The Bottom Line
- Support of PCI-E and DDR2 for Future Upgrades
- High Speed DVD Burner
- Includes 5.1 Speaker System
- Lacks Software Bundle
- Not the Fastest Processor Available
Description
- Intel Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz) Processor and ASUS P5AD2 Intel 925X Based Motherboard
- 1GB Dual Channel Corsair TWINX-4200 DDR Memory
- 2x80GB (160GB) Seagate 7200.7 Serial ATA RAID0 Array
- Plextor PX-712A 12x DVD+/-R Burner Optical Drive
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Audio Card and Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 Speakers
- NVIDIA GeForceFX 6800 Ultra PCI-E x16 Graphics Card with 256MB Memory
- Intel 1Gbps Ethernet Port
- Eight USB 2.0 and Two FireWire Ports
- Windows XP Professional Operating System
Guide Review - Falcon Northwest Mach V
6/28/04 - Falcon Northwest has been a leading manufacturer of performance gaming desktops and the Mach V is their flagship system. With the recent release of the Intel 925X chipset, Falcon has updated the system to take advantage of a few new technologies.
The first of the benefits of the new 925X chipset is support for the DDR2 memory standard. Falcon uses a 1GB Dual Channel PC4200 DDR2 memory kit from Corsair for the Mach V. This doesn't have any real benefits when paired up with the current Pentium 4 540 compared to standard PC3200 DDR, but the possible future growth is worth the upgrade.
The other big advantage of the new chipset is support for PCI Express. This new high speed interface bus has the potentially to greatly improve graphics. Of course, the included GeForce 6800 Ultra uses the x16 PCI-E interface, but it doesn't offer any tangible differences from the AGP 8x version. Once again, it is the future possibilities for the PCI-E that are the advantage.
Storage remains a strong suit of the Mach V. It still ships with a RAID0 array comprised of two Seagate 80GB SATA drives. Optical storage has been improved with the inclusion of the Plextor PX-712A 12x DVD+/-R burner.
Another addition is the inclusion of the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 speaker system, something they didn't include before. It still has the drawbacks of no software bundle though.
