More Ultimate Than Ever

Some of the most dramatic advances in this revision of the Ultimate PC are indicative of what the future holds for system design. The motherboard, for example, features a Serial ATA controller that enables software RAID. It also features a mezzanine bus to support its Gigabit Ethernet port at near wire speed, overcoming the PCI bus bottleneck that cuts Gigabit speed in half. The motherboard also supports the processor's 800MHz front-side bus, up from the 533MHz bus on the last Ultimate PC. The bus will give the Pentium 4 architecture headroom for growth, according to Test Center tests.

Speaking of standards, this was the first Ultimate PC to feature an IDE hard drive. That is because SCSI drives are no longer the capacity leaders. A SCSI drive was also included in the Ultimate PC, however, for its performance, which is still greater than IDE or Serial ATA--at least for the short term.

Even the mouse had a key innovation that may become more popular: an inertial gyroscope. While the wireless mouse can be used on a desk surface like any optical unit, it can be picked up and moved around in space to move the cursor. It sounds odd but is very easy even for nontechnical people to master and is great for presentations.

Pressure in the marketplace in causing everyone to seek out market-differentiating solutions. None stands out more, or has become more trendy, than an interesting case design. The Test Center believes that form factor shifts and unique case designs will remain popular for the high-end techie crowd from this point forward. Riding that trend, the Ultimate PC case had many eye-catching features in addition to practical ones.

Both the sound and video systems are signs of the digital convergence trend. The video card features a TV tuner, PVR capability, video capture and an RF remote for cursor and program control. The sound subsystem is 7.1-channel Dolby and THX-certified and powers a high-quality 4.1 surround-sound speaker system.

CD/DVD DRIVE Sony DRU-500AX Dual RW/DVD drive Price: $349 Sony Electronics San Jose, Calif. (408) 432-1600, (800) 352-SONY (7669) www.storagebysony.com The first drive to support both the plus and minus reading, writing and rewriting standards, the Sony DRU-500AX can be installed in a system and support any legacy media a company may have. In stress tests, the drive was able to play back a 2-Gbyte video file in less than 10 minutes without dropping frames for almost all writeable DVD media.

DISPLAY SyncMaster 241MP Price: $7,299 Samsung Electronics America Irvine, Calif. (949) 975-7000, (800) SAMSUNG www.samsungusa.com/monitor We're not sure if it's a high-definition flat panel in a TV or an HDTV in a flat panel, but we're positive Samsung's SyncMaster 241MP is the ultimate presentation powerhouse. The 24-inch 16:10 ratio display features a built-in cable TV tuner, an infrared remote, two component-video inputs, S-video and composite-video inputs, multiple audio inputs, speakers and picture-in-picture capability.

FLOPPY DRIVE D359M3D 1.44 Floppy Disk Drive Price: $15 Mitsumi Electronics (972) 550-7300, (800) MITSUMI www.mitsumi.com While Test Center engineers have seen floppy drives fail, in all of the systems evaluated we've never seen a Mitsumi floppy drive fail. Because of such reliability, Mitsumi drives are standard in the Test Center's test beds, as well as in the Ultimate PC.

HARD DISK/CAPACITY Maxtor 7Y250 MaXLine Plus II Price: $415 (ESP) Maxtor Milpitas, Calif. (408) 894-5000; 800-2-MAXTOR www.maxtor.com Featuring a healthy 250 Gbytes of storage, the Maxtor 7Y250 is one of the most roomy drives on the planet. The IDE drive provides more space than anything offered in SCSI or Serial ATA form. With regard to other IDE drives offering 250 Gbytes, the Maxtor drive proved the better performer in testing.

HARD DISK/PERFORMANCE Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 73GB Price: $806 Seagate Technology Scotts Valley, Calif. (405) 936-1234, (800) SEAGATE www.seagate.com According to Test Center benchmarks, the Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 73-Gbyte drive delivers excellent performance for everything from streamed media to database access. It provides high performance for single-user and multiuser applications whether data is contiguous or spread out around the drive.

KEYBOARD Logitech Cordless MXTM Duo Price: $100 Logitech Fremont, Calif. (510) 795-8500, (800) 231-7717 www.logitech.com The Cordless Elite Keyboard (which comes bundled with a mouse as part of the Cordless Duo MX from Logitech) features a comfortable zero tilt design, good detente for touch typing and special-purpose multimedia keys plus a volume-control wheel. Programmable one-touch-access keys and a mouse scroll wheel are also featured.

MEMORY MODULES Kingston HyperX 512MB Module Price: $150 each Kingston Technology Fountain Valley, Calif. (800) 337-8410 www.kingston.com Stable and consistent performance has made Kingston memory modules a standard component in the CRN Test Center's test fixtures. Four 512-Mbyte 400MHz DDR modules were used for a total of 2 Gbytes of memory.

MOTHERBOARD Inetl Desktop Board D875PBZ Price: $175 Intel Santa Clara, Calif. (408) 765-8080, (800) 538-3373 (presale info) www.intel.com The Intel desktop board D875PBZ with an 800MHz system bus and dual-channel memory support leave the Pentium platform plenty of headroom for future performance advances. An onboard Gigabit adapter is supported by a mezzanine bus that overcomes the PCI bus bottleneck and delivers true wire speed performance. Two Serial ATA connections are present and support software RAID.

MOUSE Ultra Professional Optical Mouse Price: $179 Gyration Saratoga, Calif. (408) 255-3016, (800) 316-5432 www.gyration.com The Gyration Ultra Professional Optical Mouse can be used on a desktop like any cordless optical mouse, or operated while held aloft thanks to a built-in gyroscope. The unit requires no special drivers and features two rechargeable battery packs, two charging cradles (one for the mouse, the other for the second rechargeable battery pack) and a battery pack for standard AA cells. The unit is great for everyday applications, presentations and boardroom media centers.

NETWORK-INTERFACE CARD GA302T 32-Bit PCI Copper Gigabit Adapter Price: $60 Netgear Santa Clara, Calif. (408) 907-8000, (888) 305-7440 www.netgear.com Achieving the highest throughput of a 32-bit PCI card according to Test Center tests, the Netgear GA302T 32-bit PCI Copper Gigabit Adapter features legacy fallback and automatic crossover detection. The unit's throughput is only limited by the PCI bus.

POWER SUPPLY JUTX7400 Price: $229 Jageson Technology Hong Kong (732) 878-6999, (00852) 2626-1955 www.jageson.com The JUTX7400 is a combination power source and UPS that fits inside the system cabinet. If power fails, the unit keeps the PC and monitor alive until a safe automatic shutdown is completed.

PROCESSOR Pentium 4 Processor at 3GHz with hyperthreading technology Price: $417 each (for 1,000 units) Intel Santa Clara, Calif. (408) 765-8080, (800) 538-3373 www.intel.com The Ultimate PC is based on an Intel Pentium 4 processor at 3GHz with an 800MHz bus. The enhanced bus gives the processor a boost over its predecessor at the same clock speed, according to Test Center benchmarks. The processor features hyperthreading technology to process multiple threads side by side. A deep-pipeline and advanced branch prediction also provide performance boosts.

SCSI HBA Adaptec SCSI Card 29160N Price: $329 Adaptec Milpitas, Calif. (408) 957-2550, (800) 442-7274 www.adaptec.com A staple of the Test Center's test fixtures, Adaptec SCSI cards have a proven track record of stability and compatibility. The 29160N pumps information at a data-thrashing 160 MBps. Tests have shown the card outperforms other 32-bit SCSI cards in this class.

SOUND SYSTEM Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX Price: $250 Creative Labs Milpitas, Calif. (800) 998-1000 www.creative.com The Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX brings THX-certified 6.1 Dolby Digital EX surround sound to the desktop. Its106 dB SNR, six-channel recording with 24-bit/96KHz sampling makes it worthy of even an audio production system. Support for 24-bit/192KHz DVD audio playback and infrared remote make it suitable for boardroom presentation systems. Coaxial, optical and firewire ports as well as volume controls accessible from an external I/O module round out the system.

SPEAKER SYSTEM EV SonicXS 4.1 Price: $299.99 Telex Communications Burnsville, Minn. (952) 884-4051, (800) 328-3771 www.hardcoremultimedia.com Testing with hard rock, DVD movies, classical music and sound effects show the EV SonicXS 4.1 speaker system produces audio with incredible detail. The 4.1 system offers plenty of power as well.

SYSTEM CABINET PlusView 1000 AMG Price: $99 Antec Fremont, Calif. (510) 770-1200 www.antec-inc.com The Antec PlusView 1000 AMG has a sideview panel to display a user's handiwork. FireWire and USB jacks on the front are functional and distinctive. The unit's 10 drive bays (two sections of which are removable) allow for extensive expandability. Four fans, including one for a set of drives, provide plenty of cooling. The drives and side panel are lockable, but the side panel can alternately be opened by activating a latch. All edges are double folded for scrape-free servicing.

VIDEO SYSTEM All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro 128 MB DDR Price: $399 ATI Technologies Markham, Ontario (905) 882-2600 www.ati.com The All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro and its bundled software are more than a video solution--they are video-production and data-gathering tools. Features include broadcast-cable, S-video and composite-video and inputs; live-video pause; closed-caption recording; and video capture (manual, timed or caption-keyword triggering). The unit can also drive DVI, XU-VGA, consumer video and HDTV displays. The RF remote controls the bundled software but can operate any other program because it also acts as a mouse.