Maximum PC (April 2006)

darth-azrael(73)

Published in

#retrocomputing

Words

852

Reading

4 min

Listen

Play

33m

_{Cover of the April 2006 issue of Maximum PC/sub>}

Maximum PC was my favorite computer magazine. It was a relative newcomer to the computer magazine world being introduced as 'boot' in 1998 before becoming Maximum PC a year or two later. This was a magazine for PC enthusiasts, those who liked to build their own PCs, PC gaming, etc. It was somewhat similar to another enthusiast magazine for the Macintosh called MacAddict. In fact, both descended from an earlier magazine called CD-ROM Today. The April 2006 issue of Maximum PC includes:

Features

Copy Movies and Music - A guide to copying and converting your DVDs and CDs. Software used in this tutorial includes DVD Shrink, DVD Copy 4 Gold, AnyDVD, PSP Video 9, Videora's iPod Converter, Windows Media Player 10, Exact Audio Copy, LAME MP3 Encoder, and Replay Music.

The 4th Annual Softy Awards - Winners of this annual software award include WinDirStat, Steganos LockNote, Videora Conversion Tools, SyncBack, SpeedFan, VLC Media Player, Any DVD, Foxit Reader, and PDF Creator.

DIY Laptop - Building your own laptop is still a niche thing today but there have been options for a long time. This article takes you through the process.

_{Table of Contents from the April 2006 issue of Maximum PC/sub>}

Departments

Quick Start - Speculation on a future with socketed or even external GPUs. I suppose this idea eventually caught on if you consider APUs and GPUs integrated on the CPU. Plus HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, Intel Viiv, SLI notebooks, and more.

Head2Head - A comparison of two virtual surround sound speaker technologies: Head-Related Transfer Functions vs. Digital Audio Projection.

WatchDog - Investigating Sony's rootkit, XP RAM limits, Newegg ad errors, and more.

How To - A guide to making your computer desk ergonomically friendly.

Ask the Doctor - Questions answered about dual 7800 GT cards vs. a single 7800 GTX, DVD burner recognition problems, Abit SR7-8X motherboard problems, MP3 bit rates, and more.

R&D - A technical comparison of HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

In the Lab - Benchmarking a custom built laptop, virtual surround sound, and more.

In/Out - Questions answered about memory settings when overclocking an Athlon X2 3800+ to 2.6 GHz, changing hypertransport speed, gaming on an Xbox 360 vs. a PC, AGP vs. PCI Express, and more.

Rig of the Month - A PC built into a 1/5 scale model of a '69 Ford Bronco.

_{Table of Contents from the April 2006 issue of Maximum PC (continued)}

Reviews

Notebook PC - A review of the Dell Inspiron E1705. This one has a Core Duo T2500 CPU, a GeForce Go 7800, 100GB 7200rpm hard drive, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, and more for. I have a lower end version of this laptop that I posted about before here.

Videocard - A review of the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX.

LCD Monitors - Reviews of five 20-inch LCD monitors including the HP LP2065, Samsung 214T, Envision EN2028, Gateway FPD2185W, and BenQ FP202W. Prices range from $550 to $860.

Water-cooling Kits - A look at two water cooling kits including the Swiftech Apex Ultra and the Corsair Nautilus 500.

USB Thumb Drive - This 1GB U3 Traveldrive would have set you back $100. The high price of flash storage was one of the reasons CD-R and DVD-R formats were so popular.

Videocard - A review of the PNY Verto GeForce 6800GS. This fairly high powered budget card would set you back $220.

CPU Cooler - A review of the not so great Cooler Master Hyper L3.

Video Capture Device - The Neuros MPEG-4 Video Recorder 2 would automatically record a video source to MPEG-4 format.

MIMO Routers - Reviews of a few of the latest consumer wireless routers including the Netgear WPNT834 and WPNT511, and the Linksys WRT54GX4 and WPC54GX4.