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| Introduction & Specifications | ||||||
Let’s face it; buying a gaming machine with today’s latest components is anything but inexpensive. iBuyPower’s Gamer Paladin F970, which is designed to make the most of its powerful Core i7 processor and other high-end components, is proof of that fact. When the Gamer Paladin F970 was first released, the standard configuration initially had a price tag of $3,799. Recently, iBuyPower dropped the price on the standard configuration of the Gamer Paladin F970 to $3,395. Even at that price, however, the Gamer Paladin F970 is still considerably more than its less expensive cousin, the F950, which has an MSRP of $2,319. Of course, the Gamer Paladin F950 also uses lower-end components throughout. What’s important is that you get what you pay for--which is the overall value proposition of any product. With the iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F970, you’ll get a 3.2GHz Intel Core-i7 965 Extreme processor, 12GB of DDR3-1333 memory, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295, a 128GB RiDATA SATA MLC SSD, and a 1TB SATA-II 7,200-rpm hard drive. If you’ve ever configured a system on iBuyPower's website, you know the company generally offers a boatload of configuration options which can increase or decrease the price accordingly. And this holds true with the Gamer Paladin F970, so you’re free to customize the system to your heart’s content. In the pages ahead, we’ll take a closer look at the iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F970’s features and performance so you can be the judge of what this high-end system has to offer.
Our test system varied slightly from iBuyPower’s standard configuration, as you can see from the detailed specs above. Even so, our Gamer Paladin F970 test system still featured an Intel Core i7 Extreme Processor 965 at 3.2GHz, 12GB of DDR3-1333 RAM, and was built upon Asus’ P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard. For graphics, the system was powered by an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295. Finally, our system had both a 128GB SSD as well as a 1TB Serial-ATA-II (7200RPM) hard drive. Housing the Gamer Paladin F970 was a Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Case. The case comes with a camouflage paint job but can be changed to other colors/schemes to reduce the price. You can also select other cases if you prefer. The Warranty: iBuyPower's standard warranty includes a three year labor and one year parts warranty from the original date of invoice. After the one year parts warranty expires, the customer is responsible for shipping charges both ways, current labor (rate per hour; waived for 2nd and 3rd year of warranty), and the current price of part(s) used in repair. The company does not offer a warranty upgrade for the Gamer Paladin F970. iBuyPower's full published warranty can be found here. |
| Design & Build Quality |
As we mentioned, our Gamer Paladin F970 system came in a Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Case, which is the same case we reviewed here, but with a custom paint job. The Gamer Paladin F970’s HAF (High Air Flow) 932 is a big, full tower chassis that has a front 230mm red LED fan, a side 230mm fan, a top 230mm fan, and a rear 140mm blue LED fan. Combined, these fans push a lot of air over the system components inside the case. The benefit of using large fans such as those included in the HAF 932 is they can spin slowly while still pushing a lot of air. As a result, you’ll enjoy a comfortable noise level (Cooler Master's website claims the large fans are rated at 19 dBA). In the pictures, you’ll also notice that both sides of the case have five slits near the base to improve airflow.
iBuyPower used the HAF 932’s 5.25" to 3.5" drive bay cover and the bottom bay to house the 12-in-1 Media Card Reader/Writer. The top bay housed the LG 22x DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner. Although it’s a minor point, the camo paint scheme surrounds all of the empty bays, but it does not surround the 5.25" to 3.5" drive bay cover on the bottom bay, as you can see from the pictures below. The empty bay covers are mesh and not solid like you typically see in other cases.
The power and reset buttons are located at the top of the case, which will be convenient for users who plan to keep the system on the floor next to their desks. Behind the buttons, you’ll find an inset square with a small, rubber mat. You can store flash drives, remotes, or other small objects here.
On the back of the system, you’ll notice the tool-free design with two thumbscrews for each access panel. Near the top rear, you’ll also see two external radiator tube ports with rubber bushings. These ports are not used by the Gamer Paladin F970 we evaluated, as it came configured.
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| Interior Layout, Build, & Bundle |
The Cooler Master HAF 932 is a spacious case with cable management cut-outs to help system builders create a clean-looking installation. iBuyPower took full advantage of the HAF 932’s cable management cut-outs and used routing and tie-off techniques to keep the inside of the Gamer Paladin F970 nice and clean.
As you can see from the shots above, iBuyPower used immaculate cable routing and took full advantage of the area behind the motherboard tray. This both improves airflow and keeps the system looking tidy.
The Gamer Paladin F970 utilizes Asetek’s LCLC (Low Cost Liquid Cooling) kit to keep the system's CPU cool. Asetek’s solution integrates a pump, water reservoir, cold plate, and electronics into a single compact unit. This system also has very few joints, which helps eliminate potential leaks. It’s also sealed and charged for its lifetime, so you won’t have to worry about liquid evaporation or leaks. Asetek boasts of a maintenance-free lifetime of 50,000 hours.
In the pictures above, you’ll see the bundle and accessories we received with the Gamer Paladin F970. Various manuals, installation CDs, cords, and other accessories were included. Copies of FarCry2 and Halo 2 were also part of our bundle. A black Logitech keyboard and mouse was included with the system as well. |
| Test Setup & SiSoft SANDRA | |||||||||||
We tested the Gamer Paladin F970 system exactly as it came configured from the iBuyPower factory.
We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA XII, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran three of the built-in subsystem tests that partially comprise the SANDRA XII suite: Processor Arithmetic, Processor Multi-Media, and Memory Bandwidth.
The Gamer Paladin F970’s Processor Arithmetic scores in SiSoft SANDRA are in-line with what we would have expected. The Processor Arithmetic test measures pure CPU power, so it makes sense that the Core-i7 965 Extreme should beat the competition here.
SANDRA’s Processor Multi-Media test is influenced by processor speed and the amount of CPU cache. With the Core i7 965 Extreme's combination of high frequency and L2 and L3 cache, the Gamer Paladin F970 enjoys the top spot in the Processor Multi-Media test.
The Gamer Paladin F970 came in a bit behind the Velocity Micro Edge Z55 in the Memory Bandwidth test. Despite the fact that both systems were equipped with Corsair DDR3-1333 RAM. |
| Futuremark PCMark Vantage | ||||
For our next round of benchmarks, we ran the complete Futuremark PCMark Vantage test suite. This component of our testing provides a solid assessment of a system's overall performance. "The PCMark Suite is a collection of various single- and multi-threaded CPU, Graphics, and HDD test sets with the focus on Windows Vista application tests. Tests have been selected to represent a subset of the individual Windows Vista Consumer scenarios. The PCMark Suite includes CPU, Graphics, Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and a subset of Consumer Suite tests."
The Gamer Paladin F970 put up best of class numbers and then some for the Productivity and Gaming tests, but didn’t fare quite as well in the other PCMark Vantage tests. It’s likely the Music test suite and a few other tests could have been affected by driver variances and disk performance. |
| Cinebench Rendering and 3DMark06 CPU | ||||||||
Cinebench R10 is an OpenGL 3D rendering performance test based on Maxon's Cinema 4D, a 3D rendering and animation tool suite used by 3D animation houses and producers like Sony Animation and others. This benchmark is very demanding of system processor resources and is an excellent gauge of pure computational throughput.
This is a multi-threaded, multi-processor aware benchmark that renders a single 3D scene and tracks the length of the entire process. Each test system’s final scores to render the scene are represented below. Please Note: The Gamer Paladin F970, Velocity Micro Edge Z55, Smooth Creations LANShark Extreme, and Dell XPS 730x H2C systems in this test are running 64-bit Windows Vista installations and the 64-bit version of this test, as that is how they were configured from their respective factories. The other Core i7 reference systems are running Windows Vista 32-bit and the 32-bit version of the benchmark.
Raw processing speed and the number of processor cores are the driving force of this processor-intensive test. The Gamer Paladin F970 came in where we expected—just behind the overclocked Dell XPS 730x, and just ahead of the Velocity Micro Z55. The scores from Cinebench should be indicative of the type of performance you should expect from CPU-intensive applications.
3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded DirectX gaming metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems. This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are processed with a software renderer that is dependent on the host CPU's performance. Calculations that are normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the CPU for processing and rendering. The frame-rate generated in each test is used to determine the final score.
The Gamer Paladin F970’s score is right on the mark for what we would expect in the 3DMark06 CPU test. 3DMark06's CPU test is most-heavily influenced by processor speed and the number of processor cores, which is why the Gamer Paladin F970 comes in ahead of the other Core i7 systems, but behind the overclocked Dell rig. |
| 3DMark Vantage and LAME MP3 Encoding | ||||||||||
As you can see from the above image, the Gamer Paladin F970 managed an overall 3DMark Vantage score of P21254. By comparison, the Velocity Micro Z55 scored P12941 overall and the LANShark Extreme managed an overall 3DMark Vantage score of P13721. The Gamer Paladin F970’s GPU score of 17986 was also better than the Velocity Micro Z55 (11760) and the LANShark Extreme (13840)’s GPU scores.
In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format. This simulates a common scenario that many of us users work with on a regular basis to provide portability and storage of digital audio content. LAME is an open-source, mid- to high- bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is widely used around the world in a multitude of third party applications. In this benchmark, we've created our own 223MB WAV file and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-threaded modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Shorter times equate to better performance.
Our custom Lame MT test is a measure of processor performance, and is not impacted significantly by L2 cache size or the presence of more than two cores. This test ranks the Core-i7 965 Extreme where we expected—behind the overclocked Dell XPS 730x H2C. Because many mainstream applications still lack support for multi-threading with more than two cores, the results shown here are pretty close to the performance you should expect when encoding audio. |
| 3DMark06 Standard Test | ||||
On the next few pages, we'll focus on a few gaming specific benchmarks, starting with the rest of 3DMark06's modules.
When it was released, 3DMark06 was a hard-core, forward-looking 3D rending benchmark that pushed a system and its GPUs to the limits. The test includes Shader Model 2.0, Shader Model 3.0, and HDR tests. To push the system, scenes are rendered with very high geometric detail and shader complexity, and with extensive use of lighting and soft shadows. The maximum shader length 3DMark06 supports is 512 instructions. The 3DMark06 Overall Score is a weighted average based on the SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0, and CPU scores.
The Gamer Paladin F970’s GeForce GTX 295 and fast CPU gives it the top spot in the 3DMark06 overall test with a score of 19,391 3DMarks. Since real-world 3D game play is influenced by processing speed and graphics capabilities, and since this test reflects upon these two components, it makes sense that the Gamer Paladin F970 would fare well.
In the Shader Model 2.0 test, the Gamer Paladin F970 came in third, just behind the Velocity Micro Z55 with dual Radeon HD 4850 cards and the Dell XPS 730x H2C with a GeForce GTX 280. In the Shader Model 3.0/HDR test, the Gamer Paladin F970 once again regains its No.1 spot.
To give you another perspective on how the Gamer Paladin F970 stacks up, we’ll look at a few real-world gaming tests next. |
| Crysis | ||||||
Like it has on many other tests, the Gamer Paladin F970 came in near the top, but not at the very top. The GeForce GTX 280 SLI and Smooth Creations LANShark Extreme’s Radeon HD 4870 X2 beat the Gamer Paladin F970’s respectable 56.51fps here. |
| Half Life 2: Episode 2 | ||||
 With its updated game engine, gorgeous visuals, and intelligent weapon and level design, Half Life 2 has become just as popular as its predecessor, the original Half-Life. With Episode 2, you’ll get a number of visual enhancements, such as better-looking transparent texture anti-aliasing. We ran this benchmark at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled concurrently. We also enabled color correction and HDR rendering. To benchmark the cards in this test, we used a custom recorded timedemo file.  The Gamer Paladin F970 scores exceptionally well in our custom Half Life 2: EP2 demo which is affected by both available CPU and GPU resources. The Gamer Paladin F970 put up 246.71fps at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4X AA and 16 AF. This is 59.52fps better than the next-best competitor, the Smooth Creations LANShark Extreme. This is the type of performance we like to see in a gaming rig. |
| FarCry 2 | ||||||
  Even with 8X AA turned on and the game's image quality set to Ultra High, the Gamer Paladin F970 returns very playable frame rates. By comparison, the Gamer Paladin F970 out scores the Digital Storm 950Si Custom Core i7 Gaming System at every resolution. At 1920X1200 resolution on a 24" flat panel LCD, the Gamer Paladin F970 averages 51.9 fps, while the Digital Storm 950Si averages 49.58 fps. |
| Performance Analysis & Conclusion | ||||
Performance Analysis: The Gamer Paladin F970 scored exceptionally well in some tests and very good in some others. Although this system doesn’t find itself with the top scores in all of our benchmark tests, it fares pretty well overall. The Paladin F790 especially shined in many of the gaming benchmarks where we used ultra high image quality and anti-aliasing settings to stress the system. Considering this system targets gamers, the gaming results are what we feel are most important. Our benchmarks show the Gamer Paladin F970 is a very capable gaming machine that won’t let you down.
The Gamer Paladin F970’s original MSRP of $3,799 seemed a bit high. The new MSRP of $3,395 is much better, and though it’s still a bit pricey, we must point out that purchasing the components necessary to build a similar system--sans the custom paint job--will run you about $3000, so the price seems fair. There are numerous configuration options for the Gamer Paladin F970 available anyway, so you can configure the system with lower specs and a less expensive price tag if you so please. Our test system definitely had some impressive specs, though we have to wonder if the 12GB of DDR3-1333 is more memory than a person really needs. However, given that iBuyPower’s online configuration tool shows 6GB of DDR3-1333 for only $98 less, we can’t say we’d blame anyone for spending an extra $100 for twice the amount of RAM. The Gamer Paladin F970 is currently iBuyPower’s top of the line system. The Gamer Paladin F970’s chassis is nice and clean with plenty of room and neatly routed cords and cables. We also liked the clean look provided by the Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit. Combined with the system’s large fans, the Gamer Paladin F970 stays cool and is reasonably quiet. During our time with the Gamer Paladin F970, it performed very well and didn’t give us any grief whatsoever. It’s also worth mentioning that the system didn’t come loaded with unnecessary bloatware pre-installed. We feel systems should arrive with only what is needed to enjoy all of its capabilities, so this is definitely a plus overall. Sometimes less is more. All in all, we can’t help but say good things about a gaming rig that earns respectable scores. The Gamer Paladin F970 delivered just that.
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