Conclusion
All three high-end gaming systems are incredibly powerful, proving that all three manufacturers know how to build fast systems. Each had its own strengths and weaknesses, however.
Looking back at the gaming benchmarks, it appears that the Falcon Northwest Mach 5’s pair of HD 4870 X2s are often capable of beating three GTX 280 graphics cards. Likewise, the dual-socket Skulltrail platform of the Vigor Gaming Colossus was far more effective at boosting application performance, having no advantage in games. Vigor Gaming also sells similar configurations to that of the Falcon Northwest PC, so we’d suggest choosing your favorite brand based on reputation and support, configuring your system to meet your specific needs.
HP’s Blackbird 002 LC might not have stood out in any specific performance area, but it was also overclocked far less. In fact, our searches of Falcon Northwest and Vigor Gaming’s Websites didn’t even show a “factory-overclocked-to-4.00-GHz” option. We can’t guarantee that any system sent to a retail buyer would receive the same treatment as ours.
A couple things that do push us towards the “boutique builders” are their three-year warranties and lifetime tech support. But unlike HP, Falcon Northwest and Vigor Gaming cannot offer on-site service. Pick your poison.
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I think this review missed some very important points.
1- Why 2 way SLI win over 3 way SLI in the majority of gaming benchmarks ? Is skulltrail platform buggy ?
Where is this fact in the conclusion ?
2- Where is in the conclusion the price comparison ? I know this is not a "Value" over "Price" review but spending $2000 more and receive
a "more responsive" system is not the answer. If you want to game you you cand do triple SLI and not 8 cores.
On the other hand if you ant a workstation you want more cores or Quadro like video cards.
I think the Vigor Gaming Colossus a complete shoot in the foot.
By the way, why ultimate gaming mosters dont get dedicated soundcards ?
The conclusion decided nothing and was completely unhelpfull.
+1 for "The conclusion decided nothing and was completely unhelpfull"
Outside of more processor being better in multi-threaded apps (which we knew) and the 2x4870X2s in CFX beating the 3SLI GTX280 (which I'm not surprised at), I think the only conclusion that can be made, is that my "custom overclocked" Q6600 and HD4870 offer far greater value and plenty of performance, albeit without a warrantee.
To pay $8000 for a system and not get a dedicated sound card is really poor.
what i don't get is why not use 2x HD4870's on skulltrail? aren't they crossfire and sli compatible? wouldn't that be a heaps better option?
I remember when Tom's could be commendd most of all for the quality of their articles.
Not only do these results conflict with sources that I now consider more trustworthy, they're also poorly explained, analysed and presented.
Does anyone from Toms bother to read our posts by the way?
Topman: Ditto here.
blibba: No, and that's why they're still here. They DO monitor the US boards and those are quickly pruned of any non-1337sp34k criticism of Intel, nVidia or Toms. Funny that.
The last comment in the review states that they couldn't find a 4 GHZ product online...
I find reviews with equipment custom groomed like this to be pointless in regards to what a customer would really be getting!
If this is simply for the wow factor... then fine it makes the mark!
cool http://www.theidoctor.org
$8000 and you don't get a mouse n keyboard with it....hahaha.
The conclusion managed to say nothing in all those words. They state the results and end with, 'Pick your poison'. What? No analysis of the results or explanations of why the 3-way SLI tied with 2-way most of the time. Very much agree with the other posts here, especially Thorak's comment.
Aren't the 64-bit versions of Vista supposed to suck?
They support as much memory as you want but are buggy like Windows Me and often don't run 32-bit software that XP can run.
Can someone explain to me, why on the 32bit Crysis chart, some of the results were 0 on the higher resolutions? How come some systems would run that higher rez in 64bit, but not 32bit? Is it to do with the limits of the 32bit addresses?