Features and Price

Prices on the Sabre Extreme start at around $800 and go up to over $3000. As with most vendors, you can configure your system differently, focusing on increasing storage capacity, faster or slower graphics, more memory, and various other options. Here are the specifications of the Sabre Extreme we received:

PC Club Enpower Sabre Extrene EN-SE6
Case: Apex customized Mid-Tower with 350W PSU
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40 GHz 4MB shared L2 cache)
Heatsink/Cooling: Stock Intel CPU HSF
80mm front fan
80mm rear fan
RAM: 2x512MB Transcend PC2-5300 JM367Q643A-6 5-5-5-13 Timings
Graphics: MSI GeForce 7900 GT
Hard Drives: 250GB Western Digital 16MB 7200 RPM
Optical Drives: LiteOn 16X DVD+/-RW
Expansion Slots: 1 x PCIe X16
3 x PCIe X1
3 x PCI
Expansion Bays: 4 x 3.5" internal bays
2 x 3.5" external
4 x 5.25" external
Audio: Realtek ALC883 7.1 HD Audio onboard
Power Suply: Allied AL-C350-ATX
1 x 24-pin ATX; 1 x ATX12V
4 x 4-pin Molex
1 x 4-pin mini Molex
1 x SATA
Operating System: Windows XP Home SP2
Front Ports: 2 X USB2.0
2 X 3.5mm Audio (Headphone and Microphone)
Rear Ports: 1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Parallel
1 x Serial
1 x Audio I/O Panel (six jacks)
1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Port
1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out Port
1 x RJ45
4 x USB2.0
Monitor: ViewSonic 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms 500:1 VA1912WB

There are often drawbacks to purchasing a prebuilt system -- more limited BIOS options, potentially proprietary designs, slightly reduced performance in the name of stability, generic designs, etc. PC Club manages to separate their offerings from those of larger OEMs by going with off-the-shelf components. Rather than using a proprietary motherboard design, or even a standard motherboard but with a special BIOS that removes many of the extras, PC Club includes your garden-variety Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard. This may not be the absolute best motherboard for Core 2 Duo processors, but with the latest BIOS it runs very stable, and you even get access to the standard overclocking options.

Overclocking? On a midrange OEM system? Blasphemy! Naturally, all of the standard disclaimers with overclocking apply. PC Club does not condone overclocking, and assuming they can determine you overclocked your system and caused a component to fail, they will certainly void your warranty. Still, if you'd rather just get a system that's all ready to roll out of the box and perhaps do some mild overclocking on your own, we will take a look at what we can achieve. We won't be trying to set any performance records, but given the 68% (and higher) overclocks of Core 2 Duo processors floating around the Internet, it seemed a shame to let the E6600 continue to run a stock speeds.

As we like to do with our system reviews, we priced out a similar home built system for reference to see how much you're paying PC Club to assemble and test everything for you.

Component Price List
Case: Apex customized Mid-Tower with 350W PSU 63
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 151
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40 GHz 4MB shared L2 cache) 370
Cooling: Stock Intel CPU HSF
80mm front fan
80mm rear fan
0
RAM: 2x512MB Transcend PC2-5300 JM367Q643A-6 5-5-5-13 Timings 90
Graphics: MSI GeForce 7900 GT 275
Hard Drives: 250GB Western Digital 16MB 7200 RPM 84
Optical Drive: LiteOn 16X DVD+/-RW 32
Audio: Realtek ALC883 7.1 HD Audio onboard 0
Monitor: ViewSonic VA1912WB 222
Keyboard: Logitech Internet Pro 11
Mouse: Logitech RX1000 28
Operating System: Windows XP Home SP2 95
Sub Total: 1421

There are currently some added costs with some of the components, chiefly the E6600 processor. Taking that into account you're basically paying PC Club about $200 in order to build the system for you. That is definitely a reasonable offer. About the only drawback is that configuration choices are limited in some areas, so you can't for example select a different motherboard or memory type in the online configurator. That may matter for some people, but for the target market the features and options should be more than adequate. If you'd like to change any of the options, you can call PC Club and custom build a system to your needs, or you can go to a local store and do the same thing.

Speaking of changes, the components used in the Sabre Extreme we're reviewing are subject to change, and at present PC Club has decided to move to an MSI P965 motherboard instead of the Gigabyte DS3. Again, you can custom order a system using the DS3 if you'd like, and the overall features are still going to be similar. As long as the part you want is carried by PC Club, you can order whatever you'd like. Another change in parts is that instead of an MSI 7900GT GPU, the latest configuration uses an EVGA 7900GT card or an MSI 7900GT with HDCP support. The HDCP card costs an extra $20, but once Vista launches you might be glad to have the feature depending on how much you plan to use the system for watching movies.

Obviously, some concessions are made in order to keep costs low. Integrated audio is available on every motherboard these days for free, and while it is sufficient for most uses there is a qualitative difference between onboard and discrete solutions. The case and power supply are also on the lower end of the power and quality spectrum, but they should get the job done. If you are looking for something to compete with the supercharged computers of the world, you'll need to look elsewhere (or spend more money), but if you're just looking for a computer that offers reasonable performance and reliability, the Sabre Extreme is a good place to start. Now let's move on to some the finer details.

Index Externals and Appearance
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  • koomo - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    Hi Jared,

    Any expectations for when the next mid-range buyer's guide will be posted? (Last one was May 9th, just prior to AM2 and Core 2 Duo).

    It sure would be nice to see one juat after you all have tested the soon-to-be released ATI lineup. I'll be very interested to see how power requirements compare between the mid-range NVIDIA and ATI cards, as well as comparative noise levels (will the new ATI blowers help that much?) Thanks!

    Very nice review, BTW.
  • Turin39789 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    Get in in under $1000 and We'll talk
  • KorruptioN - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    It appears that the three right side holes are not utilized in screwing the motherboard down to the tray? They instead run the optical drive IDE cable underneath.

    Also, the choice of using an ALLIED PSU is a bad one -- consider it bottom-end generic.
  • QueBert - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    I consider your statement to be generic. Allied does make a lot of entry level, very basic PSU's. But, they make some http://www.pcclub.com/product_details.cfm?itemno=A...">great ones.. Infact. the one I just linked to, replaced a Enermax that died in my system. Was very quiet, had plenty of power, and overall is a PSU I'd recommend to anyone looking. Allied makes a ton of different PSU's, some of they might very well be crap, I won't dispute. But the one I own, ran a system with 4 HD's, 2 Opticals, an X800, 2 120MM and 80MM fan and more then enough power left over. Powmax makes "bottom end PSU's" there's a HUGE difference between "bottom end" and "generic"
    A good # of the barebone cases PC-Club sell come with Allied, I build pc's for people for a living, and I've had very few problems, with even their lower end psu's *shrug*
    Allied gets a bad rap, which I'm sure is for reasons that date back 5+ years? Based off that line of thinking, Maxtor makes the worst HD's ever...
  • yacoub - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    Good review, Jarred. Nice to see how a pre-built system can perform in a review that covers all the basics and even overclocking.
  • Harkonnen - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    On the internals and construction page, third paragraph. PSU is typed as SPU.

    "If you want to do more than that, you may find that you need to replace the default SPU with a beefier unit."

  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    I dunno - I kinda like the way SPU rolls off the tongue. :D
  • chunkychun - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    Is it really a great time to upgrade? It seems that directx 10 would require you to upgrade your graphics card realitively soon. Should people just wait?
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    DX10 may be important for games, but there's always something coming in the near future. I'm not aware of any games that are going to require DX10/WGF2 any time soon. I mean, we're only now getting a reasonable number of games that require SM3.0 (just in time for DX10, right?) At the ultra-high-end, it's probably worth waiting, but for mid-range a 7900 GT or X1900 XT level card is going to last quite a while at moderate detail settings.

    We need Vista before we'll get DX10, and I'm not holding my breath for an early 2007 Vista launch. I'm betting on closer to March. That's over six months away, so really I think now *is* a good time to upgrade... provided you haven't already done so in the past year or two. If you have a 6800/X800 GPU or better, you can probably wait. If you have an Athlon XP/Pentium 4 (prior to Prescott) or earlier CPU, upgrading to Core 2 wouldn't be a bad move. Maybe wait another month for prices to stabilize, but that's about it.
  • bamacre - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - link

    Well said, JW.

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