Polywell Poly 990FX-8150: Budget Gaming at a Nonbudget Price

The Polywell Poly 990FX-8150 demonstrates that you can in fact have a desktop that looks like a performance machine, but is actually a budget PC. Unfortunately, that isn't a good thing. Though the Poly 990FX-8150 provides mediocre, budget-PC performance in a hulking white tower, it still costs over $1500.

Our review model, priced at $1699 (as of February 13, 2012), holds a 4.51GHz AMD FX-8150 eight-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics card. It also has two 128GB solid-state drives in RAID (for booting), as well as a 500GB hard drive for storage, tucked into a hot-swappable drive bay. The system runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

In our tests, the Poly 990FX-8150 didn't do too well considering it's supposedly a performance machine. On PCWorld's WorldBench 6 benchmark, the Poly 990FX-8150 reached a score of only 135, a mark that puts it (just barely) at the bottom of our top ten list of performance desktop PCs.

The culprit? That FX-8150 processor. We reviewed AMD’s new Bulldozer CPU line when it launched late last year, and found its performance lacking. It has plenty of cores, which is a boon to serial multitaskers, but ultimately it barely keeps up with Intel’s midrange Core i5-2500K--a decidedly unimpressive showing for a performance-oriented part.

Graphics performance is fine, but doesn’t really stand out. On our Far Cry 2 graphics tests, the 990FX-8150 produced a frame rate of 73.5 frames per second (at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution and highest settings). In comparison, the iBuyPower Gamer Paladin HS11 managed a rate of only 67 fps on the same test, but it costs $999 (as of January), a full $700 less. The iBuyPower machine is equipped with an Intel Core i5-2500K, and on WorldBench 6 it earned a score of 161. And although it lacks a solid-state drive, it doubles the storage capacity with a 1TB hard drive.

The Poly 990FX-8150 is housed in a somewhat scary-looking--and definitely head-turning--white tower. The large metal tower features black plastic horizontal ridges along the front and top, and on part of the back. An aluminum edge runs around the top and bottom of the tower too. The white look is definitely different, but a little too Imperial Stormtrooper for my tastes.

As for the front of the tower, at the very top it has several convenient ports--two USB 2.0 connections, one eSATA port, and headphone and microphone jacks--as well as a large, square power button. Underneath the ports is the Blu-ray Disc player. Below that is the hot-swappable hard-drive bay; just push the latch, and it pops out. Under that is the card-reader bay, which features multiple card slots and another USB port.

The rest of the ports are located on the back of the machine, and they're extensive. You get four USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports (including a Republic of Gamers Connect port), one mouse/keyboard PS/2 port, one eSATA port, one S/PDIF out, gigabit ethernet, and support for 7.1 surround sound. Display outputs are on the graphics card, consisting of two DVI ports, one HDMI, and two DisplayPort connections.

Opening the Poly 990FX-8150 is easy, but moving around inside the case is not. It has a lot of room for upgrades, if you can get there. Inside you'll find a total of nine drive bays; four are full, however, and three are blocked by a huge fan. The system also has four PCIe x16 slots (three open), one PCI slot (open), and four RAM slots (all full). Although the cables are contained in black mesh, it's still strangely cluttered in there. The case is huge, and Polywell hasn't filled it up, but upgrading the machine will be messy work owing to the annoying placement of fans and cables.

Ultimately Polywell's Poly 990FX-8150 struggles to find a place in our performance desktop category. It's no gaming powerhouse, and it's a good $700 more than an entry-level gaming machine that outperforms it in most respects. You can find plenty of gaming-PC options out there, and this particular machine is outclassed.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960: Top-Shelf Hardware at a Top-Shelf Price

The Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960 boasts powerful hardware in an imposing package. But it certainly spares no expense, at $4599 (as of February 1, 2012). Does the cost add up? Let’s find out.

The Ignition is packed to the brim with power, starting with the Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme processor. That’s a $1000 CPU, which alone accounts for almost a quarter of the cost of the machine. The X7900i-3960 pulled off a score of 206 in our WorldBench 6 benchmark suite. Polywell left the CPU running at the CPU’s stock frequency of 3.3GHz, which leaves any overclocking in your hands.

A processor this fast needs a serious complement of RAM. But the 32GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM packed in here seems like overkill. The Asus P9X79-WS motherboard has a total of eight DIMM slots (as opposed to four on most boards), all of which are occupied.

Speaking of overkill, the system also includes two Nvidia Geforce GTX 590s in SLI. These are dual-GPU cards, offering 3GB of GDDR5 RAM each--and a single GeForce GTX 590 will future-proof a system for the next couple years, so you’re in no danger of running into performance bottlenecks anytime soon. On our Crysis 2 gaming benchmark, at a resolution of 2560-by-1600 on Ultra settings, the cards scored an average of 84 frames per second. On Dirt 3, it managed an average of 102 fps.

The Ignition X7900i-3960 has storage covered with two 120GB SSDs in RAID 0, supplying ample, speedy space. It can handle your operating system for quick boot times along with plenty of resource-intensive games and programs, satisfying anyone with a lack of patience. As for the rest of your music, movies, pictures, and documents, a 3TB 7200-rpm hard drive is tucked into a hot-swappable bay. For the media aficionado, the Ignition offers an LG Blu-ray burner as well as a DVD burner. It also has a multiformat card reader.

Space is tight inside the case, thanks to the wiring and extra-large graphics cards. If this system is missing anything you may be looking for, it's room for getting in and moving things around, and if that's what you like to do, it won't be an easy task. That said, the drive bays are easy to open and are accessible from the front panel--you’ll likely rarely need to open the case at all.

And if you’re looking for a green machine, look elsewhere. This beast runs on a 1250W power supply: Between the two beefy graphics cards, the full complement of RAM, and a self-contained liquid CPU cooler, you’ll likely notice a hit on your next utility bill.

The Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960 is sure to leave power-hungry users sated for years to come. But competing models on our Performance Desktops chart offer comparable speed (or better), for less cost. Consider, for example, the $2000 Micro Express MicroFlex 79B, which lacks many of the Ignition’s bells and whistles, but halves the price. Nevertheless, if you’re willing to try your hand at overclocking, the Ignition leaves you with plenty of potential to grow.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here