Maingear ePhex
Posted 08/28/09 at 02:00:37 PM by Gordon Mah Ung
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It's like an early dream machine
It’s become a cliché in hardware reviews to call a PC “the fastest machine we’ve ever seen,” but there are no better words to describe Maingear’s ePhex.
It truly is the fastest machine we’ve ever seen. And you would expect that from a parts list that looks like someone just checked the “bestest” box before clicking the buy button.
Peep these specs: Intel’s new Core i7-975 Extreme Edition CPU. This new CPU may seem like it’s just 133MHz faster than the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU, but it’s actually a new stepping of the core that enhances overclocking. Maingear overclocks the chip from 3.33GHz to a very stable 4GHz. To the new i7, Maingear adds 12GB of Kingston DDR3/1600 on the Asus Rampage II Extreme board, a 2TB Western Digital drive, two Intel 80GB X25-M SSDs in RAID 0, and not two, but three GeForce GTX 285 cards in tri-SLI. To keep it all running, Maingear water cools all three GPUs and the CPU, and then tosses in a 1,200 watt PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool PSU.
The package is stunningly fast, as you can imagine. The majority of our benchmark records, surprisingly, have been held by a Velocity Micro 3.66GHz Core i7 machine that we reviewed late last year. That’s an amazing feat in itself, but the Maingear box not only bumped the Velocity Micro from the top spot, it set new records in every single benchmark. Premiere Pro CS3? Fastest. Photoshop CS3? Fastest. ProShow Producer? Fastest. MainConcept? Fastest. UT3? You get the picture. The most impressive scores were perhaps in Crysis. We run the CPU bench section of this punishing game because it’s closest to an in-game experience, but we’ve long wondered if it’s been the CPU that’s shackled performance. We haven’t seen the needle move past 54fps in months—even with tri-SLI machines we’ve reviewed previously. The Maingear’s water-cooled GPUs spiked up to 70fps at 1920x1200 resolution with quality set to Very High. With 16x AA enabled, the rig’s scores dip to just 59fps.
Look out, there's a new benchmark sheriff in town.
Needless to say, it’s impressive when a machine captures every single benchmark record. Compared to last month’s Polywell Core i7 machine (overclocked to 3.6GHz), the Maingear represents well, turning in scores from 20 to 68 percent faster than the Polywell rig. We’d be remiss, however, if we didn’t point out that the Polywell cost $5,000 less. In an age when people are happy to scrape pennies together to buy a netbook, that kind of savings is nothing to sneeze at.
Performance aside, the Maingear’s not perfect. The paint job was good but far from flawless. We’ve seen much better work from the likes of Smooth Creations or Falcon Northwest. There were just enough blems that someone who put out $8K might be bummed. And even with the water-cooled components, the Maingear is quite audible under long, heavy loads. Part of that comes from the Turbo-Cool PSU, which sounds like an F-15 on afterburners, but the fact is, keeping this much hardware cool and running reliably can’t be done silently.
The machine was definitely reliable. Adrenaline junkies might wonder why Maingear didn’t push it to, say, 4.5GHz, but we demand stability. We put the box through an overnight Prime95 run and it never crashed. Likewise, we subjected it to a burn-in using a wickedly mean double-secret Intel utility and the machine ran rock solid.
So, if you’re able to swallow the price and the noise, you’re unlikely to find a faster machine today.
Maingear ePhex
Speed
Outpaces all other machines we've tested in every benchmark.
Speed Racer
A tad loud and priced higher than most people's cars.
Specifications
| Processor | Intel 3.33GHz Core i7 975 @ 4GHz |
| MOBO | Asus Rampage II |
| RAM | 12GB DDR3/1600 |
| Videocard | Three water-cooled GeForce GTX 285 in tri-SLI |
| Soundcard | X-Fi Titanium Fatal 1ty Pro |
| Storage | Two 80GB Intel X-25M SSD in RAID 0, Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green |
| Optical | Pioneer BDC-202, HL-DT-ST GH22LS30 |
| Case/PSU | Silverstone TJ-10 / PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200 |
BENCHMARKS
| Zero Point | Maingear ePhex | |
|---|---|---|
| Premiere Pro CS3 | 1,260 sec | 468 (169%) |
| Photoshop CS3 | 150 sec | 72 (108%) |
| ProShow | 1,415 sec | 465 (204%) |
| MainConcept | 1,872 sec | 863 (117%) |
| Crysis | 26 fps | 70 (169%) |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 83 fps | 213 (157%) |
Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, 2GB of Corsair DDR2/800 RAM on an EVGA 680 SLI motherboard. We run two EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX cards in SLI mode, Western Digital 150GB Raptor and 500GB Caviar hard drives, LG GGC-H20L, Sound Blaster X-Fi, and PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad. OS is Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit.
Incredible rig with awesome
Submitted by ElderJefferson on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 4:49am
Incredible rig with awesome benchmarks, but for the same price I could take my family of 4 on a top-of-the-line 1-week cruise to the Bahamas, and still have enough money left over to purchase a 2004 Honda Accord with under 75,000 miles.
Just saying
after six months then what?
Submitted by zeringue on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 8:23pm
Wonder what the machine would cost after six months or a year? Thank god for all of you early adopters and big money people who pay these costs. With your help and money, it drives down the costs of the lesser parts.
Submitted by Wolfgang on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 8:11pm
You could never get the detail and resolution on a console that you get from a high-end PC...and it doesn't stop there, there's much more you can do with a PC...Hell, Crysis never made it to consoles! It just demands powerful hardware that consoles don't have
For the record, I own a an Xbox 360 and PS3, besides my PC's...
PD-Well Crytek will release an engine that will be for all platforms so, guess you'll see some kind of Crysis on a console after all, but not the original game though!
For example, the PS3 has the
Submitted by gendoikari1 on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 9:30am
For example, the PS3 has the 3.2 GHz Cell processor (1 core+6 coprocessors) and a graphics card equivalent to, if I remember, a GeForce 7800.
Compare that to the Maingear.
Submitted by FunkySquirrel on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 3:11pm
Suddenly, that top end "Dream Machine" you guys did this year doesn't look all that dreamy, does it?
and i seem ot recall this
Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 3:20pm
and i seem ot recall this being reviewed MONTHS ago in print...
Which has always been my point, how can it be a "Dream Machine" when botique maciens beat it before the magazine changes covers?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Submitted by foamcup on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 1:06pm
They should have named it the ePeen.
Submitted by tehR0XX0Rz on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:58pm
That you have to buy a $8,000 PC to get 70 fps out of Crysis is why:
1. Crysis is the prime example of what is wrong with future-proofing
2. So many people just pirated the shit
3. So many people play games on consoles
Submitted by xXGearheadXx on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:55pm
got it....now for the rest of my ???s
Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:49pm
the price is always mention in print, maybe this is how they are encouraging print grabs, to see prices....
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Submitted by xXGearheadXx on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:36pm
That rig is slick. But despite the fact that it's the fastest rig ever tested by MaxPC, there's a lot of areas that concern me.
First are the temps. It's mostly koolance parts, which are great despite the naysayers, I use the same cpu340 on my cpu and their gpu coolers are great...But there's two skinny rads on that box cooling 3 gpus and one cpu. The bulk of the cooling is handled by the 240 rad on the top, and it looks like its sucking hot air from inside the case.(did I mention thats a skinny rad) The other rad looks like it's on the inside of the mid intake, with the fan covering most of the intake...neither are the most efficient methods of cooling. (that rad on the mid intake is skinny as all getout too) I only bring this up because my rig is very similar and it's still a bit warm(an i7 920 d0 at 4.0gh@1.25v...low 40s idle, high 60s/low 70s under prime) despite a MUCH better cooling system. What RPM do those fans run at?
The VRM and NB/SB temps under the stock cooler would concern me a bit too...they've got to be hot under passive cooling with stock sinks.
The usage of the PC P&C 1200 is good, but not great. As the reviewer mentions, it's loud. I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to a jet takeoff but a microwave oven is fair. Are there not PSUs that can get in the PC P&Cs ballpark(in terms of quality/consistency) that run with less noise? Mine sits in a box in my closet until I really need it for tri-sli if that ever happens. My MUCH more quiet silencer 910 runs my rig for the time being. While noise isn't that bothersome while gaming, it's a pain when you're doing more mundane tasks, a lot more than you'd think if your rig is quiet.
Price. They mention a 5000 dollar difference between that rigs in its ballpark they've tested?!??! what does it cost? 8-10K??? More???
Despite its shortcomings, its still an awesome rig...as evidence by its benches...even if you can build better yourself for less $$$, and lots of time.
You know what would be nice
Submitted by big_montana on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 11:40am
You know what would be nice to see in a review again? The price!!! You used to give us pricing information, but I have not seen that in one of your reviews in ages, even though you mention the price as negative. What is preventing oyu from listin git, since oyu already mentiong it as being 5k less than the Polywell system but still the exact figure would be nice.
Submitted by Toady00 on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 11:58am
It did say "$8k" when talking about the paint job blemishes.
Wonder how much modding had
Submitted by roepower on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 10:54am
Wonder how much modding had to be done to the soundcard? I've got almost the same setup and am aware that that soundcard doesn't fit up in that top slot without modification of the northbridge heatsink... Plus i've heard rumors about it being really tough to get 12 GB of ram to run at that speed? Either way a very stellar rig!!!
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