Reviewed on 9/20/02
Updated on: 10/16/02
Release date: 8/26/02
The
leading edge is defined as that place from which you cannot go any further. That's exactly where you'll find the ABS Awesome 3600, the top-of-the-line configuration in the company's Awesome series. From its 2.8GHz Pentium 4--currently the fastest consumer CPU in the known universe--to its Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-R drive, the Awesome 3600 is more than what many people will need, but it's exactly what most of us want. You can dial it back a little to the less-than-$2,000 Awesome 3400 or really far to the sub-$1,000 Awesome 3120, both with an AMD Athlon XP CPU. But $2,549 is not too much for this bundle of excess and the 2.8GHz Intel P4 that it packs.
Design of ABS Awesome series
A hefty (server-width) Antec midtower case is a dead giveaway that there's more than just a run-of-the-mill PC here. If that isn't enough to tell you that the ABS Awesome 3600 is special, the six fans inside should do the trick. There are two in the power supply, one on the CPU, one on the back panel, and two on the front panel, one of which cools the hard drives.
An awe-inspiring number of fans.
A small pop-out panel hides the front-mounted twin USB 1.1 ports and a FireWire port. There are four additional USB 2.0 ports and another FireWire port on the back panel, as well.
Eight USB and two FireWire ports in all.
Although you'll need to undo two screws to get inside, you won't need to put them back; the side panel has its own latch that keeps it securely in place. ABS has done a great job of keeping the cabling out of the way, but there is a lot of it. Filling the one vacant RIMM socket on the ASUS P4T533 motherboard shouldn't be a problem, but be prepared for some gymnastics if you try to fill either of the two vacant accessible 5.25-inch bays. Although the hard drives are bolted to the bays, the entire bay assembly is latched and slides out, as do the DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives.
Easy entry.
Quick-release levers provide an easy exit.
Technically, two of the system's five PCI slots aren't filled. However, we don't suggest trying to populate the slot adjacent to the Leadtek GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. The huge heat sink that wraps around the card extends into the space above the next slot. If you can think of anything else the Awesome 3600 might need, there's still one slot available for it.
Stack the cards.
Features of ABS Awesome series
Put aside the 2.8GHz Pentium 4, the motherboard's 533MHz bus, and the 512MB of 1066 RDRAM memory for a moment. There's much more to the Awesome 3600 than its processing power. The Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-R drive gives you 4.7GB of archival storage on DVD-R discs and lets you create your own video DVDs. You get an able assist in the latter from
Sonic MyDVD and ArcSoft's ShowBiz software. They don't have quite the polish of Adobe's pricey
Premiere 6.0, but they're easy to learn, and you'll be creating DVDs in no time at all.
Also, it might seem odd to have a Pioneer DVD-116 DVD ROM drive since the DVR-104 plays DVDs as well. The DVR-104, however, also writes to CD-Rs and CD-RWs. That lets you use the DVD-116 as a source drive to copy your DVDs, which speeds up the burning process. If you had only the DVR-104, you'd need to first copy your source disc to your hard drive, then copy that data back to a blank disc in the DVR-104. Having the DVD-116 eliminates the middle step and lets you make a direct disc-to-disc copy, which you'll truly appreciate when you need to get that holiday video out to the whole family.
DVD-ROM and DVD-R drives.
Whether you're dealing with DVDs or audio CDs, you'll fall in love with the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 speaker system. The four two-way satellites, one two-way center channel, and a dual-driver 8-inch subwoofer mate perfectly with the Awesome 3600's Audigy 5.1 sound card and deliver 500 watts of incredible, audiophile-quality sound. Like the computer, the speaker system is state-of-the-art. DVD playback gets a visual boost from the 19-inch Samsung SyncMaster 900NF monitor, which is sizable enough to provide a great movie experience.
As if that weren't enough, ABS tosses in a cordless Logitech Freedom iTouch keyboard and mouse, a USB PC Card reader, two 80GB hard disks combined into one 160GB RAID volume, and
Microsoft Works Suite 2002, in case you can find the time to do some work.
Performance of ABS Awesome series
Application performance
Top-of-the-line components typically translate into top-of-the-line performance. With a 2.8GHz P4 processor, 512MB RDRAM running at 533MHz (which most vendors quote at the double-data-rate speed of 1,066MHz), an Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600-based graphics card, and dual ATA-133 hard drives with a RAID 0 controller revving under its hood, the ABS Awesome 3600 delivers breathtaking application performance. Interestingly, the faster memory and hard disk subsystems don't really give a significant boost to the system's application performance; the Awesome is as fast as it gets but isn't any speedier than other typical 2.8GHz P4-based systems. The bottom line: Able to handle any app with the greatest of ease, the Awesome 3600 easily earns its moniker.
Application performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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BAPCo SysMark2002 Rating | |
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SysMark2002 Internet Content Creation Rating | |
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SysMark2002 Office Productivity Rating | |
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ABS Awesome 3600 (2.8GHz P4)
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Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.53GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.8GHz P4)
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To measure application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark2002, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan, and Internet-content-creation applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver.
3D graphics and gaming performance
An Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600-based graphics card and a fast CPU all but guarantee high frame rates on even the most demanding games. The Awesome 3600's 3D graphics performance under DX8 (as measured by 3DMark 2001) is even a notch faster than this same graphics engine in the similarly configured Dell Dimension 8200 and Gateway 700XL. Chalk this up, at least in part, to a more recent version of the easily downloadable display driver. The Awesome 3600's Quake III performance, however, is a hair below that of the other two systems, which just goes to show that a display driver that fixes one problem can sometimes cause a dilemma someplace else. Nonetheless, even difficult-to-please, hard-core gamers will be happy with this level of performance.
3D graphics performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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MadOnion.com's 3DMark 2001 Pro (16-bit color) | |
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MadOnion.com's 3DMark 2001 Pro (32-bit color) | |
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ABS Awesome 3600 (2.8GHz P4)
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Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.53GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.8GHz P4)
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To measure 3D graphics performance, CNET Labs uses MadOnion.com's 3DMark 2001 Pro. We use 3DMark to measure a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8 (DX8) interface at both 16-bit and 32-bit color settings at a resolution of 1,024x768. A system that does not have DX8 hardware support will typically generate a lower score than one that has DX8 hardware support.
3D gaming performance (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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ABS Awesome 3600 (2.8GHz P4)
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Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.53GHz P4)
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Gateway 700XL (2.8GHz P4)
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To measure 3D gaming performance, CNET Labs uses Quake III Arena. Although Quake III is an older game, it is still widely used as an industry-standard tool. Quake III does not require DX8 hardware support--as 3DMark2001 does--and is therefore an excellent means of comparing the performance of low-end to high-end graphics subsystems. Quake III performance is reported in frames per second (fps).
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:
ABS Awesome 3600 (2.8GHz P4)
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel P4; 512MB RDRAM 533MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB; two Maxtor D740X 80GB 7,200rpm; HPT372A UDMA/ATA133 RAID controller
Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8GHz P4)
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel P4; 1,024MB RDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB; Western Digital WD120JB-75CRA0 120GB 7,200rpm
Gateway 700XL (2.53GHz P4)
Windows XP Home; 2.53GHz Intel P4; 512MB RDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB; Western Digital WD120BB-53CAA0 120GB 7,200rpm
Gateway 700XL (2.8GHz P4)
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel P4; 1,024MB RDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB; Western Digital WD120BB-53CAA1 120GB 7,200rpm
Service and support of ABS Awesome series
As top-notch as this system is, the Awesome 3600 doesn't quite have as lofty a support-and-service plan as you might expect. There are an abundance of component manuals covering the computer's individual parts, and the oversized Quick Setup sheet will help you get up and running, but there's only a generic user manual. Toll-free support is at hand, however, either through ABS during normal West Coast business hours on weekdays or 24/7 from third-party support provider 2Net during the first year of ownership. ABS still provides toll-free support after your initial year but only Monday through Friday during regular West Coast business hours.
2Net also provides the first year of onsite service that's included with the Awesome 3600's three-year parts, lifetime-labor warranty. As is the plan with companies such as Gateway, you must go through ABS to see if onsite service is necessary--solely at ABS's discretion. Over the next two years, ABS will pay the shipping one-way if you elect to send the system back or want parts shipped to you for replacement. If neither of those options sounds appealing, Bantec, another third-party service provider, offers a $129 onsite contract on the Awesome 3600 during the last two years of its parts warranty.
