Velocity Micro ProMagix A50 review: Velocity Micro ProMagix A50

Velocity Micro's new, Circuit City-only ProMagix A50 is a $1,999 dual-core, midrange gaming desktop competing against a slew of quad-core, digital media-oriented PCs that cost significantly less. And while we generally advocate quad-core CPUs over their slightly faster dual-core counterparts, Velocity has equipped the A50 with a fast-enough Core 2 Duo chip and a powerful graphics card to make this desktop a compelling deal. It might come with all of the features you expect for the price, but sheer power and the upgradeability will meet the needs of anyone looking for a serious off-the-shelf gaming PC.

The ProMagix A50 comes in a new, all-black case that retains the clean design we've come to expect from Velocity Micro. The only fundamentally different feature is that the front panel USB 2.0 and microphone and headphone jacks now line the outer right edge of the front panel. Before, they hid behind the small front side door. Noticeably (and thankfully) missing is any kind of front-accessible bay for a removable, optional proprietary hard drive a la recent desktops from HP and Gateway.

Also absent from the ProMagix A50 is any significant attempt to dress this system up as a digital media hub. Among other features, HP's newer Pavilion Elite m9040n offers an HDMI output, a TV tuner card, front panel video inputs, and wireless networking capability. For better or for worse, the ProMagix A50 has none of those things. It's certainly capable from a raw encoding and decoding perspective (as our performance charts show), but aside from the dual-layer LightScribe DVD burner, the ProMagix almost feels like a throwback system for its simplicity. Once you look at its specs, you'll realize that what you might miss in features, this system makes up for in performance and upgradeability.

This comparison gives us a few key items to point out. The HP is much less expensive, but both its processor and its graphics chip, especially, are much slower than those in the ProMagix A50. The HP comes with more RAM, but as you can see from our benchmark tests, that extra memory really didn't help it that much in any of our multimedia tests. The only real advantage that system and the other quad-core desktops have is on our Cinebench multiple CPU test, which takes full advantage of all available CPU cores in a system. On the single-core version of that test, the Velocity Micro leads the pack, and its 3.0GHz dual-core CPU is also fast enough that it's able to at least give a reasonable showing on the multicore test. As more games and applications emerge that can put multiple cores to use, you may find yourself wishing for a quad-core processor sooner than you think. But we expect that this system's raw power will see you through the majority of applications for the foreseeable future.

As for gaming, the Quake 4 chart speaks for itself. This system dominates the others, which can barely churn out a playable frame rate on a two-year-old game. And while the next-gen PC gaming scene (and all of the DirectX 10 features that implies) is still a little fuzzy in terms of performance (we're still waiting for a full-fledged DX 10 game to test), the ProMagix A50 also offers an extra PCI Express graphics slot, as well as support for Nvidia's dual-card SLI technology. None of those other systems gives you that option. We should also add that if you're really ambitious, this system's NForce 650i SLI chipset also supports Intel quad-core CPUs, so you could upgrade the processor down the road, as well.

While our performance charts demonstrate how the Velocity stacks up to a handful of recent mainstream PCs. Notably absent is Velocity Micro's own quad-core ProMagix E2240, the similarly priced Best Buy exclusive that's basically identical to this one, except with an 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 chip overclocked to 2.7GHz. We're still testing that model to see how the two stack up, although we can say so far that while we don't expect it to surpass this system on the tests that benefit most from raw clock speed, we wouldn't be surprised if the boost from overclocking narrows the performance gap.

As we said earlier, this system isn't bristling with features like other midrange desktops you'll find on store shelves. We have a feeling that gamers who prefer clean systems will actually appreciate this fact. The Velocity system also has the edge over those other systems by going with Windows Vista Ultimate. True, those Ultimate Extras have been a long time coming, but we like Ultimate for its remote desktop capability, which is absent from Vista Home Premium. You'll also find no wireless input devices on this system, or even a remote control. Instead it has simply a basic wired keyboard and gaming mouse.

Finally, Velocity Micro recently won PC Magazine's 2007 Service and Reliability award. That's a coveted award among desktop makers, and is a testament to a company that has always impressed us with its straightforward approach to customer service. The default warranty covers you for one year of parts and labor. Phone coverage is available 24-7 and toll-free. Online you'll also find a variety of well-organized, helpful FAQs and other resources, all written in easy-to-understand terminology.

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System configurations:

Apple iMac
Apple OS X; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip; 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive;

Gateway GM5632E
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; 3GB 1,066MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8500GT graphics card; two 500GB 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drives

HP Pavilion Elite m9040n
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; 3GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS graphics card; two 320GB 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drives

Sony VAIO TP1 Living Room PC
Windows Vista Home Premium; 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5600; 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel 945GM integrated graphics chip; 300GB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Velocity Micro ProMagix A50
Windows Vista Ultimate; 3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 320GB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card; two 320GB 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drives