Elite PC Titan FX: Setting New Standards in Gaming
by Wesley Fink on November 30, 2003 10:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Elite PC Titan FX: Chenbro Xpider Chassis
Elite PC uses the attractive Chenbro Xpider chassis for their Titan FX system. It is combined with a 460-watt power supply and offers outstanding expansion capabilities, particularly for hard drives. The silver and black case can mount up to 6 3.5" hard drives, and easily handles the 2 Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM drives in a RAID 0 array. A front mounted fan blows intake air across the hard drive cage to cool the drives.
The Titan FX uses black drives and peripherals to match the case.
Elite PC uses a huge 120mm fan for output air on the Titan FX. Large fans like this can turn at slow and quiet rpm, but still move massive amounts of air for cooling. Generally they are a better solution than small, noisy fans that must run at high rpm to move much air.
The Titan FX provides the see-thru side window seen on many gaming systems these days. It is also equipped with a Blue Neon case light.
Inside a front lift-open door are the front jacks, which include 3 USB, firewire, headphone and mic jacks.
With the motherboard, ATI Radeon XT, Creative Audigy 2, and MSI TV@nywhere card, there are a plethora of jacks on the rear panel. You get 2 more USB 2.0 jacks, the full complement of Audigy 2 audio I/O, digital and analog outputs on the ATI 9800 XT, video ports on the TV card, 10/1000 LAN port, parallel, and 2 serial, game and PS2 mouse/keyboard ports. The incredible selection of available ports on the delivered Titan FX should satisfy just about any expansion need.
Getting into the Titan FX case is fairly simple, since it is a screw-less design. Slide a lever at the left rear and the entire left side panel can be removed. The standard system is loaded with top-line components, as you can see in this photo.
With the case open, you get a good view of the simple, but effective, cooling system for the Athlon64 FX51. Cooling air is pulled into the case by an 80mm intake fan at the bottom front of the case. The CPU itself is cooled by an AVC/MSI heatsink-fan with thin copper fins and a 70mm fan. Hot air from the system is exhausted at the upper rear by a 120mm fan. While we did not measure noise level, the whole system is on the noisy side as shipped. Most of the noise is generated by the 120mm fan, which is turning at a much higher rpm than is necessary. We would strongly suggest using the Smart Fan features in the PC Health section of the BIOS to tie the 120mm fan to system temperature. Just doing this drops noise levels substantially without compromising system temperature. The good side to the high-speed 120mm fan is that you do have the option to move massive amounts of air for system overclocking.
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tfranzese - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
If you people actaully read the FX articles posted you would find that their HT links are still intact and the chip is multiple processor capable.Either way, if in the future it isn't, that doesn't mean that because you bought a single chip computer that because you have a dually board that you've been shafted. You're stupid if you think that. It probably saves ElitePC time and money to buy in bulk the MSI's and just use them for all their systems.
Doop - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Sorry if I sound ignorant but the Athlon FX is not multiprocessor compatible? So you buy this system then when you want to add a second processor you have to buy 2 and sell the Athlon FX?I may be wrong about that but I'm pretty sure...
KristopherKubicki - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
I have both the MSI and Sony DVD writers. They are identical :) (roundup coming up soon!)Kristopher
destaccado - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
well looks like elitepc is trying to save a few dollars already, the computer does not come with a sony dvd writer, it's msi (check their site) and on top of that it doesn't list the name brand for the power supply or the dvd-rom, also you can't even configure it with a second athlon fx although this might not be fair to fault them for since you may be able to over the phone........check reseller ratings....destaccado - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Wow after looking at reseller ratings I don't see how you guys can in good faith recommend them .....a 4.67 lifetime rating? That's pathetic even if it is 20 something odd reviews, obviously their customers don't care to rate them very high, or at all, and on top of that- according to their warranty on their website they reserve the right to simply pay for shipping in leau of on-site service so I'm guessing anyone who doesn't live in Az isn't getting a tech to their home and the service is definately not overnight.....It's ok though I understand you guys can't rip their pc and you gave me a good idea of the fx performance.....Anubis - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
are we gonna see a test with 2 CPUs?? i like to see thoes scoresalso 300$ is a good deal because the dell XPX is that expensive and so are similar comps from Falcon NW and Voodoo PC as well as others that offer super high end gameing systems. compaired to a 6000$ FNW 3000$ is a steal
Oxonium - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw this review. You CAN'T upgrade to dual Athlon 64 FX. The extra HT links are disabled. An upgrade to the Opteron 2xx series would be needed. I'm surprised that ElitePC went through all the trouble to use a dual board but doesn't offer an option to order dual processors on their configuration page. Strange.acemcmac - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
How is 3000$ a "value" with ANY loadout? A fully pimped 875 rig will only run you 1500$ tops retail, and it will prolly be useful for top of of the line games just as long too...Shinei - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Yeah, it's gotta be the XT; there's no way it could be the beast that it is without it... Though even with a Pro instead of an XT that's still downright BRUTAL performance.What makes me curious is why they made the motherboard a dualie; AFX is basically a 14x Opteron chip, so it can't link up between processors... Unless they figured out how to re-enable those other two HT links?
Booja555 - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
What GPU does it use? on page one you say ATIR 9800XT, on page 2 you say ATIR 9800Pro.Somehow I get the feeling that it's the XT, looking at all the other specs a pro would be an unecasary bottleneck.