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• Our test system for this article employs the Asrock 939 Dual SATA 2 motherboard, which is packed with an abundance of upgrade-oriented features. It supports native 8X AGP, PCI Express x16, single- and dual-core Socket 939 processors with dual-channel DDR memory, and even socket AM2 CPUs and DDR2 memory with a daughter board, which we used for testing. While searching online auction sites, we have seen people spending $200 or more for a Socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 4800+. It’s one of the fastest Socket 939 dual-core CPUs produced, but the device also represents a lot of money considering you can buy an even faster AM2 Athlon X2 for well under $100. Those stuck with Socket 939 will need to search the Web long and hard for a well-priced dual-core for their motherboard, but our AM2 compatible motherboard gives us the convenience of opting for an AM2 CPU with very little trouble and expense. We chose the following CPUs to examine the effects they have on gaming performance. First is the AMD Athlon 64 4000+. It’s base don the San Diego design, runs at 2.4 GHz, sports 1 MB L2 cache, and is one of the faster single-core desktop CPUs made. The direct comparison dual-core to this device is the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.4 GHz 1 MB cache per core). Next, we chose the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 + dual-core, which has a 2.2 GHz Manchester architecture with 512 KB L2 cache per core. The single-core direct comparison would be the A64 3500+, so our A64 4000+ should have an advantage both in clock speed and L2 cache in single-threaded applications. And lastly, the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ AM2 dual-core is a 2.8 GHz Windsor design with 1 MB L2 cache per core. With these three CPUs, we should get a good look at single- versus dual-core in gaming and have a good idea about how CPU clock speeds affect game play. Tested Hardware Motherboard Asrock 939 Dual SATA 2 Bios vs. P 2.30 Asrock AM2 CPU Board RAM 2 GB (2 * 1 GB) dual-channel Adata DDR 400 (3-3-3-8) for Socket 939 2 GB (2 *1GB) dual-channel Corsair DDR2 533 (4-4-4-12) for Socket AM2 Video Cards XFX GeForce 8800 GS 384 MB PCI Express 580MHz core/ 700(1400) MHz memory HIS Radeon HD 4850 512 MB PCI Express 625 MHz core/ 993 (1986) MHz memory Sound Card Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s Power Supply Antec EarthWatts 430 W OS Windows XP Professional 32 bit Service Pack 2 Display Driver Nvidia ForceWare 174.74 AMD Catalyst 8.8 Benchmarks 3DMark05 v. 1.3.0 3DMark06 v. 1.1.0 F.E.A.R. v.1.08 Far Cry v.1.4 Need For Speed Carbon 1.4 Test Drive Unlimited 1.66A Oblivion 1.2 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 1.4 Crysis 1.2

• By Travis Meacham Maybe the gamer on your Christmas list is more of the creative type, and you'd like to get a gift that encourages their creative side and their love of games. If that's the case, the FPS Creator from Enteractive and The Game Creators could fit that bill perfectly. The FPS Creator is a program for PCs that allows users to create complete first-person shooter games without writing a single line of code. It uses a simple drag-and-drop interface consisting of a set of pre-fab objects - weapons, furniture and enemies - and a design space where game levels may be constructed. It takes a little getting used to, but with some patience and the manual's step-by-step instructions, your gamer will be off and creating in no time. FPS Creator is packed with potential, and tools to help you realize same. FPS Creator reminded me of the Neverwinter Nights Toolset that came with both NWN games. The interface is pretty similar, and both use an object-oriented, scripting-supported graphical interface. FPS Creator can only take a game-builder so far without doing some coding, though. While it can design levels, drop in pre-made enemies, configure some simple A.I. routines, and populate each level with weapons, objects and ammo, those who really want to get into the finer workings of game design, will have to learn some scripting. Thankfully, FPS Creator has an active forum attached to its website. It offers a multitude of tutorials on using this tool, scripting basics, and even entire scripts gamers can copy and paste to suit their needs. Bear in mind that these sorts of game-creation tools deliver only what builders put into them. Novices won't build something to rival Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but they might learn the basics of videogame design and level construction. Also, for anyone who's ever considered a career in game design, FPS Creator will give them a real taste of the work involved. This isn't a game unto itself, but it is an easy-to-use tool that introduces people to level design for first-person shooters. FPS Creator takes a little work, but creative types will find the results rewarding, and just might end up getting involved in a mod community when all is said and done.

• You don't need a super-fast CPU for a file server. However, it can be a good idea to have more than one processor. A single CPU can be kept busy doing parity calculations (needed for RAID 5), but if you decide to use RAID 6, there will be more parity calculations and you will need more CPU cycles. My first file server sports dual Pentium III 933 MHz processors. I can see 100% CPU usage during RAID array rebuilding, so I recommend something faster. My second file server uses dual Xeon 2.8 GHz CPUs with Hyper-Threading, and I have never seen both cores at 100% CPU usage. A 2 GHz dual-core AMD processor will probably be sufficient. Of course, newer processors tend to be more efficient, so if you are going with a more modern platform, you'll likely save energy as you enable better performance. If I were buying a new processor for a file server today, I would pick a slow, cheap AMD Phenom II. The reason is they can be had inexpensively, the motherboards for them are priced reasonably, they run cool, and the chipsets for the motherboards generally support ECC and Chipkill. UPS No matter what hardware you buy, you should have a UPS to deal with power failures. You can get by with a cheap one, but a higher-quality unit  will likely pay off in the long term. At a minimum, you will want to be able to shut down your file server in an orderly fashion should the power go out, which means a minimum of three to five minutes of power. Another nice feature of most UPSes is that they have a built-in surge protector. Hardware Costs Obviously, there can be a wide range of costs in building a file server depending on how much storage you want and what hardware you already own. Here are some typical costs and options: Case: $150 for a case similar to my Cooler Master Stacker 810. Look for the ability to hold lots of disksPower Supply: $50 for a 350 W or so 80 PLUS power supplyDisks: six 1 TB disks, roughly $80 eachOperating Drive: Free, assuming you can find a 10 GB drive lying aroundDVD Drive: $20Motherboard: $100 is plenty for a dual-Opteron motherboard with 2-4 GB of ECC memory, assuming you don’t have some spare hardware. You could start with a dual Pentium III motherboard, which is cheaper than dirt. I happen to have several gathering dust. Expect to pay $150 for a new motherboard with a warrantyMemory: $50CPU: $100SATA Controller Card: $100 The total cost is roughly $420-$620, plus $540 for the hard drives. This will make a 5 TB RAID 5 file server that can easily be expanded to eight or more drives. If you are building your own, I suspect you will have a fair number of the parts already lying around. This is cheaper than most NAS boxes that hold four or five disks and will be faster and far more flexible.