Looks may be deceiving when it comes to the Polywell Poly X3800 ($3,975 direct, $4,499 with 24-inch widescreen LCD monitor). At first glance it appears to be merely a standard, underwhelming tower server or desktop PC. But inside you’ll find some serious performance parts—namely, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 quad-core processor and a single 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra card (with SLI upgrade capability). Think of it as a Toyota Camry with the Lexus IS F’s big, honking 416 horsepower V8 engine lurking under the hood: a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is a serious option for those who don’t need a flashy gaming rig yet don’t want to build the alternative themselves.

The X3800 is in the same utilitarian case as the P3503 I reviewed late last year. Its looks may be boring, but they’re certainly practical, allowing plenty of ventilation through the front panel and the case door on the side. There’s enough space inside to shoehorn in another GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics card (for SLI performance), though you may have to be creative with the wiring; a second huge 8800 Ultra card will likely block other connectors on the motherboard. The interior wiring is good, with shortened cables and tie wraps keeping things neat enough. It’s not as pretty as some of the other gaming boxes I’ve seen, but it’s efficient.

More info at pcmag.com

• Polywell Poly 590SLI2-FX62 Review
  Polywell Poly 590SLI2-FX62 Featured * 6 x SATA-II RAID-0,1,5,10; 2xATA133 * 4 DIMMs w/ DDR2 1066/667 up to 4 GB * 2 x Dual...
• Dell XPS 410 Review
  Dell's XPS series of desktop PCs has long been targeted towards the PC gamer. Their XPS 400 model was introduced as a more affordable...
• Rock Xtreme 770 notebook with GeForce 8800M GTX
  NVIDIA's recently rolled out GeForce 8800M GTX has already made its way into a laptop, specifically Rock's Xtreme 770, specially updated to integrate the...
• The Dell Dimension E510 Review
  The Dell Dimension E510 looks like its glossy-white, high-class XPS brethren and offers many of the same features found on the XPS 400 and...
• Wired2Fire Pyro 64 FX Gaming PC Review
  The Pyro 64 FX is Wired2Fire's latest gaming PC. While the majority of desktops we've seen recently have been Intel Core 2 Duo models,...