From Deschutes to Penryn, from Voodoo2 to GX2, from floppy drives to SSDs, the definition of pure PC power has changed radically over the last decade, and Maximum PC has been there—hands-on and no holding back—helping computer enthusiasts make sense of it.
In honor of those 10 eventful years, we take a look back at some of the key moments in the magazine’s history, hear from some of the editors who have been there along the way, and take a wild guess at how another 10 years might shape the computing landscape. Strap on your sneaks, folks, we’re taking a walk down memory lane.
It's nice to look back and see that we sometimes know what we're talking about
Athlon 64: You can call it jumping on the bandwagon, but we call it knowing a winner when we see one. We lauded the Athlon 64 with award after award and high praise for good reason: This chip kicked ass and took names for years.
Core 2: The AMD fanboys tried to blame it on bias, but we knew—and history has proved us out—that the Core 2 marked the return of Intel.
Dual-Core Processing: It’s hard to believe now, but there was resistance to the dual-core movement from folks who thought it was silly, given that applications and games weren’t multithreaded. Ahem, sounds a little like the people who promote dual cores over quad cores now, doesn’t it?
DirectX 9: DirectX has changed the face of PC gaming, and DirectX 9 is the most successful version Microsoft has ever released. With powerful support for programmable hardware, DirectX 9 delivered killer graphics at a reasonable frame rate, using hardware that was readily available at launch.
Windows XP: When it was released back in 2001, we bestowed XP with our highest honor—a perfect 10 verdict. Our appreciation of the OS has only grown now that we’re faced with its flawed follow-up.
Water Cooling: Back in the day, people said cooling hot hardware with liquids was crazy—now it’s a craze.
Ripping CDs and DVDs: People scoffed at the time it initially took to rip music and movies, but we didn’t let that stop us. We saw back then how important it was to take control of our media, whether it’s to stream our library around the home (and across the Internet) or just to load our favorite movies and music onto a pocket-size media player.
DRM: It was obvious to us that music shackled with copy protection would alienate consumers. Finally, that’s become obvious to the record companies. Keep fighting the good fight!
Hardware Physics: Ageia talked a big game about its PhysX PPU (physics processing unit), but we couldn’t get behind a card that cost $300, ate up a PCI slot, and had only novelty games supporting it. Nor could anyone else, apparently.
Firefox: In our January 2004 Softy Awards, we called Firebird (later to become Firefox) “nothing short of revelatory,” and boy has that held true. Indeed, at its release, Firefox 3 had the most downloads of any software in a 24-hour period (8 million!).
Comments are closed on this article
Humpfester
August 25, 2008 at 8:38am
I would like to say Thank you for all the help and wise advice you've provided over the years and may the next ten years be as good, thank you all @ MAXIMUM PC.
Honkeychops
August 24, 2008 at 7:04pm
I remember BOOT magazine very well, but even *that magazine* had a predecessor.
I subscribed to a magazine called "CD-ROM TODAY" for a couple years, in the early 90`s (?) when one day
I was informed my subscription to "CD-ROM Today" was to be replaced by a new magazine called "Boot" magazine!
Scapegoat
August 21, 2008 at 10:35am
Hardware and software just gets better. Wow. This whole shpeel reminds me of how desperately I need a new computer, and I how I never should have bought the hardware I did. I bought a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz (Prescott so it was pre-hyper-threading) in 2004. I AM STILL USING IT. It's the only computer I have. This anniversary should mark a new era of updated and competitive computing. But, I'm a college student, and I'll have to wait a few more months until I can afford a laptop.
But MaximumPC, thanks for giving me my hopes and dreams for computing.
Wildebeast
August 20, 2008 at 9:49pm
Congratulations on the first 10 years, and on 12 years of Kick-ass-itude.
For me, the review I'll never for get was: a Sony desktop computer that was supposed to free up more desk space for the customer... you said "If you need more space on your desk this badly, you need to get a new desk..."
That one still makes me chuckle. Maybe that should have been the new MPC t-shirt, with an Old Sony logo on it. :)
DePat
August 20, 2008 at 11:22am
I Still have the scars of Kenwood TrueX optical drive on my back and in my wallet. What a bunch a @#$%@ that stuff was. But I am off course. I want to point out something to you got "wrong". I am qualifying the wrong because it was not a really a review but part of the article on how to build an HTPC. I am talking about Beyond Media. In your "review of beyond Media" (BM) you mentionned all the niceties it can do.
You forgot to note that BM is extremly slow when it comes to finding or playing music across a home network (Microsoft Window Home Server), that when playing videos with multiple language tracks, it will read all tracks at the same time (imagine watching a movie with the spanish, english and french tracks playing a the same time! yes, exactly), the dvd palyer of BM not playing at all (I had "challenges" from the first day a purchase BM and - Tech support has still not figure it out - we are talking about more than 9 months now) Other softwares play my dvds with no problem, the limited setting options of BM, you can select on their player or software or "windows default" window media player eventhough the world abound with more capable player and I can go on. I do not intend the above to sound as a baching of snapstream. Their
tech people are very customer friendly and I will gladly purchase
another working software from them. BM as just not met my
expectationHowever, you got Beyond TV right and that is a step forward out of the
cave as spouse start to realized the "goodness" of an HTPC.I also think that you are neglecting the Home Theather PC. Apart from the article in last year magazine you have not updated this segment on how to construct or what are the best part for an htpc. Computers are bound to get out the "cave", i.e which ever room of the house we sequested ourselves in, for the family room. So take the lead, show us the way as you did in so many other areas by testing the heck out of the offerings and separating hype from reality.
I am looking forward to the next 10
Happy birthday KickAss
PhynaeusClaw
August 20, 2008 at 11:03am
I got my first issue of MPC while I was working at EB in November 1998 (before it became EB Games and virtually stopped carrying PC games) for free. I took it home and read a review in which the word 'craptastic' (or possibly 'craptacular') appeared. I was hooked.
Keep the fun coming.
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