Specifications

in the lab
92
JUL 2011 maximumpc.com
MAXIMUMPC
THIS MONTH’S MAXIMUM PC CHALLENGE proved to be quite a time-
consuming endeavor. For once, getting product in was the easy part.
It was in the setup and software where things got diffi cult. While the
physical build of each setup took a little bit of time—with the MD230X6
taking the longest, as it had to be bolted together—everything also had
to get hauled upstairs to our photography studio, then back down to
the Lab/conference room/wherever we could fi nd space, then plugged
into our test bed and confi gured. Between downloading drivers; fi nd-
ing DisplayPort, HDMI, or DVI cables/adapters; fi ghting with power
supplies; adjusting software; and confi guring aspect ratios, fi eld of
view, bezel correction, etc. , each build took at least a few hours to get
up and running—all for a few sweet hours of intense gameplay. In the
end, it was well worth the effort, but a great deal more time intensive
than we had anticipated.
Testing is easy compared to all the hassles of setting up a
bunch of big screens
Big Screens,
Big Trouble
Big Screens,
Big Trouble
Big Screens,
AMBER BOUMAN ONLINE FEATURES EDITOR
Gordon Mah Ung
Senior Editor
Can’t see all your RAM
in your new LGA1366
board? Normally, re-
seating the RAM mod-
ules fi xes the prob-
lem, but on a recent
board I ran into some-
thing more insidious:
a bent pin leading to
the memory control-
ler. The board would
only report the correct
amount of RAM one out
of four POSTs. So mind
the pins, people.
Nathan Edwards
Senior Associate Editor
Intel’s 320 series SSD
is a great 3Gb/s SATA
SSD, but being the
fastest SATA II SSD
in 2011 is like being
the [ERROR: SPORTS-
RELATED ANALOGY
NOT FOUND]. In any
case, it’s good news
for the vast majority
of humans that lack
decent native 6Gb/s
SATA. Like, for exam-
ple, anyone on an X58
chipset.
Alex Castle
Online Managing Editor
Man, what a month! I
went to look at the re-
lease list to fi gure out
which game would be
next month’s review,
and I found no fewer
than six releases that
would normally be
contenders for the
spot. I’m most excited
for Brink, but with so
many options it’s go-
ing to be a hard month
for my bank account.
Alan Fackler
Online Associate Editor
Mere minutes before
this writing, I was in the
Lab with Editorial Direc-
tor Jon Phillips taking a
fi rst look at the Asus Eee
Transformer, a small
laptop that doubles as
a tablet—simply pull the
screen off the keyboard
dock and you’ve got a
Froyo-enabled, 11-inch
tablet. This is an exciting
step in the right direc-
tion, and could very well
be a tiny window into the
future of our day-to-day
tech.
George Jones
Editor in Chief
This month, we added
a benchmark to the all-
in-one PC test suite in
order to gauge gaming
and GPU performance.
We chose Call of Duty
4: Modern Warfare—
it’s an older game, and
it’s something we use
to test notebook per-
formance. Right now,
there’s no compari-
son. The notebooks we
test crush these AIO
systems.