High-End
Ah, the high-end arena, playground of those unconstrained by budget. Buyers in this market are similar to buyers of other luxury items, and are often looking for incredible performance along with a good degree of flair, differentiation, and personal attention to complement their purchase. This often includes items such as customized cases, specialized cooling systems, insane overclocks, hand-tweaked BIOS parameters, owner binders with benchmark performance, and generally just a sense of uniqueness from all of the other boxes out there.
High-End Supplier Choice: Maingear
Maingear impressed us with their high ratings for customer service and support. While their F131 didn't have quite as much panache and performance as we'd hoped, their ePhex is a different beast.
Maingear ePhex
CASE: Maingear ePhex in Inferno Red automotive finish and translucent side panel with Red LED lighting bundle
POWER SUPPLY: 1200W Silverstone DA1200
CPU: Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition 3.2GHz
COOLING: MAINGEAR X20 GPU and CPU Liquid Cooling System with red liquid
MOTHERBOARD: Asus Rampage II Extreme Intel X58 Chipset
MEMORY: 6GB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz
VIDEO CARD: 3 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 3GB GDDR3 in Tri-SLI w/ PhysX
HARD DRIVES 1 and 2: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache - SATA II, in RAID 0 configuration
HARD DRIVE 3: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache - SATA II
OPTICAL DRIVE 1: Lite-On Blu-ray Optical Player
OPTICAL DRIVE 2: 20X Dual Layer DVD±RW Drive w/ LightScribe Technology
KEYBOARD: Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard
MOUSE: Razer Deathadder Gaming Mouse
FLASH READER: All-in-One Internal USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader and Writer
AUDIO: SupremeFX X-Fi EAX4.0 Audio Card
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
WARRANTY: 3 Year Standard Maingear Warranty
OTHER: Redlining (Overclock), Far Cry 2
PRICE: $7,925.74 plus ~$80 shipping; $8005 total
System Rationale
Available in a multitude of custom auto-paint colors and high-end video configurations, the ePhex is "competitively priced" compared to other boutique vendors, and offers "Redlining" or factory overclocking, which is not always the case even for high-end suppliers. The cooling system is huge to support overclocking, and you have the option of choosing your liquid coolant color. We opted to go with two VelociRaptor drives in RAID 0 strictly for "economy" and added storage space for games; if you truly have no bounds, the Intel SSDs will not let you down.
We certainly won't make the claim that Tri-SLI with the GTX 280 cards is a sensible decision or that it will boost performance in every game out there, but since when do $8000 systems make sense? Such a configuration will truly blister through games in an alarming fashion. Dual HD 4870X2 cards in CrossFireX is actually a slightly cheaper option, but the initial problems on Core i7 platforms have us more than a little leery, so for multi-GPU we're recommending NVIDIA. If you're not in a rush, you might even want to hold off until the New Year to see how GTX 295 performance pans out. Maingear is certain to offer the next generation NVIDIA cards when they begin shipping, and 4-way GTX 295 SLI (two cards) for potentially less money than 3-way GTX 280 seems like a better deal. If you prefer 4-way CrossFire with HD 4870X2, we'd recommend holding off for a couple more driver revisions, or else drop back to a Core 2 platform.
Whatever route you might choose to take, the performance and style of this system is vast, and Maingear's excellent reputation for support will be around for the next 3 years. And for something like this, you really need to grab a 30" LCD to do it justice; otherwise the GPUs are overkill. Just try to avoid buyer's remorse by making sure you really want to drop this much money on a system -- while such configurations are fun to play with, systems costing half as much can offer very close to the same performance.
And that's a wrap. We hope you've enjoyed our Holiday 2008 System guide. Have a great holiday season!
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strikeback03 - Monday, December 22, 2008 - link
That you would bring up that systems are for sale at Newegg that state the recommended usage is Gaming, and have only GMA3100 for graphics.Dadofamunky - Saturday, December 20, 2008 - link
I have! I think their config is overpriced, though.crimson117 - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
Why spend extra for a core i7 on a midrange machine? The CPU itself may be well priced at around $300, but there's no motherboard under $200 and the ram is pricier as well.For expandability in the future, it's one thing, but for price/performance today the core i7 platform is not worth the premium.
7Enigma - Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - link
I think expandability in the future is key for this particular price segment. You're not at the point where someone drops $8k without thinking, and you're also not at the disposable PC price range either. So figuring that someone buying this is not comfortable building their own system (or they wouldn't be shopping for this in the first place) probably does not have the technical ability to replace a CPU in the future. Much more likely then would be the buyer to simply replace the GPU in a year or two and still have a fantastic gaming system.I mean does anyone honestly think the core i7 will be hampered (in games) in the next 2-3 years? GPU definitely, but the cpu I highly doubt it.
Putting yourself in the mindset of what a typical buyer of this system wants (a prebuilt system with longevity of the main core componenets (mobo, cpu, etc.), while offering an easy upgrade path for the GPU when additional power is needed), it is a very wise decision.
And actually for the system builder that doesn't want to rebuild every 12 months (I typically go 3-4 years between builds and am still on my Athlon64 3200+ and GeForce6800GT) I take the same methodology. I normally will splurge a bit on the cpu/mobo combo that is slightly above the $/performance sweet spot to hopefully have an extra year or two while doing 1-2 gpu upgrades during the life of the system.
My biggest regret was my last system build. It was right as PCIe came out and the current mobo's were similar in price to those for the i7 cpu's. It was also the very early beginning of DDR2 ram. Actually it was almost a mirror image of right now (where the core2 and DDR2 are very inexpensive but the future looks dim). Instead of having a nice upgrade path to get one of the last 2 generations of GPU (which would have been an inexpensive upgrade path that would have kept me happy the last year or two), I've been stuck with the 6800GT because it's AGP (few newer cards had AGP, and they were overpriced for the performance increase). Along the same page 2-4gigs of DDR2 ram can now be had for $10-20 with some of the great sales/rebates out now. Guess how much an extra gig of DDR ram costs? More than the extra "performance" would justify for me.
So I'm stuck wanting to build a new system but the writing is on the wall that I should go with the i7 and DDR3, but will have to shell out quite a bit more money up front, in the hopes that the decision was the smart one to make.
aeternitas - Thursday, December 25, 2008 - link
Some bizzar logic here.What did you expect to happen waiting until the beginning of a new architecture launch? Generally the MB will follow the CPU. You will get new MB designs incorporating new tech like PCIe about the time a major new CPU comes out. Common business. You will always see legacy but that is not the norm and is a grace period for people unwilling to upgrade old-ass hardware.
News of i7 has been out for well over half a year. Where were you then? Still lugging away with your 6800GT? Come on. You only have you to blame here.
You complain about how much $$ it all costs, when you're talking about skipping two whole generations of CPU die shrinks! Its like you're upgrading TWICE.
The smart people that dont want to spend alot, buy the previous CPU gen right before a new gen. Thats where the biggest jump in price per dollar comes from when upgrading. Im on a Venice 3000+. If money matters to me and am low on it, im not going to jump to i7, im going to jump to a 45nm DuelCore2 and OC it like a bitch because they are cheap as hell on the lowend.
C2D does not have a bleak future. It will last even longer than the AMD 64s in terms of before-next-upgrade. They are some of the best CPUs the industy has ever mad. Its a perfect time to build a system around them. Let the teh same people that tossed 1,500 at a CPU 2 years ago do the same again. I'll be at 90% of their performance for 110$
JohnMD1022 - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
One has to realize that the On-site service is viewed by Dell as a VERY last resort.A friend's Dell had a bad hard drive. "Well", he said "Ive got a 2-year on-site service policy. They'll send someone out to fix it."
My reply was a bit cynical. "Lotsa luck on that one." But I was wrong, for...
Sure enough, they did... After seven months and several traumatic (for him) re-formats performed at Dell's urging via phone support.
takumsawsherman - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
There are two aspects to Dell's support. If you bought the system as a "home user", they will think nothing of wasting hours of your time diagnosing with them. Even if you have already diagnosed the HD with a much more respected tool than their own, and have found not only lots of bad sectors, but lost files as a result. I have had customers with obviously bad hard drives told to reinstall from the Dell image, often without being told that this will destroy all data on the drive. Then, 2 weeks later, they are calling me because the problem is back.In contrast, even if you tell them you have a small business that you are buying the machine for, they will have you do about 5 minutes of grunt work before sending someone out or sending a part.
They have acknowledged to me that their standards are different when dealing with consumers vs. business. But it is bad business to abuse customers with 4 hour phone calls, especially when I am calling in for a warranty part and they try to waste my time.
Dell's problems cannot all be blamed on Vista. Most of their wounds are self-inflicted, after years of customer abuse have finally caught up with them. It is wrong to support them with further purchases.
Matt Campbell - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
Everyone's experience is of course different, but I happen to have had one very recently that I was pleasantly surprised with. Just 3 weeks ago my father's V200 Slim had a BSOD and then failed to boot. I was cynical as well, the on-site guys usually take care of everything, but getting to that point means going through the customer service rep. and their massive "try this" spreadsheet. I decided to try Live Chat online, and it took 11 minutes from start to finish with an open ticket for a site visit. This was a Friday, and sure enough they called next Monday and showed up Tuesday with parts in-hand. I liked the Live Chat as well since it was pretty low-key and they can retain a record, in my own words, of the problem so there's nothing lost in translation.This can get lodged in the "for what its worth" pile, but I was surprised how easy it was.
tacoburrito - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
You might want to double-check the ease of replacing Dell's weak PSU with a more powerful one. Dell uses a propietary motherboard with a propietary power connector that connects only to Dell's own PSU. Not sure about the Vostro model but that is the case for their XPS models. There are companies that manufacture Dell's motherboards-compatible PSUs, but the max. supply is about 450W.eyeguy - Saturday, May 2, 2009 - link
they do use a standard ATX power supply - on proprietary BTX motherboards. So you can replace the PS, but when the MB goes, so does the case. They have a ribbon cable for the reset button and front connectors, which is unique to dell. The PS 24 connector is as short as it can be to only work on a dell MB.