Reviews / previews
Falcon Northwest and
Alienware might be
getting some
much-needed company
on the high-end gaming
front. Sys Technology's
new AX-500P3 provides
a whole lotta gaming
bang for medium-level bucks. Selling for around $2,600, it ships complete with
most of the video, audio, and multimedia extras that gamers love.
The Sys builds around a PIII-500 with 128MB of RAM. Not a shabby starting
point. Throw in a nice-sized 14GB hard drive, a funky two-wheel mouse, a big
case, and you've got a good plate for your gaming meals.
We all know that graphics are the main food group in a gamer's diet. Well,
feed on this: The Sys is powered by the TNT-based Diamond Viper 550, a
solid 2D and 3D card, and supplements that with the Dual Diamond Monster
3D II (with twin 12MB Voodoo IIs) for optimum acceleration. Pump these
graphics onto the 19-inch KDS VS195 monitor, with its tight .26 dot pitch
display, and you're in for some serious eye candy.
We ran Futuremark's 3Dmark 99 graphics benchmark software on both cards
in this system and received pleasing results. The Viper scored higher than the
average Voodoo Banshee card and the Monster 3D II scored just under
average twin-Voodoo II marks.
The graphical main course is accented with
a Diamond MX300 sound card and solid
three-piece Altec Lansing ACS-295
speaker set.
One minor complaint was the lack of a
DVD-ROM drive in the evaluation unit we
received.. (Sys' web site indicates the unit
is now shipping with Creative Labs' PC-DVD Encore DXR2 5x drive.) In
addition, all these extras eat up any expansion room on the motherboard. The
unit ships with only one free PCI slot (although there are two extra hard drive
bays, two CD-ROM bays, and one floppy bay available).
But these are minor annoyances. The Sys is packaged well and the ample
pieces perform together beautifully. In about three months of solid use, we've
experienced no system crashes other than standard software lockups
associated with Windows. The system runs fast and smoothly, from
everything to installations to hard-core gaming extravaganzas.
And the games. This is as good as Quake II gets. After playing this game on
everything from a 486DX to a Falcon, I was still amazed at how sharply the
grunts looked on the Sys in all their glorious shades of brown. Half-Life and
Team Fortress Classic cinched the deal. Even running TFC at 1024 x 768 on
a long-distance multiplayer server, the only slow-down was from the latency.
Difficult maneuvers such as grenade and rocket jumping seemed easy-which
can make all the difference between a loss and a win.
Just in case the need might strike you to-shudder--actually work on this
machine, the Sys also ships with Microsoft's Office 97 Small Business
Addition. Just be sure that none of that stuff interferes with the true purpose of
a system such as this one. Play it for all it's worth.-- Joel Strauch / GamePro
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