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Review: Monarch Computer's Nemesis FX-57 7800 SLI Gaming
The system itself is as below:
Case: Thermaltake Custom Painted Shark Full Tower Aluminum Case Series w/Window (Fire Pearl)
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Power Supply: Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE-SFMA ATX 2.0 w/SLI Support 600W Power Supply
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI Audio, GB-LAN, IEEE, USB, PCI-E, SATAII w/RAID, DDR-400, ATX
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Processors: AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (939)
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Heat Sink: Zalman CNPS7000-CU Copper CPU Fan
Memory: 2 GB (4 pcs 512MB) DDR (400) PC-3200 Corsair w/LED Display (TWINX1024-3200XLPRO)
Hard Drives: 1 x Western Digital 74 GB SATA 10K Raptor (WD740GD), 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE 250 GB SATAII 16MB Cache 7200 RPM (WD2500KS)
RAID Setup: RAID 0 (Zero) Setup
DVD-RW: Plextor PX-716SA DVD±RW 16x8x16x DVD+RW 48x24x48x CD-RW SATA
Floppy: Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media Drive (Black)
Video Cards: 2 x NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3, VIVO/, Dual-DVI
Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum INT Drive Sound
Wireless NIC: D-Link DWL-AG530 Tri-Mode Dualband (2.4/5GHz) Wireless 108Mbps PCI Adapter
Industry Standard Upgradable
USB Ports on front of case
6 Month Warranty - Free tech support
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All Monarch PCs include: 48-72 hr. Burn-in Diagnostic (to ensure all components are malfunction free); Latest BIOS, drivers, and tested patches installed (All drivers are also included on CD); award-winning assembly and installation including tie-off on all cables (for improved airflow); final 62-point inspection by Intel and AMD Certified Technicians, and Free Unlimited Phone Support. All manuals, disks, cables and other accessories included with your retail components will be included with your system.
As is fairly obvious, the machine's specs are pretty hardcore. In doing some of the standard testing, the system turned out a 3DMark05 test of 13,002 whichout missing a beat. Similarly, the Sysmark04 score was a studly 225. To be blunt, I don't think I've ever seen those types of numbers before - in real life, that is.
What was even more impressive for me at least was the machine's ability to handle that most important of tasks - playing games. Playing Doom 3, with all graphic options cranked (including the console accessible ones) this machine still turned out a 80.2 FPS. Turning off the console options, and just going in ultra-mode had a frame rate of 87.3, sustained. My other gaming obessions, World of Warcraft (Props to Ajul-Nerub server!) managed to turn in a more paltry 77.3 FPS, but given the fact that you are often depending on your connection with WoW for some of that, that's pretty amazing. DivX encoding was also quite fast - 1574 seconds on the sample size that I used.
The more subtle touch on the machine was evident as well - you can open the thing up from multiple angles, with a swing front door on it, and the lighting was handled nicely. And given the machine's power and draw, I was fairly impressed with the noise from the various fans. The heat output from the machine is fairly impressive; you'll not need that space heater in the room anymore in the winter time, but the actual heat inside of the machine case, and CPU always stayed well within manufacturer recommended ranges. While running the very high-end graphic testing of Doom 3, the temp did get some spikes, but nothing that was concerning. The nVidia 7800 duals make a huge difference.
One of the other features that I liked is the fast primary drive, and back-up, slower, but RAIDed drives. It's nice for installing high access demand apps on the primary, but using the other drives as storage drives. The other comment I would make, speaking as an obessive wire organizer, is that the machine itself ships very very nicely tied off cabling-wise. I think this looks nice, but also, I would suspect, makes a appreciable difference to the heat flow. One other important note is that they offer a 3 year 24/7 support plan - all warranties are different options, 'course.
In short, the machines rocks. The issue, of course, is the pricing - but if you are looking for a top end machine, this is a phenomenal rig. Monarch does a great job of supporting the product, with a great packet of documentation and information that comes with the machine, but also active forum postings and involvement from the tech support on their boards. Great company, great machine.
[x] Memory: 2 GB [Check]
[x] Processors: AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (939) [Check]
[x] Hard Drives: 1 x 74 GB SATA, 2 x 250 GB SATAII
[x] Video Cards: 2 x NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB
This extreme gaming platform should meet the minimum requirements to play Solitare under Windows Vista. For those planning on gaming on Vista, how much more muscle can you pack into this rig?
The price for the system that I had been testing was over $5000.
Ah, part of the TCO equation! But, heck, you should be able to buy this system for $3000 a year from now. Funny how this pricing reminds me of what it cost to have 1 PC XT with MS-DOS on it back in the mid-eighties.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Base Price: $4,589.00
;-)
Holy CRAP that's expensive! And that's (apparently) without the monitor! If I may suggest, you should be able to build the same machine for about half the price, perhaps a bit more.
Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4
Sweet! They chose my favorite board! I have the A8N-E board (same thing, but only one Vid card) and I must say that it is a VERY nice board. Practically everything you could ever want is built in. NForce4 chipset, Gigabit ethernet, PCI Express, 8 channel audio, 10 USB ports, hardware firewall, hardware RAID support, 4 SATA-300 (aka SATA-II) connectors, IDE support, nearly all AMD64 chips supported, etc. I haven't found a better board, especially in that price range!
Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum INT Drive Sound
Can anyone explain what is up with this? The board comes with 8 channel sound built in. What do you need a separate sound card for? Is the sound quality really that much better?
BTW, if you get the A8N board, don't get the ASUS Star ICE. I've got one of those things and I'm now using it as a desk ornament. I just wanted an extra fan to keep things cool. I had no idea that I'd get a friggin' JET ENGINE! (I'm not kidding either. This thing can barely fit in the case when installed.) It gets great comments from my coworkers though. "What the HELL is that!?"
If you don't believe me on its size (no one ever does) just look at this pic.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Is that a quality PSU? Because that sysytem's probably going to need it.
*this space intentionally left blank
"One of the four pointers saying 'come and see', and I saw, and beheld a white
I for one welcome our new SLI overlords
I hope it pays for the hosting costs... or the editor's training :)
I've bought Monarch computers before, usually on the value-end for simple workstations. They held up fairly well. But there was always some small problem like a CD burner never worked on a new system, or the CPU fan would die and nuke the CPU. I'm sure they love you plugging their products on such a major website. Did you disclose if you work for them or not?
5000 bucks?
Does any game in this year(or the next couple) take advantage of so much power??
how much power this baby needs ?
Does it come along with it's small nuclear power plant ?
This just in: a computer built with the highest end components yields the highest end performance.
This was the most blatant advertisement as an "article" that I have ever seen. Too bad Monarch's servers can't handle the load; it makes the advertisement far less effective.
This is probably targeted to the ones that think the more expensive the system, the bigger their penis is.
Let's take RAID and use it to halve the time it takes to lose all our data. Great idea.
I'd rather have two RAID-1 arrays, one small and fast and one larger and slower. But maybe l33t gamers don't care about their data.
they are running the webserver as a pixel-shader on one of their geforcen.
1574 seconds on the sample size that I used.
Wow, that't amazingly fast!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
they list a feature on the motherboard, "IEEE". Do they realize that IEEE is an orginization, and not a part? The number that goes after IEEE is more important, like 802.11 or 1394
1: Does it help you save money on your heating bill ;)
2: Could it achieve flight if you took off the side of the case
3: does the Decibel rating make my stage amp look like a pair of cheap headphones
4:Does it weigh more than a small car
6:Does it run linux
7: what's it like in soviet Russia
8: Is this the PC they are running their servers on
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
"RAID Setup: RAID 0 (Zero) Setup"
Stupid stupid stupid.
Have fun rebuiliding your system. Really this shouldn't even be labelled "RAID setup". There is no redundancy (the R in RAID). Two discs stripped like this means you have two chances of losing everything on *both* of them. Is hard drive performance so critical that the chance is worth it?
A bit off topic, but when I saw the headline I started to laugh as it reminded me of "The Monarch" from the 'toon Venture Brothers on Cartoon Network/Adult Swim. I kept thinking about the Monarch's pathetic supercomputer that he had to reboot when giving a powerpoint presentation on how evil his plans were to another super villan.
I supsect if he had the System reviewed in this topic he would still be incompetent, but at least he'd be having fun fragging his enemies.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
I bought an Overdrive PC Torque.SLI a while back. I talked with Mario there, who actually talked me down off a higher end processor, telling me he could hook me up with a slightly lower end, $800 cheaper processor but get far more overclocking out of it than the faster process.
It's fast as hell, and when it had a stability issue due to the overclocking (yes, it was pushing it), he helped tweak it to where it was rock solid.
If you're going to pay this much for a computer, get someone who actually knows how to squeeze the maximum out of it, if you don't have the time or ability to do it yourself.
"Video Cards: 2 x NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3, VIVO/, Dual-DVI"
:)
No game manufacturer is going to make a game that REQUIRES so much brute-force GPU power to play...that would kill the market. All this would do is make games playable with insane settings like 4x FSAA and 8x Anisotropic Filtering. But most gamers (read: the average gamer) can't tell the difference between different levels of anisotropic, or the difference between 2x and 4x FSAA unless they stop and look at the screen. When is the last time you ran through the jungle in Far Cry and said to yourself while being chased by a mutant monkey with uncanny ability to maul, "Damn these leaves need to lose some jaggies"?
The point is that as soon as games come out that need next generation GPU's, your SLI system is obsolete because it likely won't have HARDWARE features to perform next-generation effects. The analogy I like to make is that 4 GeForce 4 MX's can't match a single GeForce 4 Ti 4200 because the 4 MX doesn't have hardware shaders while the Ti does. So is it really worth dropping that extra money (don't forget, your mobo needs to have extra PCI x 8 or x 16 slot as well, so there is a little extra cost there too)?
That being said, this system you posted is quite beastly
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI Audio, GB-LAN, IEEE, USB, PCI-E, SATAII w/RAID, DDR-400, ATX
Wow, there's an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers integrated on the motherboard? No wonder it's such an expensive setup...
Creative made good cards back in the Soundblaster 16 days. Since then, other companies have offered cards with better I/O jacks and similar if not better sound quality. If the product boasted "M-Audio Audiophile 192" or "Chaintech AV710" it would have good sound rather than cool branding.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Why does Hemos think that backing things up to a RAID0 which is "slower" is a convenient thing?
RAID0 is FASTER than a single drive configuration, because you're doubling the number of spindles and heads working together. It also offers NO REDUNDANCY so backing up anything to a RAID0 is completely and utterly retarded. He's got everything ass-backwards.
This is why reviews on Slashdot are moronic, whether it's Zork's misinformed and useless game reviews or hardware reviews by the tech-uneducated editors. Stick to linking to real review sites guys, please.
Now watch in a day there will be a Slashdot story linking to Hemos's review...
"I want to get more into theory, because everything works in theory." -John Cash
what a goddamn joke. SLI now is just as good an idea as it was back when 3DFX came up with it in the first place. Which is to say not a good idea at all.
Was any testing of SLI vs non SLI mode done? The tests I have seen really don't show the performance boost that SLI's added cost would seem to warrant. (The results I have seen are about a 25% speed increase for the SLI mode vs single card.)
Frankly, I have grown tired of the constant quest for minor speed increases and find myself playing more and more on consoles and less with "driver of the week" PC games. (Revoke my geek badge if you want). Consoles have eye-sandpaper graphics compared to a high end PC, but it's nice to spend a fraction of what you would spend on a single video card and have a complete system that you can just plop down in front of and it just works.
Sig under construction since 1998.
Damn $5000 for a gaming machine!!!! Games out now cant even utilize all that hardware, what would be the point? Well maybe they are preparing for duke nukem for ever, when if it comes out?
GL HF!
For $5000, you'd think the warrenty would be a bit longer than 6 months. I realize that tech gets old pretty fast, but aren't they being a bit optimistic that in 6 months you'll realize how old school your PC had become and fork over another $5000.
...even though this is obviously a blantant advertisement Monarch is one of the sites I've been looking at for the dual opteron system I'm planning on building so I'm looking forward to hearing some honest feedback. In the past I've always just bought my parts seperately for my single CPU machines and assembled them without much hassle but my investment has never been much more than four or five hundred dollars but now that I"m thinking about investing $1500 it would be nice to know the motherboard, processors, and ram have all been tested to work together.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Creative's new X-Fi cards have been sitting on Best Buy's shelves for over a month now, yet they still can't find their way into $5000 computers?
One of the other features that I liked is the fast primary drive, and back-up, slower, but RAIDed drives.
Hemos, I won't be tresting that RAID-0 to backup anything. It is strictly a user feature so you can claim you have a really big dic^Hsk.
Anm
All their data can be recovered by reinstalling from the game CDs. ;-)
Monarch has a quality reputation, but I have a few problems with that system. In order to build a true screamer, I think some component changeouts and modifications are in order.
l This motherboard supports dual opterons, so you can stick in there 2 dual core opterons. Using processor affinity you could balance load across processors (I am not sure if you can use processor affinity per core - if anyone can answer that, I'd appreciate it.
4 80&p=1 These things are mainstream now (for those that lusted for years after the highend $10k+ ramdrives).
Motherboard:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.htm
Ramdrive
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2
Soundcard
Creative Soundblaster based sound cards have had buggy drivers for as long as I can remember. Lets get some turtle beach in there, or better yet, some lower end audiophile hardware http://www.m-audio.com/index.php
Paltry amount of Ram
2 GB is like the lowest amount of ram I'd use for a highend performance system. 4 GB - 8 GB is more like the appropriate number. When I am running WoW, VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gimp, TS, and Eric3 all at once. I want them all to be fast and responsive as if I had only one application running.
Who said anything about enthusiasts? I'm actually puzzled the moderations are leaning towards funny, because I really was trying to make a non-humourous point. It's perhaps funny-ironic, the ultimate system will hardly be the minimum for the next OS release from the vender most people get their work/entertainment environment from.
That mid-eighties box, which cost about $3,000 was about a mid to high end model, it had a faster clock, 20 MB HD and a Hercules video card. It was the bare minimum to do work, most of which was running a terminal emulator, but the rest was some work in Turbo C
You can buy a very capable system for $300 at Fry's right now. There's a large gulf between capable for today's OS releases and the one coming out in a year. The big question is, how many suckers are going to bite?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I've bought from Monarch several times in the past and it's always been a really good experience. I've never had a system made by them, but I get all my parts there. The service is like something you would expect from a big name retailer, but prices much better. You don't have to take my word for it though, check out what other people have to say on reseller ratings.
... if Monarch Computers had put *that* machine as their web-server, maybe we could still reach their site :)
Well, my system is as follows: AMD64 (Winchester) 3200+ DFI Lanparty Ultra D (Easy mod to get SLI) 1GB Geil Ultra Platinum EVga 6800GT PCI-E Koolance Water Cooling Lite-On DL DVD Burner Plextor DVD Burner and some other cool do-dads in there. That system ended up costing me over a timeperiod of about 1 and a half years....$4000
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Are we on Slashdot? or some generic review site? Thanks
Check it Out http://aarondavidson.com
If the original poster is reading this, could you do me a favor and run an Excel benchmark on it, since that's what I'd be using it for?
Get back to me with the results ASAP... the bank just approved my $5k loan.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
this isnt news for nerds, it's not even news. Something that happens on a regular basis and that we all know about (that computers get faster!) is not newsworthy.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
OK, I've been a long time slashdot reader (note my userid), and while editorial standards have been slipping noticably over the last year or two, this advertisiement posing as a review really takes the cake.
Is your employer getting paid outright for these, or are they a result of personal kickbacks under the table?
Ugh. I'm just about through with this site.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So, how do we turn off these SlashAd articles and get down to the REAL stuff? Is that something only available to subscribers or do they see this crap too?
Come on, a review of YET ANOTHER CLONE SYSTEM (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Yawn, boring. Ho Hum. Is this really news that matters? Who gives a crap about some expensive custom system made by a vendor....geeze...
Hello? Editors? Are you awake or does just any old submission make it to the front page these days?
I just built a new gaming rig (P4 775) and come to the conclusion that liquid cooling is no longer a just a fancy option for over clockers. When the cooler get up to full song it almost impossible to hear anything else. I'm now saving my pennies to retrofit nice quiet liquid cooler. In rig like this it should be standard. (especially with a $5000 price tag...)
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while(!am) r2();
... I can't even do it. I tried, I really did.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
why is their no short circuit protection on the front USB straite from the MB? mulitple motherboards I have used crash hard with a short to these, the K8VM800 I am using now, included. I guess this is another feature for the hacker, can have the PC reboot automatically when you plug in your bootable usb fob.
because of that I only want the powered front USB hub (which this system appears to have in addition) in the drive bay.
would be nice if they would allow a hardrive to share the same bay though.
Just a comment about Monarch. I have been buying stuff from them for years. They aren't the cheapest place in town (but they are still compeditive)and I have had nothing but good fortune with them their PC's are solid and last a long time. Just a shout out! As a disclaimer I am not a paid advertiser, just a stoked customer!
~@~
They should have used a few of this machines as webserver.. :) But no, people take best of best hardware for gaming and outdated crap for LAMP-Servers, so they can crash at with first wave of potential customers, a very intelligent way of exploiting the 15-Minutes-Slashdot-Fame.
exit();
I thought The Monarch's nemesis was Dr. Venture.
[DRTFA]
my pet machine
Why, oh why would you need so much power to game? I build my computer 2 years ago for something like $1500 (maybe less, I can't remember now). I went to arsTechnica, looked at their Hot Rod system guide of the month and plonked a better graphics card in there.
I am still playing games on it, including BF2, Half Life 2, Doom 3 (ok, I no longer play it, but I did play it when it came out. It would have sucked more if it didn't look so pretty).
I might have to go and upgrade my graphics card soon (I got ATI Radeon 9800 non-pro) and maybe my processor (P4 2.6Ghz) in another 6 - 12 months if I want to stay current.
TANSTAAFL
RAID0 should properly be called an AID. But people will just call it an "AID Array", which is redundant as the A in AID already stands for Array. So then the R becomes appropriate again.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
After buying and owning Apple systems my whole life, I'd have to say that my Monarch system I bought a couple years ago was the cheapest and fastest computer I have ever owned. Still is.
No computer is complete without one.
1) Their prices are about as good as those you find on pricewatch for components.
2) I had a tech issue and they did respond to me. It was my error. They also seemed to be helpful on their forums.
3) They claim to do a burnin but they did not - I know because of the progress reports on the website and because the MB I have records how much time it has been on. They may have reset the HD counter - it showed only 6 hours - but there progress reports did not allow enough time for it to burn in as long as they say it would.
4) I would probably buy from them again.
Why is X so important in equipment? And why would anyone buy a 'Nemesis'? Don't you know what that means? Isn't that proclaiming it's relationship to your wallet?
I don't think the nforce4 is normally capable of running 4 sticks faster than DDR333. Are those RAM sticks specifically certified for running 4*400 on that particular motherboard?
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Is Soviet Russia, slow news day finds you!
It's not that any one game takes that much juice.. it's that you can run them all at the same time. That is why someone would want a system like this.. to run ALL GAMES at once... yup... sure is...
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Thank you. Can someone give this fellow some mod points? :-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Here I am detailing my new computer specs and suddenly the next page doesn't load. That's ok, I go back and try to refresh it. I check Slashdot, low and behold, an article linking to Monarch on the first page.
R.I.P. Monarch server
We work a lot with voodoopc in creating our 3d workstations for Radiologists, and have noted that SLI in "broken" mode does indeed produce 4 monitors' worth of 3d acceleration (with this particular motherboard at least). I'm typing this on exactly the same setup, but with 6800Gt's instead of the new 7800gt's, but I have to say that once you warm up to 60 inches of desktop there's no going back, ESPECIALLY for developers. Every once in awhile I'll kick the whole thing back to SLI mode and play WOW too, and man the result is amazing. It's not so much how high a resolution you can get to as it is how fluid you can make a game, if you follow me =)
-chitlenz
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
It's only a rig if you built it yourself. If you buy it prebuilt it is a PC.
Nemesis FX-57 8700 SLI Gaming ..isn't that 7800, and not 8700?
Meh
Wow! I was reading the fucking specs and I couldn't believe anyone would waste so much cunting money on playing shitty games.
What the cunting fuckshit does any cunt-fuckhole need two fucking video cards for?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the Monarch page
...
Shipping Weight: 13.00 pounds
Ultra light: 6.8 kg (14 lbs)
I'd like to get hold of that shipping container! Make it a lot of them. I wonder what the shipping weight of the shipping container is
Infuriate left and right
Console gaming is the only way to go...Come back when there is a 7 cell processor in this box for under 500 bucks.
A friend of mine asked me to help chose components for his next PC, and, not paying attention to the prices, we (actually, 'I' would be more appropriate) decided on a single 7800GTX and X2-4800+ instead of two cards in SLI and FX-57. Although the possibility of adding a second gfx card still remains, we decided to only buy one card. It would always be possible to buy a second one, or throw the current one out and buy next gen card which would grind two of these into dust anyway.
Now, FX-57 usually beats the X2-4800+ in games, but by a rather small margin: 5-6fps was the most significant difference. What makes the difference is adding a background task, like file compression or Skype or whatever. FX-57 drops almost in half (if the task is significant), while the X2 only slows down by 3-5fps. Hopefully game developers will take advantage of all the additional cores and the X2 would be even better in the future.
The whole system cost about $2500, including a quality case and PSU, two 250gb drives and all the other stuff necessary.
Just out of sheer morbid curiousity I priced this out on Newegg, grand total minus shipping and any applicable tax was $3,702.95 not a bad mark-up they have going there. But if you put it together yourself you won't get the swanky paintjob. But then again you won't get the retarded disk configuration either.
Thermaltake Shark Tower Black - $169.00
Enermax Noisetaker EG701AX-VE-SFMA ATX 2.0 - $149.99
Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI - $175.00
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (939) - $1,011
Zalman CNPS7000-CU Copper CPU Fan - $42.99
4 x Corsair w/LED Display (TWINX1024-3200XLPRO) - $430
1 x Western Digital 74 GB SATA 10K Raptor (WD740GD) - $183.00
2 x Western Digital Caviar SE 250 GB SATAII 16MB Cache 7200 RPM (WD2500KS) - $237.98
Plextor PX-716SA DVD±RW 16x8x16x DVD+RW 48x24x48x CD-RW SATA - $116.99
Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media Drive (Black) - $21.00
2 x NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3, VIVO/, Dual-DVI - $928.00
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum INT Drive Sound - $176.00
D-Link DWL-AG530 Tri-Mode Dualband (2.4/5GHz) Wireless 108Mbps PCI Adapter - $62.00
Arrrggghhh, pathetic...2 x 7800 GTX cards...pfft, at that price they should be the Ultra...Maybe when we get the Platinum and Extreme versions too they should be the ones in this rig...GTX pfft...
... Hey, OEM bundling...now there's an idea for MS and NVidia...Lawsuits from ATI...pfft...
In fact can we get 7 names:
7800 Turbo (as in we nick yer system ram but sell cheap)
7800 LE
7800 GT
7800 GTX
7800 Ultra
7800 Platinum
7800 Extreme Edition (or EE)
Then depending on the version of vista you buy
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Counterpoints to the review:
Power supply. Excellent beast - among the best powersupplies there is, and very quiet for the power (the PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI has a Delta fan in it = loud, the OCZ Powerstream is good if you like LED fans and manually adjustable voltage rails, and there's nothing else in that quality bracket except the nutty PC Power & Cooling 850, and the Enermax Galaxy 1K, and that's more for dualies and graphics workstations). I have the same PSU myself; had to RMA the first one due to the 3.3V line riding at 3.94V, but RMA was extremely swift - the other one is flawless, and I think that speaks better for the quality of the Enermax customer service than it does for the occasional inevitable defect. Good choice.
Motherboard: I have the exact same motherboard. Flawless (better than the Deluxe model, and the others). Chipset uses a heatpipe, so no chipset fan. SLI doesn't need an edge connector to swap. And it's a good overclocker (second only to the leading DFI, whose higher memory voltages can push it towards the nutty Redline RAM).
Processor: Nutty overkill, gotta love it. Might hit 3GHz, but maybe not on that heatsink. And no point with that heatsink with SLI; the machine will not be quiet, deal with it, just keep Deltas and Tornados away. Maybe get the FX-55 and overclock it 200MHz and save a whole bundle on cash, and I think the Thermalright XP-120 (which is enormous, but does fit on that board, and cools the heatpipe radiator excellently), and a 120mm Panaflo fan would be better choices. Also, for the same price, you could get a X2 4800+; I know this is billed as a gaming PC, but games *will* be dualcore as it gets more popular, dualcores are just plain smoother to use (even Steam doesn't freeze as much) and if you want a little futureproofing... well, you can still swap it out later, I guess, that's the beauty, and it's a good choice. FX-57: Part of the reason this machine is stupidly expensive.
Memory: *Poor* choice. Can't run 1T with four sticks. 1GB sticks are decent now, and a matched pair of 1GB sticks will work MUCH better - Corsair have two suitable ones, but I suggest the OCZ Platinum. That way you'll get lower memory timings, and crucially to 1T, which does make a measurable difference in framerate in some games (which tend to like lower latency memory, than clockspeed).
System HDs: Two Raptors in RAID-0. You can't argue with that; mainstay of many a high end gamer's system; they really reduce load times and improve the performance like you wouldn't believe, and you won't do any better without resorting to SCSI or Fibrechannel, and the Cheetah X15.4 or Maxtor Atlas -- and they cost a bomb, and drop like flies. For those sticklers about "reliability" - don't be stupid, it's the system drive. You need SPEED on the system drive, and RAID-0 delivers - if a drive goes, it goes, you replace it and reinstall Windows or restore from the ghost image you kept on the storage drives, bleh. Your data storage should be the *other* pair. Raptors are very reliable, if they aren't first-week failures, anyway. Good.
Storage HDs: Not as good a choice. They're cheap. At least the 300s, and I'd have preferred to see the WD Caviar 400GB RAID Edition 2, and maybe in a RAID-1 pair (or just separate). I'd say the Hitachi 7K500s, but they get hot, real hot, and that hints at the possibility of early failure.
DVD-RW: I can't argue with that, but I can ask which TLA it is. That drive has a spotty history, and isn't always the best (which is really disappointing from Plextor; I look forward to a higher quality drive in future).
There isn't a CD-RW. That's a mistake, IMHO. DVD-RWs are lacklustre at CD performance, and more easily confused at protection. And this is a gaming PC. Put a Plextor Plexwriter Premium in there, while you still can. Don't ask, just do it. You'll thank me later, when you're ripping audio (your own discs, for personal enjoyment, of course) and making Alcohol images of your game CDs, that the DVD-RW wouldn't touch with a ten foot
Does it ever annoy anyone else that RAID 0 is considered a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks? RAID 0 is not redundant, in fact such an array can be more susceptible to errors. Maybe I'm just weird...
Heya, I've bought from Monarch before. So all my dealings or orders have had no problems what so ever. What lured me to Monarch was their tech support. I called them years ago to inquire about a new CPU. We talked for about 45min - 1hr. I did not end up buying the CPU at the time. Because of the knowledge and information he gave me, I was able to delay my purchase and get the new revision of the CPU when it released shortly after. I actually got the sense that the tech cared about helping me make the right purchase for me, and not just get a quick sale or say something to get me off the phone, it was awesome and something I've grown use to from all their technicians/sales folk. Perhaps this sounds like I am tooting their whistle and I spose I am in the end. I saw this review on one of their systems, so I felt I should pass on my experiences with Monarch Computers as well with this story/review. Oh, and on topic, heh ya I think this is a bit much of a PC for even someone like me, a dedicated gamer. But then again I'd buy this box in a heart beat if I could afford it. Instead I went with a slightly less of an upgrade to my existing box. AMD64 x2 4400+, 2GB RAM on a very nice MSI SLI board with 2 7800's to put it to good work. I am very happy with the hardware, as well with how Monarch handled this order from start to finish. Enjoy, RedR
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Final cost: $1900. Is it worth it to spend an extra $3100 for a 10 fps gain in Doom3?
Final verdict: Build it yourself. You'll be happier and save money.
The review said:
ErMaC spewed forth:
It's quite clear that you did not bother to think about what the review said. The RAIDed drives are 7200 rpm whereas the primary is 10K. So, he was right. The RAIDed drives are slower than the primary. Furthermore, the fact that he said "but RAIDed" suggests a contrast against the relative slowness. It's obvious he understands that even though the drives are slower, the RAID configuration should overcome that.
Now, the review did say "back-up" drives. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but he goes on to explain: "It's nice for installing high access demand apps on the primary, but using the other drives as storage drives." This suggests that he uses them as regular storage drives. You know, like for normal data storage, not for backing up data.
who cares about 3dmark anyways ;-)
That's more than a dual proc Power Mac G5. Pass me the bong, people.
I think they're going to have to use one of their gaming rig as a replacement server because whatever they had before must be fried by now.
They shipped us a lemon and it was a total hassle to get it repaired. Their customer service sucks!
a inboard.epox/browse_thread/thread/c3d604246f2d3c8b /a65c057a21cf2d2d?lnk=st&q=monarch+sterling&rnum=5 &hl=en#a65c057a21cf2d2d
Proof:
http://users.net1plus.com/scottm/monarch.htm
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.periphs.m
http://www.resellerratings.com/forum/t75350.html
but the one you WANT always costs $2,500 !
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
Does it have such a vile looking case? I know it doesnt affect performance but why would I want i ricer nightmare under my desk ? yuck!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I'm probably the 100th guy to comment on this, but running 4 DIMMs on an A64 often (mostly) results in a 2T command rate, which is much slower than 1T command rate (which probably could've been attained with 2*1024MB DIMMs). But, still, it's a pretty fast machine. :-)
Perhaps Monarch builds decent workstations, however their servers are complete crap. I made the huge mistake of purchasing 6 1U servers off of their website from them a year ago. What a nightmare.
First they sat on the order for 2 weeks and did nothing. When I called to inquire what was going on they told me that they had *never* built the configuration that their website allowed me to order before, and it wasn't going to be possible. Their 'solution' to this problem was to tell me that i'd have to pay $3k more per server to get an equivalent configuration that they could build. I told them, no thanks, i'll take my business elsewhere, and suddenly they caved.
Wait another 2 weeks without any signs of progress, at which point they tell me that they're having manufacturing delays, and that it would be another week at the most, and that they'd overnight me the hardware. 10 days pass with no updates and no servers. I call and the sales drone tells me that they're having supply chain problems, and that he'll 'upgrade' me for free to a 2U server with the same comonents but I'd have to pay $1k more per server. I tell him no, cancel my order, i've had enough of this bait & switch crap. They offer to throw in 2 extra 145GB SCSI drives per server if I pay $500/server more, and I agree.
Finally the servers arrive, and of the 6 only one boots at all (with RH9 pre-loaded). The others can't find a boot device. So I figure i'll just reload them, because I don't really want RH9 anyway (I needed RHEL3). I can't install RHEL3, as the Adaptec SCSI controller keeps getting bizarre bus timeouts & resets. I call Monarch's tech suppt to ask WTF? For starters, getting in touch with a human is very difficult. Much of the time I got dumped to vmail and no one ever returned my calls. When I did get a human they were always giving me this story about how there's only one Linux tech on staff and he was either at lunch, or in a meeting, or on the phone with another customer. I demand to talk to a manager, and i'm promised that one will call me the same day. While I'm waiting (with my project now nearly a month behind schedule) I start poking around inside the boxes, and I figure I'll see if Adaptec has any ideas.
I submit a support request to Adaptec, and I get a call from them 30 minutes later from someone who had many Linux clues. After some troubleshooting we determined that the 64bit PCI slot on the mobo in these servers can't handle the Adaptec SCSI controller (and Adaptec points this out in the errata which Monarch apparently failed to read). I had to move the SCSI controller to a 32 bit PCI slot, which allowed me load RHEL3 without a problem.
A manager from Monarch did call me back later that day, and was completely useless. I explained how Adaptec figured out the problem, and that this was clearly a failing of Monarch, and that I wanted a refund for selling me servers which couldn't run at their full capacity. Monarch refused to give an inch, and insisted that they had 'burnt in' the servers with RH9 in their factory, and something had to have broken during shipping. I kept pointing out the Adaptec errata to this idiot, and he just kept making excuses. (incidentally, the one server that did boot RH9 had its SCSI card in the 32 bit slot). All Monarch would offer was for me to ship the servers back to them for 'repairs'.
Never buy servers from Monarch. They are clueless, bumbling idiots.
I ordered a $3600 server from Monarch on August 22. It's way overdue. As of yesterday, my order was only being built!
The order status page says, "We'll email if you there is any delay." No e-mail, so on the last possible on-time delivery date, I sent an inquiry e-mail which was never acknowledged. It took a phone call and mentioning the BBB to get a reply. They say they are busy with back-to-school rush and they don't want to compromise quality: how about customer service quality?
Anyway, they eventually re-promised it would be here this week. It's Thursday noon, a full month after ordering, and no server!
A shipping upgrade doesn't cut it.
This server was supposed to upgrade our office--about 30 desktops, mostly running Windows 95 on about Pentium I CPUs--to the latest Linux goodness with major upgrades in performance and software. Evolution beats SquirrelMail for sure. OpenOffice.org's slowness is easy to forgive on dual Opterons swimming in RAM.
That is so right.
These 3yo specs are still more than sufficient for the vast majority of people, including (non-teenage boy) gamers:
Purposefully no mention of disk space, because that need is always growing.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
This system is a flagship model. Just as Chevy produces the Z06 they expect relatively few people to purchase it. Unlike Chevy, however, all Monarch's models have the same kind of care and build quality. The A8N-SLI Premium is problematic when using four sticks of RAM. I like the fatal1ty board from Abit or the DFI LanParty better. As for the Soundblaster, if you don't want it don't order it. This system is totally customizable. You don't have to get the auto-paint chassis the Audigy, or even the dual 7800GTX cards.
Condensed review: This gaming rig, using all the top-of-the-line parts, has great performances with the latest games.
Whoop-dee-doo. Thanks for the information, couldn't have figured it out myself.
The real damn question is why are the Slashdot editors advertising for a company that has nothing to do with the news that "matters" to us nerds. I would never buy a computer that was built by someone else. I can build the same PC even if I do not have warehouses full of inventory and can get discounts on certain pieces of hardware. They always charge like 400% more than what the computer is actually worth. I've seen Alienware's and other "gaming extreme" pc's that have been sold @ 5k dollars when I could build the same PC for around 750-1200 dollars. All depends on what you are trying to build.
I hate that these companies are cashing in on the hoardes of morons that buy into the whole "gaming" market. I've seen so many things labeled for "gamers" that it makes me want to puke and I would like to see Maddox's take on this whole shitload of assraping that companies are doing to people who dont know anybetter.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I and a friend of mine have had serious issues with that company. We live approximately 30 minutes (traffic-free) from the store. With Atlanta traffic, it could easily take upwards of two hours. I have checked their website AND called them to see if an item was in stock. I have arrived to find out this was not the case multiple times. My friend has also had the same experience. He also tried returning a defective motherboard he purchased the same day, and they would not take it back or refund his money. I will NEVER give them any more of my money. I'd sooner take my chances ordering parts on the internet from a company in California, and that's just sad. If you go to resellerratings.com, you can find others with some pretty bad experiences.
Seems like I could build one of these for a fraction of the cost. Has anyone priced this out piece by piece to see what they could build one themself for?
Do you really need to shell out the big bucks for a card that does EAX4, or can you cut your expenditures significantly and go with a card that does something less than EAX4 (but still something really good)?
You don't need to. But then again you don't need dual 7800s, or that A64FX. This machine is quote obviously all about excesses, so if EAX4 improves performance by even 1%, it's likely to get included in the spec.
Fully loaded dual proc G5 with the latest NVidia/ATI video card and 2G of RAM (even overpriced RAM they sell) is still $400 cheaper than this thing. Go check at Apple store.
My other gaming obessions, World of Warcraft (Props to Ajul-Nerub server!) managed to turn in a more paltry 77.3 FPS, but given the fact that you are often depending on your connection with WoW for some of that, that's pretty amazing. Actually, I belive it's more of a CPU limit, rather then an bandwidth one.
but seriously, $5,000 and the pc is only covered for a period of 6 months?
"Here I am in the belly of the beast, and I don't even care. I don't even feel like taking a whiz on this. I used to dream of taking a whiz on this."
The Venture Brothers is truly a great show. Right up there with Robot Chicken. No, better than that...
Hard Data Ltd. will build the IDENTICAL system and deliver to your door for $4,200
And they have been building Linux systems since 1993
http://www.harddata.com/
I had to laugh. The Monarch System defaults to Windows config on their page, and when I selected Fedora Core 4 it popped up some lame tech note claiming that FC4 would not support dual core CPUs.
Never mind the fact that there ARE no duals listed as options on this configuration, they are simply wrong!
Lame Alert!
Lunux builder wanna-bes!
Buy from a REAL Linux shop!
The article (coughadcough) says :
"This machine rocks" but compared to what? how can you make a statment without comparing it to another 5000 gaming rig?
the good news is that is comes with:
"Floppy: Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media Drive (Black)"
sweet..and making it black will add at least 10% to the speed.
Of course, if I wanted speed I would use a raid config with SCSI 360 and hard drives that have a 3.9 ms access time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
that's the noise people make when they see the price!
Or when they see the ballhog...dribble dribble swish....
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Still no reason to upgrade the 6800GT anytime soon.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Must be a big MB.
BTW The grandparent was a joke. So is this (just not a funny one).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Has the mac version of the 7800 shipped?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'