Maingear EPIC RUSH With Radeon R9 290X Crossfire

Futuremark is one of the best-known benchmark providers around. We use the PCMark line to give us a sense of a computer’s overall capabilities and we’ve found the 3DMark line to be a good indicator of gaming performance. The new 3DMark FireStrike test is designed to challenge even high-end systems like the Maingear EPIC RUSH.

Futuremark PCMark 7 & 8
Simulated Application Performance
 
PCMark 7
PCMark 7 runs through the types of tasks your PC is likely to encounter during ordinary home and office use. It tests the system’s graphics capabilities as well, but it isn’t mean to test the limits of high-end, discrete graphics card. Look at the two PCMark benchmarks as an indicator of a system’s general usage performance. 




Futuremark PCMark 8 Results


Futuremark PCMark 8 Results


Futuremark PCMark 8 Results

Graphics aren’t the focus of the PCMark tests, so the Radeon R9 290Xs don’t give the EPIC RUSH the same kind of edge they provide in other benchmarks. Nonetheless, the system scored well here.

Futuremark 3DMark 11
Simulated Gaming Performance
 
3DMark 11
Although Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 has been around for several years, it still provides a good look at a system’s gaming capabilities. It's also handy tool for benchmarking machines that still run Windows 7. We ran this benchmark on the Performance preset, at 1280 x 720 resolution. If you download the free version of this benchmark, make sure you're using the Performance preset to avoid comparing scores that were run with different test configurations.
 



Unsurprisingly, the EPIC RUSH took the top spot in the 3DMark 11 test. Given the rig’s high-end components, it’s likely to stay at the top of the pack in most of our benchmarks.

Futuremark 3Dmark Fire Strike
Simulated Gaming Performance
 
Fire Strike
The next test we chose was Futuremark’s newest: 3DMark Fire Strike is designed specifically for high-end gaming PCs like the Chimera. Because Extreme mode is geared towards systems that have multiple graphics cards in CrossFire or SLI configurations, we opted for Normal mode, which runs at 1920 x 1080.



Futuremark recently updated this 3DMark test, so we’re showing the system’s performance for reference only, without comparing it to the scores from previous system reviews, as those are based on the older benchmark version.

Joshua Gulick

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine.  A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family. 

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