Here’s another issue of what was my favorite PC magazine. It hung on longer than most PC print magazines but sadly it too died off a few years back. The May 2006 issue includes:

Features

• Hardcore Hardware – What to know about transitioning to your next motherboard/CPU/memory upgrade which at the time would likely include transitioning from an AGP to a PCI Express based system. Includes advice for choosing the right number of corse, choosing Intel or AMD, which AMD or Intel processor to get, RAM choices, and more.

• Geek Quiz – Maximum PC’s annual computer quiz.

Dapartments

• Quick Start – Intel introduces the Conroe which was the first iteration of the Core architecture as a replacement for the Netburst architecture of the Pentium 4; a look at Vista’s release plans; Intel plans removal of PATA interface; AMD introduces AM2 socket; and more.

• Head2Head – A comparision of VOIP and regular analog phone service.

• WatchDog – HP settles lawsuit over defective Pavilion motherboards; problems with the Minolta Dimage X1 digital camera; and more.

• How To – Solving playback errors, missing sound, player crashes and more when attempting to play back video.

• Ask the Doctor – Questions answered about the right hardware for AutoCAD, problems with a PC recognizing a keyboard, a 400GB Maxtor drive problem, problems after upgrading from a Celeron D to a Pentium 4, Thermaltake’s Bigwater SE water-cooling kit, and more.

• R&D – A look at the various types of Creative Commons licenses, a detailed look at the Cooler Master AquaGate Mini CPU water-cooler, a preview of nVidia’s GeForce 7900 GTX Quad SLI, and more.

• In the Lab – Solving problems with overheating chipsets when using water-cooling, reducing boot times, and more.

Reviews

• Videocard – A look at nVidia’s new flagship GeForce 7900 GTX featuring 512MB GDDR3, a 650MHz clock speed, and SLI technology for only $500.

• Desktop PC – A review of the Omen A:121 Crossfire featuring an Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU, two ATI X1900 XT videocards, 2 GB RAM, four 150GB Raptor 10,000 RPM hard drives in RAID 0, and more for $7500.

• Notebook PC – A review of the Alienware Aurora M7700 featuring an AMD FX-60 CPU, 2GB DDR400, two 80GB hard drives in RAID 0, an nVidia GeForce Go 7800 with 256MB, a 17-inch screen and more for just over $5000.

• Backup drive – A review of the Maxtor One Touch III Turbo external drive which features two Maxtor 500 GB drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 config in an external enclosure ($900).

• Compact digicam – A review of the Kodak EasyShare One digital camera ($500).

• A/V streaming box – The Sony LocationFree TV LF-X11, meant to compete with devices like the Slingbox.

• VGA coolers – Arctic Cooling Accelero VGA Coolers. These were aftermarket heatsink/fan combos designed for better cooling than what came stock on most cards at the time.

• Powerline Wi-Fi adapter – The Netgear XE104. At 85b/s it was quite a bit faster than most wi-fi at the time.

• MP3 Player – The Creative Zen Vision: M MP3/video player. Another device modern phones have destroyed.

• RAM drive card – The Gigabyte i-RAM. This was a PCI card with 1 GB of RAM designed to be used as a RAM drive.

• PC enclosures – Reviews of the Kingwin SK-523BKW and the Lian Li PC-777 Memorial Edition (it literally looks like a snail).

• Privacy stick – The Stealth Surfer II, a password protected 128 MB memory stick designed for keeping your web surfing habits private.

• Water coolers – Reviews of the Swiftech H20-120 Premium and Thermaltake Bigwater 745 CPU liquid coolers.

• Gaming – A look at Star Wars: Empire at War, a Star Wars themed strategy game.

…and more!

Source: Maximum PC – September 2000

Another issue of what was my favorite PC magazine. It was among the latest survivors in the magazine world as well. This magazine was generally targeted at those who were power users. People that build their own PCs, do PC gaming, overclock, etc. The September 2000 issue includes:

• Commport – Letters from readers about the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, color temperature calibration, the demise of Psygnosis, computer heat, AOL and privacy, the KX133 chipset, turning off the task scheduler, and more.

• Inside Sources – Low power CPUs shown off at PC Expo including Transmeta’s Crusoe, a low power 600 MHz Pentium III, and AMD’s K6-2+ at PC Expo; the DVD-RAM / DVD+RW war continues; and a look at the new bluetooth technology.

• Watch Dog – Philips settles lawsuit regarding defective CD-R drives; problems with Access Micro PC, getting Klipsch speakers in Canada, Aureal files for bankruptcy, and more.

• Peripheral Vision – A look at new tech toys including the Casio Freedia FZ-500P Super-Compact Printer, Creative Video Blaster WebCam GO Plus, and Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-150W-US.

• Fast Forward – A fair price for MP3a and the future of music consumption.

• Dream Machine 2000 – Every year, Maximum PC editors built the ultimate PC that could be built. In 2000, that was a desktop featuring dual 1 GHz Pentium III CPUs, an Intel OR840 motherboard, a pair of 256MB Kingston RDRAM modules, a Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB video card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum + Live Drive II, Sigma Designs Real Magic Hollywood Plus MPEG Decoder, Plextor Ultraplex 40x Max CD-ROM, two Plexwriter 12/4/32 drives, Pioneer DVD-115 16x DVD-ROM, two 18GB Seagate X15 SCSI drives, a 75GB IBM 75GXP drive, an Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160 SCSI card, an Iomega 100MB Internal IDE ZIP drive, a Sony F500 monitor, Klipsch ProMedia V.2-400 speakers, Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro USB, Logitech First Mouse Wheel, and a PC Power and Cooling Solid-Steel Tower. All for the low, low price of $11,987.

• Hands Down: The 25 Best Palm Apps – This list of best Palm Pilot apps includes things like Unitconv (an app for converting units), Cruisecontrol (an overclocking app), Arranger (an organizer app), Moon Phase (will give you the phase of the moon for any date), and lots of others.

• Thunderbird’s A Go-Go! – A detailed look at AMD’s new iteration of the Athlon CPU. The big changes were to the cache architecture which also allowed it to go from slot based back to socket based.

• Whitepaper – A talk with Matrox regarding its OpenGL driver.

• Ask The Doctor – Questions answered about using Premiere with a Compaq Presario 7970, problems with IE 5.5, problems with ripping MP3s, DMA issues, using SoftFSB, and more.

• Hardware Reviews – Reviews of the Polywell Poly A30k7-1000 system, Diamond Rio 600 MP3 player, Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB graphics card, Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 32MB graphics card, Hercules 3D Prophet II 32MB graphics card, OnStream 30GB tape drive, Dell XPS8100R Special Edition digital studio, Samsung SM-304B CD-RW/DVD drive, Toshiba SD-R1002 CD-RW/DVD drive, and Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 350CBi mobile color printer.

• Game Reviews – Reviews of Diablo II, Deus Ex, MDK2, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, StarLancer, and Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption.

…and more!

Source: Maximum PC – August 2005

Maximum PC, which start its life as boot, was my favorite PC magazine. It was oriented towards ‘enthusiasts’ such as gamers and those who like to build their own PCs, overclock, etc. It was published up until a a few years ago. The August 2005 issue includes:

Regulars

• In/Out – Letters from readers about choosing a video card for Quake 4, video card benchmarks, Quake III on a multi-core CPU, the Pentium D, DVD-R vs. DVD+R, and more.

• Quick Start – ATI introduces crossfire; ATI releases 10 new drives including internal, external and portable models; Windows Mobile 5.0 released for PDAs and smartphones; DisplayPort standard announced; Athlon 64 X2 series replaces single core models; and more.

• Head2Head – A look at the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ vs. the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840.

• WatchDog – Maximum PC investigates industry issues including D-Link router problems, counterfeit copies of Windows XP, motherboard warranties, and more.

• How To – A guide to protecting yourself from Phishing and Pharming.

• Ask the Doctor – Questions answered about USB ports on the A7V333 motherboard, ethernet on the Asus P4P800 motherboard, power supply issues, case filters, and more.

• In the Lab – Testing the 64-bit version of Windows XP.

• Rig of the Month – A PC custom designed to look like something recovered off of a derelict space ship in Alien.

Reviews

• Desktop PC: MMC Modular PC – A modular PC that requires a docking station to work. It includes 1 GHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 CPU, 512MB of DDR RAM, 20GB hard drive, Silicon Motion 3DR graphics processor, and more for $1900.

• 512MB videocards – A look at both the Sapphire Hybrid X800 XL and XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MB. At the time 512MB video cards to offer much advantage over 256MB models.

• Water-cooling Kit: Koolance Exos 2 – This liquid CPU cooler includes a unit with radiator, fans ad digital display that mounts on top of your case.

• PDA: PalmOne LifeDrive – The unique features of this Palm based PDA was the 4GB internal hard drive.
• External Hard Drive: Seagate 400GB – A highly rated and very large for the time external drive.

• Video Editing Suite: Turtle Beach Video Advantage USB – A USB device and software that allows you to capture analog composite and S-Video with stereo audio.

• Personal Video Player: Ovideon Aviah 5GB – A portable video player with a 2.2″ OLED screen, 5 GB of storage, and built-in TV Tuner.

• Digital Cameras – Reviews of the Kodak EasyShare Z740 and the Leica Digilux 2.

• Wireless Headphones: Sennheiser RS140 – A mediocre pair of wireless headphones.

• MP3 Player: Gateway 6GB MP3 Photo Jukebox – A 6GB MP3 player that could also store and display digital photos.

• USB Keys – A look a couple of USB thumb drives including the M-Flyer TravelDrive and CryptoStick USB 2.0.

• DV Disc-Mastering Suite: Easy Media Creator 7.5 – One of the most popular pieces of software for mastering CDs.

Gaming

• Cold Fear – A port of a console survival horror game.

• Guild Wars – A very popular MMORPG.

• Pariah – A first person shooter with questionable AI.

• SWAT 4 – A squad based game in which you command a SWAT team.

Features

• Heal Your PC! – Reviews of 23 utilities to prevent and cure viruses and other malware.

• Picture This! – A review of 11 LCD monitors including the BenQ FP19V+, Eizo L778, Formac, Hewlett Packard L2035, LG L1980Q, Norcent LM-960, Philips 190P5, Planar PX212M, Samsung 193P, Sony SDM-HS95P, and Viewsonic VP191b.

• Taming the SATA Beast – Understanding the differences between SATA 150, SATA II, and SATA 3G.

…and more!