MaximumPC 2004 12

MINIMUM BS • DECEMBER 2004 of the ➤ Media Center PCs Desktop Systems PDAs LCDs and more!! CPU SHOOTOUT: AMD’S FX-55 VS. INTEL’S ...

L ove it or hate it, the Windows OS is, has been, and, barring an almost unimaginable turn of events, will be the foundation of ...

EDITORIAL George Jones EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Katherine Stevenson MANAGING EDITOR Gordon Mah Ung SENIOR EDITOR Will Smith TECHNICAL EDI ...

You write, In/Out we respond IS THAT WHY THEY CALL IT A CLEAN SUIT? The line saying, “Chipmakers often go commando under their b ...

IN THE HEY-WE’RE-ONE-HUNDRED! JANUARY ISSUE OF COMING NEXT MONTH MAXIMUMPC LETTERS POLICY: MAXIMUM PC invites your thoughts and ...

14 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2004 Tour De n&orCe
nVidia bakes up a brand-new chipset that delivers massive power and immense fun ...

▼▼ x16 slots as x8. Why not operate both slots at true x16 modes? nVidia says there are two reasons. The fi rst is that there is ...

Quick Start FUN-SIZE NEWS INTEL SCRAPS 4GHZ PRESCOTT PLANS Intel says it has scrapped plans to introduce a 4GHz Pentium 4 using ...

Quick Start Tom McDonald has been covering games for countless magazines and newspapers for 11 years. He lives in the New Jersey ...

TechnoFile (^) Quick takes on technology trends Sony VAIO Type X Quick Start A ttention Stage Four geeks: The harsh truth is tha ...

A T H L O N 6 4 F X - 5 5 T H I S M O N T H : Hot Rod CPUs, Part Deux! Head 2 Head A showdown among CPUs M uch has changed in th ...

T H E U P S H O T DECEMBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC 23 T H I S M O N T H : Hot Rod CPUs, Part Deux! U nshackled from registered RAM and p ...

D uring testing for this month’s Head2Head, we used as many com- mon components and drivers as possible, including a parallel AT ...

THIS MONTH: The WatchDog goes after... Go-L.com Gone? From its inception, PC maker Go-L Computers was embroiled in controversy. ...

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We’ll call this one the Doublemint award. After all, what better way to double your pleasure than with a pair of GeForce 6800 Ul ...

W e’ll keep this short and sweet: You are about to experience one of Maximum PC’s most important stories of the year. See the go ...

32 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2004 BEST CPU Athlon 64 FX- Last November, we said AMD was betting the proverbial fab on the success of A ...

BEST MOTHERBOARD Asus P5AD2 Premium We secretly call the Asus P5AD2 Premium “the Sink” for short. That’s because it jams every m ...

The moment you fi re up a WD Raptor, it’s readily apparent you’re in the presence of PC greatness. The drive’s 4.5ms seek times ...