9 On Test $1500 GA: Ming PCs (Part 2) - Advance Technologies ATEX-Xpredator

Can’t get no satisfaction

The one thing that the Sis can’t hope to replicate though is the sense of achievement born of putting together your own PC from scratch. The first time it breezes through a stress test, or the first time you boot your favourite game, or even just the very first time you get a successful POST screen will give any of us happy geeks a thrill.

The first full PC I ever bought after joining PCF, all those years ago, was a $750 CyberPower machine. By tweaking the spec I was able to put together a machine that matched my modest means and was targeted at what I use my PC for the most: gaming.

There’s also the masochist time, who relishes the prospect of finding a solution to any bugs he comes across. But if the thought of bug-fixing a machine you’ve spent mucho moolah putting together leaves you in a cold sweat, the SI will take much of that worry out of the equation too. Most builders will include a burn-in period where they test the stability of the components, and any overclocking that has been under taken on any of the parts. This will usually catch any errors before the rig even gets to your desk.

You don’t have to drop a grand to pick up a decent machine from an SI, though. The first full PC I ever bought after joining PCF, all those years ago, was a $750 CyberPower machine. By tweaking the spec I was able to put together a machine that matched my modest means and was targeted at what I use my PC for the most: gaming. Shop around and you can uncover some bargains – especially if you start looking at last generation parts. A lot of the system integrators are still offering Nvidia Fermi cards at decent prices. So how do you choose a system integrator to go to? Well, we’ve set nine of the top system integrators in the UK a challenge to put together the best $1,500 gaming PC they can. Each of them has built something a little different and where they have spent the money, and how they have assembled their rigs, should give you a good idea which SI should get your cash. Whether it’s lightning-fast boot times, eye-pooping gaming frame rates or the peace of mind of a long-lived warranty, one of these rigs could be for you.

“You don’t have to drop a grand. Shop around and you’ll find some bargains”

What of warranty?

Aftersales support can vary massively

Performance out of the box and relative pricing shouldn’t be the only things you base your buying decisions on. One of the biggest bonuses of buying a full rig from a system integrator is the level of cover you receive as standard. As with all components, you will automatically receive a full replacement on any parts that go wrong within a year of delivery. After that it’s up to the individual SI what it provides.

The standard offering is the three-year limited warranty. This covers parts and labour cost for the first year, then two further years of labours/repair cost, but not parts. It also seems standard to offer free collect and return carriage on any returns or repairs for the first month from delivery. Of the nine Sis that submitted machines for review, Scan and Chillblast are the ones that stand out in terms of their standard warranties. The Scan 3Xs cover gives you a full year of on-site cover – the following day if possible. That’s then followed by two further years of parts and labour cover on a return to base level, which is unprecedented. Chillblast’s cover is also pretty good, giving two full years of collect and return cover on parts and labour.

When you’re deciding which SI to throw your cash at, it’s always worth investigating what they offer in term of customer service. Most sites will have FAQ pages where you can read the terms and conditions of their standard warranties, but they should also have manned telephone lines you can call up to get advice well as information.

Sites like Vibox and YOYOTech have online live chat options available from their websites, which let you ask a question about a build or the types of aftercare they offer and get an instant response.

Super test: Advance Technologies ATEX-Xpredator

The very first thing to catch your eye on this AdvanceTec build is the striking XPredator chassis, all stormtrooper white with black grills getting all up in yours. It also has a huge Perspex side panel, which reveals the second thing to catch your eye – the water-cooling setup.

This isn’t the only build in the test to feature liquid as an aid to chilling out your chips – the Cyberpower machine over on p12 has a closed-loop water cooler – but this is the only one to use a separate pump and reservoir setup. That means the setup can be expanded if you decide you want to include a loop for the graphics card, or even stick another reservoir in between to provide extra cooling for both.

Sadly though, the extreme (and extremely pretty) water-cooling setup in this machine hasn’t translated into a serious overclock on the CPU itself. In fact, the ATFX rig ships with the slowest clocks of all the i5 machines in the test, sitting on its laurels at a mere 4.3GHz.

That means AdvanceTec garners the slowest CPU benchmarks of all nine test PCs here. That’s a big disappointment considering how intense the setup looks. With a little light tweaking – a simple bumping of the multiplier in the BIOS – we were able to get a rock-solid 4.7GHz out of the 3570K.

Lucid dreaming

It’s swings and traffic circles though, as it’s the only machine here to opt for an AMD graphics card over an Nvidia one, and in the benchmarks that really makes a difference. The overclocked HD 7970 may not have the edge in the Heaven synthetic test, but in the four gaming benchmarks it pulls out a very obvious lead. The only fly in the ointment here is Advance Tec’s questionable decision to ship the setup with the Lucid Virtu tech plumbing the CPU and GPU together in-game. In Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033 it made no difference in performance, but it gave a little boost to DiRT Showdown.

The Shogun 2 test was a different matter, showing a massive performance boost, but that was tempered by the terrible graphical errors that accompanied it – something we couldn’t live with, and would lead to us immediately turning off the Lucid Hyperformance mode.

Smart response

That perhaps explains why no-one else wanted to get with the Lucid lovin’, but on the flip side AdvanceTec was also the only SI to actually enable the Intel Smart Response tech with the small SSD. Pairing the SSD and HDD together meant it felt almost as responsive as a full SSd system, and had the same boot time too.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag for the ATFX rig then; stellar gaming benchmarks but weak CPU performance

So it’s a bit of a mixed bag for the ATFX rig then; stellar gaming benchmarks but weak CPU performance. With some BIOS tweaking you can sort that out, but should you really have to when you’ve put down a grand for a PC? We’re not entirely sure about that chassis either. From a distance it looks the business, but up close it feels like a budget option. It doesn’t have a reset switch, either. Weird. But still, a great looking, strong gaming machine, with a good balance of components.