Velocity Micro Raptor Z90
Posted 01/16/09 at 12:00:00 PM by Nathan Edwards
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The Velocity Micro Raptor Z90 is the first production rig we’ve tested that boasts Intel’s new Core i7 microarchitecture—and it really cooks. Velocity cranked the 3.2GHz clock speed on Intel’s quad-core Hyper-Threaded Core i7-965 Extreme Edition to 3.6GHz with nary a hiccup, and cooled the dang thing with air. The machine also features 6GB of DDR3/1600 and dual 512MB Radeon HD 4870s.
The Z90 has a typical backup drive: a 1TB 7200rpm Hitachi Deskstar and a less typical C: drive: an 80GB X-25M Intel SSD mounted on a VelociRaptor IcePak heatsink. The drive enclosure in the front of the case isn’t screwless, but the whole bay can be removed by loosening two thumbscrews.
Velocity’s customized Lian Li aluminum chassis is long and low rather than tall (like most cases produced today), which leaves plenty of room between components and produces a clean, uncluttered look. And the wiring is equally fastidious, while still being accessible for component swaps. The Z90 is also one of the lightest rigs to enter the Lab: In an age of backbreakers, we thought Velocity had shipped us an empty chassis until we opened it up!
The Raptor Z90 blew through our benchmarks. It completed our Premiere Pro CS3 test in just 526 seconds. That’s nearly 30 seconds faster than November’s Digital Storm rig and nearly a minute faster than last month’s AVADirect system, both of which packed 4GHz-plus QX9770s. The Z90 was similarly speedy in every test we threw at it—our zero-point took nearly twice as long to complete our MainConcept test.
In fact, the Z90 failed to set records in just two benchmarks: Crysis and Photoshop, where it was bested by the AVADirect and Digital Storm rigs. The former, however, was running two 4870 X2s, while the Digital Storm ran three GTX 260s, so the Z90’s comparatively modest (though still respectable) Crysis performance is no surprise. The AVADirect and Digital Storm rigs were also clocked higher than the Velocity (4GHz and 4.2GHz, respectively), which explains their marginally better performance in Photoshop, a single-threaded app.
We have just one quibble with this rig. The snap-in front-panel bezels are hard to keep in place, and, in fact, were rattling around inside the case when we opened it for the first time. Fortunately, they’re so light, they didn’t cause any damage. We should also mention that the first unit Velocity Micro sent us suffered from instability issues likely due to shipping damage, but the second unit, the one tested here, was rock solid. Shoot, this $5,300 rig made mincemeat of much more expensive systems we’ve tested.
Velocity Micro Raptor Z90
Z-95 Headhunter
Blazingly fast, aesthetically pleasing, and well made.
B-Wing
Front-panel bezels could be more firmly secured.
Benchmarks
| Zero Point | Velocity Micro Raptor Z90 | |
|---|---|---|
| Premiere Pro CS3 | 1,260 sec | 526 sec (+140.00%) |
| Photoshop CS3 | 150 sec | 86 sec |
| ProShow | 1,415 sec | 514 sec (+175%) |
| MainConcept | 1,872 sec | 969 sec |
| Crysis | 26 fps | 37 fps |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 92 fps | 165 fps |
Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, 2GB of Corsair DDR2/800 RAM, an EVGA 680 SLI motherboard, two EVGA GeForce 8800GTX cards in SLI mode, a Western Digital 150GB Raptor and a 500GB Caviar hard drive, an LG GGC-H20L optical drive, a Sound Blaster X-Fi, a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad power supply, and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit.
Specifications
| Processor | Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition (3.2GHz @ 3.6GHZ) |
| MOBO | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58 chipset) |
| RAM | 6GB Corsair DDR3/1600 @ 1,500 |
| Videocard | Two 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4870s in CrossFire |
| Soundcard | Realtek ALC889 Onboard |
| Storage | 80GB Intel X-25M SSD, 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 (7200rpm) |
| Optical | Lite-On Blu-ray DH-4B1S |
| Case/PSU | Velocity Micro Signature LXe-W/Velocity Micro 850W |
Didn't Maximum PC used to BOLD the faster times in their tables?
Submitted by bcweir on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 5:03am
Why did they bold all of the Zero Point's times to insinuate that the Zero Point beat the Micro Raptor in every category -- then turn around and give the MicroRaptor a 9?? Did the magazine change its name to MINIMUM PC for this benchmark?
As for the so-called debate over using $1,000 proc, people that want to lambast someone for spending more than $1,000 is plain tech-envy. Get over it. If you had that much money, I'd bet a month's worth of steak dinners you'd buy that chip too if YOU had the Benjamins. What's next, lambasting the Dream Machine over its $5,000 chrome-plating (you could buy 5 i7 Extremes for that money) -- which looks good by the way. Stop hating on other people just because YOU aren't in a higher tax bracket.
Bottom line is they spent $1,000 on a proc. Big whoop. Go cry in your cereal. They're still selling the machine for $5K, which most of us could likely duplicate on their own for a whole lot less.
Submitted by xs0u1x on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 9:29pm
are the crysis settings on high?
2 4870's not to mention the rest of the system specs and still only 37fps?
anybody else find something wrong with this?
Submitted by STorpedo on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 11:38am
I might surprise you, but no, I don't, mainly because whoever designed this model was a complete idiot. Intel board - what? You can get at least a 4-5fps bonus in Crysis just by switching to a D6T Asus. 2 4870s? Coupled with an 965 with a STOCK HEATSINK? Are you kidding me? And then, on top of this add on a lovely Intel SSD, as if they're marketing this piece of crap at video-editors/CAD users who all use Quadro anyways. It's like the designers mixed great components with terrible ones for a laugh; great CPU, shite vid cards, Gret Mem and Storage, terrible mobo, terrible cooling
Submitted by xs0u1x on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 4:16pm
your absolutely right. althought id have to disagree on the vid cards being crap, but still 4grand for 37fps is a joke. my point being not so much the system, i mean, the components you mentioned are easily upgradeable by the end user(granted they shouldnt have too in the first place for 4 grand) by my complaint is mainly with crytek and game vendors like them who expect pc gaming to take off, but when you pump in 4 grand and you can only get 37fps out of the game your playing that kind of defeats the purpose of getting into the pc game market if you want to make money.
Submitted by bcweir on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 5:13am
MaximumPC assigns their settings at a pretty decent challenge: high enough to give the card a realistic challenge, but not so ridiculously high that it bogs down the whole machine. The 4870 isn't top of the line (the 4870X2 is), but it's still a very respectable card, and still capable at far better frame rates that the outdated hardware running in 95 percent of the average users machines (yes I'm talking to you, Mr. GTX-card user).
So why hate on 37 fps?
That's still at least 10 fps better that MOST people are doing on Vista machines! Besides that, most human eyeballs can't follow action faster than around 30 fps (which is considered movie-quality animation, anything better than 24 is going to be fairly smooth to most people).
Let me get this straight. You're going to ding the machine because it's doing frame rates roughly 7 fps BETTER than most people's eyes can follow?
Why won't people ADMIT to tech-envy? Why won't people admit that in a side by side comparison, this machine would likely kick the snot out of their homebrewed hardware, $5k pricetag aside?
Submitted by STorpedo on Sun, 01/18/2009 - 1:46am
well, I was a bit harsh on the 4870s, but mainly because they already deliver great preformance in all games but Crysis, so Crysis-wise they're not the greatest (neither is any vid card at this point, I'm confident that even 2 295s struggle at 2560x1200). About the 4 grand thing though-this is obviously an overpriced PC, I made a PC that was top of the line a month ago for 3500, and everything was a heck of a lot better than here, and it plays Crysis allright, plus its not Crytek's fault, and in fact, I praise them for raising the bar on graphics manufacturing so high, otherwise they'd get lazy.
Submitted by Balgaroo on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 1:49pm
Ok so this is for killerxx7 and nekollx. i just went to the Egg and priced these parts and i came up with a price of around $2900. That of course does not include the case or power supply b/c those are proprietary but i threw in an extra $400 for a power supply and a case. So yes it is overpriced and if i was dumb enough to spend a grand on a proc. then i would buy put this pc together.But I do not agree with the specs on this pc. Intel's SSD is nice to tell your friends about having but i would go with the VelociRaptor, its $200 cheaper and ive never used more than 200 gigs on my primary drive (which stores nothing). Also as stated before a grand for a proc is stupid. the i7 920 is $300 and can over clock to 3.5 easy with aftermarket cooling. So what if i end up losing %2 performance, it will give me time to play with my willy.Also what power user upgrades everything all at once, i have hard drives and optical drives laying around so in all i could get a pc running close to this one for about a grand. So in conclusion nekollx can lick my big round one.
Submitted by STorpedo on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 11:30am
You know, you might be surprised to find out that people who buy a 965 don't leave it OC'd to 3.6, but in fact leave it on a stable OC of 4.4 or more, because they want a) a stable overclock, and b) actually be able to reach that frequency. So, no, I'll have to disagree, it's not stupid at all to buy a 1,000$ proc, and you're making me think that you're just bitter because you can't afford such expensive parts. The rest of your well-thought out paragraph supports my opinion. Not to sound holier-than-thou, but maybe you should be more respectful of people who can afford these parts because they studied their notebooks.
P.S. The one area we do agree in is in ordering a PC (with a stock intel heatsink no less) for a grand more than what you'd usually pay for it.
aaaannnd your point is
Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 1:57pm
aaaannnd your point is what?
Did i ever say it was overprice or underpriced? No all i said was MPC only margially counts price. And awared scors based on performace agaisnt past models and the Zero Point System
a bad deal but nor for the reasons you think
Submitted by Gailim on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 1:11pm
the price isnt the problem with this rig.
for what you get the price is decent. the problem with this rig is that the components are retarded.
1. the intel board OC's like shit
2. they took a 1k part and only OCed it to levels easily achievable by the $300 920
3. SSD's are spiffy but they aren't a very good value. better price/performance with a Raptor. Though I do understand the SSD move a bit. this rig is obvioulsy supposed to be "state of the art" unfortunately in computer tech "state of the art" is ussually equatable with "terrible value"
4. now this just pisses me off. they stuff the rig with the best CPU and and hard drive possible yet stick it with two 512mb 4870s, why not the 1GB? or better yet two GTX 280's. that would have made a much better investment than the SSD.
5. a 5k rig with integrated audio? wtf?
so the price isnt the issue. there are just a few retarded part selections. this rig should not get a 9. sorry MPC, performance isnt everything
Velocity Micro Raptor Z90 vs Dream Machine 2008
Submitted by rich5665 on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 11:06am
How does the Velocity Micro Raptor Z90 compare to DM 2008? will a nearly $18k MaximumPC work of art blow the doors off this rig or does the Z90 make DM2008 look like yestredays news?
Submitted by HeadHunter12 on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 10:40am
Did you even read the specs? 2 4870's, Intel DX58SO, Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition 80GB Intel X-25M SSD for 2500?
1k less? Are you serious?
Once again a heavily
Submitted by killerxx7 on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 9:21am
Once again a heavily overpriced rig that can be built for at least a 1K less and wow they MPC gave it a 9!
Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 10:15am
then shut up and go biuld it
right now...
Go on...
whats your delay?
MPC only counts price as a marginal factor, their raition is more based on performach and benchmarks agaisnt past models and the Zero Point system.
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