PC Club Enpower Sabre Extreme: E6600 Made Easy

Features and Price

Prices on the Sabre Extreme start at around $800 and go up to over $3000. As with most vendors, you can configure your system differently, focusing on increasing storage capacity, faster or slower graphics, more memory, and various other options. Here are the specifications of the Sabre Extreme we received:

PC Club Enpower Sabre Extrene EN-SE6
Case:	Apex customized Mid-Tower with 350W PSU
Motherboard:	Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
Processor:	Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40 GHz 4MB shared L2 cache)
Heatsink/Cooling:	Stock Intel CPU HSF 80mm front fan 80mm rear fan
RAM:	2x512MB Transcend PC2-5300 JM367Q643A-6 5-5-5-13 Timings
Graphics:	MSI GeForce 7900 GT
Hard Drives:	250GB Western Digital 16MB 7200 RPM
Optical Drives:	LiteOn 16X DVD+/-RW
Expansion Slots:	1 x PCIe X16 3 x PCIe X1 3 x PCI
Expansion Bays:	4 x 3.5" internal bays 2 x 3.5" external 4 x 5.25" external
Audio:	Realtek ALC883 7.1 HD Audio onboard
Power Suply:	Allied AL-C350-ATX 1 x 24-pin ATX; 1 x ATX12V 4 x 4-pin Molex 1 x 4-pin mini Molex 1 x SATA
Operating System:	Windows XP Home SP2
Front Ports:	2 X USB2.0 2 X 3.5mm Audio (Headphone and Microphone)
Rear Ports:	1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x Parallel 1 x Serial 1 x Audio I/O Panel (six jacks) 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Port 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out Port 1 x RJ45 4 x USB2.0
Monitor:	ViewSonic 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms 500:1 VA1912WB

There are often drawbacks to purchasing a prebuilt system -- more limited BIOS options, potentially proprietary designs, slightly reduced performance in the name of stability, generic designs, etc. PC Club manages to separate their offerings from those of larger OEMs by going with off-the-shelf components. Rather than using a proprietary motherboard design, or even a standard motherboard but with a special BIOS that removes many of the extras, PC Club includes your garden-variety Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard. This may not be the absolute best motherboard for Core 2 Duo processors, but with the latest BIOS it runs very stable, and you even get access to the standard overclocking options.

Overclocking? On a midrange OEM system? Blasphemy! Naturally, all of the standard disclaimers with overclocking apply. PC Club does not condone overclocking, and assuming they can determine you overclocked your system and caused a component to fail, they will certainly void your warranty. Still, if you'd rather just get a system that's all ready to roll out of the box and perhaps do some mild overclocking on your own, we will take a look at what we can achieve. We won't be trying to set any performance records, but given the 68% (and higher) overclocks of Core 2 Duo processors floating around the Internet, it seemed a shame to let the E6600 continue to run a stock speeds.

As we like to do with our system reviews, we priced out a similar home built system for reference to see how much you're paying PC Club to assemble and test everything for you.

Component Price List
Case:	Apex customized Mid-Tower with 350W PSU	63
Motherboard:	Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3	151
Processor:	Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40 GHz 4MB shared L2 cache)	370
Cooling:	Stock Intel CPU HSF 80mm front fan 80mm rear fan	0
RAM:	2x512MB Transcend PC2-5300 JM367Q643A-6 5-5-5-13 Timings	90
Graphics:	MSI GeForce 7900 GT	275
Hard Drives:	250GB Western Digital 16MB 7200 RPM	84
Optical Drive:	LiteOn 16X DVD+/-RW	32
Audio:	Realtek ALC883 7.1 HD Audio onboard	0
Monitor:	ViewSonic VA1912WB	222
Keyboard:	Logitech Internet Pro	11
Mouse:	Logitech RX1000	28
Operating System:	Windows XP Home SP2	95
Sub Total:		1421

There are currently some added costs with some of the components, chiefly the E6600 processor. Taking that into account you're basically paying PC Club about $200 in order to build the system for you. That is definitely a reasonable offer. About the only drawback is that configuration choices are limited in some areas, so you can't for example select a different motherboard or memory type in the online configurator. That may matter for some people, but for the target market the features and options should be more than adequate. If you'd like to change any of the options, you can call PC Club and custom build a system to your needs, or you can go to a local store and do the same thing.

Speaking of changes, the components used in the Sabre Extreme we're reviewing are subject to change, and at present PC Club has decided to move to an MSI P965 motherboard instead of the Gigabyte DS3. Again, you can custom order a system using the DS3 if you'd like, and the overall features are still going to be similar. As long as the part you want is carried by PC Club, you can order whatever you'd like. Another change in parts is that instead of an MSI 7900GT GPU, the latest configuration uses an EVGA 7900GT card or an MSI 7900GT with HDCP support. The HDCP card costs an extra $20, but once Vista launches you might be glad to have the feature depending on how much you plan to use the system for watching movies.

Obviously, some concessions are made in order to keep costs low. Integrated audio is available on every motherboard these days for free, and while it is sufficient for most uses there is a qualitative difference between onboard and discrete solutions. The case and power supply are also on the lower end of the power and quality spectrum, but they should get the job done. If you are looking for something to compete with the supercharged computers of the world, you'll need to look elsewhere (or spend more money), but if you're just looking for a computer that offers reasonable performance and reliability, the Sabre Extreme is a good place to start. Now let's move on to some the finer details.