Back To Page 8 I finished up the build by installing the USB and Firewire cards in the back of the computer and I had to reseat the sound card because screwing it in actually pulled the aft end of the card out of the motherboard. I put the sides on the case and marveled […]
Back To Page 7 I installed Windows XP and got it updated and, with guod’s help, successfully updated the motherboard BIOS. After that it was just a matter of configuring Windows, downloading drivers, and getting the system ready for full-on usage. Things were humming along nicely until — the dreaded blue screen of death! Nooooooooo! After having […]
Back To Page 6 The final item was a stick of Corsair 1GB Dominator RAM that I had accidentally ordered instead of the 2 – 2GB sticks Dominator. I had been advised by guod to just put one stick in for the initial boot up to make sure the machine would “POST” (Power On Self […]
Back To Page 5 Next up were the Creative X-Fi and the BFG 9800 GX2 cards. The sound card went in easily and the BFG 9800 just barely squeezes into the case — it is a monster, taking up two slots on the motherboard but the performance will be worth it! Go To Page 7
Back To Page 4 The next step proved to be the most difficult and frustrating. Once the CPU is in place the CPU fan and heat sink have to be mounted on top of it. The mounting system consists of four plastic pegs that you push through pre-drilled holes in the motherboard. I had to […]
Back To Page 3 During the whole assembly process I took extreme anti-static precautions. Since my build area was on my dining room table, and carpet was the floor surface, I always wore an anti-static wrist strap to prevent damaging any delicate electronic parts. Though I’ve heard that most people never take such precautions and […]
Back To Page 2 The optical drive slid into the top slot of the case and was secured with screws into the side. The hard drive cage consists of three bays that are mounted behind an intake fan. The whole assembly slides out to allow for easy mounting of the hard drives(s). For now, I’ve […]
Back To Page 1 Once all of the parts arrived over the span of about four days, I started unpacking items and scrutinizing the manuals. Unfortunately, when you buy multiple components like this, there really is no single grand-scheme installation instruction that tells you exactly how it all fits together. Maximum PC has a […]
Back To Page 4 Conclusion The QX9650 clocked at the expected 2.66GHz rate of the forthcoming Q9450 consistently outperformed AMD’s flagship X4 9850 across all test settings; that said, the Q9450 is also slated to cost $100 more than the X4 9850, and with that in mind the new Phenom is definitely a solid […]
Back To Page 3 Crysis was tested by averaging the scores of three separate runs of the included “benchmark_CPU.bat” file. This was done to even out the variances shown by this particular benchmark. The Intel CPU pulls ahead by a noteworthy margin at the lower setting, yet posts a score only 10% higher than that […]
Back To Page 2 IL-2: 1946 is a compilation release of all of Maddox Games’ “Sturmovik” simulations over the last several years. While quickly aging, the title is still very popular among flight sim enthusiasts, particularly for its online play. The title was configured to run in OpenGL mode and its Kamikaze02 track used for this […]
Back To Page 1 Test Results – Synthetic PCMark05, like all of Futuremark’s benchmark suites, is made up of a series of tests designed to stress specific subsystems, such as hard drive, processor, or memory performance. SimHQ decided to use just the CPU suite and the total score for this article. 9600 X4 9850 […]
