Falcon Northwest FragBox SLI: Dare to Dream
by Jarred Walton on May 3, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Synthetic Gaming
While some might argue otherwise, we really have trouble qualifying Futuremark's 3DMark applications as anything but synthetic benchmarks. They basically represent another potential 3D gaming engine, but unlike actual games, the engine is not used for anything in the real world. That doesn't make them useless, and they do provide yet another gauge of overall system performance. However, given the choice between 10% higher 3DMark scores and 10% higher scores in a real game, the latter would get our overwhelming vote.
Our DFI system comes out on top by small margins in virtually every configuration, but there's nothing that we would really consider significant. Unlike PCMark, 3DMark depends almost exclusively on graphics card performance, and to a lesser degree on CPU performance. The CPU scores naturally focus more on that area, and the FragBox lags behind slightly in 3DMark03 CPU scores. In other tests, the tighter memory timings of the 1GB setup moves that configuration to the top of the charts. An odd twist is that the FragBox with the 7900 GT performs better in the CPU test of 3DMark05 than with the 7900 GTX; we are not entirely sure why that occurs, and we wouldn't place too much significance on it. These are synthetic benchmarks, and the end result is that we've once again basically got a tie.
While some might argue otherwise, we really have trouble qualifying Futuremark's 3DMark applications as anything but synthetic benchmarks. They basically represent another potential 3D gaming engine, but unlike actual games, the engine is not used for anything in the real world. That doesn't make them useless, and they do provide yet another gauge of overall system performance. However, given the choice between 10% higher 3DMark scores and 10% higher scores in a real game, the latter would get our overwhelming vote.
Our DFI system comes out on top by small margins in virtually every configuration, but there's nothing that we would really consider significant. Unlike PCMark, 3DMark depends almost exclusively on graphics card performance, and to a lesser degree on CPU performance. The CPU scores naturally focus more on that area, and the FragBox lags behind slightly in 3DMark03 CPU scores. In other tests, the tighter memory timings of the 1GB setup moves that configuration to the top of the charts. An odd twist is that the FragBox with the 7900 GT performs better in the CPU test of 3DMark05 than with the 7900 GTX; we are not entirely sure why that occurs, and we wouldn't place too much significance on it. These are synthetic benchmarks, and the end result is that we've once again basically got a tie.
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Pirks - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
Thanks, but that's still very far from what I was asking. If all the PC is made of were just ONE SINGLE ABIT MOBO, then yeah it'd be a close shot :Pislandtechengineers - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
small and powerful; like another has stated; Build my own. being rich and able to let someone else do the work for you = lazy , but i wouldnt mind putting it in my car if i had cash to throw out...Inkjammer - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
"Performance nerd-vana" may have to be one of the best quotes I've seen in a while. =DMissing Ghost - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
What's so special about it?unclebud - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
the review was still interesting, as alwayswhat i was saying is that another group of journalists reviewed the fragbox before and they encountered a very different type of experience... it's also interesting that they sent a fragbox with an evga board now and not the msi/ati 480~
Gary Key - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
I cannot answer directly for Jarred in this case, but my previous experiences with Falcon Northwest have shown they do listen to their customers and will correct any product issues immediately.unclebud - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
"I can't really evaluate the support that comes from Falcon at this time."imagine that...
JarredWalton - Thursday, May 4, 2006 - link
They put a customer sticker on every system. This one is for "AnandTech" - too bad I have to send it back.daftpunkit - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
My parents got me a Falcon NW for college, 4 years later it still runs pretty sweet, and 4 years in the computer world means it's ancient.The support was outstanding too I would say. They are quick too. I think the original had a MSI mobo but it blew up or something about a year into me owning it and I shipped it to them they replaced it with a nice ASUS mobo and got it back pretty quick.
Ryan Norton - Wednesday, May 3, 2006 - link
Man, I remember when I was 10-14 or so and my dad still picked out the family computer, guaranteeing slowness and poor Doom II performance... he subscribed to Computer Gaming World and the Mach V ads always made me drool! I would never buy a FNW system when I can build my own so much easier, UNLESS I get rich one day... then man, I'm gonna beat a path to their door for whatever octo-SLI quad-CPU 32GB RAM madness reigns in the future.