PC World (March 2007)

72 Pages·2007·4.798 MB·English

Just In: First WINDOWS VISTA Desktops and Laptops
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TURBOCHARGE MUSIC & MOVIES to Go:
plz contact notemCaorotl@esgt mNeawi lP.claoymers
YOUR BROWSER

46 Free IE & Firefox Add-Ons LAB TESTS: 32” LCD HDTVs

MARCH 2007 u TECHNOLOGY ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST®u WWW.PCWORLD.COM
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EVERY

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PC USER

SHOULD
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KNOW!

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You’ve got questions—
$6.99 USAu$7.99 CANADAuPrinted in USA For clear printing,
the answers are inside
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DISPLAY UNTIL MARCH 13, 2007
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M A R C H 2 0 0 7

V O L U M E 2 5 u N U M B E R 3
W W W . P C W O R L D . C O M

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FEATURES

BROWSER TOOLS

87 Build the Perfect
Browser
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Here’s a comprehen-
sive look at add-ons
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and tools designed to
boost performance

for the latest versions
of Internet Explorer and
Firefox. Simplify site shar-
ing, sharpen your searches, sync
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gather news more quickly. Plus: toolbars,
plz contact notemart@gmdownaloadi ml.ancagoers,m netw ork settings opti-
mization, ad blocking, tabbing, and more.

AUDIO PLAYERS
94 Jukebox in Your Pocket

The latest audio players do much more than
just play tunes—and the best of them sound
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66 top-notch. Many new models play video and
connect to music services, and one lets you
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wirelessly share music and photos with oth-
ers. We test 21 fl ash- and hard-drive–based

players, and reveal which have the features
COVER STORY
and performance you want.

66 35 Things Every PC
ON THE COVER
User Should Know
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In this all-in-one guide, we’ve col-
18
37
lected instructions for performing
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essential tasks that will keep your
94
87
PC, your Internet and network con-

nections, and your mobile devices
50
humming. Whether you need to
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solve a nagging problem or just want
to make a few helpful tweaks, our
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tips and how-to’s will point the way.
94
Cover photography by Robert Cardin.
MARCH 2007 WWW.PCWORLD.COM 7
REVIEWS & RANKINGS DEPARTMENTS
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64
50 High-Definition LCD TVs 15 Techlog
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32-inch models from Dell, Browsers continue to coevolve with the Internet.
HP, Panasonic, Toshiba, 33 Letters

Vizio, and other makers Readers question the value of a Vista upgrade.
54 PDA Phones 37 Consumer Watch

Palm Treo 680, Cingular One of the best ways to fi ght the recent surge in
8525 spam is to change the way you handle e-mail.
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55 Privacy Software 43 Hassle-Free PC
58
Anonymizer Safe Surfi ng Free add-on applications deliver Windows Vista
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Suite features and performance to your XP machine.
56 Top 10 Inkjet Printers 45 Gadget Freak
58 Digital SLR Camera Not all Voice-over IP services are created equal.
Nikon D40 47 Bugs and Fixes
58 Photo Service/Software Sites with user-posted content attract attackers.
Sharpcast Photos 142 Full Disclosure
59 Photo Viewers For clear printinNeegd ad,v ice to install a home theater? Get Goofy!
Digital Foci Picture Porter
Elite, Epsonp P-5l0z00 contact notemart@NgEWmS &a TRilE.NcDSom
60 Desktop PC
HP Pavilion Media Center 18 Vista PCs Perform
TV m7690n In our tests, the fi rst desktops preloaded with the
60 Blu-ray Disc Player new OS run smoothly—with a few limitations.

56
Philips BDP9000 24 Watch Out for Online Ads That Watch You
61 Top 5 Blog Services Privacy advocates worry about “behavioral” ads.
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62 LCD Monitor 26 Vista’s Promising Video Upgrades
Dell 2707WFP Teamed with updated system hardware, Micro-
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62 Notebook PC soft’s new DirectX 10 should boost PC graphics.
Fujitsu LifeBook P1610 28 Virtual Gold Could Draw Real Taxes

63 TV Accessories Congress ponders whether the IRS should col-
Monsoon Hava Wireless lect taxes on game loot traded in the real world.

HD, Sony LF-B20 30 Plugged In
64 VoIP Device Hackers target copy controls in high-def DVDs
Logitech Cordless Inter- For clear printinandg Vis,ta . Plus: in-car Wi-Fi, Bluetooth headsets.
net Handset
See page 50 for a cpompllezte lisct ofo ntact notemart@HgERmE’Sa HOiWl.com
60
new products reviewed.
120 Internet Tips
FIND-IT URLs
Avoid the three biggest security threats of 2007.
TO ACCESS INFORMATION about any item in PC World with an ac com- 124 Windows Tips
panying Find-It URL, enter find.pcworld.com/xxxxx (where xxxxx is Sync your PC’s music fi les with any MP3 device.
the appropriate fi ve-digit number) intFo yoourr br owcselr’es loacatrion fip eldr. in 12t6i nHargdwa,r e Tips
You’ll jump to a Web page containing the information you want. Upgrades that will also migrate to your next PC.
128 Answer Line
plz contact [email protected]
Thaw out a frozen PC; synchronize Outlook data.
COMING UP IN APRIL
130 Digital Photo Tips

Ultimate Windows Guide: From Cell Phone Tips: E-mailing voice Free ways to organize a digital photo collection.
XP to Vista, our tips will keep mail? Texting a Google search?
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your OS running in tip-top shape. Make your phone act like a PC. RESOURCES
Motherboards: We test the latest Zero-Day Attacks: We explain
plz contact [email protected]
models for Intel and AMD proces- what they are, why they’re on the 12 How to Contact PC World
sors and choose the best buys. rise, and how to protect yourself. 133 PC World Marketplace
141 Advertiser Index
MARCH 2007 WWW.PCWORLD.COM 9
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W
EDITOR IN CHIEFHarry McCracken
For clear printinCREgATIV,E D IRECTORRobert Kanes
EDITOR, PCWORLD.COMRamon G. McLeod
MANAGING EDITORKimberly Brinson
plz contact notemaEXErCUtTIV@E EDITgORSmEdwarad N.i Allbr.o,c Ranody Rmoss, A lan Stafford
TEST CENTER DIRECTORUlrike Diehlmann

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Rex Farrance

E D I T O R I A L PCW COMMUNICATIONS
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Michael Carroll
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VP, HUMAN RESOURCES Kate Coldwell
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Eric Butterfield, Liane Cassavoy, Anne B.
McDonald, Dennis O’Reilly NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Blackwell, Erik Larkin
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12 WWW.PCWORLD.COM MARCH 2007
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HHAARRRRYY MMccCCRRAACCKKEENN
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For Browsers, the Best of Times Is Now

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It’s not just the Web that’s evolving fast—so is the software we use to get there.
“browser.” onpcel uzpo nc ao timne,t thaat cwats a nlogoicalt meonmikera forr thte@ appgli- marea a vainlis.hcingo bremed: I c ould tell that the
sea change was nearly complete when
cations we use to navigate the Web. In 2007, it’s pitifully inadeq uate.
MSNBC.com, co-owned by Microsoft,
Sure, we still browse. But the same software lets us talk to the world, dumped its IE-only video player for one
that works equally well in Firefox.
share stuff of all kinds…even crunch numbers and process words.
Tempted to leave IE? Firefox and
Browsers can do it all. Which is why For clear printing, Opera, the powerful browser from
it’s more likely than ever that you Norway, are far from your only op-
practically live ipn yoluzrs— canod wnhy tact notemart@gmationisl. .Thcesoe damys, in fact, they’re part
this issue features “Build the Perfect of the old guard. Newer alternatives
Browser” (page 87), Associate Editor abound: Flock, for instance, of fers
Erik Larkin’s re view of In ternet Ex - built-in blogging, and K-Meleon is
plorer and Firefox add-ons, from inter- snappy even on low-end hardware.

face tweakers to security fi xers. (Both are built on the same open-
As cool as today’s array of add-ons source underpinnings as Firefox, but
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is, it’s only one enjoyable aspect of they’re by no means clones.)
what Erik says is “a great time to be a Neither Flock nor K-Meleon is the
plz contact [email protected]
browser user.” Right now, more via- best choice for everybody, but that’s
ble options are angling for your atten- kind of the point. On today’s Web, a

tion than at any time since the brows- browser doesn’t have to be the right
er wars of the mid-1990s. Yet it feels one for all users in order to thrive—it

less like a battle royal this time just needs to be the right one for some-
around and more like a period of ERIK LARKIN, PCW’S man on the browser beat. body. And that’s yet another reason
peace and harmony. That represents For clear printing, why it is, indeed, a terrific time for
a tremendous change from just a few When IE 7 arrived last fall, we fi nally browsers and the folks who use them.
years ago, when Ipntelrnzet Ecxploorern 6 wtasa cgott a nMicorostofet bmrowsaer trhatt’s@…wegll, mail.com
outdated, unsafe, and—for millions of decent. More important, there’s less and Harry McCracken is editor in chief of PC World.
people—unavoidable, since many major less reason why a nyone should feel All browsers mentioned here are available at
sites were unusable with other browsers. trapped into using IE. Sites that require it www.pcworld.com/downloads.

IN MEMORIAM
M)
OTTO SHORTLY BFEFOoREr WE wcenlt eto paresrs peverryi tinme tyoiu nreadg PC,W , whether or not you knew his name.
R (B this month, PC World lost a beloved We, his coworkers, benefi ted simply from knowing the guy.
E
RIZN plz cfroiendn antd acollceagtue wnheon Steneior mReax wars tan@ upbegat, wmry praesenicle .arcounod tmhe offi ce, and he was
CK Technical Editor Rex Farrance was an astute student of technology and life in general. Most of all,
RI
OP); murdered in a home invasion at his he was among the most courteous, considerate individuals any
T
N ( residence in Northern California. of us have ever met—both a gentleman and a truly gentle man.
DI
AR With 19 years on staff, he was our Outside the offi ce, he had many passions, from rock guitar to
RT C longest-seFrvinog erdit orc, anlde hea wars pweirghit nliftitngi. Bnut ganyo,n e who met him, even casually, knew
E
B
RO endlessly dedicated to his job’s that the biggest one by far was his family. He leaves his wife
S: plz contact [email protected]
PH mandate, which was to make our content as clear, fair, and and four grown children, and he was a proud grandfather. For
A
R
OG accurate as possible. You have benefi ted from his expertise more on Rex, see our tribute at find.pcworld.com/56213.
OT
H
P
MARCH 2007 WWW.PCWORLD.COM 15
What’s new and what’s next in technology INSIDE
24 VISTA, HYBRID HARD
DRIVES TO BOOST LAPTOPS
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26 ONLINE ADS THAT TRACK
YOUR BROWSING
plz contact [email protected]
28 VISTA PROMISES BETTER
GAME, APP GRAPHICS
30 ONLINE GAMING: WIN A
SWORD, PAY A TAX?
32 PLUGGED IN: HACKING
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COPY PROTECTION
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EDITED BY EDWARD N. ALBRO

Vista PCs Perform
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IN OUR TESTS, THE FIRST DESKTOPS LOADED WITH THE NEW OPERATING SYSTEM PROVE TO BE
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SOLID PERFORMERS, BUT SOME ROUGH EDGES REMAIN. B Y RICHARD BAGULEY
plz contact [email protected]
it’s been a while, CyberPower
long wait, but and Shuttle will con-

Windows Vista PCs tinue to off er XP as an
are here. We evaluated option on their con-

the fi rst set of desktop sumer systems.
systems with Micro- We found a similar
soft’s new operating For clear printing, schism among some
system preloaded— other PC vendors that
and the re sults opf oulrz contact [email protected]’ve spoken with (but
benchmark perfor- whose systems were
mance tests show that not included in this
even sub-$1000 sys- story). Polywell will be
tems can ably handle sticking with XP as the
Vista. But some of the default option, install-
new OS’s highly tout- For clear printing, ing Vista only if the
ed features aren’t pres- customer requests it.
ent in these fi rst Vista And even then, the
plz contact [email protected]
desktop systems. company will in s tall
If you’re planning VISTA RUNNERS: The high-end Gateway FX530XT (left) was our top Vista PC per- both Vista and XP,

on buying a PC after former, while Dell’s more modestly configured Dimension C521 was our slowest. allowing the user to
January 30, you may choose which OS they ON
For clear printing, M
be destined to get Vista on ent approach to integrating books. These two companies want to boot the system into. C SI
R
your machine whether you Vista. Once the new OS ships, will also continue to sell sys- At this writing—before Vis- MA
plz contact [email protected] S:
want it or not. Of the four Dell and Gateway are switch- tems running Windows XP, ta’s retail store launch, but PH
A
R
vendors whose systems we ing exclusively to Vista for but only through their respec- after manufacturers had G
O
tested, each is taking a diff er- consumer desktops and note- tive business divisions. Mean- received the final version of HOT
P
18 WWW.PCWORLD.COM MARCH 2007
IN BRIEF
the operating system—Poly- able oFn oour wro rkcstaltieon aliner, pharrd dirnivest thiant wigll sp,ee d up
well CEO Sam Chu claims because those customers are disk access (seefind.pcworld.
Product Pipeline
that Vista is still having com- more sensitive to the idea of com/56102 for more informa-
plz contact [email protected]
patibility problems with many switching, and some of their tion); notebooks with these
applications and drivers. applications may not work on hybrid drives will be available

Chu is not the only vendor Vista. We wanted to leave the fi rst, and they’re not arriving
we talked to who expressed option for them.” until about midyear, maybe

concern over the state of read- Hewlett-Packard, on the sooner. Furthermore, the
iness—or lack thereof—of other hand, is taking a route desktops we looked at also
For clear printing,
Vista’s drivers. “Right now, similar to Dell’s and Gate- lack the secondary SideShow
we’re seeing some issues on way’s. In its online store for displays that can ac cess and
plz contact [email protected]
the R&D side,” according to consumer systems, HP will show you system information.
Marc Diana, product market- switch to Vista at launch. At These displays may be inte-
ing manager for Alienware. retail, the company will let grated into peripherals, such
as a keyboard or a
remote control, or
potentially even the
For clear prinPtCi’sn chagssis, it self.
APPLE CELL PHONE:
TESTING
plz contact [email protected] says its long-awaited
VISTA PCs
iPhone will be available in
in terms of hard- June and will work exclu-
ware, the first six sively on the AT&T (former-
desktops we tested ly Cingular) wireless net-

are identical to work. The iPhone, priced at
same-model XP $499 or $599, features a
For clear printing,
PCs we’ve seen 3.5-inch touch screen and
over the past few includes integrated Wi-Fi
plz contact [email protected]
months, and have and Bluetooth. The iPhone
no specifi c features will synchronize via iTunes

that take advantage and sync calendars, e-mail
of the Vista operat- accounts and photos.

VISTA ALL THE way: Dell’s Dimension XPS 410 (left) and its XPS 710 gaming ing system. By
system. Dell will switch to Vista exclusively once the operating system ships. comparison, early
For clear prinVtisitan notgebo,ok s are
The issues, he says, are re- existing stock run its course; poised to take better advan-
lated to things lipke lgrzaph iccs oVnistta waill cbet th e nOSo thetreeaf-mtagae orf thte @new OgS (msee “Vaistai l.com
card drivers (our test systems ter. HP will continue to off er Opens New Directions for
with both ATI and nVidia business desktop and laptop Laptop PCs” on page 24).
used beta drivers during this PCs with XP Professional and Although the fi rst of these HARD-DISK MILESTONE:
story), and software, such as Vista as options, through the systems to cross our lab bench Hitachi is gunning to be the
that used for Blu-ray Disc end of 2007. By early 2008, were all desktops (Vista note- fi rst to market with a mam-
playback. “If this continues thougFh, oHPr ex pcectls eto oafferr pboorksi nwerte niont avgaila,b le in moth 1-terabyte hard disk.
post-launch, we will give our only Vista on business PCs. time for this article), major By March the company
customers the option of XP. Velocity Micro will switch to laptop makers, including planned to release a 1TB
plz contact [email protected]
Most likely, though, [these Vista at launch, both at retail Asus, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett- Deskstar 7K1000 hard drive
problems] will get sorted out and via its online store. Packard, and Toshiba, say for $400. The 7200-rpm,

before launch.” Notably, these fi rst-genera- they will be selling Vista note- 3.5-inch SATA drive will tar-
B arring ongoing driver is- tion Vista desktops lack some books at the same time Vista get high-performance appli-
For clear printing,
sues, Alienware plans to off er of the components that take desktops go on sale. Adding cations. Seagate says it will
only Vista Home Premium advantage of the interesting Vista to a portable can be release a 1TB drive by June,
plz contact [email protected]
on its consumer desktops and features in Windows Vista. more challenging for a vendor but had no pricing or model
notebooks. However, says For example, they don’t in - than adding it to a desktop information at press time.
Diana, “We will have XP avail- clude the ReadyDrive hybrid PC; among other things,
MARCH 2007 WWW.PCWORLD.COM 19
NEWS & TRENDS
installing it re quires testing tively F(seoe “Lrab Tcesltse: Viasta’rs p(whricihn ditspilanys gyou,r pro- tem ran at 143 frames per
Vista’s power-management sys- Fast If You Have the Hard- grams like a pack of cards as second in the game Far Cry at
tem, which will affect battery ware,” find.pcworld.com/ you switch among them). 1024 by 768 resolution. An
plz contact [email protected]
life diff erently than XP’s imple- 56151, in which we tested identical system using the
VISTA GOTCHAS
mentation does. single-core and dual-core sys- same settings with Vista man-

W e looked at a mix of expen- tems running Windows Vista drivers are critical to aged a frame rate of just 108
sive, high-performance PCs Ultimate Edition). your PC; they are the fi les that fps—some 24 percent slower.

and sub-$1000 value systems. In our hands-on tests, we let your OS communicate O ur other test game, Doom
The desktop makers included found that these systems were with devices such as graphics 3, didn’t run at all on the Vista
For clear printing,
CyberPower (the $999 Gamer quite capable of running the cards, printers, or storage systems that used ATI graph-
Infinity 7500); Dell (three advanced, more graphics- devices. All drivers have to be ics cards; at this writing, ATI’s
plz contact [email protected]
models: the quad-core, $4224 intensive features of Vista. rewritten for Vista, but not all beta drivers for Vista don’t
XPS 710; the $1954 XPS 410; Even the sub-$1000 Dell C521 may be ready at launch, and support the OpenGL graphics
and the $979, bargain- some older peripher- system that this game re-
basement C521); Gate- These systems could als may never get an quires. nVidia’s beta driver,
way (the speedy $4500 updated driver. however, did support OpenGL
FX530XT); and Shuttle handle the graphical T he lack of Vista graphics. ATI and nVidia both
(the compact, $1860 For clear prindrivteris nforg som, e pe- claim that they will have full
G2-3200). ripherals could be a versions of their drivers ready
features of Vista.
All of them cpamlez contact notemarmtaj@or issgue mfor maanyi l.bcy tohe tmime V ista ships.
with the Home Pre- users. For example,
WORLDBENCH 6 BETA
mium version of Vista in- and CyberPower Gamer Infi n- with the beta drivers in our
stalled, with at least 1GB of ity 7500 could handle features tests, games ran signifi cantly to test these new Vista
memory, and with dedicated such as the new, translucent slower under Vista than under systems, we used a beta ver-

graphics—the minimum Aero Glass effects. We were Windows XP. In earlier test- sion ofPC World’s test suite,
specifications that we found also able to successfully use ing of the Dell XPS 710 run- WorldBench 6, which has
For clear printing,
you need to run Vista effec- features such as Flip 3D ning Windows XP, this sys- been optimized for Win-
TEST REPORpT lz contact [email protected]
EXCLUSIVE TESTS: FIRST VISTA DESKTOP PC BENCHMARKS

QUAD-CORE PCs RUNNING Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU did better on our WorldBench 6 (beta) suite than dual-core sys-
tems, and Gateway’s FX530XT led the pack, excelling on all of our productivity tests. But as our gaming trials show, not all units
had fully baked graphics drivers at the time of testing.
For clear printing,
Productivity tests (seconds) 2 Gaming tests (fps) 3
plz contact noteWmorldBencah [email protected]
VISTA PC Price CPU Graphics (RMABM) 6s (cboertea 1) MFuirlteiftoaxs kainndg : PhAodtoosbheo p Aut3oddsesk MiOcfrfoicsoe ft Far Cry Doom 3
Windows Media max 8.0 2003
Encoder CS2 (rendering) (seconds)
CyberPower Gamer 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo EVGA GeForce
$999 1024 110088 265 449 671 353 112 124
Infinity 7500 E6600 7900GS
Dell Dimension 2.4-GHz Athlon 64
$979 ATI Radeon X1300 2048 9191 359 597 774 395 81 n/a 4
C521 X2 4600+ For clear printing,
2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo
Dell XPS 410 $1954 GeForce 7900 GS 2048 111188 291 387 672 362 109 111
plz coE66n00 tact [email protected]
2.66-GHz Core 2 GeForce 7950
Dell XPS 710 $4224 2048 121929 258 360 348 342 108 120
Extreme QX6700 GX2

2.66-GHz Core 2 ATI Radeon X1950
Gateway FX530XT $4500 4096 148148 211 295 292 325 159 n/a 4
Extreme QX6700 5 XTX (Crossfire)
For clear printing,
2.13-GHz Core 2 Duo
Shuttle G2-3200 $1860 ATI Radeon X1300 2048 101000 325 495 755 370 62 n/a 4
E6400
plz contact [email protected]
CHART NOTES: All systems ran Windows Vista Home Premium edition. Best scores are in bold. FOOTNOTES:1Results are not comparable with WorldBench 5 scores. 2For timed
tests, lower numbers are better. 3Tests performed at 1024 by 768 resolution with antialiasing turned off; higher rates of frames per second (fps) are better. 4n/a = not applicable.
Systems with ATI-based graphics were unable to complete this test. 5Factory-overclocked to 3.2 GHz.
20 WWW.PCWORLD.COM MARCH 2007
NEWS & TRENDS
dows Vista. This performance that’sF dooublre t hce almeounat orf ptesrt wians a tlititlne slgowe,r than tem lagged behind the other
benchmark runs a variety of system RAM we typically see the times of the more expen- machines in all of our tests
common tasks in several pro- on a power desktop. sive models, but fast enough except the Far Cry game. It
plz contact [email protected]
grams (such as processing a T he $4500 FX530XT is well to prove its mettle at juggling took a rather lengthy 597 sec-
photo in Adobe Photoshop tricked out—and is one of the simultaneous tasks. onds to run the Photoshop

and opening a complex Web most expensive systems we’ve Although our previous tests test, or about twice as long as
page in Firefox) and times tested recently. Its compact have shown that adding more the Gateway model. The C521

how long these tasks take. configuration leaves little memory to Vista systems was also very slow in multi-
WorldBench 6 uses, among room for expansion, though. often boosts performance, the tasking, taking 359 seconds to
For clear printing,
other things, updated applica- The Dell XPS 710, the sec- CyberPower Gamer Infinity complete a test that the XPS
tions (such as Adobe Photo- ond-best performer here, 7500 proves that performance 710 fi nished in 258 seconds—
plz contact [email protected]
shop CS2), and more demand- lagged the Gateway by 10 to is not just about memory: 28 percent slower. Even when
ing tests employing, for 20 percent on most of our With its Core 2 Duo E6600 compared with a more simi-
example, bigger files, as on tests. At $4224, it’s slightly processor and 1GB of RAM, larly equipped system, such
our Photoshop test. as the CyberPower,
The WorldBench 6 test this Dell PC was poky,
VISTA WILL COME
results can’t be com- requiring 148 seconds
loaded on PCs of all
pared with World- For clear printing, more to complete our
shapes and sizes,
Bench 5 results for our Photoshop test.
including CyberPower’s
desktop PC reviewps olrz contact [email protected] To b e fair, even run-
Gamer Infinity 7500
with other tests. ning Vista, this very
(left) and Shuttle’s
inexpensive system is

THE RESULTS diminutive G2-3200.
fast enough for gener-
the top score in al computing tasks.

our evaluations went Gaming is a diff erent
to the speedy Gateway story, though: With an
For clear printing,
FX530XT, which was ATI Radeon X1300
the quickest in every graphics card, it man-
plz contact [email protected]
test it completed; the aged just 81 frames
ATI graphics card it per second in Far Cry

came with, however, at 1024 by 768 resolu-
failed to run our Doom tion, and a marginal

3 game. Providing the 25 fps in Doom 3.
Gateway’s zip was an over- less expensive than the Gate- this machine was consistently The $1860 Shuttle G2-3200
clocked quad-core Intel Core way, Fando itsr la rcge lcaese apror- pfasrteri nthatn ithne Dgell, C 521, proved to be a mixed bag: This
2 Ex treme QX6700 processor vides a lot more room for which came with 2GB of RAM diminutive PC came in near
(running at 3.2 GpHz,l uzp fr ocm oenx patnasiocn tth ann dooest tehe manad anr AtM@D 2.4g-GHmz Athaloni l.tche obotmtom i n performance,
the standard 2.66 GHz). cramped FX530XT. It was 64 X2 4600+ processor. And taking a lengthy 495 seconds
The FX530XT completed also signifi cantly quieter: The despite its sub-$1000 price, to complete our Photoshop
our Photoshop component in case allows room for bigger, the Gamer Infi nity 7500 ran test. Its other performance
295 seconds, while the next- less noisy fans to remove heat only slightly more slowly than results were equally slow,
fastest system (the Dell XPS from components like the the much more costly Dell with our multitasking test tak-
710) took 360 seconds, mean- CPU and the GeForce 7950 XPS 710 on a couple of tests. ing a protracted 325 seconds.
For clear printing,
ing that the Gateway was 22 GX2 graphics card. The Gamer Infi nity also fea- Although the small case
percent faster. It sped through D ell’s $1954 XPS 410 tures a large, glass-fronted means that this machine
plz contact [email protected]
our multitasking test—in proved to be a good balance of case that gives it a stylish de - could be squeezed into tight
which a video en coder and a price and performance: Built signer appearance, as well as spots, it also means it has lit-

Web browser run at the same around an Intel Core 2 Duo a retro-looking analog inter- tle room for expansion: There
time—in only 211 seconds. E6600 dual-core processor, it nal temperature meter on the are no vacant PCI or PCI Ex - N
For clear printing, MO
T he speedy performance of ran through our Photoshop front; a cobalt-blue light inside press card slots, and only a SI
C
the FX530XT is likely helped test in a reasonably quick 387 shows off its innards. single vacant drive bay. Shut- AR
M
not only by the prpocelsszor, bcut osnecotndas, rcanktin g nthirod amtoeng m Taher $9t79@ Dellg C52m1 yiealdedi l.tcle oalsom discourages users PH:
A
R
by the 4GB of fast DDR2 these six systems. And its 291 the slowest performance we from opening the case them- G
O
memory Gateway included; seconds on our multitasking saw in this group. This sys- selves to install upg rades. HOT
P
22 WWW.PCWORLD.COM MARCH 2007