iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 590 in a Small Shell
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2011 3:00 PM ESTApplication and Futuremark Performance
The overclock of the Intel Core i7-2600K in the LAN Warrior II review system is comparatively mild. While a quad-core processor at 4GHz is nothing to sneeze at, Sandy Bridge tends to sail right on by that speed when overclocking. Unfortunately this is about the best our engineering sample with locked multiplier can do, and scores will reflect that accordingly.
PCMark's bias towards SSDs makes itself painfully obvious here, but at least there's a takeaway: a good SATA 6Gbps SSD is going to produce noticeably better performance and happily there are a few of those en route. Still, it's hard to say if the A-DATA drive the LAN Warrior II will ship with is going to compare to the Crucial RealSSD C300 in the review unit, so we can look at the other results and make a healthy determination of overall CPU performance from those. And sure enough, the 4GHz i7-2600K blows by all of the last generation processors as well as the stock-clocked Core i5-2500K in the Puget Serenity. Meanwhile, the 4.4GHz i7-2600K in CyberPower's Gamer Xtreme 4000 remains more representative of the kinds of overclocks we can expect to see from boutique builders, and maintains a healthy lead on the LAN Warrior II.
It's hard not to argue that 3DMark is getting long in the tooth (even with 3DMark11 running around), and 05 and 06 are both heavily CPU-limited. Still, it's not surprising to see the GeForce GTX 590 placing near or at the top of the heap every time. That the single GTX 570 in the CyberPower scores higher in several of the 3DMark versions is nothing to worry about, as the games will tell the real story.
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JMS3072 - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - link
I have a build in the NZXT Vulcan, and I have to say, I'm very happy with it. As you mentioned, the thermals are fantastic, especially with the 200mm side fan, and all the 120mm slots loaded up. Noise is certainly a minor issue, but seriously, you're looking at a case which essentially has an open side. For the size, it has plenty of space in it. My next upgrade will be a stronger GPU than my 5770, so as to handle my new Eyefinity setup better, and I don't doubt that the Vulcan can handle it with aplomb.aguilpa1 - Friday, April 1, 2011 - link
I have to agree with you to some extent as I just went from 3 screens on 2 GTX 295's to 3 screens on a single 590. I have experienced my share of glitchiness where one or two screens are detected by the third remains dormant or at the switch of going from the desktop to gaming one screen just decides to go into power saver mode and I have to turn it off and back and then it works.However, most of these issues I experienced were with the first set of drivers. I also learned that you can't just plug in your screens to your cards nilly willy, you have to have an order to them. Your main issue is most likely the differences in your three monitors. I know Nvidia has a list of supported monitors and they recommend all three monitors be identical. My three monitors are 24" 120Hz Alienware.
When I plugged in the 590, I had zero issues, no messy flickering no disappearing monitors. It was painless and simple just as I figured it would be since now I have eliminated the 2nd card synchronization from the equation. With the release of the 3 DVI 590 I get the feeling Nvidia has known about this issue and struggled to get it under control but since it likely effects so few of us that actually have 2 cards running three screens that it is not until now that they have a valid solution.
iamezza - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
They should have reversed the front 120mm fan and turned it into an exhaust as was mentioned in your 6990/590 articles.With the 590 exhausting very hot air at both ends there is no way for the hot air to escape at the front and it will just circulate inside the case.
Personally I would prefer watercooling of the vid card and air cooling on the CPU. It looks like the case had room up top for a 2 x 120mm radiator. But I'm guessing waterblocks for the 590 wouldn't be available yet.
iamezza - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
... also they used a NON-modular PSU on a $2000 mATX PC? WTF!? hello cable spaghetti..JMS3072 - Sunday, April 3, 2011 - link
Definitely an issue. As I mentioned above, I use a Vulcan, and my PSU is a non-modular Corsair 650TX. Cable management with that is a royal pain in the you-know-what. Thankfully, the side panel behind the motherboard comes out about a half inch to allow stowing of cables.Drittz121 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
Just do yourself a favor. STAY AWAY from this company. Yes they look good. But when it breaks and it WILL. All they do is give you the run around. They have had my system for over 2 months trying to fix the garbage they sell. Worse company out there for support. DONT BUY