Posted 11/18/09 at 08:30:13 AM by Paul Lilly

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.

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Posted 11/02/09 at 11:01:00 AM by Paul Lilly

Let's be realistic for a moment. Few would classify Maingear's new Shift series as supercomputers for the homestead, but we'll give Maingear this much: these new PCs pack a punch.

"The Shift bucks the trend of plastic, bloated, commodity PCs. It's a statement of our commitment to performance, reliability, and support," said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of Maingear. "Featuring vertical airflow, all the cooling necessary for today's high performance, and backed by the best technical support team in the business, Maingear is committed to maintaining our lead in the market."

The configurable PCs come built around your choice of Intel's P55 or X58 platform and come with a Core i7 800 series or 900 series CPU. DDR3 memory options include up to 8GB on the P55 platform, or up to 24GB in the X58 setup. You can choose from a plethora of videocards culminating in a pair of dual-GPU GTX 295s, and for storage duties, Maingear will slap up to 6 mechanical or 12 SSD drives into your rig. Other options include Blu-ray, liquid cooling, Razer peripherals, Killer NIC Xeno Pro card, and of course Windows 7.

Maingear promises each Shift system will ship with no bloatware, and they've all been tuned to take advantage of GPGPU computing.

The new PCs are available now starting at $2,200 (P55) and $2,600 (X58). In Q4, Maingear says it will add a Xeon-based setup with Nvidia's Quadro graphics to the lineup.

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Posted 09/23/09 at 12:15:40 PM by Paul Lilly

AMD is back in the high-end graphics game with the release of its ATI HD Radeon 5870, the fastest single-GPU videocard anywhere on the planet (see our review and benchmarks here). And now that it's been released, we expect no shortage of system vendors to step up to the plate with new rigs build around the potent GPU.

One of the first to announce immediate availability of the new cards is Maingear. The boutique system vendor says the HD 5870 can be configured with the company's Ephex, F131, Prelude, and X-Cube (SFF) systems.

"We're proud to feature the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics processor in our award-winning custom PCs," says Wallace Santos, CEO and found of Maingear. "It's only fitting that the world's fastest GPU find its way into what has been hailed by editors all over America as the fastest gaming computers on the market."

For those of you needing to push pixels at ultra-high resolutions with all the eye candy cranked up, Maingear says its ePhex supports up to three HD 5870 cards in CrossFireX, and up to two in the Prelude and X-Cube.

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Posted 08/28/09 at 02:00:37 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

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.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 07/24/09 at 08:30:45 AM by Paul Lilly

Maingear claims its new eX-L18 laptop is the "World's Most Power Gaming Notebook," and while we've seem some desktop replacements built around the Core i7 platform that might dispute that title, the eX-L18 is at least one of the fastest spec'd Core 2 notebooks on the block.

Sporting a generous 18.4-inch LCD, Maingear's latest lappy comes configurable with up to an Intel Core 2 Extreme X9300 processor (2.53GHz), 4GB or 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, up to three 2.5-inch SATA or SSD drives with RAID support, a DVD or Blu-ray optical drive, and the crème de la crème of mobile gaming hardware: A pair of GTX 280M GPUs in SLI. 

"Maingear has equipped the eX-L18 with the world's fastest notebook graphics solution," said Rene Hass, GM of the notebook business unit at Nvidia. "With Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M GPUs, Maingear's customers will experience breathtaking in gaming physics from titles such as Terminator Salvation or Darkest of Days and are ready for GPU computing applications such as Badaboom, vReveal, and Arcsoft SimHD."

Gamers will also experience a noticeably lighter wallet with pricing starting out at $3,000 for a base configuration. All configurations include a "Nighthawk Black Automotive Finish."

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Posted 06/19/09 at 10:30:08 AM by Paul Lilly

Maingear has just unveiled its Axess HD Gamer, a low-profile HTPC rig that manages to muscle a fully fledged gaming PC into a low profile design.

"The Axess HD Gamer was conceived to deliver unsurpassed gaming performance fused with advanced media center capabilities all contained within a low profile case, making the perfect cornerstone for any home theater environment," said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of Maingear.

The base configuration includes an Intel Core i7 920 processor, 3GB of triple channel DDR3-1333MHz memory, an Asus Rampage II Gene X58 mATX motherboard, two Nvidia GeForce 9800GT videocards with 1GB of GDDR3 per card, 500GB hard drive, 16X DVD reader, Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit, and a Phantom Lapboard.

If that's not powerful enough, several upgrades are available, some of which include an Intel Core i7 975 processor, 12GB of memory, Blu-ray drive, a pair of Intel X-25M SSDs, and more.

Pricing starts out at $1,800.

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Posted 06/05/09 at 10:14:10 AM by Paul Lilly

Maingear this week announced the Pulse gaming PC, the first Ion-based rig to sport upgradeable Nvidia graphics. The company also claims its Pulse is the "world's greenest gaming PC."

Built around Nvidia's Ion platform, the Pulse comes standard with an Intel 65W Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad processor, integrated GeForce 9300 graphics upgradeable to a discrete 9800 GT ECO card which the company says consumes 40 percent less power than a standard 9800 GT, up to 8GB of DDR2-800 memory, up to a 500GB hard drive or 160GB SSD, and an 80+ certified 300W power supply.

"The Maingear Puls with Nvidia graphics perfect for anyone who wants a small, energy efficient, and stylish PC," Maingear stated in a press release. "With its Nvidia Ion-based motherboard, the Pulse delivers the best graphics solution available for low-power, small form factor designs.

The Pulse is available now starting at $800.

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Posted 03/27/09 at 10:15:50 AM by Paul Lilly

Maingear makes its way into the ultraportable scene with the release of its new MX-L. Not the slimmest notebook around, the MX-L measures 1.3 to 1.44 inches high, 12.125 inches wide, and 9.125 inches deep, and weighs 4.4 pounds.

Underneath the hood, the 13.3-inch ultraportable comes standard with a 1280x800 LED backlit display, Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4GHz) processor on the GM45 chipset, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory, Intel GMA X4500HD graphics, a 120GB Seagate Momentus 5400.4 hard drive, 8X DVD burner, WiFi, 1.3MP webcam, and Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. Upgrade options include ramping up to an Intel T9800 (2.93GHz), up to 8GB of RAM, a larger capacity hard drive or Intel's X25-M 80GB/160GB SSD, and a Blu-ray drive.

But perhaps the coolest feature of of the MX-L is that Maingear offers free laser etching with "whatever artwork you send us." We can think of a few wicked designs we wouldn't mind having etched on our notebook.

The MX-L is available now starting at $1,100, or nearly three times as much when fully decked out.

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