Legit Reviews

I've been talking with Kyle Felstein over at All American Computer and he has been telling me how great his latest system is for more than a week. He actually wanted me to drive out to his shope (about 3 hours away) and give it a test drive before it was shipped out, but due to a busy week I couldn't make it. From the pictures he sent me today I have to agree that this is a killer system and wish I coulda seen it in person! All American Computer was hired by ATI to build some of their most impressive systems that are used at trade shows and LAN parties. This is the Second case that Kyle Felstein has built for ATI to show off and then give away.

The Hardware is what you would expect from a system like this -- the best money can buy!

AMD Athlon 64FX-55 Processor
ATI Radeon Xpress200 motherboard
2 X 74 Gig Raptors in Raid 0
Adaptec RAID controller
200 Gig Seagate SATA
NEC 16X Dual Layer DVD burner
1 Gig Corsair 3200XL Pro RAM
AACDIRECT.com DeltaT watercooled acrylic case
Custom laser etching
Audigy 2 ZS for Audio

Now For Some Pictures. The left & right side case images were made public by ATI this morning, but our good buddy Kyle managed to get us a picture of the front and the inside with the door off for just us! If you are ever in need of a PC for a trade show or to "beat" your buddies then head on over to All American Computer and see what they can build for you!

The Front:


The Left Side:


The Right Side:


The Inside:


There you have it! This killer system is going to be given away as a prize to one lucky person at the forthcoming Texas Gaing Festival. I'm not sure what ATI is going to be making people do to win this killer system, but with Terry Makedon from ATI on hand I'm sure it will be good!

What do you guys think of it? Did Kyle pull off a killer system again or what?

Hmm... the thoughts going through my head now that I just learned how to play with acrylic....

It's nice, but no water on the vidcard. For shame. There are quite a few nice X850 blocks out there...i jsut got my hands on the koolance one!

Freaking sick! What I would do for that thing!

Too bad I live so far away...

I'd pimp my ass for that......oh wait, did i say that out loud?! Man, that it a seriously sweet rig. I agree with the water on the video card

wow. that is awesome. the only reason i can think that they didn't water cool the GPU is because ATi wants to show that you don't need to to get good performance from their cards. obviously if you went though the trouble to do that cool water setup it would be almost no trouble to cool the video too. and the north bridge. i didn't see if that was cooled. too many lights and shiny things. awesome setup though.

the problem with cooling the NB is that alot of times its counterproductive. First, its proximity to the CPU means the water doesn't get rid of heat, second, the chipset on that particular board doesn't get overly hot.....now if they used the NF4 chipset I think they'd water cool it.

I say its Legit Approved, but i will need a sample sent to my apt for testing and verification before passing final judgement.

infinitevalence wrote:I say its Legit Approved, but i will need a sample sent to my apt for testing and verification before passing final judgement.

Gonna take about 6 months to get that testing done, now, isn't it? LoL.
I dunno...my surrent system benches with FX-55's and cards with much higher clocks, so i probably get the same performance as that machine.

I'm just waiting to see what ATI unveils in texas this weekend.

I'm not big on clear cases.......But this one I'd like to get my arms around.
Most excellent work, Kyle!

I have it on fairly good authority that ATI is going to unveil their newest video card. with 512MB of memory. I'm thinking thats why they backtracked on the X850XT, because there isn't alot of sense in putting it out there, then trumping yourself by releasing a new card

LoL...don't think it's AMR, eh?

See i was hearing that it was bad yeilds that caused the shortage... but who cares we got new chips comming out and i have a funny felling that they will give the 6800gt a run for its money. While im not normally a fan of clear cases i have to say this one looks bad ass. They also got the color right, i am so tired of seeing clear cases with lots and lots of blue CC and LED fans. This case has all the blig and glam it needs all while exercizing some reserve. It asks you to stop and ponder the depth of its evil... sorry the voices just started calling have to go bbs.

I also have a good feeling thats why there isn't water cooling on the video card in this case. They are launching their newest card at the LAN party, so why wouldn't this case have it in there ;)

infinitevalence wrote:See i was hearing that it was bad yeilds that caused the shortage... but who cares we got new chips comming out and i have a funny felling that they will give the 6800gt a run for its money. While im not normally a fan of clear cases i have to say this one looks bad ass. They also got the color right, i am so tired of seeing clear cases with lots and lots of blue CC and LED fans. This case has all the blig and glam it needs all while exercizing some reserve. It asks you to stop and ponder the depth of its evil... sorry the voices just started calling have to go bbs.

Um, i know for a fact that it is not bad yields that have caused the shortage. The shortage is due to the deal that gives Sapphire exclusive rights to make the pcb's for the 110nm chips, and the X850(r420 on a better pcb). There used to be 2 companies that made the boards, and now there is one. If you check, ATI has shipped countless numbers of 130nm GPU's...and where do you chack? Not through ATI, but TMSC's results(they actually make the chips, ATI just engineers and designs them).

I also have a good feeling thats why there isn't water cooling on the video card in this case. They are launching their newest card at the LAN party, so why wouldn't this case have it in there ;)

Good point, but the R5XX's have been around the OEM's for quite some time..that's not an unveiling, if you ask me. They invited all the overclockers they did just so they could smash the 3dmark nVidia reign...so maybe you are right. But then again, I AM CANADIAN! LoL. ('cause it does not make much sense to have a X850 logo on the side of the box if they are gonna take the card out?!? Maybe?)

Honest critique of the system...needs two more cold cathodes along the top of the case, 10mm would work fine..along the dvd drive(or the ugly gray metal sides should have been painted black), and another ledf fan blowing down into the case over the vidcard, 120mm(well help pull more red into the Ruby picture), and all the lights should have a slow pulse to them...a 3 second on-to-off.

If it would have been like that, I would said "That Rocks!"

The letters in the "RADEON EXPRESS" and "RADEONX850XT" should have been white. The Red and WHite colours of the ATI logo are those 2 colours for a reason.

Otherwise, regardless of my previous comments, a nice system that I would not mind owning, even though some of the components used kinda puzzle me.

best case...ever

Hi I just joined to answer some questions. Thanks for all the postive feedback.

1) The reason the videocard is not water cooled is that ATI did not want it water cooled. Normally we would cool the GPU as it makes for the largest performance increase in gaming OCing the videocard.

2) cadaveca mentioned the writing should have been white. It is! The cold cathode washes the logos out in the picture.

3) The case is not clear. It is a rare smoked black acrylic. Again the pictures do not do it justice. In person it is amazing. (The production system will come in many colors.)

4) You guys might want to take a second look at the mobo. Note the fish on the top right of the mobo. (Bottom left of the board but it is upside down.) It is a Radeon Xpress 200 board AKA Bullhead. It does 250+ Mhz FSB easy. Ram is the only thing hold this mobo back from going higher. The mobo is the real beast of the system.

PLease don't take any of my comments to heart..LoL.

THe letters are the same on both sides? this is what i was looking for.

It's an awesome build, but when someone asks for my opinion, I always state what I see as flaws, rather than good stuff. Constructive criticism.

The real reason for my posting again on this was to ask...more colours? Red tinted acrylic?

Maybe a picture against a white background would help!

I want one of the cases. You don't list that on your site....maybe you should!
If you ever want one reviewd, drop me a line....the test bench is pretty open after this Corsair article