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Hardware

Poly 7205G1-3000XGL (Intel)

1 Mar, 2003 By: Ron LaFon

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Polywell Computers

4 stars out of 5

Polywell’s Intel-based system, the Poly 7205G1-3000XGL, couldn’t keep up with its AMD-based sibling.

It’s difficult for one company to compete against itself, especially when the other system it submits is a great- performing bargain. Polywell also sent us an Intel-based system, the Poly 7205G1-3000XGL. Like the AMD-based Poly 880NF2-2700XGL, the Poly 7205G1-3000XGL is also housed in a compact, lightweight case—though all aluminum alloy this time, with no Lucite window on the removable side panel.

The Poly 7205G1-3000XG is a moderately quiet system based on a 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4 chip housed on a Gigabyte motherboard with the Intel 7205 chipset. The video subsystem used the speedy NVIDIA Quadro4 980XGL, but even with this faster graphics card, performance was still not up to the company’s AMD-based Poly 880NF2-2700XGL system.

The Quadro4 980 XGL and the 3.06GHz Pentium 4 CPU pushed the price of this system about $1,000 higher than the AMD-based Poly 880NF2-2700XGL system.

Input was through the Chieftec wireless keyboard and mouse combination, which performed quite well throughout the benchmark tests. The system came with Windows 2000 Workstation, Service Pack 3. Also incorporated into the system is a Toshiba combination DVD and CDR/W drive. A good assortment of software includes Nero Burning ROM and InterVideo WinDVD4.

The only difficulty we encountered with the Poly 7205G1-3000XGL was that it required v4.00.26 of the NVIDIA MAXtreme driver to complete the MAX4Bench test. The test repeatedly stopped prior to completion using v4.00.25.

Polywell also offers its excellent warranty protection on this system, with 60 months on parts, 36 months on labor, and 24 months of onsite service. Next-day part replacement and 24-hour telephone support are covered for the first year of ownership. Many configuration options are available on the Polywell Web site, so you can put together just the system you want.