Maximum PC

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but isn't DDR2 still slower right now than regular DDR? I know obviously that technically it runs faster (667mhz) compared to 400, 433, etc etc. I just thought I read somewhere recently that the higher end DDR outperforms DDR2 for the moment.

If that's still the case I think they should have gone with DDR and an AMD chip or something (or a P4EE)

I personally am not a fan of Intel's new socket. I'd much rather see an overclocked P4EE in anyone's rig than the new stuff. Anyway, it's just my 2 cents.

Yes, according to a lot of review sites DDR-2 is still slower. Also PCI-Xpress isn't any faster yet than agp either. Thats why I said the choices were very poor, they should have gone AMD this year. I am not saying this because I am some kind of AMD fanboy either. Right now I am running a p4 2.4c @ 3.4ghz and I love it. Although I must admit that the Athlon 64's are much faster for gaming, it's well known!

Could you address the thread below please? It seems there may be a problem with your snail mail and/or your secretary.

HERE

Sorry, the real Bill has no time for email. He is to busy counting his money, (it takes a long time to count that much money!) or is to busy reading Maximum PC right now. And I think even the real Mr. Gates would have chosen a AMD 64 system this year! Actually he has so much money he probably has a 10ghz Pentium 5 engineerig sample for his main rig.

The real One4yu2c loves it when the real Bill Gates refers to himself in third person.

All of us eccentric billionaires refer to ourselves in the third person.

Don't forget the use of the royal "We" as well.

Manta

Does any manufacturer do this already? Falcon, Alien, Voodoo, etc. That was so Badazz, it rocked me. I really want one now. I've been looking at the cheesy LCD screens that display temps and stuff just to put in my 5.25 slot, but that takes the cake.

I understand why you went Intel to get the "future-proof" extras, but I think the dream machine ought to have been an Athlon FX...oh well, perhaps when the gnomes in Redmond pull the collective heads out and give us Windows 64 (I shudder to think how bug ridden the first release will be).

BTW, I went to the Earth LCD site and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Does anyone out there sell an LCD panel like the one you featured (but w/o the touch screen)? I would like to build a juke-box and radio streamer, and a little 640x480 screen like that would be perfect in place of a real monitor.

Sadly the disk choice is rather anemic.

WHERE IS MY SCSI320??

4 - 15K RPM Disks in a raid 1/0 config would give you tons of space and blow the doors performance wise off the IDE crap.

All my machines here at home are SCSI, if I could get for my laptop it would be too.

The vid card is a compromise is understanable but all things considered maybe the article should have been delayed a month.

Sound card is a good choice. Not much choice out there since Creative has taken over the industry pretty much.

CPU cooling could have been managed with a peltier cooler and really pushed the CPU, maybe to 4.2 or higher I have had some really good results with peltier coolers.

The case was not bad but rather plain. Certainly not worth the $400 for the paint. At least there was no fancy lighting and case windows.

Over all a mediocre effort with a lot of money wasted in silly places. If I want a fancy case I can get that anywhere. I prefer the plain understated elegance of the coolermaster wave. Why paint it?

Time to upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro and see real performance. Win XP is a bloated pig and slower then 2K.

Not really much faster than raptors raided for practical use., and a four disk raid array is not the best situation for your average HTPC/Gamer.




wouldn't you really want raptor/s in a laptop running at 7200 RPM with 'native SATA? When it becomes truely native - much more cost effective




Even though not 3.0 pixel spec'ed the ATI card is finding it's place (faster) with DX9 centered games (read HL2). For all the hoopla over Doom 3 - people running out and buying the 6800 class cards, the same thing will happen with ATI cards and other games. In other words the ATI card is just as good, and just as fast, and not as bulky (although the <6800 GT is not bulky)




I agree with that, bit look for motherboards with the new CMI 24 bit codec to really catch on.



True again. I agree, but I think a stable OC at 3.9 is about target for everyday use if it's stable.




Totally agree. I'm sick of light shows in cases or way too expensive paint jobs. I remember an issue a few years back with an awsome MaxPc paint job (done by a staffer I think) - was blue. Much better. I would like to have seen it more interesting though. It was kind of bland even though expensive - so I do get your drift. It looks like they just went to best buy for the huge screen, and newegg for all of the parts. Nothing really looked different or slighly off the map. There are parts that are kick a$$ that MaxPc has never reviewed or had in their mag.




I don't agree here. Easy to make winxp perform the same as 2000. You do this with preferences and tweaks. Takes 20 seconds. Overall XP is far better for multimedia - and the DM is geared towards that from what i saw.

I was pretty impressed with DM 2k4. One of the things I'm most interested in is PCI Express and SATA and it was great to see it included in this years system. I bought one of those mousing surfaces from CS Hyde mentioned in the article so I'll see if it's as good as they say it is.

http://www.cshyde.com/Excess%20Inv%20Sale.htm

I also want to get my hands on the Logitech diNovo keyboard.

hmmm, I'm just wondering if they would send that dream machine to a poor guy serving in the US Air Force?

if they would, hey, email



lol. hiiiiigh hopes

my only gripe is cosmetic . . . you spent $800 for the paint job, but didn't go that extra quarter of a mile to paint the bezels of the optical drives or the LCD screen?

For some strange reason, whenever i renew my subscription, I don't get the mag for 2 months....has happened the last three years.
Okay, i shared my thoughts on the Mag feedback link, I think they need to use a comparable "zero point" system, seems they always use an older "outdated model...why? I know they had a 939 with an FX-53 in their shop, why don't they use that as the zero point?
As to the dream machine itself, its okay, nothing spectacular, and like the article a month or two ago where they dressed up old systems, they seemed to really lose focus or get side tracked.
Why an LCD touch screen? why both an LCD and CRT monitor? I think they kind of need to get back to basics and just build a killer system and run with it.
I did very much like their parts selection, you can't argue that too much as everything they use is cutting edge and been reviewed the last couple of months. but recently switching from Intel to AMD myself, i would like to see how this system stacks up against the newest AMD offering, not yesterdays hardware.
I also think every year they should have a contest or giveaway the Dream Machine.