Components include the requisite Intel Core i7-3960X processor, clocked at 4.8GHz and liquid cooled; 16GB of RAM, consisting of four 4GB sticks; three Radeon HD 7970 graphics boards are arrayed in triple-Crossfire;e four 120GB solid-state drives, arrayed in two RAID 0 pairs; a hefty 3TB platter drive to handle general storage; and a Blu-ray burner. There are no free PCI slots, as a hardware RAID controller is sandwiched alongside the graphics cards, but one hard drive bay remains open. Though the Shift's hard drive bays aren't hot-swappable, they are hosted in tool-free, readily accessible bays; pull on a latch, and they'll slide right out on their trays.
Performance is quite impressive, as you'd expect. On our , the Shift Super Stock earned a score of 205. On our graphics tests, the Shift managed a frame rate of 95.4 frames per second on Crysis 2, at a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels, at high quality settings. At the maximum settings, it delivered 80.2 frames per second. Anything over 60 frames per second gives assurance of a smooth gaming experience, so the Shift Super Stock will be capably handling high-end PC games for years to come--as it should, given the price.
The Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard offers plenty of ports: six USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, surround analog audio outputs, an SPDIF optical output port, one eSATA port, gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth, a PS/2 serial keyboard and mouse port, and a clear CMOS button for getting out of sticky situations if your overclocking experiments go haywire. The Shift's design is especially handy here; since all the ports and connectors are up on the top, they're very easy to access (as long as you keep the machine on the floor--which I'd recommend, since it weighs 70 pounds).
A grille covers the ports, but its purpose has always been something of a mystery to me. When it's in place, you can route cables through a channel on the top, which gives the Shift a clean, clutter-free look. But then USB keys and the like won't fit. The grille is held in place with screws and is easy to remove, but I've never seen much sense in keeping it around.
Closer to the front of the box you'll find a break-out panel that pops up to reveal a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, microphone and headphone jacks, and a multiformat card reader. The upfront placement of these connections is useful, but they feel a bit dated--I would love to have seen USB 3.0 front and center. The panel didn't pop up all the way, either, so I had to nudge it a bit to get full clearance for USB keys and the like. Not a big deal.