Best NAS drive: Overview

NAS (network attached storage) devices certainly aren't the most glamorous gadgets you can have in your home. A network-connected hard drive might seem like a remnant from a home office – a backup necessity for over-paranoid users and not much more.

Early NAS devices – and even some new no-frills budget ones – do little more than allow any computer that's connected to a network to access an external hard drive as if it was physically installed in the computer. However, a lot of new NAS devices have some great features built in, which can completely transform what your home network is capable of.

Not only can they act as media servers throughout your house – letting your devices access and stream music and videos to any device on the network – they can also be used be used to stream your media across the internet, letting you access the files from anywhere in the world, and effectively allowing you to create your own version of Spotify or Netflix.

As for cloud backup and synchronisation services, while you could pay Dropbox the equivalent of $9.99 a month for 50GB of space, with a NAS device you could have your own service with huge amounts of storage (some NAS devices accept hard drives of up to 3TB) without monthly fees or the need to trust your private data to a third party. We've gathered the best NAS devices on the market to find out just what they are capable of.

Buffalo Cloudstation Duo - £240
www.buffalotech.com

Western Digital My Book Live - £147
www.wdc.com

Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 - £423
www.netgear.co.uk

Buffalo Linkstation Pro LS-VL - £129
www.buffalotech.com

D-Link ShareCenter - £60
www.dlink.com

Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - £274
www.iomega.com

Netgear Stora MS2110 - £130
www.netgear.co.uk

Synology DS411 - £485
www.synology.com

Best network storage: 1-61. Buffalo Cloudstation Duo

There remains a lingering feeling that setting up a network attached storage device can be complicated, time consuming and fiddly. Buffalo aims to dispel these preconceptions with the Cloudstation Duo, a NAS kit designed to be as user friendly as possible without losing any features or functionality.

The device itself is compact, though quite heavy. Flicking open the front gives quick access to the two 1TB hard drives that come installed. Removing the drives is a bit fiddly at first, but the process is certainly a lot easier than with many other NAS drives.

The fact that the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo is supplied with two large hard drives already installed and set up in a RAID 1 configuration is great, and eliminates a more fiddly and complicated part of the setup procedure.

Read the full Buffalo Cloudstation Duo review

2. Western Digital My Book Live

When it comes to hard drives, Western Digital knows its stuff. While the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo is promoted for its ease of use, the Western Digital My Book Live goes even further in its pursuit of simplicity.

For a start, the small case is completely enclosed, so there is no easy way to open the My Book Live up and replace or upgrade the hard drive as you can with the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo. This means that it's not really suitable as a comprehensive backup device – the lack of hot swappable hard drives means you'd have to physically remove the entire thing if you wanted to store your data safely off site.

The 'My' in the title is evidence that this is a NAS device that focuses on creating your own personal cloud, sharing your own media and files across the internet with as little fuss as possible.

Read the full Digital My Book Live review

3. Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4

NAS devices are a speedy, convenient means of backing up data, and units like the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 featured here are also capable of streaming any multimedia files to any device that can accept them.

Each of the ReadyNAS Ultra 4's bays can accommodate a 2TB drive, resulting in a possible 8TB of storage – that's an awful lot of video, photos and music.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 supports various implementations of RAID technology, which trades off available capacity against protection for your data. If one of the drives fails, you should be able to recover your files.

Features like RAIDar and X-RAID 2 help you make the most of this handy feature. Powered by a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, it's speedy and responsive. The onboard DLNA 1.5 media server worked well with a variety of networked players. Even multiple full HD video streams were glitch-free.

Read the full Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 review

4. Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL

Devices like these are becoming the tool of choice for storing a wide range of digital media, including downloaded movies and TV, music, images and CD/DVD/Blu-ray rips. Speed, capacity and reliability are all essential features, and the Linkstation Pro LS-VL has all three.

This 'Multimedia Shared Network Storage BitTorrent Download Box', ships with a power supply, LAN cable and installation discs, and is available with built-in SATA hard drives in 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB sizes. Windows and Mac OS X compatible, the unit is simply plugged into any network Ethernet port or into the back of your wireless router, and is instantly accessible from any networked device.

The device features transfer speeds up to 76MB/s courtesy of a 1.6GHz CPU, which is a big increase from Buffalo's more home user-orientated Cloudstation Duo.

Read the full Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL review

5. D-Link ShareCenter

D-Link has designed its NAS device to be at the centre of your home network, sharing your files and media throughout your home and over the internet – an admirable aim. The installation process is fairly straightforward, though there are a few options that you need to set yourself, and these can be confusing if you're not used to setting up network attached storage devices.

For example, at one point you're asked if you want to enable NTP server, without any explanation of what this is. There's also a step that asks you to enter your email address, along with port number and SMTP server – a pain if you don't have that information readily to hand.

The network drive wasn't mapped during installation – instead we had to run the D-Link Easy Search Utility, which found the D-Link ShareCenter on our network and then let us map it.

As with other aspects of the ShareCenter, the execution was rather cumbersome and inelegant, but it worked.

Read the full D-Link ShareCenter review

6. Iomega's StorCenter ix2-200

This 2TB NAS drive is billed as cloud storage, which means you can access the drive from anywhere with an internet connection. It's nothing hugely new, but Iomega has provided a good web interface for accessing your stored data online.

Unlike some of the other drives in our test, we had to install software to make it appear on our network. Fortunately, the software is well designed and your hand is held firmly through the process, making it ideal for people who have never used a NAS drive before.

From here, every feature of the drive is clearly explained with colourful bold icons, and essential tasks – such as setting up backups – are highlighted.

There's a range of useful tools too, from email updates to let you know if anything's changed on the drive itself, to the rather useful ability to download torrent files. You can also view hardware statistics, such as how full the drive is, and its current temperature. It's ideally suited to a RAID setup, too, and this can be implemented quickly and easily.

Read the full Iomega's StorCenter ix2-200 review

Best network storage: 7,8 and verdict7. Netgear's Stora MS2110

We had high hopes for Netgear's NAS drive – after all, Netgear's home networking solutions have often trumped the competition in tests like these. However, we found ourselves sorely let down.

As soon as we connected the drive, all other computers on the network lost the ability to connect. It turned out that the drive had been completely locked down to the previous user, forcing us to do a complete hardware reset. That's not hugely unusual, but we're not sure why Netgear insists on you entering a software-style product key for something that's unlikely to ever leave your home or office.

Although the drive is hefty, the build quality is below par. The front panel – which clicks off to access the hard drives – sprang off in our hands. In fact, merely placing it on the floor caused the panel to flop open. Fortunately, the drives inside feel nicely secure, with a latch at the back to eject them.

Read the full Netgear's Stora MS2110 review

8. Synology DS411

The DiskStation feels like it's stuck between being a consumer-friendly NAS drive and a rack-mounted server. It's supplied without any hard drives, and looks like a small PC, complete with thumbscrews at the back and an array of lights at the front.

Synology recommends certain drives for the product, which are formatted on insertion. This isn't an easy process, especially compared to the more user-friendly drives we've looked at.

Hard drives must be mounted and formatted with Synology's software, and then the NAS drive itself has to be configured via a small patch located on the CD. Then any folders you want on the drive need to be added manually. These all seem like features that would be automated on other NAS drives.

Read the full Synology DS411 review

Verdict

This group test proved to be a perfect microcosm of the current state of the NAS market. On one hand you have devices that stick to the old ways of doing things – heaps of functionality, but with little thought of user-friendliness. The main culprits here are the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4, the D-Link ShareCenter and the Synology DS411.

On the other side of the divide are the devices whose manufacturers have acknowledged that there is a growing market for centralised storage in the home, and have tailored their devices to offer easy to use interfaces for creating our very own personal clouds without a single network administrator in sight.

We believe that these devices that will excel in the future, when more homes are equipped with internet enabled devices like smart TVs, leaving the backwards-looking NAS devices in their wake.

Best NAS: Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - £274

The StorCenter ix2-200 encapsulates everything we were looking for in a NAS device. Its advanced features are wrapped up in a user friendly package that's easy to set up and maintain. It isn't as fast as a professional NAS, but for the internet connected home, this is a great choice.

Best value NAS: Western Digital My Book Live - £147

It's not quite the cheapest NAS device on test here, but the Western Digital My Book Live wins the best value award because it has some great features, is reliable and is easy to use. If you want a relatively cheap NAS device that you can quickly set up and then just leave it to do its job without you having to check on it and tinker every now and then, go for this.

10 worst programs of all time

Programs can be our friends: they can help us express ourselves, can solve our problems and can do their very best to make our days happier.

Sometimes, though, they do the Devil's work, making simple tasks so complex and frustrating that you'd happily make everybody involved face a firing squad.

So which programs made everyone angry? Let's discover the software Hall of Shame.

1. Final Cut Pro X

Apple's movie editing software isn't a bad program, but this release turned even the most mild-mannered editor into an incandescent ball of sheer fury. It was sold as an upgrade, but it was really a brand new, version 1.0 product - and that means it didn't have all the features or compatibility that existing users expected, wanted or relied upon.

2. Adobe Reader

Everybody needs to open a PDF from time to time, but Adobe Reader is a sledgehammer sold as a nutcracker: it's enormous - on the Mac, the current version is 69.1MB - it keeps putting a shortcut on your desktop for no good reason, and once you've installed it seems to spend most of its time moaning that you haven't paid it enough attention or installed yet another enormous update. No wonder Windows 8 plans to whack it with a shovel.

GOING: OS X has its own PDF reader, and Windows 8 will do the same with the new Open Reader

3. Ask Toolbar

We're not fans of browser toolbars at the best of times, but the Ask Toolbar is a particularly poor one: it's been variously accused of installing itself without asking permission, making changes to users' browser settings and promoting itself to children. Many problems occurred because over-zealous software writers bundled the toolbar with their own applications but didn't ask whether or not you wanted it.

WHAT'S THAT JEEVES?: We don't like third party toolbars at the best of times, but the Ask one proved particularly unpopular

4. Lotus Notes

IT departments loved this popular messaging and collaboration system, but users were considerably less keen: in the mid-2000s the product was widely criticised for appearing to have been put together by somebody who really, really hated the entire human race and wanted to make it suffer. According to The Guardian, its popularity in business was partly because "the people who choose [business software] tend not to be the ones who use it."

NOT OF NOTE: Lotus Notes still exists, but these days it's very different from its much-hated mid-2000s incarnation [Image credit: Koman90, Wikimedia Commons]

5. Norton Antivirus

Symantec's desktop antivirus software generated enormous ill will through its unfortunate habit of slowing your PC down to a crawl. Part of the problem was that the software tried to do too much: scanning every conceivable thing you do on PC requires significant resources at a time when PCs weren't the flying machines they are today. Thankfully, Norton has addressed such issues these days.

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS: Happy Norton Man won't be smiling when his system slows down and he can't uninstall the program

6. Microsoft Word

Some people say "I hate Microsoft Word because it's far too complicated!" Some say "I hate Microsoft Word because it introduced Clippy the bloody Office Assistant!" A few say "I hate Microsoft Word because it's often used by idiots to make really horrible-looking things!" Others say, "I hate Microsoft Word because its HTML output made web designers' lives miserable for years!" Still others say "I hate Microsoft Word because I keep sending .docx files that only three people on Earth can actually read!" We say, people! Come together! Let's hate Microsoft Word for all of those reasons!

OFFICE PEST: Aaagh! Aaagh! Aaagh! Aaagh!

7. Adobe Flash

Despite its many benefits - in web design circles it's a powerful and useful creative tool - Flash can be enormously annoying. In many cases the problem was with its users, not the technology - you can't blame Adobe for irritating splash screens, badly designed ads or appalling user interfaces - but for many internet users, a Flash blocker is the first thing they install in a new browser.

NOT JUST JOBS: Flash remains a powerful design tool, but in the wrong hands it can be a powerful force for evil

8. iTunes for Windows

Steve Jobs called iTunes for Windows "like giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell". The reality distortion field was strong that day, because rather than show Windows users the joys of Apple software, iTunes on Windows seems merely designed to depress them. As we've said previously, "the Windows version is a sluggish, resource-hungry mess. Apple has Windows users worldwide loving its iOS devices and despising iTunes, and this needs to change."

SLOOOOOOW: iTunes is proof that Apple doesn't always get it right. On Windows it's a donkey

9. Windows Me and Windows Vista

Yes, we know these are operating systems. This one's a joint nomination: Windows Me because it was a largely pointless update of Windows 98, and Windows Vista because it didn't work properly. Vista in particular should have been a great OS, but show-stopping bugs - copying a file could easily take four million years - and a lack of initial driver support turned a potential racehorse into a donkey.

WOW NOW: The wow starts... now! No... now! Now! NOW! Oh okay, let's just wait for Windows 7 then

10. Internet Explorer 6

Imagine a pristine swimming pool with crystal clear water. That's the internet. Now imagine an enormous poo floating past. That's IE6.

You know something's bad when even its creator dances on its grave. The problem wasn't the browser as such, which was fairly modern when it was released in 2001; it was Microsoft's refusal to update it significantly for years and years, breaking websites and leaving internet users vulnerable to all kinds of online unpleasantness. IE6 was Microsoft at its worst.

TERRIBLE: "Imagine an enormous poo... that's IE6". IE6 is officially pronounced "Aieeeeeee"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AMD has finally released its Radeon HD 7950 graphics card to the world, the second tier of the manufacturer's Southern Islands/AMD HD 7000 series cards.

Was it worth the wait? Well you will be pleased to know that yes it was…and then some.

This new graphics card is based on the same 28nm Graphics Core Next GPU as the AMD Radeon HD 7970, code-named Tahiti.

This Tahiti Pro is ever so slightly cut down compared to the HD 7970's Tahiti XT, but the disparity in performance is mostly down to the lower core clockspeed.

The AMD Radeon HD 7950 is clocked at a fairly conservative 800MHz compared to the HD 7970's 925MHz.

We say conservative as the Tahiti Pro GPU, from all the cards we've seen, is more than capable of topping the 1GHz mark. So it's a bit of a shame that we haven't seen a HD 7000 series card hitting the 1GHz core clock speed out of the box.

Though there are rumours a certain Taiwanese graphics card manufacturer may be releasing an overclocked Radeon HD 7950 with that very rating.

We've been playing with a couple of the cards for a while now and of everything it's the overclocking prowess of the Radeon HD 7950 that makes it such an outstanding card.

The fact that it also bests the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 in pretty much all the benchmarks, and ably keeps pace with the Radeon HD 7970 only adds to that.

And does it all for less cash than either.

You can check out our AMD Radeon HD 7950 review and the factory-overclocked Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OverClock edition review on the TechRadar Components Channel right now.

Suffice to say that if we were spending serious money on a graphics card right now it would be on an AMD Radeon HD 7950.

Nvidia is going to have to work hard to produce a card for the same price that out does it on performance.

Related Stories

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 gets reviewedExplained: AMD HD3D technology: what you need to know

AMD HD3D technology: what's it all about?

Stereoscopic 3D might not be to everyone's tastes, but it's certainly a lucrative business.

For the past few years Nvidia has enjoyed a virtual stereo 3D monopoly on the PC with its 3D Vision technology, but AMD has belatedly entered the ring with its own technology called HD3D.

For those who have heavily invested in Nvidia's technology it might be too little too late, but AMD's new offering introduces a number of innovations that make it worth considering – even if you think stereo 3D is just an expensive way to get a headache.

Read our Nvidia 3D Vision review

The biggest attraction of HD3D is AMD's commitment to making it an open platform that supports many different standards. Unlike Nvidia's approach, where you're tied to Nvidia 3D Vision-certified hardware, HD3D's open ecosystem should allow for a more diverse choice.

It's pretty encouraging that AMD seems to have identified one of consumer stereoscopic 3D's biggest problems, and the reason why so many of us have so far held back from embracing stereo 3D: the vast and confusing array of incompatible 3D standards. If AMD's mission with HD3D is to allow us to buy 3D hardware from various different manufacturers, without us having to worry whether it will all work together, that can only be a good thing for us consumers – and might lead to more of us setting up our rigs for 3D.

How it works

When it comes to three-dimensional gaming, the bulk of the stereo horsepower comes from the HD3D driver. The driver uses a quad-buffer to produce stereo 3D. Usually with non-stereo 3D graphics (monoscopic) the driver uses double-buffering.

This is where the GPU renders content to one specific place in memory, known as a buffer. At the same time, a second buffer is used to deliver the display output of the GPU to a monitor or other display. Quad-buffering essentially doubles this, producing two images – one for the left eye and one for the right – for every frame generated.

AMD's Direct3D engineering team produced an API that supports OpenGL and DirectX 9, 10 and 11. AMD's open approach allows middleware partners, such as DDD and iZ3D to convert games from monoscopic to stereoscopic. This takes some of the pressure off AMD to ensure games are compatible with HD3D and has led to an already impressively long list of compatible games.

Launching into HD3D

If you want to set up HD3D then the first thing you need to do is make sure that you've got a supported Radeon graphics card. The ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series using Catalyst 10.10 or later and AMD Radeon HD 6000 series or above are compatible.

You can also use HD3D if you have an HP Envy 17 3D with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850, an MSI Wind Top AE2420 All-in-One with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730, or a Lenovo IdeaPad y560d with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730.

You'll also need a 3D-capable display device, like a 3D monitor, TV or projector. There are plenty of supported devices – click here for a full list. If the display device is a 3D TV or a 3D projector then it needs to support HDMI 1.4a, and you'll need an HDMI 1.4a cable.

Unless you can afford a glasses-free 3D display, you'll need the chunky eyewear too. You'll also want DDD's TriDef 3D for the AMD HD3D driver, or the iZ3D 3D driver for 3D gaming.

Thanks to AMD's partnership with the middleware driver makers, you can get 50 per cent off either driver if you have HD3D compatible hardware. Make sure you have the latest AMD Catalyst 10.10 software or later from AMD's website. Install either the DDD TriDef 3D or iZ3D drivers and select either 'AMD – AMD HD3D Technology (HDMI 1.4a)' or '120Hz 3D Devices' respectively.

You'll then need to set your desktop resolution to 1,920 x 1,080, 24Hz or 1,280 x 720, 60Hz. Using either TriDef 3D or iZ3D you need to select the game profile and point the software to the game's executable file, and then launch the game itself from inside the 3D software.

AMD has outsourced a lot of the work involved in creating compatible games to the third party middleware companies iZ3D and DDD. Headline games include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2 and World of Warcraft, and are included in a growing list of compatible games.

You can be pretty confident that the biggest new releases will be compatible, but for a full list of compatible games go to iz3d.com/games and the TriDef website.

It's not all down to third parties though. AMD is working directly with games developers on native support for HD3D. This year AMD worked closely with Eidos to support native stereo 3D in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This meant that Eidos rendered images for both the left eye and the right eye in game, and was able to utilise HD3D's quad-buffer without the need for middleware.

Hopefully as the HD3D standard gains popularity, more games will include native support as they are released. So how does AMD's plucky little David compare to Nvidia's Goliath?

In terms of performance and raw power, Nvidia's head start in stereo 3D certainly gives 3D Vision the edge. HD3D's reliance on the HDMI 1.4a specification leaves it with a maximum TMDS throughput of 10.2Gb/s, allowing for 1080p gaming at 24 frames per second for each eye, or 720p at 60 frames per second.

This is a lot lower than 3D Vision Surround's dual-link DVI connection capable of resolutions up to 5,760 x 1,080 over dual monitors. AMD hopes that as more new monitors begin to support DisplayPort 1.2, HD3D will be able to get around HDMI 1.4a's limitations with a bandwidth of 17.28Gb/s – enough for 1080p at 60 frames per second per eye.

HD3D vs 3D Vision

AMD's embrace of open standards really sets the HD3D apart from Nvidia's 3D Vision. Not being tied to specific hardware and standard restrictions gives us far greater scope to build a 3D-capable rig that meets our needs.

It can also be more cost effective – not only can we shop around for the best components at the best prices, we can also avoid some of the hidden costs associated with Nvidia 3D Vision. You don't need a propriety 3DTV Play driver to play 3D Blu-rays, and you don't have to rely on expensive USB emitters.

You do need to pay for third party middleware drivers, though. Still, there is enough potential in HD3D to get us excited about its future, and to cause Nvidia some concern over 3D Vision's future.

Related Stories

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 gets reviewedAMD Radeon HD 7950 launched at last

This probably shouldn't shock too many people but, Tim Cook believes the future isn't with the PC, but with the tablet. After shipping 15.4 million iPads in Q1 Cupertino is clearly comfortable with the idea that tablets are taking off and, as we begin to demand our devices become more mobile, it only makes sense that these finger-friendly slates will one day outsell less portable options like laptops and desktops. When might that day come? Well, Mr. Cook refused to speculate, but he was confident that the tablet market will be bigger, at least in terms of units sold, than traditional computers. Cook is already seeing a shift, with the iPad cannibalizing some Mac sales, but he does believe "there's more cannibalization of Windows PCs by the iPad," a trend he clearly loves. We hope, for their own sake, Dell and HP are ready for the coming revolution.

Tim Cook: the tablet will be bigger than the PC one day originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

Kodak has issued a statement to clarify its current position outside of the US, after announcing that it was filing for bankruptcy protection yesterday.

The company notes that its "non-U.S. subsidiaries are not included in the filings and will continue to operate as usual. Accordingly, these international operations continue to honour all obligations to customers and suppliers, whenever incurred.

"Our European business is not affected by the decision that has been taken by our US parent company to file for voluntary Chapter 11 business reorganisation for US businesses." Philip Cullimore, managing director for Europe, said.

Focus on printers

"In Europe we have seen a significant shift towards business-to-business imaging applications, and are weighted towards printing. These businesses in Europe are performing well and growing fast."

So, for the moment at least, it's business as usual in Kodak UK's headquarters at Hemel Hempstead.

Kodak has launched a new website - Kodaktransforms.com - where it intends to update information about the company's reorganisation. The company has once again confirmed its commitment to continue to provide staff with their wages and benefits throughout the reorganisation process, which should be completed in the US by 2013.

The Genius DX-Eco is a wireless mouse that doesn't use batteries and can recharge in just three minutes.

Removing the need for planet-killing disposable batteries or time-wasting rechargeables, the Genius DX-Eco uses a built-in gold capacitor instead.

Genius claims that this gold capacitor will hold enough charge for "a full day's use" and just takes three minutes for a complete recharge. So even if a heavy cursor-waggling session drains your electric rodent early, it'll be ready to go again before the kettle has boiled.

Future proof

That gold capacitor is supposedly also good for 100,000 charges. If you're charging it every day that means you'll get a very reasonable 273 years of use out of it.

It's Mac and PC compatible, connecting via a 2.4GHz USB pico receiver which can be slotted inside the mouse when not in use.

According to Genius, BlueEye sensor technology means it will keep on pointing when used on most surfaces including marble and thick carpet. Great news if you don't have a table.

It recharges via Micro USB cable, though, so you'll need to keep track of that wire.

The Genius DX-Eco is out in the US now for $39.99.

Related Stories

Buying Guide: Best printer 2011: 15 top inkjet and laser printersBuying Guide: Best monitor for watching moviesCES 2012: Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock previewed

Alienware's senior product consultant has explained to TechRadar the reasoning behind offering a small-form factored gaming PC in the Alienware X51.

Dell-owned Alienware has established its reputation with high-end products, appealing to hard-core gamers with enough money to fork out for the latest kit.

However, with desktop computing on the wane, Alienware is keen to tap into a category of gamers that do not have the space or justification for a huge, powerful gaming machine.

Decline

Eoin Leyden, Alienware's senior product consultant told TechRadar: "Desktop as a category has been declining, and the only shining light has been small and ultra-small form factor PCs.

"These PCs have been predominantly digital hubs for the living room that have no regard for the gaming population at all.

"Some of that has been partly driven by price, but also the heat generated by gaming systems is a problem."

Alienware's X51 has a form-factor similar to that of an Xbox, but offers far superior specs even at its lowest price point – offering up Intel's Core i3-2120 processor and 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 545 graphics along with 4GB DDR3 RAM.

"The performance speaks for itself," adds Leyden. "The compromise is within the form-factor.

"You can't do SLI graphics because you couldn't manage the heat. You could if you made it bigger, but that defies the entire point.

"I don't personally believe you can offer a system that offers a better gaming performance within that form-factor or even that there is anything close."

"I asked one of our designers what cool thing I should be telling people in the briefings and he said, 'Tell them that we managed to make it all fit in'!"

Sub-core game

Leyden believes that the division between mid-level and hardcore gaming is increasingly blurred and that a generation of gamers still want to play the latest titles but only have limited time.

"From casual to pro-gamer the difference is the amount of leisure time people devote to gaming.

"At one end of the scale you have 'all of my leisure time is taken up by gaming' and at the further you move over you soon hit the 'I get two hours of Call of Duty or Skyrim or do I go and play golf?'

"Gaming is in their heads but not necessarily the number one thing that drives them. If [that demographic] is going to buy a small PC they will want it to be able to play games.

"If they go into a shop and there is two small form factor PCs but one is fully tripped out for games, I'd say 'absolutely – it's a great investment'.

"Within the confines of the form-factor we have totally developed an Alienware product. We didn't go out going to hit a price point but this is a PC that can do all of the things a desktop computer ought to do, but for that extra bit of money it can also play the latest games."

Another key factor is that the standard components mean that the user can upgrade their own PC.

"We did talk about locking it down, but we decided that would not be what we want to do with Alienware desktops," concludes Leyden.

Related Stories

Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO launchesAlienware X51 announced

The Alienware X51 has been officially announced, with the gaming brand offering up a desktop with a small form-factor that is aiming to tempt in the groups between casual gamers and hardcore.

The X51 brings a decent set of specs and the always-enviable Alienware design but packs it into a form-factor that is only marginally bigger than an Xbox.

"I don't personally believe you can offer a system that offers a better gaming performance within that form-factor or even that there is anything close, " Eoin Leyden, Alienware's senior product consultant told TechRadar.

Range

As you would expect the Alienware X51 comes in a range of specs with the lowest priced version at £699 bringing an 3.3 GHz Intel Core i3-2120, Nvidia Geforce GT545 graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 1TB harddrive.

At the other end of the spectrum is the £999 version with 8 Gigs of RAM, Intel Core i7-2600 and Nvidia Geforce GTX 555 graphics. That will give you up to 77 frames per second from Battlefield 3, according to Dell-owned Alienware.

The smaller form factor is aimed at the mass market, and it has been designed to stand horizontally or vertically - so you could sit it next to your TV without it looking too out of place.

It's certainly an unexpected move from a company that has previously specialised in massive high-end rigs - but can it take advantage of the recent renaissance in PC gaming?

Related Stories

Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO launchesAlienware explains move to small form-factor

If Intel is right about the high percentage of new PCs bought that will be Ultrabooks – and the $300 million it's putting behind the Ultrabook concept should help with that – AMD needs a processor to put in budget thin and light notebooks as well.

That's what the next-generation Trinity APU is designed for. We were first shown the chip at Computex 2011, but AMD showed us it running in a back room at CES 2012.

At first it looked like AMD was demonstrating a beefy desktop processor in a large gaming rig, playing a DirectX 11 game on one screen and transcoding video for iPad resolution on another.

But then AMD's Ron Myers cracked open the case to show the notebook that was actually doing the work, which was also playing HD video on its own screen.

Yes, Dirt3 was running in low detail rather than high and the media transcoding was using CPU rather than GPU, but the texture mapping in DirectX 11 made even low detail pretty impressive and all three tasks were running smoothly without any stuttering or glitching.

Despite being tucked inside a PC case, the notebook showed no signs of overheating (although the large fan on the case is probably responsible for that).

That's because AMD has halved the amount of power that Trinity requires compared to the current Llano APU, from 35W to 17W.

As well as a part designed for laptops (and a high-powered desktop chip), Trinity will also be available as a socket-less processor that will fit into ultra-thin notebooks (which is what AMD has to call Ultrabooks made with its chips, since Intel has copyright on the Ultrabook term) and Windows 8 tablets.

AMD is also promising a 25% improvement in compute performance from the Piledriver CPU that replaces Bulldozer and a 50% improvement from the GPU in Trinity.

TRINITY 2012: We first saw Trinity at last year's Computex

With Intel adding DirectX 11 support in Ivy Bridge, AMD will lose some of the GPU advantage it's had with Llano, so it needs that extra 50%. Of course, we don't know how good DirectX 11 on Ultrabooks will be.

Intel's Mooley Eden refused to put a specific number on the improved performance but promised it would be "a different experience" during CES.

What AMD should still have is lower prices, especially as Trinity ultra-thin systems won't have to have the expensive materials that Intel insists on for Ultrabooks. When Trinity comes out in Q2 this year, notebooks using it are likely to cost $500 or less – half the price Intel's partners are struggling to keep Ultrabooks down to.

With the lower TDP, Trinity should also improve on the already-good battery life of Llano. For comparison, the Llano-powered HP dm1 AMD had running in the corner of the meeting room was managing six hours of video playback. "That's true all-day battery life," Myers pointed out.

Related Stories

Buying Guide: Best CPU: the 8 top processors today