Next-Generation PCs

Slower But Safe

RAID 1, on the other hand, offers little performance gain but complete hard-drive fault tolerance. The RAID controller continuously makes an exact copy, or mirror, of the first drive on the second. If one of the drives should fail, RAID 1 can keep the system running--or at least, enable you to quickly repair or replace the failed drive, restore its data from the mirrored drive, and resume operation without losing any data.

A RAID 5 configuration, which four of the systems here support, provides the best of both worlds: striping for fast data access and good fault tolerance for system reliability. The catch, though, is that RAID 5 requires at least three hard drives, and performance suffers in applications that write to disk a lot (in which case RAID 1 or RAID 1+0 would be a better choice).

The Voodoo Omen carries two 10,000-rpm Western Digital Raptor hard drives in a striped RAID 0 array for peak performance. This combination can produce noticeably faster data transfers when you copy large files or load graphics-rich software programs--such as games.

Water Works

Some high-powered PCs require high-powered cooling--water cooling. For today's hot-running CPUs, fans sometimes aren't ideal. The Apple Power Mac G5, the Sony VAIO, and the Voodoo Omen all use water cooling instead of fans to keep their CPUs from overheating.

Apple and Sony have each chosen to hide the cooling apparatus in closed compartments inside the case, perhaps because they think the sight of water flowing next to a motherboard would disturb seasoned PC users. Whatever those users' reasons, the folks at Voodoo have no such qualms: One side of the Omen's case is a window that reveals translucent purple cooling tubes snaking through the PC's interior and backlit by fluorescent lights. Is water cooling reliable? We haven't tested long-term performance, but Apple assured us that its sealed cooling system is designed to outlast the useful life of the Power Mac G5. And you never have to top it off or add antifreeze in the winter.

The big advantage of water cooling for you: All three of these systems are noticeably quieter than comparably equipped air-cooled systems. But they're not completely silent; the power supplies still have fans, and hard drives always make noise, too.