Maingear Ephex (Core i7)

The Maingear Ephex (Core i7) ($7,799 direct) is the latest in a long line of record-topping PCs that I've reviewed, and is certainly not going to be the last. It is awe-inspiring with its green "Flamewerks" automotive paint job, and the flames are more than symbolic, since the Ephex smoked all of our benchmark tests. Performance isn't the whole story, however. The build quality and logical choices about what's preloaded on the system earn kudos and my respect as well.
The Maingear Ephex is one of those PC systems you look at and say, "Woof, I bet that's fast." It's built into a large, imposing, full-tower chassis with a windowed case door, internal lighting to show off the liquid cooling, and an automotive-grade black paint job with green "Flamewerks" licking the sides, top, and front of the case. The paint job alone accounts for $1,000 of the system's price. (For $500 less, you can get the automotive paint without the flames, or you can get the plain case (no paint) and knock off a full grand.) Through the case door, you can see the clear piping for the internal liquid cooling system, which has two radiators to dissipate the heat. The main radiator at the top of the case cools the liquid from the GPUs, and the secondary internal radiator deals with the heat from the overclocked CPU. There's so much liquid coursing through the Ephex that Maingear needed to put in an auxiliary water pump in the space where extra optical drives would normally go. Keeping the performance parts cool pays off, since the Ephex has the highest benchmark scores I've seen. The liquid cooling has another fringe benefit: The Ephex is ghostly quiet, unlike several air-cooled systems I tested nearby.

The heart of the Ephex is the overclocked quad-core Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor. In this system, it's been massaged from a 3.2-GHz stock speed to a blazing 3.9 GHz. If the Core i7 is the system's heart, then the three Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards in SLI configuration are its arm and leg muscles. Like Michael Phelps in swimming, the combination is a force to be reckoned with, and like Phelps, it has a prodigious appetite for fuel. The Ephex consumes 350W just sitting idle, and jumps to over 700W while running the Crysis benchmark test. (The only thing green about this power hog is the color of the flames.) The Ephex has a beefy 1,200W power supply, so you can rest assured that all the internal components will be getting enough energy.

The chassis is chock-full of components, so it's no wonder that expansion is limited. Though the case is roomy, the liquid-cooling pipes will get in the way of extra components. The power cords are mostly routed out of the way and are shortened so they take up little space. However, some of the cords are positioned right next to the motherboard, blocking the extra SATA and IDE ports—an inconvenience if you like to upgrade your systems yourself. Lastly, the SLI connectors and liquid cooling for the graphics cards block the free PCIe x1 and PCI slots. Since you're paying so much for the system, you'd be better off sending it back to Maingear if you have a need to upgrade. (Given the Ephex's performance, you may not need to do that for quite a while.)

The Ephex has one of the most intelligent methods I've ever seen of avoiding saddling the user with unwanted programs. There's no preinstalled crapware on the system, and even the couple of potentially useful programs included are not actually installed; they can be, though, with just a few mouse clicks. Some system builders will give you a copy of Norton Antivirus on a CD in the system's packaging (which is inconvenient) or preinstall it on the C: drive (which is convenient, but often undesirable for a gaming PC). Maingear provides a copy of both AVG (an antivirus program that provides free definition updates) and OpenOffice (a Microsoft Office-compatible suite for documents like Word and PowerPoint files) on the hard drive, but both are installer files rather than a preinstallation. Shortcuts on the desktop—the only ones, I might add—point you to the installers. That way, both are convenient to find if you want to install them or to discard if you don't. Bravo, Maingear.

In terms of performance, the Ephex simply blew the competition away. It tallied the fastest scores ever on the PCMark Vantage (13,463 points), 3DMark Vantage (78,764 entry, 16,381 extreme), Crysis (114 frames per second at 1,280-by-1,024 resolution, 70 fps at 1,920-by-1,200), World in Conflict (167 fps at 1,280-by-1,024, 90 fps at 1,920–by-1,200), CineBench R10 (22,542 points), and Photoshop CS4 (51 seconds) benchmark tests. Its 26 seconds at Windows Media Encoder was just a few seconds behind the fastest, the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7) (23 seconds). This all means that the games you can throw at it will play smoothly, even at high (1,920-by-1,200) resolution, and multimedia tasks will be done before your coffee gets cool. The Ephex's speed and strength remind me of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV: "Whatever he hits, he destroys."

The closest recent desktop to the Ephex is the former Editors' Choice high-end gaming desktop, the Velocity Micro Raptor Signature Edition. Like the Ephex, that Raptor was priced around $7,000, scored the tops at benchmark tests for its time, and aimed squarely at high-end gamers. However, the Raptor used the older Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor, overclocked to a stunning 4.4 GHz (up from the stock 3.0 GHz). Owing to advances in the SLI drivers and the new Core i7, the Ephex beats the Raptor on the 3D and multimedia benchmark tests. The recent Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7) and the AVADirect Uberous X58 are both Core i7-powered, but both have ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics, which held them back on the 3D benchmarks, particularly when playing Crysis. The Falcon was also a couple hundred dollars more expensive than the Ephex, no doubt due to its twin SSDs. (The Ephex has only one, though it's a speedy Intel 80GB model.)

Hail to the new performance king: the Maingear Ephex, with Intel Core i7 and Nvidia Triple SLI muscle. Great build quality, intelligent setup, blazing speeds, and top-shelf components make it a system to lust after, whether you have the means or not. The Ephex is the new target for up-and-coming as well as veteran gaming rigs, so stay tuned for more fireworks in the months ahead.