The Maximum
PC promise to
readers
Contents
Ed Word
Please send feedback and those
chalky Valentine’s candies
to [email protected].T
here’s been a lot of Internet hubbub about editorial integrity
recently. Exactly what “integrity” means is shifting at many
publications—print and online—as barriers between editorial
and advertising begin to blur. Luckily for me, Maximum PC
still operates under the same rules we’ve had since I started
working here more than seven years ago. Lest there be any
misconceptions about where we stand, it’s time to reiterate
our no-BS standards:Our editorial and advertising departments
operate independently
We maintain complete separation between the folks who
create the editorial content and the people who sell the ads.
We’re very serious about this, and, in fact, our whole company
is structured to protect this separation. I report directly to our
editorial director (former Maximum PC Editor in Chief Jon
Phillips), and he reports directly to the company president. The
germane factor here is that I don’t report to someone in ad
sales, and if anyone on the sales team ever wanted to escalate
complaints about our content, he would have to go through
Phillips, who would take the issue to the president. Thanks to
the integrity of our sales team, our church-state separation has
remained pure during my entire tenure at Future US.Maximum PC ’s editorial content will be
determined solely by the editorial team
We (the editors) determine the content of every editorial page,
basing our decisions on what we think readers would be most
interested in. The editorial team owns the content from initial
conception to fi nal execution, and we are the only ones who edit
or modify it. The editorial staff determines which products will
be reviewed, and all products are treated equally, regardless ofwhether they come from advertisers past or present.Maximum PC will never accept payment for
product coverage
Advertisers can’t buy their way onto the cover of the magazine,
or anywhere inside it. Accordingly, when choosing hardware
for challenges and how-to stories, our decisions are based
entirely on product merit and appropriateness.Our editors won’t take any form of
compensation from vendors—be it cash,
travel, or extravagant gifts
We don’t take money from vendors, and we don’t accept
expensive gifts. We do keep coffee cups and other inexpensive
tchotchkes, however, as they make good giveaways. Also, our
editors are prohibited from working on advertorial content.Neither our advertising department nor our
advertisers are aware of review verdicts
before an issue goes to press
We don’t make vendors aware of verdicts until it’s too late
to change them. Likewise, our ad-sales department doesn’t
have access to editorial content until after the magazine has
shipped to the printer.Maximum PC will continue to deliver fair
coverage of all the products and technologies
that you love, free of advertiser infl uence
Letting you know about great hardware, and warning you off of
bad hardware, is why we’re here. We’ll continue doing it as long
as you keep buying our magazine and coming to our website.32
Praphics
Challenge
Which GPU wins the
image-quality battle, ATI
or Nvidia? We fi nd out!Features
MAXIMUMPC 02 / 08
Protect your PC from all threats, present
and future, with these killer apps!18 Security 2.
http://www.maximumpc.com | FEB 08 | MAXIMUMPC 05
(^42)
Phenom
Will the new CPU
push AMD ahead of Intel again?