reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized
This is the second rig we’ve tested
using our new benchmarks and for the most
part it performed admirably. The rig’s best
scores came in Photoshop CS3, which at
102 seconds was nearly 50 percent faster than
our zero-point, and Quake 4, where we saw
our fastest frame rates ever: 239 fps, which
not only devastated the zero-point (135 fps)
but also bested the Falcon Northwest rig (226
fps) that has held the record since June. Vista
gaming is finally catching up to XP!
We found decent gains in our ProShow
Producer, Premiere Pro CS3, and Fear 1.07
benchmarks as well. In fact, the only bench-
mark in which the Sonic Boom OCX had any
trouble at all was our MainConcept encoder
test, where it had plenty. It locked up in two
out of three runs. When it finally completed a
test, its score was a disappointing 1,451 sec-onds—slower than our zero-point system.
The system didn’t fare well in our Prime95
stress testing, either. One core usually failed
less than an hour into the tests, and it wasn’t
until we set all clock speeds back to stock that
we saw any real long-term stability. Granted,
a stress test is the ultimate machine punisher,
especially on a machine as overclocked as
this one, but like many other vendors recently,
Hypersonic went a few megahertz too far.
Hypersonic sent us a system that looked
great and performed pretty damn well on our
benchmarks. We appreciated the massive
overclocks, forward-thinking Penryn, ESA
architecture, and flight-simulator setup, as well
as the overall build quality. But stability issues
hurt this machine, as does its volume—the
fans are simply too loud. We understand that
Hypersonic, freshly acquired by OCZ, may stillbe adjusting to its new environment; hopefully,
this is simply an aberration, and the next rig
we see from the company will be firmly back
in 9 Kick Ass territory. But nearly $8,000 for a
loud machine that crashes occasionally just
doesn’t meet our expectations.
—NathaN Edwards$7,800 w/monitors and flight sim setup;
$6,600 w/out, http://www.hypersonic-pc.comHypersonic sonic boom ocxhypErioN
Penryn, ESA, dual 8800
Ultras, sensible storage,
beautiful paint job, killer
accessories...
hypErbolE6
...but it’s clocked too fast for
its own good, and it’s noisy.http://www.maximumpc.com | feb 08 | MAXIMUMPC 69
the Enthusiast system architecture enables the power supply, cooling system, and motherboard to talk to each other.