<p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">Technology often seems to be running along at a breakneck pace; many people are still trying to find good uses for quad-core Core 2 processors, and yet already those are yesterday's news. Every year, users can count on new CPUs, GPUs, and other hardware to make their once great computer system seem old and outdated. Thankfully, there are areas where progress occurs at a more sedate pace. Yes, once again it's time to talk about displays.</font></p> <p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">That's not to say that displays haven't changed a lot over the years; besides lower prices, we have seen some technological innovations particularly in the LCD arena. Five years ago, the best you could hope for was pixel response times that weren't atrocious. These days, numerous displays boast 2ms response times, and while the reality may be that typical response times are quite a bit higher, at least that's one area where technology has reached the point that you don't need to worry about it too much anymore.</font></p> <p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">BenQ is a company that has been around for a while in one form or another. Originally established in 1984, the BenQ name officially came into existence in 2001, when they separated from Acer. While they do make other peripherals (Joybook laptops, optical drives, digital cameras, phones, and even a mobile Internet device), BenQ is best known among computer users for their displays and projectors.</font></p> <p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">Their latest &quot;innovation&quot; is that they are leaving behind 16:10 aspect ratios and instead going with 16:9 FullHD/1080P displays (at least for some models). Why is that important? Honestly, if all you ever do on your PC is surf the web, play games, and do office work there's a very good chance you will appreciate the difference. Where this is useful is in support for native HDTV resolutions. Instead of a vertically stretched image filling your 16:10 display or black bars on the top and bottom, you can watch HD content at its normal aspect ratio and have it fill the whole display. This is supposed to help with watching the latest Blu-ray movies, but there's just one small problem: a lot of HD content doesn't use a 16:9 (1.78) aspect ratio. Instead, many DVDs and Blu-ray movies now use a 2.39 AR, so you still end up with black bars on the top and bottom.</font></p> <p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">Certainly there is an amount of marketing involved in promoting FullHD/1080P LCDs, but 16:9 video content does exist (and gaming content as well -- Assassin's Creed being a prime example) so there are occasions where this isn't pure marketing hype. How big of a benefit the 1080P resolution is will depend largely on how much multimedia content you view. Note also that the two displays we are looking at today support HDMI, so besides functioning as computer LCDs they can also stand in for an HDTV, or you can hook up an Xbox 360 or PS3. In that case, the native 16:9 AR can be very important!</font></p> <p itxtvisited="1"><font size="2">Today we are looking at the BenQ E2200HD and E2400HD. Both have a native resolution of 1920x1080, with the difference being that one is at 24&quot; panel and the other is a 22&quot; panel (technically 21.5&quot;). In terms of features and appearance, the two LCDs otherwise look identical. Naturally, the larger E2400HD does cost more, but depending on your eyesight the extra ~$100 may be money well spent. If you only plan to use your display as a computer monitor, we wouldn't worry too much about the debate over 16:9 vs. 16:10 AR -- instead, get whichever display offers the best image quality at the most reasonable price. What we want to find out then is how well these new BenQ displays perform. After all, if image quality, processing lag, or other aspects are really poor, aspect ratio support may be the least of your concerns. So let's get to it.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=3449">Read more...</a></font></p> <!-- google_ad_section_end -->

<font size="2">Samsung SyncMaster XL20 caused a sensation back in the days, because Samsung was the first to introduce a monitor with LED backlighting and remarkable color gamut at an affordable price. It used to be the only solution like that for a while, but it couldn&rsquo;t go on like that forever. Today we are going to discuss two more representatives of the same family.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/samsung-sm-xl24-xl30.html"> Read more...</a></font>

<span class="content"><font size="2">The PC industry loves to repeat history. Today's cloud computing trends are nothing more than a rehash of the mainframe architecture of the 1960s 70s right? The use of GPUs as compute accelerators pays homage to a time when general purpose microprocessors were accompanied by additional, off-chip hardware depending on the applications you wanted to run. The issue with both of these statements is that unlike simply repeating history, the PC industry tends to like to improve upon good ideas in history.</font> <p><font size="2">At many points during the evolution of the PC we've had what's called the all-in-one, basically a PC with an integrated monitor. Now don't get the all-in-one confused with a notebook, because unlike a notebook the all-in-one is desktop sized and with no battery, it's not intended to be portable. </font></p> <p><font size="2">The point of the all-in-one is to save space, to integrate the monitor into the computer chassis to make it either look better, take up less space, or some combination of the two. Every desktop PC needs a monitor right? So why not integrate the monitor into the PC and sell it as a nice bundle that you simply have to plug in; no messy cables, the OEM gets additional revenue from selling both a display and a PC, and somewhere along the line this benefits the end user.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> Apple got hooked on the all-in-one designs and just never seemed to give them up, even when they were dying on the PC side. Remember the awful looking first generation iMac?</font></p> <p><font size="2">It was different as it was a splash of color in a sea of beige boxes, but Apple couldn't hide the basic limitations of all-in-one PC designs. They are terribly limited from an upgrade standpoint and the biggest issue is that you're stuck with whatever mediocre monitor is integrated into the chassis. </font></p> <p><font size="2">This all started to somewhat change with the later iMacs, mainly thanks to the adoption of decent LCD displays. While the older iMacs and other all-in-ones used CRTs, the move to LCD technology made these things far more attractive. Remembering back to the early days of PC LCDs, there's no way you wanted to be stuck with one of those for any period of time. With LED backlights and far improved black levels, viewing angles and response times, today's LCDs are decent enough where staying married to one for a handful of years isn't too scary a thought.</font></p> <p><font size="2">The other parts of the computer have also gotten smaller, cooler and faster. With the performance delta between desktop and notebook performance shrunk down to simply GPU and I/O differences, it's now possible to build an all-in-one that's just as fast as a modern day desktop. Combine that with a good quality LCD panel and you've got a recipe for an all-in-one that I might actually want to own.</font></p> <p><font size="2">Granted the limitations still exist, these things aren't super upgradeable; while you can add more memory or replace the hard drive, upgrading your video card is usually out of the question as the GPU and its memory are generally soldered onto the motherboard. You can forget about dual-display options, not to mention that if anything ever happens to the display you've got to send the entire machine in for repair. There are many reasons not to consider an all-in-one, but these days having more than one PC in your home isn't unheard of, and PCs are finally stylish and compact enough for them to make an appearance in more unusual locations, places where aesthetics do matter and this is where the modern all-in-one has a purpose. </font></p> <p><font size="2">Dell recently contributed to the all-in-one PC market with its XPS One introduced at the end of 2007. As Dell's attempt to capture some of the iMac market the original XPS One featured a built in 20&quot; widescreen LCD and boasted only needing a single cord for full operation - power. The keyboard, mouse and internet connectivity were all wireless, making it perfect for a very modern setup. </font></p> <p><font size="2">Since the XPS One's release, Apple has updated its iMac line to make it more competitive in terms of pricing and hardware, the top of the line iMac now ships with a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor while last year it shipped with a 2.4GHz part. The XPS One was also at a disadvantage as Dell only offered one panel size at 20&quot; while Apple offered a 20&quot; and a 24&quot;. One obvious downside to the all-in-one is that you're stuck with the monitor you bought with the machine, so if you outgrow your 20&quot; you're out of luck. The 24&quot; panel size however seems to be the sweetspot these days, it gives you enough desktop resolution for pretty much everything including full 1080p video playback which is becoming more and more important. </font></p> <p><font size="2">Naturally you know where all of this is headed - Dell is updating the XPS One. It's still called the XPS One but now it's got a 24&quot; panel with a 1920 x 1200 display, some faster hardware and a new (PRODUCT) RED version. </font></p> <p><font size="2"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3446">Read more...</a></font></p> </span>

<font size="2">The Corsair TX series has admittedly been in the market for a while, but we wanted to add another Corsair power supply to our pile of results. Corsair tends to be somewhat conservative with their power supplies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Their highest output power supply is &quot;only&quot; 1000W, the previously tested HX1000W, and today we are reviewing the TX750W. All of their other power supplies are rated at 450W to 650W. It's nice to see that Corsair doesn't feel the need to follow the current market trend of pushing extremely high wattage power supplies on users.</font><font size="2"><span class="content"> <p>Corsair power supplies come from two different ODMs, Seasonic and Channel Well (CWT). Both are very good manufacturers for high-end products, but Seasonic tends to be a more conservative company that doesn't want to grow their business too fast whereas CWT is kind of the opposite and is interested in selling a large number of power supplies through many different companies. Corsair blurs the boundaries between these ODMs, letting the two manufacturers produce different wattages for the same series.</p> <p><span class="content">The TX series is a high performance series that doesn't include extra features like cable management. If you prefer cable management, you should look at Corsair HX series -- which we will be reviewing shortly. We also reviewed the VX450W, which did well in our low wattage roundup a year ago. However, the VX450W was produced by Seasonic while Channel Well makes both of the TX series power supplies.</span></p> <p><span class="content">The label shows a single 12V rail with a massive 60A, which is common for Corsair products. The smaller voltage rails feature 30A and 28A and a combined power of up to 180W. Today's systems do not need much power from the smaller voltage rails, so the 180W combined power is acceptable.</span></p> <p><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3445"><span class="content">Read more...</span></a></p> </span></font>

<font size="2">Today we are going to talk about another 3D monitor, the main competitor to Zalman Trimon &ndash; iZ3D monitor featuring two types of matrices within a single case.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/iz3d.html">Read more...</a> </font>

<p><font size="2">&Uuml;berclok is a relative newcomer to the OEM system market. We first took a look at them while reviewing their entry/midrange Ion system and we liked what we saw. Good component choices, an honest and straightforward website, solid tweaking, and stability all conspired to give us a warm feeling. In fact, their youth and relatively unknown name (areas associated with reliability and long-term support for the consumer) was the only major flaw we pointed out. Today we're reviewing their only other model, the high-end Reactor.<br /> <br /> We've already covered the company and the website in our Ion review, and won't rehash it here. Both the Ion and the Reactor come with a number of well-chosen options you can customize, and in general we like this segregation into two product lines. In theory, it should allow &Uuml;berclok to focus on providing the best possible performance from each platform without getting bogged down in minor details. Their website still shows refreshing honesty, from their descriptions of video cards to their new Blog, and it's clear that they keep up to date with the market and adapt their strategy and product lines as the industry changes. We were sad to see the loss of the Tuniq Tower as an option, but according to &Uuml;berclok it was so heavy that even with their custom foam stabilizers (which of course add to shipping hassle and cost), it was causing an unacceptable amount of failures.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3429">Read more...</a></font></p> <!-- google_ad_section_end -->