Redefining 'Ultimate'
Built just five month later, the newest Ultimate PC outshines its processor
By John Yacono

(CRN) -- May 9, 2002 -- To highlight the most innovative system components currently available to the channel, the CRN Test Center last week assembled a PC of its own design, the latest Ultimate PC.
Using best-of-breed components, CRN Lab Director John Yacono built the system before an audience of systems builders and component vendors at the Tech Builder Xchange conference in Coronado, Calif. The components selected for the PC balanced excellence in innovation, functionality and performance. This year's Ultimate PC includes a 2.53GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with a 533MHz front-side bus, 2 Gbytes of 800MHz 40-nanosecond RDRAM, three hard drives and a built-in UPS. A Cooler Master case (customized by systems builder Voodoo Computers to include internal lighting), a glass-view side panel and a high-gloss paint job added a sports-car appearance.

The subsystems in this Ultimate PC represented a marked improvement over those used in the previous Ultimate PC just five months ago. For example, the effective processor speed jumped by 50 percent from generation to generation. The decision to move from 100BaseT technology to Gigabit Ethernet also boosted network performance in this year's system.

On the storage side, the Ultimate PC's DVD-RW/CD-RW drive can record on DVD-R media, a task that first-generation DVD-RW/CD-RW drives couldn't perform.

The Ultimate PC's video card features FireWire support for video capture and remote control of audio/visual devices. The video system also included a radio-frequency (RF) remote that could replace the mouse for presentations and all other action-at-a-distance applications. The upgraded flat-panel display added a TV tuner and dual component-video inputs to the 24-inch HDTV-capable flat panel used in last year's system.

The native cooling capacity of the cabinet was so effective in this year's model that the Test Center chose not to install additional cooling systems, even though an additional hard drive was used.

VALUE-ADDED COMPONENT

Addonics Internal DigiDrive
Price: $69 MSRP, $69 street
Addonics Technologies
(408) 433-3899, (800) 787-8580
www.addonics.com

Memory readers are a value-add the Test Center has seen more and more on white-box systems recently. The Internal DigiDrive can read from all available form factors of portable memory, including compact Flash I and II, Memory Stick, Smart Media, Secure Digital Card, Multimedia Card and Micro Drive.

Copyright © 2002 CMP Media LLC