Question: why did they even put in a crossbar? I see that it's to support the cards, and over time cards do start sagging, but that's on a vertical system like mine. This system is oriented horizontally, so there isn't much to cause the cards to sway either way. Not to mention, the bar seems like a perfect way to transfer vibration from a card fan to the outer case (as minute as it may be). I say remove it and put in a bigger cooler.

Thanks for the review!

I wish I grossed $1000 on every PC I sold!

Looks like a better than average off the shelf system. The X58 chipset and i7 920 processor really bit them in the rear as far as heat and power draw.

Ha! Good catch Mike, airflow and thermodynamics is tricky business.

Nice machine. Very well slected parts for a DAW.

I wouldnt worry about heating especially not with the new mods they added. From my daily experiance with DAWs running on Quads/i7 PCs its unlikely to reach full load on a typical sessions. More like <70% on a Q9550 fully loaded mix (i7 on the same mix would be <40%). Consider GPU load during this session would be close to 0%. So no worries really.

I acctually see the point in using the bar when it comes to mobilizing the system. For guys wanting to record on the road or use it on stage somehow the crossbar is a good addition. Seems like it can be removed if you want.

Didn't see if you mentioned what computer case this was?

That case is pretty much an off-the-shelf chassis from i-Star. It is basically the same case I have my WHS machine in, except that I have the front filled with trayless hot-swap bays. It is rock solid.

The crossbar support comes with the case. It really doesn't do too much good for supporting add-in cards as there are almost no heavy, full-length, full-height cards use for anything anymore - but the crossbar itself is an integral part of the case and removing it compromises the rigidity required for proper rack-mount. If you take it out you move the stress onto the lid and it will warp.

As for the cooling, Mike made a very good catch. The top and side vents actually hurt the cooling performance, especially in a rack-mount. You pretty much need to block the top and side vents, as well as the ones over the card slots. You also need to replace the covers over the unused card slots with solid ones. For optimal cooling in this type of case what you want is the only intake through the front and only exhaust through the back. I have no idea why i-Star included these extra vents.

Looks like the iStarUSA D-400-6-Blue.

the ati card has HDMI audio chip..far a daw one would think to mention it. I found on my own hunble system, the vid card uses 6% to play an mp3, and it does not sound like the regular 5.1 realtek anymore.
and that heat is insane. go for a reverse coolable heatsink to sit in an AT box, even though it is not reverse cooled. A larger xp90 type, and a duct dammit.

that price is crazy.

I'm guessing the review would have been a rave if Stone had waited to ship an i7-860.

The chip on the ATI card has no effect on DAW preformance (tested).
Typically a user would have a dedicated Audio interface/card. the DAW software would have direct access to it via ASIO or other form of driver.

Nice to see the Zalman cooler (VNF-100 I believe) on the GPU ; I think it is quite underused.
Nice system overall I think. Those people should spend more time reading SPCR and browsing this forum : they could have ended up with an even nicer setup.

Like MikeC said, it's nice to see a small company making quality products.
It's even nicer that they take into account the feedback they get.

Yes P55 and i7-860 would have been a better choice, but profits can't wait forever. If they just had to get something to market this summer, I would have chose something along the lines of Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core Server Processor.