Maximum PC

Okay, okay. Let's talk about the November 2010 issue of Maximum PC Magazine.

Please refrain from "omg where's mah copy of the issue" comments.

If you have typos to point out, you can point those out in a separate thread, if you must.

We're really interested in your feelings about the actual editorial content of the mag (please note, ads are not editorial content). That's right. We care about your feelings! Some of us do. Sometimes.

Also, if you haven't yet, subscribe to our somewhat inaccurately titled No BS Podcast! The tech parts are No BS; the nerdy arguments about which fictional characters can defeat which are Slight BS.

-nathan

I enjoyed it, though the build was a bit stereotypical. I really enjoyed the HTPC article and am looking forward to the SFF build next month! There are a couple things I personally would have changed about the build (I would say just get a 550W PSU to save money- the P55 mobo isn't too great about multiple cards anyways), but it was solid.

And no, I don't think paying $50 for the red bling was worth it.

Okay here's what I thought was awesome in this November issue:

The deathmatch with Apple / Android / BlackBerry OSes really helped me choose which OS to go with next time around when I buy a cell phone. Those three OSes are pretty much the three best out there right now. Android is kicking BlackBerry's butt, and BB better come back with at least a swing.
Always read the Doctor section and Comments section first.
Budget Gaming PC article was good. Who was that dressed as Ezio from Assassins Creed 2? I think it would be best to keep him away from that PC in the picture.
In the Reviews section, that Acer Predator looks awesome! The Cooler Master looks good in an understated fashion. The Prolimatech Armageddon is one loaded fan. Good to see the Kaspersky review.

And anyone who hasn't seen this yet; check this out:
http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/photo_awesome

I've been looking for a decent phone for a while now, but blew my cash on a gaming rig instead. It's a shame the phones aren't cheaper.

Anyway, I am a Linux fan-boy so i enjoyed the bits on that and I always treasure the Reviews section. g33k candy

I've got to be honest, I wasn't too fond of the build. For a "budget" system, there was a lot there that was utterly frivolous. A 60GB SSD? For what? At that size, it's barely large enough for Win7, let alone any games you want to put on it to speed load times. You shave a few seconds off of boot; yippee. And going for the red case was pointless. Were it up to me, I'd probably skip those two bits, and go for a Core i7-875K instead of the Core i5-750 (hyperthreading + unlocked multiplier = win). Might even be enough money left over to go for dual 460s instead of the single 470, too.

But really, I think that the fact that an SSD and a pretty paint job was even an option is a good indicator that what qualifies as a "budget" build in today's marketplace has changed. Let's face it, this was a solid midrange machine, not a penny-pincher. I'd love to see a "rock-bottom" budget gaming rig, limited to, say, $700 or $800.

When is the December issue coming out? I can't wait to read the high-end router shootout.
Oh yeah, and the publication schedule is really weird. I finished reading both the October and November issue in late September.

I may have used an SSD in a mid range build, which the budget build for this month's issue, in my mind anyway, qualifies as. On another note, budget build or not, I would not opt for the bandwidth and no-hexa-core limitations of an LGA1156 board regardless of how cheap I could get the parts. The AMD Phenom II X6 1090T is only $60 more and with a new 890FX board, there is no bandwidth bottlenecks to speak of.

To Accomodate My Motherboard Selection:
Cooler Master HAF-X Full Tower Case (Eye Candy HERE)

My Motherboard selection:
MSI 890FXA-GD70

My Processor Selection:
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2ghz Black Edition

Everything else would stay the same except that I may have chosen to go with two of these:
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB (768-P3-1360-TR)

For a little extra money, you get an extra few frames per second and the satisfaction of running dual GTX460's in SLi. Not to mention the fact that your Folding@Home scores would shoot through the roof with that many physical cores and the two Fermi GPU's under the hood to boot. Plus, unlike with the current motherboard selection in the November issue, there are extra PCI-E slots (two are full x16, two are x8, five physical slots for much more expandability) on the MSI board I selected which means that you can buy more GTX460's and run even higher frame rates (or exponential folding ).

But that's just my suggestion. If you go with all the stuff above, ditch the SSD and the other remaining hardware in the Nov. issue which did NOT get replaced, you would spend about $1,376.

"They're more of what you'd call GUIDELINES..."

Interesting suggestion, but has it occurred to you that SLI and AMD 890 FX somehow doesn't fit in the same system together??
At least it's not supposed to, according to both companies.

True, so you could then go with lesser AMD-based cards even though they are slower. If you were feeling particularly needy of those extra few frames per second, you could opt for the ATi Radeon HD 5970, but at $600 or so per card (and let's not forget the length of this behemoth), it may not be that great an idea...

Incidentally, here is the link to the cheapest ones I could find:

High-End (With Known Liquid Cooling Blocks Available) $600:
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GB

Low-End (With Known Liquid Cooling Blocks Available) $260:
XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Low(er)-End (May Not Have Liquid Cooling Blocks Available) $150:
XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB



EDIT: The XFX 5770 does have a water cooling block:
Radeon HD 5770 Cooling Blocks (Pay in Euros? )

On the budget gaming pc instead of a SSD why not look at using the Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive? It sells around $109, and according to your review of it got a 9.

This drive sounds like to give pretty good performance and still has some storage space.