Practically unparalleled performance at a pre-Core i7 price
WHEN INTEL RELEASED its ridiculously potent Core i7 family of processors last month, we knew it wouldn't be long before a desktop used its capabilities not only to break preexisting speed records but to mock them outright. We just thought it would take a little longer than it has. Maingear's astounding—and expensive—F131 has already done it.
The case is a suave brushed aluminum. It has a windowed side panel, and a switch on the back panel turns red LED lighting on or off inside. You'll find plenty of expansion room, including three external 5.25-inch drive bays and four internal 3.5-inch bays. Our test system's interior was tidily organized.
We're similarly impressed by the components, which include a multiformat card reader, a Blu-ray/HD DVD reader and DVD±RW combo drive, a water-based cooling system, and a 1,200-watt power supply to provide the juice for all this. Plus, free copies of Grid and Far Cry 2 are included with the purchase price, so you won't have to wait long to see just how well the system will handle them.
Armed with a 3.2GUlz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor (overclocked to 3.8alz) installed on the Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard, two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards (in a CrossFireX configuration) teamed up with an Ageia PhyX accelerator card, an 80GB Intel X25-M solid-state drive for programs, a 1TB hard drive for storage, and 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate powered by 3GB of triple-channel DDR3 memory, the F131 seared its way through all of our benchmark tests. Among its productivity marvels: 21,464 on Cinebench 10; 2 minutes and 34 seconds in Windows Media Encoder: 2 minutes and 13 seconds on Mures; and 13,410 on Futuremark PCMark Vantage. The F131's gaming scores were, if anything, even more mind-blowing: 410 frames per second (fps) in DirectX 9 (DX9) mode on Company of Heroes at 1,280x1,024 (as well as 264fps and 162fps at 1,600x1,200 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, respectively); over 55fps on all our DX9 Supreme Commander tests at the same resolutions; 43,335, 22,840, 16,998, and 12,915 on Futuremark 3DMark Vantage at the Entry, Performance, High, and Extreme presets, respectively; and 57.8fps, 58.3fps, and 54.lfps on our DX10 Company of Heroes test. (Despite repeated attempts, we couldn't get our demanding Call of Juarez benchmark test to complete, however.)
The big problem, of course, is the price. We have to admit that while the F131 easily muscled through everything we threw at it, even serious garners may wince at having to shell out $5,781. Maingear's own portable X-Cube (see review in this section) was behind the F131 on every test but still deeply entrenched in the kingdom of the unflappably playable, and it costs $3,000 less, though it's not based on a Core i7 CPU. For the most part, the systems that are based on a Core i7 CPU—such as the $2,374 Velocity Micro Edge Z55, the $2,499 iBuypower Gamer Paladin F870-SB, the $2,995 Falcon Northwest Talon, the $3,099 Vigor Force Recon T7N, and even the $3,809 Dell XPS 730x—aren't too far behind the F131 on most of our gaming tests. The Vigor even gave the F131 a real run for its money at the highest resolutions, surpassing it once or twice (on DX9 Company of Heroes at 2,560x1,600, with a result of 183fps, and across the board—if just barely—on our DX10 test with the same game, turning in 59.3fps, 59.3fps, and 54.7fps at 1,280x1,024, 1,600x1,200, and 2,560x1,600, respectively). 
We're not sure that even the most die-hard garners will think the F131's two or three extra frames per second are worth an extra two or three thousand dollars. Gaming fanatics will undoubtedly appreciate the rigorous attention to build quality, the careful selection of components and extras, and even the overclocking—Maingear's devotion to detail is by any measure impressive. With its performance not quite in line with its high price, however, the F131 may be a great computer,but it's not the best deal. —Matthew Murray
Computer Shopper March 2009
Maingear F131
