Every year, a procession of PC parts enters our Lab. Each component is tested mercilessly, but only a handful manage to win us over with a combination of killer performance, unique skills, and an all-inclusive feature set. Over the following pages, we pay tribute to those proud few and explain what makes them stand out among their peers in each major PC category. Ladies and gentlemen, we present this year’s hardware best in show!

Best CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650

Intel’s been on cruise control for more than a year, but that doesn’t mean the giant has been asleep at the wheel. On the heels of its proven 65nm Core 2 Quad design, Intel gets tiny with a new 45nm process chock-full of under-the-hood enhancements that boost performance 10 to 15 percent over its predecessor in a clock-for-clock comparison. But the real story of the 45nm Penryn chip is its clock-speed headroom. While the 65nm quad cores top out at 3GHz (with overclocked chips pushing 3.73GHz), the QX9650 promises to push clock speeds far higher thanks to the more efficient 45nm process. The only downside to Penryn is that it won’t work in some older motherboards. Nevertheless, this is the best CPU in town. $1,000, www.intel.com

Best Motherboard: Asus P5E3 Deluxe

If you don’t like controversy, stop reading. After taking Asus’s new P5E3 Deluxe motherboard and its new Intel X38 chipset for a ride, we’re willing to toss aside conventional power-user wisdom and embrace this DDR3 non-SLI board as our top pick. Wha, wha, what?! Just hear us out: First, the board supports Intel’s new 45nm Penryn—our favored CPU. Second, DDR3 is beginning to hit speeds that make it attractive—at 1,800MHz, who gives a damn about latency? We’re also willing to forgo SLI support—for now—when single-card performance is so damned fast. (In the meantime, maybe Nvidia will finally unlock SLI on Intel chipsets.) The hardcore features and killer performance of this board make it worth the trade-off.
(Reviewed at http://tinyurl.com/2cvl4b) $280, www.asus.com

Best Air Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700 LED

The fact that we’ve adopted the CNPS9700 as a benchmark against which we compare all other coolers is a testament to the raw strength of this shiny little guy. It’s just that powerful; it’s loud too, but if you want your CPU temps lowered to the extreme, the CNPS9700 is the cooler to do it.
(Reviewed February 2007) $80, www.zalmanusa.com

Best Case: Cooler Master Cosmos

We’ve read the pages upon pages of forum posts complaining about the Cosmos: that it’s too bulky, that it’s too warm, that it sucks. Well, you disbelievers are wrong! We’ve found nothing but blissful joy when using this holiest of holy chassis. Its adherence to screwless construction and soundproofing, not to mention its front-panel eSATA support and durable exterior, made the Cosmos the natural choice for this year’s Dream Machine, and it remains our favorite to this day. To praise this case more would require ticker tape and a flashy car.
(Reviewed October 2007) $200, www.coolermaster.com

Best Videocard: Asus EN8800 GTX

The videocard market has been a one-horse race this year. Nvidia obliterated AMD without doing much of anything new. And while this might seem out of character for Maximum PC, we’re not anointing a card with Nvidia’s absolute fastest GPU—the 8800 Ultra—with our Best of the Best designation.

No, we’ve decided to stick with the 8800 GTX, as represented by Asus’s EN8800 GTX. It’s fast, it’s quiet, and it delivers incredible performance with DX9 (its DX10 performance is admittedly less impressive). Yes, the Ultra is faster. It’s also hotter and a whole lot more expensive. We just don’t think the modest speed bump justifies the mountain of cash you’ll need to acquire one.
(Reviewed January 2007) $550, www.asus.com

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