ABS Ultimate X9: Core 2 Extreme Hits a Speed Bump
by Jarred Walton on August 18, 2006 1:35 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Final Thoughts
Overall, the ABS Ultimate X9 is an impressive system. It looks great and offers record-breaking performance... in CPU limited applications. If you want guaranteed and warrantied out of box performance that's 20% faster than the fastest official CPU currently offered by Intel, the price of around $4500 really isn't all that bad. However, if you are an enthusiast and prefer to fly by the seat of your pants, it shouldn't be too difficult to match and even exceed the performance offered by ABS and other system vendors, and save some money at the same time. There were some other concerns as well, unfortunately.
If there's one weak point in the Ultimate X9, we would have to say it's the Intel motherboard. It isn't a bad motherboard, but it has some flaws. The onboard audio really needs work. Purchasing a soundcard fixes that issue, but for a system that comes with a 20% overclock from the manufacturer, we would much rather see a true enthusiast motherboard like the ASUS P5W-DH. Not only can that allow higher overclocks, but it should also do so with greater stability in our experience. The Intel motherboard is limited to a maximum overclock of 50%, and even at 25% the system experienced definite stability problems. In our own testing of the motherboard, we were able to achieve a 22% overclock with full stability, but that pales in comparison to the 36% overclock we achieved using the ASUS motherboard. The ASUS motherboard was also able to run with a front side bus speed of up to 400 MHz (1600 MHz quad pumped) by using a lower CPU multiplier. Finally, the Intel 975XBX tends to take a lot longer to POST than most other motherboards, with a delay of over 30 seconds before the OS even begins loading. Intel is regarded as providing some of the most stable motherboards around, but that doesn't always make them the best, particularly for enthusiast level systems.
The water cooling of the GPUs is another weak point, as all indications are that the GPUs get too hot during long gaming sessions. Given that we have successfully overclocked Core 2 Extreme processors to 4.0 GHz on high-end air cooling, and also looking at the power results, the X1900 cards are capable of drawing a lot of power and they need better waterflow in order to stay at acceptable temperatures. It's a shame as the water cooling does wonders for reducing noise levels. We'd prefer a water cooling solution that only cools the GPUs if that's what it takes to get 100% stability. Besides, as the benchmarks clearly show, the GPUs are a far bigger bottleneck in games than the CPU, and going from a 2.66 GHz Core 2 to a 3.52 GHz Core 2 only improved performance by up to 6% in games at higher resolutions.
There are also some other areas that give us cause for concern, though these are not necessarily ABS's fault. First, Core 2 Duo/Extreme systems do not seem to be fully optimized when running ATI graphics solutions. Performance is good, but our testing with NVIDIA SLI and Core 2 Extreme indicates that ATI cards currently don't perform as well as they could on the platform. Another ATI issue that was much more pronounced on the ABS Ultimate X9 is the slow startup time associated with loading the ATI drivers and the .Net framework; once the Windows desktop appears, there is another ~30 second delay before the ATI drivers are fully loaded and the system becomes useable. (This delay is much longer than what we have encountered on RD580 CrossFire platforms and is far more noticeable, despite the fact that in other areas the ABS X9 is clearly faster.) If you don't plan on rebooting your system very often, it may not be a big deal, but it did become a little irritating during testing. Finally, the issues we encountered when first trying to run Oblivion solidify our feeling that the ATI CrossFire and Core 2 combination is still immature. We expect all of the issues to be ironed out in the future, but the future also holds faster GPUs, processors, and new motherboards.
It is difficult to recommend any computer system that costs over $4000, as the vast majority of people don't really need that much processing power. However, if you're in the market for a new über-computer and you don't want to build it yourself, the ABS Ultimate X9 is at least worthy of consideration. Given the current GPU limitations in most of the games we've tested, not to mention a couple crashes, we would certainly recommend saving the $500 and getting the un-overclocked version. With the water cooling and all of the other extras that ABS includes, you should be able to overclock the system on your own if the need/desire arises, though the GPUs may still present a problem. If you're just not willing to risk overclocking without a manufacturer warranty, you're probably better off sticking with a stock speed Core 2 Extreme anyway. Spending $1500 for a fast CPU in a system that isn't 100% stable is very difficult to justify in our minds.
The major benefit of buying a system from a company like ABS rather than building it yourself is that someone else gets to do all the dirty work. Many enthusiasts find that to be one of the "fun" parts of getting a new computer, but for those with less free time or less inclination, system vendors like ABS provide a great out of box experience. You get the system in about a week, and when it arrives you can be up and running in 15 minutes or less. ABS has informed us that we are using one of their first water-cooled GPU systems, and they are working on tuning the system. Hopefully, they can address the concerns we've raised, because the system is otherwise a great piece of hardware. With better waterflow to the GPUs, that should hopefully remove the few instabilities we encountered, and at that point you would have a very fast and stable system.
The one question we haven't yet answered is how the ABS Ultimate X9 compares to offerings from other system vendors. If $3000-$4000 is too much for you to spend on a computer, we've got a couple more Core 2 system reviews coming that will cover other portions of the computing spectrum. In the meantime, we welcome your comments and suggestions.
Overall, the ABS Ultimate X9 is an impressive system. It looks great and offers record-breaking performance... in CPU limited applications. If you want guaranteed and warrantied out of box performance that's 20% faster than the fastest official CPU currently offered by Intel, the price of around $4500 really isn't all that bad. However, if you are an enthusiast and prefer to fly by the seat of your pants, it shouldn't be too difficult to match and even exceed the performance offered by ABS and other system vendors, and save some money at the same time. There were some other concerns as well, unfortunately.
If there's one weak point in the Ultimate X9, we would have to say it's the Intel motherboard. It isn't a bad motherboard, but it has some flaws. The onboard audio really needs work. Purchasing a soundcard fixes that issue, but for a system that comes with a 20% overclock from the manufacturer, we would much rather see a true enthusiast motherboard like the ASUS P5W-DH. Not only can that allow higher overclocks, but it should also do so with greater stability in our experience. The Intel motherboard is limited to a maximum overclock of 50%, and even at 25% the system experienced definite stability problems. In our own testing of the motherboard, we were able to achieve a 22% overclock with full stability, but that pales in comparison to the 36% overclock we achieved using the ASUS motherboard. The ASUS motherboard was also able to run with a front side bus speed of up to 400 MHz (1600 MHz quad pumped) by using a lower CPU multiplier. Finally, the Intel 975XBX tends to take a lot longer to POST than most other motherboards, with a delay of over 30 seconds before the OS even begins loading. Intel is regarded as providing some of the most stable motherboards around, but that doesn't always make them the best, particularly for enthusiast level systems.
The water cooling of the GPUs is another weak point, as all indications are that the GPUs get too hot during long gaming sessions. Given that we have successfully overclocked Core 2 Extreme processors to 4.0 GHz on high-end air cooling, and also looking at the power results, the X1900 cards are capable of drawing a lot of power and they need better waterflow in order to stay at acceptable temperatures. It's a shame as the water cooling does wonders for reducing noise levels. We'd prefer a water cooling solution that only cools the GPUs if that's what it takes to get 100% stability. Besides, as the benchmarks clearly show, the GPUs are a far bigger bottleneck in games than the CPU, and going from a 2.66 GHz Core 2 to a 3.52 GHz Core 2 only improved performance by up to 6% in games at higher resolutions.
There are also some other areas that give us cause for concern, though these are not necessarily ABS's fault. First, Core 2 Duo/Extreme systems do not seem to be fully optimized when running ATI graphics solutions. Performance is good, but our testing with NVIDIA SLI and Core 2 Extreme indicates that ATI cards currently don't perform as well as they could on the platform. Another ATI issue that was much more pronounced on the ABS Ultimate X9 is the slow startup time associated with loading the ATI drivers and the .Net framework; once the Windows desktop appears, there is another ~30 second delay before the ATI drivers are fully loaded and the system becomes useable. (This delay is much longer than what we have encountered on RD580 CrossFire platforms and is far more noticeable, despite the fact that in other areas the ABS X9 is clearly faster.) If you don't plan on rebooting your system very often, it may not be a big deal, but it did become a little irritating during testing. Finally, the issues we encountered when first trying to run Oblivion solidify our feeling that the ATI CrossFire and Core 2 combination is still immature. We expect all of the issues to be ironed out in the future, but the future also holds faster GPUs, processors, and new motherboards.
It is difficult to recommend any computer system that costs over $4000, as the vast majority of people don't really need that much processing power. However, if you're in the market for a new über-computer and you don't want to build it yourself, the ABS Ultimate X9 is at least worthy of consideration. Given the current GPU limitations in most of the games we've tested, not to mention a couple crashes, we would certainly recommend saving the $500 and getting the un-overclocked version. With the water cooling and all of the other extras that ABS includes, you should be able to overclock the system on your own if the need/desire arises, though the GPUs may still present a problem. If you're just not willing to risk overclocking without a manufacturer warranty, you're probably better off sticking with a stock speed Core 2 Extreme anyway. Spending $1500 for a fast CPU in a system that isn't 100% stable is very difficult to justify in our minds.
The major benefit of buying a system from a company like ABS rather than building it yourself is that someone else gets to do all the dirty work. Many enthusiasts find that to be one of the "fun" parts of getting a new computer, but for those with less free time or less inclination, system vendors like ABS provide a great out of box experience. You get the system in about a week, and when it arrives you can be up and running in 15 minutes or less. ABS has informed us that we are using one of their first water-cooled GPU systems, and they are working on tuning the system. Hopefully, they can address the concerns we've raised, because the system is otherwise a great piece of hardware. With better waterflow to the GPUs, that should hopefully remove the few instabilities we encountered, and at that point you would have a very fast and stable system.
The one question we haven't yet answered is how the ABS Ultimate X9 compares to offerings from other system vendors. If $3000-$4000 is too much for you to spend on a computer, we've got a couple more Core 2 system reviews coming that will cover other portions of the computing spectrum. In the meantime, we welcome your comments and suggestions.
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Future1investor - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I bought this unit in Oct 2006 except instead of the ATI video it has the GF7950GX2-1GB NVIDIA card. I also have a Depot or Onsite 3yr Warranty, which is the issue here.After the liquid cooling pump went out and I started experiencing various problems likely to be related, ABS would not give me onsite service. Instead they wanted me to remove the Liquid Cooling unit, and ship me an air-cooled replacement. After much pain in communications, they then expected me to send it back and then ship me another liquid cooler. But I said with the other problems the whole system needs to be diagnosed properly on the bench.
I shipped the whole computer back at my expense of $87 through UPS. When they received it they again balked saying that they "don't do that" which I interpreted as bench diagnostics. This was confusing because under warranty, the risk of the average user damaging something can be rather high if they are asked to do their own diagnostics and replacements (even given phone assistance). But what of the 3Yr Onsite warranty?
Anyway, long story short; they agreed to bench test and fix what was needed. They told me after a week that they had replaced the liquid cooling unit and the graphic card. I also had a problem with the OS recognizing an additional 4GB Ram same timing, same brand. They said that they'd test for that too but I havn't heard the results. They have closed the RMA and I assume the computer is on route back across the country to me.
Communication has been poor. I don't know if my additional 4GB Ram will be utilized. They changed the Onsite warranty to Depot only. I had to pay for packaging and shipping back to their dock at $87. A few months ago, a phone call to support, to talk about the Ram was met with odd laughter. The person on the phone said it was to be expected for buying that operating system (Windows XP Professional) the only thing available at time of purchase.
This was my second computer purchase from ABS. The first with a 3Yr Onsite Warranty. The tech support is sketchy. They will only call you back from an unidentifiable phone number. They want you to pay for shipping along with any replacement parts, saying that they'll reimburse you once they receive the defective pieces. They want you to do your own repairs. And only if you push the issue to the wall will they attempt normal customer satisfaction (though I paid for it with additional costs to me).
Perhaps ABS' business is not as good as it used to be, and perhaps they are cutting corners and cutting up warranties at the expense of future business.
Considering ABS for a future purchase looks doubtful. Like customer service from Dell. It is a customer nightmare scenario. Though Dell is much much worse! I will be focusing more attention on the warranty service given though Digital Storm. They have one of the absolute highest customer service ratings of any boutique computer retailer. Though I will still monitor the rating in this area for ABS, as perhaps things will improve greatly?
appu - Saturday, August 26, 2006 - link
Just came across this yesterday - http://www.velocitymicro.com/">http://www.velocitymicro.com/How about test-driving one of their systems (although I think we can hazard guesses at the results for the most part)?
These guys also seem like a really nice alternative to building your own box if you don't like generic OEM stuff and don't have the time to put one together yourself. I was definitely impressed with the 15-20 mins I spent on the site looking at various options.
Justin Case - Sunday, August 20, 2006 - link
One month ago all articles around here were saying what a brilliant combination Core + Crossfire was. Now AMD buys ATI, and all of a sudden the conclusion changes to "Crossfire is immature". Interesting...yyrkoon - Sunday, August 20, 2006 - link
"The second item worth nothing is that the NVIDIA SLI solution outperforms all of the X1900 CrossFire configurations, including the 20% overclocked ABS, even when using a slower CPU. Other games might perform better on CrossFire, but there certainly appears to be plenty of room for improvement in the ATI drivers, particularly when it comes to Core 2 optimizations."Saying that ATI needs to iron out thier drivers for core 2 duo is hardly concluding thats 'Crossfire is immature'. Of course, I can pretty much twist something someone says in any dirreciton I want to also. However, I think taken in with the rest of the context, they are trying to say something along the lines that performance wise right_now, Crossfire boards seem to underperform the nVidia varients, but this doesnt mean its going to hold true in the future.
JarredWalton - Sunday, August 20, 2006 - link
On AM2/939, CrossFire often beats out 7900GTX SLI. On Core 2 *right now* it doesn't, at least in the tests I looked at. (I don't have a full SLI 775 Core 2 setup right now, unfortunately.) I've *always* felt CF left a bit to be desired, and I'd say the same thing about .NET and CCC. For whatever reason, some of the issues with CF were magnified on this ABS system. Seriously, THIRTY SECONDS after XP shows the desktop before CCC is finished loading. That's terrible. It's also about 3X as long as a 939 ASUS A8R32-MVP for the same thing, which is why I conclude that CF on C2E has some issues. Of course, the 6.8 drivers may have just addressed a bunch of my concerns - I have to retest that before sending the system back.yyrkoon - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
I will agree with you that 1 minute OS load times is terrible, hell even my budget Asrock AM2NF4G-SATA2 / 3800+ system boots XP in 18 seconds, and thats from IDE. Not that its cutting edge technology either . . .JarredWalton - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
It's about 18 seconds to load the OS, but it's 33 seconds of POST codes and 35 seconds of ATI/.NET after XP is basically loaded. With RAID 0 Raptors no less. And people wonder why we at AnandTech often say NVIDIA seems to have more robust solutions....yyrkoon - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
Well, when I said 18 seconds, its 18 seconds to boot to desktop, and about 1-2 seconds more and its ready to use, however, I just installed the 2.0 framework for microsoft web dev express, and havent rebooted yet. so perhaps it'll take a little longer now. I still dont have 1.1 installed, but on this machine (my gaming rig) I dont plan on installing it, thats what my dev box is for :)JarredWalton - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
.NET should only affect load times when it is used - i.e. by the ATI CCC drivers. I don't think just installing it really impacts performance. I have it installed on most of my PCs - both 1.1 and 2.0 - and have never noticed any delays on booting, except when using an ATI card.KrazyDawg - Monday, September 4, 2006 - link
I never really noticed that the ATI drivers utilizing .NET was the cause of a longer boot time. In the past, I used omega drivers for my Radeon 9800 Pro but stopped using them when the latest release failed to install properly. I haven't tried other drivers since but a driver review would be interesting and beneficial to many.