Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Needs to Fly Like Chrome

The speed at which Google and Mozilla swap major versions of Chrome and Firefox will undoubtedly contribute to the generalized perception that Microsoft is constantly playing catch-up with IE, rather than driving innovation. Fact is that with IE8, the Redmond company focused very little on driving JavaScript performance for the browser. The software giant had its reasons, supported by the argument that JS is only one aspect of a browser’s performance, in some scenarios down right insignificant, and by proof that IE was loading pages on par with Chrome and Firefox.

However, since the advent of IE8 Microsoft has apparently understood that user perception of browser speed is critically as important as the actual level of performance, albeit only one of the two is measurable, while the tests themselves are far from reflecting real-world scenarios users come across. At PDC 2009 last month, Microsoft demonstrated an early preview version of Internet Explorer 9, indicating that it almost matched Firefox 3.6, and was just two times as slow as Chrome 4.0 in the SunSpider test, from Apple’s Webkit team.

Microsoft notes that IE9 finished the SunSpider test in 986 ms, while Firefox 3.6 did it in 840 ms, and Chrome 4.0 went through up the test in 437 ms. It is clear that Microsoft needs to be aiming for the Chrome-level of performance when it comes down to the JavaScript engine. But at the same time, while taking in consideration that a few versions of Chrome will be offered across a single year, IE9 needs to outrun Google’s open source browser.

Min Li Chan, Google Chrome product marketing manager, published a series of videos designed to explain just what makes Chrome as fast as it is. Obviously, Chrome’s recipe for JavaScript performance is not limited to a single ingredient. The videos in question, embedded below, discuss DNS pre-resolution, the V8 JavaScript engine, and DOM bindings. At PDC 2009, Microsoft made public the first details about the next generation JavaScript engine in Internet Explorer 9 (the fourth video embedded below).

Internet Explorer 8 is available for download here.

Opera 10.20 Alpha is available for download here.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Linux is available for download here.

The latest releases of Google Chrome are available for download here.

Silverlight Virtual DVD Now Live

Silverlight-powered Virtual DVDs were announced in the first half of September 2009, an initiative from Tesco, leveraging Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe Flash. At that time, Rob Salter, category director for Entertainment at Tesco, noted that Virtual DVDs were ushering in a new era of digital entertainment. The concept behind the offering is that UK customers buying movies on physical media (DVD or Blu-Ray) would subsequently be offered access to the content through Silverlight. Available exclusively in the United Kingdom, Tesco’s Virtual DVDs are designed to take advantage of the specific capabilities offered by Silverlight, including Digital Rights Management.

“In September, we announced that Microsoft and Tesco intended to collaborate and use Silverlight to deliver the next generation of Home Video entertainment to consumers. Dubbed “Virtual DVD,” Tesco customers who purchased physical DVDs or Blu-ray products would be able to download Silverlight versions of those movies providing the exact same experience as the physical disc,” a Silverlight team representativestated.

Microsoft indicates that Silverlight 3 is at the top of the game when it comes down to delivering advanced media and network-based interactivity, and that Tesco will kick its user experience up a notch by embracing the technology. The third major version of Silverlight works on both Windows and Mac OS X, and is capable of delivering 1080p high definition video playback. At the same time, with Silverlight 3, Microsoft introduced out-of-browser capabilities, allowing applications to be saved to the desktop, and ran even in offline scenarios.

“Now consumers can reap the benefits of that partnership, as two of the biggest movies of the year, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” and “The Hangover,” are now available on DVD. Tesco is offering an exclusive bonus Virtual DVD to its customers in the U.K. when they purchase the physical DVD either in-store or on Tesco.com. Using Silverlight 3, the Virtual DVD applications deliver a desktop-installed experience that exactly replicates the DVD experience, including chaptering, bonus features, multi-language support and subtitling,” revealed a member of the Silverlight team.

Silverlight 3 is available for download here.
Silverlight 4 Beta is available for download here.

Bing Eats Away at Google and Yahoo

It appears that the evolution introduced by Microsoft with the move from Live Search to Bing is paying off. The Redmond company introduced Bing in a move designed to grab market share from Google and Yahoo, and according to the latest statistics made public by Internet metrics companies comScore and Nielsen, Microsoft is doing just that. According to both firms Bing is on an ascendant path and has crossed the 10% milestone. While the results posted differ slightly, the general trend of Bing is positive, with the search/decision engine convincing more and more users to leverage it for their queries.

“In November 2009, Americans conducted 14.4 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.6% search market share, up slightly from 65.4% in October. Microsoft Sites grabbed 10.3% market share, up 0.4 percentage points versus October,” revealed comScore. “Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in November with 65.6% of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (17.5%), and Microsoft Sites (10.3%). Ask Network captured 3.8% of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.8%.”

According to comScore Google all but stagnated between October and November 2009, while Yahoo managed to drop from 18.0% to 17.5%. In the same period, Bing’s share of the search engine market grew from 9.9% to 10.3%. On the US market, Google grabbed 9.5 billion searches in November, Yahoo just 2.5 billion and Bing 1.5 billion.

The Nielsen Company credits Bing with no less than 10.7% of the search engine market, just over 1 billion searches. According to the statistics provided by Nielsen, Bing jumped 1% from October, when it accounted for a share of just 9.7% of the market. Nielsen put Yahoo at 15.3% at the end of November, down from 15.4% the previous month, and Google at 65.4%, a consistent drop from 66.1% in October, which apparently went to Bing.

Microsoft Visual Simulation Platform Licensed by Flight1 Tech

Companies around the world can take advantage of technology and innovation developed by Microsoft for their own products. The Redmond company offers a comprehensive intellectual property licensing program, and is little shy of touting a plethora of IP agreements already inked with partners across the globe. The latest company to leverage Microsoft’s IP licensing program is Flight1 Aviation Technologies (Flight1 Tech). Per the intellectual property (IP) license agreement signed by the two companies, Flight1 Tech now has access to Microsoft ESP’s visual simulation platform.

“This agreement with Flight1 Tech is an important example of how Microsoft’s programmatic IP licensing efforts fuel innovation across the industry,” noted David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft.

Specifically, Flight1 Tech has licensed Microsoft ESP v1.0 Object Code, and will use the technology to catalyze the evolution of its own training simulations. “This licensing agreement will provide our civil and military customers with a wide array of training and safety simulation technologies, within a flexible and affordable solution that meets their unique requirements,” noted Jim Rhoads, vice president at Flight1 Aviation Technologies.

Neither Microsoft nor Flight1 Tech have made the financial details of the agreement public. Rhoads only noted that the integration of the Microsoft ESP simulation platform was a step forward on the natural progression of Flight1 Tech’s portfolio of services. “Whether the field is aviation technology or digital photography, licensing IP is good for business because it helps our partners shorten development cycles in responding to the dynamic needs of their customers,” Kaefer added.

Recently, Microsoft’s popular series simulation engines was also licensed by Lockheed Martin, in an expansion of a previous agreement with the software giant. Lockheed Martin is looking to put together a suite of ESP-based solutions that will serve for warfighter training.

Silverlight for Linux Evolves, Moonlight 2 Available for Download

At approximately a month after Microsoft released the first testing preview of Silverlight 4, the second major release of Moonlight has been made available for download, by Novell. While trailing Silverlight, the open source implementation of Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe Flash designed for Unix systems, is roughly at the level of Silverlight 2, a milestone which the Redmond company unveiled in 2008. Since then, Microsoft has taken Silverlight to version 3 and to the first Beta Build of version 4 at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles. Still, Moonlight remains the best way for users running the Linux open source operating system to access videos, applications and content created for Silverlight

“Moonlight 2 is a superset of Silverlight 2. It contains everything that is part of Silverlight 2 but already ships with various features from Silverlight 3,” explained Mono Project founder Miguel de Icaza. What this means is that, although Moonlight 2 is over a year late compared to Silverlight 2, it actually brings to the table technologies introduced by Microsoft in Silverlight 3 earlier this year.

“Silverlight 3 Pluggable Pipeline, this allows developers to hook into the media decoding pipeline at various points: Data fetching (this is how adaptive streaming and smooth streaming are supported). Test it out at Experience Smooth Streaming; Demuxing (this is how the Moonlight Ogg container can be fed into Moonlight and Microsoft's Silverlight); Codecs (this is how our Vorbis and Dirac support work on both Moonlight and Microsoft Silverlight),” de Icaza noted, adding that Moonlight 2 also features “Easing animation functions. Partial out-of-browser support. Writable bitmaps. Some of the new databinding features of XAML in Silverlight 3.”

The Novell project behind the open source implementation of Silverlight is currently laboring to provide users with full Silverlight 3 support. In this regard, de Icaza noted that Microsoft was collaborating closely with the developers of Moonlight, sharing test suites and helping make sure that flagship Silverlight applications play nice with Moonlight.

“Moonlight development is quickly following the innovation in Silverlight with each release. A preview release of Moonlight 3 will be made available in the first quarter of 2010 with a final release scheduled for the third quarter of 2010. Moonlight 4 will follow shortly thereafter,” revealed a member of the Silverlight team.

Moonlight 2 is available for download here.

Silverlight 4 SDK Beta is available for download here.
Silverlight 4 Beta is available for download here.

Incredible Response to Free Bing App for iPhone

The response to the free Bing for Mobile application offered for users of iPhone and iPod Touch earlier this week has been nothing short of incredible, Microsoft reveals. According to Justin Jed, from the Bing for Mobile team, the search/decision engine application built for owners of Apple’s devices has received a strong customer support. The Redmond company also notes that the download traffic is strong, but has so far not shared any official details in this respect

With the Bing for Mobile app being installed on iPhone and iPod Touch devices around the world, Microsoft has also started receiving feedback on the solution. Users reported various problems to the Redmond company, and the software giant is promising to deliver fixes as soon as possible.

“Using voice search outside the U.S. crashes the app. We’ve identified that the issue relates to the region the phone is set to. We’re working on a fix for this right now, and we’ll update the app in the next few days. People will get the update automatically – you won’t have to update or reinstall the app. If you are encountering this issue you can temporarily work around it by going to Settings > General > International and change your Region Format to “United States”,” Jed stated.

At the same time, the promise from Microsoft is that owners of 1st generation iPod Touch will also be able to enjoy the application. Jed underlines that the Bing app has been designed to officially support only the 2nd generation iPod Touch devices. However, the company is not about to let customers hang out to dry, and is working to ensure that the Bing application will also play nice with 1st generation devices as well. Microsoft is currently testing this scenario and will unveil official support once the testing process is complete.

“At this time Bing is only fully supported on the iPhone for the US; in some regions people may not be seeing results at all. While there was a brief period of which the Bing iPhone app was being offered in international markets at this time international availability has been suspended. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience and we hope to expand our support and availability of the app in other regions in future versions of the Bing app for the iPhone. If you are in the US or if you are encountering this issue and or you are looking for a temporarily work around go to Settings > General > International and change your Region Format to “United States”,” Jed added.

Free Windows 7 RTM Tests

What Microsoft is offering

Still unconvinced to make the jump to Windows 7? Well, Microsoft is, by all means, delivering consistent efforts to win customers over, including offering free downloads of the operating system. The latest iteration of the Windows client is available for download both as a standalone ISO image, but also as a virtualized evaluation version (links at the bottom of this article). Still, Windows 7 can also be test-driven off of Microsoft servers in the company’s datacenters via Windows 7 Test Drive.

After initially announcing the new online Windows 7 RTM test destination, Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 technical evangelist on the Client Platform Evangelist Group, revealed the key focuses of the test scenarios put together by Microsoft. Windows 7 Test Drive is addressed at two separate audiences, and as such the website content offered is divided in two sections, one for IT professionals and one for developers.

As far as IT pros go, Microsoft wants them to test “Search Federation: See how Search Federation works and see how to set up search federation connector. BranchCache: Try BranchCache and enabling BranchCache in a virtual environment. Med-V: Learn about Med-V and enabling Med-V in a virtual environment. BitLocker/BitLocker to Go: Learn about enabling BitLocker and BitLocker to Go encryption using group policy. User Account Control: Controlling user access through User Account Control. Windows Troubleshooting: Observe first hand how the Windows Troubleshooting features work,” Kiriaty explained.

The best thing about Windows 7 Test Drive, on top of the fact that the resources and content are available completely free of charge , of course, is the fact that neither IT Professionals not developers will have to spend a single second downloading , installing and customizing the platform. Windows 7 RTM can be tested through short virtual labs which come accompanied with supporting videos.

Developers will be able to test Windows 7 labs for the “Taskbar (without the Thumbnail Preview or customer switcher due the Basic Windows 7 Video Driver used to facilitate this virtual lab), Libraries, Version Control, Version Checking, Troubleshooting Platform, Windows Ribbon, Sensor and Location and IE8,” Kiriaty added.

Microsoft Windows 7 90-Day Eval VHD is available for download here.
Another Windows 7 RTM Enterprise 90-Day Evaluation is available for download here.

Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha Drops on December 22, 2010

The first taste of the next iteration of the Opera browser is just around the corner. Opera Software is currently cooking a preview version of Opera 10.5 and is gearing up to make available for download a pre-alpha build of the browser next week, a few days ahead of Christmas. Details are scarce at this point in time, but from the little information that was shared with the public it appears that the next generation of Opera will apparently be designed to offer as much horsepower to end users as possible.

“While everyone is off for Christmas vacation, the desktop team is working hard on preparing a nice holiday gift for Opera users. On December 22nd we will release a 10.5 pre-alpha. We'll keep it a surprise for now, but the keyword is: speed,” revealed Opera’s Huib Kleinhout.

Opera Software first mentioned that it was shifting resources onto the project building Opera 10.5 at the end of October 2009. In this regard, the Norway-based browser maker has moved extremely fast, if approximately two months later it is just ready to offer the first development milestone of Opera 10.o's successor. And while Opera has never been accused of lagging rival browsers in terms of speed, with version 10.5, the browser maker takes on Google Chrome and Firefox, just like Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft demonstrated a preview version of IE9 the past month at PDC 2009, indicating that it matches Firefox 3.6 Beta in terms of JavaScript performance, and is only twice at slow as Google Chrome Beta.

Opera 10.5’s focus on speed automatically means that the browser will also kick up a notch the level of JavaScript performance. Users should in this context expect a new version of the Opera ECMAScript/JavaScript engine. At the start of this year, Opera Software revealed that it was working on the successor of Futhark, a new engine under the moniker Futhark. Carakan is expected to be at least twice and a half (250%) faster than Futhark, currently featured by Opera 10.0 and Opera 10.10 with Unite.

Jens Lindstrom, Opera developer, revealed in the past some of the strong assets of Carakan:

“- a register-based bytecode instruction set. In a register-based machine, instead of a dynamically sized stack of values, there's a fixed size block of them, called "registers".

- compilation of whole or parts of ECMAScript programs and functions into native code. This native code compilation is based on static type analysis (with an internal type system that is richer than ECMAScript's ordinary one) to eliminte unnecessary type-checks, speculative specialization (with regards to statically indeterminate types) where appropriate, and a relatively ambitious register allocator that allows generation of compact native code with as few unnecessary inter-register moves and memory accesses as possible.

- in the new engine, each object is assigned a class that collects various information about the object, such as its prototype and the order and names of some or all of its properties. Class assignment is naturally very dynamic, since ECMAScript is a very dynamic language, but it is organized such that objects with the same prototype and the same set of properties are assigned the same class.”

Opera 10.0 and Opera 10.10 are available for download here.

Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 5

The fifth Beta Build of Firefox 3.6, codename Namoroka, is now available for download. Mozilla is referring to the development milestone as revision 5 of the first, and only (at least in the company’s perspective) Beta release of Firefox 3.6. Earlier this month, Softpedia informed you that yet another Beta of Firefox 3.6 was cooking, and that the browser would not evolve directly to the next phase toward the final release. Despite the “revision 5” label, fact is that although the next iteration of Mozilla’s open source browser was supposed to graduate in Release Candidate stage by this point in time, the development process continues to be stuck in Beta, jeopardizing the chances that end users will be able to upgrade to the final version of Firefox 3.6 by the end of 2009.

“This morning the Mozilla community released Firefox 3.6 Beta 5, making it available for free download and issuing an automatic update to all Firefox 3.6 beta users. This update contains over 100 fixes from the last Firefox 3.6 beta, containing many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers, and users. Over 70% of the thousands of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta,” explained Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla.

It is important to note that Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 is still pre-release software, as the Beta tag implies. In this context the release is not ready for widespread adoption by the public. However, in excess of half a million early adopters were running the Beta Builds of Firefox 3.6 as of November 2009.

“The Beta of Firefox 3.6 / Gecko 1.9.2 introduces several new features for users to evaluate: support for the HTML5 File API; a change to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability; the ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times; users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas; Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe; open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames; support for the WOFF font format; improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time; and support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies,” Beltzner added.

Testers that are already running Firefox 3.6 Beta 4, or earlier releases of the browser, will be served automatic upgrades to the latest development milestone in the coming days. At the same time, early adopters are free to grab the standalone downloads available below.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 (Beta revision 5) for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 (Beta revision 5) for Mac OS X is available for download here.

Windows 7 Will Kill XP

It will be Windows 7 to do the job Windows Vista failed at, namely to kill Windows XP. However, killing XP is a process rather than a single moment in time. Windows 7 will first erode XP’s market share and convert its audience. As XP’s usage rate will drop, less and less hardware manufacturers and software developers will offer support and compatibility of the latest versions of their products for the operating system Microsoft released in 2001. It will be Microsoft to hammer down the last nail in the XP coffin in 2014, when it will cut extended support for the platform entirely. At that time, users still running XP will be left to fend for themselves with no more updates, no more security patches, no more support.

A recent study from Gartner predicts that no less than 75% of corporate PCs will be running a 64-bit version of Windows by 2014 (via DailyTech). Such a scenario automatically implies that enterprises are now ready, and increasingly so, to discard Windows XP and 32-bit machines, for Windows 7 running on new 64-bit architectures which can take advantage of in excess of 4 GB of RAM.

"On the surface, it would appear that the most obvious time to perform a move from 32-bit to 64-bit would be during an operating system migration (such as from Windows XP to Windows 7). Many companies feel that, if they don't make the move now, they may have to wait until Windows 8 or potentially Windows 9 before another opportunity arises. They point to the complexity involved in supporting an additional set of images as a reason to make an all-or-nothing move,” Gartner noted.

With Windows 7, as with Windows Vista, Microsoft is offering both x86 and x64 versions of the operating system. However, the Redmond company is unlikely to continue doing so with future versions of Windows. Whether Microsoft will cut support for 32-bit processor starting with Windows 8 or not, it still remains to be seen. However, there’s little room for doubt that 64-bit is the future. In this context, having available x64 Vista and x64 Windows 7 side by side, it is clear that customers will opt for the latter to replace Windows 7.

Corporate IT environments are traditionally lagging home users in terms of adopting new technologies, including Windows. If by 2014, 75% of corporate computers will be running 64-bit Windows, most probably x64 Windows 7, it is possible a higher percentage of home users would have already upgraded from Windows XP. At the end of November 2009, XP accounted for a market share of 69.05% and dropping, Vista just 18.55%, also dropping, and Windows 7 4%, at just a single month after release.


"Corporate buyers need to establish a position on moving to 64-bit as part of their Windows 7 planning. For many users, moving to 64-bit with Windows 7 may be the right solution with respect to performance and support for new applications. However, others may find significant compatibility issues coupled with little to no benefit from making the shift at this time. Either way, all organizations must take steps to provide a basic level of support for 64-bit Windows 7, particularly for consumer-facing applications,” Gartner added.

With XP end of life in 2014, Windows 7 offers the best alternative for upgrade to customers, especially enterprises, that need to upgrade from XP. Businesses that will run XP until Windows 8 drops, in approximately three years, risk to have little time available to perform the transition, and to have to run XP even after Microsoft has completely cut support.

source: softpedia

Bang For Your Buck: Six Gaming PCs Explored

You're stuffed full of turkey, you somehow managed to erect a Christmas tree (or not), and you're still recovering from Black Friday. Without a doubt, you've had one whirlwind of a holiday. But before you get too comfortable in that chair of yours, we should probably remind you that the gift giving day(s) you've all been waiting for is only a few weeks away. If you've been thinking of replacing that aging gaming rig of yours with something a bit more powerful as a gift to yourself (so to speak), we've rounded up a few solid options in varying price ranges that just might fit the bill. Oh, and you don't even have to get off of that sofa you're planted on to assemble these!



The Lower-End:

Let's face it: any true "gaming PC" won't be cheap. You can snag a nettop with an Atom CPU and an integrated GPU for a song, but you won't be playing Crysis or any other demanding title on it without shelling out at least a few bills. That said, you don't have to go broke if you want some decent framerates, so here are two configurable options that are sure to bring smiles without requiring a second mortgage.

iBuyPower Black Mage - Total As Priced: $496

• NZXT Gamma Gaming Mid Tower Case
• AMD Athlon II X2 240 Dual-Core CPU
• 4GB (2GBx2) Corsair DDR2-800 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 (1GB) GPU
• Asus M3A78-CM motherboard
• 450W power supply
• 320GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 22x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 12-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Ethernet
• No Operating System Pre-Loaded

Recommended Upgrades:

• AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad-Core CPU: +$50
• ATI Radeon HD 5750 (1GB; DirectX 11 support): +$48
• 1TB 7200rpm Hard Drive: +$35
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit): +$104
  

iBuyPower Gamer Paladin E720 - Total As Priced: $826

• iBuyPower Vantage Tower (with Halo 2 side window)
• Intel Quad-Core Core i5 750 CPU (2.66GHz)
• 4GB (2GBx2) Corsair DDR3-1333 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 (1GB) GPU
• AsusP7P55D LE motherboard
• 450W power supply
• 500GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 22x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 12-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Ethernet
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Recommended Upgrades:

• ATI Radeon HD 5750 (1GB): +$53
• 8GB of DDR3-1333 RAM: +$135
• Intel Core i7 860 Processor: +$95

Needless to say, these builds are subject to change in price at any time, and you can certainly add upgrades here and there that fit within your budget, but we feel these components provide the best bang for one's buck at the lower-end.

At The Mid-Range:

Stepping up to the mid-range, you'll find faster CPUs, more potent GPUs and generally more of everything--including a larger asking price. Here are two well-rounded options for those looking to splurge but still be able to save themselves from getting the "doghouse treatment." We're also tossing in a powerful SFF rig here for those looking for a gaming PC / HTPC hybrid. It's the perfect box to ditch your cable service for.

CyberPower Gamer Xtreme 3000 - Total As Priced: $980

• NZXT Beta Gaming Mid-Tower Case
• Intel Core i7-860 2.80 GHz CPU (2.80GHz)
• 4GB (2GBx2) Corsair DDR3-1333 RAM
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 (DirectX 11 support) GPU
• Asus P7P55D LE motherboard
• 700W power supply
• 1TB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 22x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 12-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Gigabit Ethernet
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Recommended Upgrades:

• NZXT Zero 2 Crafted Series Steel Full Tower Case: +$35
• 8GB of DDR-1600MHz RAM: +$169
• ATI Radeon HD 5850 PCI-E 16X 1GB GPU: +$122

Maingear X-Cube P55 - Total As Priced: $1370.99

• X-CUBE SFF Chassis
• Intel Quad-Core Core i5 750 CPU (2.66GHz)
• 4GB (2GBx2) Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 RAM
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 (DirectX 11 support) GPU
• Intel P55 Media Series DP55WB mATX motherboard
• 550W Silverstone Element power supply
• 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 22x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 12-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Gigabit Ethernet
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Recommended Upgrades:

• ATI TV Wonder 650 HD PCI-Express Combo HDTV: +$155
• 8X Lite-On Blu-ray Reader and DVD Lightscribe Combo Drive with Software: +$165
• D-Link Xtreme N 802.11n DWA-552 Wireless Adapter: +$99

Reaching For The High-End:

When the sky isn't quite the limit, but you've got plenty of cash to spare, these two high-end options are sure to please. We won't bother with "money's no object" machines--even an untrained monkey could head to Alienware or Falcon Northwest and select the most expensive of everything--but instead, we're giving you a pair of high-end options that actually do provide some value as well.

HyperSonic Sonic Boom ATS - Total As Priced: $1625

• Cooler Master ATCS 840 Chassis
• Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz Socket LGA 1366 Nehalem CPU
• TurboClock CPU Overclocking
• OCZ PC3-10666 Platinum Low Voltage 6GB (3x2GB) RAM
• ATI Radeon HD4850 PCI-Express 1GB GPU
• Asus P6T Deluxe v2 X58 LGA 1366 motherboard
• 610W Silencer EPS power supply
• 750GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 22x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 8-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Gigabit Ethernet
• Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
• OCZ Alchemy Elixir Keyboard
• OCZ Eclipse Laser Gaming Mouse
• Hypersonic Behemoth Danger Zone Mouse Pad
• Far Cry 2 gaming title

Recommended Upgrades:

• Asetek LCLC 120 Self Contained Liquid Cooling: +$65
• Silencer 750W Quad PSU Black: +$10
• 2x ATI Radeon HD4850 PCI-Express 1GB GPUs (CrossFire): $184

Alienware Aurora - Total As Priced: $1724

Alternative pre-built - $1719

• Lunar Shadow, Alienware Aurora Chassis
• Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz Socket LGA 1366 Nehalem CPU (2.66GHz)
• TurboClock CPU Overclocking
• 6GB Triple Channel 1067MHz DDR3 RAM
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) GPU
• Asus P6T Deluxe v2 X58 LGA 1366 motherboard
• 610W Silencer EPS power supply
• 1TB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
• 24x Dual-Layer DVD Writer
• 8-in-1 Multi-Format Card Reader
• Onboard Audio
• Onboard Gigabit Ethernet
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• Alienware Multi-Media Keyboard
• Alienware Optical Mouse, MG100
• AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue

Recommended Upgrades:

• Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 Hybrid TV Tuner with Remote Control: +$50
• Dual ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) GPUs: +$400
• 9GB Triple Channel 1067Mhz DDR3: +$70
• Additional 1TB 7200rpm Hard Drive: +$125
• Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo Drive: +$100

As we mentioned before, all of these prices are apt to change, particularly as computer makers implement sales to spur holiday buying. That said, we feel these builds are ideal for getting you going when shopping for your own gaming rig this winter, and any of these machines would definitely keep you company throughout that long holiday vacation you've been looking forward to for nearly a full year now. Happy customizing!