Intel Canterwood 3GHz Pentium 4 games machine reviewed

Supplier: Evesham Technology
Specifications: Pentium 4 3.0GHz Hyperthreading processor; Intel i875 Canterwood based motherboard; 160GB SATA hard drive; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro; LG 1810B TFT 18" screen; Creative Audigy II sound card; Creative Inspire 6700 6.1 speaker set; ADSL modem; DVD-RAM drive; CD-RW drive; Microsoft cordless keyboard and mouse; Windows XP.
Price: £1899 Ex. VAT

THE CANTERWOOD HYPE machine has been in full flow for a good while now. The final pairing of a 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 with dual channel DDR400. The specs made the machine sound so incredible that there was no way the opportunity to review this beast was going to be passed up. As this review is being typed, it's only a few hours more until the system has to be packed back into its various boxes. The big question is, will the machine be missed?

KICK OFF
This Evesham machine makes no bones about trying to be the best thing out there. It's a super ninja games machine. All the bells and whistles are in place. Everything in it is just about the top of the range. The sound and graphics cards are the best things you can get for gaming. The hard drive is big and fast. The 18" TFT is big enough for real immersion and the 6.1 speaker system is going to help keep you immersed. The only possibly questionable inclusion is the DVD-RAM drive; one of the Sony DVD +/-R drives would have been a better choice.

THE BAD
Let's get the bad things over and done with. There are a good few. None of them are Evesham's fault.

The very first time the machine was booted it froze. Really froze. Everything had been going fine. Windows XP wanted a few details before it booted but that was OK. When the machine finally got to Windows, it just locked up. The only way out was to hit reset. It worked fine on the next boot but that didn't stop this from being a worry. It wasn't until four or five boots later that the problem was discovered. On start-up the Creative Audigy sound card software plays a little animation and plays a few chords. If the mouse pointer is over that animation, the machine locks up. Not good. Creative is probably to blame.

Next up was a LAN problem of the worst kind. The machine was plugged into the LAN from the very first. The very first task was to get some files off the network. No problem there, it saw the main server first time with no need to set anything. That was pretty impressive. Too impressive. It seemed fair to assume that the network was all set up and ready to go. Wrong. After a few days of playing around with the machine it was time to invite some friends over for a LAN party.

Of course, the machine refused to play. It had picked up the new machines on the network with no problem at all, in fact the Battlefield 1942 Realism mod was transferred that way. Only the machine couldn't see any games when they were started. Protocols were checked and static IP addresses tried. Nothing worked; it wouldn't see any games on the network. Until, after an hour of despair and random file transfers to check that the network really was working, it was decided to try the Windows XP 'configure your home network' wizard. You know, the one that is designed for real beginners. That fixed it. Every setting has been checked since and nothing whatsoever appears to have changed. Chalk another problem up, this time blame the Vole of Redmond.

The last major quibble was with both the keyboard and the mouse. Again the Vole is to blame. The keyboard is fine for playing games on but it's lousy for typing. The layout is subtly changed which is somewhat annoying but survivable with a bit of practice. And for some reason the keyboard's function keys are switched off by default and do other things instead. But it's the mouse that caused the most frustration. It kept switching off for no apparent reason. Particularly in mid game. Pick it up, put it down and it works again but by then you're dead. Someone in Redmond obviously doesn't like gamers.

The rest of the faults were cured by a combination of new drivers, judicious changing of Windows settings and a few long walks in the park. This isn't a machine for complete novices. Then again, at this price it seems fair to assume that novices are not the intended market. On the flip side, at this price it would be fair to expect a machine that works perfectly first time.

THE GOOD
Well, this machine promises to be a games machine so the first thing to do was get some games on there. The monitor resolution is 1280x1024 and with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro in there it seemed fair to run every game at that resolution. The system kept its promises. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down runs beautifully on it. Especially as it makes proper use of the surround sound.

Hosting a LAN party Battlefield 1942 co-op session with players set to 64 broke the machine into a sweat but only just. It dropped a few frames here and there but was definitely playable.

Just to get bragging rights while everyone was enjoying a beer or seven, both versions of 3DMark were given to the machine to chew on. It chewed them both up and spat them out.

3DMark 2001SE barely touched the sides: 17178.
3DMark 03 was covered in bites: 5672.

The scores were so good that half an hour was spent ripping the machine apart to check that it was all kosher. Sure enough, nothing overclocked. No fancy memory settings in the BIOS, the graphics card was set to default clocks and the processor was running at its intended 3GHz. It was tempting to try overclocking the machine to hell and beyond but three things stopped that from happening. First it had to go off to someone else after it had visited THE INQUIRER. Second, muggins here would have had to pay for anything that went wrong. Third, it didn't need to be overclocked, it ran everything ridiculously quickly as it was.

THE BIG SCREEN
This Evesham machine is all about entertainment. With an 18" TFT screen and a 6.1 sound system it was only a matter of time before a DVD or two was run through it. The most noticeable first impression came because of the DVI interface between the graphics card and the monitor. The still pictures were stunningly rich.

First through the system was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The sumptuous visuals sparkled on the LG screen. The fast action was captured perfectly. The Gobi desert scene stood out with its harsh sunlight being more accurately portrayed than the average CRT can manage.

Similarly, the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan gained another level of reality. Reeling from the sight of blood, a quick switch over to Matrix showed the screen capable of dealing with everything a modern action flick could throw at it.

BEATS, RHYMES + REALITY
The last component was the sound and here there was a slight let down. It's not that the Creative 6700 is bad, far from it. It's just that it doesn't quite live up to some of the previous Creative speaker sets. For games, it's great. The bass thunders, the rest of the sound is clear and present. In Delta Force: Black Hawk Down with its surround sound feature switched on, the explosions were deep and gutsy, the gunfire crisp and sharp. It sounded great.

The movies didn't sound quite so good. There was something lacking. And music seemed a little wrong. The hip-hop/acid-jazz fusion of Smokin' with Superman had lots of life to it but it just didn't sound right. A quick run through with a test CD showed up the problem. A frequency sweep showed a couple of big gaps in the speakers' capabilities with fairly poor crossover between the sub and the satellites. Nothing fatal, most people probably wouldn't notice.

CONCLUSION
This review is at least in part about the Intel Canterwood chipset and the new Hyperthreading enabled 3.0GHz Pentium 4. The combination is a very good one. For an off-the-peg system this Evesham machine has performed incredibly well. Intel has shown that it really does know its business.

Despite the initial faults, is this machine going to be missed? Yes. It's fast, it's furious and it's absolutely great at playing games. The price tag is fairly hefty but, when you break it down, Evesham is actually offering good value for money.

There might be a fair bit of nit-picking in this review but it's all about the stuff that's with the machine and not the machine itself. Both the machine and the monitor were fantastic pieces of kit. µ

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