_{Cover of the December 2001 issue of Maximum PC}

Maximum PC was by far my favorite computer magazine. It also survived longer than most with publication only ceasing a couple of years ago. When it was first introduced (in 1998 I believe) it was called boot. It was a magazine for enthusiasts and it reminded me a bit of MacAddict which was a similar sort of thing for Mac users. The December 2001 issue includes:

Regulars

In/Out - Letters from readers about Hot Tamales (the candy), teen stereotypes, overclocking videocards, the G550, Windows XP, online privacy, gaming as a driver of the PC industry, and more.

Quick Start - How September 11th changed PC gaming; IBM's CPU of the Future, the dual core POWER4; Windows XP optimization tips; Intel's plans for a 20 GHz chip; new Treo phones; wireless print server device that turns HP printers into wireless printers; mobile Pentium 4 to be introduced at 1.5 GHz and use DDR RAM; and more.

Head2Head - A detailed comparison of the Pentium 4 2GHz and Athlon XP 1800+.

Watchdog - IBM 75GXP hard drives seem to experience a high rate of failure; MaxGate stops responding to customers; some vendors refuse to support existing hardware with Windows XP drivers; Compaq recalls notebook power adapters; and more.

_{Table of Contents from of the December 2001 issue of Maximum PC}

Reviews

Dell Dimension 8200 desktop system - A highly rated $3000 system from Dell that includes a 2GHz Pentium 4, 256 MB RDRAM, nVidia GeForce3 Ti 500, and more.

Falcon Northwest Mach V system - A nearly $4000 gaming machine featuring an Athlon XP 1800+, 512 MB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce3 Ti 500 64MB DDR, and more.

TDK veloCD 16/10/40 external CD-RW drive - If you needed an external CD writer then this one was a good one to have.

VisionTek Xtacy 6964 videocard - A highly rated video card using the GeForce3 Ti 500 chipset.

OCZ Titan 3 videocard - Also highly rated but using the original GeForce 3 chipset.

ATI Radeon 7500 videocard - A great card if you were looking for something on a budget.

Sony DSC-S85 4.1 megapixel digi-cam - Digital snapshot cameras aren't as popular as they once were but at the time they were far superior to phone cameras which barely existed.

Olympus C-4040 4.1 megapixel digi-cam - Both this camera and the Sony model above were pretty average examples of what was available.

_{Table of Contents from the December 2001 issue of Maximum PC (continued)}

Features

Gear of the Year - Some winners include the AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (CPU), Cooler Master ATC-101 (case), nVidia GeForce 3 (3D accelerator), Tyan Tiger MP S2460 (motherboard), Plextor PlexWriter 24/10/40 (CD-RW Drive), Pioneer DVR-A03 Recordable DVD/CD Combo (DVD Recorder), Creative Labs Nomad II MG (MP3 Player), Sony Clie PEG-N760C (PDA), Falcon Northwest Mach V (desktop system), Dell Inspiron i8000 (desktop replacement notebook), Sony F520 (monitor), May Payne (game of the year), and lots more.