It has been almost two years since I last wrote on the subject of TV tuners in computers, and a lot has changed since then. Over-the-air TV signals have finally gone all-digital, and many cable providers have reduced or dropped their analog cable lineups as well. These transitions, coupled with the release of Windows 7, mean that this year should be an exciting one for those of us with home-theater PCs.
We all seem to like our products with lots of features, especially when it comes to computers. After all, the personal computer is supposed to be the most versatile piece of electronics that you own, right? How can it be versatile without a long list of features? When it comes down to deciding what product to buy, one of the first things we do is put the features side by side, and see which gives us more capabilities for the dollar. What are we missing?
If you’re connected with me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably have noticed my recent posts about how great business has been, and how we’ve been more and more busy these past months. It has been a great feeling to once again focus my efforts on expanding our capacity to meet demand. But why have our sales picked up so heavily in the last quarter? Is this due to a gain in market share, or is this something bigger? I don’t claim to have the answers, but I would like to go over the data and our theories.
When we began development of our Echo PC, we quickly saw how NIVIDA ION would bring a new life to home theater PCs. The small form factor, low power draw, and near-silent operation are the perfect makings for a computer in the living room. As more content is put online, the PC is fast becoming a cheap alternative for home entertainment. But the strength of NVIDIA ION lies in the GPU, and applications that take advantage of GPU acceleration are anything but mature. In our testing, we found that ION was extremely well suited for DVD/BLU-RAY playback, and for Netflix. But Hulu — the final piece in the trio of current online entertainment — was not ready. Fullscreen playback was not acceptable on ION. We knew that NVIDIA and Adobe were working together on the problem. We waited.
We’ve been hard at work over the past few months: designing, coding, testing, fixing. Although we’ve received lots of positive feedback on various functionality of the old site (configuration utility, order status updates, etc), we’ve also been less than pleased with the dated design and limited, navigational ability of the old design. What we’re unveiling today is the first step a vast improvement on top of what was already a great base.
A few years back, Ageia Technologies launched a product designed to help handle the increasingly complex physics calculations which were becoming popular in modern games. They named this product “PhysX”, and it was the worlds first dedicated physics card. Enthusiasts were excited, and many thought that this technology was set to be the next piece of essential hardware for enthusiast systems. We decided to independently test the Nvidia PhysX platform, and share our results.
It seems like everyone has been excited about the recent release of Intel’s second-generation solid state drives (SSDs) this week. I am the proud owner of one of the first-gen models, and the idea that more affordable models will help more people to adopt this technology is just cause for celebration.
It came as quite a shock to me, then, when we were told to hold delivery of the drives to end-users this morning – just before our first shipment came in to the Puget warehouse.
There has been a lot of talk about whether or not the new Antec P183 is truly an improvement over the old Antec P182. The P182 has long been one of our favorite cases at Puget Systems, so there is some resistance to the P183 taking over the role as the flagship case in our lineup. The question is: is the P183 truly superior to the P182, or is the latest revision of the P180 series a step in the wrong direction?
At Puget Systems, we test hundreds of different computer components a year, and through this testing we constantly shape and improve our product line. In the past, we have kept the testing data internal to our company, but recently we have realized that we’re missing out on a large opportunity to help the public (and our customers) by publishing our findings. Why keep something internal if the data is useful to others? That being said, the Cooler Master V8 is the first of hopefully many product reviews by Puget Systems. We were looking for a CPU cooler to add to our line to provide a quieter cooler option for Core i7 CPUs. Does the Cooler Master V8 fit the bill?
Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.
We provide:
Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money
Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting
Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP
A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials
