32 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2006
5
SABRE G
$2,500, http://www.systemax.comS
ystemax seems to be missing two letters from its
alphabet: Q and A—as in quality assurance. We
came to this conclusion when none of the system’s six
USB ports would recognize a mouse. Each port pro-
vided power, and Windows emitted its two-tone device-
recognition signal, but the pointer wouldn’t budge.
The problem wasn’t limited to mice. None of the
USB ports would mount any of the USB hard drives we
use to install our benchmark applications, either. After
extensive but fruitless troubleshooting, we wound up
plugging in an eSATA hard drive to install our bench-
marks, and we used a PS/2 mouse to run them. If
Systemax will ship a system in such a state for review,
we have to wonder about the quality of product it ships
to customers.
While we’re on the topic of build quality, the
tower case Systemax selected looked as though it was
painted in our cousin Manny’s basement: The paint onthe steel case felt decidedly grainy, and the paint
job on the plastic bezel was not only sloppy but
also a shade lighter.
Systemax made generally solid component
choices, including two stock-clocked ATI Radeon
X1950 XTX videocards in CrossFire, a pair of
Western Digital 74GB Raptors in RAID 0 (supple-
mented by a 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.
backup drive), and a Creative Labs Sound
Blaster X-Fi, but its best scores were second-
place fi nishes in two benchmarks: Quake 4 and
Photoshop (and we couldn’t coax the system to
run 3DMark06 at all).
We realize $2,500 is a tight budget to work
with, but it’s certainly not chump change. We’d
have been happier if Systemax had spent some of
its scratch to make sure we received a trouble-
free computer.The Sabre G67 has an X-Fi soundcard,
but Systemax neglected to connect it to
the case’s front-panel headphone jack.6
FX530XG
$2,500, http://www.gateway.comGateway FX530XG
A surprisingly kludgey effort from this mainstream manufacturer
HOW SYSTEMAX SPENT $2,
HOW GATEWAY SPENT $2,
Systemax Sabre G
Good component choices undone by sloppy build quality
Opinions of the FX530XG’s case were
mixed: Everyone dug the tool-free
design, but some editors thought the
lines were too 1980s retro.G
ateway jumped on the BTX bandwagon early, and it
remains suffi ciently enamored with the formfactor
to use it for this mainstream gaming PC. Frankly, we
don’t understand why.
BTX’s primary benefi t—improved airfl ow that
accommodates slower, quieter cooling fans—isn’t all
that signifi cant now that Intel’s cool Core 2 Duo is on
the scene. And the BTX case that Gateway chose is
so compact that it won’t accommodate a pair of ATI’s
X1950 XTX cards—at least not with their new super-
quiet heatsink/fan combos. Gateway’s solution was to
retrofi t one of the two videocards with the hair-dryer
cooler from the older X1900 XTX. What’s worse, the fan
never spins down from maximum—nullifying one of
BTX’s biggest advantages and easily rendering this box
the noisiest of the lot.
But Gateway deserves credit for detecting a video-card driver problem that affected one of our bench-
mark tests, Company of Heroes. Gateway’s product
manager brought the situation to ATI’s attention
before shipping the system and obtained a new
driver that fi xes the anomaly; Gateway was the only
vendor that provided us with these new drivers.
Aside from a virtual tie for fi rst place in
3DMark06’s Deep Freeze benchmark, however,
the Gateway signifi cantly underperformed the rest
of the fi eld. Alienware’s single-videocard Area-
5500 was the only machine to deliver slower per-
formance with Quake 4, and the Gateway came in a
full 13 frames per second behind the GeForce 7950
GX2-equipped Overdrive Core2.GX2 playing FEAR.
Gateway delivers some choice components
in its $2,500 box; unfortunately, the whole doesn’t
quite equal the sum of its parts.THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 777 7777 777
CPU/MOBO 30% STORAGE 16% GRAPHICS 33.6% OTHER 20.4%CPU/MOBO 30% STORAGE 18% GRAPHICS 33.6% OTHER 18.4%