YoYoTech Warbird i750CX The YoYoTech Warbird i750CX is a juiced-up version of the Warbird i750X. Both models are bare towers that come without a display, mouse, keyboard, speakers or operating system, although our review unit was supplied with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit already installed to save us the effort. Everything else is included. YoYoTech …
Sure, you can turn off Speedstep and Turbo mode and fix the processor at a high MHz, but other than bragging rights there's not much benefit.
Without even upping the core voltage you can easily set the base clock of an i5 750 to about 160Mhz, and leave both speedstep and turbo turned on. That way, when you aren't using it, it will drop to about 1.4Ghz using minimal power and producing minimal heat, resulting in very low fan noise. When it needs it, it will go to 3.2Ghz, and if you're using software that doesn't multi-thread well, a single core will automatically boost itself over 3.8Ghz while the other cores are being only lightly used.
Having a range of speeds is more flexible and efficient than just turning everything off, upping the voltage and chasing the highest number you can get without overheating.
Refs:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-750-efficiency,2500-3.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-750-overclock,2438-6.html
... though the case does look a little bland externally, and not as well designed as something from Chieftec internally.
I would also venture that the single sata drive may hamper performance.
If you're serious about building a real gaming rig, you'd opt for a pair of small SSDs in RAID 0 for your OS, and a single large (and bloomin cheap these days) SATA for storage.
I can't really mentally place this in the market because of these omissions. It ships sans OS, so it's not aimed at the first time buyers market, yet it doesn't quite have the polish to appeal to the hardcore clockers.
The overall impression it gives me is something you'd build and say "OK, I can't quite afford these bits until next month, but for now..."
I don't know, maybe I'm a little too picky about my choice of cases and the price tag is a temptingly round figure, but I bare enough war scars on the backs of my hands - and those 2 top 3.5" bays look like a propper ballache to use due to the power cables coming off the cards.
Just as an example:
http://www.chieftec.com/ch07.html
The HDD bays are the most elegant design I've ever seen outside a rackmount server.
Their "patented" HDD rails aren't unique.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16811119098
The Cooler Master Ammo 533 also has rails for the HDDs (not shown in photos). This tool-less case is quite nice, and I do agree, hard drive rails that just slide into place are nice.
"If you're serious about building a real gaming rig, you'd opt for a pair of small SSDs in RAID 0 for your OS, and a single large (and bloomin cheap these days) SATA for storage. I can't really mentally place this in the market because of these omissions."
That is just dumb. Using SSDs for the OS, is just going to make the system boot faster. It won't make it a better gaming computer. It could, if you actually put games on the SSDs, but you preclude that by saying they should be small and for the OS. There are two types of "gaming rigs": one with stupid trinkets like blue LEDs and glo-in-the-dark video cards, and ones with actual useful stuff in them. I think you are in the market for the former.
The bigger problem, is that PC gaming is pretty much dead, due to rampant piracy. There are more titles released for consoles that PCs, and console games sell more units. I'm interesting to see what happens with the Mac game market now that Valve is putting Steam on Macs.
.....if they are going with Silverstone as a case supplier.....slap an extra £50 on the price and give them a proper one like mine
http://www.silverstonetek.com/raven/products/index.php?model=RV01&area=usa
Crossfire in a Micro-ATX is just begging for scraped knuckles when playing inside it
I actually ordered one of these a little while ago. I was told it would take 3-5 working days until it was finished. That seemed fair as aparently they put the system through "a long series of stress tests" and went ahead with the order around midday on a monday.
The following tuesday I had heard nothing so I gave them a call. I was put straight through to the technical dept to a person with a strong accent called Luke. He then said he would look up my order and proceeded to put me on hold.
10 minutes later I gave up, hung up and tried again. Again I was through to Luke who again put me on hold saying he was "still looking into the order status".
A few minutes went past and I was starting to get a bit frustrated when he came back saying that my system had failed during their testing and they were waiting for a new batch of motherboards which could take up to a week.
This seemed odd to me because they were still showing stock of the motherboard on their site.
I hopped on the underground to go and have a look for myself in their london store, which I found out was where they actually build the systems, contrary to what their sales staff told me on the phone!
Sure enough the motherboard was on the shelf and you can actually see half of the tech department. In all honsesty I have never seen such disorganisation with boxes, systems and components everywhere. I'm not suprised they couldnt find my system!
As I was looking at the technical department (which is towards the back of the shop),while pretending to look at keyboards. I was suprised to hear the technician Luke talking to who I would guess was the manager. Their convesation was most enlightening. They were talking about what to tell a customer who had bought a system who first had a system with a faulty graphics card, then had faulty memory and another problem that I couln't quite catch, bad CPU cooler or overheating? After a bit more "browsing" around the store they continued to talk about what to tell a customer about a system that was not dispatched in time. They came up with quite an elaborate tale about the courier not delivering the system!!
They had no intention of just telling the truth to either customer and I don't believe that there should be any reason to lie to paying customers.
It puts into question everthing that I was told about their methods of building, testing and so on..
As you can imagine having just been lied to myself, I cancelled my order, and I would advise others to tread carefully with such purchases. If their treatment of customers is that bad prior to even receiving the system, imagine what their after sales is like!?
Buyers beware! Stick to "proper", truthful companies.
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