BESTGAMINGPCS
ABS ULTIMATE X6
With a reputation for providing quality parts
at low prices, ABS isn’t typically mentioned
in the same breath as Falcon Northwest,
Voodoo, and Alienware. Knowing this, ABS
played it straight and down the middle with
its Ultimate X6 PC, one of only two Intel-
equipped rigs in the deathmatch. A 3.4GHz
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition fills the Socket T
riding on an Asus P5AD2 motherboard.
Like the Falcon rig, the Ultimate X6 fea-
tures forward-looking PCI Express support,
Corsair Micro DDR2, the de rigueur Western
Digital Raptor RAID array, and nVidia’s
GeForce 6800 Ultra. ABS chose not to over-
clock the CPU and videocard; the latter runs
the default clock speeds: 400MHz in the
core and 1100MHz memory. As one of two
systems that don’t include a soundcard, ABS
can argue that the onboard Intel HD Audio
implementation is at least spec’d to support
24-bit/96KHz audio.
The X6’s Lian Li PC-V1000 case really
stands out. Screaming “G5 envy,” the PC-
V1000 is durably constructed and features
an inverted motherboard design that places
the GPU upside down in an effort to increase
the cooling of the videocard. With the excep-
tion of the sharp, serrated edges, we like the
case—it offers slots for no less than six hard
drives, space ABS takes advantage of bysupplementing the Raptor’s fast but sparse
140GB with a 200GB Maxtor drive.
Aside from slightly sluggish perfor-
mance, our main criticism of the X6 is
that its wiring job and other pre-shipping
preparations could be better. We were com-
pletely puzzled and annoyed by the lack
of USB support; it appears that someone
in manufacturing disabled the USB ports.
Compounding this problem, the BIOS is
password-protected. That’s not a good sign.
Despite these shortcomings, the Ultimate
X6’s boasts an impressive price-to-perfor-
mance ratio. Overall, it’s a great value. But
the P4 Extreme is clearly outclassed by the
Athlon 64s and the highly overclocked P4 in
Falcon Northwest’s Mach V.VOODOO RAGE F:2
INTERCOOLED
Of all the participating vendors, we sus-
pect our short deadline may have put
the worst crimp on Voodoo. Known as
one of the trendsetters in PC design
and appearance, Voodoo’s motto for
its high-end machines has long been,
“It’ll be ready when we finish it.” The
company’s sensitivity to strict dead-
lines would certainly help explain the
Voodoo Rage F:2’s mixed results.
First, the GeForce 6800 Ultra had
problems running at its overclocked
speed of 439MHz. While it ran 3DMarK
3 fine, we experienced
corruption and crashing
in *eDi !CaDemy and
Doom 3 That just
goes to show you
that even a water-
cooled CPU and
videocard can have
problems. To com-
plete our tests, we
were forced to knockthe card back to its stock 425MHz core
and start all over again, which was a tad
bit annoying, to say the least.
With its CPU and videocard back to
stock speed, we didn’t think the F:2 had
much of a chance, but Voodoo fooled us.
The machine managed to win the *eDi
!CaDemy test (which previously caused
it to crash), one of the Doom 3 tests,
and one of the Far Cry tests. That’s pretty
damned impressive.
The system itself is state of the art
with its Socket 939-based Athlon 64 FX-- Unlike Velocity Micro and Alienware,
Voodoo opted to pair the GeForce 6800
Ultra with a new MSI K8N Neo 2 mother-
board featuring the nForce3 Ultra chipset.
This also might explain the performance
results. Even at its stock speeds, the F:2
managed to pull a few wins away from all
the other machines here.
For a machine made in a week and
a half, the F:2 is a beaut. The case is
ABS ULTIMATE X6MA XIMUMPC verdict .......... 7
$3,300, http://www.abspc.comThat’s no G5, it’s an ABS!42 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2004
Voodoo’s laser-cut cases
are damned sexythat even a water-videocard can have
problems. To com-
plete our tests, we
were forced to knock were forced to knockVoodoo’s laser-cut cases
are damned sexy