MaximumPC 2008 09

92 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|SEP 08 |www.maximumpc.com

LAB NOTES

The Magic that Makes

LAB NOTES

The Magic that Makes

LAB NOTES

the Dream Machine

The Magic that Makes

the Dream Machine

The Magic that Makes

IN THE LAB^

HANDS ON WITH THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Thanks, Andy, Dream Machine

wouldn’t be the same without you

B

uilding the Dream Machine is a lot like a night carrier landing.

It takes a little skill and a little luck—all while you’re sur-

rounded by chaos. Even the saltiest of editors here sometimes

don’t know if the rig will work when the power button is pushed.

For 10 years though, we’ve had a talisman that gets us through

the job: Andrew’s red screwdriver. Handed down through the years

from editor to editor, this Great Neck screwdriver once belonged to

Maximum PC editor Andrew Sanchez and has been used to build

every Dream Machine.

“Handy Andy” was the heart and soul of Maximum PC, and he un-

expectedly died on February 6, 1999 at the age of 29. We like to think

that when the machine POSTs and everything works, it’s all thanks to Andrew’s red screwdriver.

That and maybe Andrew himself, watching to make sure that one more Dream Machine, one

more legacy of what he believed in—fast PCs—lives on.

KATHERINE STEVENSON

DEPUTY EDITOR

Most of the editors

started out this issue

playing a lot of casual

games—for work pur-

poses, of course. While

our feature story on

the subject has been

postponed until next

month, my “testing”

of Mr. Bounce hasn’t

slackened. I needed to

verify that this game

is really as fun as I fi rst

thought. It is!

WILL SMITH

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Now that I’m back

on the videocard

beat, I’ve spent

countless hours in

the Lab rebuilding

test beds, evaluating

benchmarks, and just

plain hanging with

the latest, greatest

videocards. The new

Radeon HD 4870

X2 does something I

didn’t expect to see

so soon—it beats the

GeForce GTX 280.

DAVID MURPHY

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

We suff ered only one

water-cooling leak

in this year’s Dream

Machine, and it was

quickly contained.

Last year’s custom

kit took a day to

construct... and one

minute to utterly

destroy our mother-

board. Lesson learned:

You can never be

overly cautious when

fl uids are fl owin’ near

electronics.

TOM EDWARDS

MANAGING EDITOR

In an eff ort to stave

off tinnitus for

perhaps another

year, I used MP3Gain

(http://mp3gain.

sourceforge.net/)

to normalize the

volume level of the

music I keep on my

rig. The process took

a while to complete,

but my eardrums

now rarely, if ever,

bleed, so I fi gure it

was time well spent.

GORDON MAH UNG

SENIOR EDITOR

NORMAN CHAN

ONLINE EDITOR

I’ve been kept very

busy my first month

here at Maximum PC

helping to bug-fix

the new website,

which had a pretty

kick-ass launch.

Firefox 3 has also

convinced me to

finally abandon

Internet Explorer—

thank goodness I’m

no longer living in

1998.