Or not

Scratch that whole Maingear thing. While I do think Maingear is the best all-around option for a system builder, I'm faced with the reality that I'm just not rolling in enough dough, and Maingear doesn't offer any financing. Hmm... well, I could always go with a builder that does finance, which would pretty much put me back with Falcon NW, or maybe Voodoo. Not a bad shake, although it is pricey. Hmmm... I may have to look into that.

But anyway, I'm basically looking at building it myself instead. The fact that I can build the exact system I want for a little over $2000 (including a monitor and speakers) makes it hard to justify the extra $1000 or more I'd spend with a boutique builder, regardless of the warranty and support you get with them.

One deciding factor, though, frankly, was the builders themselves. I'm interested in performance-tuning my system, but if I do any tweaking myself, I void their warranties. Well, originally, the whole idea behind overclocking was to save money, not pay a premium price for it. Hell, why not just buy the next higher-end chip? I want to keep upgrading my system in the future, and I don't always want to look to a third part vendor to charge me a premium for something I can do myself rather easily in my spare time.

So that is a bit of a factor. But also, I'm interested in the experience of building it myself, of really understanding how it all works. And, of course, the prospect of saving over $1000 doesn't sound too shabby either.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

After being in contact with reps from Falcon Northwest, Overdrive, and Maingear, I've finally been able to pick a winner. Really, it wasn't a hard decision at all. I've been leaning their way for a while, but the decision is final: My next PC will be from Maingear.

Falcon Northwest was decent, but as countless critics and others have pointed out, overpriced. I contacted Falcon and told them that I'd narrowed it down to them, Maingear and Overdrive. I explained what I was looking for and what the others were offering. The rep's response was that he "had never heard of" Overdrive and Maingear. Call me crazy, but if you're a highly trained technician for the original boutique gaming PC company, shouldn't you know a thing or two about your competition? Especially considering the rave reviews Overdrive and Maingear have been getting? He said he would "do some research" and that in the meantime I should read customer feedback on all the companies. He did get back to me with a second email, based purely on his first impressions of Overdrive. First impressions based on their website? Try reading the reviews. Yeah. I'm way ahead of this guy. Don't get me wrong, he was very cordial, but I expected more from the most established boutique vendor.

Overdrive darn near had me. Hoo boy do they make purdy PCs. They perform great and their service is great too. There are only two real problems. One is something I raised on their forums, which is their default warranty. Plain and simple, it sucks. Maingear and Falcon just run rings around Overdrive's bare-minimum warranty. For such highly tuned systems, a three-year warranty should be a standard, not a $300 option. Don't get me wrong, the 3-year platinum is fantastic should you buy it, and I'm not totally opposed to warranty upgrade options, but for systems pushed to the extreme edge of stability the standard warranty should be much better than the merely "passable" warranty that OPC offers as standard.

The other issue with Overdrive was simply their value. Mario Cifaldi, the CTO, makes much ado about their "free power". However, I though it was interesting that a system integrator like Monarch could build a system with stock parts that were faster than the overclocked parts of the Overdrive for less money. That an extreme comparison, sure, but among boutique vendors, Overdrive doesn't save you as much as you might think. The problem simply boils down to logistics: say you can use a less expensive processor and overclock it to achieve approximately the same performance as a more expensive processor. That works fine as long as there isn't a premium cost associated with the overclocking on the lower-end chip. Cifaldi has claimed that he'll work as many as 90 hours a week tweaking systems. The fact is that when you have to put that much time into stabilizing a system, the mere costs of time and labor significantly closes the gap between the cost of the high-end chip and the lower-end chip. This can be plainly seen in this excerpt from a review of the Gemeni.SLI from CNET:

"The Velocity Micro Raptor 64 Dual X makes a good comparison system for the Gemini.SLI; the ABS M6 Sniper and the Polywell Poly 939N4X2 systems we reviewed lack the Overdrive's build quality, and the Falcon Northwest Mach V is significantly overpriced. The Gemini.SLI has a relatively spare configuration: for $4,008, you get only one optical drive, no mouse or keyboard, and an aging Sound Blaster Audigy SE sound card. When we configured an Overdrive Gemini.SLI and a Velocity Micro Raptor 64 with nearly identical specs, the only difference was the CPU and the motherboard. A Gemini.SLI, equipped with an overclocked Athlon 64 X2 4400+, came to $4,343; a Velocity Micro system with an Athlon 64 FX-60 came to $4,375. Clearly, Overdrive's overclocked CPU doesn't save you much money. (For the sake of transparency, Velocity wouldn't let us configure a single primary hard drive, so we went with two 74GB Raptor drives, the closest we could get to the single 150GB Raptor drive in the Gemini.SLI.)"

Which brings me to Maingear. Maingear's customer service lived up to their reputation: Responsive, cordial, and knowledgeable. The rep was very familiar with Falcon and Overdrive, saying I had "great taste" and that all three of my options are "excellent choices." Right away I was asked what kind of configuration I was looking at from the other builders. I sent my configurations to them, and quickly got a reply back with their own configuration, explaining all the components used, the level of performance, the total cost involved, and how it would all save me bling. What it boils down to is that through Maingear I'm getting better parts, comparable or better performance, a better warranty and of course reputable service and support for a good deal less money than the others.

I'm excited. Just a little more moolah and I'll be ready to spring for a great new PC. I can feel pretty confident that I've made the absolute best choice for my money.

The Finalists: Winners and Losers

Well, at the moment the only thing preventing me from buying my new PC is the dough. Financing isn't an option with the guys I'm looking at (and really I'm not so sure I'd want to do that anyway) so it looks like it'll be a few weeks before I can take the plunge. In the meantime I have just a little time to reflect on who it is that's most likely to end up with my business, who is not going to get my business, and why. I've narrowed it down to just three finalists. But before I tell you about the best, here are the rest...

The Losers:

1. Alienware: I though it would be appropriate to start with Alienware because they're the largest and most famous boutique vendor. Their website was the first place I looked when I was getting interested in buying a high-end PC, mainly because I'd heard of them and no one else. I drooled over expensive custom configurations for quite a while. In the end I just got educated. Alienware makes good PCs. Despite what you may have heard, their customer service is generally rated pretty highly, and they do some innovative things like AlienAutopsy, which instantly sends a report to their customer service when something goes awry. Alienware does not offer overclocking, at least not on any machine that isn't a $5,000+ ALX. I kinda dig their distinctive plastic alien head over-casing, but other vendors make much slicker, less gaudy PCs. Alienware is also known for their immaculate wiring and near-silent liquid cooling (should you opt to pay for it), both big pluses. In the end I passed on Alienware because they didn't offer me the options I wanted (which includes overclocking), and required paid upgrades for things I thought should be standard, like acoustic dampening, AlienAutopsy and a disk-image based recovery DVD. Worst of all though, their standard warranty is a pathetic 90 days. That's not just bad, that's abysmal. There's no reason a customer buying a $3,000+ PC should have to pay extra to get a meager one-year warranty. Plus, I really don't want a big ugly head on my desk.

2. Voodoo: I really want to like Voodoo. Their machines are the best looking in the industry. Slap one of their "Allure" paint jobs on there, and you've got a remarkably gorgeous PC. Definitely one for on the desk, not under it. The problem is that Voodoo seems to have invested a little much into their looks. I have no gripe with great looking machines, but the bottom line is always performance, and for the money Voodoo is overpriced to near absurdity. Their air-cooled Rage is expensive, but not too terrible. But their flagship desktop, the liquid-cooled Omen, is obscenely overpriced, starting at a whopping $5600. (And yes, there's also the $14,000 gold-plated Omen.) Now, Voodoo made some pretty radical changes to their custom case for this model, but other vendors match or beat the performance with less flashy cases and even air cooling. For $5600, you still only get a one-year warranty and have to pay over $150 for US shipping. I love Voodoo's styling, and they certainly make great PCs, but I want performance first and looks later. Their service has generally been rated highly but seems to have slipped a bit recently, if anecdotal reports are to be believed. I love their style and Voodoo PCs do perform much above average, but in the end too many other vendors offer better pricing. A Rage system, which is expensive but not nearly as overpriced as the Omen, is a wild card for me. It depends on how much my sense of aesthetics can be lured into coughing up extra dough.

3. Cyberpower: Cyberpower's claim to fame is that they are cheap. To be sure, you can build a pretty impressive system there for far less than you'd pay to buy from some of the other guys. But Cyberpower cuts a major corner in customer service, which is very poorly rated. Their build quality is questionable... I've heard complaints of sloppy wiring and loose parts. Now, I don't think Cyberpower makes bad PCs. The bottom line is that they are a volume dealer. They sell configurations for less, but spend less time with quality control, performance tuning and customer service. In the end I find it worth the cash to step up to a dealer with a more personal touch.

4. Hypersonic: Hypersonic makes really cool-looking PCs. They boast about their "turboclocking", by implication an extreme overclock. The only system review I've seen of theirs had an FX-57 bumped from 2.8ghz to 2.9ghz on liquid cooling-- not what I'd call an extreme overclock. They may have more substantial overclocks with lower-end chips (most do), and the FX-57 was new at the time so maybe by now they can bump it up to 3.0ghz or more. I dunno. I was a little distracted by how difficult it was to build a half-decent PC for less than $4,000. They seem to be competing with Voodoo for the "WTF?!" pricing award. Although unlike Voodoo, you have to pay even more for a decent-looking case. As I blogged below, their default case is pretty uninspiring. For all that money, you still only get a one-year standard warranty.

5. Velocity Micro: These guys have small, ugly cases for computers that are top performers. These guys were a classic case of too much money and not enough options. Not the worst choice, but too many other vendors beat them in both performance and value.

6. Monarch Computers: Monarch isn't a boutique vendor in the sense that all these other companies are; instead, they're mainly a component dealer a la NewEgg.com. However, they do offer a full line of gaming-centered, custom-built desktops. They don't do any performance tuning, but their prices are so low that it may be possible to purchase a stock-speed system for roughly what it would cost to buy an overclocked system from some other vendors. The downsides are that they have supply difficulties, their PCs are not as rigorously tested as they are with other boutique vendors, they outsource to on-site tech support instead of covering shipping, and their standard warranty leaves a little to be desired, though upgrading is inexpensive. However, they sell only stock parts, and I feel I could get a little more bang for my buck with some performance tuning. And while Monarch's support is very highly rated, most of it relates to shipping individual components. Aesthetically, they offer no distinctive or custom cases, no proprietary cooling, nothing. They simply sell and assemble components. Their prices are tempting, but I think in the end I'd rather go with a builder who specialized in system builds. Buying from Monarch feels more like buying home audio at Best Buy rather than your local audio shop. Were I building myself or on a tighter budget, I might consider them.

7. Vicious: Vicious is a low-end boutique vendor who seemed like solid option for me for a while. Their recent evaluation by [H]ardOCP was mostly positive. Unfortunately, Vicious doesn't do any performance tuning. They also outsource their tech support to 2Net, which while some reviewers seem to think on-site service is a boon, I would rather deal with one company--preferably the one who build my computer. Sure enough, the crew at [H]ardOCP had problems with Vicious' tech support, partly due to problems with 2Net. Good prices, but I want better build quality (Vicious' wiring leaves something to be desired) and better support.

8. Widow: Widow's cluttered website belies some seriously overpriced system builds (think Voodoo and Hypersonic) amidst claims of superior quality and performance. Widow's configurations are really odd--a dual Opteron system, for example. But what really killed it was their terrible review on [H]ardOCP. Component mismatches, bad packaging, loose parts, average wiring, and customer service reps that didn't know what they were doing. Widow is a small-time newcomer that I think will be forced to bow out very soon unless they make some big changes quick.

9. Vigor Gaming: Vigor is a small company based out of Canada that damn near got my money. They're very new to the game and relatively unknown, but initial impressions of both build and service have been very positive. Their prices are very competitive and they have a 3-year warranty--though certain integral parts are only covered for one year, which hurts credibility a bit. In the end though, two things deterred me. One is that aside from the mostly glowing reviews on reselleratings.com, I couldn't find any reviews of their systems--not one. I feel like they need to prove themselves a bit before I jump in. Secondly, their vaunted TEC-based Monsoon Cooling received a rather bad review from ExtremeTech.com. Apparently it successfully cooled chips 10 degrees (C) below normal at stock speeds, but when the chip was overclocked it ran hotter than it did with AMD's stock cooler--a rather strange anomaly. I don't know whether this was due to the fact that it was installed seperately in a test unit rather than being tested in one of Vigor's custom builds, but since there aren't any official reviews of Vigor PCs I have no way of knowing. Maybe in a few years they'll have proven themselves.


Dishonorable Mentions: Polywell, ABS, iBuyPower, GamePC.



The Finalists:

1. Maingear: Maingear are pretty new to the game, but these guys know their stuff. Back in 2004 they proved their skills at performance tuning by overclocking a 3.2ghz Pentium to just a hair shy of 4.0ghz. They offer overclocking on their flagship F131 PC, a great selection of parts, competitive pricing and, on the F131, a standard 3-year warranty that covers all parts. They cover 2-way shipping for the first month, then one-way shipping for the remaining three years. In [H]ardOCP's praise-filled evaluation of their mid-range Prelude system, they found Maingear to be the only vendor aside from Falcon Northwest who actually overnighted the system back for repairs and overnighted it back all at no charge. A small company, Maingear's customer service is very highly rated. They use only high-end components, their wiring jobs are second to none, and their systems look great. The downside is that unlike Overdrive PC below, they don't offer a guaranteed overclock on their chips. Still, with specialized cooling and a track record of serious overclocking skills, they're shaping up to be my most likely choice for my new PC.

2. Overdrive PC: Relative newcomers, Overdrive offers a lot of performance with seriously overclocked hardware. Don't want to spring for that FX-57? OPC will sell you a system with an Opteron overclocked from 2.0ghz all the way to the FX-57's stock speed of 2.8ghz. That's a 40% overclock, kids. Not only that, but they do it on air cooling. Mario Cifaldi, the CTO, insists that their proprietary air-cooling system gets them the same overclocking as their $500 liquid cooling system. Why they even bother to sell liquid cooling baffles me. But what makes Overdrive a great option, aside from the fact that they offer great performance for a fair price, is that their service is first-rate. Every report I've seen has raved about the quality of the service over the phone--when placing orders, the reps will not try to bilk you into buying unnecessary components. They're actually known for the opposite--talking customers out of spending hundreds more than they need to. Their aftermarket service is highly rated as well, and their build quality is first-rate. I'm all about supporting companies that put the customer first, and OPC appears to be just that. They currently hold the highest ranking at [H]ardOCP's system evaluation, a 9.7/10. On the downside, they still mark up their prices a little over a couple of other vendors. My guess is that the "value" of having an overclocked low-end component that performs high-end is that the labor costs required for the overclocking and stability tests negates it to a degree. Additionally, OPC really cuts a corner on their warranty. A one-year warranty is standard, but they offer a "platinum" warranty that covers shipping costs at $100 per year. There's no reason why the 1-year platinum warranty shouldn't be standard, and if they're really serious about being industry leaders, they'll follow in the footsteps of Falcon Northwest and Maingear with a standard 3-year warranty.

3. Falcon Northwest: Falcon Northwest is easily the priciest of my finalists, but if you can stomach Overdrive and Maingear, Falcon's not too bad. They're certainly nowhere near the ludicrous overpricing of Voodoo or Hypersonic. Falcon Northwest are the original gaming PC vendor and their customer service is the industry standard. They don't jip you with expensive warranty upgrades either--they just give you one of the best damn warranties you can find. Their famed Mach V is one seriously powerful, reliable, and pretty machine. Falcon's biggest handicap is their price. They aren't the worst, but they do mark their PCs up a bit excessively. They do offer overclocking, but you just have to call and ask for it when you place your order. In the end, although they're pricey, Falcon gets away with it because of their reputation for outstanding customer support and fast, reliable machines.

This kind of thing annoys me

Hypersonic PC has been around a little while making overclocked PCs. From everything I can see, Hypersonic makes pretty solid but ludicrously overpriced PCs. The horror stories on resellerratings.com don't exactly make me want to rush and buy from them either, but anyway....

I consider this to be kind of false advertising. Hypersonic advertises their flagship desktop system as looking like this:
.

However, unless you pay the premium for a littany of costmetic upgrades, it looks like this:

Call me crazy but I think that's a bit disingenuous. I'm fine with charging extra for automotive paint or exotic artwork of course, but the default product should probably resemble the pictures somewhat.

More musings on SLI: Upgrading an SLI System

nVidia sure got themselves a winner with SLI. SLI can in some case provide a remarkable performance improvement for games, and it's a very easy-to-use technology. It's twice the performance at double the cost! nVidia has certainly done a stellar job of convincing power users that it's worth it to buy not one, but two very expensive graphics cards. Granted, the number of people who buy the high-end cards represent a minute fraction of their market, much less those who buy two of them. Nonetheless, I think nVidia is seeing some nice new cashflow by convincing power users to double their investment.

(On a side note, ATi's Crossfire doesn't seem nearly as well designed, despite the arguable superiority of the ATi x1900xt GPUs over nVidia's 7800/7900 hardware.)

Now, if you are someone who doesn't flinch at spending $5,000 or more on a PC mostly designed for playing videogames, you probably don't need to worry about cost vs. performance. But I think that for a lot of people who invest in the high-end, it is a significant investment. That means that selecting components should be done with a little prudence, and that includes SLI. Thinking about where you'll be in the future should be a part of that decision.

In purchasing an SLI system, you have to ask yourself: how important to me are graphics, really? Hey, I'm not going argue that playing Oblivion on a 30" monitor in some obscenely high resolution with everything maxed out and having frame rates to spare wouldn't kick some ass. But do you care about that enough to invest literally thousands of dollars? Keep in mind that even if you have two of the latest greatest GPUs, in a year or two they will not be playing games nearly as well as they are now.

Now, upgrading a $500 high-end card alone is quite an investment. For years in the PC industry, a $300 card was considered peak top-end, and the price has steadily climbed. So, are you prepared to keep upgrading TWO cards to stay at this peak of performance? Especially when just a single high-end card will allow you to play any modern game at very high settings anyway?

Another aspect to consider is that technology changes. Some people who purchase SLI argue that you will not have to upgrade nearly as soon since you are in some cases getting as much as double the performance. But if you look at GPUs today versus those of three years ago, much has changed. There was no High-Dynamic-Range Lighting three years ago. There weren't any cards with 48 pixel shaders. The technology itself will change--the cards don't just get faster. So even if you have two cards, you will likely want to upgrade your cards anyway to take advantage of the latest technology. I think that those purchasing SLI with hopes of improved longevity at the top end will be somewhat disappointed.

So really, the question to ask yourself with SLI is this: Are graphical nuances such an integral part of the gaming experience for you that you are willing to double your GPU investement to get the higher resolutions? Again I won't argue that a game looks great with all settings maxed out in 1920x1200. The question is, is that really worth $1,000? It is really worth spending that amount of money every couple of years, along with all the other requisite upgrades you'll be making?

Be careful when purchasing SLI. Don't just buy into it because it's the latest greatest thing. Above all, remember this: Any modern card is suitable for gaming on a PC. Even the so-called "low end" nVidia 7600 is a fantastic card that can play any modern game no problem. It's just a question of how far you want to push it. Think about what the visual aspect of gaming really means to you, how significant those improvements are to you, what the cost of STAYING at that high visual end will be, and if the cost of it is truly worth it to you.

Dual-core processors: Let's settle this nonsense.

I really think that the main reason dual-core CPUs are being pushed is because they sound cool. Mainstream home users have no use for a dual-core processor or even a blazingly fast single core. As I've already touched on, most gamers won't even see much of a difference between a $1,000 chip and a $300 chip because games tend to be GPU-dependent. But hardware makers are always finding ridiculous reasons for you to upgrade--which is pretty much the cornerstone of their business model--so the new thing is dual-core processors.

Okay, so, what's the big deal about dual cores? They improve performance in "multithreaded" applications. What the hell does that mean? Well, a thread is just a way for a computer to complete a task. If there are multiple threads, a computer can accomplish more at once... assuming there is a place for the other threads to be processed, like a second processor or a second core. That's a pretty lousy explanation, I know, but I'm not a whiz on computer programming. Multithreaded applications are, for the most part, not a real big deal for most users. The best example is probably Photoshop, but frankly unless you're using Photoshop for professional reasons, there's no reason you'd need a dual-core processor. iTunes is multithreaded as well, but who cares? It runs fine on a single processor. Dual-cores are best reserved for professional workstations that run lots of multithreaded applications.

Videogames are single-threaded applications. Thus dual-core processors do exactly nothing for them. There has been some attempt to dodge this fact by saying that some games "support" dual core. That is to say that some drivers are available that add support for dual-core processors. I'm not exactly sure what that means because the drivers don't magically make games into multithreaded applications. Perhaps they just fix the problems associated with gaming on dual-core processors, which [H]ardOCP calls the "Benny Hill Effect"--the game speeds up ridiculously for no reason and is totally unplayable.

Speaking of [H]ardOCP, they did a damn fine article on CPUs that I've already linked to in a couple of blogs below. So instead of linking to it again, I'll just yank a quote from their single-vs.-dual-core analysis:

"There just simply aren’t any major 3D game titles that utilize dual core processors in any way that is advantageous. Yes, NVIDIA drivers “support” dual core CPUs and are able to leverage the second core for some offloading of driver work but this did not result in any tangible real-world benefits at all. We are sorry to say if you are purchasing a dual core CPU in hopes of better gameplay you aren’t going to see any difference right now. The major discerning performance factors in games are going to be the frequency of your CPU and your level of GPU."

Now, some people are saying that this will change, and that it's wise to invest in a dual core for "future insurance." I say that's a bunch of crap. Multithreaded apps are complicated to program and difficult to debug. The game development process is already by any standard extremely long, complicated and costly as it is. There's no practical reason for a developer to create multithreaded games. Secondly, games these days are already pretty GPU-dependent, so changes to CPU threading will probably make little difference anyway. Thirdly, Aegis has just released a dedicated PCI phyics card that is supposed to dramatically improve in-game physics. It's new technology that has yet to take hold of the industry, but if it catches, it's just one more task the CPU doesn't have to do and one less reason why you'd ever need a dual-core processor. And finally, even if games do become multithreaded, it'll be a long time before the practice is standardized across the industry. And by then, dual cores would be a lot cheaper and more powerful than they are now, so purchasing one now is completely pointless.

Bottom line: For a gaming-oriented PC, dual-core processors are nothing but a waste of money. Save your cash and go for a solid single core instead.

How to waste a shitload of cash: Buy RAID 0

Boutique vendors are really good at persuading people to spend a lot of money on unnecessary stuff. Even the most enthusiastic gamers don't really need two high-end graphics cards, dual-core CPUs, high-performance RAM, a high-end soundcard, or liquid cooling. All of these things add pretty unremarkable real-world improvements, but cost apeloads more than more practical solutions. By far the worst offenders in the cost-vs-performance department, however, are multiple hard drives.

Here's the latest: Companies are telling gamers that they need not one, not two, but THREE hard drives. The first two, so they say, should be fast 10,000rpm drives arranged in a RAID 0 striped array. In case you don't know what this is, well, shit, I'm not going to explain it. Try Google. The basic idea though is that this gives you optimal performance. They work really fast and that's great. Nevermind that just one 10,000rpm hard drive costs exponentially more money than a comparatively sized 7200rpm hard drive, much less two of them.

Then they say you need a third hard drive for "storage." Huh? Well, okay. What they mean is that stuff like games should be on your RAID 0 drives because they'll load a lot faster. Faster rpms and RAID 0 means quicker seek and data transfer times. However, RAID 0 effectively doubles your odds of a drive failure. The odds of a drive failure are reasonably slim, but doubling your risk of anything usually doesn't sound like a great idea. In that case, it might not be a bad idea to have all your important stuff (like system files and such) on a third hard drive so that you don't have to do a complete re-install of your system.

Oh but wait! What you really need now is a FOURTH hard drive! Yeah, you need an external drive as a backup! Cheese n' rice! Will the madness ever stop?

Do you know, my fellow gamer, what dual 10,000rpm hard drives do for gaming? It's a doozy! Are you ready? *Drum roll*.... Okay, here it is: They speed up load times. And... umm... err... uhhh... did I mention that they speed up load times? Yeah, that's pretty much about it. They don't improve texture quality, frame rates or anything like that. You'd see a lot more improvement with an extra GB of RAM than with a bunch of zippy hard drives. Games pull info from the hard drive and load them into the RAM, then into the game. The truth is that any SATA-II, 16 MB, 7200rpm hard drive is more than fast enough for this to happen without a hitch.

Companies love to scare the shit out of you with talk about component failures and whatnot. That's how they get you to waste money on that 3-year extended warranty option you don't need, and that's how they get you to buy a bunch of crap you don't need, like two extra hard drives. OMG WHAT IF ONE FAILS? Well, shit, if you've bought from a reputable vendor, you should have basic stuff like install discs for your software, backup disks of all the latest drivers that you were savvy enough to make yourself in two minutes of your spare time, etc. etc. Besides, the odds of a hard drive failure--while it certainly can and does happen--are really, really, really slim. Especially when you're talking about the high-end components that boutique makers put into their systems, like Western Digital brand hard drives.

Now, it's not a bad idea to invest in a small external drive as a backup for essential files. But those can be found easily and cheaply at a place like NewEgg. Also, RAID arrays and fast hard drives do have their place, such as in high-end workstations used for scientific applications or advanced graphics design. But for gamers, the cost-to-benefit scale is tipped far in the wrong direction. If you REALLY hate long loading times and you have extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, just a single 10,000rpm hard drive is not a bad investment. But they're really, really expensive for what you get. And you definitely, and I do mean DEFINITELY, do not need two of them.

Overclocked systems: worth the hype?

The way I see it, there are a few reasons why a person would want to buy a PC through a boutique vendor like Falcon Northwest, Overdrive, Voodoo, Hypersonic, Maingear, etc. In buying a high-end PC, it's undoubtedly cheaper in most cases to build it yourself. For example, I priced a system on NewEgg, including a 20.1" widescreen monitor and high-quality speakers, at roughly $2500. The same system from Voodoo was about a grand more, without the monitor or speakers. So, vendors have to offer something beyond parts to justify their high prices. Things like....

1) Build quality - They're pros, and they know more than you do about building a PC. It's more than just putting parts together--it's integrating the right hardware and the right software and configuring it all to perform at its best. I think that's one of the more practical reasons to go with a builder rather than doing it yourself.

2) Aesthetics - Your PC is probably kind of ugly. I don't know about you, but I think Voodoo makes some absolutely striking PCs even with their default "BAM" finish. Falcon Northwest offers remarkable artwork on the chassis, and many vendors offer automotive-quality paint coating. Your computer can be really shiny! Now, is that something that you care about enough to spend hundreds on? Well, speaking personally, I don't necessarily care about having exotic artwork on my PC. But I do like the idea of having a PC that is aesthetically pleasing. I don't know that I'd spend $300-$500 on automotive paint, but I wouldn't knock someone for wanting their PC to look great by choosing that option. It's the same reason why Taylor Guitars has exotic inlays on their instruments--it's not necessary for performance, but humans are visual creatures and it's nice to have something that matches its performance with its looks.

3) Service and Support - This is the huge one. This is why I wouldn't buy from a vendor like Cyberpower. Sure, their prices are darn near comparable to building it yourself, but the service and support have a terrible reputation. If you're going through a boutique vendor, go with someone who will stand behind their products. Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, Maingear and Overdrive are all known for having both great warranties and exceptional service.

4) Performance tuning - Ah, finally, the meat of this blog. If you're buying a system from a boutique vendor who is giving you a big warranty, isn't it worth it to get the shit overclocked out of it? After all, if the overclocking causes stability problems, it's their ass, not yours. Some vendors, like Hypersonic and Overdrive, base their whole marketing on how much they overclock the bejesus out of their systems.


Alright... so, is overclocking that big of a deal? Again, we have to look at what actually applies in real world performance. Going with a high-end overclocking vendor might cost you hundreds or even thousands, but you may not be getting what you pay for in real-world performance.


I touched on this in my first post here, but I'll go into a little more depth here. Let's look first at the CPU. This article from [H]ardOCP provides some great real-world perspective on what CPU performance means for gaming. The reality? Not a whole fuckin' lot. Hypersonic submitted a limited edition system to CNET for review. Now, notice that they overclocked the AMD Athlon FX-57 from its stock speed of 2.8ghz to a little over 2.9ghz. OverdrivePC offers a similar overclock on the same chip for their Torque.SLI system @3.0ghz.

Okay, now, look back at the article from [H]ardOCP. In their tests, the difference between a 2.0ghz AMD 3800+ and a 2.6ghz FX-60 ranged from small to insignificant. This would vary somewhat from game to game of course, but most games these days are far more GPU-intensive than CPU-intensive. So, what do you think that extra 100-200mhz of an overclock really adds to game performance? The answer is obviously nothing worth getting excited about. How much does that Hypersonic system cost? Roughy $5000 sans monitor and speakers, that's how much. Overdrive's overclocked FX-57 system also costs close to that. Get real! You're paying a huge premium for a negligable real-world improvement.

What WILL present a significant improvement for games, though, is overclocking the graphics cards. Well, again, you can have a company do this for you for a premium price. If you're building your own PC, some companies offer factory-overclocked cards that can run for up to $600. But guess what? nVidia actually includes easy-to-use software in the drivers setup of its new line of cards so that you can overclock easily and safely on your own. If you have an older nVidia card, it's as simple as downloading the Coolbits registry. There are plenty of free programs out there for ATi cards too. And keep in mind that even at stock speeds a 7900 GT or GTX can play any modern game maxed out no problem (see the previous blog for details).

Also, overclocking isn't that tough. Manufacturers are making it easier, software programs are making it easier, and there are tons of resources on the internet--even countless communities of overclocking enthusiasts--detailing how to do it. Originally, overclocking was done by enthusiasts to increase the performance of cheaper components so they'd last longer. Now it's done as a premium service by boutique vendors. My advice? In some cases, it's not a bad deal. Overdrive for example does offer lower-end chips overclocked to the capabilities of chips costing hundreds more. And if you've got the cash to blow, an overclocked FX-60 @3.0ghz will last you a long, long time. But for guys like me who want to see significant real-world improvements and not just increases in synthetic benchmark scores, paying a premium for that kind of overclocking just isn't worth it. If it's part of the package, fine, hey, great deal. Voodoo overclocks pretty much everything they make, and so does Overdrive. Falcon Northwest and Maingear will do it on request. Those companies however offer a lot more than just overclocking--they offer the build quality, aesthetics, and service that make them worth looking into. Overclocking can be nice icing on the cake, but don't let it be a prime factor in your decision, because the odds are that you'd save a lot more doing a little easy tweaking on your own and get comparable performance. An extra grand of your spare cash, or an extra hour of your time? You decide.

Graphics cards: getting the bang for your buck

It should be no secret that in terms of raw value, it's the lower end cards like the new nVidia 7600 that provide the most performance for your gaming dollars. In fact, two 7600s in SLI will come pretty close (i.e. 5-10 frames per second depending on the game and the resolution) to a single 7900 GTX for about $100 less. However, for the more discriminating gamer such as myself, a low-end card just won't quite cut it. Higher end cards provide better performance and, as such, will last a lot longer. Plus, with SLI, there's the option to add a second card down the road so you can increase performance without spending a jillion bucks on the lastest graphics card.

In trying to buy my new PC, I want to go with value, performance, and upgradeability. I'm not going to get two graphics cards right away, and I'll explain that more in a minute. Value is a huge issue for me. I'm not one of those guys who's going to toss $5,000 on a new PC just because I can. Even if I can afford luxury, I still want the most for my money. So, let's talk about GPUs and the popular dual-card bonanza going on.

Dual cards--meaning either nVidia's SLI or ATi's Crossfire--is being pushed in a big way. And why not? It blows benchmark scores out of the water. In testing, you get gaming scores that are downright nutty, like Doom 3 running at well over 100 frames per second--and that's with the previous generation of cards!

But wait a second. While that all sounds fantastic, what does it really mean? First of all, think about this: the human eye cannot percieve a difference in frame rates beyond roughly 50-60 frames per second (for more on that, click here). Also, many of these ridiculously high frame rates are faster than most monitors' refresh rates anyway, so even if the human eye could tell a difference, the monitor wouldn't be able to process it.

Do you really need the highest-end card, and do you really need TWO of them? Take a look at this page from a great article on nVidia's new cards. Notice that while SLI scores are really impressive, FEAR--one of the most graphically demanding games in existance--is actually running at over 30 frames per second in 1600x1200 with all settings at maximum and 4xAA/16xAF with nVidia's second-tier card, the 7900 GT, which costs $200 less than the flagship GTX. Keep in mind that in this review, the cards were running at stock speeds. The 7900 GTs are very easy to overclock--in fact the software to do it is included in the cards--which could raise the performance significantly. So it's reasonable to say that with just a little tweaking, the 26 frames per second it scores at 1920x1200 could easily reach that magical "playable" number of 30 frames per second.

Now, the bigger questions are: First, who really plays games at all at 1920x1200? Shoot, it's pretty rare that many normal-size monitors even support resolutions past 1280x1024. Second, who really plays games at 4xAA/16xAF? These things are hard on a GPU and cause a pretty big hit to performance, but the improvement in picture quality is often barely noticeable. Quite a few gamers actually prefer the sharper look of non-AA enabled graphics. So realistically, you could turn a lot of those superfluous settings off and still be running everything at maximum quality at absurdly high frame rates using the second-tier 7900 GT. And that's assuming that you *have* to have everything running at maximum quality anyway, which again in some cases may provide a relatively negligable picture quality increase relative to the hit on frame rates.

So the idea that you need a high-end 7900 GTX is pretty much out of the question, unless you're gaming on a gigantic widescreen monitor and you don't want to have to upgrade for a long time. The idea that you need TWO GTXs is absolutely absurd. The difference will be literally imperceptible to the human eye, and as the article I linked to explains, you actually reach a ceiling with the high-end card simply because even the most powerful of modern CPUs create a bottleneck for two massively powered high-end video cards.

My decision in all this was clear. I've opted for the 7900 GT, which right off the bat enables me to play all games at their highest settings very easily, enough so that I'll have plenty of time before the demands of games pushes my card down to the point where normal settings get too tough. At that point (or possibly sooner), I have the option to simply buy another 7900 GT at a lower price. Have you looked at the cost of the nVidia 6800s lately? They were flagship cards last year and they still provide amazing performance, especially the 6800 Ultras, especially in SLI. And they're dirt cheap. What do you think a 7900 GT will cost in a year? Hint: a lot less than the current $300.

That's what it boils down to for me. Not spending money because I can, but spending money where it's going to show, where performance really is going to make a significant--i.e. perceptible--difference. If you've got the $1000+ to blow on those heat-pumping dual 7900 GTX cards, hey, go for it. But unless you're running everything at uber settings on a 30" monitor at its highest resolution, your little human eye won't be able to tell a difference. For the rest of us, I say stick with a single quality card and get more bang for your buck.

My hunt for a kickass gaming PC

I've been doing my homework for a solid two months now regarding PCs. I'm mainly looking at boutique vendors, and I've narrowed it down to a few solid, reputable builders. I'm leaning toward Maingear, but I'm also considering OverdrivePC and Voodoo. I like Falcon Northwest as well, but they seem just a little too pricey even for a high-end boutique builder.

The big rage and the most tempting options are really high-end, four or five thousand dollar performance PCs like the kind that Overdrive and Hypersonic make. From my perspective, those kinds of PCs aren't really the value they appear to be at first. Everyone's talking about dual-cores, striped drives and SLI, but as far as how those components will realistically affect gaming, the "bang for your buck value" is dubious at best. At a certain point, the cost-to-performance ratio goes way out the window.

First, there's the total fluff. RAID 0 arrays and 10k hard drives cost hundreds, but do little more for gaming than knock a little off your load times. Then you have dual-core CPUs. HardOCP recently did a large test and found zero difference in performance between single and dual-cores, even among the games that supposedly support dual cores, like Quake 4. I hate to break it to the big spenders, but a humble single-core 4000+ will not be significantly outperformed by your $1200 FX-60 when it comes to gaming.

Then you have CPU speeds. People pay hundreds more for high-end chips, and in the case of a company like Overdrive, you pay thousands to get them overclocked to the max. However, games today are mostly GPU dependent. That same article on HardOCP found a statistically insignificant difference in frame rates between a $250, 2.4ghz 4000+ and a $1k, 2.8hz FX-57. How much do you think that extra 200mhz Overdrive gives you will really affect gaming? A few frames per second, at best? And for what, $500 more?

The best components worth overclocking are the graphics cards. You can pay an extra grand to have an OEM do it for you, but a simple installation of the nVidia Coolbits registry (which if I'm not mistaken is actually included with the 7900s) is all you need to safely and easily overclock in twenty minutes of your spare time.

SLI sounds great in theory, but it's highly CPU limited. Combining two lower-end cards, like 7600s, will double your performance. Two 7900 GTXs, though, won't post nearly as much of an increase due to CPU bottlenecks. On top of that, you won't see much of a difference with SLI unless you're playing really high resolutions (i.e., huge monitors) with every setting cranked up. Even then, in most cases, just one top-end card can play all of today's games easily. Get to more common resolutions, and high-end SLI is a waste of money.

You could argue that you won't need to upgrade for a long time, and that's true, at least with your CPU. But even if you have SLI, the fact is that rendering technology improves. The 7900s aren't just faster, they have better rendering technology and more overclocking capability than the 6800s or 7800s. So you'll probably want to replace your card in two or three years anyway.

What I'm saying is that all this stuff about the ultimate gaming rig is kind of bunk. All the stuff you're paying hundreds or even thousands of extra money for won't make much of a real-world difference. Oh but wait, your system beat 15000 in 3D mark. I guess if that's a bragging right worth paying thousands for, knock yourself out.

A much more prudent approach is to buy a cost-effective gaming chip, a good graphics card like the 7900 GT or GTX, a quality hard drive (a backup if you're paranoid, but failure odds are slim to none with companies like Western Digital, and it won't be a big deal if you have backup hard copies of files and a system restore disk), a couple of MB of RAM, a good sound card, and a good cooling solution should you want to tweak the system a bit.

It's not to say that going super high-end won't improve your performance, it's that going that way offers negligable performance increases but costs thousands more. There are smarter ways to spend one's savings.