Build a Faster PC Challenge

Penth

Senior member
Mar 9, 2004
933
0
0
I was just talking to my Brother and he informed me of a challlenge by this company to build a faster computer. Overclocking isn't allowed. It seems a bit fishy though as it says the owner will ultimately judge if your system qualifies or not.



If you can buy or build a system that will out perform one of our similar systems we will give you $1000!! We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in Research and Development to ensure our systems are the best on the planet. We spend so much time and money tweaking our systems so that our customers get the absolute best performance and stability for their money that we will be thrilled to pay $1000 to find out how to improve. That would be a serious bargain. Overclocking doesn't count and the system must be in a sellable condition. The goal is to find something that will actually improve quality and performance. There are a bunch of tweaks that I'm aware of that will increase performance at the sacrifice of stability, so I will be the ultimate judge of what qualifies and what doesn't. Even if your system doesn't actually beat us, if we can learn something valuable from your entry that will noticeably improve what we are currently doing, I might very well give you the $1000, anyway. $1000 per tip is a lot cheaper than all the work we do to figure them out, so please feel free to take our challenge. You just might learn just how Totally Awesome we are, and wouldn't that be valuable to you? Just bring your tower to any of our stores and tell one of my guys you want to take the Totally Awesome Challenge. Of course, if you bought it from one of our competitors, make sure you get a good return policy because as of yet I've never seen anyone actually beat us.

http://www.totallyawesomecompu...com/index_content.html

Click on Promotions to see it.

Edit:

I suppose you're up against this. "Only $5299"

Ridiculously Insane
Dude! This system is truly the top of the line. Our Ridiculously Insane model is designed by the man himself. Dell uses this system as his own personal computer. The Ridiculously Insane model rips apart games with an NVIDIA 6800 video card and AMD 64!! We also bundle a set of Logitech z-680 speakers, Plextor 8X PX-708A DVD±RW Drive, Lite-On 52X CDRW Drive and 1.0GB of PC3200 DDR400 SDRAM! FREAK!! As always, you get Totally Awesome Computer's lifetime service and 3 years parts warranty. Call us up today and get one!

System specifications:
Lian Li Tower Case / 510 Watt ATX Power Supply
ASUS A8V Motherboard AGP8X
AMD64 FX-55 Processor (Socket 939)
1.0 GB Mushkin (PC3200) / 3GB Max
Dual 74GB Western Digital 10K RPM SATA/ RAID 0
250GB Western Digital 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
Plextor 8X PX-708A DVD±RW Drive
Lite-On 52X24X52X CDRW Drive w/Nero Burning Software
256MB DDR SDRAM eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra / AGP 8X
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card
Marvell Ethernet Gigabit Adapter
USB Version 2.0 Onboard / IEEE 1394A
20" NEC 2080UX LCD Monitor Black
Logitech Z-680 THX® Certified Digital Surround System
Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard / Microsoft Optical Mouse
Windows XP Home Edition with License and CD
Minimum of 3 Years Parts and Hardware Warranty
Lifetime Service, 24hr Tech Support and Satisfaction Guarantee
Only $5299 - All Prices Reflect 2 Percent Cash/Check Discount
Only $3799 without Logitech z-680 Surround Speakers and Monitor

Featured add-ons
Norton Antivirus $45
250MB Zip Drive $70
Cordless Desktop $41/$55/$111
SB Audigy Platinum 2 $113
2nd 20" LCD $1265
MS Office 2003 Basic $199
MS Works Suite 2004 $99
Surge Protector $25
525VA UPS $75
Local Delivery and Setup $75
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
126
PR nonsense. At stock speeds there aren't many optimizations you can do aside from disabling services that aren't needed, and that has been documented all over the net. It's an unwinnable contest.

We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in Research and Development
Then they are not very competent and their Google is broken.

Run away from paying money to people who can't do the same R&D for a couple of thousand spent on sampling different parts, and a few days of trying them out.
 

Penth

Senior member
Mar 9, 2004
933
0
0
Yeah, I thought that too about the amount they spend in research. I wonder if you could get him for false advertising. I think the guy has gotten in trouble for saying his computers are "a million times faster than a Dell."

Still, I don't think it would be tough to beat with an SLI rig, depending on his criteria.
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,703
12
81
Yeah, either an SLI rig, or a dually opteron system, hell you could go 4 way SPARC if you wanted to. And then there's the specific benchmarks... sometimes linux owns windows, or P4 could be the FX-55... The criteria are vague.