[H] PC Club Enpower Nitro Extreme Evaluation

nice review, but why didn't you detail more on the BIOS, e.g. overclocking the cpu, like from the gateway reviews?
 
We have been honing our evaluation program, and have elimated a few things while adding what we think is of more value to the average consumer when it comes to OEM pre-built computers.

We will get into overclocking in some future articles where the system builder overclocks from the factory.

We are trying to mold each article to the market that the builder has targeted their product.
 
so I was looking at the SLI vs GT section...

ive got a 6600GT and ive never seen one at 1200 mhz memory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150098

That is one that I can buy, its 1000mhz effective memory speed.

Why are you trying to create a story here? Dying for a slashdot submission comparing SLI to the 6600GT?

Why do I say that - because you are doing a review with stock parts bought by someone who apparently has little interest in building thier own pc.

Whee lets compare 20% overclock to a SLI slower system and try to make them comparable. What would you have done if the GT wasnt fast enough to be interesting? I bet just remove the section.
 
wilkinru said:
so I was looking at the SLI vs GT section...

ive got a 6600GT and ive never seen one at 1200 mhz memory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150098

That is one that I can buy, its 1000mhz effective memory speed.

Why are you trying to create a story here? Dying for a slashdot submission comparing SLI to the 6600GT?

Why do I say that - because you are doing a review with stock parts bought by someone who apparently has little interest in building thier own pc.

Whee lets compare 20% overclock to a SLI slower system and try to make them comparable. What would you have done if the GT wasnt fast enough to be interesting? I bet just remove the section.
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???

Nvidia's own monitor has shown the clock speed of this card to be 1.2GHz on memory when placed in two different computers, that's what we went by.

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your post.
 
let me get this straight - you are telling me that a 1000mhz stock card is 1200 mhz when you put it into a different computer?


Maybe I just dont have gobs of hardware laying around to play with all day - but a 1000mhz stock card is 1000mhz when you plug it in.

The whole video card compare section sounded like you plugged in a ringer.

http://nvidia.com/page/geforce_6600.html

huh Memory Data Rate 1000 MHz
 
wilkinru said:
let me get this straight - you are telling me that a 1000mhz stock card is 1200 mhz when you put it into a different computer?


Maybe I just dont have gobs of hardware laying around to play with all day - but a 1000mhz stock card is 1000mhz when you plug it in.

The whole video card compare section sounded like you plugged in a ringer.
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What I'm saying is that the XFX card that we used showed up as 1.2GHz memory in both the PC Club Nitro Extreme and another PC that we tested it in. That is how we ran our tests.
 
Chris_Morley said:
What I'm saying is that the XFX card that we used showed up as 1.2GHz memory in both the PC Club Nitro Extreme and another PC that we tested it in. That is how we ran our tests.
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The XFX card came from a PC Club Nitro? If so then ok, they OCed the card themselves.
 
wilkinru said:
The XFX card came from a PC Club Nitro? If so then ok, they OCed the card themselves.
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No, it was sent to us from Kyle when I asked him for a spare 6600GT.
 
wilkinru said:
Next time just water cool that sucker and crank up the mhz more, that'll make a even more realistic story...

http://nvidia.com/page/geforce_6600.html

See that? PCI Express - 1000mhz. Not 1200.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at, companies like BFG, EVGA, and XFX sell overclocked cards all the time.

We didn't misrepresent anything here, we stated what the MHz rating was in the evaluation.
 
And yes, I am suggesting you get the 6600GT from PC Club and compare it - or atleast a stock speed card which I assume what PC Club would put into the computer.

Yes, the comparision is worthless.
 
Chris_Morley said:
http://www.buy.com/prod/XFX_GeForce_6600_GT_128MB_Dual_DVI_PCI_Express_DX_9_PVT43GND/q/loc/220/10388000.html

Here you go.
Click to expand...

looks like im wrong then. Buy.com > newegg.com on specs. Looks like I need to check out buy.com when shopping for hardware now...

Question still remains, what does PC Club put into thier GT card?

My whole beef is that it looks like the SLI setup is probably the "better performance choice" but someone thinking about buying this system may go the GT route considering the charts there. Now its all a mute point if they put in the 1200 mhz OCed extreme gamer card.
 
wilkinru said:
looks like im wrong then. Buy.com > newegg.com on specs. Looks like I need to check out buy.com when shopping for hardware now...

Question still remains, what does PC Club put into thier GT card?

My whole beef is that it looks like the SLI setup is probably the "better performance choice" but someone thinking about buying this system may go the GT route considering the charts there. Now its all a mute point if they put in the 1200 mhz OCed extreme gamer card.
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We have stated that the SLI setup is better suited to someone who wants better overall performance now, while the 6600GT may be better for those looking to increase performance in the immediate future.

Thanks for your feedback, we appreciate it.
 
PC Club carries a few 6600GT's, but none overclocked that I know of.

HardOCP did not review any GT cards from PC Club, only the 6600's in SLI came from us. The XFX was a product supplied by HardOCP as a comparison, not a representation of PC Club inventory or practice.

All in all, I can't help but be pleased!!!

James Powers
Asst Manager,
PC Club #31
Tigard, Oregon
 
The 6600GT that we had in house ran at 1.2ghz memory.

We weren't trying to compare two 6600s in SLI to the 6600GT so much as we were trying to figure out which solution would be more advantageous to the consumer, who would have paid, at the time the evaluation was written, the same price for either solution, and we wanted to say: "On the one hand, you get A, B, and C, and on the other hand, you get X, Y, and Z." As an evaluation of the video card itself, it's almost insignificant.

In the broader context of the evaluation itself, we have to ask: Does PC Club's ability to offer a computer preconfigured with an SLI setup make sense for the consumer financially? In other words: What good is a sub-$1000 computer with SLI if SLI doesn't give you a significant advantage? In order to answer that question, we had to experiment, using an off-the-shelf video card that cost roughly the same amount as the SLI solution at the time as our "control" and found that the main advantage of SLI is less severe dips in performance, the main disadvantage, comparatively, is lower average performance. In short, we're trying to give our readers an answer to the question: "Should you buy or not buy this computer with this configuration?"

I think we went a long way to help answering that question and I hope that you found the article useful, informative, and entertaining. Or at least one of the three.
 
Wow. A company comes through pretty much unscathed. Decent price and decent performance on the low budget end of the spectrum. Hopefully the all PC Club machines including their more beefy systems fare as well. Good to see a company like PC Club who has a B&M retail presence get a solid review from [H]ardOcp.

Attaboys to [H] as well for bringing their unique reviews to PC gaming enthusiasts.
 
Haha I'm in a HardOCP review!

My name is Jacob Freeman, I am the guy you called for tech support.

Anyways, glad the system got a great score, it is a great system without a doubt.
 
jAkUp said:
Haha I'm in a HardOCP review!

My name is Jacob Freeman, I am the guy you called for tech support.

Anyways, glad the system got a great score, it is a great system without a doubt.
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heh heh, atta be :D
 
jAkUp said:
Haha I'm in a HardOCP review!

My name is Jacob Freeman, I am the guy you called for tech support.

Anyways, glad the system got a great score, it is a great system without a doubt.
Click to expand...


Hehe, that is pretty funny. Hmmmmm. Are you reading this at work? Shouldn't you be helping someone?!??! ;) :cool:
 
jAkUp said:
Haha I'm in a HardOCP review!

My name is Jacob Freeman, I am the guy you called for tech support.

Anyways, glad the system got a great score, it is a great system without a doubt.
Click to expand...
No wonder you were on the ball...you read this site! =)
 
jAkUp said:
Haha I'm in a HardOCP review!

My name is Jacob Freeman, I am the guy you called for tech support.

Anyways, glad the system got a great score, it is a great system without a doubt.
Click to expand...
what a small world :p
nice review, looking into getting this for my father!.
 
Article quote:

"What we were a bit worried about was that with two SLI PCI-E cards installed, there wasn’t any room for PCI expandability and there were only a few 3.5” and 5.25” slots free in the case. If you can do without SLI, you might find your expandability increases, but otherwise, it’s going to be hard to add hardware."

I got to say that this is not acceptable. Did Gigabyte design a bad SLI motherboard? Were the clearances incorrect; was it the heat pipe solution that was chosen that interfered?

IMHO the motherboard should have been designed with this in mind.
Does the Asus Nforce SLi deluxe boards have the same issue?

On another note: How good/ bad was the integrated 8 channel audio? Maybe I just missed it... but I did read the whole article.
 
Agromahdi123 said:
what a small world :p
nice review, looking into getting this for my father!.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm an enthusiast just like most of you guys here, I run a [H] rss feed, among others, etc.

Some of you may remember me from nVnews.net. I did a video interview with Tim Sweeney back in May. I asked him about the G70 vs. R520 :D

Anyways, thanks [H] for reviewing the system!


JOESKURTU said:
I got to say that this is not acceptable. Did Gigabyte design a bad SLI motherboard? Were the clearances incorrect; was it the heat pipe solution that was chosen that interfered?
Click to expand...

The main problem is the USB/1394 connector that is plugged in the headers on the motherboard. We could have shipped the system without the connectors, but most people prefer to have extra USB ports on the back, compared to the amount of people that would upgrade their system with a PCI card. Just about all SLI motherboards with only 2 PCI slots would have this problem. The Asus A8N-SLI, and the new DFI eXpert board with the 3 PCI slots should be an easier fit, but obviously, these are high end enthusiast boards.

If you remove the USB/1394 rear bracket, a PCI card should fit with no problem in the last slot :)
 
The cards fit in just fine, the heatpipe coolers just took up a lot of room. As it was stated, moving the expansion bracket to the top slot would have freed up one PCI slot. Of course, if this is an issue you can purchase the system with a different video card solution.
 
I commend their choice of the Gigabyte 6600s, I've had great luck with them. I especially like the passive thermal solution as it is failsafe and is completely silent, which is a bonus for many people. However, the Gigabyte 6600s 128MB I've played with don't have the SLI connection, which isn't a big deal for me, since I think running 6600s in SLI is mostly for marketing. Am I missing something here? I thought part of the SLI requirement was the SLI bridge joining the two cards?

One thing really bugs me though. They use an Allied 350W PSU, which is among the same lines as your typical bunk generic ATX12V v1.3 PSU. The name is well known in the Power Supplies forum, and the general consensus is that they are to be avoided at all costs, seeing how many Allied units are built by Deer. It is strongly not-recommended (not enough +12V amperage, temperature de-rating, noise, output power stability among others). nVidia recommends a PSU with at least 20A on the +12V for SLI operation... in which this Allied unit does not deliver.
 
_Korruption_ said:
I commend their choice of the Gigabyte 6600s, I've had great luck with them. I especially like the passive thermal solution as it is failsafe and is completely silent, which is a bonus for many people. However, the Gigabyte 6600s 128MB I've played with don't have the SLI connection, which isn't a big deal for me, since I think running 6600s in SLI is mostly for marketing. Am I missing something here? I thought part of the SLI requirement was the SLI bridge joining the two cards?

One thing really bugs me though. They use an Allied 350W PSU, which is among the same lines as your typical bunk generic ATX12V v1.3 PSU. The name is well known in the Power Supplies forum, and the general consensus is that they are to be avoided at all costs, seeing how many Allied units are built by Deer. It is strongly not-recommended (not enough +12V amperage, temperature de-rating, noise, output power stability among others). nVidia recommends a PSU with at least 20A on the +12V for SLI operation... in which this Allied unit does not deliver.
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You can run 6600's without a bridge with the latest drivers. That's what we had.

As to the PSU, our system performed flawlessly. PC Club sells a LOT of their Enpower line of PCs, and what we have seen between the Fuzion and the Nitro is that they are rock stable and perform exactly as they are billed.
 
Cool review, Nice job guys, That includes you at PC Club also.
 
Looks like PC Club has updated their configuration, with the single 6600GT being cheaper solution than the dual 6600's. No doubt this due to the price drop we saw with the 6800GS being introduced.

I think it would be interesting to see PC Club update their configuration with DDR2 6600's, and add the 6800GS to the mix...
 
I thought the review was well-done, as usual.

Based on the 2 [H] reviews I am going to start recommending PC Club to friends and family. I have been trying to find a reasonably priced alternative to Dell for a long time, as Dell's customer service is the epitome of craptacular.
 
I think it would be interesting to see PC Club update their configuration with DDR2 6600's, and add the 6800GS to the mix..
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I'm working on it!!! :)

In the meantime, it is always possible to call your local store, or the web hotline(888 9PCCLUB) and ask for a custom configured machine based on that basic configuration. Even stop by your local store and pick any parts you choose!

James
 
After reading these reviews I wish they had stores on the east coast in the va area. Seems like a good company to deal with.
 
swatbat said:
After reading these reviews I wish they had stores on the east coast in the va area. Seems like a good company to deal with.
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It's even more evident on the phone...they really do care about technology and they actually give a crap about the customer...
 
swatbat said:
After reading these reviews I wish they had stores on the east coast in the va area. Seems like a good company to deal with.
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Our closest one to you is in Pennsylvania, unfortunately.
 
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