Will three fans enable Gigabyte to capture the single-GPU performance crown? We found the Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum that we reviewed in the November 2011 issue to be pretty badass: It’s a solid, factory-overclocked card that’s impressively easy to push even harder. [......]
The low-cost champion, evolved Frequent Maximum PC readers will have noticed our love affair with Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler. The 212 Plus came out of nowhere and captured our hearts—and a spot on our Best of the Best list—with its excellent cooling power and rock-bottom $30 price tag way back in 2009. It’s not the best CPU cooler we’ve tested, but we’ve installed it in virtually every stock-clocked PC we’ve built since, thanks to its unbeatable price/performance ratio[......]
Ditch the discs! We show you how to rip, convert, store, and stream all your media—while retaining the highest possible level of quality Listen up, mediaphiles, because this might just be the last time we tackle the preservation of physical media in the hallowed pages of Maximum PC. Yes, the times are changing[......]
Can we build a PC that’s quiet and cool without sacrificing performance—or spending a fortune? Anyone can build a gaming PC[......]
A leaner, meaner version of the classic series It may not move games in Modern Warfare numbers, but Civilization is the definition of a venerable gaming franchise. Spanning nearly two decades, the series has seen five full games, a half-dozen expansion packs, and a handful of spin-offs. But this isn’t Call of Duty—there’s not going to be another core Civ game every year, or even every couple of years, so every version has to satisfy the fan base for at least three or four years[......]
Packed with fans and features We dinged September’s Antec Sonata Proto for being feature-poor. Can’t say the same of the flagship of Antec’s Dark Fleet line, the DF-85. [......]
Company's first headset makes good first impression Now, the first thing you’re going to notice about the HS1 USB gaming headset is that it isn’t the best looking set out there. It’s bulky, the color choice is uninspired, and the odd decision to pad the bottom and top of the headband gives the whole thing a sort of bloated aesthetic. There—now that that’s out of the way, we can talk about the reasons that Corsair’s first headset kicks ass[......]
I don't know about you, but Armageddon excited As brands go, Prolimatech is a new one. The company has only been around since 2008, after all, and it offers a bare handful of products. But the company was founded by people who clearly know a lot about CPU cooling, as it’s accrued considerable cred in just a couple of years. [......]
Small vendor, humongous machine Prior to receiving the Nine X7200, we were unfamiliar with Malibal, and its motto, “Enlighten Transmute,†was equally mysterious. But the company claims to make the World’s Fastest Laptop, a concept that needs no explanation—only proof. To be honest, calling this 17-inch desktop replacement a laptop is somewhat ludicrous, as you’d probably do bodily harm bearing this machine’s 13-plus pounds atop your lap for any extended period[......]
An all-in-one liquid-cooler with a built-in display As one of the few players in the all-in-one liquid-cooling market—which marks the midpoint between air-coolers and custom water-cooling loops—CoolIT’s coolers have to compete with Corsair’s Asetek collaborations as well as both other categories of coolers. CoolIT’s Eco A.L.C. cooler (reviewed June 2010) performed to within a few degrees Celsius of our champion air- and liquid-coolers, but its single fan was noisy and it didn’t significantly outpace our category leaders[......]
Seizing on the latest graphics trend, new 3D laptops and monitors arrive en masse. Are they ready to slay their 2D counterparts[......]
When building, optimizing, or troubleshooting a computer, an adept hardware monitor is an extremely useful tool. HWMonitor allows you to keep track of all of your system’s important vital stats, and because it’s created by CPUID, creators of CPU-Z, HWMonitor has impeccable support for even the newest hardware. With its temperature monitors, it’s an ideal tool for any overclocker, and with its voltage monitors, energy-conscious underclockers will be happy, too. [......]
USB 3.0 and solid state storage; two great tastes that go great together! We’ve seen a few USB 3.0 external drives here at Maximum PC, and we do appreciate the long-overdue speed boost. It’s nice to have file transfers limited by drive speed again, rather than the interface—the 33MB/s maximum was killing us. And while we appreciated the boost we got from USB 3.0 in WD’s My Book 3.0 and the Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed enclosure, the former was only as fast as the mechanical drive within it and the latter couldn’t even match the speeds of the drives it enclosed[......]
The spy who almost loved me Let’s say someone’s just given you a jack-in-the-box. [......]
Is the third time the charm for this gaming NIC? [......]
