Überclok Reactor: Balanced Performance
by Matt Campbell on October 10, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Problems
After a minor SATA reseating on arrival (and replacement of the defective video card), this system was extremely stable throughout the suite of benchmarking. Another item encountered was that the Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive was extremely loud; it sounded like a jet engine spinning up. The disks used had no covers or balance problems and we tried several disks with the same result. The other optical drive was quite normal, so we chalk this up to a drive anomaly.
Pricing
Überclok has made some minor changes to the Reactor offering since we took delivery of the review system, including bumping up to the Q9550 and some changes to the hard drive lineup, in addition to now offering ATI video cards as an option. The system closest to our review configuration is $3230 at the Überclok ordering website. The closest that we came at Newegg with a very similar configuration was about $2350. The margins here are clearly higher than they were on the Ion, but so are the build times and tweaking, and the price of warranty extension on an overclocked quad-core processor.
Final Thoughts
Once again, we find ourselves pleased with Überclok and their Reactor offering. It's in a different market segment than the Ion, and as expected the attention to detail, choices of components, and most of all the performance and stability of the Reactor are all consistent with a system in this price range - or even significantly above it. The warranty period and price premium is comparable with competitors, and the system binder and attention to detail are areas where Überclok excels. Überclok produces a great product, and if they can establish a good reputation for service and support, they should become a top choice among the sea of PC system providers.
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PClark99 - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Looks to me that the PSU in the actual computer is a Coolermaster unit and not the Corsair 1000W modular that you have listed in your specs. Not that it should make much difference, 1000W is way overkill here.JarredWalton - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Corrected. Unless Matt can state otherwise (i.e. they changed PSUs for currently shipping systems), this is definitely a Cooler Master PSU.Matt Campbell - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
My fault on that one, I just didn't check it closely enough. Currently shipping units definitely list the "Corsair CMPSU-1000HX 1000-Watt", as shown here: http://www.uberclok.com/rPSU.html">http://www.uberclok.com/rPSU.htmlap90033 - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Holy crap those things are pricey...Christoph Katzer - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
And again, what use is the 1000 watts PSU? They can build in half of the size, maybe a little more to keep it quieter, but 1000 watts....nomagic - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
I personally would not mind getting a 1000W PSU because it leave more options open to future upgrades.After all, this is an enthusiast PC. There are many that are too lazy to build their own rigs from ground up, so instead they order one with all the basic parts assembled and cable management done. Then they can upgrade their rigs to their hearts' desire. (SLI, Crossfire, RAID...) They can even overclock it further if they like.
Therefore, having a 1000W PSU installed is a plus.
Souka - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Might wanna take a read before buying a 1000w PSUDebunking Power Supply Myths
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3413">http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3413
JarredWalton - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
As stated below, at idle efficiency is likely to be somewhat poor, but at load it should get very good efficiency. I'm not saying it's an exact match (because I'm sure it isn't), but as an example the http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">Zalman 1000W is above 83% efficiency with 120VAC from a load of 200W to 800W, and above 80% from around 150W to 1100W.If we take a baseline 80%, at 195W from the outlet the system idles at 156W, and at medium load it will use over 200W (so above 83%). That's of course assuming this is a good PSU, which I have no reason to doubt -- nearly all of the 1000W PSUs come from one or two ODMs, and with higher margins they also tend to use good components.
Is a 1000W PSU required? Absolutely not. Is it desirable? That depends on what you're doing. This system can go up to SLI GTX 280 cards if you want -- or even Tri-SLI I think? Probably to keep things simple Uberclok isn't giving a ton of PSU options. Now, if you were thinking of getting the Reactor with a GTX 260 and dual-core CPU, the 1000W PSU would drop below the 80% efficiency range at idle most likely. Personally, though, I'm not going to freak out about a 2-4% difference in efficiency. Features (i.e. number of connectors) are more important on a high-end PSU than rating and efficiency, IMO.
Souka - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Might wanna take a read before buying a 1000w PSUDebunking Power Supply Myths
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3413">http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3413
Christoph Katzer - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
I guess at $3230 buying price you don't need to care about ~$200 less...