2geek : articles for geeks

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Beware of Microsoft's Vista

Not a single user running Windows XP will need Windows Vista. Nor should anyone ever desire it. It is by far the worst thing to happen to Microsoft's Windows line of Operating Systems, surpassing even the flaky transition to Windows 95. Every aspect of Microsoft's new flagship is a pitfall, including cost, licensing, security, performance, and yes, even functionality.

Vista might as well be a slap in the face of every Windows XP owner, from the casual user to hardcore power-users and geeks alike. It doesn't take long to digg below the surface of Microsoft's marketing hype and see Vista for what it truly is: a bloated, controlling operating system that is bent on restricting your freedoms as a user. For those individuals who simply buy the latest Microsoft operating regardless of what the critics say, it will create an almost ghoulish lockdown of rights restrictions.

DRM
Windows Vista will incorporate even more restrictive copy protection than any other retail operating system in history. So even though Vista will include additional media tools, they'll each make you the victim of unethical, forced restriction. In other words, DRM-enabled media will often be unplayable on a Windows Vista PC. This could affect those even with legitimate copies of DVDs, videos, pictures, music files, and television recordings. Visit http://www.lafkon.net/tc/ for an creative short film about digital rights restriction.

Compatibility
As of January 30th, Vista is now available in retail channels, but is shipped without much third-party support. Even with a retail version, both hardware and software support in Vista is seriously lacking. The high-end graphics architecture by nVidia known as SLI is not functional. The much more common 3D EAX sound architecture running through DirectSound, found in all newer Creative Labs sound cards, is not functional. To make matters worse, a good portion of existing software from major software developers will not work in Vista. So what will be guaranteed to work? Not much aside from Microsoft's Office product, and a few major titles from software developers who decide to support Vista.

Security
Picture Windows XP without any security updates, hotfixes, or service packs, with version 5.5 of Internet Explorer, and no other anti-malware or anti-virus software, power on at a public Internet Cafe, and connected to the Internet. Does that make you worry? If you're at all aprised of security threats, this might be enough to make you break out in a sweat. The sad truth: Vista is even less secure. To give Microsoft a little credit, any new commercial operating system at release will be susceptible to hacks and malware alike. Yet, in our computing age of advanced and prevalient malware, Vista is a prone target.

Licensing
Vista is a throwkback to restrictve software licensing of big companies such as IBM in 1980's (IBM is much more open-source oriented now). It is regression, not progress, that Vista pushes. Microsoft will only let each copy of Vista remain active through one major hardware upgrade. For example, at the current and future rate of technology, your copy of Vista will only be usable between one and two years. If you happen to upgrade your system board every six months, as many power users do, your copy will only work for one year. If you upgrade your PC once a year, then it will last only two years. Compare this to Windows XP that allows for an undetermined number of upgrades (possibly 10 according to earlier licensing policies). Ken Fisher from an Ars Technia article writes (quoting Microsoft):

"Validation will fail if the software detects a substantially different hardware configuration," the [Microsoft] spokesperson said. "At that point, the customer is able to use the one reassignment for the new device. If, after using its one reassignment right, a customer again exceeds the tolerance for updated components, the customer can purchase an additional license or seek remediation through Microsoft’s support services."

Hardware Requirments
Vista's hardware requirements are more demmanding than Windows XP with no additional functionality gain. The Aero interface in Windows Vista Ultimate edition will require 2GB of RAM to run smoothly, yet the basic version (which is almost identical to Windows XP), requires 1GB of RAM. Comapre that with Windows XP that requires 256MB of RAM to run, and 512MB of RAM to run smoothly.

Arguments for Adopting Vista
These are taken from Dan Warne's article, "10 reasons you should get Vista". I'll reply to each point, diving deeper into the subject, and hopefully explaining why the reasons to purchase Vista are extremely weak.

"1. UI built for the era of video and digital photography"

All operating systems are customizable, and even Windows XP has the ability to change its look with the right third-party software or your own tweaks. To make things worse, Vista will now show audio, video, image, and music files differently in its file explorer. This means the interface will change, causing a lot of frustration for power users who want to see all files and simply files. If you want this distinction (which Windows XP already does to an extent), then use a free third-party utility.

"2. Image-based install"

This is the only Vista selling point for me. Installing Vista is both simple and customizable (with pre-installing appliations into the installer) compared to Windows XP. In much the same way that nLite helped Windows XP users install with "slipstreamed" service packs and updates, Vista will now help power users and IT professionals with a cleaner and more customized installer.

"3. Up-to-date driver base and better driver handling on installation"

Updated ability to pull drivers for installation off of a USB flash drive. This is pretty much the same as point number two and should be lumped together as 'improved installer'.

"4. Desktop search and search folders built in"

Wothless. Absolutely worthless. As Windows versions progressed from 95 to XP, the Microsoft search interface has been pushing more towards a favorite term of mine, " 'wannabe' user friendly". Power users typically disable Windows XP's search interface with the annoying dog through TwekUI. Imagine how much worse it is in Vista. Microsoft, why give the Windows community something else it doesn't want? If you prefer the new search with the animated dog in Windows XP, compared with Windows 2000, then you're probably one to adorn your car's rear window with stuffed animals and this article isn't for you.

"5. Sleep mode that actually works."

Sleep mode is evil, at least in every other version of Windows. I've never trusted sleep mode, and there's absolutely no reason to use it unless you're running a laptop. The advantage of power conservation is not necessarily worth the risk of a crash and lost data. And if you use sleep mode without any applications open, then you're better off just shutting down the PC until you need it again. In other words, sleep mode is only of some importance for laptop users.

"6. Rock-solid laptop encryption"

Only in the Enterprise and Ultimate versions, Vista utilizes a more advanced form of full-drive encryption. This is useful for road warriors -- again, those who travel with laptops. Otherwise worthless on desktops. If you want true security on a laptop, Linux is a better operating system choice, specifically Fedora Core that incorporates solid encryption by default.

"7. Better file navigation"

This is similar to the first point. Again, third-party utilities will do this, possibly better than Vista. Otherwise, it is a fairly mundane point, where as a breadcrumb folder list isn't justification for an entire operating system upgrade.

"8. Inbuilt undelete [file revision tracking]"

Can you say performance and drive space hog? Although a very nice feature to have, this is best left for programmers with version control systems (CVS). If you need to have access to multiple revisions of the same file, the "Save As..." feature in most apps is invaluable. Functionality wise, It already exists. Would you rather let your operating system control your file histories, or would you prefer to take matters into your own hands? As with most of Vista's new features, this exact functionality is also available though third-party software.

"9. DirectX10"

This is the worst reason to upgrade. DirectX, used for games or any application that requires speedy graphics and audio, is currently at version 9 on Windows XP. It appears that Microsoft has no interest in releasing DirectX 10 for Windows XP. They want to lock their customers into a proprietary format and then refuse updates unless you shell out more money for Vista. Most game devleopers currently have no interest in developing games for DirectX 10 as there is no improvement in performance or reliability. DirectX 10 has a slightly better API for developers to use, but otherwise, there is little difference in benchmarking. The main difference is: Windows XP has DirectX 9.0c, and Windows Vista has DirectX 10 and later. Microsoft is trying to lock out its existing customers unless they upgrade to Vista. Fortunately, game developers and gamers aren't buying into Microsoft's empty hype.

"10. Face it, you have no choice"

You do have a choice. Keep Windows XP, MacOS X, or Linux. Don't purchase Vista: now there's a choice. If consumers realize what Microsoft is trying to do, and how their Vista marketing is just overinflated promises, the market won't go for Vista, and it will be an utter flop. Remember all the hype about Windows 95? History repeats itself, but only if you don't learn from it.

No one needs Vista, and better yet, no one will want Vista if they're informed consumers. Currently there is no functionality difference between Windows Vista and Windows XP. What is available both with Windows XP and free, third-party software will easily match the functionality of Windows Vista. Also, third-party companies have been producing "skin" software to mimic Vista's interface on Windows XP systems, even far before its public beta release. This software is a fraction of Vista's cost, typically between $20 and $40 US comapred with the $299 price tag of Vista Ultimate edition. The basic version of Vista will run $199 retail, but it lacks the fancy new interface known as Aero; it will look just like Windows XP in its basic interface.

References

"10 Reasons Not to Get Vista", Ashton Mills, Australian Personal Computer Magazine, 1/21/2007. http://apcmag.com/5049/10_reasons_not_to_get_vista
"10 Reasons You Should Get Vista", Dan Warne, Australian Personal Computer Magazine, 1/22/2007. http://apcmag.com/5082/10_reasons_you_should_get_vista
"A Reality Check for Vista", Owen Thomas, Business 2.0 Magazine, CNNMoney.com, 11/08/2006. http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/07/technology/Reality_check_Vista.biz2/
"Vista's Hardware Tolerance: One Significant Change Before Support Remediation", Ken Fisher, Ars Technica, 10/30/2006. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061030-8104.html

Posted By cipher_nemo At 5:22 PM

Follow-up to "Comcast in Chaos"

I originally wrote about my experiences in the article "Comcast in Chaos". This is a brief follow-up to my after thoughts on Comcast's broadband cable connection. I've taken a few months to thoroughly test the connection for performance and reliability.

The overall performance of Comcast broadband is somewhat lacking, but the sheer bandwidth is breathtaking. I've experienced anywhere from 3 to 5 Mbps downstream, equating to a peak of around 600 KB/second downloads, but usually tapering down to 3 or 4 hundred after a few seconds. These are downloads from a site with far greater , uncapped bandwidth purely for broadband testing. Compare this to the marketed 1.5 Mbps downstream speed of DSL, which rarely goes above 100 KB/second for downloads. The upstream bandwidth is also impressive, ranging from 70 KB/second to a peak of 150 KB/second.

The latency is even better to some extent. It is not uncommon for me to see double-digit millisecond lag between my PC and another within the United States. The lowest I've ever seen was latency in the 40ms range. Yet, on average, this number can rise during peak hours and the weekend, sometimes to 1 or 2 hundred milliseconds. To make matters worse, it can literally crumble to the point of dropping packets. It is not frequent, but I've experience nights where packet loss was noticeable and utterly annoying.

A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, at around 10pm, my Comcast broadband connection experienced a 14% packet loss. This is completely unacceptable, let alone insanely high. Even browsing the web was a challenging task. This continued until mid-day of Sunday. My guess is that Comcast had a piece of hardware (switch, bridge, router, etc.) between me and the world that was failing. Traffic alone on a network is typically not enough to cause packet loss, let alone packet loss on this scale. Since then, I've seen moments where my Comcast connection experiences 90 to 100% packet loss for a couple of seconds (ie: connection is literally broken for a short period of time). Although this equates to merely a delay for web browsing, it is an all-out show stopper for most online games.

I'm glad I still have access to a DSL connection so that I can switch back and forth between the two during this 'rough spots' of Comcast service. DSL has been extremely reliable for my household, even if it is slower for downloading. At my now $40/month fee, keeping Comcast is a decision I have not solidified yet.

Posted By cipher_nemo At 12:40 PM

Friday, January 05, 2007

PC Over-clocking is Now an Encouraged Endeavor

The PC market is finally listening to its consumers and taking action to meet our gaming/geek demand for over-clocking.

Not too long ago, AMD was the performance leader for over-clocking and PC gaming. Die-hard gamers more often opted for an AMD CPU for their PC builds between 2004 and 2006. Ever since Summer/Fall of 2006, Intel has earned the title of performance leader for gaming.

This new pole position breathes life into a company whose only claim to the market was reliability and floating-point calculation performance. This is the perfect market solution for business. Unfortunately, most gamers care mainly about graphics performance and heat build-up in regards to over-clocking stability.

In the early days of gaming, processors were only over-clocked via a hardware hack, incorrect jumper settings, or replacement of a motherboard's timing crystal. Now we're able to tweak all sorts of speeds using the PC's BIOS. Not only can we now over-clock on the fly, we can also over-clock without fear of damaging hardware. All new CPUs tout built-in thermal protection that will either throttle-down processing cycles or adjust clock frequencies on the fly. Also, many CPUs that are over-clocked too far will become unstable and force a system reboot before any hardware damage can occur.

This was a great boon for the gaming market in the last few years, but the concept was contained specifically within the CPU. Recently, motherboard and chipset manufacturers have been producing units that follow in the footsteps of AMD and Intel. For their move to both encourage and support consumers in over-clocking their PC, I'd like to call this trend "OC-friendly" (as in over-clocking friendly).

I sought out one motherboard as the best example of this industry shift. As shown in the photo above, I found EVGA's newest 680i-based motherboard to be one of two best gaming rig motherboards sold today. Asus's Striker motherboard would be my second pick since it offers very similar features. Unfortunately, the Striker is approximately $140 (US) more expensive than EVGA's offering. Also, the Striker (Striker Extreme) will not make use of DDR2-1200 memory modules as effectively as EVGA's motherboard.

Motherboard selected: EVGA nForce 680i SLI

Next, a worthy Intel Core 2 CPU must be paired with EVGA's motherboard to make the best use of over-clocking features. Unless a water or phase change cooling system is used, over-clocking a top-end Core 2 processor isn't the best solution to a gaming rig. Gamers typically do not have unlimited funds to throw at the latest CPU, but we do know where to draw a line in the market. The lower end Core 2 processors, such as the E6300 and E6400 have great over-clocking potential for air-cooled systems, while the E6600 and E6700 builds more heat before reaching similar over-clocking ratios.

Intel's Conroe cores for the Core 2 line are based upon a 65nm scale, with shorter pipelines and lower wattage requirements than previous Prescott, Cedar Mill, Smithfield, and Presler cores. The decreased lag in moving data through the processor, coupled with the lower wattage requirements yields a much cooler CPU that greatly benefits from over-clocking. The E6xxx series is exactly the same, aside from L2 cache size and each model's preset, locked clock multipliers. The E6300 and E6400 have 2MB L2 caches, while the E6600 and E6700 have 4MB L2 caches. The X6800 Conroe XE (Core 2 Extreme Edition) has 4MB of L2 and a slightly higher speed, but has an unlocked clock multiplier.

Anytime a current CPU is over-clocked to the 3GHz mark (specifically 3.1x GHz and above), the heat build-up curve takes a sharp upward turn until it begins to grow almost exponentially around 5 GHz. Even on nitrogen cooling and with the latest CPU, professional over-clockers haven't been able to get much past 5.7GHz. Note that this isn't a realistically stable speed.

With all of this taken into consideration, I selected the E6400 CPU to test. From my research, it is an excellent value for its over-clocking potential and proposed solid stability while being cooled by air. Of course I wanted to see how well the EVGA 680i motherboard and Core 2 CPU did first hand. I was very impressed with the combination of these two after running through an assortment of over-clocking tests. I was lucky to get a newer E6400 CPU (a unit from the week 29 production run), which was certainly cable of over-clocked speeds reaching 3.2GHz while being relatively stable.

CPU selected: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz E6400

Other than selecting memory for this PC, the next step is to select a third-party CPU cooler. No serious over-clocker would be satisfied with the Intel stock cooler. For whatever reason (most likely financial), Intel hasn't changed the design of its stock CPU cooler for the entire life of the LGA-775 socket. This means Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, and Core 2 processors each use the identical Intel socket 775 stock cooler. What a shame; each processor has a very different heat profile.

Zalman is noted for their top-notch air-cooling devices, but I've made a decision to never pay more for a third-party CPU cooler than the price difference of the next model up in CPUs. Unfortunately, Zalman coolers can easily be much more expensive than the price difference between lower-end Core 2 processor models. Still, this CPU will need a quality cooler in order to dissipate the extra heat generated from over-clocking.

After revisiting the cooling performance records of my previous PC builds, I noticed how well Arctic Cooling's Freezer did on a 478 socket PC (AC Freezer 4 model). The older Freezer 4 allowed a 2.4 GHz Northwood core Pentium 4 to overclock to a stable 3.1 GHz with a voltage increase. This over-clock still allowed the CPU to near its maximum heat threshold for extended torture tests. At stock voltage, the Northwood was stable up to 2.89 GHz while reaching an even 50 degrees Celsius under the load of a prolonged test. Compared with other inexpensive CPU cooler brands, the AC Freezer came out on top. Based upon that data, I decided to test with the newer AC Freezer 7 Pro for my Core 2.

CPU Cooler selected: AC Freezer 7 Pro

At this point, I am just about running out of funds for this project, so I am going to throw in a pair of memory modules I already own. This is a Kingston HyperX DDR2-533, dual-channel, 1GB kit, that is the lowest end RAM this motherboard will accept. The EVGA 680i will easily make use of memory modules up to 1200 MHz, so when I'm ready to install 1 or 2GB of DDR2-1200, I'll post a follow-up review.

Memory selected: Kingston HyperX DDR2-533 dual-channel 1GB kit

This build is installed in a Thermaltake Matrix all aluminum case, with one 120mm intake fan and one 120mm exhaust fan. The AC Freezer 7 Pro is installed to move air from the from of the PC, over the cooling fins, and out the back through the exhaust fan. I am powering this system with an Enermax Liberty 500W dual 12V rail, SLI-ready power supply. It can provide a maximum of 32 amps of 12V power (384W for 12V). The power supply should give plenty of breathing room for the EVGA 680i motherboard's over-clocking, even in combination with two PCI-E video cards in SLI mode.

Case selected: Thermaltake Matrix aluminum
PSU selected: Enermax Liberty 500W SLI-ready

The E6400 on the AC Freezer 7 Pro idled just a few degrees Celsius above room temperature at stock speed of 2.13GHz with a 1066 MHz bus speed (266 MHz FSB x 4) -- quite an impressive feat alone. Under full load for an hour (using Prime95), the temps rose to the mid 40's. I used the stock AC Freezer heatsink compound, and I didn't polish the CPU or the CPU cooler's contact surface. In other words, this is a stock install of the CPU and cooler. I didn't start this test for just stock speed temps... let's see what it can do overclocked.

I certainly was able to over-clock the bus speed until the E6400 hit roughly 3.2GHz, but the two cores were nearing their thermal design limits at this point. It is certainly viable to disable CPU thermal protection (either clock multiplier throttling, process cycle throttling, or both) with the EVGA 680i motherboard and run the process past thermal design limits, but I wouldn't recommend it. Running past design limits for extended periods of time is a surefire way to shorten the processor's life dramatically. Also, this configuration has a significant impact on stability. With hot temps, a CPU's signals can accidentally jump traces, causing errors.

I kept downgrading the bus speed until I reached a very stable point without compromising too much performance. At a bus speed of 1408 MHz (352 MHs FSB x 4), the CPU itself is running just over 2.8 GHz (an over-clock yeilding 132% of stock speed at an exact 2.816 GHz speed) . This configuration kept the E6400 idling at 42 degrees Celsius, with a load temperature of 52 degrees Celsius after 1 hour of running two copies of Prime95's maximum heat torture test. I then decided to over-clock the memory to roughly match the FSB, resulting in a 14/11 FSB to memory bus speed ratio before the memory modules became unstable. While I was at it, I bumped the PCI-E bus from 100 to 120 MHz. Overclocking the PCI-E bus is risky for SATA drives since it affects them as well. Since the EVGA 680i motherboard has 48 PCI-Express lanes, it won't help performance unless all lanes are utilized. Therefore, I moved it back to the stock speed even though it was stable at 120MHz. After more than 6 hours of running the torture test, the E6400 finally peaked at 56 degrees Celsius. I was very happy with this result, because a good over-clock temp for the Core 2 E6xx series is 55 degrees Celsius under load.

Time to run 3DMark on this PC to get a reading of the CPU and chipset performance. I am using 3DMark 2005 since the 2006 version requires 256MB of video memory and not all of my PC builds have 256MB of video memory. However, I am testing this with a single BFG 7600GT OC 256MB video card. I ran complete GPU and CPU tests using 1280x1024 resolution, max anti-alias sampling (4x), and all other settings as default. The CPU scored 8,003 marks. The two CPU tests gave 4.9 and 5.8 FPS respectively. Compare this to 4,081 marks of one of my earlier PC builds with a Pentium 4 Prescott 3.0 GHz CPU at stock speed.

Benchmarking software: FutureMark 3DMark 2005
System Stability Test software: Prime95 24.14
System Information software: CPU-z 1.34.1
System Monitoring software: SpeedFan 4.28

Here's the Prime95 Benchmark test results:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
CPU speed: 2815.99 MHz
CPU features: RDTSC, CMOV, Prefetch, MMX, SSE, SSE2
L1 cache size: 32 KB
L2 cache size: 2048 KB
L1 cache line size: 64 bytes
L2 cache line size: 64 bytes
Prime95 32-bit version 24.14, RdtscTiming=1
Best time for 512K FFT length: 9.982 ms.
Best time for 640K FFT length: 13.546 ms.
Best time for 768K FFT length: 16.735 ms.
Best time for 896K FFT length: 19.923 ms.
Best time for 1024K FFT length: 23.757 ms.
Best time for 1280K FFT length: 28.232 ms.
Best time for 1536K FFT length: 34.494 ms.
Best time for 1792K FFT length: 41.008 ms.
Best time for 2048K FFT length: 45.930 ms.
Best time for 2560K FFT length: 60.172 ms.
Best time for 3072K FFT length: 74.389 ms.
Best time for 3584K FFT length: 88.502 ms.
Best time for 4096K FFT length: 100.140 ms.
Best time for 58 bit trial factors: 3.985 ms.
Best time for 59 bit trial factors: 3.960 ms.
Best time for 60 bit trial factors: 3.980 ms.
Best time for 61 bit trial factors: 3.970 ms.
Best time for 62 bit trial factors: 6.353 ms.
Best time for 63 bit trial factors: 6.338 ms.
Best time for 64 bit trial factors: 6.077 ms.
Best time for 65 bit trial factors: 6.054 ms.
Best time for 66 bit trial factors: 6.029 ms.
Best time for 67 bit trial factors: 6.030 ms.

Prime95 torture test screen capture of over-clocked E6400 (click for larger size):

Posted By cipher_nemo At 4:00 PM