MaximumPC 2005 10

106 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005

We tackle tough reader letters on...

PDream Machine ‘0 5 PUtility Software

PKonfabulator’s Newfound Freedom

LIVING THE COOL DREAM

After reading the Dream Machine story in September,

I was curious what kind of cooling you used in DMX?

Also, concerning the OS: I have too much soft-

ware to even consider repurchasing everything

when I upgrade to the 64-bit version of Windows

XP Pro. Can you comment on the DMX performance

with Windows 2000 Pro?

—Larry Voyer

ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOSH NOREM RESPONDS:

Though it’s normal and even expected that

an audacious PC will have an elaborate cool-

ing setup, we deviated from this practice and

used a very basic air-cooling setup for DMX,

for two reasons. First, the primary advantage

of a water-cooling setup is that it allows you to

achieve much better overclocking results than

are possible with air-cooling, given the lower CPU

temperatures. DMX’s workstation mother-

board negated the option of overclocking.

Second, we actually considered a water-

cooling setup just for giggles, but with all

the hardware in the rig, there wasn’t enough

room inside the case to mount a radiator/fan,

pump, reservoir, and all the tubing.

The CPU heatsink we used is a reference

cooler for the FX-55 processor made by AVC

(www.avc.com.tw). It uses a copper base

plate, aluminum fins, and four copper heat

pipes. We use this same heatsink/fan in our

zero-point test beds as well.

As for 64-bit Windows, your existing 32-

bit software should work on the new 64-bit

OS, so there’s likely no need to repurchase

your apps. If you’re going to run a machine

with 8GB of RAM, you need XP x64, other-

wise the OS (and applications running on

it) won’t see more than 3GB or so of your

memory. That would make the other 5GB of

RAM case warmers. We haven’t run Windows

2000 in the Lab in years, so we can’t really

comment on it.

WAS IT REALLY DUAL EVERYTHING?

I’m disappointed you missed one particular “dual”

option in Dream Machine ‘05.

I spend my lunch breaks figuring out what parts

would fit nicely in my own custom-built desktop rig.

About six weeks ago, I noticed two new DVD drives:

Lite On’s SOHW-1693S (internal IDE) and 1693SX

(external USB,) both sporting dual-layer support for

both the + and – recordable DVD formats. Why didn’t

you include dual-format, dual-layer burners in the

Dream Machine?

—Darryn O. Stevens

FEATURES EDITOR LOGAN DECKER RESPONDS:

Sometimes manufacturers let their drives hit

store shelves without giving reviewers a first

look. Most of the time, this is not good news

(there was a reason, after all, Hollywood didn’t

allow film critics to see Catwoman before it

opened in theaters). But this time, we suspect it

had more to do with the lack of media available

at launch time, in addition to the general malaise

regarding yet another recordable DVD format.

Now that DVD-R double-layer media is avail-

able (at 4x, no less), we’re bringing in drives that

support the format to see how it performs. But

we wouldn’t get too excited about it—drives like

Plextor’s PX-716A are capable of overspeeding

DVD+R DL media to 6x (that is, writing in excess

of the media’s rated speed), and until we see a

Dreaming

of Linux

In the September issue, your

“5 Ideas Microsoft Should

Steal” story noted five major

problems with Windows, yet

the Dream Machine had two

versions of Windows, but no

Linux. You definitely have

enough hard drive capacity

to include an alternative OS,

why didn’t you?

—Ryan Nisly

EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL

SMITH RESPONDS:

Because we don’t really

have a testing procedure or reference benchmarks set up for Linux

machines, we didn’t see any reason to expend time or effort getting Linux

to work on DMX. That said, there’s no reason DMX wouldn’t run any of the

major Linux distros. Our Netcell RAID card works with most Linux distros

without needing any drivers (getting hardware RAID to work is commonly

a coming-of-age ordeal for Linux users), and GeForce 7800 boards are

supported with the latest nVidia Linux driver.

in out YOU WRITE, WE RESPOND

CUTCOPYPASTE

On page 69 of the September issue, we inadvertently

ran the wrong URL for the Monarch Nemesis system.

The correct URL is http://www.monarchcomputer.com.