System and Test Setup

By Don Woligroki, published on March 10, 2008
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: , , | Themes: Desktop Computers, Digital Entertainment
Contents

3. System and Test Setup

After my colleagues Thomas Soderstrom and Shelton Romhanyi released their review of the Dell XPS 630 budget gaming machine, it became obvious that it’s the ideal platform to pit against the iBuypower Gamer Mage 855; if you add a $200 20” monitor to the Dell, it would come in at $1468, within spitting distance of the $1499 Gamer Mage system.

The specifications of these similarly priced - but very different - machines makes for a really interesting comparison; The Gamer Mage has a quad-core processor that should help with multithreaded applications, but the XPS has a dual-core processor with a higher clock speed that might help it with 3D games. The Gamer Mage system has a dual-GPU video card that should do very well at extreme resolutions, but the XPS has a single GeForce 8800 GT that might be speedier at lower resolutions. Let’s have a look at the raw specifications:

ibuypower gamer mage

Click the image and click again to enlarge.

Based on their respective components, I’m going to predict that the Gamer Mage will really excel in multithreaded applications like media encoding and file compression. I believe in most cases the Dell will game very strongly at lower resolutions, but the Gamer Mage will catch up at extreme resolutions.

Let’s look at the results and see how close our predictions come to reality.

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Comments


Deleted profile 03/11/2008 9:50 AM
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You forgot to mention that the XPS 630 comes with an nvidia 650i mobo. Not exactly the bleeding edge of motherboard technology. Cyberpower, allows you to purchase a motherboard with better upgradeability. It's unfortunate that cyberpower gets such reviews at well known sites, because their customer service is notoriously bad. It seems they spend a long time testing the builds they send to reviewers, but shirk the work when it comes to building for the actual consumers (see reseller ratings: cyberpower). I believe that both companies fall short: Dell, because the system lacks the option to get a better motherboard, and Cyberpower, for it's shoddy craftsmanship.
Deleted profile 03/12/2008 5:32 AM
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very true! you can't have it all... if you really did want a great build and maybe customer service, try alienware. im not sure how they are with cs but i know their products match quality... prices may be a bit high though but for me, i'll stick with custom builds!
Gryphyn 03/12/2008 6:28 AM
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Gryphyn
Just an FYI for the authors, Supreme Commander will take advantage of multiple cores, but it has two main threads that use the most CPU power, the first and largest being the AI thread, and the second being the effects thread. Because these threads are so power hungry is why you see a dual core system with higher clocks outperforming a quad with lower clocks. The two main threads are banging their heads against the lower clocked cores, even if the rest of the minor processing can go to cores 3 and 4.
cleeve 03/12/2008 6:56 AM
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cleeve
Actually Gryphin, from what I've seen Supreme Commander shows huge boosts up to three cores, it's the forth core that shows minimal gains.

Check out this test at behardware:
http://www.behardware.com/articles [...] hmark.html

1 core: 3.5 fps
2 cores: 6.6
3 cores: 12.9
4 cores: 13.1

The third core still doubled the FPS!

Deleted profile 03/12/2008 9:48 AM
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"While it?s true that the Dell performed a little better in some games in our benchmarks, we do feel that the iBuypower system might have suffered from some specific RTS titles in our benchmark suite and that many other games might show the Gamer Mage 855 system in a stronger light. Indeed, the Radeon 3870 X2 gives the iBuypower system some real gaming credibility for its attractive price."

What are you talking about? To me it's pretty clear that the Dell outperformed the iBuyPower rig and in some cases by a far margin. Even at higher resultions where the ATI card is supposed the shine it's not like it beat down the Dell. One thing to keep in mind is that those who are looking for a low end gaming rig are not going to have 24"+ sized monitors to run the high resolutions that it would take to get performance better than the dell. Plus, the dell is cheaper.

I kind of think the conclusion here was really taking it easy on iBuyPower. Honestly they're going to have to work harder to come up with something that is truely competitve in the market.
Gryphyn 03/12/2008 11:19 AM
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Gryphyn
Hmm, that is interesting.
Deleted profile 03/13/2008 6:44 AM
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The Dell "budget" system sucks. For the price anyone could build something much better. They are using PC-5300 RAM for godsakes!
Deleted profile 03/13/2008 6:46 AM
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The Dell system blows. They are using PC-5300 RAM? Anyone could build something much better for the price. I dont want to even think what quality is in a "dell" 750w PSU
samprasfan 03/13/2008 7:22 AM
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samprasfan
You can actually get a really good deal from Dell if you take the time to look for good discounts. For a buddy of mine, I made an Inspiron 530 with a Q6600, 4GB 800Mhz RAM, 500GB HD, a 22" LCD, and of course the 16x DVD+/-RW, case, MB, keyboard/mouse, and Windows license that runs up the cost of a regular computer, for right around 900$ with shipping and tax. I left it with the onboard video, and bought an 8800GT and a very nice 650W power supply from newegg for 300$, bringing the grand total to 1200$ for a computer that would own the Gamer Mage, and compete with/beat the XPS. I couldn't find the parts cheap enough to beat this deal building it myself, taking everything into account. If you're just upgrading, sure, do it yourself. But starting from scratch, this is a cheap, nearly labor-free way to go.

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