MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2006
Silverstone TJ09 & Smooth Creations
One luscious chassis decked out to the nines, to make any geek’s mouth water
CASE AND PAINTYou don’t put Puff Daddy and his entou-
rage up in a one-room studio for the
night, and we sure as hell aren’t going to
put Dream Machine and all its glamor-
ous hardware in anything less than
the baddest, bitchinest enclosure
available. This year, that enclosure is
the soon-to-be-released Silverstone
TJ09 full-tower. And even though the
case was positively striking in stock
trim, we went ahead and sent it to
the wizards at Smooth Creations for
a custom paint job. The result is a
case so seductive it could easily be
the centerfold in Playrig magazine, if
there were such a thing.
The TJ09 has big shoes to fi ll, and
it fi lls them admirably. We used its
predecessor, the TJ07, for last year’s
Dream Machine, and it swallowed
over $10K of hardware without fl inch-ing. The TJ09 is just as capable, despite
being a tad smaller than its predecessor,
and it’s the only full-
tower on themarket that’s new enough, big enough,
and sexy enough to take on DM2006.
Naturally, it has all the dreamy requisite
extras, including a slide-out motherboard
tray, the copious cooling of fi ve 12cm fans,
and room for six hard drives, a PSU of any
dimensions, and all our sundry other gear.
The most interesting aspect of its design is
the large ventilation chamber in the lower
portion of the case, which allows cool air
from outside to be sucked into the case’s
gaping maw via a 12cm fan positioned at
the gap’s entrance.
And the paint job? Well, what’s to say
other than that it costs $800 and is worth
every cent. You truly have to see a Smooth
Creations paint job in person to appreciate
its profound wow-factor.
It all amounts to an enclosure that’s as
audacious as its innards.M-Audio Studiophile LX4 5.
SPEAKERSCompromise is anathema when it comes to the Dream Machine,
and that’s why even the best high-end multimedia speakers
didn’t make the cut this year. There are speakers more powerful,
there are speakers with more features, and there are speakers
more consumer friendly; but there are no speakers more accu-
rate than these.
Why does accuracy matter? The Dream Machine is the fast-
est machine we could build. Placing these speakers in the audio
chain renders our PC as powerful for games as it is for home-
studio, video-editing, and ripping-and-encoding applications.
The LX4’s amp delivers 60 watts to the eight-inch subwoofer
and 27 watts to each of the fi ve satellites, which are equipped
with 4-inch polypropylene midrange drivers and 1-inch Mylar
tweeters (no paper cones here!). The bad news is that M-Audio
has decided
to discontinue
these speakers
without naming
a replacement;
the good news
is that they
remain widely
available at
retail—at least
for now.Zalman CNPS9500 LED
COOLINGWe had a badass
water-cooling kit
from Danger Den
locked and loaded
for DM11, but the
fact of the mat-
ter is, Conroe
doesn’t need
water-cooling—it
just doesn’t get
that hot. Instead,
we went with
Zalman’s CNPS
LED heatsink, which
keeps our Conroe chip
chilly at all times, whether
idle or under load.
Wazzat? You heard right: Using this cooler, we were
unable to get the Conroe’s temp to increase one iota under
load. Incredible, no? Well dig this: We eventually unplugged
the CPU fan and ran the processor at 100 percent load via
Nero Recode, and the CPU temperature rose only three
degrees Celsius. We repeat: We encoded an entire DVD,
with both CPU cores at 100 percent, and with the CPU fan
unplugged, and the machine ran stably for hours. Conroe’s
thermal performance is incredible, to say the least.and sexy enough to take on DM2006.extras, including a slide-out motherboard
tray, the copious cooling of fi ve 12cm fans,
and room for six hard drives, a PSU of any
dimensions, and all our sundry other gear.
The most interesting aspect of its design is
the large ventilation chamber in the lower
portion of the case, which allows cool air
from outside to be sucked into the case’s
gaping maw via a 12cm fan positioned at
the gap’s entrance.other than that it costs $800 and is worth
every cent. You truly have to see a Smooth
Creations paint job in person to appreciate
its profound wow-factor.audacious as its innards.night, and we sure as hell aren’t going to
put Dream Machine and all its glamor-being a tad smaller than its predecessor,
night, and we sure as hell aren’t going tobeing a tad smaller than its predecessor,
and it’s the only full-
tower on thehas decided
to discontinue
these speakers
without naming
a replacement;
the good newshas decided has decided
to discontinue
these speakers
without namingZalman’s CNPS
LED heatsink, which
keeps our Conroe chip
chilly at all times, whetherZalman’s CNPS
LED heatsink, which
keeps our Conroe chip
chilly at all times, whetherDream
Machine