First Impressions, Continued

We pushed the power button and we got two noises: a long beep and the drone of six case fans and the graphics cards. The system came equipped with a pair of AMD's HD 2900 XT graphics cards in CrossFire. Based on the market mechanics and conversations with system integrators, SLI has been the configuration of choice. While that may be the trend, don't discount the performance of this system. It did well against other systems in its peer group. Actually, "very well" would be a better statement.

Upon arrival the system seemed to be in fair condition. Many systems we receive get "man handled." Upon turning on the system we noticed that the system seemed unhappy. One of the graphics cards was not seated well, meaning that the box it came in took a good jolt during shipping. The BIOS did not initialize and move to a Windows start. After reseating the card, the BIOS was fine and everything was business as usual.

There is plenty of expansion slots for additional 5.25" devices. The door is solid and lacks that cheesy plastic that you see in many budget enclosures. The side panels have locking mechanisms but were not hard to remove.