Final thoughts, HEXUS.awards, HEXUS.right2reply
Final thoughts, HEXUS Awards, HEXUS Right2Reply
Performance-wise the Vadim Fusion Cetus was always going to be a winner. It's extremely hard to go wrong if you equip a PC with a 3.40GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, ultra-fast memory, and a heavily overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 1GiB card. The Cetus set a record on practically every 2D benchmark, eclipsing the performance recently laid down by Intel's Core 2 Extreme CPU.Vadim opted for a Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz) processor and used a large chassis and intelligent watercooling to overclock it to 3.40GHz. It could have opted for an Extreme model, sure, and in an ideal world it would, yet the substantial price difference between the Extreme (�680) and E6700 (�350) was spent on esoteric cooling that can be used when upgrading the CPU and VGA at a later date. It's complemented by a 2GiB set of OCZ memory that's run at 1020MHz with 4-4-4-14 timings, helping the Cetus smash our current 2D benchmark records for a pre-built PC. Vadim's also been responsible enough to add in no less than 6 slow-spinning 120mm fans, controlled via a front-mounted panel, to augment the liquid-based cooling. On a different but related note, we'd like to see the northbridge watercooled too.
Vadim's also used a large Lian Li V2000 workstation-oriented chassis to house the components and cooling, and it acts like a giant aluminium heatsink, dissipating away some of the heat produced. Build quality was excellent and the system was quiet when placed under sustained load.
Given the above, it sounds like a perfect PC for the well-heeled customer who likes a something a little different from the norm, right? It's hugely impressive. no doubt about that, but we'd recommend a slight change in storage. As it stands, there's no further room for adding internal hard drives, so larger capacities, at the time of purchase, would be a prudent move.
A better warranty needs to be included in the asking price, and, ideally, two high-end GPUs, be they ATI or NVIDIA, run in multi-GPU mode. The overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 is fast, sure, but no faster than a pair of stock-clocked GeForce 7900 GTXs. There's more 3D power to be had, and we'd like to see Vadim leverage it to complement the system's sheer computational power.
Wrapping it all up, the Vadim Fusion Cetus is, on balance, the fastest pre-built PC we've ever seen. It's not a quite a dream machine and �3,000 is a lot of money to drop on a base unit, but you do get performance in absolute spades. Recommend for those of you who have a chunk of cash to spend on a PC but don't fancy building it yourself - let Vadim do the hard work for you.
HEXUS Awards
The Vadim Fusion Cetus is strong in a number of areas, and our awards reflect that.
HEXUS Where2Buy
Vadim has a page devoted to this SKU. You can find it by popping along to the configuration page at Vadim PC.HEXUS Right2Reply
V. Chobanu of Vadim PC was kind enough to offer his thoughts on our review.[advert]Thanks to the team @ Hexus for having the Fusion Cetus on deep examination. This time of the year, with the heat wave outside it is easy to lose focus and attention to detail while thinking about a sunny beach and cool breeze, but nothing has been overlooked by Hexus - be it good or bad. Additionally, we are pleased to see that Hexus not only has done a in-depth review of the product, but looked into the extras � the delivery, warranty and service as a whole.
