Vigor Force Recon T7N

Three graphics cards boost Core i7 speed




APTLY NAMED, the Vigor Force Recon T7N is indeed a force to be reckoned with. This $3,099 powerhouse features Core i7 processing power and all the 3D muscle you'll need to play today's demanding 3D games at their highest settings. You'll have to pay extra, however, for necessities such as a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Housed in Vigor's mammoth, black Antec We've Hundred chassis is an Asus Rampage II Extreme X58 motherboard—populated with an Intel Core i7-920 CPU bumped up to 3.6GHz (stock speed is 2.66GHz)—along with a whopping 6GB of DDR3 system memory. The three Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 cards operating in a 3-way SLI configuration are also overclocked, and two speedy (10,000rpm) 150GB Western Digital Velociraptor hard drives are in a RAID Level 0 configuration to help boost performance even further. A third, non-RAID Western Digital Caviar drive provides an additional 1TB of storage. 1/0 ports are plentiful.TWo USB ports, one external SATA (eSATA) port, and the standard headphone and microphone jacks are on the front of the chassis.


Around back are FireWire and eSATA connectors, six additional USE ports, and dual Gigabit Ethernet jacks. Audio output comes by way of an Asus SupremeFX Creative X-Fi sound card. The Force Recon T7N proved to be an all-around stellar performer, outpacing almost all other Core i7 systems we've tested except the Maingear F131 (see review in this section) in productivity, DirectX 9 (DX9), and DX10 tests. So if you like your 3D gaming fast and furious, the Vigor Force Recon T7N should be on your short list. —John R. Delaney

Computer Shopper March 2009