Digital Trends

Systemax Venture VX2 September 24th, 2007 | by Josh Norem

Mobo and chipset

The VX2 uses the trusty Intel “Bad Axe” 975X motherboard, which is highly regarded for its stable operation and superior performance. The board sports dual x16 PCI-Express graphics ports, but does not support SLI (only NVIDIA boards offer this feature). We don’t mind not having SLI, as it doesn’t work in all games, is costly, and is not always a good upgrade option (buying a second card that is). The board offers Matrix RAID, which is the ability to run RAID 0 and RAID 1 on just two drives, onboard HD audio and cool blue flame-shaped heatsinks around the CPU area.

Storage

Thanks to Bit Torrent, and pr0n, people need not just gigs of storage these days, but terabytes. The VX2 offers up a terabyte of storage (that’s 1,000 gigabytes) thanks to two 500GB Seagate 7200.10 drives in a RAID 0 striped array. Though the setup is very speedy, we do not understand why every “gaming” system that ships these days has to have a RAID 0 array. It’s like an unwritten rule from the year 2002 that says a gaming PC must run RAID 0 in order to be “ultra fast,” but real-world benchmarks have debunked the myth of RAID 0 advantages, and the risk you take by putting all your eggs in one super-huge basket is just not worth it, in our opinion. We would have much preferred a RAID 1 array, or simply two 500GB drives – one for data, and one for backup. Call us crotchety old men, but we like to keep our data safe, and running a single striped terabyte array is not safe, nor is it smart.

We should note there is room inside the chassis for two more hard drives, but since there is no cooling for the drives, you would most likely burn the drives up in no time by stacking four of them and keeping them running all the time.

The VX2 include two 500GB drives in a 1TB array

Optical Options

The cool new hotness these days in the optical world are HD drives that can burn and read Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, but they are prohibitively expensive right now. Plus, since the format war is still brewing, nobody wants to drop that kind of cash ($400-$1000 USD) on something that might go the way of the dodo bird in the near future. The VX2 plays it safe with dual optical drives of the DVD-R/RW variety. One is a 20X dual-layer drive, which can burn discs up to 8GB or so in size. The other is a trusty 16X DVD reader and 52X CD-R/RW. The pair will burn every possible type of media, HD not included.

The VX2 comes with both a 20X DVD burner, and a 52X DVD CD-reader

Ports and Connectors

The VX2 has more than its share of new and old ports and connectors, so it should be able to handle anything you throw at it. In the front are two USB ports and a FireWire port, as well as a very handy 9-in-1 media reader. There are also microphone and headphone jacks.

In the back there are four more USB ports, another FireWire port, audio connections and – get this – legacy Serial and Parallel connectors! We haven’t seen these in ages, and will no doubt please those still rockin’ old school dot matrix printers.

The VX2 offers plenty of new, and old, connectors

Mice and Keyboard

With a system built on a strict budget, you have to cut corners somewhere, and Systemax clearly did it on the mouse and keyboard. Both are PS/2 units (shudder), and are “value” to the very core. At least the mouse is optical, instead of roller ball, but we didn’t think either unit deserves to be plugged into such a powerful PC. The company also threw in a cheapo foam mousepad that is totally generic.

Toss the keyboard and mouse in the trash, if you have any self respect.

Chassis

Gamers are usually big on a gaming PC’s aesthetic, but are equally interested in how both the inside and outside look. The all-black mid-tower in use here is decent, but nothing that will raise your blood pressure or impress the ladies. The interior is similar, and Systemax made a clear attempt to route the wires out of the way, but did so by bundling them into a huge cluster with a zip-tie. It doesn’t look too hot, but since the system does not include a case window, most people will never know. Still, cluttered wiring can make upgrades difficult, but in this case, where upgrades would be few and far between, we’re willing to cut Systemax a little slack.

The chassis isn’t groundbreaking, but is functional.