Hallmark Computer International Hallmark eXtrema 75M
The Hallmark machine features an Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz processor with 256MB of RD-RAM. (This machine initially shipped with 512MB of RD-RAM and we tested it twice with different amounts of memory to see how much of a difference an extra 256MB of RAM made.)
The Hallmark uses an impressive case--one you might see on a powerful workstation. The front panel has a door that hides the 5.25in and 3.25 drives. Inside we found a very clean and well-arranged interior. What got our attention as soon as we opened the case were the two huge 120mm fans. One of them brings in cool air from the front of the case and the other one extracts hot air out through the back of the machine. We also noticed that Hallmark had striped two 30GB Seagate drives for RAID-0 level storage. This technique offers the best performance but no fault-tolerance. Hallmark had also nicely positioned the drives by leaving a 3.5in drive bay gap between the two drives to ensure they they don't get too hot.
The Hallmark featured an LG CED-8120B 12x/8x/32x CD-RW player and a Panasonic SR-8586B DVD player. This combination did a good job at playing back a movie title and burning an audio CD at the same time. We didn't notice any hiccups during the whole burn process. (The main reason for this was because both the CD writer and DVD player were set up on separate channels.)
The Hallmark machine comes with a SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 sound card. This offers Dolby Digital 5.1 audio and comes with a Live!Drive IR drive, which lets you attach MIDI instruments, MiniDiscs, headphones, and other digital audio devices. This was combined with a set of Creative DTT2200 speakers (the same speakers that shipped with the Pioneer PC). The monitor was a 19in Viewmaster MH972--a good monitor but one that lacked the contrast and brightness of the Dell 19in.
The Hallmark came with a Creative Geforce 2 Ultra graphics card. Because of the fact that some of the other P4 based machines came with Geforce 3 cards this machine found it a bit hard to compete in Quake 3 and 3DMark 2001. In WinBench 2D Business and High-End Graphics it was faster than some of the Intel-based machines that were equipped with Geforce 3 cards.
The overall score in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone was a little disappointing as we expected a bit more with the RAID 0 setup. Even with 512MB of RAM we only managed to slightly improve the scores in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. That amount of RAM is probably more suited to someone using extremely large files or someone who may be using CAD.
Hallmark eXtrema 75M
Company: Hallmark Computers
Ph: 03 9540 8555
Price: AU$5,480 (256MB)
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