Ultimate PCs (part two): £400 speakers, keyboards with fans and a triple-screen PC

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

This month’s Ultimate PC Labs has been an exercise in excess, as Monday’s picture preview demonstrated, and today’s selection of pictures doesn’t let the side down.

They’re from some of the systems not featured in our first post, and come with a range of features designed to whet appetites and empty wallets. All have at least two graphics cards, some have bespoke water-cooling systems, and there’s even one that’s been designed with input from BMW. And that’s before we’ve got to keyboards that have their own cooling fans. (more…)

Ultimate PCs (part one): water-cooling, dual-graphics and more

Monday, August 8th, 2011

It’s been two years since an Ultimate PC group test found its way into the pages of PC Pro, and this year’s selection showed exactly what we’ve been missing. Seven systems arrived to fight for the title and, with every single one boasting an overclocked processor and dual graphics, we knew we were in for a fierce battle before we’d even unpacked.

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It takes more than a new processor to fix the Windows tablet

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Intel’s “Oak Trail” Atom processor refresh has finally arrived, claiming to reduce heat and power consumption enough to power the next wave of tablets. On those promises it appears to deliver, with the Motion CL900 lasting almost eight hours on one charge – despite the bloat of Windows 7.

But if tablet manufacturers think this is the turning point for the Windows tablet – which, judging by the press releases arriving in my inbox, they do – they’re missing the mark by a mile. Yes, Oak Trail lowers the TDP to 3W to better suit handheld devices. But in doing so it takes a step backwards. (more…)

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 review: first look

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

It’s already made its stateside debut, but over in good ol’ Blighty Lenovo has finally shown off its latest business ultraportable, the 13.3in ThinkPad X1.

From the off, it’s an unmistakeably classic ThinkPad. A sea of smooth matte black – magnesium alloy top and bottom – stretches all around, interrupted only by the occasional flash of red. It’s seriously slim, too, measuring just 17mm thick and adding a claimed 1.7kg to your laptop bag.

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HP Pavilion dv6 and Pavilion dv7 review: first look

Monday, May 16th, 2011

It’s not often we get too excited about mid-range laptops, but HP’s makeover of its Pavilion dv6 and dv7 series laptops has just made our hearts skip a beat. With its all-new brushed aluminium chassis and a selection of Sandy Bridge processors, the Pavilion takes more than a little inspiration from HP’s Envy series.

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Apple MacBook Pro 13in: where’s the Turbo Boost?

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

The Apple MacBook Pro 13in is a glorious laptop. It’s thin and light, gorgeous both to look at and to use, and it packs no small amount of power in its tiny chassis. Yet our tests have uncovered a performance issue that will affect every user.

We ran our new Real World Benchmarks on the top-end model, with a dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M processor, 4GB of DDR3 and a 500GB hard disk. It’s a very fast laptop for its size, as a final score of 0.70 shows – that’s only around 20% slower than the top-end quad-core 17in model. Yet it’s not quite as fast as it should be. (more…)

Intel Thunderbolt FAQ

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Intel’s Light Peak technology has made a surprise early appearance in Apple’s MacBook Pros, under the new name Thunderbolt. But those leaving the Apple store with a shiny new laptop will find it’s not as simple as plugging in and getting started. We run through the facts.

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How to dodge the Intel Sandy Bridge recall

Friday, February 4th, 2011

The past days have seen some of the world’s biggest component manufacturers scrambling to find solutions to Intel’s Sandy Bridge recall. The situation is becoming clearer, with most deciding to offer customers free swaps when the revised P67 and H67 boards begin appearing in April.

For now you can work around the issue by simply plugging all hard disks and optical drives into the unaffected SATA 6Gb/s ports on your motherboard. But Asus and Gigabyte are aware not everyone knows how to do that, so both have come up with ways to educate less tech-savvy consumers.

Gigabyte is offering its customers a small utility (left) to detect if a motherboard is faulty: simply download the Gigabyte 6 Series SATA Check tool and you’ll be told if you’re using the affected ports, with guidance as to which ports to use instead.

Asus has come up with a more basic solution, sending us the above close-up photo to illustrate exactly which ports could prove problematic. As you can see, Intel-controlled SATA 6Gb/s sockets are safe to use, as are the SATA 6Gb/s ports controlled by the third-party Marvell chip by which Asus adds more ports to its boards. Only the four SATA 3Gb/s ports are faulty.

Both are clear and simple methods of helping those who may be perplexed by all the talk of SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 6Gb/s. If you’re using a motherboard made by MSI, Intel or anyone else, these precise solutions won’t apply, but if you dig out your motherboard manual and use the photo above for guidance, you should be able to figure it out quite easily.

The real story behind Intel’s Sandy Bridge woes

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

In the space of 24 hours, Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors have lost some of their sheen, after the firm announced a recall of the Series 6 chipsets used by all Sandy Bridge processors.

The cause, it said, was a problem with the SATA controller which over time, if left unchecked, would “potentially impact the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices”.

Since Intel’s been proudly boasting that its new chipsets are its first to support SATA 6Gb/s, that’s a bit of an embarrassment – but what’s actually gone wrong? (more…)

Intel AppUp vs Mac App Store

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

You may think that Apple beat the PC world to the punch when it comes to desktop app stores, with the January launch of the Mac App Store. However, Intel actually unveiled its own AppUp store last year, although you’d be forgiven for missing its less dramatic arrival.

To help raise the Intel app platform’s profile, PC World and Currys are giving away free copies of Angry Birds. As I own the lovely but limited HTC Wildfire, I’m yet to play the game, so figured now’s my chance — and when deputy editor Barry Collins looks over at my screen and sees me faffing about with furious cartoon birds, I can genuinely say it’s for a news story.

But it wasn’t to be.

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