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Here's the print version of the article: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235406,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235406,00.asp

Yes

Er, no. Fuck the idiots who spread TFA over three ad-filled pages. Here, enjoy:
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235406,00.asp

Are you that lazy? There is a print option on the page..

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235406,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/image_popup/0,,iid=223387&aID=235027&sID=27866,00.asp

This would mean that my Geforce2 256 is better at games than my ATI 4870, which does not seem quite right.

Full print article should anyone not want to deal with the multipage click-through: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235027,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235027,00.asp

No, I am not just making things up.

I don't know why I was marked a troll. I keep trying Vista as the updates come out and it still seems slower than XP for all the stuff I do.

And my original point still stands. The benchmarks from the referenced article compare real world of the initial release of Vista with the current performance including updates (at least to SP1). In the "PCMark" test, which attempts to replicate common usage, the original release of Vista performs better than the SP1 version, by 45 points.

You posted some benchmarks about gaming performance. I guess that's one place a lot of people use Windows, since most recent popular computer games won't run on anything else. But if you use a computer for what most people use it for (photos, video, music, communication, productivity, etc.), the overall performance is worse.

I guess I'm a troll for pointing out the truth.

No, I am not just making things up.

Making the difference, a not inconsiderable $750 - the Mac is a third more expensive than a Dell that gives twice the 3dmark performance. (this is what we're discussing remember).

If you're so insistent on discussing that Dell with the Macbook, then the Apple blows it out of the water on a price comparison, since the Dell was 4480 USD (MSRP) and is now about 3349 USD. I guess you didn't bother to read the article and see that it's the special SLI configuration with a pair of Mobile 8800M GTXs. If you're doing a price comparison with the cheaper M1730s then you'll need to find benchmarks for them since they use a different graphics set up e.g. these CNet benchmarks. I have'nt seen link yet for performance of the 17" MacBook Pros; only the new 15.4" ones.

Of course if you're going to make this comparison, then you have to acknowledge that the weight of the Dell (10.6 lbs, twice that of the Mac, along with twice the thickness) renders it unsuitable for mobile use and if you're factoring in sale prices, you need to take a look at Apple's refurb store a well. Compared to the 2099 USD Dell, the Mac has twice the level 2 cache, twice the VRAM and a faster processor. The Dell wireless is also inferior, supporting only g, compared to a/g/n for the Mac and Bluetooth (along with Firewire 800) is missing. Add these in as far as possible, bump the graphics from the single 8700 w/256 MB to the dual SLI version, ignore the sale discount since we could get that in the Apple refurb section and you find that the Dell is 2749 USD - 100 USD cheaper than the Mac, which is a negligible difference (less than 4%). The Dell will have higher framerates in games, but be far less portable (and lacking in Firewire 800) and chew your batteries up twice as fast (based on how long they last playing a DVD). It should also be remembered that the current 17" is quite old and wasn't updated when the other MacBook Pros were.

So, what exactly do you want to discuss?
* The very expensive custom Dell with the high benchmarks vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* The cheaper dual SLI Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* The non-SLI Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* A Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro, each with custom configuration to match each other's specs as closely as possible?
* A Dell on sale vs. a 17" MacBook Pro from the refurb store (i.e. on sale)?

So far you've picked a cheap Dell, on sale, given the benchmark for the most expensive one and compared it to a full price MacBook with extra stuff added to match the Dell's configuration without getting the Dell to also match the MacBook's. Now, is it just me, or does that seem a little like tilting the playing field ridiculously in favour of one side? We'll forget about you giving the Mac price in Australian dollars and assume that wasn't trolling.

If you compare full price products, specced to match each other, the Dell is slightly cheaper, better for gaming, but worse for high speed I/O and more of a movable desktop than a laptop i.e. gamers are better off with the Dell, but everyone else is probably better off with the Mac.

The more relevant question is, are they priced competitively for their performance?

Well, you can get a Dell XPS M1730 that'll give you double the 3dmark score for about $2000 less than the new macbook pro.

But I'm sure the Apple faithful will be along to correct me shortly - there's no Apple tax right guys?

Are you mentally impaired, blind, or can't be bothered to click links? In any case, here's the link to the actual article, even though you don't deserve it. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302495,00.asp

calc already got messed with, but as a "powertoy". Go download the powertoys pack and you can see the calc.
Notepad got upgraded to wordpad ages ago. they just left both versions in there for you.

and paint is already totally revamped in windows 7. See here

Another set of benchmarks.

Most of the [gaming] benchmarks show that Vista is just slower than XP.

This was true when Vista was RTMed but is just no longer the case. For any reviews after Vista SP1 (MS always takes 1 SP to get things right), the performance is about equal. Please cite any benchmarks you find to the contrary though -- I'd love to read them.

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/03/25/windows_vista_sp1_gaming_performance/10
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302527,00.asp
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6188289/index.html?sid=6188289&cpage=8

If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.

Hobbles performance, you say? Not since SP1, but thanks for playing.

You're right, looking at the page of results http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302500,00.asp there is only a small gap in performance, and in some cases, Vista beats XP by as much as 2 frames per second on low quality. But overall, that still shows XP to have better performance, so why should someone buy the more recent, very slightly inferior product when they can get the better one, and probably have an install disk for the better one lying around?

Most of the benchmarks show that Vista is just slower than XP.

Gaming Performance: Windows Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3:
If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.

In fact, I'd been planning to run a few other gaming tests, but the results from these were so uninteresting that further work didn't seem merited. Love it or hate it, Vista is performing far better than it used to.

You were saying?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1994121,00.asp
Here is an article on it. Although its from 2006, there has been more work done on it. There are more articles on it in the literature.
If you search for 'self healing' microprocessors you can find a number of articles on it.

Any good guides out there?

Good HTPC guides usually aren't updated as often as the "general" system guides (bugdet, midrange, high end) and they usually aren't "cheap," but they can have useful info about what hardware to consider.

• Tech Report's April 2008 system guide: The Couch Potato Mk. 2 and The Couch Potato Mk. 2 Alternatives
• Ars System Guide: HTPC edition (April 2008)
• ExtremeTech:Build a Windows Vista Home Theater PC (September 2007)

Since the HTPC guides aren't very cheap or up-to-date, I also recommend Tech Report's and Ars Technica's "general" system guides. Tech Report has an "Econobox" section and Ars Techinica has a "Budget Box" section.

• Tech Report's Summer 2008 system guide
• Ars Technica System Guide: May 2008 Edition

I'd like to put together a small format PC for this sort of thing. Alas, I can't use a cheap tower, it needs to be one of those small form factors that can fit in an entertainment center. I'd like to spend as little as possible

I don't know if the In Win BK Series (Mt. Jade) is small enough, but it's pretty small, cheap, quiet (if you use Intel), and flexible. I'm only checking Newegg, but Newegg has the BK623 for $59.99 + $17.50 shipping and the BK636 for $59.99 + $9.99 shipping, both with 300W power supplies (Fortron Source, according to some reviews).

For your entertainment center, note that the footprint of a BK6xx case (323mm x 276mm) is "equal" to the footprint of a Sony PS3 (325mm x 274mm), but the BK6xx is about 1.7 inches taller and is not "wedge-shaped" like the PS3.

So it's not "tiny," but it's compatible with all those cheap HTPC microATX motherboards (integrated graphics, HDMI, FireWire, digital audio out, etc) and it accepts a standard 5.25" desktop optical drive, 3.5" desktop hard drive, and 4 full-height expansion slots (for HDTV tuners).

Also note that the case's unique cooling system, which uses no case fans other than the CPU's fan (intake) and the power supply's fan (exhaust), only works efficiently with motherboards using Intel chipsets and an Intel retail CPU with its stock heatsink/fan. So that eliminates good, cheap HTPC chipsets like the AMD/ATI 780G and the NVIDIA 3200. Boards based on Intel's new G45 chipset are starting to arrive at Newegg, though.

There are several reviews of the BK Series on the Googleweb and In Win's BK Series product page has a "Reviews" tab (favorable only, I'd guess).

Is the correct title to this story. See here. "The story on Digitimes is completely groundless. We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business."

"Mercury Research has reported that the Nvidia market share of AMD platforms in Q2'08 was 60%," Del Rizzo said. "We have been steady in this range for over two years."

"We're looking forward to bring new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms," Del Rizzo added.

fyi, as the other reply states, CUDA isn't limited to a single manufacturer. nVidia has made it available for other graphics card manufacturers to support. Here's an article on Extremetech talking a bit about it, but at least according to the article ATI doesn't appear interested.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2324555,00.asp

does Intel not have a clue too? because Intel [cnet.com] is skipping Vista. And i can find you example after example of the same thing. We have NEVER had Fortune 500 companies elect to stick with an old OS rather than simply upgrade when the 3 year cycle comes around,ever.

I didn't say you had no clue. I said your statements were wrong. Which they are. Awesome. Just what I expected. Take an argument I did not make, keep shifting the goal posts without replying to any of my points. Keep on injecting new points to prolong a useless thread. Very nice. They should put you up in the Senate to Filibuster..
Maybe I should amend my statement. You don't have a clue.

Here is a little experiment you can do to see the difference between
Vista and XP: make an image of your HDD. benchmark Vista,then install XP and benchmark it. The performance gains will probably make you cry. And as for gamers switching to Vista? I have had a few build $2000+ SLI rigs switch to Vista for DX10,although I have had two come back and ask for dual boot simply because of performance and compatibility issues. The biggest thing I have been seeing here is the hacked DX10 on XP trick. I recently played Halo 2 and Juarez on a customers new gamer rig and DX10 ran great.

Yawn.. Already been done. You would know that if you had any fucking clue about Vista.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2303830,00.asp

And finally what does the EEE have to do with it? Are you kidding? Surely you can't be serious,unless you want us to honestly expect us to believe you are not a shill. Laptops are selling like hotcakes,and they aren't those Alienware monsters. I have personally seen my college campus spread with EEEs and other minibooks in less than a year. I have had Housewives,salesmen,office managers,etc come to me to order them machines in the last 12 months,and the first thing out of their mouths after saying they want a laptop is "Can you get one of those EEEs?" Companies like Intel and Nvidia don't spend the serious R&D money required to build new chips without doing serious market research. People want cheap,small,eay to use laptops that they can slip in a handbag or briefcase and just go. Vista is bloated(15Gb default install,WTF?),sucks power,and on mini machines like the cloudbook,EEE,Mininote,etc it is simply too slow to use. Do you really think all these companies are coming out with netbooks because there is no market?

I don't "honestly" expect you to believe anything. By running your little shop (if that indeed is true, but I'll give you the benefit) you think you have all the industry figured out. You don't.

Again making arguments against what I have never said. I didnt say there is no market for EEE. I said deciding if vista is good or not has nothing to do with if it runs on the EEE pc. I seem to be repeating myself. You either have a very low IQ, or are incapable of rational arguments. Either way, you're really tiring me out now.

Why do YOU think MSFT is so disparate to get into the ad business?

Why do you think people take up jobs?

I have already had two customers bring in single core Dells that the HDD literally thrashed itself to death.

Vista damaged the HDD? You're getting really loopy. Lay down the crack pipe. Thanks, you know, for being so literal and all.

But no matter how many fanbois say "Vista is great!" doesn't change the fact that most of us that sell machines for a living can't give the turkey away. It really doesn't matter how the product really is if the public goes EEEEW! when you even mention its name. But as always this is my 02c from out here in consumerland,YMMV

I see, May I conclude, living in Antarctica, that the sun never sets for months?

You know 10 people who dont like Vista? I know 11 who do. There I win ! This is the childish theme of your entire post.

Yes: NVIDIA drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes in 2007.

And most of these happened during what phase of the drivers? And how many were hardware specific errors? Additionally, how many of these were from NVidia XPDM drivers being run on Vista, which a lot of gamers 'thought' was a better idea out of pure ignorance?

Also your link proves my point. Out of over 100 million installations, there were 1.5 million crashes in Vista. So a 99% non-fail rate is bad? Hardware itself has a higher fail rate. Hell even Apple hardware has a higher fail rate.

Performance can be measured. I've seen such measurements, none of them show Vista appreciably outperforming XP. If it's so much better, demonstrate it, don't just call me an idiot, cite something.

(Keep in mind that even when Vista was peforming behind XP it was like 2-4fps in games running 60fps.)

OK, so you missed most of the Vista reviews, here are some links I have in my history. I'll let you actually google and read more for yourself:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/2070

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_aero_glass_performance/page3.asp

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/2/6453

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/pretty-vista.ars/3

Yes, Vista has some very impressive aspects, it's very advanced in some areas, but I'll buy it when it actually provides a reasonable amount of benefit to me, thanks, not before.

Use it for a couple of days and you would be surprised how painful going back to XP can be from a 'usability' standpoint especially, let alone watching everything from games to photoshop launch 10x or more faster on Vista than they do on XP.

I do have the feeling though that no matter what I throw out here, you are going to just hate Vista, and that is fine, just don't state your beliefs are based on fact...

Lots of people didn't upgrade to Vista. I didn't. It's one of the strange things about gamers

I'm a gamer as well, and on my personal systems I faced the early Vista release problems that a lot of people did. The WDDM was a complete re-write for NVidia and ATI, and by the time they got to a stable level they were behind on optimizations. Also a lot of the optimizations are game specific and work differently than the XPDM, so they needed a lot of customer feedback to even get close to the 6 years of the XP driver optimizations.

If you are a gamer now, Vista is the fastest platform. Even with older video cards and older games. For example: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp

Around July-Sept of last year the Vista drivers caught up to XP in everyway, and jumped past XP in many games by as much as 20% or more because of the WDDM and how it can handle GPU scheduling and RAM virtualization.

(The WDDM and RAM Virtualization sounds a bit strange, but it allows Vista users to shove their texture quality to the roof without worrying about running out of VRAM on their GPUs, and with no performance penality.) So not only can Vista run games faster, but now that the WDDM drivers are optimized, it can do so with higher quality game settings.

in order to really get any use out of DX10 for anything more than taking pretty static screenshots, it's gotta be a GOOD video card

Technically this isn't true, but from the current games on the market is true. The games on the market now are DX9/DX10 hybrids using DX9 with some DX10 features turned on, and this is a kill for performance, where DX10 is designed to be about performance as much as more quality.

If current games were DX10 only and using real DX10 engines, even a light ATI 2400 would run the game rather well. DX10 is not much different than the XBox 360, as the XBox technologies are what defined DX10 and even the Vista graphics subsystem changes.

If you look at XBox 360 games that are running on native engines, they are doing DX10 quality with a DX10 equivalent video card that is less powerful than a mid range $100 ATI DX10 card.

So by people like yourself chosing to not move to Vista, the game makers have backed off on DX10 only titles, that were planned, and they would have ran rather well on even cheap DX10 cards with good performance (better than DX9) and better quality.

This is a case of the market and early reluctance to move to Vista killed a lot of new video game development, or at least set developers back to a DX9 path looking to tack on some DX10 features like the larger texture sizes, etc...

40 minutes?! If you do it often enough it should be a lot closer to your 4 minutes. I've only done it once to an MBP, though experience from previous Apple laptops as well as instructions like this kept the total time down to 15 minutes or less.

But even if it took an hour, it would be worth the $$$ you save doing it yourself.

I see absolutely nothing to recommend Vista over XP, at this time or in the near future. Sure, there are things that are better in Vista than XP, but none of them, or even all of them, combine to reason enough to switch.

Hardly a year out of date. The figures you post are one month old, and involve Vista SP1 final, vs SP3 of XP. I admit I am impressed by the evening out that Vista has managed to achieve, in those tests.

DirectX 10 as a selling point is a joke, with the accompanying baggage that is Vista all it does is slow games down, and none of them look any better for it yet

1) There hasn't been a real DX10 released to date. All DX10 games are hybrid DX9 games with DX10 features like larger textures strapped on. When you see a title that is DX10 ONLY, then the performance DX10 offers will be noticeable, until then, all we are getting is eye candy.

2) If you are going to argue DX10 is bad, then explain to everyone how larger texture sizes for more detail is a 'bad thing'... (I know this is just one example, but semi-important.)

3) With NVidia pushing Physics, after Microsoft begging them to adopt to an open Physics model almost 4 years ago, it is down right ironic watching NVidia today. (This was part of the pissing match of the XBox to XBox 360 timeframe, and why MS designed their own GPU with early DX10 concepts, like Physics available on the GPU.)

4) With games implementing 'fragmented' physics implementations, it will hurt ATI and NVidia more than help them, and NVidia is the donkey pushing the cart here. DirectX10 specficially provides a common framework for doing physics and supplying the interface to games so that people don't have to look for CUDA-NVidia, Aegis, etc...

DX10 can do GPU physics and opens this world to developers because of the Vista WDDM, that multi-tasking the processes to the GPU - 3D is no longer cooperative multi-tasking like XP, and surprisingly you would think tech geeks at SlashDot even would, go, oh that is cool, pre-emptive GPU at the OS level. (No OpenGL or DirectX yielding needed.) Vista also provides SMP GPU processing. (Hopefully SLI and Crossfire will die a slow horrible death once XP is dead.)

NVidia is still making their GPU technology based on pre-Vista world technology, because they don't want to break with the XP market. Once the XP break is designed into the GPU, and Vista is required for the multi-core, blah, blah features, we will see some really nice GPU technologies that will spin heads.

As for your comments about Vista being slower than XP in gaming, you are a year behind.

Here read a few pages:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp

About Sept of 07, the drivers caught up and passed XP on a lot of games (SLI is the exception, as they can be equal or XP has an edge). This is why when you look at reviews at Tom's and other sites they are all using Vista for baseline profiling GPUS/Video cards.

The only 'bad' thing about a lot of the review sites, they don't respect the whitepaper on how to test a 'new' Vista install, and are running benchmarks while Vista is doing background I/O or other really stupid stuff.

http://www.buy.com/articles/loc/2/channeltype/2/channelid/109/subtype/1/147.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2054511,00.asp

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=830544

touch is junk and nothing out there that people buy uses it. MULTI-TOUCH caught on. multi touch was invented by two professors at the university of delaware, who founded a company that made the greatest keyboard of all time, the touchstream lp. jobs saw the inherent promise of multi-touch and bought the company and all its ip, in the process making everyone sign nondisclosure agreements and burying the company. the price of the greatest keyboard ever made, no longer available due to job's actions, has rocketed to over $1000 on ebay and keeps going up.

a lot of you are reading this and thinking of non multi touch products that are getting some sales; however they use the fundamental tech that makes multi touch work. multi touch was about figuring out the shape and pressure of the fingers being applied, in addition to distinguishing multiple fingers. this eliminates the "palm brush" problem that plagued early touch pads.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1039254,00.asp
http://fingerfans.dreamhosters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=842

it took a long time for people to figure out what happened; in the end one of the delaware professors listed his profession as 'apple engineer' on a public political contribution and the mystery of the jobs touchstream "nuclear option" was solved.

the reason it's caught on "just now" is that it's actually brand new technology. hopefully someone someday will undo that damage that apple has done to the multitouch industry by buring it under NDA's and patents. in the meantime, they have usurped microsoft for title of tech company most damaging to progress. let's see how long they can hold the crown.

I think it's interesting what this study showed, however I wish it would have included other forms of hardware other than the typical/standard pieces. Examples are specialty keyboards Wolfking Keyboard or gamepads N52te have any impact on gaming performance. I have the later and refuse to go back to the traditional keyboard for my gaming. I'd be curious to see how his k/d ration improves or worsens with one of these.

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=226537,00.asp

There is a difference between public knowledge of an instruction set and Intel actually granting a license to use their design.
It is known that even if nvidia purchased AMD then the x86 chip cross license agreement that AMD carries is none transferable and could not be used in GPU devices.
This leaves only Via with a 10 year license to Intel designs. The terms of that are a little more clouded, but I would hazard it would also be none transferable.

nvidia have their own license to Intel products at the moment, however this does not include the x86 itself.

Intel and Microsoft are still in bed with each other.
the more things change, the more they stay the same.

intel/amd license terms:
http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/amd/intel.license.2001.01.01.html

intel/via news article:
http://www.news.com/Intel,-Via-bury-the-hatchet/2100-1006_3-995845.html

intel/nvidia news:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1729927,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=225061,00.asp

I get my numbers from an actual measurements. Where do you get yours? If you don't have an meter, play with this for a bit.

if your interested in how it works you can read this or a less technical WIKI

Older Processors used lots of power too, and the old power supplies were usually less than 70% efficient

A 25 watt P3 with 3 10 watt (idle) hard drives with no video and a super efficient 10 watt mother and memory and no fans will still use 65 watts, but with the efficiency of 70% that means 85 watts for a best case scenario for an older pc.

Since the pc does little real "work" virtually all of that is expressed as heat in your house. Fine in winter, but in summer that takes another 100 watts to cool that hot air.

-----

and another from 2004>

But most likely these are going to be machines from the last 2 years that can't play the new games, and will likely use far more power.

For reference, my SLI game setup (AMD64 5600 X2, 2 Raptors, 2 Asus 6600 GTS's) pulls 520 real watts playing half life.

I can only afford to play in winter. :P

You can still run Win32 apps on Win64.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOW64

It's quite efficient too

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1857484,00.asp

Xbox 360 HD-DVD playback is basically a joke:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2228134,00.asp

The Toshiba stand-alone HD-DVD players are running about $200 now so I don't see a reason to get the Xbox unit.

You mean like the sound cards and printers that don't work under Vista? Or the fact that you have to dive into a text file to change some "obsure" setting to uncripple the video game you just bought? I don't think Windows can claim the technical advantage here.

Well, unless you activate it.

Planned obsolescence crap like that makes me glad I'm not on the Windows treadmill.

You mean something like a 279 dollar network card with a big knife blade K for a heat sink http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/14/0,1425,sz=1&i=143965,00.jpg
That actually increases ping times. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2037166,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2218301,00.asp

Vista Pros: DX10 gaming

Vista Pros: DX10 gaming

Here is one chart from ExtrmeTech that illustrates this: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1938042,00.asp

WHERE is this going to benefit me?

Unless you know of some special reason why sustained write speed is critical, you should probably be looking more closely at access time, where SSD blows mechanical drives out of the water.

No doubt, mechanical drives still rule capacity/price, but with the growth rates of the two technologies over the past several years, SSD could take over soon.

Blu Ray never gained momentum, for that matter, neither did HD DVD.

Truth be told, I don't have an HD TV, so I doubt I'd really appreciate what either has to offer, in terms of video. On the other hand Blu-Ray, with its advertised storage capacity of 25GB, appeals to me for making back ups of my computer. With these drives approach a price point of $500, this is really tempting:

- http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2139001,00.asp
- http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1980095,00.asp

Blu Ray never gained momentum, for that matter, neither did HD DVD.

Truth be told, I don't have an HD TV, so I doubt I'd really appreciate what either has to offer, in terms of video. On the other hand Blu-Ray, with its advertised storage capacity of 25GB, appeals to me for making back ups of my computer. With these drives approach a price point of $500, this is really tempting:

- http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2139001,00.asp
- http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1980095,00.asp

That case also looks like it's designed following Intel's Thermally Advantaged Chassis specification, which was created when Intel's CPU temperatures were getting out of control (NetBurst era). The back of the case has a space for a 92mm exhaust fan and the side of the case has intake vents directly over where the CPU and external graphics card would be in a microATX case. All this for a CPU that consumes 20W max at load.

That case also looks like it's designed following Intel's Thermally Advantaged Chassis specification, which was created when Intel's CPU temperatures were getting out of control (NetBurst era). The back of the case has a space for a 92mm exhaust fan and the side of the case has intake vents directly over where the CPU and external graphics card would be in a microATX case. All this for a CPU that consumes 20W max at load.

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