Specifications (Continued)

The performance of a powerful gaming PC is contingent on more than the processor, though, which is why we were impressed to see the Athlon XP residing on an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 board. If you’d like more information on that board, check out our own review. There are less-expensive boards available, but including the A7N8X results in high-performance and such extras as DualNet (two 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports) and NVIDIA’s SoundStorm audio subsystem. It supports two, 64-bit channels of DDR400 memory (though the second channel is most effective on platforms with integrated video), which ABS has populated with a pair of 256MB modules from Corsair. Each stick of PC3200 RAM is capable of DDR400 speeds, but as you may know, the nForce2 chipset favors low-latency DDR333 over the faster speed grade, detuned.

Front of the Kingwin aluminum case

Attention to detail is readily apparent

No need for screwdrivers here!

All of the components are housed in an attractive Kingwin 13-bay mid-tower case. The aluminum case has a bit of an “edge” to it, with three blue-tinted windows and blue cold-cathode lighting. Cooling comes compliments of five 80mm fans, two of which are mounted on the back of the case, two are in the front, and one up top. In addition to the ports you’d expect to find on the back of a case, the front of the Kingwin hosts four USB ports, an IEEE 1394 port, and audio connectors for microphone input and speaker output. I’ve dealt with my share of cases over the years and I can attest to the value of a lightweight aluminum case.

ABS Ultimate M1

Windows on all sides of the case

Yet another window

Alan recently highlighted the importance of a reliable power supply in a recent guide. However, many of you may have already experienced problems with a shoddy unit. In fact, we’ve run into issues with a couple of our supplies and RADEON 9700 video cards (mainly the initial batch that shipped out). We were again impressed to see ABS’ use of a 350 watt Enermax power supply. Hip Lee, the ABS Marketing Manager, hit the nail right on the head, observing, “Either you pay now or you pay later.” For components as important as power supplies, quality is important and from our experiences, Enermax is a great way to go.

And while we ran into power problems with early RADEON 9700 Pro cards, we have experienced much better luck as of late. ABS keeps the Ultimate M1 true to its lineage by including Sapphire’s 128MB version of the card. We received the review unit equipped with the Catalyst 2.4 drivers, indicating that ABS manages to stay fairly current with the software used for preloading.