Drool: Maingear's New OC'd Core i7 Gaming Rigs

Can it play Hello Kitty?

Can it play Hello Kitty???

Are you kidding me? whats up with the super mild CPU overclocks? As if that x20 (probably some asetek LCLC variation/upgrade) couldn't handle a 975 to 4.0 easy, and the 950 to AT LEAST 3.6 easily.

Blah.

Yawn. They could have at least overclocked it higher than that...

On another note, why does the "zoom" link under the picture show a picture that's the same resolution?

Yes it can.

Spec requirements:

Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP Pentium® II 350 MHz or faster 32 MB RAM 250 MB hard drive space 256 color display 640x480 resolution 8x CD-ROM drive DirectX® 9.0 or higher (included on CD) 32 MB DirectX 9.0 compliant video card DirectX compliant sound card Mouse

This doesn't seem that impressive. Sure you have dual 5870's, SSD and an i7 975, but the top model is only running at 3.6 GHz. You could overclock a 920 to that with minimum effort.

With that price, why not a 256GB SSD? Or at least paint the interior black.

You could build a better performing Rig than that F1X750 for $2k...

Even at lawyer rates, $3000 for a couple hrs of work is pushing it.

Very Nice.
Some will snub their noses. But everyone would like to have the nice
extras. Blu Ray, SSD, over the top memory.

Yeah, at that price where are the dual 5970 cards?

I won't snub and could care less about the liquid cooling/overclock but... that is way too much money for those parts.

Nice and clean inside though.

Those are some pretty weak over-clocks. If I'm shelling out that kind of money for a quasi-custom build, I sure as damn hell want to see some Tom's Hardware quality OCs.

Sure, with some TLC you can push these higher. But these are retail systems, and each and every one has to hit those numbers each time and make it out the door in 5 days. And then be supported for a year, with someone at the other end of the phone every day, 6 days a week. Different animal than building your own. And definitely costs more than the cost of the parts.

Sure, with some TLC you can push these higher. But these are retail systems, and each and every one has to hit those numbers each time and make it out the door in 5 days. And then be supported for a year, with someone at the other end of the phone every day, 6 days a week. Different animal than building your own. And definitely costs more than the cost of the parts.

Really?!? if some body is willing, I'll make a custom open loop computer with higher overclock/better water cooling components for $1000 less.

Yawn.... I'v been building rigs like this for much less money. I bet my i7 920 @4Ghz was MUCH cheaper and can run around the i7 975 easily. The ONLY reason to have an unlocked "Extreme" edition Intel CPU is if you are planing to go for world records under DIce/LN2.

These are retarded configs. First off, everyone knows you can OC an i-7 920 to ~4GHz. Everyone also knows you don't get much extra(if any) headroom on a 950 or 975. I'm not even going to go into the rest.

You guys do realize that playing at retail is a completely different ball game than building your own, one-off system?

They can easily do much higher OC's.
How to get 99% of i5-750's to 3.6
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] king-guide

Same for an i7-920
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] king-guide

No reason maingear can't do higher Overclocks. 3.6 is something 99% of i5/i7 chips can hit.

Sure they need extra to pay for tech support, but those exact components come out to ~$3k on newegg.

Charging over 2k to do an OC that barely beats turboboost and 1 year of support is a major rip off.

Hell even Dell 3 year on site next day support and full accidental protection only costs $600 ...

I know we can do higher - we do it all the time on our direct systems. But these are mild overclocks meant for mass-production retail systems. The F1X 500 is the #2 best selling Gaming PC on Tigerdirect.com right now. It's a completely different game than our BTO, direct systems. Different customers, different needs.

As to overclocks, we've been overclocking systems since 2002. And we've had to SUPPORT them. We've seen overclocks fail in year 2 and 3. We stay conservative. There's no reason to eek out a few hundred more MHz except to win a benchmark.

Yes, the F1X is tamer than we normally do. We take 960's to 3.86GHz and 975's to 4.0GHz. But we have much more time with those systems.

With the F1X it's out the door within 5 days.

As to "overpriced" - tell me what price is fair that will keep my employees around, pay taxes, insurance, packaging, marketing, etc. There's more to the cost of a system than the parts when you're talking about a whole company backing it up.

Nothing to Drool over. My daily rig is just as good.

I just want that silverstone case

you would think they would put a couple 5970s in crossfire in there.......

I'm all out of yawns...

These systems aren't built for do it yourself type guys. Chrismorley is defending your typical derogatory internet banter very politely. He's got a market for these systems, which is awesome. I tell ya the cable management looks fantastic and you can't always get that even at these prices. Good job with the rigs. They look great. Very clean.

Tom's readers are the type that go buy value parts (including myself) and put together a rig the equivalent of a WRX. Then we push it as far as we can for FREE and get the performance of a Ferrari. People with Ferrari money buy Ferrari's, not turbo economy cars to be souped up. I agree that putting a 975 in anything is overkill and overpriced, but if I didn't know crap about computers and wanted the best...975 here I come, or should I say Chris here I come. Cuz i'd want my 975 packaged cleanly and supported properly. He's got a market. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, I don't mind the remarks - to quote the movie Constantine, "Fire? I was born of this!" If I really wanted to stir the pot I'd tell you guys I was a managing editor at [H]ard|OCP once upon a time. (I really was)

But, like you say, there is a market out there, we price our products in order to stay in business. We're not rolling in money. I sleep very well at night knowing I make less money than most of my peers.

I do realize these aren't value based systems. However, it would seem a better option to offer the 920 and keep the Intel SSD on the F1X 500. Or hell at least just change it to the 920 keep the clock rate and have a larger profit margin.. lol. At any rate, any time you can sneak an SSD in, u'll have a noticeably faster system. I'd say it'd be worth a drop in clock rate. I see these aren't configurable and only available through retail and e-tail chains so I guess they are set models.

that is definitely asetek cooling

wish some OEM's would use REAL watercooling

The issue I have Chris is that you're doing mass production designs, but charging a premium over parts cost, that's greater than most custom builders.

What's the point of buying the F1x750 from you guys for example, if an identical custom build at AVADirect rushed (ie arrives at my door in 7 days) costs ~$4650 including shipping (which is $186 by itself)?

I understand that's there are plenty of other cost's associated w/ running a business, but when a mass production item is 10% more expensive than a custom built computer from a competitor (more if you $5149 price doesn't include shipping), I have to say that qualifies as overpriced.

Build linked below.
Not 100% identical as I don't know exact parts Maingear uses, but everything is equivalent. It's got a 160gb X25-M instead of an 80gb, but AVADirect charges $200 for rush, so I figure they cancel out.

CUSTOM GAMING PC Core™ i7 X58 SLI® / CrossFireX™ Gaming PC $4457.21 UPDATE $4457.21

* INTEL Core™ i7-975 Extreme Quad-Core, 3.33GHz, LGA1366, 6.4 GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 130W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
* ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver
* SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase
* COOLIT DM-1000 Domino A.L.C. Liquid CPU Cooler w/ Fan Speed Controller, Socket 1366/775/AM2+, 19.2 - 39.4 dBA
* ASUS P6T, LGA1366, Intel® X58, 6400 MT/s QPI, DDR3-2000 (O.C.) 12GB /6, PCIe x16 SLI CF /3, SATA 3.0 Gb/s RAID 5 /8, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail
* KINGSTON 12GB (6 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz CL7 (7-7-7) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
* SAPPHIRE Radeon™ HD 5870 850MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4800MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, DVI /2, DP, HDMI, Retail
* SAPPHIRE Radeon™ HD 5870 850MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4800MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, DVI /2, DP, HDMI, Retail
* WESTERN DIGITAL 1.5TB WD Caviar® Green™ (WD15EADS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
* INTEL 160GB X25-M (G2) Mainstream SSD, MLC, 250/70 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
* RAID No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
* SABRENT CRW-UINB Black 65-in-1 Card Reader/Writer Drive, 3.5" Bay, Internal USB
* LG ELECTRONICS WH08LS20 Black 8x/16x/24x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner, SATA, Retail
* SILVERSTONE Temjin TJ09 Black Tower Case w/ Window, EATX, No PSU
* CUSTOM WIRING Standard Wiring with Round Cables
* SILVERSTONE Strider ST1000 Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 1000W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Six 6-pin + Two 8-pin PCIe, Retail
* MICROSOFT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, OEM
* SERVICE OEM System Recovery (secure HDD partition only)
* SERVICE System Binder
* LOGITECH FREE Deluxe 250, Black, USB, OEM
* CUSTOM GAMING PC Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
* SERVICE Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)

Need an edit button >.<

AVADirect also has 3 years warranty and service as opposed to the 1 year from tiger direct.

Doesn't matter - people see i7 920 and no matter what you say, that's all they see.