MaximumPC 2005 05

Computer technology never stands still, but motherboard technology has undergone exceptionally dramatic change in recent years. ...

MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 3 MOTHERBOARDS: OTHER COMPONENTS: Motherboard manufactur- ers can add functions not built into the chipset ...

36 ATX 12V 2.0 PCI Express graphics cards can suck up to 75 watts of power, compared with AGP’s 50-watt maximum. ATX 12v 2.01-co ...

HIGH-DEFINITION AUDIO High-Definition Audio bumps maximum audio resolution from AC-97’s 20 bits up to 32 bits, while sampling ra ...

38 INTEL PENTIUM 4 FAMILY They might all be called Pentium 4, but these siblings can be vastly different. There are four basic t ...

MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 3 NVIDIA: nVidia plans to take its popular nForce4 chipset for the Athlon 64 FX and make it work with the P ...

onboard LED to indicate that the system is plugged in. Why cheap out over a 2-cent part? Given the boards’ performance similarit ...

42 MA XIMUMPC MAY 2005 MOTHERBOARDS:A-Z nVidia’s reference design, but its delicate retaining arm feels just a little under-engi ...

44 MA XIMUMPC MAY 2005 The featurific SLI boards are the obvious winners in this contest. The two Ultra boards in this roundup a ...

AVOID COLORFUL LANGUAGE Have you ever wondered why there’s no standard layout for power and reset buttons, or hard drive and pow ...

48 MA XIMUMPC MAY 2005 BY JOSH NOREM ...

L et’s face it—today’s heatsink-and-fan combos just don’t cut it for major overclocking. They’re either too inefficient to maint ...

OUR TESTING METHODS Each kit was installed in a Cooler Master Cavalier ATX mid- tower case, using an Abit AA8XE Fatal1ty motherb ...

 MA XIMUMPC MAY 2005 Thermaltake BigWater Thermaltake puts a unique spin on water cooling with a kit that doesn’t require a re ...

MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC  3 Corsair Cool Corsair’s Cool kit is essentially a rebranded Swiftech kit (reviewed on page 50), but Corsa ...

Cooler Master Aquagate Mini Every other kit in this roundup uses a standard pump/reservoir/radiator/water-block design. The Aqua ...

MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 55 THE GROOVY PROS As our testing shows, water cooling has defi nite tangible benefi ts over traditional air ...

 6 MA XIMUMPC MAY 2005 10 Water-Cooling Pitfalls—and How to Avoid Them We endured 10 “D’oh!” moments, so you wouldn’t have to 1 ...

YOU’RE GROUNDED I heard I could record my collection of LPs onto CD. So I tried running a cable from my stereo receiver to the a ...

the plastic lip holding the fan to the motherboard was missing. It had broken, and apparently the fan vibrated enough to wear a ...