iBUYPOWER: 4.0GHz QX9650 and 3-way SLI 8800 Ultras
by Matt Campbell on April 10, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Specifications
Due to the huge number of choices at iBUYPOWER, the system under review doesn't really have a catchy name. We've used the case and processor names and dubbed it the SwordM-QX9650. As configured, the system is priced at $5,495. FedEx Express Saver is reasonably priced, especially for such a heavy case ($85 cross-country from CA to NY). Specs are as follows:
| iBUYPOWER SwordM-QX9650 | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, overclocked to 4.0GHz |
| Motherboard | EVGA nForce 780i SLI |
| Memory | 4 GB Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 |
| Video Card | Three (3) EVGA 8800 Ultra 768MB |
| Power Supply | Thermaltake Toughpower 1200-Watt |
| Case | Thermaltake SwordM (extruded aluminum) |
| Hard Drive | Two (2) Western Digital Raptor 150GB, 10k rpm,
striped One (1) Western Digital Caviar 750GB |
| OS | Vista Ultimate 64-bit |
| Removables | Memory Card Reader |
| DVD Burner | LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM and DVD+RW Optiarc DVD+RW |
| CPU Cooler | Thermaltake MaxOrb |
Overall, this system is about as loaded as it gets. Let's take a closer look.
Exterior
The system arrived in a flashy box, but this was simply the default box for the case. There were no logos or other identifying marks for iBUYPOWER other than the packing label. The indicated weight is 72 lbs.; this is not a light machine (though on the other hand, it's also not as heavy as the HP Blackbird 002).
The box got a little ripped on the journey, but didn't affect the interior.
There was no owner's binder or other system manual solution included, just the aluminum "wings" that jut out from the case, the case manual, and a couple of disks (OS recovery, motherboard utilities, and DVD software).
The case itself is rather interesting, with hydraulic doors, tons of fans, and even a personal touch from the designer, as well as the iBUYPOWER raised logo.
The back - note the holes at the bottom for wire routing
The top has two 120mm fans to help with cooling…
And you get four more 120mm fans in the side panel! How many fans do you really need? This seems to be overkill, honestly. So far we're at nine 120mm case fans.
Here's the case signature, which provided the basis for our "SwordM-QX9650" name.
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OblivionLord - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Im still not convinced that Crysis is cpu bound at high res considering the poster only went from 4x to 2x AA. That really isnt a whole lot of decreased eyecandy as opposed to Very High to High to Med. Lets also take into account that tri and quad SLI do not scale as well as 2-Sli. I really wouldn't come to a conclusion that it is CPU bound and I also don't buy the thought that the higher the res, the more physics are involved.bupkus - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
just what I was looking for... a three headed chicken.Yah, I could use that, too.
bill3 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Okay not exactly great, but my brother bought an $1100 Q6600/Vista64/8800GT/2GB RAM system from them and it's been superb. Personally it actually seemed to be the same cost as buying from newegg. And the wiring was freaking immaculate. I think it's worth it if you dont want mess with building your own, installing Vista, etc.A couple caveats, if you need more Ram grab it seperate from newegg, they overcharge you for additional RAM, and personally I would either make sure the build contains a good power supply or get one seperatly yourself.
bill3 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Oh and one major advantage at these places, is that you can hand pick your own name brand components.Contrast that with say, Dell..
strafejumper - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
the reviewer seems peeved that there is no anti-virus on his gaming rig.i understand this. However not everyone uses antivirus. There was a period where windows was particularly vulverable and i was getting viruses by just viewing a jpg or by just going to a website without clicking anything. I tried an antivirus then, and was disapointed.
1. I chose a popular one, norton, and i got a virus anyway. The first thing the virus did was screw norton up royally.
2. I wanted to avoid a virus from slowing down my gaming computer, when i installed norton what was the first thing i noticed? the computer was slower...!?
3. Still found that i was vulnerable to adware, to prevent adware as well i would have to download another app that would slow down my computer even more!
4. The anti-virus was a resource hog. Memory, cpu, even caught it using bandwith to download updates in the middle of my playing a game online! This is the opposite of what i want, i want absolutely nothing running while i am gaming.
For all these reasons im almost always without anti-virus its not for everyone - i just go stick to major websites and most email services such as yahoo automatically scan email attachments. So for a few of us who are careful and are able to spot shady exe's its possible to survive without.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Actually, I think the problem is that there are 50 processes *without* any security suite running. I actually uninstall any security suites as the first step of every laptop/system I review/use, though I'm sure some people like the "freebie" (never mind the nagging that comes 3 months later).strafejumper - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
i bought one prebuilt system for my first pc and have been building my own since then.the most important thing for me, and what would make me consider buying prebuilt such as ibuypower, is gettting a tried and tested system that totally works out of the box. So many hardware / driver issues / bios settings issues can potentially come up when you build yourself, even seemingly silly things like picky HDDs that only would work with certain IDE cables and motherboards that shipped with a cd with bad drivers (incompatable with XP sp2) have ruined my builds for long periods while i tested every little thing.
Prebuilt is supposed to avoid all this crap and work out of the box. When anandtech reports bluescreens and hiccups in games i just stop right there, no point in buying a prebuilt if its not very very stable out of the box. Imagine after you fix some of the problems, you get a virus or something and then use the restore cd, you are restoring it to a state where it is unstable...
Maffer - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
SP1 does not matter much. It installs all nvidia recommended multigpu-hotfixes which I had already installed. Same crashes remain after installing SP1 if I use any other driver than 174.31 or 174.51 (these also worked before installing SP1). 174.51 is just a bit faster overall than 174.31.chizow - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
Did you guys bother to check to see if SP1 was installed? I know part of the review was to see how the machine ran out of the box but even some of the errors on the problems page indicate the OS was not updated. Even if iBuyPower didn't update the OS it probably would've been a good idea to do so since there's no less than half a dozen *CRITICAL* hot fixes for that system related to 4GB, Vista, video driver TDRs, SLI, virtual memory allocation etc.Maffer - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
Yes, these systems are for 2560x1600 resolution. I run 780i system with watercooled GTX SLI-setup to play with 30" screen. So far I found 174.51 *leaked* beta drivers to be the best solution for games (DX9 & DX10 SLI works without any crashes). "Minor" problem is that SLI must be disabled to play video in fullscreen mode or the system will freeze immediately. Problems vary with different systems though, these are just examples.