38 MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2006
Dream
Machine
Dreamy Speed
We said it’s more than just a pretty face—Dream Machine 11 brings the heat
B
esides its too-sexy-for-my-mobo
paint job and next-gen compo-
nents, this year’s Dream Machine
was born and bred for all-out speed in
today’s applications—not those on the
horizon. Considering our powerfully
refreshed zero-point machine and the
spate of super-clocked, preened and
pimped-out boxes we’ve reviewed in the
last few months, we had to really push the
limits to make our Dream rig shine.
Fortunately, the stars aligned to bring
us Intel’s new Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU.
If Intel chose the wrong fork in the road
when it built the NetBurst microarchitec-
ture (used in the Pentium 4), then the Core
microarchitecture in the Core 2 Extreme
slams the car into reverse and does a Jim
Rockford-style high-speed 180.
In Dream Machine 11, The C2E, nForce
590 SLI mobo, dual-RAID arrays, and two
GeForce 7900 GTX cards add up to, well,
the fastest machine we’ve ever seen. Don’t
believe us? Peep our benchmark chart which
compares Dream Machine 11 to the high-per-
formance zero-point system we just erected
in June. That was built with the best parts you
could buy fi ve months ago, but against DreamMachine 11, it looks mighty dated.
In SYSmark2004 SE, which tests how
fast a machine is using more than a dozen
applications (including Microsoft Word,
Excel, DreamWeaver and 3dsmax), Dream
Machine destroyed the competition with
a record score of 416. The next fastest
machine is Monarch’s Nemesis, which
scored a puny 305 (August). Our zero-point
system was stuck at 275 and BAPCo’sown database shows Intel’s previ-
ous top dog, the dual-core 3.73GHz
Pentium Extreme Edition 965,
bogged down at 292. The good
news is that the Dream Machine
didn’t stop at SYSmark.
In our custom Adobe
Premiere Pro 2.0 benchmark,
we add transitions to an
HDV-resolution video and
output it to Windows Media
at 720p resolution. It’s a
punishing test, taking 50
minutes to create a three min-
ute video on our 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-60.
The Dream Machine almost cuts that time
in half, fi nishing the video in about half an
hour. That’s 20 minutes given back to us
by the goodness of this pure power PC.
Adobe Photoshop CS2 users also might
consider building to our Dream Machine
spec. In our custom action script, which
starts with a RAW photo fi le before apply-
ing an ass-load of fi lters and effects to the
image, we saw the Dream Machine fi nish
the task almost 80 percent faster than our
zero-point. When we pitted DM11 against
the next-fastest rig we’ve tested, a 3GHz
overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60 Overdrive
rig that we reviewed in July, the DreamMachine ran 48 percent faster.
This year’s Dream Machine also ran
insanely fast on our punishing DVD-to-
MPEG-4 conversion test. The previous
record holder was Overdrive’s overlocked
3GHz Athlon 64 FX-60, with a score of
952 seconds—the Dream Machine bested
Overdrive’s score by a whopping 25 per-
cent. Wee haw!
In gaming, we’re pretty much lookingat an even playing fi eld. Almost every rig
we’ve tested since June has featured a
pair of GeForce 7900 GTX cards in SLI.
The key difference is the clock speed
of the cards. But even equipped with
the same cards as lesser machines,
this year’s Dream Machine managed to
hammer out double-digit performance
increases. In FEAR, which mostly tests
GPU performance, DM had an almost
27 percent performance advantage over
our zero-point machine, but was slightly
beaten by the quad-GPU Overdrive rig.
In Quake 4, which features multithreading
and is less GPU limited, Dream Machine
11 was 31 percent faster than our zero-
point machine. Even better, we spanked
the quad-SLI Overdrive rig by almost
eight frames per second.
To recap, this year’s Dream Machine
walked into a room full of über-fast PCs and
wiped the fl oor with them. DM11 now holds
fi ve of six benchmark records. Five of six, and
most by a huge margin. Overdrive may have
captured the FEAR title, but that wonky quad-
SLI rig out-horsepowered our more effi cient
Dream Machine by a mere seven frames per
second. In our opinion the performance ben-
efi ts of a quad setup aren’t worth the hassle,
especially at standard resolutions.
Our goal with every Dream Machine
is to build the fastest possible PC with
the best components available. The
benchmarks show that we’ve accom-
plished our mission.BENCHMARKS
SYS mark 2004 SE 275ZERO POINT SCORESPremiere Pro 2.0^3000 sec
Photoshop CS 2 295 sec
Recode 2.0 2100 sec
FEAR 75 fps
Quake 4 110.5 fps0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%416
1900
164
760 (+176.32%)145 fps95Our current desktop test bed is a Windows XP SP2 machine, using a dual-core 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-60, 2GB of Corsair DDR400 RAM on an Asus
A8N32-SLI motherboard, two GeForce 7900 GTX videocards in SLI mode, a Western Digital 4000KD hard drive, a Sound Blaster X-Fi soundcard, and
a PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 850 PSU.Dreamy Speed
We said it’s more than just a pretty face—Dream Machine 11 brings the heat
own database shows Intel’s previ-
ous top dog, the dual-core 3.73GHz
Pentium Extreme Edition 965,
bogged down at 292. The good
news is that the Dream Machinebenchmark,output it to Windows Mediaminutes to create a three min-
ute video on our 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-60.
The Dream Machine almost cuts that time
in half, fi nishing the video in about half an
hour. That’s 20 minutes given back to us
by the goodness of this pure power PC.We said it’s more than just a pretty face—Dream Machine 11 brings the heat
own database shows Intel’s previ-
ous top dog, the dual-core 3.73GHzbogged down at 292. The good
news is that the Dream Machineute video on our 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-60.
The Dream Machine almost cuts that time
Thanks to the Core 2 Extreme CPU,
DM11 now holds five of six bench-
mark records.