Labs Update: See what Atomic has been up to and marvel at the sight of ultra-incredibly-high-performance computing.
The Atomic Labs is a place of wonderment and beauty, a place where tech is allowed to roam free as the cattle, where a man must wade knee-deep through piles of boxes to do his work and create things for you to read.
It's a place that we've shown you (albeit in a much neater form), but its inner workings remain mysterious even to us - so we thought we'd take a moment to show you what we've been up to, and explain why it's so darn messy of late.
First up, we've carved out a corner of the Labs where our mates at PC Authority have a chance to look at their technology. To their credit they look at it exceptionally well; but on another less glowing note, this is the kind of tech they call 'impressive':
We got a little jealous of their multi-card system, running with its puny stock heatsink and mid-range cards, so we rummaged around on the floor of the Labs and pieced together some competition:
This collection of gear has the potential to consume more electricity than the entire civilised world, it has the destructive power of a claymore mine filled with thermonuclear warheads and it commands a price tag higher than there is actual money on this planet to purchase its components.
It's absolutely no slouch in benchmarks, and though we had a slight operating system slipup (seems Windows 7 Home Premium x64 can only see a single physical processor...oops), we still grabbed a 3DMark Vantage score of P42895, a Crysis average of 65.62 and a Unigine Heaven Extreme average of 76.1fps.
In other words, this system not only beats the one built by PCA, but it dances upon its grave. It's even faster than most other systems we've seen - and we've not even begun to unlock that other processor nor overclock!
Atomic's beast has been described by passers-by with "Is that even a computer?!", "It looks like a fiery pit of death" and "I think it's got my leg oh no it's pulling me in someone cal-".
Specifications are as follows, and we'll throw a big expression of gratitude to EVGA, Intel, Altech, Western Digital, Noctua, and LG for letting us use their parts for our nefarious purposes.
We suggest you assemble your loved ones at home and lock your doors 'till we can tame the savagery of this system, and keep your eyes pointed at newsstands for the final results of our very Atomic beast that are due to hit in Issue 117.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012