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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
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Product summary
The good: Delivers the best graphics performance we've seen yet; includes a keyboard designed for gamers; wall-rattling Logitech speakers.
The bad: No CD- or DVD-recordable drive.
The bottom line: Gamers will be knocked silly by the ABS Ultimate M6's one-two punch of AMD's Athlon 64 FX-51 and ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro XT.
Specifications: Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 (2.2 GHz); RAM installed: 1 GB DDR SDRAM; Hard drive: 80 GB Standard; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 10/17/2003
- Released on: 09/23/2003
The ABS Ultimate M6's black-aluminum Lian-Li PC-65B case is utilitarian, and the only hint that the system is built for gamers is the green neon interior lights visible through the windowed side panel; there's no ornate door to hide the optical drives on the front panel or any sort of emblem or sticker to add flair to the package. Still, the case gives gamers and other power users plenty of room to expand. You get four 5.25-inch bays (three of which were free on our review system), three 3.5-inch external bays (two free), and four 3.5-inch internal bays (two free). The Asus SK8N motherboard provides four DIMM slots, two of which were unoccupied on our review system. Of the five PCI slots, daughtercards occupy two spots and a third is taken up by an on/off switch for the interior neon light.
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Free drive bays and expansion slots abound inside the Ultimate M6. |
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 A pair of USB 2.0 ports resides at the bottom of the front panel. |
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If you own your fair share of digital gadgets, you'll be pleased to find a pair of USB 2.0 ports hidden behind a small door at the very bottom of the front panel. Around back, there are four more USB 2.0 ports and two FireWire ports.
Brand-spanking-new technology from AMD and ATI are the crown jewels in the ABS Ultimate M6's list of features. Using AMD's Athlon 64 FX-51, the system delivers top-notch 32-bit performance right now, and it will be able to run the 64-bit apps that should begin rolling out next year. Similarly, the Ultimate M6's graphics card, the just-released Radeon 9800 XT, delivers unparalleled graphics performance. Rounding out the core components are an ample helping of speedy memory--1GB of DDR 400 SDRAM--and dual Seagate 80GB Serial ATA hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration.
 Beneath the black cooling fan hides AMD's 64-bit Athlon processor. Below it is ATI's latest high-end graphics card, the Radeon 9800 Pro XT. |
 Bright sight: Samsung's 19-inch, flat-screen CRT. |
Gamers who are already salivating over a PC with the above technology for just north of $3,000 will downright drool over the included peripherals. The superbright, flat-screen, 19-inch Samsung CRT gives games their due, and the Logitech Z-680 5.1-speaker set will have your housemates ducking for cover when you fire up a first-person shooter. You can always give your gun-shy neighbors a break with the included Plantronics headphones.
The system's gamer focus extends to the Ideazon Zboard interchangeable keyboard, which ABS bundled with our review system and lists as the default on its online configurator. It lets you swap out different keysets that are each designed for a particular game, with the keys labeled for the commands they control in the game. The keysets aren't just overlays but include the keys themselves for games such as Madden NFL 2003, Neverwinter Nights, and Age of Mythology. Our Zboard included a standard Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer keyset, which worked nicely with the bundled Microsoft Works 7.0.
 The Zboard uses interchangeable keyboard faceplates for a variety of games. |
 One is the loneliest number: we'd like to see a CD burner give the system's DVD-ROM some company. |
Our only gripe is the Ultimate M6's lack of any sort of burner. These days, when most budget systems ship with a CD-RW drive, it's inexcusable for a high-end system to ship with a lone DVD-ROM drive. Thankfully, ABS offers Lite-On and Plextor CD-RW drives and NEC and Sony DVD+/-RW drives as upgrade options. The extra $36 for the 52X/32X/52X CD burner is a small price to pay for the ability to burn audio and photo CDs and make easy data-backup discs.
Application performance
When Microsoft releases its 64-bit version of Windows--expected early next year--the ABS Ultimate M6 will run even faster. And that's a stunning thought because its Athlon 64 FX-51 turned in blazing SysMark2002 scores, particularly on the office-productivity portion of the test. The Ultimate M6 fell right in line with the other two Athlon 64-FX-51 systems we've seen to date, with only a percentage point or two separating the three systems.
Aside from its ability to process data in 64-bit chunks, the two most notable innovations on the Athlon FX-51 concern memory processing. First, AMD has moved the memory controller from the motherboard to the processor, removing the bottleneck between the memory and the CPU known as the frontside bus. Now the speed at which data is transferred between the memory and the processor travels at the clock speed of the processor--2.2GHz in the case of the Athlon FX-51. Second, AMD has doubled the Level 2 (L2) cache found on Athlon XP processors to 1MB. The L2 cache essentially lines up instructions in the memory before sending them to the CPU for processing; the more cache you have, the more information can be herded toward the CPU, thereby increasing performance.
Application performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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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
As the first system to pass through our labs with ATI's new Radeon 9800 XT, we had high hopes for the ABS Ultimate M6, and it did not disappoint. The system posted the highest 32-bit 3DMark2001 score, although its Quake III frame rate trailed that of the iBuyPower Zillion-FX, which uses Nvidia's competing GeForce FX 5900 Ultra. In the end, the Ultimate M6 will have no trouble running any games out now or those in the future.
3D graphics performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure 3D graphics performance, CNET Labs uses Futuremark's 3DMark2001 Pro Second Edition, Build 330. We use 3DMark to measure a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8.0 (DX8) interface at both 16- 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 such support.
3D gaming performance (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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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- 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 Ultimate M6
Windows XP Professional, 2,2GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-51, Nvidia Nforce-3 Pro 150 chipset, 1,024MB DDR SDRAM PC3200 400MHz, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro XT 256MB, two Seagate ST380013AS, 80GB Serial ATA, 7,200rpm, WinXP Promise FastTrack 376/378 RAID Controller
Elite PC Titan 4
Windows XP Professional, 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 3200+; Nvidia Nforce-2 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; two Western Digital WDC WD360GD-00FNA0, 36GB 10,000rpm; SIS 3112 SATA RAID controller
Gateway 700XL
Windows XP Home; 3.2GHz Intel P4; Intel 875P chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; two Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA; integrated Intel 82801ER Serial ATA RAID controller
iBuyPower Zillion-FX
Windows XP Professional, 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-51; Nvidia Nforce-3 Pro 150 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB; Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB Serial ATA 7,200rpm
Polywell Poly 880NF3-3200
Windows XP Professional, 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 3200+; Nvidia Nforce-2 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB; two Western Digital WDC WD360GD-00FNA0, 36GB 10,000rpm; Highpoint RocketRAID 1520 SATA RAID controller
Polywell Poly 900NF3
Windows XP Professional, 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-51; Nvidia Nforce-3 Pro 150 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB; two WDC WD360GD-00FNA0 36GB Serial ATA 10,000rpm; WinXP Promise FastTrak 376/378 RAID controller
The ABS Ultimate M6 comes with a full-color setup poster that clearly demonstrates the steps you need to take and connections you need to make to get the system up and running. A three-ring binder with color-coded plastic sheaths contains the user manual and the driver and system-recovery CDs. Though well organized, the manual is not system-specific, so some of the diagrams point to parts that don't exist. Worse, other than a few driver downloads, ABS doesn't offer any online support.
A toll-free customer-support number is available weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. ET, and the warranty covers parts for one year and labor for the life of the system. Our review system's price included a $29 upgrade that provides onsite service via third-party provider 2Net and 24/7 phone support.
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