Verdict: With poise and power, the OMEN is a true Dream PC

The OMEN is pretty much the same system as the Rage F5 but with a name change. We're not complaining, though, because whatever you call it, this is one very innovative, fast and damn good-looking PC.

This time around, the OMEN is painted bright red (Voodoo PC calls the paint Infineon Red), so it certainly stands out. Even though the PC as a whole is now called the OMEN, the Rage F5 name has been retained for the case, which is a heavily modified Lian Li PC-V1000. Hidden behind the mesh front panel is a giant dual 120mm-fan radiator, which is tasked with cooling the CPU and graphics cards. There's also a single 120mm fan at the rear and a 120mm fan inside the case blowing cool air over the RAM. However, even with these four 120mm fans, the OMEN is exceedingly quiet. The front of the case also features an integrated memory card reader, while the case is raised 1in off the desk by four thick anti-vibration rubber shoes.

Inside lurks an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, which houses an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU. This has been pre-overclocked to 2.5GHz by running with a 250MHz FSB and 10x multiplier, which in turn forces the 2GB of Crucial Ballistix PC4000 RAM to run at 500MHz. If this isn't enough RAM for you then Voodoo PC has thoughtfully used 1GB DIMMs, so there are two free DIMM sockets on the motherboard. The noisy motherboard chipset fan has been replaced by a waterblock. The two 512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics cards are also water-cooled, although only the GPUs are overclocked, from 425MHz to 435MHz. At least the water-cooling system means that you don't have to endure the noise of two air-cooled GeForce 6800 Ultras, as you do with the Real Machines RX Alpha.

Rather bizarrely, there are two identical optical drives, although the Pioneer DVR-109 is such a fast dual-layer DVD writer that I wouldn't mind having two. Plenty of storage is provided, with a turbocharged 146GB RAID 0 array comprising two Western Digital WD740GD Raptors and there's also a single 400GB Hitachi Deskstar.

If this isn't enough for your file-leeching activities then there's a free external 5.25in drive bay and a free internal 3.5in drive bay for adding yet more drives.

The OMEN is powered by a huge Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE(W)SFMA PSU. The ridiculously long name doesn't tell you much, so let me tell you that it's a 600W PSU with twin 18A 12V rails, cooled by an 80mm and a 92mm fan.

The excellent audio sub-system partners a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card with 5.1 Logitech Z-5500 Digital speakers. The Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21in TFT doesn't have the quickest response time around (25ms), so fast-moving games suffer from a lot of ghosting and, despite the native 1,600 x 1,200 resolution, colours aren't all that bright or clear. A Dream PC costing £5,400 really ought to ship with a better monitor than this. A Logitech Elite keyboard and Logitech MX510 mouse, both painted red to match the case, round off the specification.

As in the case of the Alienware, buying a Voodoo PC isn't just about the hardware, and the OMEN is no exception. The bundle includes a Koeskin folder with a customised manual, plus all the documentation and drivers for the individual components. You also get a year's subscription to Voodoo GameDoctor, which automatically downloads patches for your games, and a high-quality mousepad.

PERFORMANCE

Thanks to its pair of slightly overclocked graphics cards, the OMEN sped through all three Far Cry benchmarks, achieving the highest average frame rate in the multitasking test with our CD ripping test running in the background.

However, not even the OMEN could render Far Cry smoothly at 1,600 x 1,200 with 8x AF and HDR enabled, averaging just 29.6fps. But probably the best thing about the OMEN for gamers isn't the fantastic frame rates, but how quiet it is. This means you really can hear enemies trying to sneak up behind you. In contrast, if you tried playing a game such as Thief: Deadly Shadows on the Real Machines RX Alpha without a pair of headphones then you'd end up getting caught quicker than you can say 'Hands up taffer!'

The OMEN was no slouch in our Media Benchmarks either, although it would appear that most applications prefer raw clock speed to memory bandwidth. This is why the Armari and Alienware systems both sneaked past the OMEN in the video encoding test.

CONCLUSION

While this PC is no longer called the F5, it's still fast, formidable, first-class, flawless and fearsome. It will, however, set you back a cool £5,400, and that's with a not particularly impressive monitor. However, choosing a different monitor is something you could easily do when placing your order (Voodoo PC provides a choice of five), and the base system itself is simply fantastic.

The OMEN is without a shadow of doubt the quietest turbocharged PC to grace the Custom PC lab. In fact, it's so quiet that people passing through the lab kept looking at the monitor, then asking us if the OMEN really was switched on. Ultimately, though, the pre-chilled and higher overlocked Armari is that little bit more special, provides more storage and has a better monitor too.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

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