassles taking that route. If you decide a single card is your future, but you're on a budget, consider the Maxwell-based GTX 970 as it's an absolute bargain at $330. It will offer probably about the same performance as your dual cards, with less than half the noise and heat. Optical Delays I upgraded my Asus Z77 WS gaming computer to a Z87 WS MOB and Devil's Canyon CPU. After the upgrade I was getting long boot times with a Samsung 850 SSD boot drive. All drivers, BIOS, and Windows 7 were up to date. I systematically removed the USB devices to see if they were causing the problem, but it persisted. I also checked Microsoft and they had a software update but that didn't help. I had two DVD/CD internal drives installed and when I went to load up a DVD it didn't work. I removed the drive and bingo, boot time dropped to 15 to 20 seconds. Could the BIOS searching for this drive be the cause? Side note: the Asus Z87 WS makes for a great gaming board, with two 12v 8-pin CPU sockets and one 6-pin socket on the mobo to provide extra power for overclocks and multiple graphics cards. Has MPC ever used a workstation board for a gaming computer? —Ron Apra The Doctor Responds: It sounds like you practiced excellent troubleshooting, Ron. As we've learned over the years, trying to "fix" issues when the hardware is faulty is an exercise in frustration. As far as your situation goes, yes, the POST process can hang when it finds faulty hardware. Though we've seen it in the past with optical drives, we've mostly experienced it with hard drives, and lately, SSDs. The system will poll each device on boot, and will wait for a response before either showing an error or moving on. In general, whenever your system is hanging during the boot process, it's hardware-related. As an aside, we'd test to make sure the drive is really dead before tossing it. Either swap the SATA port it's using or try a different cable. Regarding your side note, yes we have used workstation boards for gaming, and you're right, they're excellent. In fact, if you're inclined to run multiple GPUs they're the best, as they provide more bandwidth than consumer-based motherboards. However, you'll need to run at least three cards before you start seeing a difference. The rest of the differences, such as support for higher core count GPUs and RAM, are just for bragging rights though, and won't make a difference in games. Massive Tower Needed I'm running an old Intel Core i7-920 Nehalem CPU in a Lian Li V1110 case with nine hard drives, two Blu-ray drives and an SSD as a media server, movie-ripping station, and occasional gaming box. I've been waiting for the Haswell-E to drop, but having read Maximum PC's reviews I'm quite worried about CPU heat. In my current rig, I'm using a Thermalright Ultra 120 cooler, and my rig will occasionally reboot due to the heat. I love that my Lian Li case can accommodate many HDDs and is soundproofed, but it won't accommodate a large water cooler such as the Corsair H100 or H110. If I want to keep my case, but upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and RAM, what is the best cooling solution? Alternatively, is there a roomy case that can accommodate lots of drives, is quiet, and has room to fit a large water cooler? —Charles The Doctor Responds: Good news, Charles, there are several cases that meet your demands for hardcore storage and cooling. We know the Cooler Master Cosmos II and the Corsair 900D will both hold all that storage and a fat radiator, or at least a closed-loop liquid cooler like the NZXT Kraken X61 or the Corsair H100i. We've had both in the lab and can attest to their ability to swallow hardware, though for our money the Corsair 900D gets the nod. The 900D can hold nine hard drives, two power supplies, and a 360mm radiator, so throwing in a Corsair H100i would be like seeing if we could eat a single hot pocket. As far as quiet goes, you have to be able to strike a balance between good airflow and usable temperatures. Insulated cases are great for noise but not the best for keeping temperatures down. For what it's worth, when we built the Dream Machine in 2013 using the Corsair 900D we had over 17 case fans of the Scythe Gentle Typhoon variety and it only emitted a gentle hum even under load. It was entirely water-cooled though. In our experience, the GPUs are the noisiest components in a PC, so if you can keep those quiet and use good case fans you'll be well on your way. Towers can take a ton of hardware, as Dream Machine 2013 showed. Out of Retirement I've a home-brew PC that's been sitting unused for about 12 to 18 months. It was working fine when last used but upon starting it up in runs in super slo-mo. I reseated the RAM and videocard and ended up swapping out the VelociRaptor primary hard drive for an extra SSD I had, but it didn't help. I then tried reinstalling Windows, which took days. Installation of the videocard driver also took days and the motherboard driver setup would not even run as it kept timing out. Any ideas? —Rob The Doctor Responds: It's best to go component by component. First just see if it will POST quickly with a single stick of RAM and nothing else, aside from the CPU. Then add the GPU, then a hard drive, etc. And for each component, see if you can test it in another PC. If you can't isolate an individual piece of hardware it's very likely the motherboard itself. Our advice is to buy a new one from a place with a generous return policy, and try it out. [Second Opinion] Registering MS Office I read in your Holiday 2014 issue about the problem a reader had with MS Office registering. I work at a community college as an IT guy and we ran into the same problem. And it was only with the 64-bit version of Office 2010. It would initially register, but after doing updates it wasn't activated. Even putting in the same key again failed. One of my coworkers found the solution, so here it is: Run a Command Prompt as administrator (right-click, choose "run" as administrator). Then navigate to the Office14 folder. For a 64-bit version it would be: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14. Once there run the following command, "cscript ospp.vbs /act." When you run Office again it will be registered. –Greg Furtman Submit your questions to: doctor@maximumpc.com.

Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard Review Posted: 08 Jun 2015 09:14 AM PDT at a glance (+) Get Together Handy stand; small; long battery life. (-) We Are the World Very tight key pitch; remaps keys. It's like cats and dogs sleeping together Microsoft has been long criticized for using an "embrace, extend—and extinguish" strategy across its business. You know, embrace a standard, extend it by adding new proprietary standards, and then extinguish the competition that can't use the proprietary standards. Well, we're truly through the looking glass with Microsoft's new Universal Mobile Keyboard, folks. This mobile Bluetooth keyboard is what you'd expect: rechargeable through micro-USB with a decent action but a little too compressed. There's also a very clever cover that does double duty as a stand for your tablet, with two different viewing angles supported. The keyboard has the typical volume controls, multimedia buttons, and a compressed cursor layout as other mobile keyboards do. So far it's a snore, right? What's so unusual? Well, it's clear that someone at Microsoft wearing an evil Mr. Spock goatee had a say in the design. This Microsoft keyboard actually has an Apple Command key and an Android on it, while there's not a single Windows key in evidence. Instead there's a Home key that functions as a universal home key. On Android OS, it takes you to the home screen, in iOS it takes you to the homepage, and on Windows 8, it takes you to Metro. Perhaps we're making too much hay of this but it tells you about the world we live in when Microsoft's own peripherals team has support for Google OSes and iOS. What's next, a Surface running Chrome OS? Universally Useful? The keys use an "island" design, which makes them look spacious, but the pitch width is 16.5mm compared to a standard 19mm keyboard. You'll definitely feel cramped when typing. It's functional for short typing assignments but we wouldn't want to use it to write our Great American Science Fiction Novel. In the good column, it truly is a universal keyboard. A small slide switch lets you select between a miniature Windows logo, an Android bot, or "iPad, iPhone." We're guessing someone's touchy about letting Microsoft use the Apple logo. We tested the keyboard using an Nvidia Shield Tablet, second-generation iPad, and the original Windows 8 tablet with no issues. The stand worked well holding up even the large iPad, as well as the 8-inch Shield Tablet. Switching between devices was seamless and easy, and we can honestly see it as being a useful feature for multi-OS tablet users. The only really tricky part is if you don't intend to use it with three OSes. Microsoft has apparently remapped the keys based on the OS selector switch. For example, when we paired our Shield Tablet with the keyboard set to iOS, key behavior for the Home key and Escape key and Search key changed. We replicated the behavior using a Samsung Galaxy S5 running Android 4.4.4, as well. That means if you intend to buy this keyboard, to say, share it between two different tablets running the same OS, behavior will be a little funky. We understand why Microsoft would do such a thing but we also don't think it's that universal, either. It's a rare home that has a Windows 8, iOS, and Android tablet. Most homes and users typically want to share a keyboard with a phone and tablet running the same OS, in our experience. It's a pity, really. There's a lot we like, such as the well-thought-out stand that doubles as a cover, but its tight key pitch and funky remapping hurts its overall usefulness. $79, www.microsoft.com

President Barack Obama Cites Need for Updated Government PCs to Fend Off Hackers Posted: 08 Jun 2015 09:05 AM PDT Hack attack highlights need for newer systems with better security Cyber criminals aren't getting any less sophisticated, and if you ask the U.S. President, he'll tell you that there's a need to be "much more aggressive" in defending against hackers. Part of being aggressive means upgrading and updating old computer systems. According to Reuters, President Barack Obama on Monday said that the U.S. is saddled with dated computers with "significant vulnerabilities." He made the comment in the wake of a recent cyber attack targeting government PCs. "This problem is not going to go away," Obama said during a news conference. "It is going to accelerate, and that means that we have to be as nimble, as aggressive, and as well-resourced as those who are tying to break into these systems." The cyber attack that has the President all riled up resulted in the theft of around 4 million past and present federal government employees. He didn't say who is believed to be responsible, though speaking on condition of anonymity, various U.S. officials told Reuters that the hackers were based in China.

Get More Speed for Free! Posted: 08 Jun 2015 08:57 AM PDT 52 time-saving tips and tricks After a while, every OC starts to show its age. Programs that used to be lightning fast suddenly start to go slow. tasks that used to take five minutes now take 10. using your computer for anything in fact starts to feel like a chore. in short, a once-lovely machine becomes a liability, dragging your productivity through the dirt and wasting your precious time. Fortunately, there's always a way to speed up a PC, whether it's a 7-year-old clunker or last year's model that's just starting to slow. hell, you can even wring some extra performance out of a brand new pC, if you know what to do. in this article, we're going to share a whopping 52 ways to get more horsepower out of any PC, covering hardware, software, and operating system tweaks. Best of all, each one of them is completely free. everyone who's ever said there's no such thing as a free lunch is wrong—you can reclaim lost speed without ever spending a cent. why not start right now? Sort Out Your Software Transform your PC into a steroid-stacked sprinter by fine tuning your OS and other software Although a computer is a machine, the most common sources of slowdown are anything but mechanical. Instead, it's the operating system and software that cause most of the problems that can turn a new computer into a plodding soul-destroying mess. and it's those same two layers where most of the easiest performance gains are to be found. On the following pages, we're going to look at fixes for common software speedbumps, as well as windows tweaks that will get your computer running faster than ever before. OS Tweaks The operating system you're using is the foundation of your computer, which means that even the fastest software will limp slowly if the operating system it runs on is sluggish and simply not up to the task. Accordingly, the first place you should always look for speed-boosting tweaks is within Windows itself. 1. Change the power settings to high performance. If your computer seems like it's going slower than it should, check the Power Options menu in the Hardware and Sound section of the Control Panel and make sure you have the "High Performance" setting selected. On a laptop, Windows will sacrifice performance in the name of increased battery life, by putting components like hard drives to sleep faster, or even capping the maximum output of the CPU. For fine-grained control over your PC's power settings, click the "Change plan settings" link next to the power plan you've selected, then click "Change advanced settings." Check your PC isn't capping power in order to save energy. 2. Turn off Aero. First introduced in Windows Vista, Aero is the name for the set of interface eye candy that includes transparent UI elements and animated window transitions. It makes post-XP Windows look slicker and more modern, but it can also have a surprising effect on system performance. In particular, older systems without discrete graphics hardware can get a substantial performance boost by disabling Aero in the Appearance section of the Control Panel. Yes, you'll miss out on a bit of graphical fl air, but the actual functioning of Windows will be completely unaffected. 3. Manually set the processor level. Nothing will bring your computer grinding to a halt faster than a program that's monopolizing your processor. Even if your PC isn't actually locked up, other software you try and use will be miserably laggy. When the resource-hogging program in question is something you actually need to let finish, it can leave you with no good option—you either don't let the program finish, or you give up on doing anything else until it's done. Fortunately, Windows has an easy way to manually set processor priority. Just open the Task Manager, click over to the "Processes" or "Details" tab, then rightclick on the offending program, and set the priority to "Low." Now Windows will know to allocate resources to other programs fi rst, and your original program will still be able to complete without a fuss. 4. Use Resource Monitor to spot slowpokes. Speaking of the Task Manager, you should know there's a more powerful version of that tool built right into Windows 7, 8, and Vista. Just open the Task Manager, then click on the "Performance" tab. Towards the bottom of that menu, you'll see a button to open the Resource Monitor. The Resource Monitor is an exceptional tool for finding the programs that are slowing down your PC, with very detailed usage charts for CPU, memory, hard disk space, and even network bandwidth that they're taking up. Resource Monitor will hunt down the programs making your PC run slower. 5. Clean up your startup folder. A major sign of a computer in need of maintenance is a slow boot time. If your computer takes forever to get started, it generally means you've got a lot of software starting up whenever your operating system starts. That's bad for a number of reasons. First, it means Windows has to get more done before it finishes booting. Also, all that software running in the background drains system resources and causes an overall slowdown. One of the best things you can do to speed up your PC is to use a free program such as Autoruns (http://bit.ly/MIIdLk) to examine what's starting up with your PC. Chances are you'll find a lot of stuff on the list that shouldn't be there. Have a thorough look through it and disable anything you really don't need. Use Autoruns to discover what software automatically starts up every time you turn on your PC. Other Software Tweaks Software can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Some programs are well-intentioned, but make your whole system slower, while others are actively malicious. On the other hand, the right software can help you reclaim lost speed and keep you safe. In this section we'll look at both. 6. Clear up wasted space with CCleaner. It never pays to be a software hoarder. As with the startup folder items described in the previous tip, excess installed software eats up your hard drive space and jams up your Start Menu, context menus, and more. You can try and uninstall unnecessary programs by hand, but it's a lot easier with the aid of an uninstaller app such as CCleaner, which presents a list of your installed applications, and lets you perform one-click uninstalls. Visit www.piriform.com/ccleaner to download it. 7. Do a malware scan. If your computer has experienced a sudden and dramatic slowdown, the most likely culprit is malware. Even if you're sure you never installed anything untoward, it's a good idea to periodically run a malware scan. You can't go wrong with Malwarebyte Anti-Malware (www.malwarebytes.org). 8. Drop the commericial antivirus. These days, commercial antivirus is likely to cause as many problems as it fixes. If you keep Windows current, then the included Windows Defender antivirus will be enough to protect your computer from common attacks. Practice basic web safety (don't open email attachments from people you don't know, etc.) and you'll stay safe without any security bloatware. 9. Make sure Windows is always up to date. As described previously, you have to keep Windows current in order for Defender to do its job. Automatic updates might be a pain when they happen, but you'll save time in the long run if you keep your computer secure. You can find Windows update settings in the System and Security tab of the Control Panel. Keeping Windows updated helps Defender do its antivirus job. 10. Update your video player. Most drivers are handled automatically these days, but you should still regularly check your video driver is up to date, especially if you plan to do any gaming. The video driver is performance-critical, and can be the source of a lot of in-game glitches. Additionally, updates are frequently published that increase speed in newly released games, so check back often and you might be pleasantly surprised. More Software Tweaks From Linux to LibreOff ice, don't be scared to try the alternatives Re-Install Windows Most of the issues that slow your computer down can be fixed with a little TLC. As we've been discussing, malware can be cleaned up, application clutter can be pruned, and so forth. Still, sometimes a computer can become so completely, utterly hosed that no amount of maintenance can fix it. The only way to unhose such a machine is to start fresh with a new Windows installation. If you've reached that point with your computer, here's a few things to keep in mind as you reinstall Windows. 11. Reclaim your product keys. It's frustrating to reinstall your OS only to realize you've forgotten a CD key and can't reinstall important software. A program such as Enchanted Key Finder (sourceforge.net/projects/ekeyfinder/) can automatically find most or all of the active CD keys on your system. Especially for industry-level applications like Photoshop, you should manually deactivate your software before uninstalling, in order to save yourself time later on. 12. Make a recovery disc. Make your life easier next time you have to reinstall by creating a recovery disc of your newly clean PC. In Windows 8, you access the recovery media utility by opening the Start screen, typing "recovery" and selecting the option labelled "Create a recovery drive." The recovery drive will allow you to restore your computer to exactly this lovely fresh state without having to do a full reinstall. You'll love your recovery disc next time a reinstall is needed. 13. Back up your files. This goes without saying, and is something you should be doing anyway. Make sure you've got all your important files backed up to an external drive or the cloud. Even if your files are on a separate partition from your Windows install, it's better to be safe than sorry. Try a Different OS Though we're generally big fans of Windows, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that reinstalling Windows isn't the only way to get a clean start. 14. Minty Fresh You could also try a shiny new installation of a free alternative OS from the Linux family. Linux OSes are lighter-weight than Windows, and generally have much easier system requirements. You can install one as a secondary OS, and only boot to it when you want a more minimal desktop experience. If you've never tried Linux before, it might seem daunting, but it's actually not that tricky with today's user-friendly Linux distros. In fact, the hardest part might be picking which distro (a specific Linux-based operating system) to install. For years, the standard recommendation for newbies has been Ubuntu, which is polished, well-supported and very user friendly. It's still a great option, but lately we've taken to recommending Linux Mint (www.linuxmint.com) instead. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and offers the same professional-quality experience and easy installation. Where it differs is in the user interface—the UI in Mint is a little more minimalist and will be more familiar to those coming from Microsoft OSes. There will obviously still be a learning curve, but you can generally get set up with a fully functional Linux desktop in an afternoon. Alternative operating systems such as linux mint are less demanding on your system. Try a Few Different Apps Sometimes the best way to get a quick performance boost is to replace an oftenused piece of software with a speedier alternative. That can mean giving up some functionality, but more often than not that's a tradeoff worth making. Here are five common apps you might replace: 15. Internet Explorer It used to be the case that the best advice you could give someone regarding their web browser was to drop Internet Explorer as fast as humanly possible. Fortunately, IE isn't the absolute stinker it used to be, and IE 11 is actually very competitive in some benchmarks, such as JavaScript performance, where it blows away the competition. Still, for most common browsing, you're going to see a speed increase if you switch from IE to Chrome or Firefox. Chrome is arguably the fastest of the bunch overall, but it's also noticeably more system resource intensive than Firefox, so if you're trying to speed up an old PC, the latter might be a better choice. IE might be much improved, but Chrome and FireFox are faster. 16. Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is the industry standard for text editing, but its expansive feature set comes at a hefty price to your system's resources. Ask yourself if you really need everything that Word has to offer, and if you wouldn't be better off using an alternative. If you need a full-featured word processor with a smaller footprint, you can try Writer, part of the LibreOffice suite of free Office replacement applications. It offers nearly all the features of Word, with a much lighter set of system requirements. If you want to do some very light writing or note taking, consider the WordPad app that comes installed with Windows—it's low on features, but very fast. 17. Photoshop Adobe's Photoshop is another widely-used app that can put a major strain on your system resources. If you're using an older system that's not up to running Photoshop CC (or if you just want to save a lot of cash), check out GIMP (www.gimp.org). It's an open-source image editor that can do almost everything Photoshop can. The interface is a little clunky and has a steepish learning curve, but GIMP will run much better on old PCs than newer versions of Photoshop. 18. Adobe Reader Not to spend too much time harping on about Adobe, but the basic PDF Reader is one of the slowest, most frustrating pieces of software on your computer. You wouldn't think something as simple as displaying a multimedia document (which your browser does in fractions of a second) would be slow and require a bulky install—and it doesn't have to. To reclaim lost speed, install the alternative, a free version of Foxit reader (http://bit.ly/1D9SjfT). It has a nice interface, takes up very little disk space, and runs faster than your chunky old Adobe Reader. 19. Replace Windows Media Player with VLC. Speed is only one of the many reasons to replace the default Windows Media Player with a different application, such as the excellent VLC (www.videolan.org). Though VLC is quicker to start playback on media files, the real time savings come from the app's flexibility. Watching a video in other players can be a stop-and-go experience involving tracking down codecs or differently formatted media files. With VLC, you know most any file will just work, and it'll work fast. Even More Software Tweaks 20. Hand-tune graphics settings in games. If you're experiencing slowdown in games, make sure you're taking advantage of customization options available in the preferences menu. Lowering resolution is the obvious way to get better performance, but make sure you're looking at other options as well—turning down antialiasing or shadow quality can make a huge difference. 21. Customize your graphics settings automatically. Try out GeForce Experience (for NVIDIA GPUs) or AMD Gaming Evolved, both of which automatically tweak game settings. They profile your hardware, then consult a constantly refined database of hardware data to suggest optimum settings, without any trial and error. 22. Learn to love jumplists. Introduced in Windows 7, jumplists are a fast way to access recent or frequently used documents or features of programs. Instead of left-clicking on an icon to open it, right-click on it instead—you'll see a context-sensitive list of shortcuts or documents for that program. 23. Free up disk space. Freeing up hard drive space won't always make your computer faster, but it can make a big difference if your drives are almost at capacity. If you're having a hard time figuring out what to delete, use a free drive visualizer such as WinDirStat (windirstat.info) to pinpoint greedy programs and docs. If you're unsure what to delete from your hard drive, WinDirStat will help. 24. Clean up unnecessary browser extensions. It's great how extendable modern browsers are, but it's easy to slow down your web browsing by installing too many add-ons and extensions. Go into the settings for your browser, and make sure you actually use any active extensions. If you have a toolbar that you can't figure out how to uninstall, try CCleaner, described on page 41. 25. Install an ad-blocker. Not every extension slows down your browser. A good ad blocker (like AdBlock or AdBlock Plus) will speed up your browsing a lot, by preventing web ads from loading. Just search for "AdBlock," plus the name of your preferred browser—it's free and installs in seconds. 26. Speed up your file selection with select-inverse. If you've ever found yourself trying to select all but a few files in a large list, you know it can be an exercise in tedium and frustration. Rather than wearing your left-click button out, try this neat trick: Just hold Control and select the files you don't want, then click on "Invert Selection" in the options menu. 27. Install everything for faster searches. Windows search has gotten a lot faster over the years, but it can still be slow, particularly if you're searching for a file outside the User folder. For near-instant searching through every file on your PC, download the free program Everything from www.voidtools.com. 28. Launch another instance fast with shift-click. There's a fast way to open up a second window or document in a program that supports multiple simultaneous instances (like your web browser, or Microsoft Word). Instead of manually creating a new doc, just hold down the Shift key and click on the taskbar icon for the program. Clicking the middle mouse button will do the same thing. 29. Set up your favorite folders. A lot of users overlook one of the handiest features in the File Explorer: the favorite locations list in the upper left. If you find yourself frequently navigating to the same file location, save it to the Favorites for easy access. All you have to do is drag the folder to the Favorites area, and it'll be saved forever. Overclocking Become an expert in getting the most out of your hardware If you've never done it before, overclocking might seem like black magic. The practitioner delves into the shadowy, mysterious world of the BIOS, tweaks some arcane symbols, and when they resurface, the PC is somehow faster. But the truth is, anyone with the right hardware can overclock with just a little patience. here we'll talk about overclocking every part of your PC, from the CPU to the GPU to the RAM. We should mention that the guides presented in this section are very cursory—there's just not enough space to really get into the details of the overclocking procedure. that said, we've tried to give you a good idea of the basic process involved. there's a ton of information about overclocking available online, and we encourage you to search for info pertaining to your specifi c hardware before jumping in. If you follow these procedures you're very unlikely to damage your hardware, but a component-specific guide can reduce the guesswork required. CPU Before we get into the process, we should point out that only certain CPUs can be overclocked, so you should do a search to see if you have an "unlocked" processor. The basic rule for recent Intel processors is that CPUs with model numbers ending in the letter "K" are unlocked. Intel CPUs with model numbers ending in the letter "k" are unlocked. 30. Processor OC'ing For space purposes this guide will only discuss Intel CPUs, but the basic process is the same for AMD chips. You'll also need a motherboard with overclocking capabilities. The Intel mobos with model numbers starting with "Z" are overclocking-ready, but for other brands you'll have to search to find out if yours can overclock. Finally, for all but the smallest overclocks, you will almost certainly want an aftermarket CPU cooler. Step 1: Get Ready There are several apps you need while you overclock your CPU. First, you'll need CPU-Z (http://bit.ly/QhR6xF), an application which allows you to view detailed information about your CPU from within Windows. The actual overclocking will be done in the BIOS, but CPU-Z will let you make sure your settings are properly applied during testing. You'll also need RealTemp (http://bit.ly/JBWaJA), which shows you your CPU temperature, and Prime95 (http://bit.ly/1kVNJZh), to stress-test the CPU. Once you've installed the necessary software, reboot and press whatever keys are required to get into your motherboard's BIOS. If you don't know those keys and it doesn't say during the boot sequence, you'll have to do a web search. Step 2: Adjust the Multiplier Once in the BIOS, you'll need to find the settings menu for adjusting CPU performance. This will probably be easier if you search for documentation about your particular motherboard, but you can also just look for the menu that features options like "baseclock," "core voltage," and "CPU Ratio." That last option is what we want to increase. Upping the CPU Ratio by one (from 34 to 35, for instance), increases the final clock speed of the CPU by 0.1GHz (from 3.4GHz to 3.5GHz). To successfully overclock the CPU, we'll increase this multiplier by one, save, and reboot the OS. Step 3: Test and Adjust Voltages Now that we've performed a small overclock, we need to make sure everything's still working. In Windows, launch CPU-Z and check the ratio (also called a "multiplier") is what you set it to. Next, load up RealTemp and then run Prime95, while watching your core temperature. If your CPU temperature rises above 80 C, then your overclock is unstable and may degrade your CPU—you'll have to boot back into the BIOS and return the multiplier to its previous setting. On the first test, this shouldn't be the case. Alternatively, Prime95 might throw up an error, or your computer might crash. If that happens, your voltage is too low. Step 4: Adjust Voltages and Repeat Whatever happens, restart your PC and boot back into the BIOS. If you had no issues whatsoever, just increase the multiplier by one more and go back to Step 3. If you experienced a glitch or a crash, you need to crank up the CPU voltage, so increment that value by .05. It's a good idea to do a search for the maximum safe voltage for your particular CPU. Return to Step 3 and repeat the process, increasing the multiplier when possible and voltage as needed, until your temperature gets too high or you approach the maximum safe voltage. GPU For a gaming PC, your GPU performance may well be more important than your processor's. Most modern games are GPU-bound, so eking a little more performance out of your GPU will have a more dramatic effect on your gaming experience than a similar improvement in the CPU. Overclocking your graphics card will have the biggest effect on gaming. 31. More Graphics Grunt Fortunately, basic GPU overclocking has become incredibly simple in recent years, thanks to very user-friendly overclocking tools that do most of the heavy lifting for you. If you have an NVIDIA card, grab EVGA PrecisionX from www.evga.com/precision/ (note it doesn't have to be an EVGA card), or if your card is AMD you can actually overclock it directly from the Catalyst Control Centre. Step 1: Benchmark Before you begin, you'll need to download a suitable benchmark, which serves two purposes. First, it will allow you to quantify your computer's graphics performance, so you can tell how much of a difference your overclocking actually makes. Second, running the benchmark acts as a stress-test on your graphics card, so that as you tweak your overclock settings you'll quickly see if you've pushed things too far. Visit unigine.com/products/heaven/ to download Heaven, the current standard for graphics benchmarks. Set a baseline by running through it once at full-screen resolution. Record your results. Step 2: Memory In your overclocking software, you'll see sliders for power limit, memory clock and core clock. We'd adjust all of these, starting with the power limit. Simply set it as high as it will go. Next, we'll overclock your graphics card's RAM. All you have to do is run the Heaven benchmark in a window, and gradually start increasing the memory clock setting until you see glitches or visual artifacts in the benchmark. Increase the memory clock in increments of 5-10MHz. If you go too high too fast you might crash the system (though it will be fine after a reset). Step 3: GPU After you've found the sweet spot for your memory clock, set it back to default and shift your focus to the core clock. Again, up the clockspeed in small increments, until the Heaven benchmark starts to show the strain. The telltale visual artifacts can take a number of forms, including colored blobs, full-screen flashes or stray pixels. When they start to appear, dial the GPU clock back until the benchmark is once again stable. Also keep an eye on the temperature of your graphics card. Even if no visual artifacts appear, you'll want to keep the average GPU temperature below 80 C, or you'll wear your expensive chip out much faster. Step 4: Ensure It's Stable Once you've found the ideal overclock for both the video memory and the GPU, you're ready to activate both at the same time and run the benchmark in full screen again. There's a good chance that with both active you'll see new artefacts or your PC will crash. If that happens, just tweak both overclocks down by a small increment and keep trying to run the tests. Even if your benchmark is stable for now, there's a chance it will overheat during longer sessions. We recommend you loop the Heaven benchmark for 15-20 minutes to make sure that this isn't the case. memory overclocking: is it worth it? It's possible to overclock your memory if you have the right hardware, but it's much less commonly done than CPU or GPU overclocking. So, should you overclock your RAM? In our opinion, no. The reason we don't recommend overclocking RAM is a simple cost-benefit analysis. The cost, like with any overclock, is in stability. Especially with an aggressive overclock, you run the risk of wearing your part out prematurely, or of making it unstable and causing system crashes. The GPU can recover from a glitch without crashing the whole system, but not your RAM. Also, because RAM overclocking isn't quite as common, there are fewer resources available to help you. On the flip side, the benefits to overclocking your RAM just aren't very substantial. Overclocked RAM has faster throughput, but memory throughput is almost never a bottleneck, and will have a negligible effect on gaming performance. The risks of overclocking memory aren't huge, but there's just not much reason to do it. More Hardware Tweaks Five more ways to get your PC back to its speedy best 32. Defrag HDDs. One of the oldest computer tricks in the book, defragging your hard drive isn't quite the performance booster it used to be. For one, more and more computers now come with SSDs, which do not benefit from defragging. Also, Windows 7 and 8 defragment on an automatic schedule, so it's unlikely your drives are fragmented if you use one of those systems. On older versions of Windows, fragmentation can still slow your hard drives down, so it's worth running a disk defragmentation program, such as the built in Windows Dfrg.msc or the free Defraggler (www.piriform.com/defraggler). 33. Keep it trim. SSDs don't need to be defragged, but there is one optimization that can make a big difference, called TRIM support. TRIM prevents an SSD from slowing down as it gets filled with data, and increases its expected life span. The good (or bad) news is that Windows 7 and 8 automatically enable TRIM for SSDs, so you won't be able to get a speed boost there. However, if you're running Windows XP or Vista, it's definitely worth enabling it. To do this, you'll have to use the third-party management software available from the manufacturer of your SSD. TRIM helps SSDs stay fast, even once they start filling up. 34. Clean out fans. Not every problem that slows your PC is a high-tech one. Old-fashioned dirt and dust can build up, blocking fans and vents. It may seem trivial, but a jammed vent can cause your PC to overheat and chug. Airfl ow obstructions are especially likely in homes with hairy pets. In the worst cases, high heat will cause your components to degrade faster. Get in there with a can of compressed air and make sure nothing's blocking your vents, fans or the fins of your CPU cooler. 35. Adjust USB storage for better performance. If you have an external USB drive you frequently transfer data to or from, you can get a small speed boost by disabling write caching on the drive. The drawback is that write caching protects USB drives from data loss if they're removed in the midst of a transfer. If you're willing to make sure to press the "safely remove drive" button every time, you can improve performance by opening the Device Manager, navigating to the drive, then right-clicking it and opening the Properties menu. In the Policies tab, click "Better Performance." You can speed up your USB drive, as long as you remember to safely remove it. 36. Run a smart test. Hard drive failure is one of the most alarming things. Even with a back-up strategy (which you have, right?) the temporary loss of your data is a major inconvenience. Save yourself some time down the line by running a SMART test on your hard drive—a process that will help you identify soon-to-fail drives. Just download a free SMART diagnostic tool like CrystalDiskCheck (http://bit.ly/TKZ1VK), and run it to test your drive. If the drive fails any of the tests, it's time to get a new one. More Quick Tips 37. Reboot! It has to be said—a lot of problems will be solved with a system reboot. 38. Restart the router. Mysterious problems plaguing your Internet connection? A simple router/modem reboot can help. 39. Launch taskbar apps with a hotkey. Launch taskbar app by hitting WIN and the number key corresponding to that program's position on the taskbar. 40. Switch to OpenDNS. If your ISP's DNS server is slow, web pages will take a long time to load. Switch to OpenDNS at www.opendns.com. 41. Move files quick with Send To. Right-click a file and expand the Send To options to immediately move it to a number of commonly accessed folders. 42. Minimize everything in a hurry. Press WIN + M to minimize every open window straight away. 43. Open a command prompt anywhere. In File Explorer, hold Shift and right-click in a folder. You'll see an option to open a new command prompt in this location. 44. Switch to full screen and back. If you like to switch in and out of full-screen view in your web browser, use F11 to do it quick. 45. Open the Run menu fast. The Run dialog option lets you open almost anything. Get there fast with WIN + R. 46. Open the Users folder from Run. With the Run dialog open, enter two periods then press Enter to open your Users folder. 47. Send Windows to the sides of the screen. To quickly snap windows to either side of the screen in Windows 7 and 8, hold WIN and press the left or right arrow keys. 48. Lock in a hurry. Throw up the windows lock screen immediately by pressing WIN + L. 49. Cycle with the keyboard. You can cycle through options in any menu by pressing the Tab key to cycle forward, and Shift + Tab to go back. 50. Search Windows 8 immediately. The fastest way to search for something in Windows 8 is to press the Windows key, then start typing. 51. Recover lost tabs. Didn't mean to close a browser tab? Press Ctrl + Shift + T to get the most recently closed tab back. 52. Quick zoom. Zoom on webpages or documents by holding Control and scrolling the mouse wheel. All Is Lost When to admit defeat So far in this article, we've taken the generally optimistic stance that every computer can be sped up with nothing more than a little bit of elbow grease. And while it's true that it's very hard to mess up your PC so badly you can't fix it, it's not impossible. It's easier still to get into a situation where repairing the damage is going to be more work than just starting fresh, and knowing when this is the case will save you a lot of time. Here are our standards for when to throw in the towel. A bad virus infection: A lot of malware can be easily removed using a tool such as Malwarebyte Anti-Malware, but sometimes an infection is just too bad to fix. Don't worry, you'll know it when you run into a PC like this—the Malware scanner will have a red flag list that's hundreds of items long, and includes viruses and other more malicious software. You don't want to risk clearing out most of the malware while probably leaving only the most sophisticated and dastardly to carry on running in secret. When upgrading to a new version of Windows: When you're ready to move on to the latest, greatest version of Windows, it's worth doing a clean install. Microsoft gives you the option to do an "in-place" install, keeping your files intact, but in our experience it's not worth it. Follow proper backup procedures and start over with a nice, clean Windows installation. You won't have to worry about any complications from the in-place upgrade, and it will give you an opportunity to re-evaluate which programs you really need installed. A Windows XP computer: We know, some of you still love Windows XP very much, but it's simply time to upgrade to a more modern OS. It's not worth trying to speed up a Windows XP PC, because even if you get it to like-new condition, you'll still have a computer that's not secure. The Final Word Stay lean, get mean, and keep it clean If you've made it through all the tips in this article, you've probably noticed that none of the steps individually are that big or difficult. Instead, what it really comes down to is cultivating a set of habits that keep your PC organized and effi cient. To try and contextualize it a little more, here's a big picture look at how to keep your PC running as fast as it can. On the hardware level, basic maintenance is all you really need. There are a few tweaks to be made, but as long as you keep your system physically clean and occasionally run a test to check the integrity of your hard drives, you'll be fine. You can get a significant speed boost by overclocking your hardware, but only if it's a good component to begin with. There are lots of ways to improve your system at the OS and software level, but they basically boil down to a few central principles. For one, try and keep things lean. The more software you install, the more things start up with your PC. The fuller your hard drives are, the slower your computer's going to run. Don't stress about every little thing you install, but if you can delete a few programs every now and then your computer will be better off. Similarly, consider replacing some of your more heavy-duty programs with lightweight ones, if you don't need all the features of the former. Finally, you have to acknowledge that sometimes the best thing you can do is to just start fresh. We described when you should reinstall, the best way to do it, and even how you can start again with a whole new operating system. Hopefully your computer isn't at that stage yet, and you'll be able to put some of the tips from the last 3 pages to good use.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster X7 Review Posted: 08 Jun 2015 08:50 AM PDT at a glance (+) Guiness Draft Plenty of top-shelf components; lots of connections. (-) Natty Ice Pricey; unwieldy; lacks HDMI. The gold-plated kitchen sink of soundcards In the constantly shifting landscape of PC tech, soundcards have risked becoming a footnote, like dial-up modems and network adapter cards before them. When a system seller like Dell or HP can shave even $20 off a build, it can shift the balance of power in a world of razor-thin margins. So when someone drops a device like the Sound Blaster X7 on us, it's almost disorienting. It's a $400 audio station, when people can buy entire PCs for that much money. Creative Labs faces an uphill battle. What kind of beast could this be to justify its price tag? At the heart of the X7 is the company's top-end ZxR soundcard. It features four digital signal processors on one die, a Burr-Brown PCM1794 127dB digital-to-analog converter, a Texas Instruments PCM4220 analog-to-digital converter, and a TI TPA6120A2 headphone amp capable of driving 600-ohm cans (with a 1/4 and 1/8- inch jack available on the front). That gear might not sound familiar to you, but it's top of the line in the world of digital audio. The back of the unit has a set of RCA jacks and banana plugs for analog speakers, and the plugs are switchable between four and eight ohms. Out of the box, the X7 will drive two speakers at up to 38 watts, and you can buy an optional power brick that will push that to 100 watts. It connects to your PC with a bundled micro-USB connection, and has a full-sized USB port to act as a host for another device, like a mobile phone or tablet. If that's not enough, the X7 has optical audio in and out. And you can adjust its settings with an Android or iPhone app via Bluetooth and NFC. And besides the microphone jack, there's also an integrated beamforming mic. The X7 will do echo cancellation and noise reduction and let you fine-tune the width of the beam. We could talk all day about the features inside this box. Suffice it to say that it's a kitchen sink for audiophiles. The X7 also has Crystalizer, virtual surround sound, a loudness cutoff for nighttime viewing, "Dialog Plus" to make movie conversations easier to distinguish, and bass boosting, all under the collective banner of "SBX Pro Studio." But audiophiles usually look down their noses at most of these, accusing them of unnaturally distorting the dynamic range of incoming sound. Creative Labs itself will tell you that the appeal of Crystalizer is subjective. The company says that this feature can restore dynamic range lost when compressing audio down to an MP3 file and even undo dynamic range compression engineered during the compact disc mastering process. Where's the HDMI? For our ears, using a pair of AKG K240 headphones (the older version made in Austria) and Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro cans, tweaking the equalizer during gaming produced cleaner acoustic distinction between booming explosions, the metallic rattle of a magazine reload, overheard conversation, and wind and rain. Part of Crystalizer's impact also comes from a hidden volume boost of three to four decibels as soon as you activate it, which is a questionable move. But you can disable SBX entirely if you don't care for it, or adjust its software sliders. The metal knob on the front of the X7 controls volume, and pressing it mutes all audio. Unfortunately, we don't get an input selector, nor does the X7 save profiles for different devices or scenarios. When you have audio from multiple sources, it will blend together. The X7 also lacks HDMI, so its use as a home theater receiver is limited to lossy 5.1 surround sound. And although it's external, its dimensions and AC power brick disqualify it as a practical portable audio device. While the X7 is undoubtedly a premium piece of hardware, its equally premium price puts it up against devices that have better connectivity to appeal to audiophiles. Gamers who want external and portable audio can find options—in some cases from Sound Blaster itself—at a fraction of the price. Specifications Output 38W (100W w/ upgrade) Audio Processor SB-Axx1 Signal-to-Noise Ratio 127dB (DAC) Headphone Amp Up to 600 ohms Supplied Power Adapter 2x 38W @ 4 ohms Connectivity USB 2.0; mini-USB; RCA; optical audio in/out; Bluetooth; NFC Dimensions (H x D x W) 5 x 5.5 x 6 inches

Microsoft Releases ISOs for Windows 10 Build 10130 Posted: 08 Jun 2015 05:12 AM PDT Only available to the Windows Insider Program's Fast Ring Late last month, Microsoft released Windows 10 preview build 10130 to those in the Windows Insider Program's "Fast Ring." The company said at the time it was open to pushing the said build to the Slow ring and even releasing ISOs. While the former has yet to come to pass, those ISOs that company talked about are here. Microsoft says there are far too many bugs in the build at this time for there to be a Slow ring release, though the company is working on sorting them out. Ironically, the build 10130 ISOs the company launched on Friday also owe their existence to a bug. "I know we said we would only release ISOs if we push a build to the Slow ring but we're making a special exception today," Gabe Aul, engineering general manager at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post announcing the ISOs. "We know that a bunch of Windows Insiders on the Fast ring are currently blocked getting to the latest build due a 0x80246017 error. With the ISOs, they can mount the image and upgrade directly from the ISO and get unblocked." It bears mentioning that Microsoft is now focusing on ironing out bugs and fine-tuning the whole Windows 10 experience rather than making big changes, so you are unlikely to find much in the way of new features in some of the newer builds.

Chrome Will Soon Begin Blocking Non-Essential Flash Content Posted: 08 Jun 2015 01:21 AM PDT The feature is optional as of now In April, Google changed the way Chrome handles Flash content, introducing a "detect and run important plugin content" option which when enabled automatically pauses all non-essential Flash media. Apart from providing a middle ground between the two extremes of allowing or disallowing plugins on a blanket basis, this is also a great way to conserve battery life. But if it works as well as Google says it does, why not make it the default option? Well, Google has done just that with the latest Chrome beta. "When you're on a webpage that runs Flash, we'll intelligently pause content (like Flash animations) that aren't central to the webpage, while keeping central content (like a video) playing without interruption. If we accidentally pause something you were interested in, you can just click it to resume playback. This update significantly reduces power consumption, allowing you to surf the web longer before having to hunt for a power outlet," Tommy Li, a software engineer and power conservationist at Google, wrote in a blog post Thursday. As for those running the latest stable build, you can enable this feature from Settings > Show advanced settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Plugins.

The Gearhead's Guide to Minecraft Posted: 08 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT How to build an amazing experience with the right tweaks, mods, and hardware Computer games age in dog years, and Minecraft has been around since 2009. So by most measurements, it should be in the old folks' home, laid back in a recliner, watching reruns of Jeopardy, and gumming some tapioca. Instead, the game is a true phenomenon. Like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike, it's fun, plus frequently evolves to keep things interesting. With this game, you can take several actual months just building your own personal fortress, one digital block at a time. Or you can hop on a multiplayer server and help people build cool stuff until the break of dawn. Each world you create is also randomly generated, so it's never the same place twice. (If you've never tried Minecraft and you'd like a basic introduction, check out http://bit.ly/MPC_MCbeginner for our friendly online guide.) Some of Minecraft's huge runaway success—almost 17 million have bought the game—can be attributed to its relatively low system requirements. It'll run fine on machines that were left behind long ago by other games. But don't take that to mean you'll want to play it on integrated graphics, as you can pile up mods to push even high-end hardware to the limit. We've the secret sauce ingredients to make this game shine in a way you might never have witnessed before. And of course, we'll show you three of the most stunning Minecraft PCs you've ever seen. The Game Is Just a Base Starting Point Millions of Gamers Can't Be Wrong A screenshot of Minecraft should be a familiar sight to every gamer. You probably went through a MC phase yourself, and haven't played the game in a few years. Perhaps you feel content with memories and see no need to go back. Well, if you've never modded Minecraft, you're wrong. If you've tried one or two texture packs, you're still wrong. You rode a bicycle when you could've been chauffeured in a limousine. That's OK, we all make mistakes. Like the game itself, you won't see the potential until you start digging. We dug deep and found glittering gems. While the default Minecraft is full of blocky objects, ugly textures, and jaggy edges, we can make it look pretty after a half an hour of work. And it won't cost a dime. Like with Skyrim, there's a small army of modders adding stuff you didn't think could exist, from sparkling waterfalls to gently swaying grass. If you have an entry-level PC, you can still boost your performance. When we started Minecraft back in the day, it was with a single-core AMD Athlon 64 4000+, 2GB of RAM, and a Radeon X1550 with 256MB of GDDR5 onboard, so we sympathize with low-end struggles. Back then, we tinkered with every setting, like a mechanic tuning an aging minivan. And with enough duct tape and elbow grease, we got it to work. Later, we'll explain the settings that can make a difference with modest hardware. Talking Rigs with YouTube Phenomenon Jordan "CaptainSparklez" Maron With almost 8 million subscribers, Jordan Maron, aka CaptainSparklez, is one of the highest-ranked Youtube personalities on Earth and instantly recognizable as a Minecraft celebrity. We caught up with the good Cap'n and grilled him on how he got his start and the hardware he runs. –GU MPC: You're arguably the original Mineraft YouTube celebrity. Can you tell us how you got on this path? CAPTAINSPARKLES: I don't know about the original, nor the celebrity part, but I've been doing it for what feels like a while, at least as far as Internet time goes. I was initially shown the game by a friend who was quite bananas about it, so I gave it a try myself, uploaded a few videos, and the reception was pretty super, so I stuck with it. MPC: So, what's a typical day like for CaptainSparklez? CS: Nothing too glamorous. Lots of sitting at my computer finding new things to record, recording them, browsing, and reading articles. Occasionally I'll venture out of my cave into the scary place known as outside for a meeting or some skateboarding. MPC: Now, onto the hardware... CS: I've got a 3.5GHz Core i73970X running at stock speed, GeForce GTX Titan, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD, and a 2TB hard drive. I've got it hooked up to three 1920x1080 monitors—two 23s and a 24inch. MPC: Why did you pick those parts? CS: Given the gaming, editing, 3D animation, and rendering I do, it's in my interest to have the fastest machine possible, so I just opted for what I felt to be top-of-the-line at the time. It's probably not the most cost-effective build, but it's served me very well. MPC: Do you run any special mods? CS: No "special" mods, but when I pile on 100 of them, it helps to have good hardware. Even then there can still be a fair amount of lag at points. I suppose some of the shader mods get a performance boost from the Titan; I had some trouble running them on my old machine, but they are pretty flawless now. Those shader mods are super cool, by the way; looks like nothing you'd have thought possible in Minecraft. MPC: Do you build your own PCs? CS: This is the b it where I fess up. I don't assemble my own PCs. I've heard too many complaints from friends who built computers only to find they wired something wrong, troubleshoot, then find out a part arrived broken, figure out which one, replace, and repeat the process. It isn't something I find fun, so I pay the premium to pick up a finished rig a week after ordering. MPC: What hardware configuration do you recommend for Minecraft? CS: Folks my consider it overkill, but if you're playing Minecraft, you're probably playing other games as well, so as a general PC building recommendation I suggest the Core i74790K. It should do everything you'd hope for a long while to come. I'd also recommend something like a GeForce GTX 760, at least 8GB RAM, and possibly a 256GB SSD if you're feeling fancy. The whole setup shouldn't cost too much more than $1,000. Performance Tips Don't Get Shafted with Substandard Minecraft Performance When you start the game and click on the "Options" menu, you'll see one visual setting: FOV (Field of View). That's basically the cone of vision in front of you. The "Normal" setting is 70 degrees wide, but the slider goes from 30 to 110. If first-person games make you feel nauseated, you may find some relief by increasing the FOV to 80, 90, or even higher. This will create a sort of fisheye camera effect at the highest level, but it's preferable to losing your lunch. Click on the "Video settings" to get to the meat of the performance settings. A wide FOV stretches objects on the edge of the screen but can help with motion sickness. Graphics has two settings: "Fast" and "Fancy." The latter enables transparency, shadows, enhanced water effects, and better-looking clouds. Almost every setting in this menu will take effect without requiring a restart, so you can go back and forth to see the effect that different settings have on your performance. If you press "F3" while playing the game, you'll get a frame rate counter in the upper left-hand corner, among other things. This will put a lot of text on the screen. You can make this smaller by changing the GUI Scale to "Normal" or "Small." Unlocking Frame Rates Setting Smooth Lighting to "Maximum" creates smaller gradients of light from one block to another. The actual Brightness setting has no impact on performance and is purely a matter of taste, though it can help you distinguish certain types of blocks in dimly lit areas. The particle setting determines whether or not you see debris or dust when you run around or chop a tree, and liquid spray. Vsync attempts to lock your frame rate at 60fps, if your monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate. If your PC can't maintain that, your fps gets knocked down to 30. If you can't maintain that, then vsync drops you to 20. And so on. We recommend disabling it and using Adaptive VSync for Nvidia GeForce video cards, or Dynamic VSync for AMD Radeon video cards. This will automatically disable vsync when your fps falls below 60, and reenable vsync when your frame rate goes back up. Anisotropic filtering increases the sharpness of textures that are distant from the player. This one usually doesn't impact performance very much, so you should be able to crank it all the way to 16. Render distance determines how much of the game world you actually see around you. Adding more chunks pushes the horizon back, but it can cause stuttering as the game takes a moment to draw that area. The Max Framerate setting can be ignored if you're running a standard 60Hz monitor. Dynamic / adaptive vsync will override it. Smoothing It Out Advanced OpenGL enables a feature called Occlusion Culling, which basically tells your video card to not render things that the player can't see. Some very old GPUs don't support this. Disabling clouds can increase your performance and may help with certain visual glitches. The fullscreen toggle has minimal impact on performance if the game window is already maximized. If you leave fullscreen off, this will make it easier to AltTab to other windows. Mipmap levels smooth out surface detail according to distance from the player, but higher levels need to be balanced with anisotropic filtering to prevent excessive blurriness. Installing the Optifine mod (detailed in the next section) adds a host of additional video settings that would require an additional article to fully cover. Thankfully, the mod provides pretty informative tool tips that pop up when you hover over each setting. Generally, we recommend only changing a few settings at a time, so you know which one has the most impact (or which one is causing glitches). It also automatically enables the use of a second CPU core (vanilla Minecraft is only single-threaded), which can improve frame rates right away. Modding Minecraft Add Features, Boost Performance, and Make Things Pretty Out of the box, Minecraft is a spiffy game. But it clearly ain't the belle of the ball. Its blocky objects and pixelated textures are an acquired taste, like black coffee or limburger cheese. And you've probably noticed its performance can get pretty chunky, too. Thankfully, a veritable cottage industry of mods has grown up around the game. You can smooth out those textures, or make them even more retro. You can add nice lighting effects, too. Unfortunately, getting these mods to all play nice with each other is still surprisingly tricky, despite the game being in active development for more than five years now. So let's start simple, with the texture packs. A Whole New World There are piles of websites dedicated to downloadable Minecraft content, but for texture packs (referred to as "resource packs" by the Minecraft community), we stuck mostly to www.planetminecraft.com and www.curse.com (the latter of which has content for a bunch of other games, too). We prefer these two sources because of easy navigation and sorting. Pixel count is one thing to sort for. The textures can range from 8x8 pixels to 512x512. For reference, the vanilla textures are 16x16. Higher pixel counts can add realism, but this requires more hardware horsepower. You have to strike a balance depending on your situation. Try to get the most uptodate packs, otherwise you can end up with an awkward mix of modded and vanilla textures. If you have a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit operating system, we recommend installing the 64-bit version of Java. Go to java.com, click on the "Free Java Download" button, then click on the link labeled "See all Java Downloads" and select "Windows Offline (64-bit)." This version does not check for updates, though, so you have to remember to do that on your own. Feeling Resourceful Some of these packs may instruct you to use MCPatcher HD, a Java program that helps these packs integrate into the game. Just Google the name of the program to find a link to www.minecraftforum.net (the official forum) that provides legit download links. Basically, once you've Java installed, doubleclick on the MCPatcher file to run it like any other program, and click the "Patch" button on the bottom. When you've downloaded a resource pack, fire up Minecraft, click on the "Options" button, select "Resource Packs," and click the button that says "Open resource pack folder," where you can drop in all your packs. Use this opportunity to create a folder shortcut on your desktop. Then click "Done" and the "Resource Packs" button again, and your packs should show up. Click on the one you want to use to activate it, and click the "Done" button again. The more complex the pack, the longer it will take Minecraft to load it up. Windows may even tell you the program is no longer responding. If that's still the case after a minute, you may need to forceclose the program and try a less complex pack. Vanilla Minecraft textures date back to the mid 1990s... ...but resource packs such as KoP Photo Realism change everything. Fifter Shaders of Grey There are some things that no resource pack can address. What if you want to see tree branches and grass sway in the wind? What if you're not happy with the way the game's lighting works? That's where shader mods come in. Adding these to the game is a three-step process. First, we install a mod loader, then we install the shader framework, and finally, we install the actual shader pack. The Minecraft Forge API (Application Programming Interface) is our mod loader. Visit www.minecraftforge.net to grab that. As with the resource packs, get the one that matches your game version. There may be "latest" and "recommended" variants. The latter usually has wider compatibility with the available mods. Before installing Forge, run the game once to set its environment correctly, then shut it down. To install Forge, just doubleclick on the "EXE" file to install it like any other program. Seeking SEUS Next, you need the GLSL Shaders Mod to enable shader packs. This one doesn't have its own website and instead resides on the Minecraft forums. If you do a Google search on the mod's name, the forum link should be your top search result. Download the mod from there, doubleclick on that "resourcepack" desktop shortcut you created earlier, go one folder up to the one labeled ".minecraft," and open the "mods" folder. Drop the Shaders Mod in here. Go back to ".minecraft" and open the "shaderpacks" folder next. We used Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders (SEUS) for this article. It's available at sonicether.com. If you have a high-end PC, choose an "Ultra" version. Midrange PCs will be better off with "Standard," and entry-level rigs should stick to "Lite." Download your chosen version and drop it in your "shaderpacks" folder. Then start Minecraft, select the "Forge" profile from the dropdown menu in the lower lefthand corner, click "Play," then select "Options," choose "Shaders," and click on the name of the shader to activate it. Here's some interesting terrain in the vanilla version... ...now add the Traditional Beauty resource pack and SEUS Shaders. Forging Ahead Lastly, you can grab the Optifine mod, available at optifine.net, to boost performance and further beef up your visuals. You can use this one with or without Forge. Next choose the right version for you. The "Ultra" version has the most enhancements, "Standard" is the most compatible, and "Light" is good for laptops and budget PCs but won't work with mod loaders such as Forge. Without Forge installed, just download the ".jar" file and doubleclick to load the installer. With Forge installed, drop the ".jar" file in the "mods" folder mentioned earlier. If you get stuck somewhere, this mod has its own thread on the official forums with detailed advice for troubleshooting. Minecraft at 4K? Yes and No... Since Minecraft doesn't demand much of your hardware, we hooked up an Ultra HD monitor to see what kind of frame rate we would get with the resolution cranked to 3840x2160. At four times the res of a 1080p monitor, things can start to get chunky. But even the integrated graphics of a quad-core Intel Core i5-4570R could maintain around 60fps, as long as we didn't install any shaders. A system with an Intel Core i7-4770K and a GeForce GTX 780 Ti, meanwhile, flew along at 250–300fps in vanilla mode. When we activated a shader, though, it dropped down to about 35fps. It could be that the shader itself needs some optimization, or that the shaders just put a lot of strain on the GPU. Back down at 1080p, the 780 Ti system maintained about 60fps with all shader effects enabled. Check out the next few pages to get the nitty-gritty on the three systems we built to play Minecraft. The Gigabyte Brix Pro This lil' guy will creep up on you Since Minecraft doesn't use more than two CPU cores (and even then, not without a mod), and a video card is more of a recommendation than a necessity, we can get up and running with a very compact and portable unit. Enter the Brix Pro series. We reviewed the Intel Core i74770R version in the March issue and gave it our Kick Ass award. This one is nearly identical; the CPU here is the i54570R, which doesn't have HyperThreading. We still get Intel's Iris Pro graphics 5200 integrated into the CPU, and the 128MB L4 cache, plus an mSATA slot, 2.5inch drive bay, and a preinstalled 802.11ac WiFi card with Bluetooth 4.0. And with four USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, Ethernet port, and mini DisplayPort, we're not lacking for external connections. Minecraft Cubed With a street price of $470, plus buying your own Windows license, RAM sticks, and an internal storage device, the GBBXi54570R is certainly not the cheapest option you'll find out there. But it has the highest ratio of size to performance we've seen so far. As you might have noticed, the little fella is also very cubeshaped, so it lends itself nicely to a themed custom paint job. Another bonus is that it takes very little time to set up. Just remove four screws on the bottom cover, snap in your RAM, remove the SSD tray, install the SSD in the tray, put the tray back, and close her up. You're done. Unfortunately, the integrated graphics didn't play nicely with our shaders, causing the game to crash whenever one was loaded, but we had no trouble with resource packs or the Optifine mod. Considering the performance hit that shaders caused with our beefier systems, the game probably would have chugged anyway. There's also a little fan inside the Brix Pro, but it didn't spin up very much during our sessions, and the unit never got hot. However, if you stress all four cores with video encoding or other highly multithreaded activities, you'll hear it from a few feet away. All in all, we were pretty happy with the results we got. You can build a solid entry-level gaming PC for this kind of money, so the Brix Pro is not the best option for raw performance or upgradeability. But if you want something super compact and portable, this is your ticket. In fact, if you want this one, you have a chance to win it, as we're giving it away. Visit http://bit.ly/MPC_mcgiveaway for details of our Creeper-themed Brix Pro giveaway. The Dynamite Build It Will Blow You Away When we used Cooler Master's Elite 130 case for a "Build It" feature in Maximum PC's February issue, we thought it wasn't possible to make a case any smaller and still cram in a full system. Then the company sent us its Elite 110, which is about half as long. While it's true that your options are more limited, we discovered it's still possible to make some sparks fly. The breakthrough is thanks in large part to vendors such as Zotac, Asus, and MSI, who've figured out how to miniaturize Nvidia's GeForce GTX 760 video card, which has a very good priceperformance ratio at around $250. Get Out My Grill Zotac's result is slightly longer than the other two and needs two PCI Express power cables instead of one, but we still end up with a little room to spare, and the case actually takes fullsized power supplies. Our friends at Smooth Creations painted it to look like a TNT block from Minecraft. Unfortunately, painting the front grill simply isn't practical, as the case needs that opening to create airflow for all the hardworking gear crammed inside. Because of the way the power supply is situated, you can't put a big cooler on the CPU. But a locked Intel Core i5 CPU is still a very good chip to have running things. The Gigabyte GAH97NWIFI MiniITX motherboard will take 16GB, but 8GB was fine for our needs. While our CPU and RAM are basically equal to the Brix Pro, this case can take four 2.5inch drives and has a mount for a 3.5inch drive. Add the video card, and you're on a whole new level of performance. At 1080p with a 64x64 texture pack, the Optifine mod, and SEUS shaders, our Intel Core i54430 and GTX 760 kept us in the 40–50fps range. Without the shaders, frame rates averaged around 200. At Ultra HD resolutions, we still consistently hit over 60fps, as long as we didn't load a shader. That would knock the fps down to 15–20. This is roughly the level of performance we expected. It would be nice to hit the 60fps mark at 1080p, but to achieve that it looks like we'd need to go up a notch on the video card, and maybe overclock the CPU. Don't Walk on the Grass It's Armed and Fully Operational Playing with itsy-bitsy computers is fun and all, but enthusiasts like us will always yearn for a little more power. Well, the Corsair Obsidian 250D case puts few restrictions on the size of your video card or power supply, accommodates a 240mm radiator, and even has a window on the top so you can peek inside. Bingo! We gathered our own team of super heroes: A GeForce GTX 780 Ti, Intel Core i74770K, Asus ROG motherboard, Enermax Liqtech 240 cooler, and a Seasonic Gseries power supply. This is very similar to September's "Build It" rig. A key difference is the motherboard. We actually went back a step to Intel's older Z87 chipset. That's because, as this issue went to press, there was no high-end miniITX Z97 motherboard, and we wanted to ensure a high overclock, since Minecraft does respond to higher CPU clock speeds (though we received the Maximus VII Impact after we finished our build). We'd need all the clocks we could get after fully tweaking Minecraft's visuals, as those shaders do a number on your frame rate. Keeping Our Cool We could have gone with a Radeon R9 290 or 290X, which both perform in the neighborhood of a 780 Ti for less money, but we wanted a video card whose cooling design would vent most of the GPU's heat out the back of the case. That meant using the stock cooler, and Nvidia's run much quieter and cooler in this department than the stock R9 cards. It's true the Corsair 250D has two 80mm fan mounts in the rear, just above where the motherboard goes, but fans of that size just don't move a lot of air, unless you're willing to let them run distractingly loud. You could also use an air cooler on the CPU and put two 120mm case fans where the radiator would go, but you can get a higher CPU overclock with a 240mm liquid cooler. Speaking of which, the eight-threaded Core i74770K is probably total overkill, since Minecraft uses just a couple of cores. We probably could have gotten away with using that 20th Anniversary Pentium CPU, which we've overclocked to 4.7GHz. On the other hand, the plethora of threads in our 4770K lets us do a much wider variety of things, such as encode a video in the background, or watch a 1080p movie on another monitor. It's very fancy. Since this system stayed reliably above 60fps at 1080p with shaders loaded, there wasn't much to tweak, or so it seemed. At 4K, we hovered around 35fps, but we could push it to 40 after overclocking to 4.5GHz on all cores. However, we dug around again for other shader packs, and this time we stumbled on one called "CUDA Shaders." It doesn't actually use Nvidia's CUDA technology, and it's not as pretty as SEUS to our eyes, but it's still much neater looking than the vanilla game, and it let us maintain 60fps even at Ultra HD resolution. We picked it up on the creator's website, http://dedelner.de.tl. You may actually prefer it over SEUS, so it's definitely worth a look. The Learning Curve Of these three builds, it's the GTX 760 that we actually had the most fun with. The Cooler Master Elite 110 is a neat little case and fits an impressive amount of stuff. It actually has more storage-device mounting points than the much larger Corsair 250D. And not putting a top-end GPU in the box forced us to get under the hood with graphical settings and figure out what was going on, so we learned more about the game and about GPU behavior than we would have otherwise. And as they say, knowing is half the battle. Double Up with Optifine Even at its maximum, vanilla Minecraft can only load 16 chunks (world-high columns of 16x16 blocks) in all directions away the camera, and your redstone contraptions will seize up if their chunk isn't loaded. Install Optifine (http://optifine.net) and you can put your multi-core CPU and all that RAM to good use, doubling the chunks Minecraft can render at one time while keeping your frame rate slick. That's over a square kilometre of the world—and the redstone within it—loaded at any one time. –AC The Painter Much of the magic with our three ultimate Minecraft builds isn't necessarily the parts inside, it's what's on the outside. The exquisite paint jobs turned otherwise sedate cubes into real-life representations of Minecraft. When it came to getting it done, we turned to none other than the Michelangelo of case painting: Jim Sailing at Smooth Creations. We've featured Jim's work in Maximum PC before—he's painted numerous Dream Machines for us over the years—so we knew he was capable of shooting our Minecraft builds systems. What we didn't expect, though, were the spectacular results. It may be a little hard to tell from our photographs, but these Minecraft machines are gorgeous. Besides the 8-bit aesthetic that transforms our rigs, Smooth Creations hit each box with multiple layers of clear coat to give them a paint job that's easily smoother than the one on your car. But Jim "Smooth" Sailing doesn't just shoot PC cases though—his company will beautify laptops, game consoles, and even guitars. The cost of having a case painted isn't as crazy as you might think. Smooth Creations apply custom paint or hydro-dipped exteriors for $200 to $400, depending on the complexity of the job—Smooth Creations has to sometimes tear a case down to its base components in order to paint it properly. Visit www.smoothcreationsonline.com for more information. –GU

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