July 2006
Volume 5 / Issue 3

Downloadable Version (.pdf format)
 
 In This Edition:
 

Welcome to another edition of the ASI Technical Newsletter! This newsletter features articles on the latest computer technologies and products offered by ASI CORP, a leading North American Distributor of computer components and whitebox systems. We are focused on helping our resellers and system builders be able to offer the very best technology solutions and this newsletter is a free tool so you can learn about current and next generation products.

If you are an ASI customer feel free to call our Technical Support Staff if you have any questions or visit www.asisupport.com (general technical help), www.asiserver.com (server solutions) or www.asimobile.com (notebooks) for further information. Thank you.

ASI introduces the Verified by Intel® Notebook Program

Recognizing the significant growth and importance in the mobile PC market, Intel has introduced their "Verified By Intel" (VBI) notebook program. By working with a set group of manufacturers and developing the "Intel Interchangeability Initiative", Intel has effectively began to remove some of the roadblocks which, up until now, have prevented many resellers from entering the mobile market.

Using a Common Building Blocks (CBB) program, Intel is working with manufacturers to insure compatibility between several key components in the BTO notebook units selected by Intel to be in this program. While there is still slight variances in some of the components, for the most part, they are supposed to be interchangeable between all of the units in the VBI program.

Hardware manufacturers retain control of the design of their components and some still choose to slightly alter the individual components, tailoring them to their shells, which can negate the interchangeability factor to some degree. It is always best to check with ASI notebook support to insure full compatibility.

Interchangeable VBI Components

  • LCD Panel (3 models (sizes), 4 manufacturers)
  • Optical Drive (3 models (types), 3 manufacturers)
  • Hard Drive (3 PATA models, 3 SATA models, 3 manufacturers)
  • Battery (1 model, 3 manufacturers)
  • Keyboard (many models (language options), 1 manufacturer)
  • AC Power Adapter (many models (country & wattage options), 1 manufacturer AC Adapter, 1 manufacturer AC Cable)
  • Customizable Notebook Panel (CNP) (infinite variations and manufacturers)

Advantages of the Intel VBI Program

By working with select BTO notebook manufacturers such as ASUS, Compal, and Quanta, Intel has been able to cut down on the huge variance in different parts normally required to support a full-blown BTO notebook program. In the past few years, the ASI BTO notebook program has sold and supported over 30 different notebook models. With ASI's extended warranty program, this has come at the cost of keeping on-hand hundreds, if not thousands of notebook parts required to support these units in the rapid fashion that our customers have become accustomed to. To smaller companies, this is something that would probably prevent them from even attempting to get into the BTO notebook market.

In addition to removing the main replacement parts roadblock, Intel has taken over the support for these VBI notebook shells once they have passed the first 30 days in the field from the ASI invoice date. This means, that similar to the IPD program, channel partners will be able to work directly with Intel in facilitating the repair/replacement of their VBI units in the event that a problem does arise.

Intel's warranty on the VBI notebooks has just been extended to 2 years from the date of the channel members purchase of the unit for all covered parts (L4 shell, optical drive, keyboard). The system battery and AC power adapter warranty remains at 1 year). After the first 30 days a defective notebook can be stripped down to it's L4 shell and can be returned to Intel for repair/replacement by the channel partner.

Models distributed by ASI

While Intel's program includes 17 total VBI units, ASI has chosen to distribute 6 of these models initially which we feel will best meet the needs of our BTO notebook customers. These units come from three ODM's (Original Design Manufacturers) that ASI has already established a positive  business relationship with, ASUS, Compal, and Quanta. We feel confident with the quality of the products that these manufacturers build and the support that we have received from them in the past.

Intel's VBI notebook barebones models which ASI carries currently:
 

Model S96J SW1 EL80  (Coming Soon) S96F
Make ASUS / VBI Quanta / VBI Compal / VBI ASUS / VBI
ASI SKU
for Shell		 48161
(No Optical)		 48205
(No Optical)		 TBD
(No Optical)		 48204
(No Optical)
Screen 15.4" 14.1" 15.4" 15.4"
Screen Type WXGA WXGA WXGA WXGA
Resolution 1280x800 1280x800 1280x800 1280x800
LCD Type Glare Glare Glare Glare
CPU Type Core™ Duo / Core™ Solo &
65nm Celeron M		 Core™ Duo / Core™ Solo &
65nm Celeron M		 Core™ Duo / Core™ Solo &
65nm Celeron M		 Core™ Duo / Core™ Solo &
65nm Celeron M
FSB 667 MHz / 533 MHz 667 MHz / 533 MHz 667 MHz / 533 MHz 667 MHz / 533 MHz
Max CPU 2.16GHz 2.16GHz 2.16GHz 2.16GHz
VGA ATI X1600 (M56P) Intel® GMA 950 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 Intel® GMA 950
VGA Mem 256MB VRAM up to 224MB Shared 256MB VRAM up to 224MB shared
Chipset 945PM & ICH7M 945PM & ICH7M 945PM & ICH7M 945PM & ICH7M
Spindle 2 2 2 2
Max Memory 2GB 2GB 2GB 2GB
Mem Type DDR2 533/667 SO-DIMM DDR2 533/667 SO-DIMM DDR2 533/667 SO-DIMM DDR2 533/667 SO-DIMM
Mem Slots 2 2 2 2
HDD Support Serial ATA Parallel ATA Serial ATA Parallel ATA
Optical
(options)		 Combo
DVD-Multi		 Combo
DVDRW		 Combo
DVDRW		 Combo
DVDRW
Audio Intel® HD Audio
(Realtek ALC882)		 Intel® HD Audio
(Conexant 20468-31)		 Intel® HD Audio
(Realtek ALC883)		 Intel® HD Audio
(Realtek ALC882)
56K Modem Yes Yes Yes Yes
Wireless optional optional optional optional
LAN 10/100/1000 - Gigabit 10/100/1000 - Gigabit 10/100/1000 - Gigabit 10/100/1000 - Gigabit
PCMCIA Express Card 34/54 Express Card Express Card / Type II PCMCIA Express Card 34/54
Battery 6 Cell 6 Cell 6 Cell 6 Cell
Card Reader 4 in 1 4 in 1 4 in 1 4 in 1
Type SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro
IEEE1394 1 1 1 1
IrDA 0 0 0 0
Serial 0 0 0 0
Parallel 0 0 0 0
USB 2.0 4 3 3 4
S-Video 1 1 1 1
VGA Port 1 1 1 1
TV Tuner No No optional No
Camera Yes No Yes No
Bluetooth No No optional No
Case No No No No
Weight 6.4lbs 5.4lbs 6.9lbs 6.4lbs

Customizable Notebook Panels

Intel has come up with a unique method of branding, or notebook customization called the Customizable Notebook Panel or CNP. The LCD top cover on the VBI models contains an indentation which allows the reseller or end-user to add their own flair to the notebook. Using any number of 3rd party companies, (Brady, Worldmark, FedEX Kinko's, etc), a custom panel can be purchased or created for the notebook featuring anything from personal family photos to company logos. Pretty much anything under the sun (that doesn't constitute trademark infringement) can be printed and applied to the notebook for your enjoyment.

More Information

Resellers interested in obtaining more information regarding this exciting program and unique opportunity offered by Intel can learn more here: ASI's VBI Information Website - Click Here
 
NetGear RangeMax Next Products
New "Draft 802.11n Compliant" Wireless Products Boost Speed, Range and Performance
What is RangeMax NEXT?

With NetGear's new RangeMax NEXT products you now get the steady connection and bandwidth you need to simultaneously download music, play games, surf the internet and even make VoIP calls.

RangeMax NEXT extends the possibilities of your wireless home network by providing a Steady-Stream of up to 270 Mbps, and is compliant with draft 802.11n*. This next generation wireless standard utilizes advanced MIMO (Multi-In, Multi-Out) technology, which delivers incredible speed and range, and for the first time provides wireless interoperability at the highest speeds with other products with InteNsi-fi™.

A RangeMax NEXT wireless network creates and maintains stable connections and enough bandwidth to surf the Internet, download MP3s, make Internet phone calls, share files, play network games, and stream high-definition videos, simultaneously at any distance or location in the home or office. Because RangeMax NEXT is compatible with all legacy b and g wireless products, you are sure to be connected.



* “Draft-n Compliant” refers to compliance with IEEE 802.11n draft specification version 1.0 only
RangeMax NEXT Compared to Other Wireless Standards
NetGear RangeMax NEXT Wireless Router WNR854TNA Gigabit Edition
ASI SKU # 48082

Featuring Gigabit Speed Wired Ethernet Port!

Experience "NEXT Generation" 270Mbps Wireless which are 15x Faster and 10x More Coverage than standard 11g products. This sleek and stylish new router can handle just about any type of communication needs.

Key features include:

Draft 802.11n compliant

Interoperable at 300Mbps speed with products with TopDog™ Steady-Stream connections.

11n-True Test high-performance testing and tuning.

Advanced MIMO technology – for speed and range

Fastest WAN / LAN / WLAN throughput with built-in 5-port Gigabit Switch.
 
NetGear RangeMax NEXT Wireless Router WNR834BNA
ASI SKU # 47768

Experience "NEXT Generation" 270Mbps Wireless which are 15x Faster and 10x More Coverage than standard 11g products. Key features include:

  • 15x faster and 10x greater wireless coverage than standard wireless g routers, maximum bandwidth and coverage
  • Upload, download and stream, photos, music and video simultaneously
  • Share your internet connection, make PC phone calls, download MP3 music, play online games and watch streaming video at the same time
  • Delivers reliable, high-speed, Steady-Stream connections for all of your PCs and applications (no dropped connection, no more dead-spots)
  • 11-n True Test advanced production testing and tuning ensures the highest out-of-box performance and reliability
  • Interoperates at up to 270 Mbps* with other products with Intensi-fi™
  • Complies with draft 802.11n*, backwards compatible with 11b/g WiFi
  • Touchless WiFi Security ensures secure wireless connections
  • SmartWizard™ install assistance makes installation simple and ensures optimal performance and security. 
  • 4-LAN ports enables up to 4 devices to be added to the network.
NetGear RangeMax NEXT Wireless Notebook Adapter WN511BNA
ASI SKU # 47767

This new notebook adapter enhances your laptop's wireless networking speed and range when used in conjunction with compatible Draft-N devices - recommend to use with the NetGear RangeMax NEXT Wireless Router WNR834BNA (above).

  • Complies with draft 802.11n*, backwards compatible with .11b/g WiFi
  • Delivers stable, application enhancing connections using Steady-Stream technology
  • Interoperates at 270 Mbps with other products powered with InteNsi-fi™
  • Ensures optimal performance with internal antenna design
Specifications:
Product Description: NETGEAR RangeMax Next Wireless Notebook Adapter WN511B - network adapter
Device Type: Network adapter
Form Factor: Plug-in module
Interface (Bus) Type: CardBus
Dimensions (WxDxH): 4.8 in x 2.1 in x 0.4 in
Weight: 2 oz
Data Link Protocol: IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft)
Data Transfer Rate: 270 Mbps
Frequency Band: 2.4 GHz
Special Features:             
Compliant Standards: IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft)
NetGear RangeMax NEXT Wireless NB Adapter WN511T Gigabit Edition
ASI SKU# 48083

What does RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless Notebook Adapter – Gigabit Edition do? Wirelessly connects your laptop PC to the gigabit edition RangeMax NEXT Wireless Router - Gigabit Edition (WNR854T) for ultra high performance wireless communications!

The WN511T is similar to the above adapter (WN511B) including:

  • Draft 802.11n compliant
  • Interoperable at 300Mbps speed with products with TopDog™
  • Steady-Stream connections
  • 11n-True Test high-performance testing and tuning
  • Advanced MIMO technology – for speed and range
 
PhysX - Physics Processing Unit
 
The Ageia Story

It's been a long road for Ageia. The company was founded back in 2002 with one vision, to create real-time physical simulation processors. Recently this vision has been achieved. Starting with NovodeX, a proprietary real-time physics engine, Ageia worked hard and developed one of the strongest offerings available for licensing in the video game creation arena. In the interest of expanding the technology in their own software, in September of 2005 Ageia acquired Meqon Research AB, another frontrunner in real-time physics development who is probably best known for it's work on Duke Nukem Forever.

In the past several years Ageia has built up a very large fan base with game software developers and gamers who either knowingly, or unwittingly ended up utilizing the Ageia PhysX software to enhance their gaming experience. As a testimony to the strength of the Ageia product, in 2005 SONY announced that it had signed an agreement with Ageia to use the PhysX SDK in it's own PlayStation3 SDK. Recognizing the power and capability of the PhysX technology, SONY decided that it was the best solution to incorporate into their next generation entertainment console which harnesses the incredible power of the Cell Processor.
 
PhysX PPU

Returning to the original goal of the company, to produce real-time physical simulation processors, in March of 2005 Ageia announced the creation of the PhysX Physics Processing Unit (the PhysX Accelerator). Their dedication and focus had finally brought their dream of the PhysX processor to life.

Designing a PC card to be used specifically for physics computations was certainly no easy task. In addition to having to handle calculations on more objects than either a processor or a GPU, you have to do this while keeping your hardware down to a basic single slot PCI or PCI-E solution, and minimizing the amount of heat, noise, and power-draw you add to any given system.

AGEIA has created a hardware gaming triangle where the CPU, PPU, and the GPU all work together in harmony to produce the best gameplay ever imaginable. By allowing the CPU to concentrate on managing the resources of the game, and letting the GPU worry about all of the rendering tasks, the PPU is able to handle the physics, movements, and interactions within the gaming environment itself.

 
Specifications
 
Processor Type: AGEIA PhysX
Process Technology: 130nm
Die Size: 182mm
Transistor Count: 125 Million
Bus Technology: 32-bit PCI 3.0 (PCI-Express in the future)
Memory Interface: 128-bit GDDR3 memory architecture
Memory Capacity: 128MB
Memory Bandwidth: 12Gbytes / sec.
Effective Memory Data Rate: 733 MHz.
Peak Instruction Bandwidth: 20 Billion Instructions / sec.
Sphere-Sphere collisions / sec.: 530 Million max
Convex-Convex (Complex) collisions / sec. 533,000 max
Power Requirements: 20W power consumption (chip) 28W power consumption overall for the PhysX card
(Additional power required via 4-pin Molex power connector)

Retail Board Partners:

Launched May 9th, 2006, AGEIA has worked with board partners ASUS, and BFG to bring you very high quality PhysX boards from manufacturers that are known in the gaming industry as the leaders in high end video. Both manufacturers are constantly pushing the edge with various flavors of the latest and greatest cards available and it's no wonder that when they had the opportunity to work with AGEIA, they jumped at it.

ASUS PhysX P1
 (ASI SKU# 48816)
Bundled w/ Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

 

BFG BFGRPHYSX128P
 (ASI SKU# 48513 - OEM version)

BFG BFGRPHYSX128P-OEM
 (ASI SKU# 48210 - Retail version)


Minimum System Requirements

  • 1.4GHz. CPU
  • 128MB RAM
  • Windows XP (non 64-bit)
  • 20MB of available HDD space
  • Empty PCI Slot
  • Add-In Graphics Card supporting Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2.0 or higher.

I actually find the minimum requirements necessary to run this card are quite amusing. Taking the bare minimums into account, you would probably be gaming on 3 year old system hardware and, taking that into consideration, I don't really see that this segment of gamer would show a large willingness to drop between $250 and $300 on a PhysX card to enhance your experience. Truthfully, at this point, this card is geared towards high-end, dedicated gamers. Those of us who were once willing to spend out hard earned money adding a 3D card to our systems when graphics card manufacturers hadn't quite worked it out how to get it all down on a single board solution yet are the ones who will be adding this to our machines. 
Testing

Traditionally, the way we test graphics products is to select a series of benchmark applications and games to run the hardware against. We would find a competing product, or the previous generation of the same product to compare the advances against. With this new board from Ageia, all that went out the window. Standard benchmarks show no increase in frame rates, and there's no reason that it should... in fact, in some cases we saw a slight decrease in the numbers. What was clearly visible within seconds of starting up the games and applications that support the PhysX technology, was the smoothness and realism added to the game play.

By off-loading calculations that need to be handled in regards to the physical properties of objects and letting the GPU card, or cards in the case of SLI or CrossFire concentrate solely on the graphics and texture work allows the games to become infinitely more smooth and interactive.
 
Tested Titles

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW)
Arguably one of the most realistic FPS games ever created, GRAW is graphically incredible even without a 512MB graphics card (which is required to enable high texture mode). Adding the PhysX processor card brings you significantly more realism to the game. Incoming enemy fire actually shatters pieces of the environment around you. Explosions throw debris off in a frighteningly realistic manner. While we can supply pictures showing off some of the differences with and without the PhysX card installed in the machine, they are certainly no substitute for actually trying it yourself. It makes no difference how good a game is, if you can do something to increase the realism of the physics involved, the users envelopment in the game play will quickly follow.

Grenade Explosion
(no PhysX card)		 Grenade Explosion
(with PhysX card)		 Grenade Explosion
(no PhysX card)		 Grenade Explosion
(with PhysX card)

In these screen captures, you can clearly see how much extra fragmentation happens in the explosions with the AGEIA card installed. - Click them to enlarge for more detail.

Demos

CellFactor
Developed by Immersion Software as a demo for the AGEIA card, CellFactor: Combat Training has become a full fledged game that is eagerly awaited by serious gamers everywhere. Although the game won't be available for a while, the Demo gives you a full taste of armed combat in an arena where you control everything from gravity to firepower. It's reminiscent of Unreal Tournament, but on massive steroids.

Hangar of Doom
Built like an old school campy arcade game that you'd waste weeks worth of quarters on, Hanger of Doom shows off the true fun and excitement of being to interact with most every part of your environment. The ability to utilize items to inflict damage on unrelated objects is new and exciting, and brings on smiles the likes of which you probably haven't seen in a while. 


Titles available now through Spring 2006
  • Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport (patch)
  • CellFactor: Combat Training
  • City of Villains (patch)
  • Gunship Apocalypse
  • Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (patch)
  • Stoked Rider: Big Mountain Snowboarding
  • Switchball
  • Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Announced Future Titles
 
  • 1944 D-Day Operation Overlord
  • Alpha Prime
  • Arena Online
  • Crazy Machines 2
  • Dogtag
  • Eye of the Storm
  • Fallen Earth
  • Frozen Systems
  • Heavy Rain
  • Infernal
  • KARMA
  • Loki
  • Monster Madness
  • Rail Simulator
  • RoboBlitz
  • Sacred II
  • Tank Killer
  • Unreal Tournament 2007
  • Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
  • Warhammer MMORPG Online
Competing Technologies

ATI: "TriplePlay" Utilizing three Radeon X1K series GPU cards. Two of the cards must operate in CrossFire mode, the third card acts as a physics processing unit. As a positive, for ATI at least, the user would need to essentially purchase three ATI based graphics cards in order to effect this method of processing.

NVIDIA: No word yet as to how team green is gearing up to respond. You'd be foolish to think that they didn't have anything up their sleeves though.

So, how much competition is the competition? We'll have to wait and see what lies ahead since there's nothing out on the market yet. For now we'll just have to keep evaluating our wonderful AGEIA card until they ask for it back!
 
 
The Making Of a Quiet Home Theater PC

With the help of companies such as Intel and AMD promoting their digital home PC solutions, it seems that home theater systems are becoming popular very quickly. The primary purpose of a Home Theater PC (HTPC) is to manage and control multimedia content such as video, audio, radio, photos and television in a home theater environment.

However, The HTPC can also offer much more than a standard entertainment system ever could. While it mainly serves as a dedicated multimedia management computer, you can also use it for office applications, surfing the internet and playing the latest video games just like with any other PCs. Content shown on a big screen HDTV often looks much better than similar content on a small PC monitor.
 
The Components for the Build

As a design exercise, ASI has built a very quiet and high quality Viiv compliant HTPC system to be used as a demo unit for our ASI 2006 Technology Expo. Using the components outlined below, we feel that we have brought together the best possible combination of parts  available in the channel today to build a fully functional, high end Microsoft Windows Media Center based machine.
 

ASI Quiet HTPC Components
Component Model

ASI SKU
Motherboard Intel D975XBXLKR 43458
CPU Intel Pentium D 940 43457
CPU Cooler Zalman CNPS9500 AT 47137
Memory Kingston DDR2 1GB, 667MHz 37651
Video Card 1 XFX 7900GTX 512MB
Zalman VGA Heat Sink Fan		 46590 Card
47129 Fan
Video Card 2 ASUS EN7600GT Silent 256MB   49362
Video Card 3 Sapphire Ultimate XT1600 XT 43854
TV Tuner Card ATI TV Wonder Elite 37663
Hard Drive Western Digital WD2500YD RAID EDITION 39696
Optical Drive SONY Q120A DVD/RW 47071
Chassis Zalman HD160S 45950
Power Supply Zalman ZM460-APS 43014

The Chassis

 As the foundation for our HTPC we have chosen to start with the new HTPC case from Zalman. The Zalman HD160 HTPC case (ASI SKU# 45950) is an all aluminum chassis with 2 rear  fans and it comes with the VFD/IR display already mounted on the front of the case. As an added feature, Zalman has included a convenient 7-in-1 Card Reader pre-installed in a front bay.

The IR receiver is designed to work with the included MCE2005 Remote, and will also work with the Microsoft Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition (ASI SKU# 39356). The front of the case has a drop down door to access the card reader slot and also hosts 2 USB 2.0 ports, one 1394 Firewire port, 1 MIC and 1 headphone jack. The case can support up to four 3.5" hard drives giving you plenty of space to store hundreds of gigabytes (or even terabytes) of multi-media content. This high-end system chassis does all of this while integrating seamlessly into your living room right along side your television.

Additional accessories included with this Zalman chassis: Click Here

Additional Information at the Zalman Website: Click Here

Others HTPC cases available from ASI: Click Here

CPU

The Intel Pentium D 940 3.20GHz, 800MHz, 2x2MB L2 Cache (ASI SKU# 43457) has the processing capabilities of two threads at a time delivers more computing capabilities that enable you to explore new ways to accomplish and enjoy the new performance-intensive tasks on your PC.

This processor also features an Execute Disable Bit which can prevent some malicious "buffer overflow" attacks on your PC. EM64T provides flexibility for future applications that support both 32-bit and 64-bit computing. Hyper-Threading Technology will enables you to run multiple demanding applications at the same time. To reduce noises fan and heat from the CPU we have changed out the standard Intel heat sink and fan for the Zalman CNPS9500 AT (ASI SKU# 47137).

ASI Recommends  Zalman CPU coolers

Motherboard

In order to get the best performance and the most features out of our HTPC system, we have selected the latest Intel desktop chipset motherboard, the Intel D975XBXLKR (ASI SKU# 43458). This mother board has support for the latest processors and is fully "Viiv" compliant.

This board has two PCI slots and four PCI-Express slots. The board can also host up to eight USB 2.0 ports, depending on your chassis configuration. There are four ports routed to the back panel through the I/O shield and four ports routed to two USB header on the board. The board also has two IEEE 1394 ports, one routed to the back panel and the other ports is routed to the header on the board. The four RAID ports on the board support SATA 3G drives in either RAID or non-RAID configurations. Support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is also present (and required for Viiv), Intel® Matrix Storage Technology and Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller with RJ-45 connector are here as well. This board supports DDR2 667 and 533 MHz SDRAM DIMM modules with an 8 GB maximum total system memory. Also integrated on this board, Intel HD Audio chip.

Detailed Specs from Intel: Click Here
 
VIDEO CARD

For our demo system, we were unable to obtain the card that we really wanted to use, the XFX PVT71FYDL9 GeForce 7900GTX card (ASI SKU# 37376). This card features a clock rate of 650MHz and includes 512MB of DDR3 memory with a 256-bit bus. The PCI-E interface passes the graphics to  dual DVI connectors, and the card comes with a DVI to VGA converter. Accessories include an S-video cable, power cable, HDTV cable and full retail packaging. This video card has the latest NVIDIA graphic chipset on board and blazing graphics performance. You can set the quality to max and you don't even have to choose between performance and image quality. This video card is the best for playing video games and is also fully capable of smooth, high-definition video playback with crisp picture quality thanks to its advanced NVIDIA PureVideo technology.
Other Video Cards Tested

During the build up and testing process for this card, we also had the opportunity to test a few other high quality offerings, one from ASUS and one from Sapphire.

The ASUS EN7600GT Silent equipped with the newest ASUS exclusive SilentCool 2 technology this card employs a passive cooling solution by providing extra heatpipe and a heatsink on the back side of the VGA card for better thermal efficiency, and delivers efficient cooling at 0db. This very unique heat sink is capable of swiveling in order to give you the best possible cooling solution with your particular chassis configuration. Powered by the Nvidia GeForce 7600GT GPU and 256MB of DDR3 memory, the EN7600GT Silent card has plenty of power to use for digital home use, multi-media applications, web surfing, or even getting in on some serious game time.  

Sapphire has brought an extremely different product to the market with their Sapphire Ultimate X1600 XT video card. Unlike any other VGA solution that I have ever seen, Sapphire has designed this card with the main heat sink cooling solution on the "back" of the card. Considering the fact that in general most systems have nothing next to the back side side of the graphics card, placing the cooling solution here to increase airflow and heat dissipation area is an act of brilliance.
 
Memory

Our test system is using 2pcs. of Two sticks of 1GB DDR2 667MHz Non-ECC CL5 DIMMS (KVR667D2N5/1G - ASI SKU# 37651). 2GB seems to be the sweet-spot these days for well performing systems. With the upcoming launch of Microsoft Windows Vista, that might all change, but for XP and XPMCE2005, it is just perfect.
 
Hard Drive

As our demo system is a simple build that will not be pulling full duty in anyone's living room, we were not concerned with having massive amounts of storage space, or even RAID to protect our data. If this system were being built for a customer we would certainly recommend both of those items, if this were a personal system for ourselves, we would insist on them. As is, we chose to use a single Western Digital 2500YD SATA 3G drive with 250GB of storage space running at 7200RPM. This drive is also the RAID Edition of the drive which had 16MB of cache and is built to outlast standard desktop drives.
 
TV TUNER CARD

The ATI TV Wonder Elite (ASI SKU# 37663) is compatible with all high end graphics cards. The onboard ATI Theater 550 Pro video processor delivers sharper images, true colors, and more symphonic sound than any other PC-based TV solution. 12-bit analog-to-digital conversion optimizes analog video reception from TV channels or external video sources. An advanced motion-adaptive 3D comb filter delivers true color and fine picture detail from cable and antenna TV broadcasts, VCRs, and other video sources. Here is a link to others TV-TUNERS cards.
Wireless keyboard
As with all Media Center Edition based systems, We recommend the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition wireless keyboard (ASI SKU# 39356). Using this device, (which includes a built in mouse), lets you control your HTPC from the comfort of your couch, otherwise known as the 10ft. experience. Effortlessly control all kinds of digital entertainment from across your living room with thirty-foot wireless range. Launch digital media, surf the Web, watch movies, and send instant messages from up to 30 feet away with this all-in-one wireless keyboard, mouse, and remote. Sleek, All-in-One Design Enjoy all of your digital media clutter-free with this 3-in-1 keyboard with integrated mouse and remote control.
 
Power Supply
In sticking with the high quality Zalman products, we have selected the Zalman ZM460B-APS (ASI SKU# 43014) noise-free power supply  for this system. This power supply is a noise-free 460W ATX (version 2.03) / ATX12V power supply supporting SLI and compatible with Intel LGA775 Pentium 4/D & AMD Athlon 64/64 FX/X2 CPU equipped systems.
Sound card or onboard sound
 
With the Intel HD Audio or an additional high end soundcard, we recommended that you take advantage of your audio experiencing by using a 7.1 surround sound system.

For those of you not using the built-in Intel HD Audio on the Intel D975BX motherboard, ASI recommends the Creative X-FI 7.1, Dolby Digital EX®, DTS-ES®, THX® Audio. The XtremeMusic version of this card (ASI SKU# 40310) would be a great match for a HTPC system, and it doesn't include a bunch of accessories that you don't need and can't use.


Additional Photos of the ASI Quiet HTPC Demo System
 
Xeon 5000 Sequence Platform Introduction ("Bensley")
Efficient. Dependable. Responsive. The Next Generation Server Platform
The next generation of the famous Intel Xeon server platform (codename "Bensley") is about to make a major debut including new Xeon processor models (codename "Dempsey"), new server motherboards, chipsets, systems, chassis and related products.

This new processor sequence sports a dual-core 65nm architecture, introduces a new server socket (LGA 771), offers system builders a choice two front side bus speeds (667Mhz or 1066Mhz), and interfaces with new FBDIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) memory. We will take a close look at each of these technologies and new or upcoming products.

What are the major advantages of this new Xeon platform?

  • Energy Efficient Performance - Improve TCO (total cost of ownership) and density with sub 100W Dual-Core Intel Xeon based servers delivering over 2x the performance of yesterday’s servers with up to 3x the power efficiency.
  • Mainstream Virtualization - Improve IT flexibility and system utilization using new 64-bit Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor-based platforms offering more reliability features, unique server performance innovations like FBD with 4x the memory capacity.
  • Reliable Uptime - Memory mirroring and sparing are 2 of many unique Intel capabilities that allow you to safely accumulate, analyze and distribute more data using proven and versatile Dual-Core Intel® Xeon®-based servers.

** Important Note ** New Processors, motherboards, memory, and chassis are NOT BACKWARDS or FORWARDS COMPATIBLE with the existing products. XEON 400/533/800 processors will not work on the new boards and XEON 5000 Processors will not work on the Socket 604 motherboards.
The Processors: Xeon DP 5000 and 5100 Sequence
This new generation starts by using Intel's new naming convention for server processors. The 5000 sequence is for mainstream, enterprise class general purpose dual processor series (two physical processors per board, each dual-core). The 7000 series will be for four-way (QUAD) and 9000 series for Itanium.

There are actually two 5000 processors series coming out this year, first the DP 5000 series codenamed "Dempsey" which will soon be followed by the DP 5100 sequence codenamed "Woodcrest" that has even greater power efficiency. Dempsey will run at a front side bus of either 1066MHz (130W TDP) or 667MHz (95W TDP) and Woodcrest will offer generous price/performance/power mixture at only 80W TDP (potentially saving a lot on wattage over the life of the server). See this page for detailed information: http://www.intel.com/performance/server/xeon/ppw.htm

In fact the real prime advantage of the new processors is how much performance they can deliver per watt, saving businesses and data centers a lot of money in energy costs while improving IT infrastructure and workloads. Compared to Opteron processors the DP 5000 and 5100 series offer significant price per watt or performance per watt savings.

All these processor are dual-core. Dempsey will range between 2.5 and 3.73 GHz (model numbers 5020-5080) at 95W for mainstream processors. Some models will have a 667 MT/s FSB, and others will have a 1066 MT/s (266 MHz quad-pumped) FSB. Dempsey will have 4 MB of L2 Cache (2MB per core).

More detailed processor information available here
ASI SKU# Processor Model Core Speed Heatsink Type Front Side Bus TDP Cache Socket
46703 Xeon 5080 3.73 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 1066MHz 130W 2X2M LGA 771
49315 Xeon 5080 3.73 GHz 2U Passive 1066MHz 130W 2X2M LGA 771
46704  Xeon 5070 3.46 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 1066Mhz 130W 2X2M LGA 771
46705 Xeon 5060 3.20 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 1066MHz 130W 2X2M LGA 771
47594 Xeon 5060 3.20 GHz 2U Passive 1066Mhz 130W 2X2M LGA 771
46706 Xeon 5050 3.00 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 667Mhz 95W 2X2M LGA 771
49312 Xeon 5050 3.00 GHz 2U Passive 667Mhz 95W 2X2M LGA 771
46707  Xeon 5040 2.83 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 667Mhz 95W 2X2M LGA 771
46708 Xeon 5030 2.66 GHz 1U Passive / 2U+ Active combination 667Mhz 95W 2X2M LGA 771
49313 Xeon 5030 2.66 GHz 2U Passive 667Mhz 95W 2X2M LGA 771

The Chipsets: Intel 5000 series
The chipset is the core logic of the motherboard and determines most of it capabilities.
  • S5000P (rack or pedestal chipset) is designed for mainstream Xeon 5000 processors in rackmounts or pedestal configurations.
  • S5000V (value chipset) is designed for cost effective, entry-level business servers.
  • S5000X (workstation chipset) is designed for the powerful combination of dual-processing and upgraded graphics with a x16 PCI Express slots.

The S5000 series chipsets supports only FB-DIMM memory modules (see below) and has a number of unique Intel features I/OAT Virtualization Technology and I/OAT.:

I/OAT (Input/Output Acceleration Technology): This Intel technology is designed to overcome bottlenecks in server IO that slow network performance especially among applications that share data and in the data center.

  • Network Flow Affinity – partitions the Network Stack Processing dynamically across multiple physical or logical CPUs. This allows CPU cycles to be allocated to the application for faster execution.
  • Asynchronous Low-Cost Copy – provides enhanced Direct Memory Access, allowing payload data copies from the NIC buffer in system memory to the application buffer with far fewer CPU cycles, returning the saved CPU cycles to productive application workloads.
  • Improved TCP/IP Protocol with Optimized TCP/IP Stack – implements separate packet data and control paths to optimize processing of the packet header from the packet payload. This and other stack-related enhancements reduce protocol processing cycles.
The Memory: Full Buffered DIMM
FB-DIMM is a new memory module technology that will greatly increase the speed and bandwidth available to server applications. FB-DIMM is know as Full Buffered DIMM and uses DDR2 memory chips connected by a special controller that translates data from a shared parallel interface into a serial (point-to-point) interface (bringing the DIMM slot pin-count down from 240 to 70 pins).

FB-DIMM memory comes in two speeds of FB-DIMM - 533MHz and 667MHz, and will soon scale to 800Mhz. The real performance gain results from the fact that up to 8 DIMM slots per channel as compared to 2 per channel as with current DDR2 modules so adding more module vastly improves bandwidth. A single module can be installed but after that is must be installed in pairs. Four modules across two branches is the minimum number of modules that will provide the maximum amount of performance.

For data integrity FB-DIMM also has built in ECC (error correcting code) and CRC (cyclic redundancy check).

ASI SKU

FBDIMM Supplier

DIMM Size

DIMM Speed

Manufacturer Part#

Comments

48787

Apacer

512M

533

78.97G96.404

 -

48789

Apacer

512M

667

78.97G99.404

 -

48788

Apacer

1G

533

78.07G96.405

 -

48790

Apacer

1G

667

78.07G99.405

 -

48791

Apacer