MaximumPC 2004 08

Reviews

Marauder Plus 64

What a shame—this PC is fast, but lacks

stability

T

he Maximum PC Lab receives

many high-end systems for

review, most of which are

quite similar in terms of compo-

nents and performance. So when

we receive a system that manages

to set itself apart from the others,

it’s always a welcome breath of

fresh air.

Marauder’s Plus 64 system imme-

diately distinguished itself by being

one of the quietest systems we’ve

ever reviewed—one editor even had

to open the case to convince him-

self the machine was actually on.

The Plus 64 is also one of the first

systems we’ve received that features

a next-gen videocard, namely an

e-VGA e-GeForce

6800 Ultra that

made mincemeat

of our gaming

benchmarks.

Sadly, the Plus 64

made a less-than-

favorable impres-

sion by faltering

where few other

high-end systems

do: Stability. It

crashed repeated-

ly during testing.

That’s a

shame because

the Plus 64 has

everything we

look for in a

quality system.

It has a speedy

Athlon 64 3800+

processor, two

gigs of high-end Corsair RAM,

and a solid, feature-laden moth-

erboard—the Asus A8V Deluxe

(reviewed on page 69). The system

also features two roomy 160GB

hard drives in a RAID 0 configura-

tion, a wealth of removable storage

options, and the benchmark-bust-

ing 6800 Ultra. And thanks to its

whisper-quiet CPU, case fans, and

Akasa PaxMate soundproofing

material adorning the case doors,

it generates very little noise.

The Plus 64 blew us away with

its performance in our gaming

benchmarks. We had to search for

dental records to identify what

was left of Halo and Jedi Academy

after the Plus 64 was finished with

them. Our review unit netted 74.3

frames per second in Halo and 105

frames per second in Jedi Academy ,

nearly double that of our zero-

point system scores. Impressive,

and if the review were to end

here, we would slap on a score of

9 and the Kick Ass! logo and call

it a day.

Here’s where the review turns

ugly. The Plus 64 coughed up a

disappointing 161 score in SYSmark

2004 , which is low for an Athlon

64-based system. The 3800+

processor’s 512k L2 cache is partly

to blame. Even worse, obtaining a

usable SYSmark 2004 score was an

ordeal—we experienced a sporadic

series of random lockups and crashes

when installing the benchmark soft-

ware. Only after repeated attempts to

install and run SYSmark 2004 were

we able to generate a score. To be fair

to Marauder, this doesn’t mean every

system the company builds will suf-

fer such instability, and the company

does offer a one-year warranty and a

30-day money-back guarantee for its

products. But still, it was immensely

disappointing to encounter such

problems in a $3,200 system.

What’s more, the Plus 64 lacks

a dedicated soundcard. While the

A8V mobo’s integrated audio deliv-

ers decent output and features eight

channels of sound and a SPDIF out,

we’re accustomed to hearing Audigy

2 ZS-caliber sound from a primo PC.

—TAE KIM

UNDER THE HOOD

DISPLAY

Videocard eVGA e-GeForce 6800 Ultra

(450 MHz core, 600 MHz DDR)

STORAGE

Hard drives 2 x 160GB Seagate Barracuda V

(7200RPM, SATA) in RAID 0

Optical Lite-On DVD+/-RW burner

(SOHW812S, 8x DVD+/-R, 4x

DVD+/-RW, 12x DVD, 40x CD-R,

24x CD-RW, 40x CD), Samsung

DVD/CD-RW combo (SM-

352BEN/B, 16x DVD, 52x

CD-R, 24x CD-RW, 52x CD)

Other Mitsumi 1.44 floppy

BUNDLE

Windows XP

THE BRAINS

CPU AMD Athlon64 3800+ (2.4 GHz

clock speed)

Mobo Asus A8V Deluxe (Socket 939,

Via K8T800 Pro)

RAM 2GB Corsair XMS (4 x 512MB

modules)

I/O ports Six USB 2.0 (two front, four

rear), one parallel, one serial,

two IEEE 1394, SPDIF out,

optical in

LAN Integrated Gigabit Ethernet,

integrated 802.11 Wi-Fi

AUDIO

Soundcard Integrated RealTek ALC850

8-channel audio

Case Evercase GC4292 case

Power supply Zalman ZM400A 400W PSU

Fans/extras Zalman CNPS7000A CPU fan,

120mm exhaust fan, 2x 60mm

intake fan, Akasa PaxMate

soundproofing

FINE DETAILS

BOOT: 47 sec. DOWN: 23 sec.

The Plus 64’s case comes with soundproofing and fans, resulting

in a PC so silent one Maximum PC staffer didn’t believe it was on!

Fast game performance, amazingly quiet.

MOS DEF

DEF LEPPARD

Unstable, low SYSmark 2004 score, no dedi-

cated soundcard.

$3,200, http://www.marauderpc.com

MAXIMUMPC VERDICT 5

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Our zero-point system includes: a 2.2GHz Athlon 64 FX-51, an Asus SK8N mother-

board, 1GB of Corsair Registered TwinX DDR400 RAM, an ATI Radeon 9800 XT, a

250GB Western Digital WD2500JB hard drive, Plextor PX-708A DVD burner and a PC

Power and Cooling TurboCool 510 Deluxe power supply.

58 MAXIMUMPC AUGUST 2004