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sli crossfire on the same mobo asus s p6t finally unites ati and nvidia is antec s open-air case insane the skeleton tested and verdictized minimum bs · january 2009 upgrades from budget to extreme snag an amazing $150 videocard page 30 upgrade to the fastest cpu we ve ever tested page 26 spec out your rig with 1.5 terabytes of storage page 32 17 awesome pc pc pc google s android phone everything you must know page 52 10 antivirus utilities tested page 32 shield your pc from net nasties

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unleash your pc s potential try each issue of maximum pc features i brutally honest product reviews i hard-hitting editorials i tips to blast your machine s performance i insightful and innovative how-to s t 2 re e fial issues r i a cd loaded with new software utility and game demos reserve your 2 free trial issues today there s no obligation to order head to www.maximumpc.com/archive

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january features where we put stuff contents 25 awesome upgrades the best pc upgrades in every price range 36 protect your pc we put 10 of the most popular antivirus programs to the test to see which will protect you best 52 android revealed find out how the google-powered htc g1 stacks up against its rivals departments 52 vista s successor quickstart 08 news what we know about windows 7 14 the list eight rejected new year s resolutions 16 deathmatch core i7-920 vs core 2 quad q9550 r&d 62 white paper learn how music services select the songs you ll love 63 autopsy ocz core 64gb ssd 64 how to connect your pc to your surround-sound audio system in the lab 71 reviews 92 lab notes 96 rig of the month letters 18 watchdog 68 doctor 94 comments www.maximumpc.com jan 09 maximum pc 05 maximu p ximum

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maximumpc editorial editor in chief will smith deputy editor katherine stevenson managing editor tom edwards senior editor gordon mah ung online editor norman chan associate editor nathan edwards associate online editor alex castle editor at large michael brown editorial assistants benson hong florence ion contributing writers tom halfhill paul lilly thomas mcdonald david murphy quinn norton editor emeritus andrew sanchez art art director natalie jeday associate art director boni uzilevsky photo editor mark madeo associate photographer samantha berg contributing photographer caydie mccumber business vice president/publishing director stacey levy 650-238-2319 slevy@futureus.com group sales director gabe rogol 650-238-2409 grogol@futureus.com western advertising director dave lynn 949-360-4443 dlynn@futureus.com eastern advertising director justin schiller 646-723-5453 jschiller@futureus.com midwest manager consumer sales jodi sosna 212-217-1358 jsosna@futureus.com marketing manager kathleen castaillac 650-238-9218 kcastaillac@futureus.com advertising coordinator jose urrutia 650-238-2498 jurrutia@futureus.com production production director richie lesovoy production coordinator dan mallory print order coordinator jennifer lim consumer marketing director consumer marketing rich mccarthy group circulation director peter kelly newsstand director bill shewey consumer marketing operations director lisa radler renewal and billing manager mike hill business manager elliot kiger sr online consumer marketing director jennifer trinker customer service manager mike manrique a thing or two about a thing or two ed word it all started with a videocard upgrade b future us inc 4000 shoreline court suite 400 south san francisco ca 94080 www.futureus-inc.com president jonathan simpson-bint vice president/cfo john sutton senior vice president/publishing director simon whitcombe vice president internet development tyson daugherty general counsel charlotte falla editorial director jon phillips editorial director/games group stephen pierce editorial director/music brad tolinski human resources director nancy durlester future us inc is part of future plc future produces carefully targeted special-interest magazines websites and events for people who share a passion we aim to satisfy that passion by creating titles offering value for money reliable information smart buying advice and which are a pleasure to read or visit today we publish more than 150 magazines 65 websites and a growing number of events in the us uk france and italy over 100 international editions of our magazines are also published in 30 other countries across the world future plc is a public company quoted on the london stock exchange symbol futr future plc 30 monmouth st bath avon ba1 2bw england www.futureplc.com tel +44 1225 442244 non-executive chairman roger parry chief executive stevie spring group finance director john bowman tel +44 1225 442244 www.futureplc.com reprints for reprints contact marshall boomer reprint operations specialist 717.399.1900 ext 123 or email marshall.boomer@theygsgroup.com subscription queries please email customerservice maximumpc.com or call customer service toll-free at 800.274.3421 maximum pc issn 1522-4279 eware the danger of upgrade creep the single-part upgrade that starts small and gradually morphs into building a completely new system it can happen to you it happened to me it started innocently enough in honor of this holiday gaming season i decided to upgrade my videocard that videocard upgrade caused a cycle of in-game crashes that prompted further intervention starting with a simple power-supply swap and ending when i realized my 18-month-old install of 64-bit vista had reached the end of its road so with a windows reinstall looming i figured i should take care of any other significant upgrades at the same time my plan had been to wait for the inevitable eight-core vertoledo rocks sion of core i7 before making my next big cpu upgrade but i ve been out of sata ports on my motherboard for ages 17 awesome upgrades my two-slot videocard blocks the final four ports i figured page 25 now was a good time to upgrade to an inexpensive p45-based mobo i also picked up one of the new 1.5tb seagate hard google phone page 52 drives to replace my first-gen 750gb drive and a blu-ray reader so i could experiment with extracting the video files antec s skeleton case from my blu-ray discs then it was time to build page 76 swapping out the boards went swimmingly right up until it was time to mount my cpu cooler in the new motherboard i began by using the cheapo intel stock cooler that came with my cpu yes i know that s lame which isn t really designed to travel from rig to rig when i was trying to mount it in my motherboard i accidentally bent one of the small plastic pins that hold it in place i was eventually able to get it into the board but it didn t really hold well necessitating a trip to my local fry s where i picked up a zalman cnps9700 naturally the aftermarket cpu cooler required that i remove the mobo to install it so that was awesome surprisingly after the false starts and pitfalls my windows install went according to plan i installed vista x64 updated it with service pack 1 installed all my drivers and then went about restoring my apps and files with nary a hitch all told my simple videocard upgrade ended up taking three days off and on and resulted in pretty damn near an entirely new machine not an upgrade all i can say is that after building hundreds of pcs over the last 15 years no one is safe from upgrade creep letters policy please send comments questions and reese s mini peanut butter cups to will@maximumpc.com include your full name city of residence and phone number with your correspondence unfortunately will is unable to respond personally to all queries www.maximumpc.com jan 09 maximum pc 07 maximu p ximum

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the newsup windows 7 gears microsoft unveils new functions but will the new os be better than vista nathan edwards quickstart the beginning of the magazine where articles are small a lthough the windows 7 launch is still nearly a year away by microsoft s timetable the company has been releasing more and more information about the successor to vista most recently at pdc and winhec conferences for software and hardware developers respectively everything we ve seen so far comes from pre-beta code and is therefore subject to change however plenty of these new features have piqued our curiosity windows 7 builds on the now-established windows vista code which microsoft promises will minimize many of the compatibility problems that plagued vista s launch libraries are like vista s saved searches but more powerful and intuitive sorting your media is easier than ever with expanded arrangement options arranging by tag will show a stack of photos with that tag function and flair in the ui gone is the vista sidebar gadgets now roam freely across the desktop windows 7 still uses vista s aero glass but it now seems to utilize aero s capabilities more effectively hitting show desktop a rollover area in the bottom-right corner fades all windows to almost complete transparency while leaving their outlines intact aero shake lets you minimize all background windows by shaking the foreground window with your mouse another shake restores them a kick-ass taskbar early builds of the windows 7 taskbar combine the traditional taskbar and the quick launch toolbar open programs and shortcuts are represented by icons in the taskbar with different types of borders icons that represent open programs are outlined mousing over taskbar icons displays dynamic previews similar to vista s even better mousing over icons that represent groups of windows will display previews of all of them standard constant annoyance level to no notifications at all libraries one of windows 7 s most promising features is libraries libraries are like vista s saved searches they show all of the files of a specific type on your system music video downloads pictures etc rather than folders on your drive but unlike saved searches you can add network shares public files and additional folders so increasing your library size is easy your music library for example can pull from your personal music folder your nas any public folders on your network and any other folder you designate fixed uac user account control which has never been a favorite is also getting a makeover instead of a simple on/off switch windows 7 offers four notification levels ranging from vista s homegroups the homegroup feature makes it easier to share content libraries files and printers between machines on your home network it s essentially a domain for the home you can think of it as network places on steroids homegroup members can choose which libraries and folders to share over the network add files to other users public folders and see all available folders at a glance all machines in a homegroup must enter that homegroup s password to gain access preventing random wi-fi poachers from mucking around in your files most of the differences we ve seen so far are cosmetic but this doesn t mean they re insignificant and the changes are for the most part thoughtful and useful these are the kinds of compelling and interesting features we hoped would make it into the next version of windows we expect to see more improvements between now and windows 7 s scheduled ship date of late 2009 08 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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fast forward opera 9 11.8 7.6 4.1 ie 6 safari google chrome other ie 8 browser breakdown in worldwide market share firefox might have just broken 20 percent an admirable feat in its own right but among maximumpc.com visitors mozilla s browser enjoys nothing short of unadulterated dominance here s a snapshot of the browsers our online fans were rocking in october ­ks tom halfhill 2.6 firefox 50.3 1.7 1.1 ie 7 20.8 successor the godson-3 would be a quad-core chip and that the chinese needed x86 compatibility to break into the worldwide pc market so i wasn t too surprised when the godson-3 was unveiled at a recent technology conference in silicon valley sure enough the first version has four cores and t china s newest cpu hree years ago i wrote about the godson-2 a chinese microprocessor that s largely compatible with the mips architecture i speculated that its broadband provider to do some bandwidth capping of its own it didn t take long after comcast announced its 250gb bandwidth cap for residential broadband customers for at&t to try a similar tack an even more restrictive one effective november 1 2008 new at&t broadband users in reno nevada are part of a market trial to evaluate current bandwidth usage the cap will range from 20gb to 150gb per month depending on a customer s broadband speed tier preexisting at&t broadband users in reno will automatically become part of the trial if their monthly usage exceeds150gb per month unlike comcast s half-baked efforts to help customers with bandwidth monitoring 50 g b at&t follows comcast s lead 75 g b 1 0 0g b gb 125 the chinese are adding more than 200 new instructions for x86 software emulation these developments indicate that chinese microprocessor technology is rapidly catching up with the rest of the world three points are important here first it s one thing for china to assemble products using parts such as microprocessors invented or manufactured elsewhere it s something else for china to develop native technology capable of competing on the world stage china has the potential to radically shake up the market second china wants to be technology independent just as the u.s yearns to be energy independent computing technology is a fundamental resource as vital for economic prosperity and national security as oil godson processors are designed at the institute for computing technology at the chinese academy of sciences but they are much more than an academic exercise godson is a high-priority national project largely funded by the chinese government third the godson-3 isn t a true x86-compatible processor and its designers make no such claims the extensions optimize x86-to-mips dynamic binary translation a fancy term for software emulation transmeta s discontinued crusoe and efficeon processors used similar techniques but transmeta marketed those chips as x86 compatible the godson-3 is designed to run mips software the x86 150g b download in progress at&t increases its chances of profiting from a bandwidth cap by setting the highest ceiling at 150gb 100gb less than comcast at&t says it will be notifying customers when they have reached 80 percent of their usage allotment as well as providing them with a bandwidth-measuring tool customers who are part of this trial will receive a one month grace period when they have exceeded their monthly quota any violations after that will result in a penalty of $1 for every gigabyte over the allocated bandwidth ­bh fcc expands use of white space xpands broadcasters audio equipment manufacturers voice concerns in november the fcc voted unanimously to open up the use of white spaces the gaps between uhf tv channels this spectrum is particularly valuable because it can travel twice as far as wi-fi and also penetrate walls while deployment is at least a year away many believe the spectrum can be used as a relatively low-cost way to provide broadband internet to underserved rural areas and hardware vendors are looking to develop laptops phones and other mobile devices that will use this spectrum tv broadcasters and groups that use wireless mics such as broadway theaters and music venues are concerned that unlicensed use of this spectrum will cause interference with their broadcasts despite the fcc s mandate that devices using white spaces include several safeguards to limit interference ­te extensions are a last resort for software unavailable on mips i m no expert on intellectual-property law but the godson extensions don t appear to infringe on intel or transmeta patents godson chips are mainly for chinese domestic consumption although i have found them in a few export products including linux netbook pcs the godson-3 s basic design supports many possible implementations including massively parallel processors china hopes to build a supercomputer by 2010 that s among the fastest in the world it s clear that china will someday be a major player in microprocessors tom halfhill was formerly a senior editor for byte magazine and is now an analyst for microprocessor report www.maximumpc.com jan 09 maximum pc 09 maximu p ximum

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quickstart the beginning of the magazine where articles are small game theory netflix streams everywhere by the time you read this netflix subscribers will be able to watch nearly 13,000 movies instantly in their living rooms using a variety of different devices including samsung and lg blu-ray players the roku netflix player any series 3 or newer tivo and the xbox 360 we tested out the streaming service using the xbox 360 this month and were impressed with both the quality of the video for a bitrate of around 2500kb/s the quality was stunning and the minimal time it took for playback to start you too can stream netflix on your xbox just download the new xbox experience ­ws craigslist caper crowdsourcing has generally been used for good taking the power of the many to assist with medical research folding@home and the creation of fashionforward t-shirts threadless but it was only a matter of time before someone used it for evil washington state resident anthony curcio placed a helpwanted ad on craigslist seeking construction workers the 12 people who replied appeared in front of a bank of america branch at the appointed time wearing safety vests goggles and respirators as instructed curcio who was similarly attired then pepper-sprayed an armored-car guard grabbed the cash he was transporting and ran to a nearby river where he floated away on an inner tube curcio may have gotten away clean if someone had not seen him stashing his disguise in a nearby alley the day before the robbery dna evidence further tied him to the crime ­te thomas mcdonald uwb holds on for dear life for years we ve been hearing that ultrawideband uwb is poised to be the next big thing the wireless technology certainly sounds promising developers pledged that uwb would offer speeds significantly faster than 802.11 by using extremely short low-power pulses that wouldn t interfere with other radio frequencies and that it would eventually replace cablebased usb 2.0 but the technology has been slow to materialize and recent events make uwb s prospects seem all the more tenuous wiquest the most successful of the ultra-wideband chipmakers is closing its operation due to slow development and a lack of funds in further bad news for uwb intel is ceasing its own work on the technology leaving it to a handful of far lesser known companies to make a go of it ­fi t buy a whisker here are a lot of things we could say about fallout 3 sure it s elder scrolls the mutant years but damn it s still a brilliant piece of role-playing design a wide-open world with amazing sights and challenges at every turn rather than descanting at length upon stats and perks i want to talk about the single most mind-blowing part of the entire character creation system facial hair fallout 3 opens a new era in beard and mustache design you have never ever seen such an assortment of whiskers in any game ranging from the pathetic wisps of a teenager s first attempt to huge burnside sprouts and styles not seen outside of movies like gettysburg or tombstone and these aren t just the paste-ons from oblivion these are complete textured moving models it is conceivable that at some point in my life i may find myself fighting for life in the postnuclear wasteland of the greater dc metro area and after some time on the beltway i d actually embrace the experience but the likelihood that i d ever be able to create paul teutul sr s wicked stache or general longstreet s massive face shrubbery with my scraggly whiskers is nil the mad genius behind this manly excess is a woman bethesda character artist hiu lai chong as lead artist istvan pely told me we decided to do facial hair as a way to add some additional variety and individualized character for fallout s npcs it also seemed appropriate that in such a severe postapocalyptic setting that people wouldn t have the time to shave every day if they re constantly preoccupied with the basics of survival however once hiu lai made the first few basic beard examples and we noticed just how cool they looked she got really into it and developed a modular facial hair system that allowed us to have a lot of variety with minimal impact in terms of texture memory and development time i went for the lavish muttonstache based on the awesome face fungus of civil war general ambrose burnside he may have blown it at antietam but anyone who can grow something like that is a man among men thomas l mcdonald has been covering games for 17 years he is an editor at large for games magazine 10 maximumpc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com

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quickstart the beginning of the magazine where articles are small byte rights sandisk speeds up ssds new file system boosts write times if solid state drives ssds continue to march into the mainstream 2008 might one day be seen as the start of the ssd era but for that to happen write performance numbers have to improve and users have to be convinced that the technology can be reliable on a longterm basis taking matters into its own hands sandisk has developed a new file system extremeffs allows nand channels to work independently of each other so while some might be reading data others can be simultaneously writing the technology also purportedly learns user patterns and eventually localizes data quinn norton ing to a new pastime second-guessing the obama administration s next moves i m long on questions will his new trade representative continue forcing dmca-like laws on our partners will his appointees to the department of justice prioritize ip cases what legislation will he w change you can back up hew that was quite an election but my hope muscle is hopelessly strained and my change gland is exhausted so i m turn the technology also purportedly learns user patterns and eventually localizes data dubbed extremeffs which the company claims has the potential to make write performance up to 100 times faster which sounds a lot like advanced defragging routines sandisk senior vp and gm rich heye concedes that it might not make a difference in benchmarks but believes it is the right thing to do for end-users in related news sandisk has also come up with a performance metric it is calling vrpm or virtual rpm the metric has been designed to let users know how fast a typical hard drive would need to spin to match the performance of an ssd and would also allow for performance comparisons between ssds ­pl support regarding copyright terms patent reforms orphan works and dmca reforms will there be a new registrar of copyrights if there is do we get to see him or her mud wrestle with the ip czar and the new patent and trademark honcho oh i think so don t get me started about privacy open source net neutrality etc because the truth is obama doesn t have a record here just campaign talk obama stated his dmca position to cnet this way as policymakers we ensure that the protections we place on intellectual property encourage invention without hindering innovation that builds on previous work or unfairly limiting consumers from using the goods they purchase in a way that is fair to creators he has also confirmed that he loves cute pup graphics galore pies and america that leaves us reading the goat entrails of american political prognostication advisors and donors the donors were the usual suspects according to opensecrets.org tv movies music and publishing coughed up $12.6 million for obama and another $21.6 million for other democrats in congress cha-ching but get in line everyone gave obama boatloads of money if you look at who s had obama s ear there s eric schmidt of google duke professor arti rai daniel weitzner of the w3c and other pinchyourself no way good people obama s even a friend of larry lessig except there s not much evidence he ll listen to them either it s safe to say his technology advisors didn t support retroactive telecom immunity for warrantless wiretapping neither did obama until he voted for it lessig was among his vocally disappointed tech supporters so ip good guy or bad guy probably both surely though considering his brilliantly organized campaign and savvy technology advisors he has a clue whatever obama does with our series of tubes he doesn t get to plead ignorance quinn norton writes about copyright for wired news and other publications her work has ranged from legal journalism to the inner life of pirate organizations laptops with three gpus toshiba is taking notebooks to a new level by outfitting its qosmio x305-q708 and x305-q706 models with three gpus using nvidia s hybrid sli technology the notebooks will feature a single geforce 9400m for standard desktop duties and two 9800m gts gpus that come into play for games and other graphicsheavy chores ­ks 12 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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the list 8 rejected new year s resolutions exercise 8 7 6 resurrect the snakes on a plane meme or you could just make chocolate rain your ringtone quickstart the beginning of the magazine where articles are small thomas mcdonald photo thanks to pboyd04 www.tinyurl.com/67jsov pirate everything 5stock up on discount hd dvd media blu-ray won but the hd dvd comeback is just around the corner play 4learn to wow a 25-man raid by yourself there s no fighting over loot when you 25-box an entire raid the only question is who loses 50 dkp when you aggro whelps 3 2 show your disdain for isp-imposed download limits by blowing through your provider s cap see no 6 for more info give comcast the finger 1 you wouldn t have bought it anyway so it s ok right with windows 7 mere months away it s the perfect time to spend hundreds of dollars on a vista upgrade right upgrade to vista keep tabs on your ex sure winifred told you to stop calling iming texting and emailing but she didn t say anything about using google to track her every online move hell she left that door open because she secretly wants to get back together 14 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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deathmatch q9550 core i7-920 vs core 2 quad ou may go to the car dealership to ogle the zr1 corvette but the majority of us drive away in the chevette it s the same with cpus you want to read about the $1,400 core 2 quad qx9770 and the $1,000 core i7-965 extreme edition but you re gonna buy a budget chip the hot deal today is intel s 2.83ghz core 2 quad q9550 at just over three bills the cpu gives you a phenomenal sorry amd blend of performance and features but there s a new quickstart the beginning of the magazine where articles are small y deal in town intel s next-generation core i7-920 to find out which cpu is the budget champ we outfitted each with a geforce 8800 gtx card the same graphics driver a western digital raptor 150gb hard drive and vista home premium 64-bit since the cards have different ram requirements we outfitted the core 2 box with 4gb of ddr3/1333 and the core i7 with 3gb of ddr3/1066 read on to see who takes the budget cpu crown ­ gordon mah ung intel core i7-920 $285 www.intel.com round price 1 round the 2.83ghz core 2 quad q9550 hits a fine balance between performance and price intel certainly has cheaper core 2s but those chips run at lower clocks and/or have disabled caches the q9550 features the same size 12mb l2 cache as the $1,400 core 2 extreme qx9770 and isn t that far from the latter s 3.2ghz clock speed either priced at $315 the q9550 is a steal but then again so is the new 2.66ghz core i7-920 we expected the just-released core i7 to be a marriage breaker but with the 920 coming in at a compelling $285 we can only say in a churchillian voice never in the field of budget computing has so little been paid for something so fast winner core i7-920 ecosystem 2 core 2 motherboards heatsinks and paraphernalia are so common today that you can practically buy them in blister packs as you check out at the supermarket shoot pretty soon you ll get a core 2 motherboard free with a box of fruit loops as you can imagine core i7 boards and associated hardware aren t as readily available or cheap don t take this the wrong way however boards for the new cpu can be found in fact you could buy an intel x58 board weeks before the cpu was available for sale still to deny the core 2 this win would be delusional winner core 2 quad q9550 16 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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round features 4 round performance 5 round availability 3 this category is a little hard to call since we re writing this story before core i7 is officially available but the fact that intel even has a $300 version of a totally new cpu is telling if intel were offering just a $1,000 extreme version at launch we d predict the availability of a budget part to be poor we believe that the core i7-920 will be relatively easy to find at launch however it still won t match the ubiquity of the core 2 quad q9550 the other day we put in a quarter for a diet coke and the machine spit out a q9550 winner core 2 quad q9550 this is easy one has hyper-threading an integrated memory controller tri-channel ddr3 support the ability to overclock automatically built-in power management and all of the special instruction sets of its competitor plus some newer ones should we go on the core 2 quad q9550 is no slouch in the feature-set wars but you re not going to turn the other boys and girls in the it bullpen green with envy by announcing hey i just bought a lastgeneration cpu winner core i7-920 this is where the silicon meets the pcb we honestly didn t know how this round would stack up as the core 2 quad q9550 is indeed a mighty fast chip for the money but in the end it was no contest in benchmarks that didn t utilize the core i7-920 s superior bandwidth latency and hyper-threading the two cpus ran pretty evenly which is still a win for core i7920 as it s operating at roughly 6 percent fewer clocks than the core 2 quad q9550 in the majority of tests however the core i7-920 motored away from its sibling with very decisive margins of 17 to 50 percent remember it s running at lower clock speeds and costs less too for benchmark results visit http tinyurl.com/5cy9sc winner core i7-920 intel core 2 quad q9550 $315 www.intel.com and the winner is w e didn t have to think too hard to declare the core i7-920 the winner of this match it s simply spectacular for content-creation tasks and offers phenomenal bandwidth and its performance will only get better over time why as applications are updated and recompiled they will better exploit the available eight threads in the cpu and actually run faster the same will likely hold true for the core 2 quad as more and more applications sport quad-core optimizations performance enthusiasts looking for the best budget cpu with the most promising roadmap for the future should turn to the core i7-920 folks on an even tighter budget may want to consider the less-expensive alternatives on the core 2 quad platform the q9550 aside you can get an intel quad core for less than $200 and if you re willing to stoop to a dual-core solution you could pick up a cpu for less than $100 www.maximumpc.com jan 09 maximum pc 17 maximu p ximum

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watchdog maximum pc takes a bite out of bad gear our consumer advocate investigates recall alert acronis upgrade mia the anti-antivirus i have been trying to get a refund for antivirus xp 2008 for three months in august my pc was taken over by a virus or trojan horse and rendered nearly inoperable the only indication of this was an onscreen message saying your computer has been found to have multiple viruses get antivirus xp 2008 and clear them from your computer in a panic i went to the website and purchased the suite of antivirus xp 2008 alphawipe tracks cleaner 2008 and premium support for $110 needless to say the programs did nothing to fix the problem so later that same day i called customer service and requested a refund they said my account bank or card company and inquire about your refund since we ve issued it after about six weeks of this i finally got hold of a supervisor she said that i was correct that no refund had been generated she said she would personally get the matter resolved that was in the middle of september about three days ago i again called antivirus xp 2008 to see about my refund and was again informed that the refund had been issued then a company representative started getting rude with me and told me i should contact my bank and ask where the refund was the rep said i couldn t talk to his supervisor since she was in a meeting and would not be available for at least half an antivirus xp 2008 a virus antivirus downloading this antivirus program led to a virus outbreak she said she would personally get the matter resolved that was in the middle of september would be credited within seven business days when i noticed that this had not been done i called back they said the refund had been processed and i should contact my bank and inquire about the refund the bank stated that no such refund had been received i went back to antivirus xp 2008 and asked about the refund and started to get the runaround i was told the refund was granted and you should go to your hour so perhaps you can call these people and get to the bottom of this it s obvious i m not going to get anywhere with them ron cruz unfortunately ron the dog was unable to contact the makers of antivirus xp 2008 because the first 10 pages of search results from google are all about how the program is a rogue trojan horse that masquerades as an antivirus program in fact trying to navigate the confusing web of alleged fake antivirus programs is a full-time job for online folks the dog searched for a copy of antivirus xp 2008 and was led to a site that actually had antivirus pro 2009 which appears to be related note that panda security s antivirus pro 2009 is a legitimate antivirus program and not related the dog decided to give the demo a try and installed antivirusxp.exe onto a clean build of windows xp sp3 the machine found numerous problems with the image and pop-ups immediately started to occur the fact that you actually spoke to a person at antivirus xp 2008 is amazing but the dog believes you re just being strung along in order to run out the clock on your ability to contest the charge the dog recommends that you immediately contact your bank and request a chargeback if the company will not issue a refund if you wait long enough you ll pass the deadline for charging back the application sadly many people are duped by fake antivirus and anti-malware programs every day in many cases the fake av programs are installed by simply visiting a site or accidentally landing on one with your browser to avoid these infections make sure you re running the most updated definitions for your antivirus programs keep your os updated and use a browser that isn t susceptible to activex exploits such as 18 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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firefox 3.0 instead of internet explorer and never let a vendor keep stringing you along these bad times acronis has gone belly up john hand acronis a goner i purchased acronis home in late september and within a month i received a letter saying that i could upgrade for $39 i tried to hop on the deal but never heard back from acronis after several emails i am wondering if in the dog pinged an acronis spokesperson and was told no the company is still quite solvent and doing well in spite of the tough economy the spokesperson checked the company s support database which showed that acronis had indeed contacted john a few days before the dog s query to the company the rep said the email log showed that customer support was waiting for a response from john and that since the purchase was within 30 days of the new release of acronis true image home 2009 he qualified for a free upgrade john was supplied with a registration key and download link for the new version woof recall alert about 65,000 notebook pc batteries are being recalled from various hewlett-packard toshiba and dell notebook computers due to overheating and fire hazards sony the manufacturer of the batteries said there have been about 19 reports of the cells overheating including 17 reports of fire or flames ten of the incidents resulted in minor property damage although the batteries were manufactured by sony in japan they do not impact any of sony s notebooks about 32,000 hp notebooks 3,000 toshiba notebooks and 150 dell notebooks were sold with the bad batteries for more information contact the various notebook manufacturers if you suspect that your computer has a bad battery for hp visit www.hp.com/support/batteryreplacement or call 800-889-2031 between 7 a.m and 7 p.m cst monday through friday for toshiba visit www.bxinfo.toshiba com or call 800-457-7777 anytime for dell visit www.dellbatteryprogram.com or call toll-free 866-342-0011 between 8 a.m and 5 p.m cst monday through friday affected batteries notebook model hp hp pavilion dv1000 dv8000 zd8000 compaq presario v2000 v2400 hp compaq nc6110 nc6120 nc6140 nc6220 nc6230 nx4800 nx4820 nx6110 nx6120 nx9600 satellite a70/a75 p30/p5 m30x/m35x m50/m55 tecra a3 a5 s2 latitude 110l inspiron 1100 1150 5100 5150 5160 battery model recalled batteries will have a barcode label starting with a0 l0 l1 or gc when sold december 2004 to june 2006 toshiba n/a april 2005 to october 2005 dell ou091 november 2004 to november 2005 email the watchdog if you feel you ve gotten a raw deal and need assistance setting a vendor straight email the dog at watchdog@maximumpc.com please include a detailed explanation of your problem as well as any correspondence you have sent concerning the issue.

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p. 14

upgrades budget extreme awesome from to whether you re flashy or frugal the maximum pc lifestyle is well within your reach upgrading is an obligation of any self-respecting pc geek it s an affirmation of your thirst for power a healthy rejection of the status quo upgrading is an acknowledgement of the fact that there s always a way to improve your rig you may have the funds for premium parts lucky you we ll tell you exactly what those parts are but even if your means are more modest there are affordable parts in every major component category that can breathe new life into an aged pc regardless of your financial situation you must address some important questions before embarking on an upgrade first you need to honestly assess your rig s merits you shouldn t waste money upgrading your pc if it still sports an agp slot or a pre-am2 athlon 64 motherboard the question you should ask yourself is whether it s more cost effective to gut the machine and replace its primary components motherboard cpu memory and videocard than it is to do a piecemeal retrofit if you look at your rig and decide to build new check www.maximumpc.com/tags/parts+guide but if you re ready to proceed with an upgrade read on by the maximum pc staff www.maximumpc.com jan 09 maximum pc 25 maximu p ximum

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upgrades intel cpus the hot new core i7 offers something for everyone intel s core i7 is everything the company said it would be fast furious and even inexpensive those with an eye toward extreme computing should settle for nothing less than intel s 3.2ghz core i7-965 extreme edition 1,000 www.intel.com it demolishes intel s core 2 extreme qx9770 and does one of those jedi cutyou-in-half tricks to amd s best the phenom x4 9950 be with its integrated memory controller tri-ddr3 support hyper-threading and turbo mode the chip is simply untouchable at encoding tasks or anything else that will exploit the eight threads available to it but if a grand is a little too rich for your blood take heart intel already has a pretty darn good budget chip based on the core i7 the 2.66ghz core i7-920 285 it outperforms the 2.83ghz core 2 quad q9550 and costs less too see our deathmatch on page 16 for the details on that battle one caveat for true budget hounds the core i7 requires an lga1366 board not to mention three sticks of ddr3 ram for optimal performance which significantly adds to the expenditure if you don t want to go that far with your cpu upgrade intel s core 2 quad q6600 185 gets you quad-core performance that s compatible with most modern intel motherboards intel s 3.2ghz core i7-965 extreme edition is the new king of the hill in cpu land with unmatched features and performance the budget-minded 2.66ghz core i7-920 gives even skinflints a pc with eight available threads ram it pays to go name-brand quick what s the difference between name-brand ram from respected manufacturers and the generic stuff you get after sorting by lowest price blue screens my friends while people tend to treat ram like it s all the same it really isn t that s why we ve long recommended that when you buy ram you first consult your motherboard s qvl qualified vendor list and then reach for name-brand sticks name brands are especially important if you intend to overclock the crap out of your memory many high-frequency modules require a ton of voltage which tends to drastically shorten the life of the memory buying a name-brand product means good warranty support which could come in handy how much ram should you run today for a 32-bit os 2gb is the minimum for higher-end configs consider 4gb on phenom and core 2 platforms and 6gb with your 64-bit vista install on core i7 what do these modules have in common customer support 26 maximum pc jan 09 www.maximumpc.com maximu p ximum

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