Although we’ve run into our fair share of challenges with Blu-ray movie playback on the PC, the latest version of PowerDVD seems to have settled everything. With the majority of today’s GPUs and displays supporting HDCP, the promise of buying a Blu-ray drive and getting instant access to Blu-ray movies is very real. Blu-ray movies are routinely available for $20 or less, and buy-one-get-one-free promotions seem to happen every other week at Amazon.com. For movie enthusiasts who want to enjoy a movie with all of the detail that was intended to be present by the director, moving to a high definition world is a solid choice.
The real question is then: Do I get a Blu-ray reader and drop CD/DVD burning and save $50? Spend an extra $50 to get a combo drive that reads Blu-ray and HD DVD? Or just go with a PlayStation 3 for an extra $150 and get HDMI high-definition Dolby TrueHD support along with, you know, PS3 gaming support?
Going with a Blu-ray reader is the cheapest way to get into BD. Since CD and DVD burning are still important features to have, you can get by with a two-optical drive setup. With a new system, however, going with the combo drive makes more sense. You’re going to need CD/DVD burning anyway, and Blu-ray burners are still too expensive for casual use. That’s the easy comparison.
The HD-DVD combo drive is one that’s worth discussing. As it stands, Blu-ray continues to outsell HD DVD in the US by an almost 2:1 ratio. With the exception of Paramount and Universal, you can enjoy movies on Blu-ray, including the exclusive Disney, Sony Pictures, and Fox. The chances of Blu-ray going under are slim to none. HD DVD is still a technically strong format, and exclusive movies such as Transformers and the Bourne Ultimatum are just as fun to watch as the best Pixar or 007 movies. There’s a very real possibility that HD DVD and Blu-ray will continue to exist and thrive in the same way that the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii are all able to thrive. If anything, HD DVD is the format that is at greatest risk for dying out. Spending an extra $50 for the integrated HD DVD drive really makes sense as “insurance” against one format dying.
Admittedly, in my experience, PowerDVD and WinDVD are less reliable with some of the newer HD DVD titles. Likewise, if you’re already spending $50, the question is whether or not a stand-alone HD DVD add-on is an option. In the last holiday season, there were several promotions where it was possible to get a HD DVD player for about $100. While these standalone units only support 1080i, TVs with proper 3:2 pulldown will give you a complete reconstruction of the original 1080p image. Perhaps more importantly, these stand alone units are often eligible for the “5 free HD DVD” promotion...
Conclusion
Asus’s drive is one of the cheapest ways to enter the Blu-ray world on the PC. It offers good plug-and-play sensibility unlike the barebones Pioneer drive which lacks a Blu-ray software bundle. From that perspective, the ASUS BC-1205PT is an exceptional value. The only uncertainty is whether or not the HD DVD/Blu-Ray combo drive from LG for an extra $50 offers a better value. If you don’t already have a HD DVD player, it may.
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Review
With dual processing cores clocked at 3.33GHz, Intel's Core 2 Duo E8600 is a serious performer, but it's an even more impressive OC'er. Check out Brandon's thoughts on the CPU in our Core 2 Duo E8600 review!
Madden 09 Review
With solid graphics and gameplay, there's a lot to like with EA's latest iteration of Madden, but Brett reports that there are still some annoying AI quirks that hold the game back. Read on for the full review!
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon 4850 Dual Slot Review
The Sapphire Toxic 4850 is loaded with features. The card ships with an all-copper dual slot, dual heatpipe cooler from Zalman, the VF900-Cu. But that's not all, the board is also OC'ed to higher speeds than any other 4850 card on the market. In this article we officially review the Sapphire Toxic 4850 as well as its younger brother the 4850 Dual Slot. Both cards deliver cooling that's significantly improved over ATI's cooler. Find out how well these cards perform in today's review!
Soul Calibur IV Review
Are the additions of Darth Vader and Yoda enough to carry the Soul Calibur series? Yes and no. Brett finds the fighting enjoyable, but Namco Bandai's isn't perfect. Read the pros and cons in today's review!
FiringSquad Rumor Patrol: Apple, NVIDIA
FiringSquad's top secret division looks at technology rumors floating around the 'net. In this round: NVIDIA and Apple!
Palit GeForce 9800 GT Sonic Review
Rather than rely on NVIDIA's reference board design for the 9800 GT, Palit has incorporated a number of improvements into their 9800 GT Sonic, including a 3-phase board design, dual-slot cooling, and OC'ed clock speeds. How does the 9800 GT card perform in comparison to the popular GeForce 8800 GT and a host of other GPUs? Find out in this article!
Budget Gaming PC Roundup
In this article, Jakes takes a look at three different $1,000 gaming PCs from CyberPower, iBuyPower, and MainGear PC. Each company took a different approach to tackling the $1,000 budget, and one company really stood out with their extraordinary build quality. See how the various PCs fared in our Budget Gaming PC Roundup!
PhysX Performance Update: GPU vs. PPU vs. CPU
After posting our PhysX story last week, many of you wrote in asking for PPU benchmarks, so today we've delivered! Armed with our original BFG PhysX card, we booted up an X48 Core 2 QX9650 testbed and re-ran the benchmarks. See how the PPU fared against the CPU and GPU in this quick article!
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Performance Preview
With 1600 shaders, 2.0GB of GDDR5 memory, and 2.4 TeraFLOPS of graphics horsepower, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is one impressive performer. See how the card stacks up running 8xAA against SLI GeForce GTX 280 and 260 in single card and 4-Way CrossFire. We've also thrown in 24xAA benchmarks as well. Is 2GB of memory really necessary? All the answers lie inside!
PhysX Performance with GeForce
Later this month NVIDIA will open up GeForce-based PhysX processing to their entire range of GeForce 8/9 and GTX 200 GPUs. In this article we take a look at their performance (as well as ATI's Radeon HD 4000 series), in four different PhysX applications. What kind of performance can you expect? Find out inside!
Benchmarks
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