PC Club Enpower Sabre Extreme: E6600 Made Easy
by Jarred Walton on August 29, 2006 4:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Internals and Construction
As this is a midrange system, one wouldn't expect the Enpower Sabre Extreme to be jam-packed with stuff on the inside. Removing the side panel reveals that that is indeed the case.
The interior is tidy and all the cables are secured and/or tucked out of the way. There's plenty of room to add additional components in the future should you so desire, although the choice of motherboard prevents you from ever installing something like a CrossFire or SLI setup. On the other hand, a sound card, TV tuner(s), or various other expansion cards could be added as necessary. An added benefit of the minimalist configuration is that ample airflow should be available to all of the internal components, keeping noise levels and temperatures low and improving stability.
Given the use of a 350W power supply, we wouldn't recommend installing more than a couple hard drives and maybe a second optical drive along with a couple expansion cards. If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default PSU with a beefier unit. For the default configuration, however, everything works well and should be more than sufficient.
In terms of overall design, the case doesn't have most of the convenience features found in more expensive offerings. All of the hard drives, optical drives, expansion cards, 3.5" drives, etc. are secured using standard screws. The side panels are also held in place using standard screws rather than thumbscrews. This probably means that it takes the PC Club technicians a bit longer to assemble computers then, for example, the Dell assembly-line people. However, screws and the screwdriver have been around for a long time, and the simple fact of the matter is that they work well. They may not be the most convenient tool at times, but they aren't difficult to use and they aren't likely to break off like some plastic latches can do.
We want to emphasize that it is entirely possible to get much higher-end cases and power supplies from PC Club if that's what you want. You can also add multiple hard drives, a sound card, a TV tuner card, etc. Depending on your intended use and configuration, upgrading at least the PSU might not be a bad decision. It is possible to spend an additional $300 just on the case and power supply in the PC Club configurator, although we do wish there were additional options especially for choice of case. Some people might like the ASUS 3600 Vento but we are not among them; however, the end decision is left to the individual.
As this is a midrange system, one wouldn't expect the Enpower Sabre Extreme to be jam-packed with stuff on the inside. Removing the side panel reveals that that is indeed the case.
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| Click to enlarge |
The interior is tidy and all the cables are secured and/or tucked out of the way. There's plenty of room to add additional components in the future should you so desire, although the choice of motherboard prevents you from ever installing something like a CrossFire or SLI setup. On the other hand, a sound card, TV tuner(s), or various other expansion cards could be added as necessary. An added benefit of the minimalist configuration is that ample airflow should be available to all of the internal components, keeping noise levels and temperatures low and improving stability.
Given the use of a 350W power supply, we wouldn't recommend installing more than a couple hard drives and maybe a second optical drive along with a couple expansion cards. If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default PSU with a beefier unit. For the default configuration, however, everything works well and should be more than sufficient.
In terms of overall design, the case doesn't have most of the convenience features found in more expensive offerings. All of the hard drives, optical drives, expansion cards, 3.5" drives, etc. are secured using standard screws. The side panels are also held in place using standard screws rather than thumbscrews. This probably means that it takes the PC Club technicians a bit longer to assemble computers then, for example, the Dell assembly-line people. However, screws and the screwdriver have been around for a long time, and the simple fact of the matter is that they work well. They may not be the most convenient tool at times, but they aren't difficult to use and they aren't likely to break off like some plastic latches can do.
We want to emphasize that it is entirely possible to get much higher-end cases and power supplies from PC Club if that's what you want. You can also add multiple hard drives, a sound card, a TV tuner card, etc. Depending on your intended use and configuration, upgrading at least the PSU might not be a bad decision. It is possible to spend an additional $300 just on the case and power supply in the PC Club configurator, although we do wish there were additional options especially for choice of case. Some people might like the ASUS 3600 Vento but we are not among them; however, the end decision is left to the individual.
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koomo - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Hi Jared,Any expectations for when the next mid-range buyer's guide will be posted? (Last one was May 9th, just prior to AM2 and Core 2 Duo).
It sure would be nice to see one juat after you all have tested the soon-to-be released ATI lineup. I'll be very interested to see how power requirements compare between the mid-range NVIDIA and ATI cards, as well as comparative noise levels (will the new ATI blowers help that much?) Thanks!
Very nice review, BTW.
Turin39789 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Get in in under $1000 and We'll talkKorruptioN - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
It appears that the three right side holes are not utilized in screwing the motherboard down to the tray? They instead run the optical drive IDE cable underneath.Also, the choice of using an ALLIED PSU is a bad one -- consider it bottom-end generic.
QueBert - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
I consider your statement to be generic. Allied does make a lot of entry level, very basic PSU's. But, they make some http://www.pcclub.com/product_details.cfm?itemno=A...">great ones.. Infact. the one I just linked to, replaced a Enermax that died in my system. Was very quiet, had plenty of power, and overall is a PSU I'd recommend to anyone looking. Allied makes a ton of different PSU's, some of they might very well be crap, I won't dispute. But the one I own, ran a system with 4 HD's, 2 Opticals, an X800, 2 120MM and 80MM fan and more then enough power left over. Powmax makes "bottom end PSU's" there's a HUGE difference between "bottom end" and "generic"A good # of the barebone cases PC-Club sell come with Allied, I build pc's for people for a living, and I've had very few problems, with even their lower end psu's *shrug*
Allied gets a bad rap, which I'm sure is for reasons that date back 5+ years? Based off that line of thinking, Maxtor makes the worst HD's ever...
yacoub - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Good review, Jarred. Nice to see how a pre-built system can perform in a review that covers all the basics and even overclocking.Harkonnen - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
On the internals and construction page, third paragraph. PSU is typed as SPU."If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default SPU with a beefier unit."
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
I dunno - I kinda like the way SPU rolls off the tongue. :Dchunkychun - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Is it really a great time to upgrade? It seems that directx 10 would require you to upgrade your graphics card realitively soon. Should people just wait?JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
DX10 may be important for games, but there's always something coming in the near future. I'm not aware of any games that are going to require DX10/WGF2 any time soon. I mean, we're only now getting a reasonable number of games that require SM3.0 (just in time for DX10, right?) At the ultra-high-end, it's probably worth waiting, but for mid-range a 7900 GT or X1900 XT level card is going to last quite a while at moderate detail settings.We need Vista before we'll get DX10, and I'm not holding my breath for an early 2007 Vista launch. I'm betting on closer to March. That's over six months away, so really I think now *is* a good time to upgrade... provided you haven't already done so in the past year or two. If you have a 6800/X800 GPU or better, you can probably wait. If you have an Athlon XP/Pentium 4 (prior to Prescott) or earlier CPU, upgrading to Core 2 wouldn't be a bad move. Maybe wait another month for prices to stabilize, but that's about it.
bamacre - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Well said, JW.