System setup and notes
| System name | Ultraviolet Genesis XOC | PC Specialist Apollo Q6600-X | HEXUS E6700 GTX | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6750 overclocked (3.50GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, 1077MHz, quad-core) | Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, quad-core) | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, dual-core) | |
| Motherboard | eVGA nForce 680i SLI Black Pearl Edition with Innovatek water-cooling | ASUS P5N32-E SLI PLUS (nForce 650i) | Intel Bad Axe 2 (i975X) | |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1GiB) OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper | 2GiB (2 x 1GiB) Corsair CM2X1024-6400 | ||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 783MHz | 5-5-5-15-2T @ 800MHz | ||
| Graphics card(s) | 2 x eVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra Black Pearl Editions in SLI (655/2250) | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MiB | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MiB | |
| Disk drive(s) | 2 x WD 150GiB Raptor X (WD150AHFD) 10,000rpm, 16MiB cache 1 x Seagate 750GiB 7200.10 for storage |
1 x WD 150GiB Raptor X (WD150AHFD) 10,000rpm, 16MiB cache | 1 x Seagate 500GiB Barracuda 7200.10, 7,200rpm, 8MiB cache | |
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 162.22 | |||
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows XP Professional 32-bit | Windows Vista Premium 32-bit | Windows Vista Business 64-bit | |
| Price | £4,534, excluding monitor | £1,425, including monitor and speakers | £1,100, excluding monitor | |
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark 2.0 HEXUS.PiFast HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701.5MiB WAV HEXUS.in-house DivX encode using DivX 6.61 and VirtualDub on 416MB DV file CINEBENCH R10 multi-CPU render POV-Ray v3.7 beta21 - using both 32-bit and 64-bit executables HDTach 3.0.1.0 Quake 4 v1.30 HEXUS custom netdemo benchmark Company of Heroes DX9 benchmark Lost Planet: Extreme Condition DX9 benchmark |
|---|
Notes
We're comparing the Ultraviolet Genesis XOC to a couple of substantially cheaper systems that are also fitted with Intel processors and NVIDIA graphics cards.
We took a look at the £1,500 PC Specialist Apollo Q6600-X system earlier this month and surmised that it offered decent value for money at the asking price. The other system we used for comparison is a HEXUS test PC that features a dual-core Core 2 Duo processor and a single GeForce 8800 GTX 768MiB graphics card. Both of the comparison systems used the Windows Vista operating system, rather than XP.
The Ultraviolet system was generally quiet when running under sustained load and the CPU temperature rarely rose above 40°C.
Issues
We encountered a number of minor problems when evaluating the system. The twin graphics cards weren't pre-configured in SLI mode, the Alphacool display wouldn't display if the system was brought out of standby, and, as mentioned earlier, one of the upper radiator's fans made an unusual clicking sound from time to time. We can attribute these foibles to the pre-production nature of the system and would hope that all shipping systems would be free of such defects.
Given the attention that has been paid to cooling, we'd have hoped that the front-side bus would have been ramped up to at least 1400MHz. The board is certified to run Intel's 1333MHz FSB CPUs, and we can't see any reason why it wouldn't be stable at 1600MHz+; the increased bandwidth would allow the dual-channel OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 to really strut its stuff. Strangely, though, as it ships, the memory is underclocked to sub-PC6400 levels. Ultraviolet assures us that shipping models, outfitted with the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor, will overclock to a significantly higher FSB.
The Ultraviolet system is heavily CPU-overclocked and customised. Does it provide commensurately greater performance to tempt potential buyers away from a cheaper generic build? Let's find out.