Audacious innovation

Zalman Reserator
The silent computing craze was big in 2004, but no silent cooler was bigger than Zalman's monstrous Reserator. While perhaps not the coolest or quietest cooler of 2004, the Reserator deserves recognition for its sheer audacity. As a concept, passive water cooling isn't all that wild. However, the Reserator's phallic 24" cooling tower almost defies practicality. It takes balls to unleash something like the Reserator on the PC market, but the monolithic tower works as advertised, keeping even fully loaded processors cool without making a sound.

This audacious innovation award is as much about appreciating a wild, well-designed product that actually works as it is about recognizing a company's willingness to market something that almost defies reason. We can only hope that Zalman's boldness paves the way for more daring innovations. Given this cooler's "Reserator 1" moniker, the big blue tower may be just the beginning.

If only...
Intel 915/925X chipsets
If only Intel's 915 and 925X chipsets weren't tied to the company's Prescott Pentium 4 processor. If they weren't, or if Prescott were a more competitive CPU, the 900-series chipsets could have been the best chipset of 2004. After all, these chipsets ushered in the PCI Express era long before the Athlon 64 world hopped on the PCI-E train. Heck, the Athlon 64 world is still chasing PCI Express. The 900-series chipsets also replaced the aging AC'97 spec with Intel's new High Definition Audio specification, and let's not forget four ports of Serial ATA with AHCI and NCQ support and incredibly tantalizing Matrix RAID.

As chipsets, the Intel 915 and 925X are phenomenal platforms brimming with forward-looking features and compatibility. If only all that potential could have made up for Prescott's daunting shortcomings.