62 | MAXIMUMPC | HOLIDAY 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
ALL IT NEEDS IS
SOME FISH
From certain
angles it’s almost
hard to tell that
the Reactor holds
4.5 gallons of
oil, but put your
nose to the tank
and you’ll see
slow swirls and
thermal eddies
moving through
the machine.POWER SHARING
Dual 650-watt PSUs that work in
backup and additive mode let the
machine operate at reduced power
if one supply fails.And in fact, the first machine we received
was the quietest multi-GPU machine we’ve
ever tested. The second machine, however,
was far from silent, so we’ll have to wait for a
final build to render a verdict.AN INSIDE JOB
Opening the Reactor is not something you
want to do on a whim. You have to remove
20 screws from the top, open up two wells,
yank the core up a few inches, disconnect
cables, and then finally pull the guts out of
the well. This would let you service or swap
out components. Given the rig’s customiza-
tion, it’s expected that you would buy GPU
upgrades directly from Hardcore, which
modifies the cards with blocks and adds
a stiffening plate to the underside. The
company says it may also offer motherboard
upgrades directly to end users.
For folks who don’t want to get oily, the
company plans to off er factory upgrades of the
boxes. Since the same chassis will be used for
the company’s upcoming dual-processor work-
station machines, Hardcore may even off er
those mobos as an upgrade as well. The version
of the machine we received sports a total of
three x16 internal PCI-E slots and no PCI. Tri-SLI
eats up all three slots, but with just one or two
videocards, you could add other cards, e.g.,
an H.264 acceleration card—provided it was
designed to live in liquid.CUSTOM VS. PROPRIETARY
There’s a very fi ne line between custom and
proprietary parts. While enthusiasts are oft en
open to parts that eschew a standard design
in order to off er increased performance or
cachet, they shun the prospect of being locked
into a vendor’s parts without any perceived
benefi t. Do the custom features of the Reactor
cross that line or is it so damned cool that it’s
worth the sacrifi ce? We can’t say yet, but we
can say that the custom design has certainly
hurt the machine in one big area: no Core i7.
While a Core i7-based Reactor is forthcom-
ing, the company doesn’t have one to off er at
launch. Other vendors can simply swap out
old boards for new Core i7 boards, but Hard-
core will have to spin up a new board, which
will take some time. Having to wait on the
latest, greatest parts may ultimately be where
enthusiasts draw the line.
Stay tuned for a full review of the Reactor
once fi nal production models are available.
LEARN MORE ATMAXIMUMP C .com
http://www.tinyurl/hardcore-oilpcA^
WELL-OILED
MACHINE