MaximumPC 2007 06

reviewsTes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

june 2007 MAXIMUMPC 67

cores we’ve seen, the encoder crashed the

machine within minutes, yet the Mach V

made it through the test with no issues.

Our second test is a bit more controver-

sial. Another PC vendor approached us with

general concerns about overclocking their

quad-core rigs and provided us with a script

they developed internally to test their systems.

The script launches four instances of the

Prime95 burn-in test, which maxes out a CPU

core by searching for Mersenne prime num-

bers. We’re normally reticent to run vendor-

created tests on machines we review, but our

curiosity about quad-core stability trumped

our other concerns. With four sessions of

Prime95 going, the Mach V was rebooting

spontaneously within 10 minutes.

That put us in a tough position. The

Mach V aced all of our normal bench-

marks, plus our multithreaded ProShow

test—almost all of which use real-world

workloads. Prime95 uses real math, but

is the workload realistic for normal users?

Probably not. All our standard tests show

that the Mach V is a stable machine under

normal operating loads but can be brought

down under certain circumstances. This is

better than the other quad cores we tested,

which crashed running our normal bench-

marks. Still, it’s not ideal.

And then there’s the price. At $9,900,

the Mach V is one of the most expensive

machines we’ve ever reviewed—it’s more

expensive than some of our Dream Machines.

However, it outperforms all of the overclocked

quad-core boxes we’ve reviewed to date in

most benchmarks, and it’s more stable. We are

concerned that system vendors are pushing

clock speeds too far. And, as fast as this rig is,

its price makes it a difficult pill to swallow for all

but the wealthiest enthusiast.

—Gordon Mah UnG

$9,900, http://www.falcon-nw.com

falcon northwest mach v

enGlish

Fastest PC we’ve ever

tested.

Metric^9

High-pitched component

whine under certain loads.