 Traditionally, over at least the past 15 years, the main role of a video card in a computer has been to accelerate 3D graphics. That is a large part of what has made modern computer games possible, and it has also contributed heavily to CAD / CAM work and digital animation. Video cards have also helped with 2D graphics and video playback, but the main focus has been on 3D speed.Â
This trend is beginning to change, though. As CPUs have seemed to reach an upper limit on pure clock speed many programmers are looking elsewhere for ways to improve performance in a variety of programs. Designing software to take advantage of multi-core processors has been a big benefit, as is the push toward 64-bit software that can use more RAM. Video cards are also being explored as a source of more processing power, and in situations where their massively-parallel architecture can be harnessed effectively it can be a huge benefit.
One such situation is video editing, and many smaller programs and plug-ins have been making use of either CUDA (for nVidia cards) or Stream (ATI) to accelerate video encoding. The recent launch of Adobe’s latest version of Premiere Pro – CS5 – marks the first instance of a major editing program adding this kind of functionality. In order to use this feature in Premiere Pro, though, you need to have the right video card – so I’d like to take a moment to describe the situation, hopefully helping our customers to make an informed choice when upgrading or buying a new computer.
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Posted in Hardware Analysis, Technology Commentary | 1 Comment »
 Along with a few other guys here at Puget, I’ve been really enjoying Blizzard’s new game – Starcraft 2. While the basic gameplay remains the same, Blizzard has definitely brought Starcraft into the 21st century, with updated graphics, better game control mechanics, better online matchmaking, great cinematics, and overall a much smoother and more intuitive experience.
I’ve been seeing some reports of menu screens on Starcraft 2 causing poorly ventilated, or poorly designed graphics cards to fail. Does this sound familiar? It definitely sounds familiar to me.
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August 6, 2010 – 3:40 pm by
Kyle
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Hello fellow Puget enthusiasts! My name is Kyle, welcome to my first ever entry on this blog. My job here at Puget is to take your newly built system and prepare it for the real world. Mainly, I’m in charge of installations and testing. This includes OS and application installations, all software updates, installation of any additional hardware we may have been waiting for and any specific customizations you the customer may have requested. From there I do a full range of testing, both the physical and logical. This is done to ensure that your computer meets our high standards. One thing I quickly came to discover is how much of a headache the installation department can be if you don’t have the right tools. Yes, a trusty screw driver is important, but a trusty USB key is irreplaceable (until you make a new one).
So let’s jump right into it. I’m here today to show you how to create a bootable USB key which, when placed in the right hands, can do almost anything. From my key I can boot into DOS and run any DOS based application/utility I may need. I can also load grub4dos which allows me to boot .iso files among other things. This article simply shows you how to make your key bootable. I’ll put together some more blog posts in the future, and highlight some of the useful things these can do.
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Posted in Hardware Analysis | 1 Comment »
 A customer called today, who had heard the term ‘netbook’ but didn’t know what one was. This seemed like a good chance to write a little primer about what a netbook is, and also what it isn’t.Â
The term ‘netbook’ is relatively recent, and used to describe a subclass of notebooks. They’re designed to be small, inexpensive and efficient, perfect for general web use, but not for heavy lifting. There are several factors that make netbooks appealing–light weight, compact size, long battery life, low prices. These are good features, and the primary reasons I like my own netbook.  However, its utility is limited in scope.
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Posted in Hardware Analysis | 5 Comments »
For most of the last decade we’ve carried Seasonic and Corsair power supplies as our the bulk of our lineup.  We’ve been extremely happy with both, but we’ve also slowly branched out and have been testing some other highly rated models.  Over the last few months, we’ve quietly added the Antec CP-850 to our lineup – and we’ve been extremely happy with it.  So with a few extra minutes today I wanted to write a little post about some of its impressive qualities!
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A quick explanation for people unfamiliar with Linux: Â Linux is an operating system, much like Windows or MacOS. Â It’s been around forever, it has a lot of different varieties, and it’s really good at doing certain things. Â One of the things that it’s not been particularly good at, historically speaking, is playing games.
In recent days, we’ve seen more and more movement on the Linux Gaming front.  TransGaming has done a terrific job with their Cedega product of bringing games to the Linux platform.  MNTHGECC9VB9 Even more exciting for Linux users, we’re starting to see some developers gearing up to launch their product on all three platforms simultaneously (such as Heroes of Newerth).  Now that Valve’s Steam is available on MacOS, there’s even a lot of belief that a Linux release might be next.
So what does a gaming system for Linux look like? Â Two of our support technicians, Daniel and Christopher, both run Linux on their personal desktop systems, so I thought I’d challenge them each to design a Linux gaming rig. Â I also threw in a catch: Â Keep the price under $999
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Posted in Hardware Analysis | 4 Comments »
This is the first edition in a series of (hopefully) weekly blog posts titled “Puget Picks”. Our goal is to shine a spotlight on some hardware that we’ve been recently impressed with.
There’s a lot more to any particular piece of hardware than it’s polygon-crunching output, so I want to stay away from a bunch of bean-counting benchmarks (there’s plenty of great sites out there that do a terrific job at that). Instead, I’d like to focus on the hardware from the various perspectives of our departments, and what sort of experiences they’ve had.
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April 27, 2010 – 12:41 pm by
Chris Bristol
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Over the last few years, Puget Systems has made a strong effort to get more involved with our local business community. Â Keeping with this theme, we’re proud to announce our participation in the 2010 Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce Trade Show. Â We are both a sponsor of the event and a exhibitor. Â For those of you in the Seattle area, we encourage you to stop by the show and say hello. Â The show is May 12th and we’re in booth number 225. Â Hope to see you there!
As a promotion for the show, the Chamber stopped by and made a quick video highlighting Puget. Â Enjoy!
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Posted in Business Practices, Company News | No Comments »
It’s been a while since we’ve posted something to the ol’ Puget Blog. Why the neglect? We’ve been crazy busy trying to roll out new website features and keep up with all the newest hardware launches! We’ve got a brand new layout on the site for each of our branded systems, and a bunch of slick new hardware, like the Nvidia ‘Fermi‘ Video cards.
I wanted to share some fun before-and-after pictures of a system we were working on recently. If you don’t live near us here in Seattle, you might not know that we do computer repair too. We offer free diagnostic, and very reasonable rates on the work. (To be honest with you, we see local computer repair as a good way to spread word-of-mouth, not really as a moneymaker).
Anyhow, we have a customer who had just picked up his brand new Puget Deluge gaming computer, and he was really impressed with the cable and wiring job that our production team did. He mentioned that he had an old system laying around that he had built a few years ago, and asked if we could give it a bit of a face-lift.
So I wanted to pass along a few of these shots. Our build staff does a great job, and I’m glad to have a chance to feature a bit of their work!
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Posted in Hardware Analysis | 2 Comments »
When Intel first debuted the Core i7 processor line, code-named Nehalem, in late 2008 it made perfect sense. Â This line of quad-cores brought several new technologies: Turbo Mode, integrated memory controllers, triple-channel RAM, and Hyperthreading (making a comeback from the Pentium 4 era). Â There were three processors at launch, a 920, 940 and 965 – each slightly faster than the one before it, with the ‘5′ at the end of the last denoting that it was an Extreme Edition chip with some unlocked settings to help with overclocking. Â Over time the 940 was replaced with a 950, and then 960; the 965 also got an upgrade in the form of a 975. The naming scheme now isn’t so simple — let’s take a look.
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Posted in Industry Players, Technology Commentary | 11 Comments »
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Traditionally, over at least the past 15 years, the main role of a video card in a computer has been to accelerate 3D graphics. That is a large part of what has made modern computer games possible, and it has also contributed heavily to CAD / CAM work and digital animation. Video cards have also helped with 2D graphics and video playback, but the main focus has been on 3D speed. 
