Verdict: A gaming system where the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
Now and then, a CPU manufacturer will slip up and release a CPU that's such great value, there's no point in buying a more expensive model. For example, AMD released a desktop version of its Opteron workstation CPU in November 2005. Once overclocked, certain steppings of the Opteron 144, which cost only £95, blew £600 CPUs away, and PC manufacturers were desperate to release overclocked gaming systems, offering top-end performance for budget prices.
It seems that the good times are here again. Both CyberPower and Advance Tec have sent us gaming systems featuring the current CPU of choice, the Core 2 Quad Q6600. Both have overclocked their CPUs and used weighty graphics cards, so the PCs should deliver great performance.
Before you write in, we haven't printed the same review twice; both the Advance Tec AT-FX Overdrive and CyberPower Gamer Infinity Quad Elite are housed in Antec's Nine Hundred midi-tower case, complete with giant roof fan. As both systems cost £850, only the internals will sway our preference.
The first major difference we noticed was the AT-FX Overdrive's lower noise levels compared with the CyberPower's. Advance Tec has set all the Antec TriCool fans in its system to low speed, while the CyberPower's fans whirr at full whack. Pitch is arguably more important than volume, and while the AT-FX Overdrive hums reassuringly, the CyberPower has a slightly higher pitch. It's not annoying, but the CyberPower loses out to the AT-FX Overdrive in the subjective noise test.
However, while the 120mm Noctua NH-U12F CPU cooler in the AT-FX Overdrive is quiet, it isn't great at cooling. Our recent CPU HSF Labs test showed that it was only slightly more effective than the Intel reference HSF. Given this, we had concerns over stability.
Advance Tec has taken the simple route to achieve the 3.6GHz overclock by raising the FSB on the Asus P5K-E WiFi-AP from 266MHz to 400MHz, while raising the vcore to 1.55V. This doesn't give the CPU as much bandwidth as the CyberPower has, which is worth considering, as quad-core CPUs are hungry for data. However, with this overclock, the Q6600 creates thermonuclear levels of heat, well in excess of its stock TDP of 95W. After a night of Orthos fully loading all four cores, CPU temperatures hit 100ûC in Core Temp. This is perilously close to the point at which thermal throttling or even system shutdown kicks in, although the AT-FX Overdrive somehow managed to do neither. The system proved stable, but only just, and it's far from efficaciously cooled.
An ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro forms the graphics arsenal. This isn't an obvious choice, as ATI states that the HD 2900 Pro is a limited-edition card, although Advance Tec says it has enough in stock to meet demand. More surprising is the HD 2900 Pro's lower price and performance levels compared with those of the 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS in the CyberPower. We should mention that both PCs were built weeks before the awesome GeForce 8800 GT was announced, and you should be able to have the systems shipped with this superior card. How this affects the price is up to the manufacturer.
Advance Tec has made a more obvious choice of RAM. Those who read our last RAM Labs Test will be reassured to see two sticks of rapid OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper memory inside the AT-FX Overdrive. This 2GB kit won a CPC Approved award for its overclocking ability. The use of DDR2 RAM also keeps down the overall cost while sacrificing little - if any - performance.
If you ignore the underpowered CPU cooler, component selection in the AT-FX Overdrive is good. The 320GB Samsung SpinPoint hard disk is dependable, if not humungous, while the Antec TruePower Quattro provides 850W of power without the cabling that CyberPower has to work so hard to contain with its non-modular PSU. A Samsung WriteMaster DVD-RW completes the components.
The principal problem with the AT-FX Overdrive is build quality. Owners of the Antec Nine Hundred will know that you can't secure hard disks properly inside the case without first removing the cage. Sadly, to minimise clutter, Advance Tec has routed the power cables for the luminous blue fans attached to the hard disk cage beneath the motherboard, and you can't free them without removing the motherboard. Having to uninstall your entire system to enable you to fit an additional hard disk is frustrating, especially as you probably already have a perfectly good disk that you'll want to install in your new PC.
There's nothing wrong with using electrical tape to secure errant wires, and routing rarely moved wiring under the motherboard is a great way of minimising clutter, but Advance Tec hasn't been careful enough, and black tape sticks out rather inelegantly from the sides of the motherboard. You might put up with this ugliness if you were building your own PC, but the perfectionist in all of us baulks at paying someone else to do it.
Performance
You might expect a quad-core CPU to be twice as fast as a dual-core, especially if it's overclocked to 3.6GHz. As GIMP is as flaky as a bowl of Special K when multithreading, our benchmark disables this feature. However, the raw clock speed was sufficient to net the AT-FX Overdrive a respectable score of 1,320 in our GIMP image-editing test.
As you can see from the CyberPower review, dropping the CPU's multiplier and further increasing the FSB would have given even more performance, if also a bit more strain on the motherboard. With the CPU in the CyberPower overclocked to 3.4GHz, it consistently outscores this PC. This is partly due to the Raptor hard disk, and partly due to the extra data the Q6600 is fed per clock. As the CPU was already running hot, we were unable to overclock the AT-FX Overdrive any further.
Comparing the two PCs' scores this month is silly, though, as both systems have processing behemoths under the HSFs. The major differences are found in gaming performance, especially as the two companies use radically different graphics cards. In this respect, the performance of the AT-FX Overdrive depends on which games you play. The HD 2900 Pro helped the AT-FX Overdrive to return a lower minimum frame rate (27fps), but a higher average frame rate (59fps) than the CyberPower in Company of Heroes at 1,680 x 1,050. However, the AT-FX Overdrive significantly outperformed the CyberPower in Supreme Commander. When playing F.E.A.R. or S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the Nvidia-based CyberPower was easily the more powerful of the two systems, especially at 1,680 x 1,050. At this resolution, the CyberPower's GeForce scored minimums of 52fps and 35fps in F.E.A.R. and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. respectively, while the Radeon managed only 30fps and 27fps in the two tests. Given the extra gaming power of the GeForce 640MB 8800 GTS in these tests, we'd award victory to the CyberPower PC.
Conclusion
When you pay a company to build a PC, you give it the responsibility of choosing the right components. While some choices in the AT-FX Overdrive are welcome, such as the 850W PSU, the Core 2 Quad Q6600, the motherboard and the case, others are not. The Noctua NH-U12F isn't the right HSF for an overvolted quad core CPU, while the graphics card is underpowered compared with the CyberPower's card.
However, components are only half the story; the other half is design and build quality. Inelegant wiring might sound like a minor niggle, but having to take apart your entire PC to add a second hard disk is very annoying. We're also disappointed by the unsophisticated overclocking method (not dropping the multiplier to pump the FSB for all its worth, as CyberPower does with its PC). Ultimately, the good components just aren't being used to their full potential.
