World in Conflict (1920x1200, 4xAA, 4xAF, Ultra High settings): 3fps
The Antec Nine Hundred case in which this budget-busting marvel is clad boasts the largest fan we've ever seen, hidden in the top cover. If you overclocked the fan alone, the chances are that the whole thing could take off and appear as a vehicle in Blade Runner: The Key Grip's Cut.
Bigger fans mean slower speeds are required to move air around, so while YoYoTech's entry into our roundup may not be the most powerful, it is the quietest. If you need a little extra cooling, the rear case fan can be sped up a notch thanks to the variable RPM switch which sticks out of the back of the case.
Although it's quite a looker, I was a bit disappointed no effort had been made to brighten up the innards with a few fancy lights, especially since there's a windowed side - something you see less and less of these days.
Indeed, compared to the pristine and tightly secured cables of the Cyberpower and Alienware machines opposite, YoYoTech's loose wires hanging around look positively sloppy, but it is up against stiff competition in this regard.
All this becomes something of a minor quibble when you look at what the company have managed to pack in for the price. This is a ridiculously cheap PC (bear in mind none of the contenders here come with a monitor, keyboard or mouse). For the first time since Cyberpower launched in the UK, not even they can undercut the value here.
No obvious corners were cut: the CPU is a top of the range 1333MHz FSB model, and the motherboard is the latest P35 chipset, which overclocks well. The hard drive is a mere 320Gb, but one of the best performing ones we know of. If size is an issue, just £16 more will get you a Western Digital 500Gb model instead.
The 520W power supply could be the weak link, as this may need upgrading if you get a more demanding 3D card. Speaking of which, while the default Viper is incredible value for money, replacing the 8800GTS with a GeForce 8800GTX will see performance almost double, and only cost another £100. You'd be a fool not to.
As it is, the GTS just doesn't cut it at our fairly demanding benchmark settings. If you have a 24-inch or larger monitor, you're going to have to spend that extra ton. While you're at it, you might also think about upgrading the CPU to the quad core Q6600 for another £100 or so.
You'll end up with a monstrous PC that's still less than two-thirds the price of its rivals.
Appreciation for the style of Alienware's PCs is definitely down to individual taste. Even so, you can't fault the giant, shiny Giger-esque enclosure for attention to detail. Easy access, loads of room inside and, best of all, all the lights in the alien head motifs can be customised to strobe or shine in any one of 14 million colours per game. Beyond the frippery, though, Alienware have sent us a very serious machine.
Equipped with Intel's fastest dual core chip, the E6850, and not one but two nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultras, it turned in benchmarks up to five times faster than any other machine here. It's absolute overkill for anyone without a 30-inch monitor, but hell: high detail, high resolution gaming here we come.
The extra GeForce card is a near superfluous component, and the reason I rate this machine so highly is because if you remove that from the configuration, it's the first time Alienware have been competitive, price-wise, with the likes of Cyberpower. That's an enormous change for the company, and one that should be celebrated. The only downside at the moment is that the very reasonably priced Q6600 CPU isn't listed as an optional upgrade.
When it comes to the race for value, YoYoTech is clearly out of sight in this round-up. But for the first time in ages Alienware aren't left in the starting blocks, and that's good to see.
Performance: 90% Value: 77%
OVERALL SCORE: 82% Take out a GPU and it's not bad value
Although games journalists will always use approximately twice the amount of physical space allocated to them, filling it with boxes and promotional figurines, somehow there's always room to add another high-spec gaming PC. It's a luxury not every reader may have.
Whether you're a student or just had your home office converted into a nursery, there are many good reasons you might want a gaming laptop rather than a desktop. Just don't expect the same kind of value.
As gaming laptops go, Rock's latest is the best there is. It's heavy, but it does have a beautiful high-contrast screen with a native resolution of 1920x1200 pixels and the last word in expensive components inside. An Intel T7700 2.4GHz dual core processor starts things off, and it's coupled to 2Gb of DDR2 and even a fast 7200rpm hard drive.
The graphics card, too, is the best money can buy - an nVidia 8700M, the last word in portable DX10 gaming. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near the equivalent of an 8800 on the desktop, turning in benchmarks more closely resembling the unimpressive 8600 GPUs.
So while there are many things to like about the 770, it's simply not possible to justify spending this much money on this kind of performance. Either opt for a cheaper 7950-based notebook, or wait for a better GPU to come along. Or buy this, but don't try to game at the native resolution.
Performance: 79% Value: 78%
OVERALL SCORE: 78% Not bad, but the graphics disappoint
World in Conflict (1920x1200, 4xAA, 4xAF, Ultra High settings): 7fps
Cyberpower have sent us a stupendously good-looking and well put together machine, built around Coolermaster's latest Cosmos case. Getting inside is a cinch, thanks to quick-release catches for both the right and left side. Once in there, everything is padded with foam to dampen the noise. Each hard drive
is mounted in its own volume-suppressing lockbox, and thumbscrews for all fittings make it easy to remove and add components.
On which subject, there's an enormous 500Gb RAID 0 array for the main storage, and a superfast Western Digital Raptor to keep Windows on. The speed benefits of doing this are fairly marginal, but it's still a pretty impressive setup and at a not-too-ludicrous price.
As futureproofing, Cyberpower have chosen to arm this with a DDR3 motherboard. The memory is going to be expensive to upgrade, although you shouldn't need to add more for a while, but there's enormous overclocking headroom thanks to the high bandwidth of DDR3.
Recognising this, the quad core Q6600 has been fitted with an electric TEC cooler and fan system and overclocked to a whopping 3.5GHz. Even at that astronomical speed, it still only reports with a running temperature of about 40 degrees.
In games that are CPU limited, like Supreme Commander, this makes an enormous difference. Part of the joy of overclocking is doing it yourself, of course, but at least when someone else does it you have a lot of guarantees if anything fails.
So we have a PC with absolutely the best of the best of everything... or it would be, were it not for one strange exception. Quite why Cyberpower stuck an AMD X2900XT in here is a little baffling. Yes, this 1Gb version of the card is slightly quicker than the retail version, but not enough. Pairing a 3.5GHz four-core CPU with any current Radeon card is a bit like putting Lewis Hamilton on a child's tricycle for next year's GP season.
Sup Com ran at over 60fps with our benchmark settings, so it's far from a disaster. The problem is that we know it could do a lot better for not a lot more, so adding in a better GPU before buying is an absolute necessity. As it is, it barely outperforms the YoYoTech opposite, which is less than half the price. It makes a mockery of the care that's gone into tuning the rest of this rig.
Performance: 81% Value: 82%
OVERALL SCORE: 82% An incredible PC let down by its 3D card
Why spend all that money on a GTX card when you can actually save money by buying a 8800GT which is pretty close in performance? That's the best card for the money right now.
In addition...520W PSU not sufficient? what? check out system power usage in actual system (for example at tom's hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/15/amd_radeon_hd_3800/page18.html) the max power draw using a single card should not be more than 400W.
Not to brag, but I purchased (in Israel, where prices are similar to the UK's) a computer using a E6750, 8800GT, 250GB HD, 400W PSU, asus x20 DVDRW, including a nice Compucase case (6A series, with 12cm fans) for the equivalent of 620 pounds. You can put in a bigger PSU if you insist and a 320GB HDD and it still should cost around 650.
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