Origin Genesis Review: Triple Titan Terror

As some of you might recall, as part of NVIDIA’s GTX Titan launch NVIDIA not only sent out individual cards, but also some custom concept systems to showcase the unique aspects of Titan. Specifically its high quality construction and how its blower-style cooler means it can be exploited to pack high performance systems into relatively small spaces. NVIDIA shipped us two such concept systems, a small form factor (SFF) Falcon Northwest Tiki, and at the opposite end of the spectrum was the obscenely powerful tri-SLI Origin Genesis.

Of course that was almost two months ago, and there’s no getting around the fact that as the reviewer assigned to the Genesis I’ve ended up turning in this review very late. An initial delay to focus on the Titan launch turned into a serious illness, followed by not one but two conferences, two more video card launches, and some other fun stuff in between. So living up to the motto “better late than never”, now that everything has settled down (relatively speaking) I can finally pick back up where I left off and finish our look at Titan with the final piece of the puzzle: Origin’s monster gaming machine.

With the Genesis the idea was that Origin would put together a triple Titan system to showcase just how quiet Titan’s blower-style coolers were even when the cards were tightly packed together. Instead Origin unexpectedly exceeded NVIDIA’s specifications and was able to get three Titans hooked up to water in time for the Titan launch. The end result somewhat defeats the original purpose of sending the system out – we can’t tell you what three stock Titans sounds like – but in the end we got something far more interesting: three Titans hooked up to water, creating a tri-SLI system effectively unrestrained by heat and cooled by one of the only things quieter than NVIDIA’s blowers. Ultimately if one Titan on its own is powerful, then three Titans is nothing short of obscene. This is the same sentiment behind the Origin’s Genesis system we’re reviewing today.

In Origin’s product lineup, Genesis is Origin’s brand for their line full-tower computers. As a boutique builder, Origin uses a number of different configurations on their Genesis lineup, offering multiple CPU/motherboard combinations and multiple cases under the same Genesis heading. As a result Genesis spans everything from relatively simple systems to XL-ATX monsters.

The Genesis system we’ll be looking at today is positioned at the top end of that lineup, and is intended to be the fastest thing that can be put together in an ATX form factor. Sparing no expense, Origin has assembled a Genesis system that packs in Origin’s best components, best cooling, greatest overclocks, and highest price tag. Based around the combination of a Corsair Obsidian 800D case, NVIDIA’s GTX Titan, and Intel’s X79/SNB-E platform, it’s a luxury computer like no other.

With that thought in mind, let’s take a look at just how a $9,000 luxury gaming computer is built and configured.

Origin Genesis (2013) Specifications
Chassis	Corsair Obsidian 800D
Processor	Intel Core i7-3970X (6x3.5GHz + HTT, Turbo to 4.0GHz, 4.9GHz Overclock, 32nm, 15MB L3, 150W)
Motherboard	Intel DX79SR(X79 Chipset)
Memory	4x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 (expandable to 64GB)
Graphics	3x NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan 6GB in SLI 3x (2688 CUDA cores, 837/6008MHz core/RAM, 952/6208MHz Overclock, 384-bit memory bus)
Storage	2x Corsair Neutron GTX 120GB SATA 6Gbps SSD (LAMD), RAID-0 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200-RPM SATA HDD
Optical Drive(s)	Hitachi-LG 14x BD Burner
Power Supply	Corsair AX1200i
Networking	2x Intel 82579L Gigabit Ethernet
Audio	Realtek ALC892 Speaker, mic/line-in, surround jacks, optical out for 7.1 sound
Front Side	Optical drive 40-In-1 Media Card Reader 2x USB 2.0 2x USB 3.0 IEEE 1394a Headphone and mic jacks 4-channel fan controller Koolance RP-401X2 Reservoir
Top	-
Back Side	4x USB 3.0 6x USB 2.0 Optical out IEEE 1394a 2x Ethernet Speaker, mic/line-in, surround, and optical jacks 6x DVI-D (3x GTX Titan) 3x HDMI (3x GTX Titan) 2x DisplayPort (3x GTX Titan)
Operating System	Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
Dimensions	24" x 9" x 24" (609.6mm x 228.6mm x 609.6mm)
Extras	Card reader Custom liquid-cooling loop, CPU & GPU Custom LED lighting 80 Plus Platinum PSU
Warranty	1-year parts, 45 days shipping, lifetime labor and 24/7 support
Pricing	As configured: $8,499 (+$479 paint job)

HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim: The Littlest Desktop

Introducing the HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim
If you've been following along for a while, it should be pretty clear that around here, we're fans of doing a little computing. Awkward turns of phrase notwithstanding, we thought we'd seen the smallest HP had to offer when we tackled the Z210 SFF desktop not too long ago. But we were wrong, and today we present you with the smallest desktop computer in HP's enterprise lineup. Wearing its power supply on the outside, meet the HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim.

Get a load of that. Admittedly consumer desktops (and nettops) can get just a bit smaller, but the HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim is still pretty impressively diminutive. Once you get this small it's very hard to include any kind of real graphics hardware, so even the entry level Quadro found in the Z210 is absent here, but other than that you'll see it's a surprisingly fully-featured little computer.
HP offers several pre-configured variants of the 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim, and they shipped us the top XZ788UT model. They also have custom-build options available, with a much larger selection of parts on tap. Here's what we received in our review sample.

HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim Specifications
Chassis	HP Custom
Processor	Intel Core i5-2500S (4x2.7GHz, 32nm, 8MB L3, turbo to 3.7GHz, 65W)
Motherboard	HP Proprietary Motherboard with Q67 chipset
Memory	1x4GB Samsung DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM (expandable to 16GB)
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 2000 (6 EUs, 850-1100MHz)
Hard Drive(s)	Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 7200-RPM 2.5" SATA 3Gbps HDD
Optical Drive(s)	HP DVD+/-RW Combo Drive
Networking	Intel 82579LM Gigabit Ethernet Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 802.11a/b/g/n
Audio	Realtek ALC662 HD Audio Speaker, mic/line-in jacks for stereo sound
Front Side	4x USB 2.0 Headphone and mic jacks Optical drive Card reader
Top	-
Back Side	Speaker, mic/line-in 2x PS/2 6x USB 2.0 1x Ethernet 1x DisplayPort VGA AC adaptor
Operating System	Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
Dimensions	9.9" x 10" x 2.6" (WxDxH), 6.8 lbs. 251 x 254 x 66 mm, 3.1 kg
Extras	SD Card Reader 87% Efficient PSU with active PFC
Warranty	3-year parts, labor, and onsite service
Pricing	MSRP starts at $679; review configuration at $914 Available online starting at $770

You can immediately tell from the specs that the 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim is the kind of system designed more for mass deployment than any kind of serious, high performance computing. HP includes an MXM slot and Mini-PCIe slot inside the chassis for expansion, and for those that really want some for of discrete graphics a $61 upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD 5450 is available. With 80 Stream Processors, that's not a major upgrade from Intels HD 2000; it's a little dated but it's there if you need it. There's also no USB 3.0 support, but at least HP includes DisplayPort connectivity.
Moving to the CPU, the Intel Core i5-2500S is no slouch. Rated for a TDP of 65 watts instead of 95, it still manages to boast the same impressive top turbo core speed as its non-S-series counterpart. Other options range from basic Pentium CPUs all the way up to the i7-2600S. HP backs the CPU up with two SO-DIMM slots (and no ECC support), one of which is occupied in our review unit by a 4GB DDR3-1333 DIMM.
Keeping up with the "notebook in a desktop shell" motif is the 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200-RPM mechanical hard drive and a slimline DVD+/-RW drive. (Note that SSDs are available in the custom configurator if desired.) HP also includes integrated wireless in the form of the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 wireless chipset, which supports 802.11a/b/g/n connectivity. The 87% efficient PSU is an external power brick rated for 135 watts, more than enough to support this configuration.
None of the specs are going to set the world on fire, but being a business class system there are a few other extras we need to discuss. The major selling point for systems such as this is the warranty and support. The HP Compaq Elite 8200 comes standard with a 3-year onsite warranty, and in our experience business class systems are built and supported better than consumer offerings. Remember also that while HP is talking about selling off their consumer PC division, they want to keep the (more lucrative) business and enterprise lines.

Puget Systems Deluge Mini: The Art of Custom

Introducing the Puget Systems Deluge Mini

The last time we checked in with Puget Systems, we came away impressed with their Serenity SPCR Edition. It wasn't the fastest machine we've ever tested, but it was extremely well put together and almost completely inaudible. With Sandy Bridge back on shelves, Puget sent along a custom gaming rig and just like the Serenity SPCR Edition, there's more to the Deluge Mini than meets the eye.

Puget Systems releases their gaming desktops under the Deluge line, and for our review they sent us a particularly intriguing entrant in the form of their Deluge Mini. While the Antec Mini P180 chassis that houses it may be built for Micro-ATX, the word "Mini" is fairly charitable. Still, it's definitely smaller than the larger tower cases we're used to seeing these gaming machines built in. As I mentioned, there's more going on with the Deluge Mini than initially appears. But before we get into the intricacies of the build, let's take a look at how our review unit was specced:

Puget Systems Deluge Mini Specifications
Chassis	Antec Mini P180 (Customized)
Processor	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.5GHz (spec: 4x3.3GHz, 32nm, 6MB L3, 95W)
Motherboard	ASUS P8P67-M Pro Motherboard with P67 chipset
Memory	2x4GB Kingston DDR3-1333 @ 1333MHz (expandable to 16GB)
Graphics	2x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 (384 CUDA Cores, 850/1700/1025MHz Core/ShadersRAM, 256-bit memory bus)
Hard Drive(s)	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps HDD
Optical Drive(s)	Lite-On BD-ROM/DVD+-RW Combo Drive
Networking	Realtek PCIe Gigabit Ethernet
Audio	Realtek ALC892 HD Audio Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound Optical out
Front Side	Card reader 2x USB 2.0 eSATA Headphone and mic jacks Optical drive
Top	-
Back Side	2x PS/2 2x USB 3.0 Optical out 6x USB 2.0 eSATA Ethernet Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Dimensions	8.3" x 17.2" x 17.1" (WxDxH)
Weight	20.9 lbs (case only)
Extras	Antec TP-650 650W Power Supply Asetek Liquid Cooling Case Modification Card Reader
Warranty	1-year limited parts warranty and lifetime labor and phone support. 2- and 3-year extended warranties available.
Pricing	Deluge Mini starts at $1,549 Review system configured at $2,257

The configuration our Deluge Mini review unit shipped with makes for an interesting comparison with the Origin Genesis we recently reviewed. Both are running with Sandy Bridge processors overclocked to 4.5GHz, though Puget Systems sticks with the Intel Core i5-2500K instead of bumping up to the Core i7-2600K. For most users (and especially the gamers Puget is targeting) this isn't going to be a major issue, with the chief differentiator being the i7's support for Hyper-Threading and an extra 2MB of L3 cache. Outside of that, both machines have 8GB of Kingston DDR3 strapped to the processor (though Puget opts to go for slower DDR3-1333.)

Origin and Puget also both elected to go with two of EVGA's mildly overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics cards configured in SLI. A primary but crucial difference is in how the cards are spaced: because Puget is using a smaller case and confined to the Micro-ATX form factor, the two 560 Ti's are snuggled up next to each other, while Origin's tower gives them more breathing room.

A major difference, though, is the lack of an SSD in the Deluge Mini. This is disappointing, as review units from competing boutiques have included an SSD for the data drive as a matter of course, but it's also not a dealbreaker: you can still configure your build with an Intel SSD.

Which brings us to one vital point here: if you visit the Puget Systems site to build your own machine, you'll notice that the Intel SSDs are the only options. This is reflective of one of the quirks of Puget: while most boutiques are certainly concerned about reliability to a degree and happily stand behind their builds, Puget performs extensive reliability testing of hardware on the market and collects massive amounts of data (some of which I've actually been privied to see.) As a result, if they don't feel a particular component is going to be up to par or may cause issues down the line, they simply won't offer it. That puts their comparatively meager 1-year standard parts warranty into perspective: by trying to choose the most reliable parts to begin with, they're banking on the user never having to worry about the warranty to begin with. 

Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview

Windows 7: Release Candidate 1

When we wrote our Windows Vista Performance Guide, we were left wondering about Microsoft’s ability to sell Vista to a community of users well entrenched with Windows XP

Among those that won't become switchers, Microsoft's own worst enemy is itself, as it needs to prove that Vista is a worthwhile upgrade to XP when XP is already so refined. For many users in the consumer space, Vista is simply a version of Windows where (to borrow a quote from Field of Dreams) "If you build it, they will come." These people will get Vista on their new computers and they'll like it because it is good, but having never had the chance to decide if they didn't want it.

Now two and a quarter years later we can see the outcome of that. It’s not favorable to Microsoft.

While Vista’s adoption has not been a failure, it hasn’t necessarily been a success story either. Microsoft’s own worst enemy was XP, and the users complacent with it have been in no big rush to upgrade. The primary vehicle for moving Vista has been new computers, and even that has taken a hit in the kneecaps with the sudden rise of netbooks, which fit poorly with an OS that was made for newer, faster computers.

Further complicating matters is that the quality of Vista wasn’t particularly stellar at launch. We’ve already covered this with our Vista SP1 article, so we won’t completely rehash this, but specific performance problems such as file copies (local and networked) and Vista’s hunger for virtual address space quickly made themselves evident. Netbooks drove this point home even harder –Vista doesn’t do so well with so little RAM.

Finally, Apple deserves a great deal of credit here for driving the stake into the public opinion of Vista. The extremely popular Get a Mac campaign took the dissent from above and managed to amplify it and sew it into the public at large. Apple made it popular to hate Vista, and Microsoft did too little too late on the marketing front to counter that. Never underestimate the power of marketing – many people can tell you they don’t like Vista, few can tell you why. That’s marketing.

Even though many of the technical problems were fixed before or at the launch of Vista SP1, by then it was too late. The public had become permanently dissatisfied with Vista. Regardless of the quality of the OS these days, the Vista name has become poisonous.

Of course as far as consumer sales are concerned, this hasn’t significantly dented Vista adoption. Vista’s still going out on virtually every new consumer-level computer shipped. People may be dissatisfied, but so far they’re not doing anything about it other than complaining. Business users on the other hand are acting, or rather are not acting. They’re not upgrading to Vista on existing computers, and on new computers they’re still installing XP. Vista’s not taking at the corporate level, and that’s Microsoft’s more immediate problem.

So here we are today with Windows 7 Release Candidate 1, Microsoft's grand attempt at taking Vista and building a more palatable operating system out of it. With Windows 7, Microsoft has ripped the Vista playbook to shreds and they are going an entirely different route. The goal: make Windows 7 successful before it even ships.

Digital Storm Core i7-965

Introduction

Digital Storm was a new name to us when they first called to offer a gaming system for review. They carry a number of different systems, and pride themselves on "performance, support, and value". Today we're looking at a no-holds-barred, top of the line system: an overclocked Core i7-965 with water-cooling and triple-SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 GPUs. First, we'll look at the company, the website and ordering process, and the system and components; then we'll jump into our performance review of the Core i7-965 system.

Digital Storm - Overview

We didn't know much about Digital Storm's history, so we asked them for a brief PR blurb, excerpted in part below.

Digital Storm was founded in San Jose, CA in 2001 and has been in the computer gaming industry for nearly 9 years. In that time we have come to be regarded as a system integrator that builds bleeding-edge: fast, stable, and highly customized gaming systems backed up with a passionate staff that stands behind their product. We are also the only computer gaming company with an "A+" rating from the BBB. This rating reflects our company's dedication to taking care of our customers. Our company has adopted a simple theory: put yourself in the customers shoes. Every decision we make reflects this anthem.

Also, as previously stated, their "About Us" page claims they operate by providing performance, support, and value. We'll look at each claim in turn and examine how they rate.

HP Blackbird 002 Revisited

A few weeks back, we provided our initial review of HP's Blackbird 002. What we found was a very interesting and exotic design, but without more information on pricing and availability it was difficult to come to any final conclusions. In fact, we were almost left with more questions than answers, so we spent some time talking to HP Gaming's CTO (and VoodooPC founder) Rahul Sood and the Blackbird sales team. There are still some questions that we weren't able to get answered, but we did get a lot of good material and we felt it would be worthwhile to revisit the Blackbird as well as HP's Gaming division.One of the first things that might be a bit confusing for some people is how HP Gaming relates to VoodooPC. While HP bought out VoodooPC last year, they continue to exist as a separate brand (though still under the HP corporate umbrella). You can still go out and purchase a VoodooPC computer, and you will get the same thing that you always got from Voodoo: extreme attention to detail, premium components, and prices that might just leave you gasping for breath. VoodooPC is as much a status symbol as anything, and while the performance and construction is definitely top-notch, the simple truth is that we just don't see many people being willing to plunk down as much as $10,000 (or more!) on hardware that is going to be second-tier performance in 12 months.This gets into one of those dirty little secrets about computers that some companies don't like to discuss. AnandTech of course isn't one of those companies, so let's air the dirty laundry. There are a few truths about extreme performance computer hardware. First, naturally, is that it costs quite a bit of money. Second, you generally get rapidly diminishing returns as you move up the performance ladder. Third, newer and faster products are always just six to twelve months away. Finally, if you take the top performing parts currently on the market and slap them together in a system, the difference in performance between something manufactured by a boutique computer shop (VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Alienware, etc.) and something built in your parents' basement is, generally speaking, negligible.These aren't the only truths, of course. Another point that frequently comes up in enthusiast circles is that overclocking - particularly of CPUs - can save you a truckload of money. Practically speaking, there is no difference in performance between a QX6850 running at 3.0GHz and an overclocked Q6600 running at the same speed (9x333). With the right cooling, you can most likely push both processors up to around 3.5-3.6GHz (9x400), and performance will remain equal. What you do get with the QX6850 is more flexibility and (typically) slightly lower voltages. The unlocked multiplier on the QX6850 (and all of the Core 2 Extreme line) means that adjusting front side bus speeds isn't only way to affect the CPU clock speed. However, it's difficult to find a good reason to spend over three times as much on the CPU just for convenience. The best reason to purchase a Core 2 Extreme is honestly if you're not planning on overclocking and you want the best possible guaranteed performance. In that case, you might be more interested in a factory overclocked - and warrantied - system like the Blackbird.The take away from all of this discussion is that our real question in regards to something like the Blackbird 002 is: what can it add to the computing experience that isn't directly related to raw performance? With a bit more time using the system, more configuration options available, and a lot more details on pricing, we should be able to answer that question.

HP Blackbird 002: Back in Black

Whether it's cars, aircrafts, houses, motorcycles, or computers people always seem to like hearing about the most exotic products on the planet. HP's latest and greatest desktop computer offering bears the name of one of the most mystical aircrafts of all time, the SR-71 Blackbird. We can't say for sure whether the choice of name actually comes from the famous surveillance aircraft or not, but we would venture to say this is the case. See, besides the name, the two have quite a few other common attributes.

The SR-71 Blackbird was on the cutting edge of technology, pushing the boundaries of what was deemed achievable. It was the first aircraft that was designed to reduce its radar signature, and while it would fail in this respect it helped pave the way for future stealth aircraft. Perhaps more notably, the Blackbird was the fastest aircraft ever produced, officially reaching speeds of Mach 3.2 and unofficially reaching even higher. The actual top speed remains classified to this day. The extremely high speeds required some serious out of box thinking to achieve, so the Blackbird was built from flexible panels that actually fit loosely together at normal temperatures; only after the aircraft heated up from air friction would the panels fit snugly, and in fact the SR-71 would leak fuel while sitting on the runway before takeoff. After landing, the surface of the jet was so hot (above 300°C) that maintenance crews had to leave it alone for several hours to allow it to cool down.


So how does all of that relate to the HP Blackbird 002? In terms of components and design, the Blackbird is definitely on the cutting edge of design and technology, and it features several new "firsts" in computers. When we consider that the Blackbird comes from a large OEM that doesn't have a reputation for producing such designs, it makes some of these firsts even more remarkable. Talking about the temperatures that the SR-71 reached during flight was intentional, because the Blackbird 002 can put out a lot of heat. No, you won't need to let it cool down for several hours after running it, but the 1100W power supply is definitely put to good use. If electricity is the fuel of the 002, saying that it leaks fuel while sitting idle definitely wouldn't be an overstatement. And last but not least, the Blackbird 002 is fast - extremely fast - easily ranking among the best when it comes to prebuilt desktop computers.

Where did all of this come from? We are after all talking about HP, a company that has been in the computer business for decades, and during all that time they have never released anything quite like this. Flash back to about a year ago, when HP acquired VoodooPC, a boutique computer vendor known for producing extremely high-performance computers with exotic paint jobs and case designs - with an equally exotic price. The HP Blackbird 002 represents the first fruits of this merger, and while it may not be quite as exotic as the old VoodooPC offerings in all respects, it certainly blazes new trails in the world of OEM computers. There's clearly a passion for computer technology behind the design, and even if we might not personally be interested in purchasing such a computer, we can certainly appreciate all the effort that has gone into creating this latest "muscle car" - or pseudo-stealth aircraft, if you prefer.

Gateway FX530: Mad Cows and Quad Core Overclocking

There are a few things that we tend to take for granted in life: death, taxes, and a lack of overclocking support on PCs from major OEMs. Certainly, there are many people that don't need overclocking, and those are exactly the people that tend to purchase name brand PCs in the first place. If your typical computer use doesn't get much more complex than surfing the Internet, the difference between a massively overclocked CPU and the stock configuration is hardly going to be noticeable. What's more, overclocking tends to come with drawbacks. System stability is frequently suspect, and outside of a few boutique computer shops that factory overclock systems, you will generally void your warranty by overclocking.Conversely, overclocking gives those willing to take a chance the ability to squeeze extra performance out of even the top performing parts. Alternately, consumers can save money by purchasing a cheaper processor and running it at speeds that would normally cost two or three times as much. Intel's latest Core 2 processors have rekindled interest in overclocking, in part simply because they overclock so well. In the past, the benchmark for highly overclockable chips has generally been set at 50% or more, with good overclocking chips achieving a 25% to 50% overclock. Core 2 Duo blows away some of these old conventions, with some chips like the E4300 managing even massive 100% overclocks! And they manage this without breaking a sweat. With chips that overclock so well, it seems a shame to run them at stock speeds.Over the years, we have seen a few factory overclocked systems, but rarely from a major OEM. The big OEMs like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. tend to play it safe, but Gateway has broken with tradition by releasing a significantly overclocked Core 2 Extreme QX6700 system. What's more, they have done it at a price that is likely to turn a lot of heads - and yes, the factory warranty remains intact. We talked in the past about the type of people that actually can make use of a quad core system, and the people that are likely to want a quad core processor are often the people that stand to benefit the most from additional performance courtesy of overclocking. With Intel's QX6700 already reigning supreme as the fastest multi-core configuration on the market, why not add another 20% performance? We've seen similar configurations for sale from boutique manufacturers, often with astronomical prices. While the QX6700 certainly won't be cheap no matter how you slice it, Gateway offers their 20% overclock for a modest $100 price increase. Considering the price difference between the Q6600 and the QX6700 is $150 for a 266 MHz speed increase, doubling that speed increase for a mere $100 is a real bargain!A super fast processor sounds great, especially if it still carries a factory warranty. However, warranties don't mean a lot if the system won't run stable. Besides the processor, however, there are many other components that can affect system performance. The type of work you plan on doing with the computer will also affect how much benefit a fast CPU gets you. We'll assume right now that anyone planning on purchasing a quad core system routinely needs a lot of CPU power, but unfortunately there are still CPU intensive tasks that can't properly utilize multiple processor cores. In order to see just how much faster this Gateway system is compared to other options, we will be comparing performance results with the test systems used in our AMD Quad FX article. Before we get to the actual performance, however, let's take a closer look at the FX530.

A Messy Transition (Part 3): Vista Buys Some Time

As we saw in part 1 of this series, large applications and games under Windows are getting incredibly close to hitting the 2GB barrier, the amount of virtual address space a traditional Win32 (32-bit) application can access. Once applications begin to hit these barriers, many of them will start acting up and/or crashing in unpredictable ways which makes resolving the problem even harder. Developers can work around these issues, but none of these except for building less resource intensive games or switching to 64-bit will properly solve the problem without creating other serious issues.
Furthermore, as we saw in part 2, games are consuming greater amounts of address space under Windows Vista than Windows XP. This makes Vista less suitable for use with games when at the same time it will be the version of Windows that will see the computing industry through the transition to 64-bit operating systems becoming the new standard. Microsoft knew about the problem, but up until now we were unable to get further details on what was going on and why. As of today that has changed.
Microsoft has published knowledge base article 940105 on the matter, and with it has finalized a patch to reduce the high virtual address space usage of games under Vista. From this and our own developer sources, we can piece together the problem that was causing the high virtual address space issues under Vista.
As it turns out, our initial guess about the issue being related to memory allocations being limited to the 2GB of user space for security reasons was wrong, the issue is simpler than that. One of the features of the Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) is that video memory is no longer a limited-sharing resource that applications will often take complete sovereign control of; instead the WDDM offers virtualization of video memory so that all applications can use what they think is video memory without needing to actually care about what else is using it - in effect removing much of the work of video memory management from the application. From both a developer's and user's perspective this is great as it makes game/application development easier and multiple 3D accelerated applications get along better, but it came with a cost.
All of that virtualization requires address space to work with; Vista uses an application's 2GB user allocation of virtual address space for this purpose, scaling the amount of address space consumed by the WDDM with the amount of video memory actually used. This feature is ahead of its time however as games and applications written to the DirectX 9 and earlier standards didn't have the WDDM to take care of their memory management, so applications did it themselves. This required the application to also allocate some virtual address space to its management tasks, which is fine under XP.
However under Vista this results in the application and the WDDM effectively playing a game of chicken: both are consuming virtual address space out of the same 2GB pool and neither is aware of the other doing the exact same thing. Amusingly, given a big enough card (such as a 1GB Radeon X2900XT), it's theoretically possible to consume all 2GB of virtual address space under Vista with just the WDDM and the application each trying to manage the video memory, which would leave no further virtual address space for anything else the application needs to do. In practice, both the virtual address space allocations for the WDDM and the application video memory manager attempt to grow as needed, and ultimately crash the application as each starts passing 500MB+ of allocated virtual address space.
This obviously needed to be fixed, and for a multitude of reasons (such as Vista & XP application compatibility) such a fix needed to be handled by the operating system. That fix is KB940105, which is a change to how the WDDM handles its video memory management. Now the WDDM will not default to using its full memory management capabilities, and more importantly it will not be consuming virtual address space unless specifically told to by the application. This will significantly reduce the virtual address space usage of an application when video memory is the culprit, but at best it will only bring Vista down to the kind of virtual address space usage of XP.

A New Kind of Home Computer: Windows Home Server Preview

At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft figurehead Bill Gates announced in his keynote speech a new Windows product, Windows Home Server. In retrospect that was a bad time to announce the product as it was in the critical period between Windows Vista having gone gold and being released at retail, so few people were interested in "that server product" as opposed to Microsoft's long-in-development successor to Windows XP. Since that point the Vista launch came and went, while there has been little noise from the Windows camp about Home Server.
If we had to sum up Windows Home Server in one word that word would be "strange." Even having gone gold and shipped to system builders and distributors, Microsoft has been strangely quiet about a product they're targeting for the consumer space - we still don't know quite when it will be for sale or at what price. The fact that it's even for sale unbundled with hardware, albeit only as OEM software, is itself strange as this was originally slated to be only sold as part of complete computers from the usual suspects among the computer vendors. Finally, as we'll see even as a product it's strange, and difficult to really come to terms with.
So what is Windows Home Server (WHS)? The name says it all and at the same time says nothing. At its core it's a server operating system designed for use in the home, a place that previously has not needed or been offered anything like a true server. That means that WHS really doesn't compare to any one thing; it's a backup suite, it's a file server, it's a network attached storage(NAS) device, it's a web server, it's a media hub, it's a computer health monitor, it's even a gateway for Window's Remote Desktop. In even trying to describe the product, we run into the same problem Microsoft does; it's one thing to describe a product as "X but better" but it's another thing entirely when we don't have anything to serve as a comparison.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what WHS is, is understanding why it exists. Microsoft, never one to shy away from finding a way to sell another computer, has come to the conclusion that with the saturation of full computers and smaller smart devices in homes (where some households are reaching the point where they have two computers per person) that the time has come where not unlike a corporate environment households now need a server to keep everything in order.
But home users don't need the same kind of server that business users need. Home users won't be running or need to be running their own SQL server or email server, but what about centralizing the location of everyone's media files? Or a web server for letting the relatives see all your photos? Or a backup suite that actually backs files up somewhere else than to the hard drive of the machine in question? And how about something that doesn't require an MSCE degree to run? Over the last two years Microsoft has been once again retrofitting the Windows Server 2003 kernel (previously refit to serve as Windows XP Pro x64) to be the new server that can do all of the above.
The result of those two years of effort is a very interesting product that we'd consider the most interesting Windows product to come out of Microsoft since Windows 2000, and yet at the same time it comes with the quirks that are undeniably Microsoft. As we'll see WHS can offer a lot of value to the market Microsoft is shooting for, but can it overcome the difficulties of forging a new market, and fighting against its own deficiencies? Let's take a look under the hood of Windows Home Server and find out the answe