MaximumPC 2007 02

PVirtual Machines PVista PCRTs

PDesks PLinux PMobos

february 2007 MAXIMUMPC 95

MAXIMUM

PC

’s

Vista starter

guide

In time, we’ll all end up moving

to Vista. It’s inevitable. Learn the

proper way to take the plunge: how

to back up your data, prep your PC,

and tweak the OS for an optimum

experience.

pc toolkit

When trouble strikes your machine or

the machine of a loved one, you want

to be armed and ready with the right

tools for repair. Follow our guide

for putting together the ultimate PC

first-aid kit.

2006 gaming

awards

Has it really been a year since the

last batch of games arrived in their

limos, walked the red carpet, and

cracked wise about each other’s

attire? Join us as we celebrate the

games of 2006 and honor the best

they had to offer.

IN

Not-for-sale-

IN -New york

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.

tron beam. the beam must continually sweep

the screen from top to bottom to keep the

phosphors from fading and maintain a stable

picture. A refresh rate of 75Hz means the whole

picture is refreshed 75 times a second.

With an LCD, the picture is made up of

individual pixels (illuminated by an ever-

present backlight); pixels change indepen-

dently and only when new image information

is received. the speed at which these pixels

can change is referred to as a display’s

pixel response time. In a fast-action game,

new information is received at a rapid rate,

so a slow pixel response time can result

in image ghosting. While this was a fairly

common problem with early LCDs, it has all

but ceased to be an issue these days. Pixel

response times have dropped dramatically,

with 8ms and lower being common. Note,

however, that there’s no standard way of

measuring and reporting these times, so

they’re not a reliable means of comparison

among brands. Nonetheless, over the last

couple years, most of the high-end monitors

we’ve reviewed have been perfectly accept-

able for gaming. See our Best of the Best list

on page 63 for recommendations.

We NeeD M Ore LIN ux!

Could you guys give your recommendations for

more Linux stuff? I wondered which desktop

environment performs better according to your

benchmarks and which you preferred based

on ease of use and included software, Gnome

or KDE? What other versions of Linux besides

Ubuntu do you like and what are your thoughts

about them? SUSE Linux seems to be a popular

choice, for example, and so is Freespire. Are

there any others you’d recommend?

—Mike

eDItOr IN CHIeF WILL SMItH reSPONDS:

We haven’t done any formal Gnome or KDe

performance testing, so I can’t comment on

benchmarks. For purely aesthetic reasons, I use

Gnome. While I love the customizability of KDe,

I prefer the more integrated uI design that per-

meates Gnome apps.

I haven’t actually tested distros other than

ubuntu, Knoppix, Mepis, and Gentoo recently, so

I can’t really make any distro recommendations.

My main requirement for a good, user-friendly

Linux distro is support for a robust, easy-to-

use package-management application. Beyond

that, I usually recommend whatever version

of Linux most people seem to be using, so I’ll

have a better chance of finding people who can

help me. until something better comes along, it

seems that would be ubuntu.

We’ll definitely be doing more Linux

coverage in the coming months, since the

Linux-on-the-desktop movement seems to be

picking up steam.

MOtHerBOArD M ISADVICe?

I love Maximum PC ’s reviews of hardware and

software and applaud your attention to bench-

marks, which is why I am mystified with regard to

your recent reviews of motherboards. In October,

you raved about the features of the Asus P5W DH

Deluxe and added it to the Best of the Best list.

However, your review included only a scrimpy set

of benchmarks. Then, in the Holiday Issue you

reviewed three Conroe mobos, but nowhere in the

entire article was there any mention of the Asus

P5W DH Deluxe. Nor were there any benchmarks

for it against which to baseline these new boards.

The same thing happened again in January! The

best motherboard of 2006 has been dethroned by a

first-time manufacturer (EVGA) without so much as

a mention. You owe us an explanation.

— Jon Norris

SeNIOr eDItOr GOrDON MAH uNG reSPONDS:

Because motherboard BIOSes, chipset drivers,

and graphics drivers often shift from month to

month, we are very reluctant to make direct

comparisons without digging out the old board,

downloading the latest chipset drivers, and

essentially building yet another system. Making

a direct comparison between boards without

current benchmarks would just be wrong. And

unfortunately, we can only reproduce a subset

of our benchmarks in the magazine.

the real problem is the amount of time it

takes to test a motherboard. Assuming there

are no problems, each motherboard reviewed

in the magazine represents about a day and

a half of time spent on benchmarking alone.

When faced with tight time constraints, we’re

always going to choose to spend that time

covering new products rather than revisiting

already-reviewed gear that’s nearing the end

of availability.

that said, to me features such as insane

overclocking abilities and support for SLI trump

onboard Wi-Fi and driverless rAID. the P5W DH

Deluxe stayed on the list while we waited for

the chipset situation to stabilize for Intel CPus,

but as soon as an SLI-capable, overclocking-

friendly board became available, bumping the

older P5W DH was an easy decision.

march

ISSUE

CoMING

NeXt

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