Posted 09/16/2009 at 09:42:51am

I guess if your really hard on your stuff and you break crap all the time, then extended warranties might be worth it for you.

 However, I think what some people forget to mention or think about is when dealing with technology gadgets, more often than not, by the time you need an extended warranty, the technology is so out of date that 1. its cheap to fix or 2. its outdated and you need to update anyways. Just like your iPhone example. Your phone died just in time for the new iPhone to come out. Im not saying you would have necessarily replaced yours immediately if it hadn't died, but its a good example of a new technology replacement before the extended warranty is used.

And I definitely agree with the guy who said "They sell extended warranties because they make money on them. They wouldn't sell extended warranties if it cost them money."

How do you think Apple prices their $99 iCare package? They know what their costs for the average fix/person and then put a mark up on it....its a guaranteed cash generator.

Posted 07/16/2009 at 08:23:33am

but just in case anyone else is reading old articles.

 1. changing to water cooled from air cooled, will not change the amount you are "heating up" your room. In fact, it will probably heat up your room even more being that water cooling is more efficient.

 2. If your really concerned about pressure loss due to friction in your piping, there are equations you solve for pressure loss in piping due to friction. You will also have to include an "equivalent pipe lengths" calculation for all of the bends, elbows, and heat sinks, and any other pieces that are not straight pieces of tubing. Then you can calculate fairly accurately the pressure loss in your system. The reason MPC is not seeing any appreciable difference in various settings is because their system is way overkill. The velocity of the liquid in the system is important (ie. gpm), but they are so much above the optimal setting that it is not having an impact on their system. However, as you are concerned, Im sure if you go down to the 1/4" or 3/8" tubing with several parts being cooled, you could see performance loss in your cooling.

 Here is a good website, with further explanations on how to do you pressure loss calculation:

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/equivalent-pipe-length-method-d_804.html

Posted 05/29/2009 at 11:26:21am

He's not stupid for signing that agreement, its pretty much a standard/required for any major company in any industry. The intent is to protect industrial trade secrets which are not patents nor do they have expiration dates. So there is no expiration date on a non-disclosure and non-compete agreement, because as a former employee you are never allowed to divulge the information you have to other companies

Its not that he's forbidden from working in the IT business, nor is he technically forbidden to work in Mergers and Aquisitions at Dell. They just have to be very careful (or even prove) that IBM's information is maintained as a secret. As the Dell representative stated, the job he is taking has not even been disclosed. If he's working in a totally different field from Mergers and Aquisitions then this is a non-issue.

Posted 03/01/2008 at 04:44:56am

I definitely second this comment. Im not so worried about outside of my box. What about the inside? I have the CoolerMaster 830, with four 120mm fans for a sidewall, and a huge thermaltake 90mm CPU fan...thats a lot of spinning fan blades...Not to mention my 2 GeForce 9750's and my mobo putting out lots of heat...all of this can't be good for cables.

Posted 03/01/2008 at 03:47:02am

I'd have to agree with most comments, this is more of FPS101. Gaming God class should involve things such as tweaks to settings. Anyone who played CS pre-1.6 days would remember all of the tweaks you could do to game play that would effect both your play and the way other players saw you. Also simple things like binding "stopsound" or changing your gamma settings for different maps. I would rate all of the following points higher than everything in the article but "know your maps": Headphones!!(good set of headphones is more important then a "gaming keyboard), walking/crouching vs. running, and learning the spray patterns of each gun (not sure how many other fps games have different patterns) but in CS this makes a huge difference. Also know when to single fire, burst fire, and all out spray and pray. I just wanted to add my 2cents...not trying to flame the original article. I know I would have loved this type of information when I first started.

Posted 01/06/2008 at 02:25:59am

I tend to use www.mwave.com They have an excellent website and excellent service similar to newegg where they send a receipt immediately. The descriptions are exact, with part numbers, and they have an excellent customer support, where they will allow you exchange anything if you think its faulty. Ive had to exchange CPUs, and motherboards before and never had a problem!

Posted 07/16/2007 at 09:26:19am

I find it funny that people are arguing over OEM vs DIY. Basically, if someone is reading this magazine/website, then they are above the average OEM level. They either already are DIY (like myself), or people who genuinely have an interest in learning how computers work. They may not know the hardware side of things yet, but obviously they have an interest. Its nice to see that Maximum PC continues to submit articles once in a while for the new computer builders/modders out there. I know when I first started reading this mag several years ago, I was way over my head. Over the years I have learned most of the terminology, but it can be very frightening for new people. I salute Maximum PC for writing content to help new people into this exciting area. As long as there are humans on this earth, DIY will never die out because this is where innovation comes from