PC Club Enpower Sabre Extreme: E6600 Made Easy
by Jarred Walton on August 29, 2006 4:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Benchmark Setup
At present, we don't really have results from any configurations directly comparable to the PC Club Sabre Extreme. We will be including the results from the ABS Ultimate X9, but keep in mind that it costs about three times as much as the Sabre Extreme. Due to changes in the benchmarks being utilized, we will confine our results to these two systems at present. The overall performance of the Sabre Extreme is actually secondary to the various other points we have already covered, so we're only going to run a selection of the available benchmarks in order to verify that performance is acceptable and in line with what we expect for the components used.
We will be reviewing additional Core 2 Duo systems (and AMD systems) in the future, and we will continue to include the results from the Sabre Extreme and the Ultimate X9 in those reviews. Unlike individual component testing, we are looking at the entire package, and it should come as no surprise that higher costs bring higher performance. Design, features, reliability, support, component selection, and price are all factors, and we will do our best to evaluate all of these areas in our system vendor reviews.
At present, we don't really have results from any configurations directly comparable to the PC Club Sabre Extreme. We will be including the results from the ABS Ultimate X9, but keep in mind that it costs about three times as much as the Sabre Extreme. Due to changes in the benchmarks being utilized, we will confine our results to these two systems at present. The overall performance of the Sabre Extreme is actually secondary to the various other points we have already covered, so we're only going to run a selection of the available benchmarks in order to verify that performance is acceptable and in line with what we expect for the components used.
| PC Club EN-SE6 Test Configuration | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz 4MB Cache 25% Overclock (3.00GHz - voids warranty) |
| RAM | 2x512MB Transcend PC2-5300 JM367Q643A-6 DDR2-667 1.9V 5-5-5-13 Timings |
| Hard Drive(s) | Western Digital 250GB WD2500KS SE16 |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel - 8.1.1.1001 |
| Video Card: | 1 x MSI 7900GT |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA 91.31 |
| CPU Cooling: | Retail Intel HSF |
| Power Supply: | Allied 350W |
| Motherboard: | Gigibyte GA-965P-DS3 - F4 BIOS (Newer builds use MSI P965 board) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Home SP2 |
| ABS Test Configuration | |
| Processor | Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz 4MB Cache) 20% Overclock (3.52GHz - ABS Warranty) |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 DDR2-960 5-5-5-15 2.2V for Overclock DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 2.0V Stock |
| Hard Drive(s) | 2 x 150GB WD Raptor RAID 0 |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel - 8.1.1.1001 |
| Video Cards: | 2 x ATI X1900XT (Master+Standard) CrossFire on Intel 975X |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.8 |
| CPU Cooling: | Gigabyte GH-WIU01 Liquid Cooling |
| Power Supply: | Enermax Liberty 620W |
| Motherboard: | Intel 975XBX (Intel 975X) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
We will be reviewing additional Core 2 Duo systems (and AMD systems) in the future, and we will continue to include the results from the Sabre Extreme and the Ultimate X9 in those reviews. Unlike individual component testing, we are looking at the entire package, and it should come as no surprise that higher costs bring higher performance. Design, features, reliability, support, component selection, and price are all factors, and we will do our best to evaluate all of these areas in our system vendor reviews.
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nah - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Good work, as always. How about an update on the CPU?GPU guides ?modo - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Just went over to ibuypower.com and configured a Core 2 duo E6600 with the MSI 965 mobo, 500W PSU, 1 gig ram, 250 gig HD, 7900Gt 256mb, dvd burner, with a mini-liquid cooler for the cpu for $1245 (without monitor). Enter 'ibuypower' code when you order and you get 5% off, taking the total down to less than $1200.Better system for $200 less?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Add in the OS and monitor, and the total comes to $1522 with the discount. ($1361 without $229 LCD = $1293 with discount.) You need a 16MB cache HDD and a DVDRW with LightScribe if you want to make things "equal" on components. You can also add some extras that may or may not be available elsewhere. Anyway, it's still slightly cheaper; is it worth considering? Sure - it comes with a 3 year warranty. How's the support? I don't know. As stated in the conclusion, PC Club has some reasonable offers people might want to look at - especially if you live near a local store and would like that sort of support. There are a ton of competing system vendors out there.yyrkoon - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
MSI . . . I can not speak for everyone else, but I've had less than good results using MSI products. They may work fine for a period of time, but can not really be comparred to someone like ABIT, or Gigabyte. Who makes the PSU ? Why do you need a 'mini-liquid cooler' ?I've personally configured (but not bought) a simular C2D budget system, but using a E6400, and a 7600GT, and overall cost was around $800usd. Of course, I had planned on migrating a PSU (Antec), and HDDs from an older system. This is why I almost always suggest quality parts, as quality parts often last for years, and can be reused (in the case of a PSU, and HDDs here). You can go even cheaper if you use something along the lines of the Asrock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard, and migrate memory, and video from current system. *shrug* My personal experience with Asrock however, is that usually they are very solid boards (for the price), but are often less than top tier stable, and more often then not, are fairly quirky, and missing Features such as offering a SATAII controller, but disabling (or not including) command queuing(which is part of the SATAII spec, unless I'm mistaken).
QueBert - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link
funny, while I don't really care for MSI, never had a problem with them. Now Gigabyte UGH, on my 3rd board right now for this 939. And my last Gigabyte board (Athlon XP) gave me problems from day one. It's crazy how one person can never have a problem with a brand, and the guy next to him has nothing but problems. I think MSI has gotten a lot better then they were in the past. I live 2 blocks from a PC Club, and i can tell you this, whatever prebuilt systems they sell, they've done A LOT of component testing. As I've never heard somebody complain about an Enpower system, besides those who screw things up themselves with viruses and such. I only shop at PC Club, unless it's something they don't carry. They cost a bit more then Newegg, but the service is great. I walk in, they know me by name. They sold me a MB + Memory, I was dumb and didn't check, the MB was DDR2 and the memory was DDR1, I wanted DDR1, so they took the open MB back, no hassle.bob4432 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Nice article and seems like a decent system for the $$$$. One question - where can we get the bf2 1.3 benchmark you are using?thanks,
bob :)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Sure, http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/benchmarks/bf2...">have at it. Standard "this is beta" disclaimers apply. If you don't know how to tweak a batch file, you're on your own. :)--Jarred Walton
bob4432 - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link
thanks, i had the 1.22 but lost it, then 1.3 came out.regnez - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
why is that in the feature list the graphics card is a 7900gt and in the benchmark setup it is a 7900gtx? is this a typo or was the graphics card switched out for the benchmark setup?also, it does not seem as if a 350 watt psu is enough to power that graphics card...
and one more thing: this system is called a mid-range system in the review, and I quite disagree. a mid range system would be something in the price range of $700-$900. this is a high end system, and it would not take much ($400 ish more) to bring it up to enthusiast level.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
It was a typo; the system (as configured and tested) uses the 7900 GT. In terms of power, look at the power tests on page 9. Even with a 25% overclock and maximum load, the system draws 213W of power. That's not even accounting for PSU efficiency; remember that the PSU rating is what can be output, not the total wall power draw. Say it's 75% efficient; that means the system is using about 160W of power at maximum load. I've got a few generic 350W PSUs running similar configurations, and none of them have ever had issues.Finally, there is always debate about where market segments overlap price ranges. We consider budget to be $750 or less (maybe a bit more for budget gaming). Midrange is a huge segment that goes from around $1000 to $1500. At ~$1600, this is close enough, though it's definitely at the top of the midrange ladder. High-end starts at $2000 and can go way up from there. It's just a term anyway, and if you think $1500 is too high you're welcome to that opinion. The base configuration of the EN-SE5 comes with an E6300, 7300GS TurboCache, 160GB HDD, and costs $800 (including the OS). It's not longer really gaming worthy, but it will do everything else very well.