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When it comes to hardware reviews, we're all business here at HardwareLogic. We're working day and night to build relationships with various companies so that we may present to you, the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd, unbiased coverage to assist in making informed purchases. Our efforts have not been in vain, with many familiar names jumping on the HardwareLogic bandwagon and just a few proving to be more, um, challenging to secure (*cough* OCZ *cough* - throw us a fricken' bone, fellas, preferably a Gold one!).
Well hey, we never expected it to be all fun and games behind the scenes, but for the readers, it always should be. Keeping in the spirit of community and having fun, HardwareLogic has recently began hosting a Counter Strike: Source server and have encouraged our staff to participate when they have a free moment. And participate they have! Turns out that asking geeks to play a video game is like asking J.Lo to put out a bad song - neither are met with much resistance. We realize that it's not the most current game available, but it's still fun and because it's an older title, we figured there would be a larger install base. So next time you have the chance, fire up your copy and join in the fun. Our private server for HardwareLogic members can be found at 207.210.236.102:27016 and we have a thread dedicated to getting new users up and running, as well as other CS:S related chat (CS:S Server Thread).
But we digress, and it's time to get back to the real topic of this article. While wandering the Office map in Counter Strike and rushing to save the hostages (the exact same ones that happen to get kidnapped time and again), we spied some pretty new looking computer systems:
Not bad for a company contending with the costs of continued terror attacks, but what impressed us even more is the vendor. Upon closer examination, we saw the moniker Beefy Computers inscribed on the side. Surely this couldn't be an ordinary office machine, right?
We've never heard of Beefy Computers and apparently neither has Google, but with such a boastful name, we wondered if they could give the likes of VoodooPC and Falcon-NW a run for their money. Unfortunately, while we had plenty of ammunition and Kevlar padding on hand, we were caught without our usual assortment of benchmarks. Still, that didn't stop us from taking a peek inside, and that's just what we did.
Let us mention right off the bat how solidly built these machines are constructed. We have to ding Beefy Computers for not including thumb screws on the side panel for easy removal, forcing us to improvise. No problem, as a few shots from our .50 caliber Night Hawk whisked the panel right off, yet the inside amazingly remained free from damage. We're fairly certain that had we tried this on our home machines, the results would have been quite different.
Construction aside, the very first thing that caught our eye is the immaculate wiring job. There's nary a cable to be found, and Beefy Computers appears to be using some sort of wireless system to hook up the components (more on this later).
At the heart of the system is an Asus A8V motherboard, based around the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset. With the Counter Strike Source office having been built in 2004, it's no surprise to find socket 939 at the heart of the system, but we'd be remiss to mention our disappointment in not opting for nVidia's nForce3 Ultra chipset, the hottest ticket in town at the time. Minor gripe aside, Beefy Computers did well to choose Asus, and the A8V is a fairly feature packed motherboard.
Also a standard choice for the time is the inclusion of an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro videocard. This was THE AGP card of choice for gamers before nVidia struck back with the highly popular 6800 line, but even we've never seen a card quite like this. Notice anything peculiar? That's right, it appears to be keyed backwards! We didn't notice anything special about the AGP slot, so how Beefy Computers was able to jam this puppy in there and still retain a bark is beyond us.
Like all modern motherboards, the Asus A8V sports onboard sound and for an office environment, most purchasing executives would scoff at the notion of an add-in soundcard. Well, the execs at THIS office scoff at scoffing, as they approved the inclusion an Audigy soundcard by Creative Labs. Clearly the suits in charge recognize that a happy employee is a productive one.
By far, the most interesting aspect of a Beefy Computers system is the wireless design. The two hard drives pictured above are not plugged into the power supply or motherboard, yet the RAID 0 array somehow manages to feed the data to the monitor. We're not sure if they've patented this technology, but we'd like to see other boutiques implement this same solution.
The hard drives themselves we've identified as IBM (now Hitachi) Deskstar 180GXP 120GB drives. That's 240GB total, plenty for most work environments even if a bit paltry by today's standards. Looking closer, we still have no idea how a wireless implementation could work. To be honest, we haven't seen anything this preposterously intriguing since browsing a configuration on Go-L's website.
Beefy Computers chose to go with a 1GB value kit of PC3200 RAM, provided by OCZ. We're not huge fans of value kits, but we're thrilled to see an office environment running OCZ, a popular choice among enthusiasts. The choice is even more logical when factoring in their reputation for quality and customer service. Now if only we could get OCZ to send us a review sample or two...
Powering all these goodies is a mystery power supply. At first we thought it was Antec, but upon closer inspection, we were unable to verify who supplied this unit. We also couldn't read the specifications, as the label was just not legible. What we CAN say is that it stood up surprisingly well to gunfire and grenades.
Finally, we take a look at the peripheral package. Due to its large size and respectable gaming performance, the Dell UltraSharp 2001FP LCD monitor was quite the rage in 2004 and still manages to hold its ground today. Clearly there's more going on during free time than Minesweeper and Solitaire. Rounding it all out is a Logitech wireless keyboard and Microsoft mouse combination.
Warranty and Support
Plain and simple, we're just not sure what kind of warranty and support can be expected from a Beefy Computer system. We're not even sure how to go about ordering one, but we imagine that for those lucky enough to own one of these rigs, the necessary information would be provided.
Our Recommendation
It's hard to recommend a system when we don't know where or how to order one or even what kind of benchmarks it can churn out, but the wireless hard drives alone would be worth the effort to find out. Regardless, what we can recommend is jumping into our HardwareLogic forums, becoming part of the community, and fragging with other members and staff by adding 207.210.236.102:27016 to your favorites (be sure and visit our CSS Thread for the current password). We give this experience an Editor's Choice award.