NewsDowntime Tonight - Completed!

Sorry for the late notice, but we're going to be taking Maximum PC offline for an hour or so later this evening, starting around 9PM Pacific/midnight Eastern. If you're reading this, we're back. Woo! The good news is that we're taking the site down to upgrade the hardware (more on that later), which should result in snappier load times and less downtime, even when the site is running under extremely heavy loads. I'll be posting status updates on my Twitter, as I don't have much else to do during the migration. If you notice anything weird after the site comes back up, please post about it in the comments.

Apologies to Twitter for the graphic.

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NewsUp Close With Meridian’s $185,000 4096x2160 Pixel Projector -- 10 Megapixel Cinema Blows Us Away

Think a 30-inch monitor at 2560x1600 resolution is amazing? Then you haven’t seen Merdian’s 810 Reference Video System that gives you a 4096 x 2160 projected image for the low price of $185,000. But we have.

We got to touch and see the 810 up close and personal last week in a private demonstration held at Dolby Laboratories headquarters. Why Dolby? The company has a famous 90-seat theater in its main building in San Francisco that’s actually nicer than most small screens at the multiplex. And how does this monster of a projector perform? Read on to find out!

 

 Click through to read our impressions of the 810 Reference Video System

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video, hd, Projector, Home Theater, high definition, hardware, consumer electronics, meridian, marvell, dolby
NewsFabrik Launches Most Eco-Friendly Storage Ever

We almost didn't believe our eyes, but Fabrik is launching a completely eco-friendly external drive.  And by completely, we mean completely. The outer shell of the 500GB Simpletech "Redrive" is constructed of 100-percent recycled aluminum and bamboo.  And even the drive's packaging seems to have been designed by a Planeteer: the box itself is made up of 100-percent recyclable material, and there are no extra plastic bags, twist ties, or printed marketing materials of any kind.

Click the "Read More" link to check out all the other products Fabrik showed us!

Simpletech Redrive

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storage, Hard Drive, hardware, build a pc, fabrik, redrive, green, cayenne, ice
NewsSeagate Launches Industry-First 1.5TB Desktop Drive, Destroys Storage Worldstone

Put a feather in Seagate's cap. The storage titan has sprinted to the finish line and scored an exclusive: the world's first 1.5-terabyte hard drive. The 7,200rpm drive uses a mere four platters to achieve its huge capacity point -- that's 375GB per platter of areal density. Beefy.

Seagate is claming a sustained data rate of 120MB/s for its drive, which might very well be enough to place this little guy above Samsung's 333GB-per-platter HD103UJ drive. Other than that, the bulging Barracuda seems similar to every other high-capacity drive on the market: expect a 3Gb/s SATA interface and a typical 32MB of cache. Check out the full release below!

 

Seagate 1.5TB

 

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storage, Hard Drive, seagate, terabyte, hardware, barracuda, build a pc, 7200.11
NewsThe "Tera Era" Begins Today: Hitachi Launches Three-Platter Terabyte Drive

Calling it the "Dawn of the Tera Era," Hitachi has announced its first three-platter terabyte drive.  Billed as the Deskstar 7K1000.B, this is the second terabyte-class drive the company has produced since the launch of its first-to-the-market five-platter drive last year.  But here's the weird part: the company has announced no concrete plans to phase out its second-generation drives before 2009.  Nor is Hitachi coming in at a lower price point -- or comparable feature-set -- when compared to the other terabyte drives on the market today.

Check out our (confused) analysis after the jump!  And yes, it appears Hitachi has modeled its "Tera Era" marketing after Hair:

 

Tera Era

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storage, Hard Drive, hitachi, terabyte, hardware, build a pc, 7k1000.b
NewsNightly Big Thoughts, Small Talk - 7/7/08

Recovering after a three days of barbeques, fireworks, and general July 4th weekend shennanigans is never easy. But somehow we managed to arrive to work on time today to bring you the news and a couple new features. The things we do for you faithful readers. If you missed out on news posted over the weekend, here's a quick recap. 

And yes, the MaxPC birthday cake was both delicious and moist, even after being left out in the open the entire holiday weekend.

 

Tonight's discussion topic: How much hard disk space do you currently have in your rig? Would you ever upgrade to 5TB drives? And if so, what would you fill it with?

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nightly big thoughts, small talk, comments, discussion, news round up
NewsUnboxed: The NZXT Khaos

We were hoping to find a giant Chaos insignia on the side of NZXT's newest case, but alas, it appears the chassis manufacturer isn't as big a fan of Warhammer as we thought.  Naming conventions aside, this bold aluminum case is a beast to behold. Dubbed the Khaos, it's a huge and expensive addition to the full-tower chassis club.  But don't take our word for it: check out a full batch of sexy unboxing shots below!

 

NZXT Khaos

 

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NewsMaximum PC turns 10! To Celebrate, Editor-in-Chief Will Smith Cuts Cake, Not Cheese

We just finished producing our September 2008 issue, which marks the 10-year anniversary of our magazine. The very first issue of Maximum PC was the September 1998 edition, which featured the Dream Machine ’98 on its cover. To celebrate the occasion (and the successful launch of the new website), the staff took a break from building rigs and benchmarking to enjoy some devilishly delicious cake and champagne.

The September issue will also feature a nostalgic retrospective of the past 10 years of Maximum PC, highlighting predictions we got right (and wrong), the amazing tech trends we witnessed develop, and first-hand recollections from past staff members. Gordon shares his favorite lab memories, and ex-intern Brian Lam (of Gizmodo) reveals what he learned from his tenure. 

Here’s to the next 10 years!

 Hit the jump for another look at the cake -- it's not a lie!

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maximum pc, will smith, anniversary, celebration, cake

THIS MONTH's ISSUE
Maximum PC
FEATURE The 2008 Dream MachineHOW TO Build a Custom Windows Restore DiscFIRST LOOK ATI's GeForce KillerHISTORY LESSON We celebrate 10 years of Maximum PC

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