http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] index.html

ABS shipped us its latest CrossFire system and it came to play! It clearly provided all of the performance of the big guns but at less than half the cost.

Yawn!

Oh yeah I forgot; if you are able to build your own, this thing is way over priced! Why would anyone who is on this forum buy this mound of garbage? So we can have a bunch of stuff we don't need to try to make this more expensive? Give me a break!

Any self respecting system builder can do better than this!

you are kidding right?

4k to 25k for a high end gaming system!?!?

umm so compare your 4k system to one where you slash the speeds/models of all the components in half and then compare the frame rates between the two systems. I don't think that the 3k extra will make all that difference.

also why does a water cooled system have so many fans? why not have water cooling on the gfx cards?

*edit #2*

what exactly performnce wise does the qx6800 at $1k have over the $.5k qx6700 for gamers?

wheres the link on abs?

Prediking or whatever you name is you're so right! It isn't about building a cost friendly machine: Its about building something that looks high end. The more people that build their own the less we are going to see of these pathetic attempts at wowing people.

You're right the case costs too much even though it is nice. Plus why liquid if we have so many fans? Plus, why do we have so many hard drives? Raptors are fast but if we do a raid setup why raptors? Don't get me wrong I own a raptor as my primary, but that raptor is singular. If I wanted to do a more unstable raid array I would have gone with two drives and achieved near raptor performance. There are too many little things about that computer that could be shaved to make it a worthwhile investment.

i have had this argument so many times. as a system builder, this would be a waste of time and money. but if you dont build your own systems, for whatever reason, then this would be a good buy. granted, the graphics cards could be water cooled as well.

some people think the premium for a prebuilt system is worthwhile, cos they cannot be bothered / dont have the knowledge / dont have the time to build their own. i dont think its worthwhile - but thats a personal preference.

i know people who like playing the latest games, at best possible settings, but only have the time to play a few hours a week, and definitely dont have time to build their own systems.

Dude, we'll let this one die. I agree with you to an extent. The only time that the premium totally isn't worth the money is when you buy a "bleeding edge" rig. When you do this, they stack so much into it and make the price disproportionate. However, when you buy a 500 dollar rig or something like that then it is really good as far as the premium.

Anyway, we'll let this one die and hopefully we'll get some more usually sweet tom's articles. Take care all.

as a former system integrator, a customer wants the best components that give them the best price. for a gamer, which quad core enable games out there that are CPU bound?


lets take a look at what componets are in this(since we can't even get a list)(prices from newegg(aprox))

Case Cooler Master Stacker RC-832 $240
Mobo -unknown
CPU qx6800 $1100
Cooling RL-EUL-GBU1-GP $90
Hard drives 2x raptor $400 1x HDD $100
Memory 4GB $550
CD -unknown
video card HD2900 XT x2 $800
psu - silverstone $250
sound - unknown

so even though they did not give us a spec list of components used this brings us to around $3130. Throw in $320 for mobo+cd+sound and you get $3450 add in $550 for a techs time assembling/testing setting up and its not a bad price.

There is no argument from me about the cost of the thing. my issue is how much faster it is vs a:
Case - $100
mobo - unknown
cpu - qx6700 $500
fan cpu cooler $50
hard drive 1x raptor $200
memory 4gb $200
cd - unknown
video card - $400
psu - silverston $160 (750 watt)
sound - unknown

1610 + 320 = $1930 + 550 for techs time and you get $2480.

so you end up with $2500 that is in real world performance going to be how much slower than the $4000 model?

That extra $1500 could be used to buy a nice NAS for all that extra storage you miss out between the two systems.

the mobo is an asus p5w-dh, and my system cost $5100~ aud, probably slaughters that one, came with a monitor and all!

You guys need to get a clue. $4k for this setup is very much on par for what it offers. Sure you could make a cheaper one, but then again, you HAVE a cheaper machine (get the clue yet?) What I find hilarious is how well it performed against the nVidia mix. ATI is better off than most consider it to be. nVidia is only dreaming that it's that much better. I bet this system handle Vista better than the nVidia machines do too.

Personally, I think anyone who pays more than $2000 for a system is wasting their money. Unless you specifically want a Macintosh or something, there's no reason for it. I built my latest system at the beginning of the month and it cost just a little over $1000 with rebates, and it could've been a lot cheaper if I wasn't building a DX10 system. I can run all of the older games with the highest graphic settings. I ran Bioshock demo with the highest graphic settings and had nice smooth FPS. I expect this computer to last 3 or 4 years, just like my previous computer I built lasted a solid three years and is still going strong. I gave my old computer to my dad and it's pathetic how much faster it is to his Compaq. My point is, you can get a lot out of just $1000, so I think paying $4000 for any computer is a waste of money. Even if you don't know anything about building a system, and want a solid computer to play games, then $2000 should be enough. And if you want the absolute cutting edge in gaming performance, then you better take the time to learn to build a system. Or just get a 360 or something. The only people who should be paying $4000 are enthusiasts who don't care about wasting money.