Monday, November 2, 2009

MAINGEAR launches The SHIFT PC rig
By Michael Lafferty

“We're offering a refreshing experience to our customers”

In the past, GameZone has tried to bring along updates about new gaming rigs and this time out MAINGEAR is in the spotlight with a new system that is called The SHIFT.

The system combines power and aesthetic appeal. With the increased demands of PC gaming, as well as the multi-media elements that PC users are increasingly starting to demand of a system, we thought The Shift might be worth getting more information on. To that end we caught up with Chris Morley, CTO of MAINGEAR to chat about the system.

Question: There is a wide range of exceptional products in terms of graphics cards, CPUs, and even sound cards – when you go about designing a new system, what do you consider foremost that has to be incorporated into the system design?

Chris: First and foremost, we consider what is going to mean the most to our customers at various price points. That means a balanced review of a part's performance per dollar. At different price segments it's important to balance a system configuration. That means spending your money evenly amongst the CPU, GPU, memory, HDD, etc - it's important to not to load up too much on one at the expense of the other. Next, we begin to test our configurations for performance and compatibility. It's important to us to ensure that our failure rates are as low as possible to eliminate the possibility of customer headaches down the road.

This is why, compared to some direct discounters and quick-turn commodity builders, we seemingly have less customization options. I would remind your readers that compared to the Tier 1 multi-nationals, we have an incredible amount of customizable options. But we also have to ensure that our components are a) as reliable as possible and b) are completely compatible with each other. There is no reasoning behind offering eight different memory manufacturers, or six different graphics add-in-board manufacturers. 

What elements factor into the decision to go with one card over another?

Chris: Once we've answered the questions posed by my answer to your first question, we decide on the components in the following order: Reliability, Performance, and Price. We also stratify our offerings, meaning we offer the mid-range cards all the way up to the multiple-GPU configurations that benefit our customers with larger monitors.

What do you consider the key components of the SHIFT series that will immediately resonant with the discriminating user, but also the less-experienced PC buyer will find enticing?

Chris: It screams quality and luxury. In a market dominated by retina-searing LED lights in 87 billion different combinations and the next iteration of Voltron or alien-like plastic port-a-potties, the SHIFT stands alone in the market as a sublime, imposing, and refined desktop that appeals to, as you put it, the discriminating user. Clean lines, understated design accents, a focus on quality materials, quiet operation, unique airflow design, and performance components combine to deliver the best end-user experience on the market. And it's all wrapped up with our Angelic Service, a unique blend of top-tier phone support, virtual on-site remote desktop troubleshooting, on site service, and lifetime labor and phone support. That's the real deal maker right there. We back our products up and we support our customers.

Let’s face it, computer systems – with the rate of technological advancement – can be viable one day and outmoded within six months. How did you design the SHIFT series for maintained relevance?

Chris: Superior upgradeability, utilizing today's highest quality components, and a commitment to our customers to support them through their warranty period and beyond. The SHIFT can hold up to 12 SSD drives. It supports 100% industry standard components. It's large enough for full sized, eATX motherboards. And it can keep cool even the most extreme GPU configurations. Combined with our Redline overclocking service, and we're able to deliver tomorrow's performance to our customers in today's configurations.

What do you think consumers should take into consideration when buying a new system? And what criteria should consumers consider when matching a PC to their lifestyle and purchasing choices?

Chris: First, consider what you're going to do with it. Are you looking for something that will manage your digital lifestyle, or do you want something to play the hottest PC games? That will dictate where your dollars should go. Next, and this is a simple question - what size monitor are you using? If you're not going to use a 30" monitor with extreme XHD resolutions, there's little reason to purchase 3 GPUs, as at lower resolutions you really can't push those configurations. So save some money there. Beyond that, it's about the aesthetics, what size system are you looking for? Do you want something to sit on your desk, under it, or in the living room? We have all of these solutions. And we're happy to speak with our customers to configure something that makes sense for their individual needs. We don't ever oversell, in fact we pride ourselves on making the most of a customer's budget and even saving them money. 

Obviously the SHIFT is geared for more than Web surfing and firing off a few e-mails. With the multi-media spectrum available to consumers, how did you engineer the SHIFT series to tackle whatever tasks a user might throw at it?

Chris: The SHIFT is an everyday supercomputer. That means that it is fully balanced for both CPU-intensive applications and the next generation of GPGPU-driven applications. We feel that this focus on homogeneous computing will benefit our customer the most in the long run, especially with technologies like DirectX DirectCompute, CUDA, and Stream Processing available in Windows 7.

You bounce away from current trends but instead seem to go with what works not only in terms of system aethestics but what’s inside? Why thinking urges MAINGEAR into creating systems that step outside the boundaries of what is considered trendy?

Chris: We feel there is a better experience that the market should expect. There's a herd mentality from companies who are blind to what the market wants. So they follow whatever they think the market trend is, which is actually dictated by them without regard for what the customer wants. It's a vicious circle. We feel that the Tier 1s have driven commodity into the PC market and have muddied the waters with bloatware, shovelware, and crapware. We're offering a refreshing experience to our customers. Quality, customer service, performance - these things are utterly lacking and every day we get what we call "Tier 1 orphans" - people with a sour taste in their mouth from dealing with the multi-nationals. To be honest, sometimes we find ourselves as the last chance customers give the PC industry before they switch to Apple. And we find that those customers are some of our most loyal. Because we really do deliver what the PC experience should be, in its most purest form.  

What motherboard/CPU do you favor and why? Why the incredible amount of DDR RAM in this system? How does the machine perform in terms of complex graphical or video rendering? How quiet is the system?

Chris: Of course the fastest configuration on record is the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition on an X58 platform. That's what we recommend to those looking for the most performance possible out of a single-socket PC. And for complex 3D or video rendering/editing more RAM equals better performance. Especially for heavy multi-taskers. And with our watercooling technology, even these extreme system configurations are extremely quiet. For prosumers or those looking to do more scientific computing, our SHIFT with Xeon processors will offer the most performance possible featuring dual-socket configurations for a total of 16 processing threads.

We’ve covered a lot of ground but if you had to pick out three components that make the SHIFT stand out from the crowd of desktop systems, what would they be?

Chris: Vertical airflow with a focus on cooling the most extreme GPU configurations allows us to offer configurations like triple Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFireX, something few other manufacturers can offer due to their system designs. Next, our standard watercooling allows us to Redline our processors at up to 4.0+ GHz. Next, the more intangible would have to be our Angelic Service. Having the world's fastest personal supercomputer means nothing if you can't get it to turn on. We pride ourselves on this component as it's the cornerstone of our business and our key to our growth.

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