MaximumPC 2006 03

XXXXXXX 2005 XXXXXXXXX 107

MAXIMUM

PC

’s

ULTIMATE

DIGITAL MEDIA

GUIDE!

Exercise your fair-use rights! Our

all-encompassing guide will show

you how to copy any piece of digi-

tal media: DVDs, copy-protected

CDs, and even downloaded DRM-

encumbered files!

MAXIMUM PC’S

ANNUAL SOFTY

AWARDS

You’ve got a ticket to the biggest

awards show in town—the annual

Softy Awards! We name the best,

most kick-ass software of the year!

This is software you can’t live with-

out, so read this feature or die—it’s

your choice.

PLUS:

HEART-POUNDING

REVIEWS! LIFE-

CHANGING STORIES!

We drop verdicts on:

Ë Intel’s new dual-core

notebook CPUs

Ë Super-chilled water-coolers from

Swiftech and Corsair

Ë A brutal motherboard roundup

Ë And much, much more!

COMING

NEXT

MONTH

IN

MARCH 2006 MAXIMUMPC 103

GORDITAS-

GONE-WILD

!

APRIL

ISSUE

LETTERS POLICY: MAXIMUM PC invites your thoughts and comments. Send them to

[email protected]. Please include your full name, town, and telephone number, and limit

your letter to 300 words. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. Due to the vast amount of

e-mail we receive, we cannot personally respond to each letter.

require a Gigabyte motherboard to function
in dual-GPU mode. In order to get the card to
work in dual-GPU mode, however, you first
need to set a DIP switch on the card (you’ll
find it on the back of the card, in the bottom-
left corner; it’s described on page 6 of the
user manual).
This next point doesn’t apply to your dual-
X16 SLI motherboard, but you would need to
set an earlier SLI motherboard to single-video-
card mode. You want to make sure all 16 PCI
Express lanes are enabled in the slot in which
the card resides. If you were to set a mobo
like our A8N to dual-videocard mode, each of
the two PCI Express slots would get only eight
lanes, giving each of your GPU cores only four
lanes worth of bandwidth.

KISS AGP GOODBYE, PART 1
I have a decent computer running the 875P chipset
(specifically Asus P4C-800E Deluxe) with Pentium
4 and an X850 XT PE AGP card. I tend to upgrade
little-by-little as I need newer parts in order to
fit my needs. I’d like to upgrade my videocard,
but I don’t want to upgrade my mobo, CPU, and
memory. What are my upgrade options?
—Ran Zhang

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN
RESPONDS: We decided to drop coverage of
AGP cards in April 2005 because the majority
of motherboard and videocard manufacturers
were migrating their high-end parts to PCI
Express. That said, videocard manufactur-
ers continue to support the older architec-
ture—but not with their top-of-the-line GPUs.
Neither ATI nor nVidia have shown us AGP ref-
erence designs based on their Radeon X1800
and GeForce 7800 series GPUs.
ATI says it will likely offer AGP cards
powered by their midrange X1600-series
chips, but we’d be willing to bet that such a
card would not deliver better benchmark per-
formance than your existing X850 XT Platinum
Edition. While you would gain support for
Shader Model 3.0, the current midrange card
shouldn’t outperform your older high-end
card. You’re probably better off saving up
until you can upgrade your CPU, mobo, and
videocard at the same time.

KISS AGP GOODBYE, PART 2
Is there an AMD Sempron 2800+ mobo you’d sug-
gest for your “$300 Budget PC” ( January 2006)

that has AGP support instead of PCI Express? The

cheapest way to go right now is AGP. I’d like a

carbon copy of the mobo you guys mentioned, just

with AGP support instead of PCI Express.

—Aaron Babcock

SENIOR EDITOR GORDON MAH UNG: We made a

conscious decision to go with PCI-E instead of

AGP. We know budget people won’t pay $500

for a videocard today, but in two years, that

$500 card will be far more affordable. PCI-E

also offers a better upgrade path. AGP perfor-

mance tops out with X850/6800 Ultra-class

boards. There’s really no AGP price advantage

over PCI-E anymore either. So, take our advice

and say your last goodbyes to AGP.

I LOVE MY Z-5500S!

The M-Audio Studiophile LX4 system looks like a

nice system, but why have you replaced Logitech’s

Z-5500 in the “Best of the Best” list with the M-

Audio system? I don’t know very much about audio

fidelity, but just comparing specs it seems that the

Logitech system boasts a better SNR—as well as

more power, a decoder, a controller, and a lower

price than the LX4 2.1 plus 5.1 expansion.

If the M-Audio system is truly better, would

you please explain?

—Will Barley

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN

RESPONDS: To paraphrase Mark Twain, there

are lies, damned lies, and then there are spec

charts. That’s why we place so much emphasis

on real-world, hands-on product testing. Much

of our reasoning for christening the LX4 and

LX4 5.1 Expander System as “Best of the Best”

(and “Gear of the Year”) in the speaker catego-

ry can be found in our review of the product.

Our “Gear of the Year” story from the

December issue summed it up nicely: “Loud

and proud is no longer enough. We want our

audio to be refined as well.”

The LX4 system doesn’t have a decoder,

but that’s not important unless you need to

hook up a game console or an external DVD

player. A high-powered amp isn’t necessarily

a great-sounding amp. We’d rather pay more

for features we’re actually going to use—like

killer drivers, solid enclosures, and a squeaky-

clean amp—than a digital decoder we’re not

going to use. But if you happen to need a

decoder, for whatever reason, the LX4 isn’t the

right speaker system for you at any price.