Digital Trends

Compaq GX5000Z

November 4th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

Setup and Use

Before powering up the system, we decided to open it up to see how Compaq handles the cable management. The IDE cables are wrapped in tight sleeves to help minimize air interference. All of the other cables including the SATA and power supply cables are neatly zip tied and put out of view to give the inside of the system a very clean look to it. The Enermax “Noise Taker” 470watt power supply comes with an anodized blue aluminum shell that looks fantastic in the system. The only thing that seemed a little odd is the way the heat sink on the processor blows air. The vent on the CPU heat sink blows air towards the side of the case instead of towards the back of the system where the rear fans are. But because there are no vents on the sides of the Cooler Master case, the air hits a dead-end and must disperse in multiple directions. It would have been smart to put a vent in the side of the case to help maximize the air flow. Other than that, Compaq has done a fantastic job with the cable management and cooling inside of the system; it looks like they paid a lot of attention to the craftsmanship.

The inside of the system has plenty of room for expansion

When the system is powered on, a glowing red light emanates from behind part of the front face plate and highlighting the Compaq logo on the front of the system. It's great to see Compaq use colored lights like this because people often add neon lights to their own custom built systems; it's like a badge of coolness so to speak. The hard drives are very quiet when the system is running, but you sure can hear the processor's fan churning, reminding you this system is mega-powered. The keyboard and mouse work pretty well, but the mouse feels kind of cheap and not as heavy duty or thick as Microsoft's Intellimouse or Logitech's MX series of mice. There are no side buttons on the mouse either, which gamers often prefer.

In our tests, the GX5000Z performed admirably, compared to our 925X based system and that is no easy feat. Our test system comes with an MSI 925X NEO Platinum motherboard, an Intel 3GHz CPU, 1GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 533MHz memory and an MSI ATI X800 XT 256MB video card. Although the GX5000Z only uses 1GB PC3200 memory, the system's dual Western Digital Raptor hard drives and the NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra video card helped propel the system to high scores in our gaming benchmarks.

In our UT 2004 benchmarks the GX5000Z squeezed out over 120 frames-per second running at 1600x1200 resolution and maximum detail. But when it came to Doom 3, our test system bested the GX5000Z by 11 frames in both 1024x768 and 1600x1200 resolutions. In our office productivity tests, the GX5000Z is no slouch either, scoring a SysMark 2004 score of 186 compared to our test system's score of 174. For complete benchmarking results please click on the performance tab and link above and below this review.

The GX5000Z system proved a joy to use in everyday use. The loud fans are kind of annoying if you are used to a quiet system, but this should be something every gamer is used to. We had no problems with the system overheating or locking up on us with exception to the DVD/CD combo drive which had trouble reading some of our discs. Every USB and FireWire port on the system worked without issue. We liked that Compaq clearly labeled everything on the back of the system letting you know what each input is meant for.

Conclusion

Compaq has developed a formidable contender with their X series gaming systems. The GX5000Z system we reviewed proved to be both fast and reliable. We love the fact that Compaq is using OEM parts from major manufacturers like MSI, Samsung and Creative Labs. This separates the Compaq X series apart from others such as Gateway and Dell because it allows their system to be upgraded with extreme ease. In essence, Compaq has built you a system using the same off-the-shelf parts that you can purchase yourself. They build the system for you, test it and then sell it for a few hundred dollars less than you would pay building the system yourself. Top it off with a one-year warranty through Compaq, and you are good to go.

The only issue we had with our review system was the HP DVD/CD-ROM drive which had trouble reading from multiple media types. We have never been impressed with HP's DVD drives so a switch to a drive manufactured by Plextor or Sony would make this system even better. Compaq has something special on their hands with their X series of gaming PC's. We would love to see them promote these systems through gaming events and by advertising on gaming sites and publications. Until then the X series will have to be a well kept secret until the word spread. Once Compaq does some minor tweaking, they should have a powerful gaming machine that rivals the best from Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC and other hardcore system builders.