In addition to the overclocking, ABS chose the rest of this system's specs wisely. You get 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, overclocked to 920MHz from the stock 800MHz. You also get two 150GB, 10,000rpm Western Digital Raptor hard drives in a RAID 0 config. That's not as much storage as you might want, especially if you're into watching and editing digital movies, but that's the price you pay for those fast 10,000rpm access times. ABS does provide the option to add a third hard drive for storage, and choices range from 200GB to 750GB.You should have no trouble offloading whatever you want, either, as ABS includes both a DVD burner and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. ABS anchors all of these parts with a standard Intel 975X motherboard.
ABS's support is not as robust as larger vendors', but it meets the industry standard, which we've begrudgingly come to accept. This system gets you one year of parts-and-labor coverage for free, with a year of 24/7 phone support. An extra $49 will get you a year of onsite service, and you can also extend the phone and onsite coverage for up to three years of each. ABS's Web site is sparse. You get a driver search utility that seems to be able to find only a modem driver for this particular PC. There's a searchable FAQ that's more useful, though. ABS also has a forum that seems to enjoy regular attention from an ABS moderator. Still, we've criticized Dell and others in the past for not beefing up their warranties for the superexpensive systems, and we have to be fair, small vendor or no. Backing a $4,000-plus PC with only a year of parts and labor is lame. At this level, it should be a three-year minimum.
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System configurations:
ABS Ultimate X9 III
Windows XP Professional SP2; 3.38GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 920MHz; (2) 512MB ATI X1900 CrossFire; (2) 150GB Western Digital 10,000rpm SATA/150; Intel 8201GR/GH SATA RAID controller (RAID 0)
Dell XPS 700
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2; 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; (2) 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX SLI; (2) Western Digital 320GB 7,2000rpm SATA; Nvidia Nforce RAID class controller (RAID 0)
Gateway FX510XT
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2; 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; (2) 512MB ATI Radeon X1900 XT (CrossFire mode); (2) 500GB Hitachi 7,200rpm SATA/300; Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID controller (RAID 0)
Polywell Poly i570SLI Core 2 Duo
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.97GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6700; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 742MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT; (2) 150GB Western Digital 10,000rpm SATA/150; Nvidia Nforce RAID Class Controller (RAID 0)
WinBook PowerSpec Extreme 9800
Windows XP Professional SP2; 3.2GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; (2) 512MB ATI X1900 Crossfire; (2) 150GB Western Digital 10,000rpm SATA/150; 400GB Samsung 7,200rpm SATA/300; Intel 8201GR/GH SATA RAID controller (RAID 0)
