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Hardware

Tri-Star

28 Feb, 2003 By: Ron LaFon

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Tri CAD/CAM Systems

4.5 stars out of 5

Tri CAD/CAM Systems’ Tri-Star workstation succeeded in receiving high performance marks, but it falls in the middle of pricing.

The Tri-Star computer from Tri CAD/CAM Systems is housed in an elegant, simple case with a swing-away door that covers the drive bays. A total of ten drive bays make this an excellent system for those who anticipate the need for expandability. The Enlight 420W power supply is a good choice for a system that is obviously built with expansion in mind. There are also six unused PCI slots in the system configuration we received.

The system was moderately noisy. Input devices include a Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical mouse and one of the new Microsoft Multimedia keyboards (nonergonomic, though an ergonomic model is available as an option), both of which performed solidly and well.

The Tri-Star features the ubiquitous NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL graphics card. Extra software includes Sonic CinePlayer, Sonic MyDVD, and Roxio Easy CD Creator. The Tri-Star incorporates a Pioneer DVD-CDR/W combination drive (4× DVD-R, 2× DVD-RW, 16× CD-R, and 8× CD-RW) and an Intel Pro 100 network interface card.

Basic system components of the Tri-Star are a 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor on an Intel D845PESV motherboard with the Intel D845PE chipset. We received the Tri-Star with 1GB of Corsair PC2700 CAS 2 RAM installed in one of the two RAM slots—fully loaded, the system holds 2GB of RAM.

Our benchmark test suites place the TriStar near the top of the performance chart. It’s a well-made system that falls near the midrange in price.