PC Club Enpower Sabre Extreme: E6600 Made Easy
by Jarred Walton on August 29, 2006 4:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Internals and Construction
As this is a midrange system, one wouldn't expect the Enpower Sabre Extreme to be jam-packed with stuff on the inside. Removing the side panel reveals that that is indeed the case.
The interior is tidy and all the cables are secured and/or tucked out of the way. There's plenty of room to add additional components in the future should you so desire, although the choice of motherboard prevents you from ever installing something like a CrossFire or SLI setup. On the other hand, a sound card, TV tuner(s), or various other expansion cards could be added as necessary. An added benefit of the minimalist configuration is that ample airflow should be available to all of the internal components, keeping noise levels and temperatures low and improving stability.
Given the use of a 350W power supply, we wouldn't recommend installing more than a couple hard drives and maybe a second optical drive along with a couple expansion cards. If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default PSU with a beefier unit. For the default configuration, however, everything works well and should be more than sufficient.
In terms of overall design, the case doesn't have most of the convenience features found in more expensive offerings. All of the hard drives, optical drives, expansion cards, 3.5" drives, etc. are secured using standard screws. The side panels are also held in place using standard screws rather than thumbscrews. This probably means that it takes the PC Club technicians a bit longer to assemble computers then, for example, the Dell assembly-line people. However, screws and the screwdriver have been around for a long time, and the simple fact of the matter is that they work well. They may not be the most convenient tool at times, but they aren't difficult to use and they aren't likely to break off like some plastic latches can do.
We want to emphasize that it is entirely possible to get much higher-end cases and power supplies from PC Club if that's what you want. You can also add multiple hard drives, a sound card, a TV tuner card, etc. Depending on your intended use and configuration, upgrading at least the PSU might not be a bad decision. It is possible to spend an additional $300 just on the case and power supply in the PC Club configurator, although we do wish there were additional options especially for choice of case. Some people might like the ASUS 3600 Vento but we are not among them; however, the end decision is left to the individual.
As this is a midrange system, one wouldn't expect the Enpower Sabre Extreme to be jam-packed with stuff on the inside. Removing the side panel reveals that that is indeed the case.
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| Click to enlarge |
The interior is tidy and all the cables are secured and/or tucked out of the way. There's plenty of room to add additional components in the future should you so desire, although the choice of motherboard prevents you from ever installing something like a CrossFire or SLI setup. On the other hand, a sound card, TV tuner(s), or various other expansion cards could be added as necessary. An added benefit of the minimalist configuration is that ample airflow should be available to all of the internal components, keeping noise levels and temperatures low and improving stability.
Given the use of a 350W power supply, we wouldn't recommend installing more than a couple hard drives and maybe a second optical drive along with a couple expansion cards. If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default PSU with a beefier unit. For the default configuration, however, everything works well and should be more than sufficient.
In terms of overall design, the case doesn't have most of the convenience features found in more expensive offerings. All of the hard drives, optical drives, expansion cards, 3.5" drives, etc. are secured using standard screws. The side panels are also held in place using standard screws rather than thumbscrews. This probably means that it takes the PC Club technicians a bit longer to assemble computers then, for example, the Dell assembly-line people. However, screws and the screwdriver have been around for a long time, and the simple fact of the matter is that they work well. They may not be the most convenient tool at times, but they aren't difficult to use and they aren't likely to break off like some plastic latches can do.
We want to emphasize that it is entirely possible to get much higher-end cases and power supplies from PC Club if that's what you want. You can also add multiple hard drives, a sound card, a TV tuner card, etc. Depending on your intended use and configuration, upgrading at least the PSU might not be a bad decision. It is possible to spend an additional $300 just on the case and power supply in the PC Club configurator, although we do wish there were additional options especially for choice of case. Some people might like the ASUS 3600 Vento but we are not among them; however, the end decision is left to the individual.
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nah - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Good work, as always. How about an update on the CPU?GPU guides ?modo - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Just went over to ibuypower.com and configured a Core 2 duo E6600 with the MSI 965 mobo, 500W PSU, 1 gig ram, 250 gig HD, 7900Gt 256mb, dvd burner, with a mini-liquid cooler for the cpu for $1245 (without monitor). Enter 'ibuypower' code when you order and you get 5% off, taking the total down to less than $1200.Better system for $200 less?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Add in the OS and monitor, and the total comes to $1522 with the discount. ($1361 without $229 LCD = $1293 with discount.) You need a 16MB cache HDD and a DVDRW with LightScribe if you want to make things "equal" on components. You can also add some extras that may or may not be available elsewhere. Anyway, it's still slightly cheaper; is it worth considering? Sure - it comes with a 3 year warranty. How's the support? I don't know. As stated in the conclusion, PC Club has some reasonable offers people might want to look at - especially if you live near a local store and would like that sort of support. There are a ton of competing system vendors out there.yyrkoon - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
MSI . . . I can not speak for everyone else, but I've had less than good results using MSI products. They may work fine for a period of time, but can not really be comparred to someone like ABIT, or Gigabyte. Who makes the PSU ? Why do you need a 'mini-liquid cooler' ?I've personally configured (but not bought) a simular C2D budget system, but using a E6400, and a 7600GT, and overall cost was around $800usd. Of course, I had planned on migrating a PSU (Antec), and HDDs from an older system. This is why I almost always suggest quality parts, as quality parts often last for years, and can be reused (in the case of a PSU, and HDDs here). You can go even cheaper if you use something along the lines of the Asrock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard, and migrate memory, and video from current system. *shrug* My personal experience with Asrock however, is that usually they are very solid boards (for the price), but are often less than top tier stable, and more often then not, are fairly quirky, and missing Features such as offering a SATAII controller, but disabling (or not including) command queuing(which is part of the SATAII spec, unless I'm mistaken).
QueBert - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link
funny, while I don't really care for MSI, never had a problem with them. Now Gigabyte UGH, on my 3rd board right now for this 939. And my last Gigabyte board (Athlon XP) gave me problems from day one. It's crazy how one person can never have a problem with a brand, and the guy next to him has nothing but problems. I think MSI has gotten a lot better then they were in the past. I live 2 blocks from a PC Club, and i can tell you this, whatever prebuilt systems they sell, they've done A LOT of component testing. As I've never heard somebody complain about an Enpower system, besides those who screw things up themselves with viruses and such. I only shop at PC Club, unless it's something they don't carry. They cost a bit more then Newegg, but the service is great. I walk in, they know me by name. They sold me a MB + Memory, I was dumb and didn't check, the MB was DDR2 and the memory was DDR1, I wanted DDR1, so they took the open MB back, no hassle.bob4432 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Nice article and seems like a decent system for the $$$$. One question - where can we get the bf2 1.3 benchmark you are using?thanks,
bob :)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
Sure, http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/benchmarks/bf2...">have at it. Standard "this is beta" disclaimers apply. If you don't know how to tweak a batch file, you're on your own. :)--Jarred Walton
bob4432 - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link
thanks, i had the 1.22 but lost it, then 1.3 came out.regnez - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
why is that in the feature list the graphics card is a 7900gt and in the benchmark setup it is a 7900gtx? is this a typo or was the graphics card switched out for the benchmark setup?also, it does not seem as if a 350 watt psu is enough to power that graphics card...
and one more thing: this system is called a mid-range system in the review, and I quite disagree. a mid range system would be something in the price range of $700-$900. this is a high end system, and it would not take much ($400 ish more) to bring it up to enthusiast level.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link
It was a typo; the system (as configured and tested) uses the 7900 GT. In terms of power, look at the power tests on page 9. Even with a 25% overclock and maximum load, the system draws 213W of power. That's not even accounting for PSU efficiency; remember that the PSU rating is what can be output, not the total wall power draw. Say it's 75% efficient; that means the system is using about 160W of power at maximum load. I've got a few generic 350W PSUs running similar configurations, and none of them have ever had issues.Finally, there is always debate about where market segments overlap price ranges. We consider budget to be $750 or less (maybe a bit more for budget gaming). Midrange is a huge segment that goes from around $1000 to $1500. At ~$1600, this is close enough, though it's definitely at the top of the midrange ladder. High-end starts at $2000 and can go way up from there. It's just a term anyway, and if you think $1500 is too high you're welcome to that opinion. The base configuration of the EN-SE5 comes with an E6300, 7300GS TurboCache, 160GB HDD, and costs $800 (including the OS). It's not longer really gaming worthy, but it will do everything else very well.