ABS Ultimate X9 Crossfire Gamer's Choice (Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93 GHz)

ABS is one of the few smaller PC vendors that sells PCs with any sort of brand consistency. Its Ultimate line of gaming desktops (its only line) is subdivided by a logical number scheme. The Ultimate 9 III that ABS sent us for review is the top end of its gaming PCs. Your only CPU option is Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU, and while you have a few choices for graphics cards, if you want two of them, you have to go with CrossFire, as in the ATI Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire configuration sent to us. ABS also included its aggressive overclocking package, facilitated by one of the more outlandish water-cooling systems we've ever seen. The bulky heat exchanger is mounted on the outside of the system's back panel. Amazingly, the external hardware doesn't make this system that unattractive, although it does take up a lot of space. With Intel's quad-core processors and next-generation 3D cards from Nvidia coming out soon, now might not be the best time to spend $4,000-plus on a high-end desktop, but with the Ultimate X9 III, ABS shows that it at least knows how to build a PC of this caliber. We definitely recommend checking back with ABS and its Ultimate 9 III system once the next-generation hardware is released.

What struck us the most about this system were its looks, both inside and out. Externally, the water cooler and bulky case are clearly not for everyone, but we imagine that a well-heeled gamer looking for a statement PC wouldn't be too put off. Inside the case, ABS comes close to the Apple Mac Pro and other systems for a clean interior, which is impressive given all of the liquid-cooling tubes and the reservoir that remain enclosed inside the case. You have room to add three 5.25-inch and two 3.5-inch drives, space for one more PCI Express expansion card, two spare slots for memory, and two empty hard drive bays. That's a lot of upgradability, but then, it's also a giant case: 27 inches deep, counting the external heat exchanger.

For the core components, ABS doesn't hold back, although this config will be obsolete within the year. While we wouldn't recommend purchasing this particular system now, that's not to say that we think ABS is necessarily behind the times. Like most vendors, we expect that ABS will update its configuration options to accommodate new hardware as it becomes available. What's perhaps more telling about the quality and value of this PC is what ABS has done with those components. On ABS's Web site, you can find two options for overclocking: one ups the performance by 10 percent for $299, and the other nets you a 20 percent boost for $499. There's a third option that's not listed on the ABS Web site but just a phone call away: a 15 percent increase for $399, which is what our system came with. That means our 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800 came set at 3.38GHz. The 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM was also overclocked to 920MHz, up from 800MHz. As you can see from the performance results, that overclocking provided this ABS system with some impressive speed.

On CNET Labs' iTunes and Photoshop tests, the ABS Ultimate X9 III posted the fastest scores for PCs in its price class, and it came in second on our multitasking and Microsoft Office tests. We also found it interesting that the ABS and its Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire graphics cards seem to have benefited from recent ATI driver developments, in that it rocked the competition by more than 30 frames per second on our Quake 4 test, a test that Nvidia-based cards once dominate. The ABS's F.E.A.R. results were more down-to-earth, nestling in at third place among the other approximately $4,000 gaming PCs. At 67 frames per second (fps) in our demanding 1,600x1,200 test, we can safely say that with most current games, you should experience no slowdown when 3D gaming, even with high-image quality settings.

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