VXI BlueParrott B100 Specifications

Building for KatrinaContentsEd WordPlease send feedback and caketo [email protected]. HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC 5I’m sure I’m not alone, but this last

MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEARwatchdogdogtions when trying to support dual-channel config-urations.” She added: “Although the memory brand do

24 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Upgrading your PC is a lot like learning to drive. It’s not difficult, but the results can be disastrous if you don’t fo

25HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC

26 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Upgrade Your Motherboard Because the motherboard is the foundation of your entire PC, upgrading it provides many opportunitie

27HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC 8With the mounting points set up, carefully lower the board into place. Insert the screws and hand-tighten them, but don’t s

30 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Upgrade Your CPU The fi rst step in any CPU upgrade is to choose the right processor for your motherboard. The safest way to d

3232Upgrade Your Hard Drive The golden rule for buying a new hard drive is to buy as much capacity as you can afford—no one ever complainsabout having

337At this point, you should have a fully functioning Win-dows installation with all your drivers installed, all devices functional, and all systems g

3434Upgrade Your Videocard If your videocard is more than six months old, you can kiss chunky frame rates goodbye by upgrading to a new card. The same

36 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Upgrade Your Optical Drive Whether you’re sticking with traditional Parallel ATA drives or moving to an all-SATA confi guratio

Quick Start Are entertainment execs warming to the web? ...10 Head2Head ATI and nVidia put their dual-card technologies in the ring ...

38 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005BY JOSH NOREMPHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA BERGThe GreatCASE RACEWe pit six premium cases against each other in a battle to determi

A 12cm fan moves air through the bot-tom chamber; unfortunately, its place-ment right in front of a 3.5-inch drive cage allows hard-drive cables to ge

40 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005$210, www.lian-li.comLIAN-LI PCV-1100QUESADILLAGreat cooling, quiet, elegant, and easy to build.CASE-A-DILLAS9No cutting-edge

THERMALTAKE TAI CHI VB5000SNA This case sports new features galore, but its price tag will terrify youThe Tai Chi is Thermaltake’s most auda-cious cas

ANTEC SONATA II It sure is quiet, but still a little underwhelmingThe Sonata II, Antec’s follow-up to the original “quiet case,” has changed only slig

46 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005BUILDING A DREAM CASEWe won’t have the case of our dreams until we find one with all five of these features!FLEXIBLEINTERIOR

STANDARDIZED FRONT-PANEL CONNECTOR Is there some reason—aside from the sadis-tic tendencies of manufacturers—that every PC mobo has a different design

50 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005This holiday season, Maximum PC journeys to a winter wonderland in search of gift ideas for computer enthusiastsIt might seem

00XXXXXXX 2005 MAXIMUMPC 00XXXXXXX 2005MAXIMMAXIMMAUXIMUXIMMUMUPCPCPHARMONY 880 REMOTEWe’ve all suffered from the condition known as toomanyremotesit

PC TOOLKITWhen people think of tools, the staff of our sister magazine PC Gamer usually comes to mind. But there are other tools actually quite valu-a

THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLquickstartFree broadcasts streamed over the Internet? It almost sounds like a trap. Yet that’s

CODESCOUT If your car was manufactured after 1996, it’s home to a tiny little troll who operates the onboard computer that moni-tors your vehicle’s sy

P-51D MUSTANG RTF ELECTRICOpen up a whole new universe of potential geekdom for the PC pilot on your shopping list with this sweet, remote-controlled,

00XXXXXXX 2005 MAXIMUMPC 00XXXXXXX 2005MAXIMMAXIMMAUXIMUXIMMUMUPCPCPWIRELESS PC LOCKThe holiday spirit is all about sharing, but that needn’t apply t

Folks, don’t get us wrong: We’re not Internet Explorer haters. We just love Firefox’s tabbed interface and extensibility (a word that will not be used

62 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005how2IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIMEThe exceptionally daring might wish to demonstrate their nav fu by ditch

DIFFERENT DRIVE, SAME CD SNAFU I have Plextor’s 716SA SATA DVD burner, and it appears to dislike random CDs. At first I thought it was a problem with

EVIL MONKEYSI built my first computer last year and it’s running great, but with one problem: My CPU temp is out of control. I don’t overclock, my mob

It has finally arrived: A CrossFire review-er’s kit. CrossFire is for real. All I needed to do was build it. I was curious to see how a single X850 XT

How We Test Real-world benchmarks. Real-world results 71HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC BEST OF THE BEST High-end videocard:Asus GeForce N7800 GTX Top Mid-r

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. 72 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Gigabyte’s first single-card SLI trick impressed us as a feat of engineer-ing, but its performance l

Intel’s recent announcement of its impending move to a low-wattage mi-croarchitecture is good news for fans of quiet, cool-running PCs, but it begs th

73HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC $600, www.gigabyte-usa.comGIGABYTE GV-3D1-68GTSLY AND THE FAMILY STONEFaster than a single GeForce 7800 GTX; cheaper than tw

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED74 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005While not officially sanctioned by Intel for desktop use, the Pentium M processor has lon

Zalman has been pimping its “blooming flower” heatsink design for what seems like ages, so we were understandably excited to see the company deviate f

There are two kinds of notebook geeks: the anal-retentive guy who keeps the plastic screen protec-tor on his notebook at all times, and The Abuser. Yo

Western Digital has been sitting on the sidelines of the hard drive technology race for the past year, quietly petting its Raptor, watching the compet

81HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC Many a pro gamer or pro gamer wannabe wouldn’t be caught dead at a LAN party without a Steelpad mousepad. Now, the company r

With the failure of the two compet-ing next-gen DVD standards to merge into one consumer-friendly format, and what will no doubt be designer prices on

Memina Pocket Rocket 4GBWe used to think a 1GB USB key was embarrassingly decadent, but in these 4GB times we wouldn’t even bother to pee on a 1-gi

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED84 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 200585HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC Initially, in the compact and ultra-compact segments of the di

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED84 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 200585HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC days, the S1 doesn’t have a traditional view-finder—it relies 1

12 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 15 years. He’s currently Editor-at-Large of the old-school game and puzzle ma

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED86 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005Picking the perfect mouse is an intensely personal chore. It’s a lot like shopping for u

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED88 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005If someone were to put together a gaming time capsule and bury it for future genera-tion

89HOLIDAY 2005 MAXIMUMPC The original Black & White was, in many ways, a failed experiment in emergent game design. It attempted to meld god game

Fable: The Lost Chapters is far too linear and short (about 14 hours) to be labeled a “must-have,” particularly on the PC. However, on this platform i

inoutYOU WRITE, WE RESPOND110 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005We tackle tough reader letters on...PDell’s 2405FPW PTiming Your UpgradePCRTs PPlextor PVOIP PJos

GEAR OF THE YEAR!It’s lonely at the top, but that’s offset by the fact that you’re a winner and everyone else is a loser. That’s Gear of the Year for

112 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005MAXIMUM PC (ISSN 1522-4279) is published monthly by Future Network USA, 150 North Hill Drive, Suite 40, Brisbane, CA 94005,

THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLquickstart14 MAXIMUMPC HOLIDAY 2005BEWARE INKJET REFILLERSIf Lexmark has its way, anyone who o

ATI’s CrossFire vs. nVidia’s SLIATI’S CROSSFIRE: Reference-design CrossFire Edition Socket 939 motherboard (retail boards range from $80 to $120), Rad

FLEXIBILITYAside from sheer performance, the most attractive feature of a dual-videocard motherboard is that you can buy a single card now, and drop i

MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEARwatchdogdog20IPOD BAD BATTERY SETTLEMENTA federal judge has approved a $100 million settlement in a class-actio