Our other benchmarks ran fine, however.
In our Premiere Pro 2.0 benchmark, where
we make a small movie starting with HD
video and outputting it to WMV9 at 720p,
we finally saw a difference between the FX-
60 and Intel’s Pentium Extreme Edition 955.
Previously, the 955 system delivered almost
exactly the same time as our Athlon 64 FX-- The overclocked DualX changed that.
Even though the Gamer’s Edge has only a 12
percent clock bump over our stock FX-60,
it finished our Premiere Pro 2.0 test about
22 percent faster. The machine was also an
impressive 20 percent faster than our zero-
point in the Photoshop CS2 script.
The most unusual score came in our
new Nero Recode 2 test, where we encode
VOB files from a DVD to an MPEG-4 format
to play on a Sony PSP. We saw the DualX
finish the test in an astounding 17 minutes
(about 100 percent faster than our test rig).
That doesn’t jibe with our tests during the
benchmark build-out process, so we’ve
contacted the developer to root out any
possible bugs. In our two gaming bench-
marks, the DualX’s overclocked CPU and
videocards helped the rig achieve scores
about 10 percent faster than our zero-point
in both FEAR and Quake 4.
The DualX’s performance deserves
applause, but its noise level doesn’t. We also
have to ding the machine for its untidiness.
While we don’t expect every system’s wiring
to look Voodoo-clean, the DualX’s interior
could be tighter. Still, these aren’t horrible
faults, and when it comes to the benchmark
numbers, this rig delivers.
—GORDON MAH UNGWe love the DualX’s custom audio har-
ness, which lets the front audio jacks on
the case talk to the X-Fi card.reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
68 MA XIMUMPC JUNE 2006 JUNE 2006 MA XIMUMPC 69
$5,600, http://www.velocitymicro.comVE LOCITY MICRO GAMER’S EDGE DUALXMICHAEL KEATON
Full-tilt SLI for almost two
grand less than the com-
petition.
MICHAEL CRICHTON^8
A Hoover-vacuum impression
mars an otherwise nice PC.