Xi MTower IGE
This pricey but speedy quad-core system offers processing power to spare.
The Xi MTower IGE is a powerful system with a quad-core processor, lots of memory and disk space, and an impressive set of features. It's also expensive: Our test configuration was priced at $4149 (the system is available later this month).
You get a lot of computing muscle for the cash, however. The machine uses Intel's new quad-core processor, the 2.6-GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700, and 2GB of RAM. It produced a score of 155 on our WorldBench 5 tests. While impressive, that score is not dramatically higher than the marks of systems equipped with a dual-core CPU; note, though, that some of the programs WorldBench 5 uses don't take advantage of the extra processor cores. In general, you should be able to see improved performance in comparison with a dual-core system on such tasks as video encoding and 3D rendering. See "Test: Intel's Quad-Core CPU Speeds Video" for more details on the new processor and how it performs.
The MTower IGE turned in very good gaming performance, as well. Using an ATI Radeon X1950 XTX graphics card with 512MB of video memory, the system managed an impressive 155 frames per second in our test game Doom 3 at 1280 by 1024 resolution--that bodes well for the system being able to keep pace with the latest 3D games.
The PC's large ThermalTake case has a clean design. Some users consider interior case lighting--visible through a window on the side of the case--a cool asset; if you fall into that category, you may find this system's paltry interior lighting a letdown.
The case offers plenty of room inside to maneuver and to add components. Our configuration came with two 10,000-rpm 150GB hard drives striped together in a RAID 0 array, a DVD burner, and a DVD-ROM drive. Even with all that, the system still had five additional drive bays open (two internal bays and three externally accessible ones). Several cables were left untied, however, and cables connecting the motherboard to the front ports blocked one of the five open expansion slots.
Our model came with Logitech's Cordless Desktop MX3000 mouse and keyboard, a wireless package that was comfortable to use. The keyboard includes several programmable keys as well as media keys for quickly accessing your favorite programs and files. The system also bundles a remote control.
The MTower IGE is a well-rounded, nicely constructed system that provides a lot of processing power. Just a few minor issues (such as some loose cabling and the large window with no internal lighting) detract from the package.
Richard Baguley
