It's the "editor's cut" of PC buyer's guides. Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide takes the guesswork out of PC hardware and software purchases. Based on Maximum PC magazine's popular "In the Lab" section, all product reviews from the past year are included and expanded in this all-inclusive shopping guide to give you details that couldn't be included in the magazine. Organized into categories such as "Motherboards," "CPUs," and "Wi-Fi Networking," products are ranked from "kick ass" to "in the dog house." Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide is your one-stop shop for all of your computer hardware and software needs!
FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more |
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
George Jones is the editor-in-chief of Maximum PC. At the tender young age of 10, he discovered his joy for computing and his fascination with taking computers apart when his parents made him the happy benefactor of a Commodore VIC-20 computer. George lives in San Francisco with his wife Jane.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
MaximumPC 2005 Buyer's Guide
Introduction
Other magazines cover technology, but Maximum PC really covers technology. What's the difference? We cover it not from the corporate spendthrift perspective, but from a place of passion and pure enthusiasm. In short, the other guys cover hardware. We love hardware. So much so that the Maximum PC Lab (which you'll read about in Chapter 2, "Maximum PC Standards & Practices") is a hub of constant activity. Products' reputations are routinely made or destroyed. Experiments are constantly underway, and the results are made public on a monthly basis in our magazine.
Let's face it: Buying computers or computer components is a tricky, complex process, fraught with doubt and misrepresentation. Over the course of the last year, we found ourselves answering one question related to this situation more often than any other: How—and why—do we test products in our Lab?
After answering it the first 150 times, we began to think to ourselves, "We should write a book that describes our testing philosophy and methodology, so that the public will be better educated—both about existing products and what to look for in the future." The end result is this book.
As I began to plan and write this book, I found that in order to describe our testing process and dispense tips regarding what you should look for when you're buying new gear, I found that the year's past events dovetailed nicely with our buying advice.
After reading the Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide, you're probably going to find yourself thinking, "What a year!" Consider the following ground-breaking developments that occurred over the last 12 months:
AMD rocked the tech world by releasing two new 64-bit CPUs—the Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX. For the first time ever, Intel found itself on the defensive—and chasing another company.
In addition to completely changing its CPU naming conventions to de-emphasize clock speed, Intel also made a radical shift in CPU development strategy by abandoning several new P4 lines and embracing dual-core processors.
ATI and nVidia released new videocards—nothing new there. But ATI's Radeon X800 XT and nVidia's GeForce 6800 each boasted an astonishing 150% improvement in game-related performance.
Creative released a 7.1 speaker set, meaning that you can now play games and watch movies with a whopping total of eight speakers.
Intel announced its upcoming HD Audio technology that, upon its release in the new Grantsdale mobo chipset, will allow full-fledged eight-channel sound integrated onto the motherboard.
Alienware introduced a new high-end PC that uses two next-gen videocards (of the aforementioned 150% performance boost) to improve graphics performance by another 70%.
Major PC manufacturers began to roll out Media Center PCs for usage in the living room. Based on a modified "Media Center" version of Windows XP, these systems provided TiVo-like capabilities and the ability to watch movies, share pictures, and surf the Internet.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of the last 12 months, we also saw Intel introduce its Pentium 4 Prescott, the debut of BTX, and spontaneous evolution in almost every PC component category.
As I was researching, writing, and compiling this book, I found myself thinking the same thing. But upon further reflection, I came to realize that I could easily say the same thing about any of the past 10 years. Although personal computers have been in households for 20 years now, PC technology evolves at a rate so rapid it would have made Darwin dizzy.
Hence this book. My intent here is threefold.
First, I want to explore and discuss all of the year's major and minor developments in each PC component category. This will allow you to better understand the capabilities and performance of the current state of the art, and how much it's changed over the course of last year.
Second—and this is the most important function of the Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide—this book contains valuable information that will help you make better purchasing decisions. To this end, each chapter of this book contains our most significant product reviews from the last year in each PC component category. Each chapter also details the Maximum PC Lab's testing procedures and our criteria for judging each product we review. Armed with this information, you'll be able to ask the right questions—and get the details most pertinent to your purchase.
Finally, this book is meant to celebrate some of the magazine's best and worst moments. I know that many of our faithful readers and subscribers will be reading this book, and I hope that you enjoy the walk down memory lane. I know I have.
Who Should Read This Book?
The short answer is that anyone passionate about PCs will enjoy the Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide. The longer answer is that everyone from PC novices to crusty veterans will find value on every single page of this book. Whether you're looking to get a better understanding of how to make smarter purchasing decisions, to gain insight into how Maximum PC tests each product we review, or to simply revel in our magazine's 12-month history, you'll get something out of this.
I've written this book with the expectation that our magazine will publish a new Buyer's Guide every year, so this will also serve as an almanac of sorts.
For your convenience, I've broken this book into chapters that correspond with the major PC categories. Here's a quick rundown of how it works and what you can look forward to:
Maximum PC: The Year in Review: Chapter 1 walks you through the last year's worth of Maximum PC magazine. We'll take a look at the highs and lows in each issue, and divulge some of the behind-the-scenes triumphs and disasters even our most faithful readers never heard about.
Maximum PC Standards & Practices: Chapter 2 is an in-depth look at Maximum PC's most hallowed ground—our testing Lab. Inside, you'll meet the editors, get a glimpse at our product reviewing practices, and learn about a few tests that went horribly wrong. By horribly wrong, I mean explosions, fires, and the occasional frog or two.
Motherboards & Core-Logic Chipsets: The rest of the world takes motherboards for granted, but before power users decide on a case or CPU, they choose their mobo. Chapter 3 is an extensive look at the most underrated PC component of its time. You'll read reviews of recently released mobos and learn about future developments.
Cases & Formfactor Standards: Besides looking good and serving as the PC embodiment of your personality, PC cases protect your PC's innards. There are literally hundreds available. We'll tell you which ones are good and which ones are crap.
Processors: Small and powerful, your CPU—also known as a "proc"—serves as the brain of your PC. The last year was an interesting and tumultuous period in this category, because chipmaking rivals AMD and Intel upped the competitive stakes with bold new designs and dazzling performance.
Hard Drives: Blazing speeds and astonishing capacities was the name of the game in this category last year. Can you say "400 gigabytes"? In this chapter, we'll show you how and why we test hard drives so rigorously, and explain what to look for when you're buying your next drive.
Videocards: Wow, what a year in the videocard space! In the middle of 2004, we saw the release of two ground-breaking cards. In Chapter 7, we put them through their paces—and come away duly impressed.
Soundcards: Back in the day, soundcards were like AM radio. Now, we're seeing the release of soundcards containing eight channels of audio surround sound. That's astonishing. Find out more in Chapter 8.
Optical Drives: Thanks to the new standards, burning your own music and movie CDs and DVDs has never been easier. And, shockingly, DVD capacities just doubled in size, thanks to dual-layer burners. Inside Chapter 9, you'll find details on how and why optical drives work, as well as insight into how we identify the fastest performers on the market.
Speakers: Like I mentioned, PC sound has climbed to new heights in terms of clarity and impact. While the speakers' category is one of the few to have slowed down in terms of evolution in design, prices have plummeted. This means the time is right for you to upgrade your PC speaker systems. We'll show you how.
Pre-built PCs: If you're like us, you prefer building your own rig to buying a pre-made one. But there comes a time in every person's life where they have to go the pre-built route. PC design has become more intricate and varied than ever. In Chapter 11, we focus on super-powerful high-end laptops and desktops. We think you'll be surprised at what you see.
Displays: To LCD or not to LCD. That's the question in Chapter 12. In the middle of 2004, we rounded up eight LCDs in order to determine whether or not they're close to the quality levels of traditional, but more bulky CRT displays.
Mice & Keyboards: Until you've suffered a nasty repetitive stress injury, input devices tend to be an afterthought. They shouldn't be. While your standard mouse and keyboard is way better than it was 10 years ago, it's important to find the ergonomic input rig that's right for you. We'll show you how.
Wi-Fi: 2003 and 2004 were big years for wireless technology....
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
clear language and objective assessments,
By
This review is from: Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide (Paperback)
While we are well on our way through 2005, this book still has merit for many readers. Its attraction is the clear language and objectivity of its assessments of the myriad types of hardware and software associated with personal computing. Buttressed by technical explanations of new features, like command queuing, or how to set up a tri monitor display.
Even if you have no specific need in mind, this guide is nice for its overview of the entire PC arena. It neatly characterises waht is available in 2004-5. One day, future historians of technology might also find this book valuable, on this account.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of errors make this a waste of time and money,
By
This review is from: Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide (Paperback)
Written by the chief editor of Maximum PC, a magazine devoted to modding and overclocking but not particularly good at it, this is a very poorly written and edited "book" that's basically just a compilation of equally poorly written and edited articles from the magazine's 2003 issues. Published last summer, it's already out-of-date. But that's not its true vice; the problem is 1) it has a lot of factual errors, and 2) it doesn't give you critical comparisons you need to choose among the products in each category.
The book is broken into sections by the different PC components: mobo, CPU, hard drive, etc. Each section begins with some general information which is too simple for power users yet too difficult-to-understand for beginners. If you fall in the middle, you would have found this useful, except the author keeps saying everything is great and dandy, so you end up not knowing which technology or brand you should pick. An author who's more critical and opinionated would have been more helpful. For example, between Intel and AMD CPUs, and among the many different models, which one should you buy? There are 12 pages on processors, but the section reads like a typical magazine article that says "model A has features 1-2-3, model B has features 7-8-9, but the higher numbers are not necessarily better than the lower ones, except if you are willing to overclock, which BTW may void your warranty, if not causing your PC to explode if not done properly, but you should really do it because the manufacturer says it's okay as long as you do it right, which BTW BTW is not possible if you didn't buy and read the last 20 issues of our magazine." You get my point. One more critical point from this reviewer: when a book like this recommends specific products, you are never sure if these products are truly the best in their respective categories, or they are here only because the manufacturers pay the author or publisher or both some kind of kickbacks. One thing I learned working in different industries in the past is how corrupt private businesses are, despite our country's having the best legal system in the world. Kickbacks and "soft money" are just everywhere. Anyway, many products in this book are of dubious usefulness or quality, and there are certain better products out there, so one must be skeptical about the author's picks, esp. when he works for a magazine and publishing company that relies entirely on advertising dollars for profits. (Organizations like Consumer Reports do not accept advertising and are thus more trustworthy in their reviews.) This book is a waste of money. Books like PC Bible have more in-depth and, more importantly, *accurate* information that you can rely on.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Catch-up but now out of date,
By
This review is from: Maximum PC 2005 Buyer's Guide (Paperback)
Yep, it's a recap of the last years magazine articles. Not bad if you need to get a clue what's up with the most recent pc hardware. It will explain the difference between the north bridge and the south bridge and other tech stuff you need to know. Lot's of reviews of last year's products (now available for great deal prices). I'd buy the latest one, the 2006 buyer's guide. Like reading a whole year's worth of the magazine.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
