Related articles

• Hardware CPU AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 Motherboard Asus A8N Deluxe Memory 2 GB Corsair DDR550 - 4 x 512 MB HDD 2 x Western Digital Raptors 74 GB in RAID 0; 1 x Hitachi 400 GB DVD 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive, 16x DVD-ROM Video Rerfrence Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX PCI-E 256 MB DDR3 Sound Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Power Supply Antec True 500W OS Windows XP Pro SP2 The M6 is built around the AMD FX-57 on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard. With four sticks of 512 MB Corsair DDR PC3200XL, this is a foundation for today's high-end systems. Because the system utilizes SLI, an Antec True 550w power supply was installed to ensure that sufficient power would be available at all times. And of course, no "real" gaming system would be complete without a high quality sound card: ABS includes a Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS. ABS built our system in RAID-0 with 2x 74 GB Western Digital Raptors. For backup, there is a 7200rpm SATA Hitachi 400 GB drive. Let's just say that storage is not an issue in this system. Multiple media card slots are available on the front of the case for Compact Flash, Microdrive, SD, Smart Media and Memory Stick along with the floppy drive - all of which are running on USB2.0. Additionally, a DVD-ROM drive and a dual-layer DVD burner all in matching black from the case are included. The memory set from ABS boot at 333 MHz instead of the 400 MHz it could start with. The RAID array had also been damaged during the shipping process. We contacted ABS support and were asked to leave a telephone number to be called back at. We rebuilt the array and used the disc with the restore image to fully repair the system. While waiting for our call back, we switched the system to 400 MHz to run all of our tests.

• Digital video is going to take A LOT of computing horsepower. While you can make movies on a mediocre computer, it will take you a LONG time to edit and render the video - so long that it might be considered cruel and inhuman punishment. If you already have a powerful computer, that's great, but for the rest of you... here is what I suggest.   CPU If you can afford it, buy the meanest and fastest CPUs. These would be the Pentium 4 3.0 GHz and above, or the Athlon 64s 3000+ and above. If you just won the lottery then the P4 Extreme Edition or the Athlon FX CPUs are great choices.   RAM Get at least one Gigabyte of the fastest memory your motherboard can use. You can never have too much memory when playing around with digital video. You can squeeze by with 512 MB, but you won't be able to run as many programs at the same time.   Hard Drives Buy the fastest and biggest drives you can afford. Fast hard drives with at least a 7200-RPM spin rate are essential for smooth video capture and playback. Digital video will also eat up a lot of space. Hard drive prices are dirt cheap these days, so there should be no excuse to not get 200 GB+ sized hard drives. Get two hard drives for your PC. Editing your video files will be MUCH faster when you are reading from one drive, while writing to the other drive. Serious video production with single hard drives is NOT recommended, as the drive has to continuously switch from read to write modes.   DVD Burner Not really a necessity, but eventually you will want to give the videos to your friends and family. CDs, with their 700 MB of space, may not be able to hold your large video files. DVDs will be able to hold 4.7 GB, or about seven times more than a CD. In addition, you can archive your raw video files to DVD, thereby freeing up space on your hard drive.   External Drive Just like the DVD burner, the external drive is also not a necessity, but it's great to have for backups. Hard drives do die, and it would be a shame to lose hours of work. Regular backups to another drive can avoid this. Laptop Should you buy a laptop? If you plan on editing on the go, then the answer is yes. I personally always travel with my laptop, because I have to edit and post my videos on the road. The single hard drive of a laptop will make editing/rendering much slower than on a comparable desktop. Buy a laptop that can do better than 1024 x 768 resolution. Video editing tools need the extra space. You can also position multiple programs around the screen easier.

• Soltek's QBic barebone system competes directly with the well-known XPC series from Shuttle and is available in two different configurations: the smaller version, the EQ 2000, and the model we tested, the EQ3000, with a larger case that falls just short of an ATX form factor mini tower. The larger model is the better choice, as its larger internal volume means that heat build-up from internal components is less of a problem. It also has the advantage over the old series of Shuttle PCs, which became relatively hot in our lab test. Soltek provides a case fan for cooling, although it generates a lot of noise in combination with the other four fans (CPU, chipset, power supply and optional GeForce 4 Ti 4600 graphics card). Activating "silent mode" in the BIOS does little to help. All things considered, they develop less heat than the old Shuttle systems, but at the expense of higher noise levels. The quality of workmanship for the Soltek system is not quite as high as that of the well-known Shuttle systems. On our machine, this was reflected in the sticking reset button and the cheap looking power switch. Even the mirror front panel is not everyone's cup of tea, as dust is attracted electrostatically and fingerprints can easily spoil the pristine appearance. The most impressive thing about the Soltek PC was its performance. Fitted with a 3 GHz P4, 512 MB DDR333 and a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 graphics card, it delivers higher performance than most of today's ready-built systems. The benchmark results place the Soltek and the Shuttle SB51G (also with Intel 845GE chipset) neck and neck. The PC buyer must ultimately decide what additional hardware to install. We decided from the outset to go for the ultimate configuration. It is worth pointing out here that NVIDIA's latest creation, the GeForce FX family, does not work with the Soltek system because there is no free PCI slot available to the left of the AGP slot. We would strongly advise against fitting two hard disks close together. The heat generated by fast 7200-rpm hard drives is almost certain to cause problems. The revolution has already started. In the medium term, conventional desktop systems will disappear from the market, to be replaced by high-performance laptops and mini systems with new form factors. Already in the pipeline: the new mini system from Jetway is already in our labs in Munich. Soltek is now entering the market that Shuttle previously had all to itself. But competition is good for consumers, and a wider range of available products will benefit the PC buyer.