100
GREATEST OF ALL TIME30 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2007
62
INTEL CORE 2 DUO (2006)
Desktop or mobile, it’s the chip to
beat in today’s computing environment,
offering the best performance on the mar-
ket by a wide margin.61
DIVX (2001) No, not the dispos-
able DVD format. DivX is the world’s
best hope for a universal compressed video-
encoding format. Many set-top DVD players
even support the format.60
MCAFEE VIRUSSCAN (1989)
You just didn’t run Windows in the
’90s without antivirus software. You still
don’t, come to think of it.59
AGP (1997) Intel pioneered the
AGP slot to provide better band-
width for graphics cards, without having
to share the clogged PCI bus (see #34).
The standard was an instant hit, surviv-
ing until the PCI Express era.58
PERPENDICULAR HARD
DRIVE RECORDING (2006)
Originally developed in the 1970s,
Seagate fi nally implemented this hard-
drive technology in 2006. It’s perhaps
the most important single innovation to
hit magnetic storage in decades.57
INTEL PENTIUM M (2003)
After decades of
seeing manufacturers cram
desktop chips into laptops,
Intel wised up and devel-
oped a low-power chip with
surprisingly good perfor-
mance, fi nally bridging the performance
gap with desktop Pentiums.56
WESTERN DIGITAL RAPTOR
WD360GD (2003)
This 10,000rpm,
36GB hard drive
introduced high-
speed SATA stor-
age. Despite its
now-smallish size, it
remains a top choice for
high-performance users.55
APPLE MACINTOSH (1984)
Apple changed the computing
game with this humble (yet spendy) beige
box, launching the mouse-driven GUI as
we know it today.54
AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
(1997) Would you ever have
thought that the de facto industry-stan-
dard IM client would be a product from
America Online? We sure didn’t.GREATEST OF ALL TIME
62
INTEL CORE 2 DUO (2006)
Desktop or mobile, it’s the chip to
beat in today’s computing environment,
offering the best performance on the mar-
ket by a wide margin.58
57
INTEL PENTIUM M
After decades of
seeing manufacturers cram
desktop chips into laptops,
Intel wised up and devel-
oped a low-power chip with
surprisingly good perfor-
mance, fi nally bridging the performance
gap with desktop Pentiums.56
WESTERN DIGITAL RAPTOR
WD360GD(2003)(2003)
This 10,000rpm,
36GB hard drive
introduced high-
speed SATA stor-
age. Despite its
now-smallish size, it now-smallish size, it
remains a top choice for remains a top choice for
high-performance users.speed SATA stor-