Looks may be deceiving when it comes to the Polywell Poly X3800 ($3,975 direct, $4,499 with 24-inch widescreen LCD monitor). At first glance it appears to be merely a standard, underwhelming tower server or desktop PC. But inside you'll find some serious performance parts—namely, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 quad-core processor and a single 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra card (with SLI upgrade capability). Think of it as a Toyota Camry with the Lexus IS F's big, honking 416 horsepower V8 engine lurking under the hood: a veritable wolf in sheep's clothing. This is a serious option for those who don't need a flashy gaming rig yet don't want to build the alternative themselves.

The X3800 is in the same utilitarian case as the P3503 I reviewed late last year. Its looks may be boring, but they're certainly practical, allowing plenty of ventilation through the front panel and the case door on the side. There's enough space inside to shoehorn in another GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics card (for SLI performance), though you may have to be creative with the wiring; a second huge 8800 Ultra card will likely block other connectors on the motherboard. The interior wiring is good, with shortened cables and tie wraps keeping things neat enough. It's not as pretty as some of the other gaming boxes I've seen, but it's efficient.

The system I looked at came with quite a few performance components: the QX9650 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a pair of Western Digital Raptor 10,000-rpm SATA hard drives, and the GeForce 8800 Ultra card. There's also a 500GB, 7,200-rpm SATA hard drive for data storage, but at this price I'd like to see 1 terabyte of memory. Just about the only components that weren't top-of-the-line were the DVD burners, but then again, you don't need Blu-ray to load games onto your PC. And games are what the X3800 is built for.

The X3800 performed surprisingly well for a single-card system. While its 3DMark06 scores were within expected parameters for its specs, the X3800 excelled in real-world gaming situations. We have just started using Crysis and World in Conflict for our primary 3D gaming tests, but I like what I see so far. The X3800 was able to run Crysis at 1,280-by-1,024 resolution on medium-quality settings at a quite playable 65 fps—which is above the 60 fps threshold that we like to see for first-person shooter games. At 1,920-by-1,200 under high-quality settings (all the eye candy turned on), the X3800 returned a still surprising—though ultimately unplayable—11 fps. Running World in Conflict, the X3800 did even better: 85 fps at 1,280-by-1,024 (medium quality), which should be rock solid during play. The X3800 even scored a very good 35 fps at 1,920-by-1,280 (high quality), which is notable because a real-time strategy game like World in Conflict is playable past 30 fps. At that frame rate, you can actually appreciate all of the graphics enhancements that the developers work so hard to put into the game. You could add another GeForce 8800 Ultra card to the mix (the aforementioned SLI upgrade) to get a higher score on the benchmark tests, but the X3800 is certainly more than serviceable as is.

The X3800's multimedia benchmark test scores were also quite fast. The desktop took 20 seconds to complete our Photoshop CS3 test and 42 seconds to transcode an HD video using Windows Media Encoder. These are among the fastest scores I've seen, no doubt due to the system's quad-core QX9650 processor, DDR3 memory, and speedy hard drives. Therefore, even if you configure the X3800 with a more modest graphics card, it's a good choice for impatient multimedia enthusiasts who want to convert or edit photos and video at breakneck speeds.

When comparing the X3800 to more expensive systems like the $8,000 Alienware Area 51 ALX (QX9650), you might wonder if the ALX's bling and other envy-inspiring tech components (Blu-Ray, solid-state drives) are worth the $4,000 price difference. At the time of this writing, the ALX comes with two graphics cards. But although its pair of ATI Radeon HD 3870 cards is less expensive than the single GeForce 8800 Ultra in the Poly, the single 8800 Ultra card outperforms the pair of Radeon 3870s handily. In addition, the Poly's warranty (three years on parts, five on labor) outshines that of similarly priced machines, many of which only offer one year on both.

Think of the Polywell Poly X3800 as a stealth player in the gaming field: Its exterior suggests a tower server or a box that you built yourself, but it's backed by a well-established PC maker, so support is covered (a claim DIY PCs can't make). It is fast enough to run with the big boys, yet more affordable than the boxes in the $5K club. The X3800 isn't for everyone, but for those who worship at the altar of benchmark test figures, it's a very good gaming PC that will keep you competitive on the game grid and offer up the eye candy you've paid so much for.

Check out the Polywell Poly X3800's test scores.

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