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iBuyPower Turns 10, Giving Away a System to Celebrate

Paul Lilly — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:30:37 -0600

To kick off it's tenth anniversary, boutique system build iBuyPower has launched its second-gen Chimera 2 gaming system. Like the original, the follow-up act sizzles on stage with a fiery exterior, but with a "completely redesigned signature Chimera Inferno II Chassis."

The color scheme now wraps around the entire chassis, with the chimera flame design covering 4 exterior surfaces (front, right, left, and top panels). Underneath it all sits either a Phenom II X3/X4 or Core i5/i7 foundation, depending on which base configuration you start out with. The Core i5 base comes standard with a Core i5 750 processor, Asus P7P55D LE motherboard, 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory, an ATI HD 5750 videocard, 750GB hard drive, 700W PSU, 22X DVD burner, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Surprising affordable, pricing starts at $1,100 (or $999 if building around AMD).

Don't feel like buying one? To celebrate its 10th birthday, iBuyPower said it's giving away a Chimera 2 system with a Killer Xeno Pro Gaming card.

"We are excited to be celebrating our tenth anniversary and wanted to thank all our customers that helped make it happen with a giveaway and hot new system," said Darren Su, VP of iBuyPower. "The Chimera 2 gaming systems are fully loaded and feature a new aggressive design sure to impress."

To enter, ~~follow iBuyPower on Twitter and/or Facebook~~ became a Fan of iBuyPower on Facebook or follow them on Twitter, and then fill out the contest entry form here. Good luck!

Image Credit: iBuyPower

Multitouch Wind Top AE2220 All-in-One from MSI Now Shipping

Paul Lilly — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:00:21 -0600

MSI on Wednesday announced it has begun shipping its new Wind Top AE2220 all-in-one desktop PC. The AE2220 takes its place as MSI's flagship all-in-one and expands the company's fast growing Wind Top series.

"The MSI Wind Top is an awesome all-purpose family PC. Share photos, edit videos, play games, watch HD video -- our Ion graphics processor means you can have it all," said Drew Henry, general manger for Ion and GeForce products at Nvidia.

In addition to the Ion platform, the AE2220 boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor clocked at 2.2GHz (Pentium dual-core T4300 also available), a 21.5-inch multitouch display, 4GB of DDR2-800 memory, a 500GB hard drive, optional Blu-ray player, 1.3MP webcam, built-in 6-in-1 card reader, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, two mini-PCI-E expansion slots, IR receiver, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

The new all-in-one is still a no-show at most retailers, though Amazon still has it listed for pre-order for $700.

Image Credit: MSI

New Custom System Maker Origin Enters Fray with Genesis, EON18

Paul Lilly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:00:37 -0600

Move over Alienware, Voodoo PC, Hypersonic, Maingear, BFG, Widow PC, Falcon Northwest, Velocity Micro, Vigor Gaming, Apple (sike!), Overdrive PC, Digital Storm, and any other vendor of high-end gaming PCs we may have left out, and make way for Origin, the newest custom gaming PC maker on the block.

Origin makes its debut with a pair of flashy looking systems, the Genesis desktop and EON18 notebook. To set the systems part, Origin has teamed with Killer Paint to offer custom paint jobs and airbrushed designs, including custom requests. Cost of entry for the desktop starts at about $1,600 for an AMD Phenom II-based system, $1,700 for Core i5, or about $2,000 to jump up to Core i7. That buys you a 750W Corsair power supply, EVGA GTX 260 videocard, 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory, a 320GB hard drive, and a few other odds and ends.

The EON18 notebook, on the other hand, starts at $2,576 and includes an 18.4-inch glossy LCD screen, GeForce GTX 280m graphics, an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 processor, 2GB of DDR3-1333 memory, 250GB hard drive, 8X DVD burner, Wi-Fi, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Upgrade options abound for both setups, nearly all of which are name brand parts. And resurrecting a name we've been quite content not to see in the headlines as of late, Origin has apparently teamed with Fatal1ty for select branded components.

"I have known the founders of Origin for several years and have selected them as my premier gaming PC partner," said Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. "With Origin, I want to focus on what true, hardcore gamers and enthusiasts want from their gaming PC: high-performance, personal customization, and a PC that delivers the best gaming experience in collaboration with my licensed partners."

Take from that what you will.

If you want to see more, Origin's already all over the web:

Origin Website
Twitter
Facebook

Image Credit: Origin

Falcon Northwest Talon

Gordon Mah Ung — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0600

When Falcon Northwest submitted its Talon PC to us instead of its top-gun Mach V, we didn’t think the machine stood a chance of taking down the spate of ripping-fast 4GHz Core i7 rigs we’ve seen in the last few months.

And we were right. But the point Falcon was trying to make with its Talon was that its machine could deliver 90 percent of the performance of those big LGA1366-based Core i7 rigs at half the cost, half the noise, and half the energy consumption. Impossible? We thought so.

But that was before we’d ever heard of ATI’s new Radeon HD 5970 card. Code-named Hemlock, this new card features not one, but two of the GPUs that power the Kick Ass Radeon HD 5870.

Falcon uses two of these cards in the Talon, for quad-GPU action, and pairs them with an LGA1156 Core i7-870 overclocked from its stock 2.93GHz to very stable 3.83GHz. We stress-tested the Falcon for more than 48 hours without a single crash.

For storage, Falcon tapped a pair of Intel’s 34nm X25-M 80GB SSDs. Bulk storage is left to a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint drive.

The 64-bit Windows 7 Pro–based Talon’s benchmark scores didn’t disappoint—but they didn’t send us swooning, either. The Talon beat our zero point, a Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.66GHz. We saw predictable results, with the Falcon faster in Premiere Pro CS3 and Photoshop CS3. Photoshop CS3 actually saw a performance delta of 19 percent, thanks to the SSDs in the Talon and the higher Turbo mode clocks. However, in ProShow and MainConcept, the Talon’s scores were closer to the zero point’s, but still faster. In gaming, pitting two dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 cards against a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 turned out as expected: with almost an 80 percent difference in frame rates. Even better, the CrossFire (or should we say QuadFire?) Radeon HD 5970s let you tick on 16x AA in Crysis with nary a drop in performance. Frankly, for folks with a single, 24-inch panel, these two cards are overkill (but feel free to experiment with three or more panels in the cards’ Eyefinity mode).

Now, what about those claims of taking on those 4GHz-plus Core i7 boxes? Falcon hit its target. It couldn’t beat the $9,000 Velocity Micro Raptor SE that we reviewed in December, but it was just 10 percent slower. The Raptor SE’s tri-SLI also held a 5 percent edge in Crysis, but we suspect that with this class of machine, Crysis is quickly being limited by the CPU. Amazingly, the Talon managed to surpass the Windows Vista–based AVADirect machine we reviewed in our Holiday issue, even though the latter’s Core i7 was clocked up to 4.4GHz.

Even more amazing, the Talon could hold its own against machines that are almost twice as pricey, while being incredibly quiet. Not HTPC quiet, but you’d be unlikely to identify this machine as an all-out gaming rig judging by the sound output. In power consumption, the Falcon peaked at about 500 watts—half as much as the AVADirect machine.

The Talon is not the most powerful machine we’ve ever tested, but it still gets our approval for being fast, freakishly quiet, and even energy efficient. Heck, it’ll even save you a few thousand bucks, to boot.

Maingear Stuffs Two HD 5970 Videocards into Shift PC

Paul Lilly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:30:13 -0600

A little prerequisite reading is in order. If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out Lloyd Case and Gordon Mah Ung's article covering ATI's Radeon HD 5970, a videocard we've dubbed "The Undisputed Performance Champ." Once you read through that feature, you'll be in a better position to appreciate the awesome power that comes from cramming two HD 5970 videocards into a CrossFire X configuration, and that's exactly what Maingear has done.

The boutique system vendor today announced the immediately availability of said cards into its Shift PC. By doing so, Maingear says gamers are afforded 10 teraflops of pixel pushing power when enhanced with the company's Redline technology.

"The Maingear Shift was designed specifically to harness the incredible amount of GPU power that is on the horizon," said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of Maingear. "The ATI Radeon HD 5970 truly ushers in a new era of everyday supercomputing for the consumer. Besides having a total of 3200 stream processors each for an incredible gaming experience, with Windows 7 and DriectCompute, these cards can be used to accelerate everything from video editing and transcoding to advanced photo manipulation."

As we previously reported, the Shift can be configured with either an Intel P55 or X58 foundation, and you can outfit either one of them with a pair of HD 5970 videocards. All that power doesn't come cheap, however, and you'll be looking at about an additional $1,500 over the base configuration, which includes an Nvidia GeForce GTS 250.

Image Credit: Maingear

$1500 Gaming PC Buyer's Guide -- November 2009

Norman Chan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:00:00 -0600

It's that time again! This month, we've priced out an amazing $1500 gaming PC. If you recall from our Dream Machine feature, the $1500 "Budget Surplus" of mid-2009 was powered by a Core i7-920 and Radeon 4870 X2. Today--a few months later--we're able to make a few adjustments to upgrade to a Radeon 5870-based machine. The introduction of Intel's Lynnfield processor and the final retail release of Windows 7 also forced us to reevaluate our spending priorities, but we're very pleased with the outcome. As gamers, this is a system we'd be proud to build ourselves--it will play any game released in the foreseeable future.

Read on for our parts picks, and let us know what you think!

*All prices are as of November 13th and do not include rebates, sales, clearance, or whatever else makes computer parts really cheap these days.

CPU

Core i7-860

$290, www.intel.com

Let's start off with the CPU. We've said this many times before: Intel's Lynnfield is Nehalem for the masses. Sure, the Bloomfield-based Core i7-920 is almost exactly the same price as this Core i7-860 we've picked, but going the Bloomfield route means you'll still have to buy a pricey X58 motherboard. The i7-860, based on Lynnfield, actually runs at a higher clock speed than the i7-920 (2.8GHz to 2.66GHz), and its performance tops the 920 in many gaming benchmarks. The absence of tri-channel DDR3 and dual X16 PCI-E2.0 support is almost a non-issue--the 860 makes up for that by being more easily overclockable to the 3+GHz range. The only reason to go with a Bloomfield system is the upgrade path, but Intel has vowed to keep up support for both 1366 and 1156 socket processors.

Motherboard

Asus P7P55D Deluxe

$220, www.asus.com

Our $1000 PC used an Asus P7P55D motherboard, but this time around, we have enough cash for the Deluxe version. We definitely sympathize with PC builders when it comes to confusing branding schemes--Asus has no fewer than six different versions of the P7P55D motherboards (LE, stock, PRO, EVO, Deluxe, and Premium). The Deluxe version comes with four 1.5V DIMM slots, two gigabit ethernet controllers, two PCI-E X16 slots, and is incredibly stable for overclocking. In fact, this board is specifically designed for overclocking. Asus has bundled a "TurboV Remote" with the system to use for manual overclocking (an easy 20% boost), and there are even three switches to let you override BIOS limits on RAM, memory controller, and CPU voltage.

CPU Cooler

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

$30, www.coolermaster.com

Even without a $1500 budget, it would be foolish not to pick up an aftermarket CPU cooler, especially if you're planning on overclocking. The decision is made even easier with Cooler Master's recently released Hyper 212 Plus cooler, which isn't just the best air cooler we've tested, but also one of the cheapest. The previous champ, the Thermalright Ultra 120E, sold for $70, and this cooler is less than half the price of that. The skyscraper design isn't particularly innovative, but we can't argue with the performance numbers. A stock cooler heats up to 61 C on a full load, while the Hyper 212 Plus keeps its cool at 43 C.

Memory

Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3/1600

$92, www.corsair.com

Well, it had to end sometime. The era of ridiculously cheap memory may be over. In the summer, you could buy 6GB of DDR3 memory for under $80. Today, you'll be lucky if you find 4GB for under $100. Of course, you're not going to want to skimp out on RAM quality for overclocking, so we're recommending a pair of rock-solid DIMMs from Corsair. Other performance memory makers will also suffice (Patriot, Crucial, OCZ, etc), but you'll want to stick with name brands for reliability and a decent warranty.

Videocard

HIS H587F1GDG Radeon HD 5870

$400, www.hisdigital.com

Things get really interesting with our videocard pick. ATI's Radeon HD 5870 is the new GPU champ, and it doesn't look like Nvidia will have a rival released to market anytime soon. We toyed with the idea of going with a lower-clocked 5850, but decided to make some cuts in other categories to go all-out on the GPU. Even at $400 (which is $20 higher than the launch price, due to high demand), its much more reasonable pricing than flagship videocard launches in the past. Unfortunately, the card is in a bit of short supply, so you'll have to hunt around to find it in stock. There also really isn't much difference between the 5870s released from HIS and other makers, so you'll be fine with one from Sapphire or PowerColor. Just make sure to read the fine print in the warranty before you buy!

Optical Drive

Samsung SH-S223

$31, www.samsungodd.com

This is starting to get a little embarrassing. Samsung's SH-S223 DVD burner hasn't faced a challenger worthy of its blazing read and write speeds, so it remains our pick for best optical drive for yet another month. Its price has gone up a little since the summer, but $30 for a fast and reliable (and did we mention fast?) 22x drive is well worth the money. Unless you're willing to dish out the bucks for Blu-Ray (and deal with HDCP hassles), you'll be fine with a DVD burner.

Hard Drive

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB

$100, www.westerndigital.com

We decided to go for a 1TB drive (instead of the 1.5TB Seagate in the Budget Surplus) this go-around to save money for other components. But while we sacrificed a bit of capacity, we definitely didn't want to skimp on speed. The Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB is as affordable as it is functional. As a WD Black drive (as opposed to Western Digital's Green lineup), its emphasis is on performance over power conservation. And that promise is delivered--it's one of the faster 3-platter terabyte drives we've tested, delivering truly impressive random-access speeds. Sure, you can buy a two-platter terabyte drive these days, but the price premium makes that jump difficult to stomach. With modest specifications and an abundance of storage room for the average computer user, the WD Digital Caviar Black 1TB is totally worth a Benjamin. And if you have the dough, an awesome 2TB Caviar Black drive is also available.

Power Supply

Corsair 850TX

$140 ($120 after rebate), www.corsair.com

The Corsair 850TX is the same power supply we chose for our $1500 Dream Machine, and it'll the do the trick for this build. It's $15 cheaper than when we last priced out a system (with $20 rebate), and you'll need the wattage to keep your system stable through overclocking on a hot summer day. There's enough juice to power the efficient Lynnfield processor and 5870, with enough left over to add a second video card if you want to upgrade to Crossfire in the future.

Case

Antec 900 Two

$120 ($95 after rebate), www.antec.com

We've long recommended the Antec 900 as the go-to mid-tower case (the NZXT tempest was just a 900 clone, after all). But it's time to finally put the original to bed and move up to the 900 Two. This successor shares many of the great features of the 900 that make it easy to build in, but its emphasis is on usability. Cut-outs and tie-downs on the motherboard tray help with cabling, and the chassis fans' speed knobs are mounted directly onto the front bezel. These modest improvements make it a more viable case than the 900, and we're glad that its price (after rebate) still squeaks in under the $100 mark.

Operating System

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition

$105, www.microsoft.com

You know our position on Windows 7: it kicks ass. So much so that we've recommended it as a primary OS since Microsoft released the public Release Candidate. But since we can't get away with recommending the RC version anymore, the OEM version is the way to go for your new PC, since it's the cheapest way to get a full copy. If you're truly a penny pincher, you can also just buy an upgrade copy of Windows 7 and run it as a fresh install (Check out how with this guide). We're also recommending the 64-bit edition, so you can utilize all 4GB of memory. Since our last price guide, the OEM version of Home Premium has dropped by 3 dollars. That's 300 pennies saved!

Price Breakdown

So how does it all break down? First, let's look at the specs for the last $1500 machine we built this past summer:

Part:	Model:	Price:
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58	$189
CPU	Intel Core i7-920	$280
Memory	Patreot 6GB Viper DDR3	$79
Cooler	Thermalright Ultra 120E-1366	$70
Video Card	Diamond Radeon HD 4870 X2	$389
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-S223	$25
Power Supply	Corsair 850TX	$135
Case	Thermaltake Element S	$120
Hard Drive	Seagate 1.5TB 7200.11 Barracuda	$130
OS	Windows 7 RC	$0

Below is the $1500 we've spec'd out today. The biggest difference lies in our decision to go with a Lynnfield processor instead of a lower-clocked Bloomfield, even though we actually spent more money on the processor/motherboard of this new machine. The video cards are similarly priced, but performance is far from comparable--the Radeon 5780 absolutely stomps the 4870 X2 of last year, and its a single-GPU card, to boot. Of course, we had to spend a small amount of the budget on operating system, but that's $105 well spent. $1500 is a magic price point for enthusiasts building a new system, and we're amazed at what you can get for the price.

Part:	Model:	Price:	(Price after rebate)	Newegg Link
Motherboard	Asus P7P55D Delue	$220		Link
CPU	Intel Core i7-860 (Lynnfield)	$290		Link
Memory	Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3/1600	$92		Link
Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus	$30		Link
Video Card	HIS H587F1GDG Radeon 5870	$400		Link
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-S223A	$30		Link
Power Supply	Corsair 850TX	$140	$120	Link
Case	Antec 900 Two	$120	$95	Link
Hard Drive	WD Caviar Black 1TB	$100		Link
OS	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit	$105		Link

Total: $1527 ($1482 after rebates)

Agree with our choices? Have a better configuration for a $1500 gaming PC? Post your thoughts in the comments below!

New Dell Zino HD is a Technicolor HTPC for $230

Paul Lilly — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:07 -0600

If the Mac Mini and a bag of Skittles were to share a night of unbridled love, we're pretty the love child of such an affair would look identical to the Zino HD, Dell's new line of colorful low-power home theater PCs.

Dell kicks off the HTPC line with several base configurations, each one built around an AMD processor. The least expensive Zino HD starts at just $230 and includes an AMD Athlon 2560e processor (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache), 2GB of DDR2-800 memory, 250GB hard drive spinning at 7200RPM, integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics, 2.1 audio, an 8X DVD burner, and Windows Vista Home Basic. The OS is a bit of a surprise, considering each of the three other configurations come with Windows 7 Home Premium in 64-bit trim.

The highest priced model checks in at $650 and kicks the processor up to an AMD Athlon 2850e (1.8GHz, 512KB L2 cache), doubles up on memory (4GB), adds twice as much storage (500GB), tosses in an ATI Radeon HD 4330 videocard with a 512MB frame buffer, and includes a 20-inch Dell ST2010 widescreen monitor.

All of the models come with 4 USB ports (2 each on the front and back) and 2 eSATA ports.

The Zino HD is available now through Dell.com.

Image Credit: Dell via Gizmodo

Velocity Micro Raptor Signature Edition

Gordon Mah Ung — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:45:16 -0600

First Windows 7 rig makes a smashingly fast, and pricey, debut

It is, perhaps, fitting that Velocity Micro’s new rig is called a Raptor.

That’s because anyone who has ever seen the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor in person and on afterburner knows just how overkill the F-22 is.

The same can be said of Velocity Micro’s Raptor Signature Edition. With people overjoyed just to have a $99 Athlon II X4 620, Velocity Micro decided to go shock-and-awe on the spec lists—and the wallet.

First up is Intel’s stellar Core i7-975 Extreme Edition. With a stock speed of 3.33GHz, Velocity Micro uses a custom CoolIt Domino ALC to get the processor to a very stable 4.2GHz. To “balance” this $1,000 CPU, Velocity Micro throws in probably $1,500 in GPUs in the form of three EVGA GeForce GTX 285s. Still not impressed? How about four SLC-based Intel X25-E Extreme 64GB SSD drives in RAID 0?

Mind you, these are not the pedestrian X25-M consumer drives; they’re enterprise-class drives that offer more than twice the write performance of the X-25M version and peg the read speeds at the SATA 3Gb/s limit. If you’re afraid of a four-drive RAID 0, you might feel better that the X25-E’s are designed for server use and should have 10 times the life of a consumer drive.

Quad-core, quad SSDs, and tri-SLI make the Raptor SE one fast--and expensive--machine.

Storage is handled by a single 1.5TB Seagate and two optical drives, one a Blu-ray burner. The entire rig is based on EVGA’s X58 SLI Classified motherboard. RAM is left to 6GB of Kingston DDR3/1600 modules. And, of course, there’s Windows 7 Ultimate in 64-bit mode, to boot. We’ve been taking a drubbing from the Mac fanatics for some time over Vista, but Win7 fixes all that and may even plant a Windows logo’d boot up OSX’s rear.

As much love as we have for Win7, it made comparisons with other systems difficult—up to now all the desktops we’ve reviewed have used Vista. On the other hand, the comparisons are valid as a PC purchased four months ago is likely still running Vista. If you buy into that line of reasoning, we can tell you that the Raptor SE is now the benchmark king in five of our six benchmarks. For a more direct comparison, we looked at the numbers from our September Dream Machines, which ran Windows 7, and as expected, those three boxes couldn’t touch the Raptor SE. For example, our midrange Core i7 Dream Machine (our new desktop zero point) puts out 37fps in Crysis at 1920x1200—the Velocity Micro pushes 70fps. The Raptor SE turns in no less than double-digit percentage gains in every test.

So, what’s the problem? Just like the F-22, which just got its ticket punched by a penny-pinching Pentagon and Congress—the price. At $9000, this is one of the most expensive rigs we’ve ever tested. With the 64GB X25-E drives each costing $800, a $1,000 CPU, and $1,500 in GPUs, the stratospheric price of the Raptor SE is enough to make even a DoD procurement clerk with use of the never-ending government Visa card cringe.

Still, we understand the need to be on top of the benchmarks, and respect that. We just wish it didn’t have to cost as much as a small nation’s GDP.