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$299, depending on your desired levels of cooling, noise, and upgradeability. Next, you pick the paint job which can
push the price of the empty box up to as much as $924. From there, you choose pretty much any desired combination
of processors (Intel Core i7 or i5, AMD Phenom II), memory devices, cooling techniques, and other items. After getting
past the shock of the box price, things get financially less frightening. For example, if you ordered a machine with a single
i7 980X 3. 33 GHz processor, an ASUS Rampage III motherboard, liquid CPU cooling, 6 GB of memory, one ATI Radeon
HD 5770 graphics adapter, and a pair of 1 TB drives, you'd top out at $4,215 (not including a display, keyboard, and
mouse). That's a pretty significant chunk of change, but serious gaming geeks have been known to shell out much more.
(For example, check out the Hardcore Reactor X at www.hardcorecomputer.com; it can run you close to $10,000.) ▲
DONATE YOUR SPARE CYCLES
If you're like most of us, you have a lot of computing power that sits idle most of the time. Maybe it's in the form of a PC that you've retired but haven't sold because, frankly, it isn't worth the cost of a classified ad. Or, maybe it's that 3. 3 GHz
multicore processor in your desktop machine that isn't exactly melting down when it fetches your daily spam. Either way,
you might want to consider volunteering a bit of that processing power to a good cause. A good place to start is the
University of California, Berkeley's site for volunteer and grid computing, boinc.berkeley.edu. In case you haven't heard of
it, BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, and it's used for distributed computing in a
range of diverse projects including earthquake detection, scientific and medical research, mapping of the universe, and so
on. One interesting project is Einstein@Home ( einsteinathome.org) which uses your machine to search for gravitational
waves from pulsars, using data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector. In fact, a
couple months ago, volunteers from Iowa and Germany found one about 17,000 light years away. The current 500,000+
participating BOINC computers grind out almost 2,370 teraFLOPs every 24 hours, so you may as well join in the fun. All
you have to do is log onto the BOINC site, choose a worthy project, and download the software. It's a rare opportunity
to help create a better world while doing absolutely nothing. ▲
CIRCUITS AND DEVICES
DVD PLAYER
WITH FLO TV
Most of us are eagerly awaiting the day when we can watch
TV without paying exorbitant rates
for cable or satellite services, and
Audiovox ( www.audiovox.com)
has taken a step in that direction
with its new portable DVD player
with FLO TV™. The model DFL
710 offers the usual ability to play
DVDs on its seven inch diagonal
screen, and it includes stereo
speakers. You can also get live
mobile television (i.e., real-time
■ The Audiovox DFL 710
DVD player offers live TV.
transmission rather than
downloading or buffering) via
Qualcomm's FLO TV service,
delivered over "America's largest
dedicated mobile TV network." This
brings in children's programming
(Disney, Nickelodeon), live sports,
news (Fox News Channel, CNN
Mobile), and a range of other
shows (full listing guide at
www.flotv.com). The unit lists at
$199.99 and, if you grab one
quickly enough, includes three
months of FLO. Thereafter, you'll
need to shell out $14.99/month. ▲
MEMORY FEATURES WATER COOLING
You can spend big bucks for a custom, overclocked computer like the ones mentioned previously, but if
you have the time and inclination, it's also possible to
build one yourself. In that case, the new HyperX memory
modules may be of interest. Kingston Technology
( www.kingston.com) recently introduced the HyperX H20
water-cooled DDR3 memory kits which offer frequencies
up to 2,133 MHz and capacities up to 6 GB. The new line
consists of three products: two 4 GB dual-channel kits
■ Kingston now offers three models of
water-cooled DDR3 kits.
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