performance posts

Okay, not awards, per se, but at least some recognition of things that didn't suck -- stuff like improved performance and big price reductions (sometimes). Generational advancement in the CPU and video card arenas brought more power to our desktop systems than ever before. DDR3 stopped costing its weight in gold. The Phenom... got its ass handed to it all year long. (Seriously, AMD? You can't roll out a replacement soon enough.)

Also, one of the biggest legends in the realm of physical vaporware finally came to market, but BI doesn't see a lot of folks ponying up two grand for the Optimus Maximus keyboard. At least it made it to market after a rumor-and-tease gestation period that rivals that of Duke Nukem 3D.

There were a handful of big stories in the realm of gaming hardware in 2008, and, for a change, they were almost all good news for gamers.

Ready to put the screws to all that shiny stuff and get the most out of your rig? It's time to scare away the timid, or drag them screaming into the realm of the technorati.

It's time to tweak your BIOS.

That's right, it's time to play with the Blue Screen of Life. None of that namby-pamby, "I fell on my face choking on a device driver and puked up a memory address error" Blue Screen of Death crap today. We've got Trans-Siberian Orchestra's version of Beethoven's Ninth cranked up, and it's time to soar to new heights.

Besides, cranking up clock speeds is an excellent way to keep warm in the absence of hot cocoa, egg nog, or Irish coffee (which are fattening, vile, and not allowed at the office, respectively).

Crysis blew gamers away in 2007 with its eye-popping graphics, and met with generally high critical acclaim. Despite what people thought about the actual plot and gameplay, few could deny how fantastic looking the game was. Gamers also realized that intensely realistic DirectX 10 graphics came at a high cost. The developers, Crytek, claim that piracy had a lot to do with relatively average sales of Crysis, which may be the case, but the game's reputation for requiring expensive high-end hardware to run properly had its impact too. The game's follow-up, Crysis Warhead, released recently and claims that the game can run smoothly on a $699 PC using medium settings. We decided to compare the performance differences between Crysis and Warhead and see if the game engine received any significant optimization since its release one year ago.

Tim Allen wasn't precisely the same flavor of hardware guy that we are, but his Tool Time mantra, "More Power!" certainly resonates with a lot of computer enthusiasts. Not only do the games we play and the applications we use require more and more computational chutzpah to perform well, but the silicon bits themselves are not shy about sucking down the wattage to do it.

If you're considering an upgrade or a new build, you're going to need to feed that beast. Onward, to the supplies of power!

As gamers, unless you're a Minesweeper junkie with an epic Peggle jones and no further aspirations, you're going to have to have a dedicated video card in your rig to get any kind of decent graphic performance.

Wait, what?

The short answer for why that's the case is: "Math is hard; let's go shopping." However, it's not us saying that, it's the CPU.

I know what you're thinking. "BI, the central processing unit... all it does is math!" Or perhaps, "You cheap bastard, you still owe me five bucks for your share of the beer last week." You're right, of course (about the CPU, anyway...). In terms of raw computational horsepower, a modern processor is a potent customer. However, of necessity, it's also a generalist.

In order to obtain truly prodigious performance, we need to bring in a specialist. That specialist is your video card. Think of it like this -- an Olympic decathlon competitor is in phenomenally good shape, and a world-class performer in ten different events, but in any single one of those, their lunch will be summarily eaten by someone who makes that their sole pursuit.

We here at Big Download naturally assume you like free stuff. That's why we've got that enticing heap of files up there, batting its eyelashes seductively at you (or maybe I need to switch to decaf that isn't laced with wormwood). But, chances are, free (as in beer) stuff is lurking on or under your desk right this moment. No, not the cans with the five cent deposit. No, not that copy of Daikatana you forgot to take to the pawn shop, either.

Unless you're already at the bleeding edge, got exceedingly unlucky, or are highly risk-averse, there's extra performance to be had out of the components you've already got by running them faster than their rated, factory-set speed. This practice is known as overclocking, and has grown from a lunatic fringe cottage industry into big business, frequently with the tacit approval of component manufacturers, and occasionally engaged in by some brands themselves.

In a nutshell, overclocking allows you to get the performance of a more-expensive part -- CPU, video card, or RAM module -- out of a less-expensive one by the strategic application of brains, willpower, voltage, cooling, and luck.