CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 08/22/2003
- Updated on: 01/02/2010
- Released on: 08/18/2003
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 Our F131 test system was as shiny as a new Ferrari, which makes sense since the same Glasurit paint is used by a number of sports car manufacturers. |
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Have you ever closed the door of a Mercedes and just marveled at the luxurious thunk it makes when it shuts? You get a very similar feeling--one of confidence and safety--with the Maingear F131's sturdy Wave Master TAC-T01 case. New from CoolerMaster, it's made entirely of heavy-duty aluminum and features front intake fans and a rear exhaust fan. A blue lamp backlights the curved ornamentation on the front, and a heavy, magnet-latched door covers all exposed drive bays. Maingear also offers several other case options and custom paint jobs. (Custom-painted Wave Master cases such as that of our review unit aren't available yet, but Maingear tells us that it's in the process of adding that option.)
 The USB, FireWire, and audio ports you see here on the top of the case will be replaced by additional cooling fans on shipping versions of the F131. |
 The black FireWire cord cannibalizes a rear-mounted port to power the FireWire port on the top of the case; it won't be present on shipping versions. |
Our prerelease model had some features that have since been changed. USB, FireWire, and audio ports were hidden beneath a spring-release door on the top of the case, but Maingear has decided to replace them with two more exhaust fans. A flash card reader, which includes a front-mounted USB 2.0 port, will replace the floppy drive in standard configurations. That'll leave you with four USB 2.0 and two FireWire ports (one courtesy of the sound card) on the back panel.
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The interior is well organized and gives you plenty of room to expand. You can't see much of the F131's wiring because Maingear ties and folds it neatly out of the way. |
Removing the three thumbscrews in the back of the F131's case lets you pop off the side panel in a jiffy, revealing a roomy, well-ordered interior. Of our system's five PCI slots, four were free, although the large cooling system of the AGP graphics card in this system rendered the top PCI slot unusable. Two of the four DIMM slots and three of the five internal drive bays remained free.
With a system that looks as sturdy and well designed as this, you don't expect to see anything but the best components. And that's just what you get with the F131. In fact, even the baseline Maingear configuration would be considered high end by most users. Our test machine was designed to blaze, and it adds about $1,600 to the roughly $2,400 F131's base configuration. It all centers, of course, on a gaming system's meat and potatoes: the graphics card.
Our system shipped with the almost laughably powerful Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics engine, matched now with 256MB of dedicated RAM. Pair this graphics performance with the top-notch sound provided by Creative's SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card and the industry-leading Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 THX-certified speakers, and you have the hardware for a powerful multimedia experience. These speakers feature old-fashioned, exposed-wire connectors, while the sound card has no color coding, making the audio system relatively difficult to set up. But the sound--particularly for games and DVD playback--shook our labs.
 The 21-inch NEC CRT is perfect for gaming, with its crisp, bright image and high resolutions. |
 We enjoyed the DVD-recordable drive, but gamers who are looking for a pure gaming machine can save some money by skipping this feature. |
Our system included the 21-inch NEC MultiSync FE2111SB flat-screen CRT monitor, with the fast refresh rates that gamers love, plus three SuperBright settings that come in handy during both gameplay and DVD playback. A 4X Sony DVD-R/RW drive and a fast Sony 52X/24X/52X CD burner were also included. Dual Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA 120GB hard drives and 1GB of DDR400 memory (in two DIMMs to take advantage of dual-channel memory) complemented our F131's top-of-the-line 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor and performance 875P chipset.
Our Windows XP Professional test machine included the InterVideo WinDVD suite and three games, along with some minor utilities. Our system did not ship with a productivity suite, and at the time of this writing, Maingear did not even offer one as an option for this machine, though it will be added soon, we're told.
Application performance
As with all of the 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor-based systems we've tested, the Maingear F131's performance established it firmly in the lead group. The difference between the systems is less than 3 percent, well within the margin of error for the test. The F131 will do anything you need and more.
Application performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark2002, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet-content-creation applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver).
3D graphics and gaming performance
The Maingear F131 also marks the first time we've seen Nvidia's latest high-end graphics card, the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra. It's an extremely fast card, with 256MB of memory, and it did surprisingly well in our 3D benchmarks. The F131 topped the next-best-performing system by more than 4 percent on our Quake III test. That may not seem like a tremendous boost, but we very rarely see jumps in performance of more than one percentage point. It's safe to say that the 5900 Ultra will have no trouble playing any of today's titles and those on the horizon. A few trial Ghost Recon missions clearly demonstrated this fact: animation moved very smoothly, even with the graphics complexity turned all the way up.
3D graphics performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure 3D graphics performance, CNET Labs uses Futuremark's 3DMark2001 Pro Second Edition, Build 330. We use 3DMark to measure a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8 (DX8) interface at both 16- and 32-bit color settings at a resolution of 1,024x768. A system that does not have DX8 hardware support will typically generate a lower score than one that has DX8 hardware support.
3D gaming performance in fps (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure 3D gaming performance, CNET Labs uses Quake III Arena. Although Quake III is an older game, it is still widely used as an industry-standard tool. Quake III does not require DX8 hardware support--as 3DMark2001 does--and is therefore an excellent means of comparing the performance of low- to high-end graphics subsystems. Quake III performance is reported in frames per second (fps).
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:ABS Ultimate X5
Windows XP Home; 3GHz Intel P4; Intel 875P chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; two Seagate ST380023AS 80GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA; integrated Intel 82801ER Serial ATA RAID controller
Gateway 700XL
Windows XP Home; 3.2GHz Intel P4; Intel 875P chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; two Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA; integrated Intel 82801ER Serial ATA RAID controller
Maingear F131
Windows XP Professional; 3.2GHz Intel P4; Intel 875P chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB; two Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA; integrated WinXP Promise FastTrak 376/378 SATA controller
MPC Millennia 920i
Windows XP Professional; 3.2GHz Intel P4; Intel 875P chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; two Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA; integrated Intel 82801ER Serial ATA RAID controller
Polywell Poly 880NF3-3200
Windows XP Professional, 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 3200+; Nvidia Nforce-2 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB; two Western Digital WDC WD360GD-00FNA0, 36GB 10,000rpm; Highpoint RocketRAID 1520 SATA RAID controller
Maingear's support is thinner than what you'd get from the bigger vendors. The Web site offers little beyond a driver-downloads section, a short FAQ page, and a place to e-mail your support queries. Printed documentation is limited to a few component-specific printed manuals. Toll-free phone support is offered weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET.
The price of our test system includes only a single year of warranty support, but onsite service is included. You can upgrade to two or three years of coverage, but Maingear does not offer additional protection, such as accidental-damage or priority-support programs.
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