Voodoo PC Rage F5

Verdict: F5 = fast, formidable, first-class, flawless and fearsome

In the beginning (12 August, 1980) there was the IBM PC, but it was beige, slow and the most advanced game it could play was Batalia (xtcabandonware.com). Fast forward 25 years and today's PC is radically different in terms of technical specs, but in terms of looks and chassis design it hasn't changed nearly so dramatically. But one company has finally broken the mould and that company is Voodoo PC.

We've seen quite a few Voodoo PCs before, but even these didn't fully prepare us for the F5. The whole package, from the custom-designed chassis to the powerful, yet ludicrously neat and tidy water-cooling system looks like it has been hand-assembled with loving care by a team of engineers spearheaded by Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Vincent Van Gogh and Michelangelo.

The outside of our review model is what Voodoo PC calls BAM (brushed, anodised and machined), but we've decided to call it DDG (drop-dead gorgeous). If it doesn't tickle your fancy then you could always get Voodoo PC to build you one in another colour - there are ten to choose from. The case is loosely based on the Lian Li PC-V1000 but has been modified almost beyond recognition. The bland front panel has been replaced by one that wouldn't look amiss on the front of a Mitsubishi Evo VI. Not only is this perforated with hundreds of tiny holes to allow plenty of air in, there's also a vicious-looking blowhole at the bottom of it. The upper edges of the blowhole are lined with small red LEDs, creating the impression of a devilish monster opening its gaping maw. Two USB 2 ports, a single FireWire port and a cluster of memory card slots are neatly integrated into the front panel. At the top of the case, another distinctively shaped cut-out emits a bright red glow, while a white cold cathode illuminates the main cavity through a lavish side window.

Immediately behind the front panel is a vertically mounted dual 120mm fan radiator. However, because the case is so well laid out internally there's room for three 5.25in drive bays as well, one of which is filled by a Pioneer DVR-108 dual-layer DVD writer. The radiator is hooked up to four separate waterblocks - yes, that's right, four. The first waterblock is attached to the beefy Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU, the second to the Southbridge on the Asus nForce4 SLI motherboard, and the remaining two to the monstrous GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics cards.

Considering that a pair of air-cooled dual GeForce 6800 Ultras sound about as unpleasant as a speech by George Bush, the water-cooled SLI Ultras are amazing. The F5 is positively whisper quiet, especially when you consider the ridiculously high-end components inside. The reduction in noise is helped by the choice of SilenX 120mm fans, two of which are on the radiator, while a third acts as an exhaust at the rear of the case. The water-cooling kit itself is also well worth mentioning, as it's a mixture of different Swiftech components. The system is powered by a monstrous 600W PSU, which is isolated from the main cavity and cooled by a 120mm fan. It's hard to get across just how neat and tidy the F5 is inside, so check out the side-on shot for a moment. Back again? Impressed? I bet even Kim and Aggie from Channel 4's 'How Clean is Your House' would approve.

Inside the main cavity sits an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, the best nForce4 SLI motherboard money can buy. Plugged into the Asus motherboard are the aforementioned Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU and a full 2GB of Crucial PC4000 overclockers' RAM. And the F5's overclocking-friendly components aren't just there for show, either. Voodoo PC has dropped the multiplier of the Athlon 64 FX-55 from 13 to 11.5, reduced the HyperTransport speed from 5x to 4x, increased the effective FSB from 200MHz to 240MHz and boosted the CPU voltage to 1.6V. The end result is that the Athlon 64 FX-55 runs at 2.76GHz instead of 2.6GHz.

An overclocked FX-55 would probably sulk if it weren't partnered with a powerful graphics card, which is why the F5 has two. The raw speed of a single GeForce 6800 Ultra is impressive enough, so with two the F5 blows away the competition.

Voodoo PC has also paired up two 120GB Seagate hard drives in S-ATA RAID 0, which reside in the same separate cavity as the PSU. Judging by our testing, RAID 0 doesn't offer much extra performance, but it's useful to have 240GB of storage. Also included is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card, a copy of the Bronze Edition of Half-Life 2 and a year's subscription to Voodoo GameDoctor, which will automatically download patches for your installed games.

PERFORMANCE

Considering the overclocked CPU and SLI graphics cards, we were expecting the F5 to be fast, but not quite as fast as it turned out to be. By lowering the CPU multiplier and raising the effective FSB the system has much more memory bandwidth than a standard Athlon 64 FX-55. The highlight is quite clearly the image editing score of 1.87 - the fastest we've seen, and a good 11 per cent faster than the Alienware Aurora 7500SLI. The CD ripping score of 1.64 is also superb.

However, while the video encoding score of 1.45 is great for an Athlon 64-based system, it pales in comparison to a Pentium 4e-based PC.

The two GeForce 6800 Ultra cards are also pre-overclocked from 425MHz/1.1GHz to 437MHz/1.14GHz. This configuration achieved a stunning average frame rate of 112.5fps in Doom 3 and 79.2fps in Far Cry at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 2x AF. But with a pair of overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultras and an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-55, gaming at 1,280 x 1,024 should be a doddle. So to really give the F5 a workout worthy of a part in 'Pumping Iron' (www.imdb.com/title/tt0076578), we tried playing the same games at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF. The silky-smooth average frame rate of 76.3fps in Doom 3 and 71.2fps in Far Cry at these settings is what the F5 is all about - it's a machine that takes you to gaming nirvana.

Voodoo PC has obviously chosen the frequency settings of the F5 very carefully, as we were unable to overclock the CPU or graphics cards any further than their out-of-the-box settings. However, considering how damn fast it is (while still being quiet) we're not complaining. Overall, it's noticeably faster than the similarly specified Holly.

CONCLUSION

Every Voodoo PC we've seen has been impressive in its own right - even the ludicrous Envy M780 - but the F5 is the most awe-inspiring so far. When Voodoo PC told us it was building Custom PC a dual GeForce 6800 Ultra system, we immediately started thinking about buying some ear defenders for everyone in the CPC lab, but the F5 proved our worries to be totally unfounded.

The only problem with the F5 is that, given enough time and money, an experienced enthusiast could build a water-cooled SLI GeForce 6800 Ultra system. But I doubt many could build something so incredibly neat and tidy on the inside, and so good-looking on the outside. It would take a lot of work to match the custom-designed case, and you wouldn't get a guaranteed pre-overclocked CPU and two graphics cards either. If you're still wondering whether the F5 is worth the £3,295 asking price then it probably isn't for you. But even if you think you could build a similar-spec PC for less, it's unlikely to look or sound anywhere near as good.