The wife's new gaming rig contains a Leadtek 9600GT, which was slightly cheaper than a 8800GT and subsequently slightly slower. For the games she plays (heck, even the games I play) at the monitors native resolution (1680×1050) it is more than powerful enough. The only problem with the card (and 99% of the cards on the market) is the huge amount of noise that can be generated. The 8800GT's stock cooler for example, can get up to 70 decibels! I remember my 7900GT getting up to similar levels of noise.
The unsuspecting stock cooler Naked 9600GT
Enter third party coolers. On my ageing 7900GT, I have a Thermalright HR-03 installed, which I thought was fantastic, although the price (~$80 at the time, plus more for a fan), size and weight were a bit much to take. Prices on the HR-03 (as well as the GT and Plus models, which add compatibility) have come down (to ~$50), but they're still expensive compared to the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 which PCCaseGear are selling for just $37.
I was a little unsure of what the results would be, as the airflow in the wife's computer isn't fantastic (just one 120mm Antec Tricool fan (set on Low), the stock Intel Heatsink/Fan cooling the Core2Quad Q6600, and the fan on the 430w Antec Earthwatts power supply) which usually hampers passive cooling considerably.
9600GT with Accelero S1 mounted - it dwarfs the card!
| |
Idle |
Load |
| Leadtek 9600GT (Stock Cooler) |
36c
(started at 31c and then after 10mins stabilised at 36c) |
62c |
| Leadtek 9600GT (Accelero S1) |
35c
(started at 28c and then after 10mins stabilised at 35c) |
55c |
To simulate load, I played through the first two levels of Gears of War, with all details on high (apart from AA), it was silky smooth.
The results are amazing: the S1 come out 7c cooler. While the passive S1 by itself is a better cooler than Leadtek's active cooler and normally I'd be more than satisfied by that, I had already purchased the Turbo Module because of the airflow issue I mentioned, so I thought "what the heck, lets add it to see the difference!"
The Turbo Module consists of two frameless fans, which clip onto the Accelero S1 (or S2), and plug in via a 3pin fan power (or with an included adapter 4pin hdd/odd molex power plug). Installation should just be: clip it on then plug it in. Unfortunately, I discovered the 3 pin fan power cable wasn't long enough to reach the closest CHA_FAN plug, so I had to use the adapter. Then I discovered the power cable was obstructing one of the fans due to the stiffness of the cable. As it turns out, I didn't tuck all cables into the heatsink properly, doing so prevented the fan cables from obstructing the fans.
An alternative to the Turbo Module is to use cable ties with a large quiet fan if you've got one (I'd recommend 92mm or 120mm) but unless you've got one handy the Turbo Module will probably come in cheaper ($12 vs ~$30 for a "low noise" 120mm fan).
"Turbo Module" added
| |
Idle |
Load |
| Leadtek 9600GT (Accelero S1 + Turbo Kit) |
~28c
(it fluctuated between 27c and 28c for about 10minutes) |
36c |
That's 26 degrees Celsius or 48% cooler than the stock fan on load, and 19c cooler than the S1 by itself.
The Turbo Module certainly has huge benefits, as I'm sure strapping any fans to it would. Since the S1 without any fans is "acceptable", it really comes down to:
- Are you overclocking?
- Can you afford it?
- Can you live with the slight increase in noise?
Noise wise, I can't hear it over the PSU or Intel HSF, so I'd be happy to leave it attached. This may change if I was to replace the 120mm fan with a Nexus Real Silent (or a Noctua) fan and the Intel HSF for something like the Thermalright Ultra 120/Extreme (or Scythe Ninja/Mini Ninja).
The S1 may not be for everybody though. It isn't compatible with the 8800GTX/Ultra, 9800GTX/Ultra or older 8800GTS models (G80 GTS's aren't compatible, G92 are compatible) and its rather large. The last point is not going to be a concern for anybody with "gaming" or "enthusiast" size cases (mid or full size towers, or even some larger desktops), but for small form factor cases, it may protrude too far up. Likewise, if you have need of all your PCI/PCIe slots, it turns the single slot 9600GT into a dual slot, while adding the Turbo kit really turns it into a triple slot card.
While not my first smart phone, the HTC p3600i is my first Windows Mobile (WinMo) phone. I put the emphasis on my first WinMo phone, because my mother has an O2 XDA Stealth slider WinMo 5 phone, so I have been exposed to Windows Mobile before.
First, the physical love (p3600i)
It would be unfair to say that I love the p3600i but I certainly don't hate it either. Compared to my mothers phone, its thinner/smaller, lighter, and doesn't get as hot. Compared to the Sony Ericsson m600i (my previous phone), it has a larger/brighter screen, but is larger and heavier. However, unlike the m600i, the p3600i has curved corners, making it fit better into my hand and into my pockets.
One area this phone that suffers (and indeed many of HTC's other models) is tactile input. While it has a good scrolling wheel, and a few side buttons, it lacks a key/number pad. The m600i is/was a horrible phone - the touchscreen was rubbish, the battery life was poor, the software isn't compatible with Vista, and it was sloooow. The only redeeming feature it had (in my eyes), was the QWERTY keyboard input. Adding this to the p3600i however, would either add to the physical dimensions or reduce the screen size, so its one of those undesirable situations: do you make it bulkier, cut down screen size, or leave it as it is? There are other models (such as the TyTN II) that have a slide out keyboard without getting much (if at all) bulkier, but that just adds to cost.
The bottom line is, If you are a heavy SMS'er, or write novels on your phone, steer clear of any phone with just touch screen for input, but if you don't fit that description, it just takes a bit of time getting used to either scribing, or using the on screen keyboard. When I originally started writing this review, I was of the opinion for any text input this phone was a nightmare. HTC's new Touch Diamond phone has an interesting on screen keyboard (in the style of the m600i's keyboard - QWERTY with two letters per key) with much larger buttons (takes up 90% of the screen). It's incredibly usable, and people have hacked it out of the Touch Diamond to work on other phones! While I don't find it as fast as my m600i, I still find it faster than the standard number pad on "dumb phones". For me, this is permanently on now, and I'd recommend it to any WinMo5/6+ owner with a touchscreen only phone!
Battery life isn't too bad, but it isn't too good. It is better than my m600i, but Bluetooth or wifi chew the battery life.
On beating the turtle with a hare (Windows Mobile 6)
(HTC's Home plugin for the Today screen, and the HTC Touch Diamond Keyboard .And yes, I know I spelt Skype wrong,
but at least you know these screenshots are from an "actually-in-use" phone)
When choosing my phone, it basically narrowed down to the Nokia N73 (which would have been 'free' on the plan I was going onto), or the HTC p3600i (which is +$10/m on the same plan). While I could have chosen either phone for a variety of reasons, such as the N73 for better battery life, or probably a better camera OR the p3600i for having a touch screen, the decision was made because one phone ran WinMo, and the other didn't. Why go for WinMo? Well, I'm really getting into the .NET stuff, and I use Outlook. That is, .NET CF runs on my phone, and Outlook syncs with my phone (email and contacts, bi-directional) whenever I'm in range of my laptop.
One thing I've heard over the years is that WinMo's greatest flaw is that it is unusably slow, so I was reasonably expecting that the phone would be unpleasant to use, requiring patience to switch between menus/apps. Either that only applied for WinMo 5 and earlier, or the delays were exaggerated. While heavy multitasking (particularly with a large webpage open in IE, and ActiveSync going) does slow down, the phone/OS combo is still faster than my M600i, although not as fast as my wife's Sony Ericsson K850i.
There are a lot of nice things about WinMo, such as "proper" syncing with Outlook or the ability to write my own apps (.NET CF) a lot easier than I would be able to with Java (since my J2ME knowledge is low). Even Sony Ericsson have realised that WinMo is a very good platform for smartphones over their SymbianOS, and will be releasing their own WinMo phone (…ironically made by HTC)
Bottom line
Neither Windows Mobile 6 or the HTC p3600i are flawless, but they're both totally usable, and even enjoyable to use.
I'd prefer a smaller/lighter phone, with a better battery life, higher quality camera phone, and a slide out keyboard, but I'm not willing to spend that much (money or time waiting for it to come into existence!) more to get it. The only complaint about connectivity is that it doesn't use a standard 3.5mm audio jack, but apart from that, it has connections for everything else (wifi, bluetooth, 2/3g, IrDA).
WinMo6 is good (better than what many claim it to be), but the default interface could do with a serious work over. HTC have addressed this on some of their phones (such HTC Touch series), and the interface can be found for other HTC/WinMo6 phones, but it should be improved by Microsoft and be the default settings.
Internet Explorer is useless by todays standards (either mobile or desktop browsers), and needs a serious overhaul. Apparently Internet Explorer in WinMo6.1 at least has a zoom mode, but unfortunately there isn't a WinMo6.1 ROM for the p3600i, so I'm not able to tell.
My laptop (Asus G1S) has gone in for repairs, because the LCD's backlight on it has died. This delays all blogging as well as responding to emails.
Hoping I'll get it back in time for Remix (22nd of May!)
HTC p3600i, running Windows Mobile 6 (Pro?). Picked it up yesterday at the local Three store, moving away from prepaid to a cap.
Now to get a Twitter client onto it…
This is sort of a 'wrap up' post for the 'Building my HTPC' series, so here is the list of previous posts:
And now for some interesting numbers… I recently purchased a power meter, it plugs into a socket, you plug a device into the power meter, and it'll tell you interesting things like how many watts are being consumed.
*Assuming 12 hours a day sleep, 12 hours in use (remember, it does music too!), and that 1 kWh costs 15c. Your mileage will vary.
Price:performance, the AM2 system probably wins (since the measurement of performance in a HTPC in this situation is a binary 'does it play back 1080p content or not'), but performance:watt Intel wins hands down. I'd be really interested to get some readings from AMD's "BE" range of low power consumption CPU's.
Sleep/standby mode on the two new systems uses the same amount of power that the system does while its turned off! If the HTPCs were in sleep mode, it usually takes it less than 10 seconds to boot up. By comparison, if my TV (Sony Bravia W series) has been off for more than 5minutes, it takes up to a minute to turn on!
If you end up buying the parts I have, or similar, remember to make sure you set in bios (or for my motherboard, set jumpers, see the manual details) the option to wake from S3/S4 via USB. This means you can wake up the computer using the Media Center remote, by pressing the On/Off button. It becomes a whole lot more usable when you don't have to get off the couch to turn it on!
Another thing to note is that for Australian users, there is no Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for Windows Vista that just "works" out of the box, due to the networks not making it freely/easily available. However, Nick Hodge recommended Free*EPG, which I finally got around to installing on mums HTPC yesterday. Her reaction was "Wow, that's awesome", and she gave me permission to give Nick a hug on her behalf, just before she queued up two shows to record that night.
Windows Media Center: Making mums happy.
Recently I've had a lot of problems with the wireless PCI card I bought (D-LINK DWA-510), and it made me reflect on many purchases I've made, which have ended up being a waste of money, troublesome or both, just so I could save a dollar or two.
Speciality store are generally more expensive, but more often than not the quality of stock or quality of service is well worth it.
One example I've used before is PCCaseGear, who specialise in PC Cases and cooling. Sure, they have other things too, but their range isn't nearly diverse in those sections as it is in their case and cooling sections. You'll also notice from time to time they don't carry a certain brand fan or case. The reason is that product probably sucks, not that they can't sell it.
(Recently loving the Noctua 92mm fan I bought from them, dropped CPU temperatures by 10->15c, while being under 20dBa)
Same goes for my favourite place to buy headphones, Headphonics. Marcus sells a huge range of headphones, for very good prices. Apart from having a generous 20-day trial of headphones, their forum's have recommendations for half a dozen price brackets - perfect for me!
(Audiotechnia ATH-AD700's are yum, but now I want a pair of Beyerdynamic DT250's!)
Back onto the trouble with the D-Link card, I'm very much regretting not spending the time to research the card, and look around for alternatives. If I had of, I would have bought from Cormain, who specialise in ADSL networking gear. They don't sell gear they can't recommend. Aaron from Cormain is very active in the Whirlpool forums, but without trying to peddle his own goods. I bought my ADSL2+ router from those guys, and I haven't regretted any part of the purchase, from delivery, price, and finally, the actual performance of the device.
(Netcomm NBPlus4W is a great router for the price!)
I know this probably sounds like a huge ad for these three stores, but it is more of a reminder to myself than to others that buying from specialty stores will always result in a better experience.
Well okay, technically not my HTPC, but my mothers. That's right, my mum has a HTPC. She saw our one, thought it was pretty darn neat and decided she needed one as well (how cool is my mum? :D)
Parts
Total cost, AUD$709! (why is this more expensive than the previous one? includes optical drive, wireless card and media centre remote.)
This time I've gone for the AMD route. Why? Price. While its a very similar price to what I paid for my HTPC, it has many more features. AMD mATX motherboards seem to be much better featured at up to $120 less.
Take the Asus P5E-VM HDMI (LGA775 - Intel) and the M2A-VM HDMI (AM2 - AMD). Both have HDMI/VGA output (the M2A-VM has DVI as well), both have digital sound output. Both boast HD-DVD/Bluray playback over HDMI. Both have respectable chipsets from their respective CPU makers. That's about where the similarities end.
The M2A-VM HDMI comes in at a tiny $99, whereas the P5E-VM HDMI will set you back upwards of $200! You can actually do a little bit of gaming (although, I wouldn't recommend too much gaming..) on the M2A-VM's intergrated video, the ATI X1250, whereas the GMA X3500 of the Intel board can just be plain nasty. Likewise, the video acceleration, which is what a board of this size is mostly likely to be doing, is far superior from the X1250. From my own experiences, hardware acceleration with Intel onboard graphics actually hampers playback speeds!
I mean, don't get me wrong, the P5E-VM HDMI is a very robust board, with a lot of features. Just the price over a very similarly equipped AM2 board puts it to shame. I wonder if its cheaper to make AMD boards due to licensing fees, or if having the memory controller on die like AMD do cuts costs that much..
AMD/Asus M2A-VM HDMI/ATI notes/issues
Despite perhaps being better value, the AMD HTPC gave me a lot more trouble than my Intel HTPC.
- With 'incorrect' (default) LAN drivers, I was only getting 10mbps instead of 1gbps,
- The latest video card drivers (8.2 at time of writing) conflict with SP1 so that DVD playback through WMP/WMC (but not VLC) is unwatchable, using the drivers on the CD that comes with the motherboard allows you to view DVD's however, those drivers that came with the motherboard instantly crash VMC when trying to view LiveTV…
Catalyst 8.1 fixes the issue. Tore my hair out fixing that one.
- The motherboard bios, by default, does not have power management enabled for the fan. Turn this one immediately, because without it, the fan on the heatsink can be freaking loud. That's the scientific measurement, it is 1.5 Freaking Loud Values (FLV). With Power Management on, it'll drop to 0.3->0.5 FLV's
- Even though it has improved from the Socket 939 design, the mounting system for AMD's AM2 stock heatsinks is still pretty poor compared to Intel's push-pin method. That being said, you generally only need to do it once.
Final Notes
The only other part I didn't mention was the Windows Media Center Remote/IR Receiver. I picked up one of them for myself, as well as one for mum. The Logitech Harmony 525 I bought works flawlessly with it, and it makes navigating media so much easier than using a keyboard/mouse.
Just like the Intel HTPC, this system plays back the 1080p content I have flawlessly, although my mother only has a 720p TV, so it isn't as critical.
Despite Bluray defeating HD-DVD, I just bought myself a HD-DVD drive. Why? Well, a SATA (or IDE) Bluray drive will set you back over AUD$200 currently, and I just picked up the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Addon for a mere $48. That $48 also includes King Kong on HD-DVD!
"But you're buying defunct technology!"
Yeah, that's true, but I'm picking up a whole heap of movies for dirt cheap - not just cheap for HD content, but cheaper than buying the 'normal' DVD versions. How much cheaper? Well, EzyDVD are (were?) running a HD-DVD clearance sale:
| Title |
HD DVD Price |
DVD Price |
| Chronicles Of Riddick, The - Director's Cut (HD DVD) |
$9.92 |
$38.99 |
| Chronicles Of Riddick, The - Pitch Black |
$9.92 |
$19.99 |
| Heroes - Season 1 (7 Disc Box Set) |
$29.83 |
$95.99 |
| Shaun Of The Dead |
$9.92 |
$12.98 |
| Terminator 2 - Judgment Day |
$9.92 |
$23.99 |
| Total |
$69.51 |
$191.94 |
(yes, I realise most of these can also be bought in packs with other movies, so the savings could actually be much lower, but I'm trying to illustrate a point)
So, what are the changes to the HTPC? PowerDVD Ultra is required for HD-DVD playback (UltraDVD would also work I guess, but I didn't have that on hand).
With my particular HTPC, I had to make sure that PowerDVD's options had hardware acceleration disabled, otherwise playback was choppy. I suspect that a lot of other HTPCs with integrated video probably face the same problem, enabling hardware acceleration actually hurts performance because too much of the processing is offloaded to the video chipset, and the video chipset is actually slower than doing it all on CPU.
The proposed HTPC went ahead, and the final list of parts was
Software
- Vista Ultimate 32-bit with Service Pack 1 (didn't have the x64 install iso downloaded yet)
- CoreAVC
- FFDshow
Hardware
From my list of parts, the dedicated graphics card has been dropped (for now, its a money thing), and the CPU and motherboard were upgraded. The CPU was upgraded from an E2140 (1.6ghz) to a E2160 (1.8ghz) simply because that's all the store had in at the time.
Case
The Antec NSK2480 is not designed as a HTPC case, but as a general desk case. The HTPC version of it is the overpriced Fusion 430 (aka Fusion V2), which comes with a 430w PSU (+50w), a VFD display and a 'stereo' looking volume knob - it really isn't worth the extra AUD$100 for it.
There are really only two problems I have with this case (and I'd imagine would apply to the Fusion 430 as well); it uses very bright blue LED's (which just require you to not plug in the HDD LED and separate power LED) and that there isn't a way to "stealth" the optical drive - granted it isn't a HTPC case so it doesn't "require" it, but given how nice the case looks it certainly wouldn't hurt.
Motherboard & CPU
The CPU is a Conroe core, despite having the Pentium moniker instead of Core2Duo. The E2160 is a 65nm chip, clocked at 1.8ghz, with 1mb L2 cache and a 800mhz front side bus. The beauty is, its the cheapest dual core processor from Intel (that the store had in stock, with the E2140 being cheaper and slower) yet it is more than capable of decoding 1080p content.
The choice of motherboard was to opt for a better featured (specifically, included SPDIF out), more robust motherboard. Asus' top of the line uATX motherboard goes for ~$250, and the P5K-VM is pretty much the next step down, but only costs ~$150.
While the motherboard was more expensive than what I "needed", the cheaper ones available are generally regarded as 'okay' but not 'rock solid' if you attempt overclocking. By just ramping up the front side bus (FSB), still using the stock Heat Sink/Fan (HSF), I was able to get this CPU up to 2.94ghz. That's an overclock of a fairly impressive 1.14ghz! Somewhat unneeded for HTPC duties as it decodes 1080p perfectly well, but for gaming and other duties I may put this computer through later on in its life, certainly an added bonus out of a $83 CPU
Remote.
Only a brief word on the remote, the Logitech Harmony 525. It is your 'run of the mill' universal remote capable of learning IR commands, but it also has USB connectivity to download IR commands from Logitech's database. I won't say the database is flawless, but it had an entry for Media Center, my TV (Bravia KDL40W3100), my speakers (no surprises on that one however, they are Logitech speakers that were hooked up to my computer - we still "need" to get an amp/standalone speakers) and even the air conditioner! On top of that, the 'activities' options are awesome - if I want to watch TV, it switches the TV on, the speakers on, and the speakers to the right input. Likewise, if I want to watch something on Media Center, it'll switch the TV on, Speakers On, Change TV Input, Change Speaker Input, and even go to 'My Videos' (if I had a MCE IR Receiver).
I will give Logitech huge credit for the packaging. It is a standard looking blister pack which would normally require scissors and much bleeding, but this pack had a 'tear away' section, where little perforations in the plastic meant no cutting (or bleeding) was needed. The contents of the packaging also included 4xAAA Duracell batteries as well as 4xAAA Duracell batteries already in the remote!
Performance
Thanks to CoreAVC, it is actually possible to play back HD (1080p that is) material without a dedicated graphics card. This rig is capable of playing back H264 without any sync/stuttering issues. VC-1 plays back fine too, but every now and again it was as if it was dropping frames - I haven't had the time to properly research the subject - VC1 is not decoded by CoreAVC as far as I know - meaning I was using the stock Vista/WMP11 decoder.
| Video |
Codec |
Min CPU Usage |
MAX CPU Usage |
| Transformers (1080p) |
h.264 |
55% |
70% |
| The Matrix (1080p) |
h.264 |
52% |
66% |
| Rush Hour 3 Trailer (1080p) |
h.264 |
30% |
55% |
| Heroes (S1E1, 720p) |
VC-1 |
42% |
60% |
Thanks to the power saving features of the CPU, it kept dropping down to about 1.9ghz (despite being overclocked to 2.9ghz) when playing back 1080p material - it simply has way too much oompf!
The other major codec to try out is PowerDVD, which has hardware acceleration through PureVideo/UVD, however that does not apply in this situation of onboard graphics. If I was to purchase the graphics card I intend to, yes, it would make a significant difference, however if I was to use CoreAVC which is a purely software/cpu decoder…well…the numbers in the table above won't change.
Power DVD performance
| Video |
Codec |
Min CPU Usage |
MAX CPU Usage |
| Transformers (1080p) |
h.264 |
46% |
86% |
| The Matrix (1080p) |
h.264 |
64% |
88% |
| Rush Hour 3 Trailer (1080p) |
h.264 |
50% |
70% |
| Heroes (S1E1, 720p) |
VC-1 |
48% |
60% |
It's fairly easy to see that CoreAVC uses a lot less of the CPU than PowerDVD does - as much as 22% in some sections! Throw in a ATI HD 2400 Pro for as low as AUD$35, and the tables would certainly be reversed.
One interesting thing to note is that although the only VC1 content in this test had a higher CPU usage under PowerDVD, it was a LOT smoother, and didn't suffer from the occasional stuttering. It was also much faster at flicking through the video.
Final words..
I'm extremely happy with the performance, looks, noise and cost of this computer. All up, just AUD$667 (including remote)!
eSATA (External SATA) rocks for file transfer. Oh, sure, it sucks in terms of not providing power over the cable, but the raw speeds of it make you over look that, especially when its a 3.5" drive that requires extra power anyway (if over USB).
I recently purchased the above very very shiny Coolermaster X-Craft eSATA/USB (non-usb hub version). It came with an eSATA bracket, but my laptop has eSATA built into it, which is where I see the most benefit - I get better performance out of the external 7200rpm drive that I do my internal 5400rpm drive.
$49 well spent.
Edit: I should note, this particular design is fanless, which usually leads to a pretty warm enclosure. Well, the good news, after being left on all night (10:30pm -> 9am) its barely above room temperature to touch.
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