Digital Trends

Compaq GX5000Z

November 4th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

Introduction

Until now hardcore gamers had only a few options when it came to buying an upper-end gaming machine. You either had to build the system yourself or you had to fork over a lot of dough to get a system from makers like Alienware and VoodooPC. Large system manufacturers like HP, Dell and Gateway have tried selling upper-end gaming machines, but frankly they just where not up to snuff. They used proprietary parts and appeared to be built as cheaply as possible to keep their margins high and bottom line purchase price down, until now.

The Compaq X Series is the first line of computers from a major PC manufacturer to use the same off-the-shelf parts that you can buy yourself. This means the motherboard, soundcard, video card, and other components are basically retail parts minus the retail packaging (since they come assembled in a system). The advantage is that the Compaq X series systems are completely upgradeable should you decide you want to buy an upgrade to a component and throw it into the system. Nothing is proprietary including the case, power supply, and most importantly the motherboard.  This approach works in the car market where we can buy supped up versions of our favorite car using off-the-shelf parts. The question is whether the consumer will bite on this idea or not in the computer market.

Features and Design

When we opened the package to our Compaq GX5000Z review system, we instantly found smiles on our faces. The staff here at Designtechnica is full of hardcore gamers. You can usually find us playing Doom 3 or Call of Duty late into the night on the weekends — and we all use systems we have built ourselves. So when we opened the Compaq box up, we immediately knew that Compaq was thinking along the right lines.

Compaq chose to use the infamous Cooler Master Wave case for their X series of systems. The Cooler Master Wave case is constructed 100% out of aluminum and features a very hip looking front face plate that forms a “wave” giving the system a very unique look. Once the door is opened, you are greeted by a DVD/CD-ROM drive, a DVD/CD writer and a 9-in-1 + USB media card reader, all dressed in black to match the system's silver and black color scheme. Both the keyboard and mouse share this scheme as well. The Compaq mouse uses optical technology while the keyboard comes with several programmable multi-media and short-cut buttons; both use the system's PS2 ports.

The guts of the system appear to be made up of retail parts currently available to consumers. This includes a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard featuring Gigabit Ethernet, 7 USB 2.0 ports, 2 FireWire ports, 5 PCI slots (3 available), 8X AGP and RAID SATA hard drive support. Our system came with AMD's Athlon 64 FX-53 processor running at 2.41GHz, an Enermax 470-watt power supply, Nvidia's Geforce 6800 Ultra video card, and a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card. Putting the system over-the-top is the pair of Western Digital 74GB 10,000 RPM Raptor hard drives running in a RAID Stripe configuration. Let's see Dell and Gateway try something like that. This is just the configuration Compaq provided us on our test machine. When you go to Compaq's website, you can completely customize your own system depending on your needs and budget.

Software-wise our system came with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Norton Antivirus installed. Again, you have the option to choose from various software packages on Compaq's website. We like the fact that Compaq does not preload the system with useless trial software, keeping it running fresh and clean; just what the typical gamer wants.