Flextron universe pro system unit. Flextron is a comfortable purchase, great result! During testing we used

In April last year, the F-Center company started production personal computers under the Flextron brand, targeting both home and corporate users.

The company offers its users an exclusive service - production of custom-made computers without prepayment.

Flextron computers have certificates of conformity of the State Standard of Russia, hygienic conclusions of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision, as well as a certificate of compatibility with software Microsoft - Design for Microsoft Windows XP.

F-Center offers several series of computers under the Flextron trademark, targeted at different categories of users, and therefore designed to solve different tasks: Flextron Optima Light, Flextron Optima, Flextron Focus, Flextron Energo, Flextron Premiera, Flextron Universe, Flextron Maxima, Flextron Vip and Flextron Me.

The Flextron Optima Light and Flextron Optima Series are affordable all-in-one computers for the home office. The Flextron Focus and Flextron Energo series are specially designed for schoolchildren and students and are low cost computers entry level that correspond to the tasks of teaching children. Flextron Premiera computers are already models of home PCs designed for games, processing digital photos, editing and recording your own video clips, etc.

Computers of the Flextron Universe and Flextron Maxima series are positioned as the next generation gaming home computers.

Flextron Vip series computers are modern graphics stations, supplemented with advanced multimedia capabilities.

Well, the latest series of Flextron Me computers are home computers made to order, which have a non-standard configuration that fully meets the needs of the user.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the Flextron Maxima D series computer, which is positioned by F-Center as a gaming home PC with advanced functionality.

Flextron Maxima D Computer Configuration

so, in order to find out what the capabilities of the Flextron Maxima D computer are, consider in detail its configuration.

The Flextron Maxima D computer is based on a dual-core processor Intel Pentium D 830 clocked at 3 GHz. Recall that given processor has a 2 MB L2 cache (1 MB for each processor core), is designed for 800 MHz FSB and supports technologies such as EM64T, XD, as well as Thermal Monitor 2 thermal protection technologies and Intel Enhanced Speed ​​Step energy saving technology.

Together with the Intel Pentium D 830 processor, the Intel D945PSNLK motherboard is used, based on the set Intel chips 945P Express. This motherboard supports up to 4GB random access memory DDR2-400 / 533/667 (four DIMM slots), has a slot PCI Express x16 for installing a video card, as well as two PCI Express x1 slots and four regular PCI slots.

The Intel D945PSNLK board provides a fairly large number of ports and I / O interfaces: eight USB 2.0 ports, serial and parallel ports, and a gigabit network interface based on the Intel 82573V / 82574V controller.

In addition, the south bridge of the Intel 945P Express chipset allows connecting up to four SATA II devices and two PATA devices.

Like all modern motherboards The Flextron Maxima D board is equipped with an integrated sound card... In this case, we are talking about the Intel High Definition Audio solution in combination with a six-channel (5.1) audio codec based on the Sigmatel 9220 chip.

The Flextron Maxima D computer uses 1 GB of RAM. DDR memory 2-533 (two 512 MB modules), operating in dual-channel mode.

The disk subsystem of the PC includes one HDD with SATA interface II Maxtor MaxLine III 7V250F0 with a capacity of 250 GB and a buffer size of 16 MB.

In addition, a Pioneer DVR-111 DVD-RW optical drive is installed in the Flextron Maxima D computer.

The video subsystem of the Flextron Maxima D computer is based on the Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT graphics card with a PCI Express x16 interface. This graphics card based on the GPU ATI Radeon Equipped with 256MB of DDR3 graphics memory, the X1600XT not only provides high performance in modern 3D games, but also has rich multimedia capabilities. In particular, hardware support for AVIVO technology allows high-speed conversion of video data into various formats, and in addition, the hardware level supports playback of HDTV video (without downloading central processing unit), as well as other functions for capturing and processing a video data stream.

In conclusion of the description of PC Flextron Maxima D, we note that it is assembled in the ASUS Ascot 6AR1-BF black miditower case with a silver trim on the front panel and is equipped with a 360 W power supply.

Flextron Maxima D computer capabilities

As you can see, the Flextron Maxima D is configured as a high-performance system that can be scaled up even further.

A computer of this configuration can be classified as a universal home PC that can successfully perform a wide range of tasks. For example, based on this computer you can build a multimedia center with a variety of capabilities for capturing and processing video data. In addition, such a center can simultaneously perform the functions of an audio center. The Flextron Maxima D computer can also be used as a home gaming PC. Another example of its possible application is digital photo processing. And of course, the dual-core Intel Pentium D 830 processor makes the Flextron Maxima D PC an entry-level graphics workstation. Complex rendering tasks for 3D scenes created in programs such as Maya, 3ds max, SolidWorks and the like can be easily performed on the Flextron Maxima D PC.

Flextron Maxima D Computer Testing

In order to actually be convinced of the capabilities of the Flextron Maxima D computer, we conducted a small test using the most popular benchmarks and applications. During testing, we used operating system Windows XP SP2. The video driver version is 6.14.0010.

The following benchmarks were included in the testing program:

• SYSmark 2005 SE;
• Discreet 3d Studio Max 7.0;
• Alias ​​WaveFront Maya 6.5;
• FutureMark 3DMark 2005 (Patch 1.20);
• Half-Life 2 (d1_town_01.dem);
• FarCry Patch 1.33;
• DOOM III (Patch 1.3);
• Quake 4 (Patch 1.05).

The SYSmark 2005 SE test measures the performance of a PC in office and Internet content creation applications. Discreet 3d Studio Max 7.0 and Alias ​​WaveFront Maya 6.5 are popular 3D graphics applications. The SPECapc_3dsmax_7_v2.1.3 script was used to test performance when working with the Discreet 3d Studio Max 7.0 application, and the SPECapc_Maya 6.5_v1.0 script when working with the Alias ​​WaveFront Maya 6.5 application.

The rest of the benchmarks and applications used allow us to evaluate the capabilities of the PC in modern 3D games. When using gaming benchmarks, testing was carried out with the default video driver settings, but with two different settings for the games themselves: setting with the highest possible image quality and with an average quality. The settings for each game for the maximum and average display quality are given in table. 1.

All game tests were run three times at different screen resolutions: 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 pixels. The rest of the tests were run at a screen resolution of 1024x768 and a color depth of 32 bits.

The test results using SYSmark 2005 SE, Discreet 3d Studio Max 7.0, SPECapc Maya 6.5 v1.0 packages are presented in table. 2, and with the use of gaming benchmarks - in table. 3.

for working with 3D graphics

conclusions

As can be seen from the test results, the Flextron Maxima D computer has high performance when working not only with office and Internet content creation applications, but also with such resource-intensive programs as Discreet 3d Studio Max 7.0 and Alias ​​WaveFront Maya 6.5. The use of a dual-core processor can significantly speed up the process of rendering 3D scenes in these applications.

In gaming applications, the Flextron Maxima D computer provides performance sufficient for the vast majority of today's fast-paced games, and at settings not only at medium, but also at maximum quality display, which confirms our assumption about the possibility of using this PC as a gaming home computer.

In conclusion, we note once again that the Flextron Maxima D PC is a high-performance, versatile home computer designed for a wide range of tasks. The cost of this configuration is approximately 30 thousand rubles.

I'd rather tell you about my impressions of the car offered to me by F-Center - Flextron Quattro 3C. Looking ahead, I admit that although I am not an ardent fan of computer shooters and strategies, I really wanted to get acquainted with the $ 120 SLI motherboard. Not only because this is one of the first mothers built on the mid-range nForce 650i SLI chipset, but also because even a quick glance at its specifications allows us to speak of a growing competitor for the Intel P965 chipset, which is popular today.

So, let's look at the subject from the side ... An eerie sight (smile). Joke. In fact, Thermaltake's Soprano VX hull looks a little menacing because of the silvery "corners", more reminiscent of the horns of alien spaceships, which filled American films in the late 80s. Although I must admit that thanks to the walls painted with piano lacquer, it looks quite stylish.

Most of all we were pleased with the screwless fasteners of the components, thanks to which you can forever forget about all the bolts that are so annoying to unscrew and tighten whenever you need to change the hard and the drive. In addition, the manufacturer has hung a lock on the key on the side wall, and hinges for an additional padlock on the back.

All this increased protection was introduced, most likely, in order to slap on other people's "playful hands", which strive to climb where they should not. By the way, the theme of security can be traced very clearly in the design of the case, because even if the locks do not stop intruders and they still break the case with a can opener, it will not be difficult to calculate them later, since perfectly distinguishable fingerprints remain on its surface.

The design of the front panel raises no objections, but its monolithic construction does not at all contribute to proper cooling. hard drives, as well as the ventilation holes, drilled only on the left wall and representing two bizarre patterns of medium-sized holes. Optimal air circulation is carried out only in the upper part of the case, thanks to the 120mm blower fan.

Nevertheless big difference temperatures can be significantly reduced by adding another nimble "fan" directly to the hard drive. Speaking of HDD: the background noise that accompanies all his efforts can be compared to rumbling washing machine, wringing out clothes, from whose pockets they forgot to pull stones. And since the body is quite spacious (only the main components are present), acoustic effects are created in it, adding a certain flavor to the "hard single". So, all valuable information weighing up to 320 GB is "squeezed out" at 7200 rpm. In general, hard turned out to be a very vociferous comrade in comparison with the rest of the inhabitants of the systemist.

Let's go directly to the configuration, the main idea of ​​which, apparently, was the creation of a budgetary, but at the same time promising machine for gamers with an average income. In general, organizing an SLI system is an expensive pleasure (regardless of its level) and often for simple user, which is not particularly fixated on games, is completely redundant, but in the case of ASUS P5N-E SLI the situation is somewhat different. But do not anticipate the further course of my story - we will not talk about the features of the SLI system as such: there is only one video card Palit GeForce 8600 GT with a memory capacity of 256 MB.

And in the future, the user will decide for himself whether he needs a second video card or whether he will be content with what he has - freedom of choice, so to speak. The cost of the motherboard itself makes it attractive enough not only for gamers, especially considering the good functionality and acceptable overclocking potential. It is based on the nForce 650i SLI chipset from NVIDIA, a cut-down version of the top-end nForce 680i SLI. Unlike its older brother, this chipset has a smaller number of PCI Express lanes, 18 versus 46, which primarily affects the SLI system modes.

The fact is that the senior chipset offers the x16 + x16 scheme, as well as an additional PCI Express x8 bus directly for the physical accelerator, while the nForce 650i SLI implements a simplified x8 + x8 version. If only one video card is installed in the system, the first slot functions as PCI Express x16, and the second is disabled. Switching between modes occurs by changing the position of the daughter card. Let me make a reservation right away that in terms of performance, the nForce 650i SLI is practically not inferior to its older brother, since both chipsets are based on the same C55 SPP north bridge.

The additional capabilities of the motherboard are largely determined by its south bridge, nForce 430, which after being cut off received only one Gigabit network controller instead of two, four SATA / 300 instead of six and eight USB ports instead of ten. It's good that the arsenal retains support for NCQ and RAID, as well as two FireWire ports and an external eSATA port, SATA On-the-Go. It is noteworthy that there are two ATA / 133 channels, which is completely atypical for modern chipsets. An experienced eye will immediately notice the similarities between the existing south bridge and the long-run nForce 6150 chipset. A hit pipeline that churns out popular identical chips for different models, unfortunately, rules here too.

Six-channel audio is implemented using the Realtek ALC833 codec, which actually supports all eight channels and is an inexpensive solution compared to, for example, Analog Devices. The latter are usually mounted by ASUS in their top-end mothers. ASUS 'desire to quickly launch the newfangled chipset on the market negatively affected the cooling quality of the product as a whole. And taking into account the lack of air intake from the front panel of the case, the situation seems truly threatening. If at the nominal frequencies the large aluminum radiator of the north bridge heats up to "finger holding", then what can we say about exercises in overclocking with the case closed?

As for the memory, let's make a low bow towards the C55 SPP north bridge, which ASUS engineers did not cut. It is thanks to him, dear, that the DDR2 SDRAM frequency is set as dividers relative to the FSB (the choice of which, frankly, does not shine with variety: there are only four FSB ratios: DRAM, equal to 1: 2, 5: 8, 3: 4 and 1: 1 ) and pseudo-asynchronously. In the latter case, the BIOS allows you to specify the memory frequency value in the range from 400 to 2600 MHz, but at the same time it will select the real frequency among adjacent values ​​with an error of 10-20 MHz downward. The value is selected from a variety of dividers available to the chipset. FSB frequency range varies from 133 to 750 MHz.

For those who are waiting with special trepidation for the results of "synthetics", I will say right away that I did not perform any overclocking manipulations, because first of all I wanted to establish the standard performance of the car in order to know where the starting point is. Besides, nothing can be properly overclocked without proper cooling. So, 3DMark 2001 SE - 37,481 points, 3DMark`05 - 11,119, 3DMark`06 - 5683. The PCMark`04 package rolled in the following points: the overall result and the CPU - N / A result (the benchmark cannot chew quad-core stones), speed memory - 8504, the speed of the video card - 9837, the quickness of the file system - 5923. In the case of PCMark`05, the results are respectively 7437 and 7734, 5405, 6964 and 6345 points.

As a result, it should be recognized that the machine is not devoid of some drawbacks associated with the cooling system, which needs to be improved. But overall, the Flextron Quattro 3C is one of the few proposals for organizing affordable potential SLI systems. And the presence of a quad-core processor, which, even without overclocking, is able to provide a nimble operation of a pair of video cards, undoubtedly confirms my conclusions.

• Device: Flextron Quattro 3C
• Type: PC
• OS: Windows XP Home Edition
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad E6600, 2.4 GHz
• Motherboard: ASUS P5N-E SLI
• Memory RAM: 2 GB, DDR2-667
• HDD: 320 GB, SATA II
• Video card: ASUS GeForce 8600 GT, 256 MB
• price: 1199 $

Acknowledgment: the device was provided by F-Center (www.fcenter.ru)

It is not difficult to guess that the main interest for the GameGuru portal is represented by games of various genres, but today we decided to go further. What can make the gameplay more convenient and brighter? Good hardware, of course! Our new review is dedicated to him.

send

Progress does not stand still, especially in the field of computer technology. Computer component manufacturers are adopting more and more powerful technologies, and this has a beneficial effect on the final product, especially when combined with new design and ergonomic solutions.
A striking example of this is a new computer model from the F-Center company. FLEXTRON Acme VI, which is based on a 6-core processor AMD Phenom II X6 1055T and motherboard Asus M4A87TD Evo.

The computer is assembled in a Cooler Master Scout case designed for gamers. And these are not empty words: during the development of the corpus, a mass survey of the target audience was carried out, and professional teams of cyber-athletes were also involved.

The case is made of high quality and durable materials, has a strong steel frame, is equipped with special handles on the top cover for easy transportation and is equipped with a special protective mechanism against thieves StormGuard.

Thanks to the clever design, Cooler Master Scout provides high-quality cooling of all elements and allows you to expand the system components without worrying about the space inside the case. There is enough space for a powerful cooler and for several pairs of hard drives. It is worth noting the presence of a convenient front panel, which houses 4 USB connectors, 2 audio connectors (headphones and a microphone), an eSATA connector, a POWER button, and two LED indicators.

There is also a dedicated button for turning on the red LED backlight system unit.

Cooler Master Scout has four 5.25 "and five 3.5" drive bays and a card reader (compatible with SSDs in the 1.8 "or 2.5" form factor). The power supply is located part of the case.

Now let's see what is hidden inside the system unit. FLEXTRON Acme VI.
The main components of this model are Asus M4A87TD Evo motherboard and processor AMD Phenom II X6 1055T at 2800 MHz with 6 MB L3 cache. A large cache memory is necessary for storing and fast processor access to data, because the cache is implemented on expensive and high-speed SRAM elements, and the more cache memory, the faster data processing occurs.

Particular attention should be paid to the motherboard: built on a chipset AMD 870, motherboard Asus The M4A87TD Evo has 8 USB ports, of which 2 are 3.0. It is friendly with the SATA III interface and is equipped with such proprietary developments as ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit), TurboV EVO, Turbo Key, Turbo Unlocker, Core Unlocker, CPU Level Up, MemOK !, Precision Tweaker 2 and Express Gate.

The motherboard has 4 DDR III memory slots with a total capacity of up to 16 GB, FireWire connectors, optical output, eSATA, Ethernet, PS / 2 (keyboard), PS / 2 (mouse), eight-channel HD Audio, one IDE port, and 6 SATA III ports.

FLEXTRON Acme VI comes with 4 GB of RAM Samsung memory(2 x 2GB) expandable up to 16GB DDR III. But even with 4 GB of RAM, more than sufficient performance is provided for resource-intensive programs and modern games.

An important indicator for the modern gamer is the volume hard disk... This computer model has a hard disk Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 with a volume of 1000 GB.
The hard disk has a buffer capacity of 32 MB and an interface SATA controller II. This means that on a computer it will be possible, practically without limiting oneself, to store a large number of films and music, as well as install many modern programs and games that are quite demanding on disk space. A large disk cache increases the speed of access to frequently requested data, which increases the computer's performance when working with large amounts of information, for example, when transcoding video into various formats.

In the package I received, FLEXTRON Acme VI contains on board the video card Sapphire Radeon HD 5830, which is a high-performance video subsystem with 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM with a clock frequency of 4000 MHz and an ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics processor with a frequency of 800 MHz. This graphics card consumes only 25W idle and 175W at full load, which is higher than the Radeon HD 5850, as the ATI Radeon HD 5830 GPU runs at a higher frequency.

These characteristics for the user actually mean that any modern computer game will run on the computer FLEXTRON Acme VI at close to maximum performance settings. The presence of 1024 MB of video memory for the better will affect the work with graphic editors, and will also allow you to comfortably play computer games that contain large-volume texture models.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 graphics card provides the ability to play on three Eyefinity monitors, high-definition audio output in encoded form via HDMI, hardware support for DirectX 11 technology, which will have a better effect on performance in games with heavy graphics. The video card lends itself to overclocking rather poorly, which is not surprising, because the GPU already operates at higher frequencies.

The video card is equipped with connectors DVI x2, HDMI and DisplayPort, with which you can connect almost everything to your computer modern models monitors and TVs. If the monitor has only a D-Sub connector, it is connected to the video card through a special adapter included in the kit.

Let's now see how it all works together. On the computer I received FLEXTRON Acme VI already preinstalled Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32 Bit, which will be used for tests. This OS is not quite suitable for a computer with such a configuration due to the existing limitations. A 32-bit operating system cannot work with 4 GB of RAM. I hope that the finished computers of this model are supplied to the end user with a 64-bit OS.

Test computer specifications:

Operating system Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 6.1.7600
CPU Type HexaCore AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 3261 MHz (16.5 x 198)
Motherboard Asus M4A87TD Evo (3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR3 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Video adapter ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series (1024 MB)
Sound adapter ATI Radeon HDMI @ ATI Cypress / Hemlock - High Definition Audio Controller
DirectX DirectX 11.0

Monitor Lg W2343 (Analog), ST31000528AS hard disk, DVD drive Optiarc DVD RW AD-7241S, 2x RAM Samsung M378B5673FH0-CH9.

Tests were carried out by programs EVEREST v5.50.2202 Beta / ru, PCMark Vantage 1.0.2.0, 3DMark06, FPS values ​​were measured by the program FRAPS.

I would like to say right away that the built-in test Windows performance 7 rated FLEXTRON Acme VI in 6.1 points due to not very high disk performance. All other points of the test had the values ​​7.1-7.4. PCMark Vantage 1.0.2.0 after an hour and a half test showed the following results:

As expected, the sore spot again turned out to be the hard drive. In the Gaming category, the computer showed a fairly high rating: the large amount of RAM affects performance graphics card coupled with a powerful 6-core processor.

The graphics test was carried out in 3DMark06, the results of which showed a very good estimate of the performance of this computer model.

It should be noted that the test results are just numbers that rarely interest the user. Much more important real performance computer for certain tasks. A computer FLEXTRON Acme VI geared towards gamers, hence the most the best test its performance will be quite resource-intensive computer game Crysis.

I draw your attention to the fact that on the computer, especially for tests, have been updated to the latest DirectX versions and ATI Catalyst video card drivers.

There is a button for automatic performance detection in the game settings menu.
In an internal game test, the performance options were automatically set to high performance. After some thought, it was decided to run the game at maximum performance values, manually setting the maximum value.

When starting the game at maximum settings, it was noted that the number of frames per second was 60 fps and ranged from 41 (dynamic image when scenes were loaded with complex special effects) to 62 (almost static image in the field of view). At medium performance settings, the fps values ​​increased to 120 and ranged from 90 to 127 depending on the dynamics of the image.

Let's summarize. Powerful hardware, as well as the almost unlimited possibility of further upgrades, make the computer configuration FLEXTRON Acme VI relevant for several years in advance. It is especially worth noting the support for new devices of the SATA III and USB 3.0 standards, which will gain momentum in the near future, providing even greater data exchange speed.
High performance in games and applications ensures a comfortable use of the computer in the solution different types tasks.

FLEXTRON Acme VI- a high-performance computer at a reasonable price, which simply cannot leave indifferent an avid gamer and an amateur to keep up with the times.