Elite PC Titan FX: Setting New Standards in Gaming
by Wesley Fink on November 30, 2003 10:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Elite PC Titan FX: The Test
The full suite of AnandTech benchmarks was run with the Elite PC Titan FX gaming system. Elite PC shipped the system with an ATI Radeon 9800 XT video card, which was used for all benchmarks. The Elite PC Titan FX is configured almost exactly like the Dell Dimension XPS gaming system that we recently tested, so benchmarks are directly comparable between the Dell XPS and Titan FX systems. The Dell uses the 3.2 Pentium 4, while the Elite PC is using the Athlon64 FX51.Please keep in mind that all of our other comparison benchmarks, except the Elite PC and Dell, were run with the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO, which is slightly slower. The 9800 PRO and XT use essentially the same GPU, but the XT is clocked a bit faster than the 9800 PRO. For a better idea on how the two cards compare, please refer to our benchmarks in AnandTech's ATI 9800 XT review.
Memory timings were run with the memory and setup as provided by Elite PC. We confirmed with CPU-Z 1.20a that the Titan FX runs the installed DDR400 memory at 2-3-2-8 timings. This compares to the 2-2-2-6 timings we normally use in our component reviews at DDR400.
The Titan FX was delivered with a full installation of Windows XP Professional, which is our standard OS, and we made no attempt to reinstall. We test systems as delivered, tweaking just the items to make the fairest comparisons to our archived test results. To provide the best test results under these circumstances, all co-resident applications and special services loading at startup were turned off so they would not load at boot. Benchmarks were installed and run from the nearly empty 75GB SATA RAID array. AnandTech benchmarks are normally run with sound disabled to remove the influence of varying overhead depending on the sound chip used on the board or video card. We therefore disabled all sound on the Elite PC Titan FX to provide the most comparable benchmarks. As we did on the recent test of the Dell XPS, we disabled all Creative Audigy drivers in the Control Panel System profile.
As already stated, the Titan FX and Dell XPS are almost identical in their configuration, except for CPU, and can be directly compared. The Dell uses the top 3.2GHz Pentium 4, while the Titan FX uses the top AMD Athlon64 FX51. We included results from the Asus P4C800-E, a top 875P motherboard, and top Athlon64 FX, Athlon 64, and Athlon XP 3200+ motherboards we have tested in our standard test configuration.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon64 FX51 (2.2GHz) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz (800FSB) AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB) |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Mushkin ECC Registered PC3200 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II |
| Hard Drive(s): | 2 x 36.7 WD Raptor 10000 RPM drives in RAID 0 2 x 250 Dell 7200 drives in RAID 0 Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.49 (August 20, 2003) Intel SATA RAID Drivers NVIDIA nForce version 2.45 (7/29/2003) |
| Video Card(s): | ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256MB (AGP 8X) ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 3.8 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 Windows XP Home (Dell Dimension XPS) |
| Motherboards: | MSI K8T Master 2-FAR in Elite PC Titan FX Dell Dimension XPS Gaming System Asus P4C800-E (Intel 875P) 3.2Ghz P4 Abit KV8-MAX3 Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 Athlon64 FX51 Chaintech ZNF3-150 (nForce3) Athlon64 3200+ MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ |
Recent performance tests on Athlon64, nForce2 Ultra 400 and Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. The Athlon64 FX requires Registered or Registered ECC memory, so tests with the Elite PC Titan FX and Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 were performed with Mushkin High Performance ECC Registered DDR400 memory.
All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.
For the fairest comparisons, benchmarks were recompiled for the Asus P4C800-E using a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor.
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tfranzese - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
If you people actaully read the FX articles posted you would find that their HT links are still intact and the chip is multiple processor capable.Either way, if in the future it isn't, that doesn't mean that because you bought a single chip computer that because you have a dually board that you've been shafted. You're stupid if you think that. It probably saves ElitePC time and money to buy in bulk the MSI's and just use them for all their systems.
Doop - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Sorry if I sound ignorant but the Athlon FX is not multiprocessor compatible? So you buy this system then when you want to add a second processor you have to buy 2 and sell the Athlon FX?I may be wrong about that but I'm pretty sure...
KristopherKubicki - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
I have both the MSI and Sony DVD writers. They are identical :) (roundup coming up soon!)Kristopher
destaccado - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
well looks like elitepc is trying to save a few dollars already, the computer does not come with a sony dvd writer, it's msi (check their site) and on top of that it doesn't list the name brand for the power supply or the dvd-rom, also you can't even configure it with a second athlon fx although this might not be fair to fault them for since you may be able to over the phone........check reseller ratings....destaccado - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Wow after looking at reseller ratings I don't see how you guys can in good faith recommend them .....a 4.67 lifetime rating? That's pathetic even if it is 20 something odd reviews, obviously their customers don't care to rate them very high, or at all, and on top of that- according to their warranty on their website they reserve the right to simply pay for shipping in leau of on-site service so I'm guessing anyone who doesn't live in Az isn't getting a tech to their home and the service is definately not overnight.....It's ok though I understand you guys can't rip their pc and you gave me a good idea of the fx performance.....Anubis - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
are we gonna see a test with 2 CPUs?? i like to see thoes scoresalso 300$ is a good deal because the dell XPX is that expensive and so are similar comps from Falcon NW and Voodoo PC as well as others that offer super high end gameing systems. compaired to a 6000$ FNW 3000$ is a steal
Oxonium - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw this review. You CAN'T upgrade to dual Athlon 64 FX. The extra HT links are disabled. An upgrade to the Opteron 2xx series would be needed. I'm surprised that ElitePC went through all the trouble to use a dual board but doesn't offer an option to order dual processors on their configuration page. Strange.acemcmac - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
How is 3000$ a "value" with ANY loadout? A fully pimped 875 rig will only run you 1500$ tops retail, and it will prolly be useful for top of of the line games just as long too...Shinei - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Yeah, it's gotta be the XT; there's no way it could be the beast that it is without it... Though even with a Pro instead of an XT that's still downright BRUTAL performance.What makes me curious is why they made the motherboard a dualie; AFX is basically a 14x Opteron chip, so it can't link up between processors... Unless they figured out how to re-enable those other two HT links?
Booja555 - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
What GPU does it use? on page one you say ATIR 9800XT, on page 2 you say ATIR 9800Pro.Somehow I get the feeling that it's the XT, looking at all the other specs a pro would be an unecasary bottleneck.