MaximumPC 2004 09

SEPTEMBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC 43

With PCI Express and DDR2, Dream
Machine 2004 heralds a new world
order in computing. But, sadly, its
construction also marks the end of an
era. We hereby proclaim megahertz
madness, which has infected the
masses for decades, officially dead.
In its place: more sober and efficient
component designs.
Even Intel, the unabashed high
priest of clock speeds, has publicly
admitted through its recent change of
strategy that a new age is dawning.
By this time next year, both AMD and
Intel should have shifted gears to
multi-core CPUs in a single die, rather
than the usual relentless series of clock
speed increases.
So, it seems fitting that with one
final huzzah, we built a 4GHz Dream
Machine that fuses the wanton clock
cycle greed of the past and present
with the performance, efficiency, and
enhanced functionality of the future.
Fortunately, there’s still some magic left
in the wanton pursuit of clock speeds.

AND NOW FOR THE RESULTS...
Given the high speeds and
benchmarking scores exhibited by
the OEM systems we review every
month—it seems like every month a
cutting edge review unit breaks our
Lab records—building a competition-
blasting rig was no easy task. But we
did it. We compared Dream Machine
2004’s scores against all the desktop
machines we reviewed over the last six

months and found that it set records in four of our six system benchmarks. We absolutely smoked our zero- point system across the board. When you consider that our zero-point is an Athlon 64 FX-51, that’s quite a feat. What’s more, in SYSmark 2004, our overclocked 4GHz Prescott ran away from every Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX box we’ve ever reviewed. Even the Pentium 4 Extreme Editions—which AMD likes to complain are as common as Unicorns—got steamrolled. In Premiere Pro, the benchmark delta is even more pronounced. The only machine that even comes close is Falcon Northwest’s Frag Box Pro (reviewed on page 74), which is itself based on a Prescott. This year’s Dream Machine is also king of the hill in our Photoshop action script. Only Velocity Micro’s overclocked P4EE manages to nibble at its bumper. Finally, our 4GHz overclock really stretched Jedi Academy, primarily a CPU test these days, to the outer limits of benchmarking, pulling way out in front of the pack. But clock speeds don’t make all the difference. Sometimes architecture and cache play a more significant role, depending on the task. This is our explanation for DM2004's disappointing loss to

Velocity Micro’s ProMagix system (reviewed in June 2004) in Music Match benchmark. The ProMagix and its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition managed to squish our test WAV file into an MP3 two seconds faster. Damn you, Velocity Micro, and damn your Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition eyes! Likewise, Falcon Northwest’s Frag Box and its overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultra squeezed past the Dream Machine in our Halo tests by a couple of frames. Technically, you could call it a tie, but we can’t. The fact that Falcon out- scooted us with a small formfactor is testament to the company’s hardcore credentials, that’s for sure. But still, four out of six isn’t bad. In fact it’s great when you consider the rocket-fast PCs we’re comparing it to. n

Benchmark numbers don’t lie

Leave it to Maximum PC to send megahertz madness out in style

year’s machine with two
different CPUs, six dif-
ferent videocards, two
different hard drives us-
ing two onboard SATA
controllers, and two
different sound configu-
rations—onboard HD
Audio and the Audigy.

While the main com-
ponents went through
our rigorous suite of benchmark tests, we
prepped the LCD touch screen that would
be mounted in our case’s lower 5.25-inch

bays. After we unpacked it, we had it up and running on a test bench in a matter of minutes.

With testing complete, construction begins. While the system was built primarily in the Lab, Senior Editor Gordon Mah Ung took it upon himself to assemble the motherboard tray in a more intimate envi- ronment—his lap.

Lights! Camera! With the Dream Ma- chine fully operational, the last step is the

Dream Machine’s big moment—a cover shoot close-up, care of photographer Samantha Berg. Work it, DM 2004!

Our zero-point system includes: a 2.2GHz Athlon 64 FX-51, an Asus SK8N motherboard, 1GB of Corsair Registered TwinX DDR400 RAM, an ATI Radeon 9800 XT, a 250GB Western Digital WD2500JB hard drive, Plextor PX-708A DVD burner and a PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 510 Deluxe power supply.

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MaximumPC 2004 09

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