MaximumPC 2005 10

Quick Start Can ATI regain

ground lost to rival nVidia? ................... 10

Head2Head Which chipset for

your Pentium 4: nForce4 or 955x? ....... 16

Watch Dog Maximum PC takes

a bite out of bad gear ............................. 20

How To Master your videocard’s

control panel .......................................... 51

Ask the Doctor Diagnosing

and curing your PC problems .............. 55

Contents

R&D Surround sound from

a single speaker? ............................... 58

In the Lab Is it safe to put tap

water in your rig’s cooling setup? ..... 62

In/Out You write, we respond ....... 106

Rig of the Month This

month’s mod might not sit well

with John Kerry, but we like it .......... 108

EDITORIAL
EDITOR IN CHIEF Will Smith
MANAGING EDITOR Katherine Stevenson
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Michael Brown
SENIOR EDITOR Gordon Mah Ung
FEATURES EDITOR Logan Decker
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Josh Norem
SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Steve Klett
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Claude McIver
EDITOR EMERITUS Andrew Sanchez
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Norman Chan, Tom Halfhill, Thomas
McDonald, Chuck Osborn, Mark Soper

ART
ART DIRECTOR Natalie Jeday
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Boni Uzilevsky
PHOTO EDITOR Mark Madeo
ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHER Samantha Berg
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Edmond Alexander

BUSINESS
PUBLISHER Bernard Lanigan
646-723-540 5 , [email protected]
WESTERN AD DIRECTOR Dave Lynn
949-360-4443, [email protected]
WESTERN AD MANAGER Stacey Levy
925-964-1205, [email protected]
EASTERN AD MANAGER Anthony Danzi
646-723-5453, [email protected]
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER, ENTERTAINMENT Nate Hunt
415-656-8536, [email protected]
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia
415-656-8313, ju [email protected]
MARKETING MANAGER Kathleen Reilly
MARKETING COORDINATOR Tara Wong

PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richie Lesovoy
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Dan Mallory

CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tina K. Rogers
FULFILLMENT MANAGER Angela Martinez
DIRECT MARKETING SPECIALIST Janet Amistoso
NE WSSTAND COORDINATOR Alex Guzman

FUTURE NETWORK USA
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http://www.futurenetworkusa.com

PRESIDENT Jonathan Simpson-Bint
VICE PRESIDENT/CFO Tom Valentino
VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Holly Klingel
GENERAL COUNSEL Charles Schug
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/GAMES Simon Whitcombe
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/TECHNOLOGY Chris Coelho
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/MUSIC Steve Aaron
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Dave Barrow
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/TECHNOLOGY Jon Phillips
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSIC Brad Tolinski
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL SERVICES Nancy Durlester
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richie Lesovoy

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Departments

Reviews

OLED goggles eMagin Z

3DVisor ..................................................... 64

Desktop PC Hypersonic

Cyclone OCX Limited Edition ................ 66

Water-cooling Koolance

Aquian ICM-505 ...................................... 68

SFF PC Shuttle SB86i ......................... 70

SFF enclosure Aspire X-QPack .... 70

Smartphone HP iPaq ..................... 72

Laptop Toshiba Libretto U105 ............ 74

CPU coolers Thermaltake

Golden Orb II; Silverstone NT02 ............ 76

MP3 player SanDisk Sansa ............ 78

Digicam Casio Exilim EX-P505 ......... 78

OCTOBER 2005 MA XIMUMPC

PC enclosures Raidmax X1;

Thermalrock Eclipse ............................... 80

VGA cooler Thermaltake

Schooner CL-G0009 ............................... 81

Headphones Turtle Beach Ear

Force HPA; Toshiba Bluetooth ................. 82

Mobile web browser

DataWind PocketSurfer ......................... 83

Keyboards Metadot Das

Keyboard; Ergodex DX1 ......................... 84

MA XIMUMPC

7

85

Juiced ..................................................... 85

Butt kicker Gamer ................................ 85

XFX XGear Dual Reflex ...................... 85

Area 51 ................................................... 86

RC Tycoon 3: So aked! ........................ 86

Gaming

64

83

80