By Will Smith

Welcome to the new and improved Maximum PC. When we began planning the magazine’s redesign, I had only one goal: to make an already kick-ass magazine even better—to do a better job informing, entertaining, and delighting you. We’ve rejiggered a few sections, moved some bits and pieces around, and added a whole new department. It was an ambitious redesign, but after six long months of prototyping and finessing, the new Maximum PC has surpassed all my expectations.

The first thing you’ll notice is our new regular department: R&D (it’s on page 62). R&D takes an up-close look at technology, both current and future. We’ll open every month with a technical white paper (this month we explain how OLED displays work), and then follow up with a Hardware Autopsy, in which we take apart a different piece of hardware, photograph its innards, and show you exactly how it all works. The final piece of the R&D puzzle is our new Preview section. In Previews, we’ll take an up-close look at an upcoming product or technology that promises to have an impact on your PC experience. I’m really excited about this latest addition to Maximum PC. I hope you are as well.

You’ll also notice a few other changes; the most drastic is in our QuickStart department. Our new QuickStart design accommodates more articles, so we won’t ever again be forced to choose between a story on geeks’ sex lives or Microsoft’s rumored P2P app (both stories are on page 14). We also applied some space-saving changes to every other section in the magazine. The upshot? We now have more room for text, and we can run larger images in every section of the mag, from the how-to department to our hard-hitting reviews.

That’s it! That’s all we’ve changed. We’re not changing the focus or the direction of Maximum PC one whit. You can expect the same hard-hitting reviews, exciting feature stories, and hands-on how-to content you’ve come to love in Maximum PC. We still worship at the altar of Pure PC Power. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just turn to page 22 and take a look at the hardware inside this year’s Dream Machine. Inside the brushed aluminum case is the most powerful rig we’ve ever built. DMX sports two dual-core Opterons, two GeForce 7800 GTX videocards, and two terabytes of hard drive space. The first time I saw DMX encode a full-length DVD to MPEG4 in less than 10 minutes, I was in love. This is a machine I want to wrap up and take home. I know you will too. 

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