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The Neptune undoubtedly offers a great deal of performance -- but enough to warrant the price? We benched the Neptune against are regular video card benchmarking rig, in two configurations: 'default' and 'overclocked.'

For the default settings, we didn't change a single thing in the BIOS -- we just used, yes, you guessed it, the default settings. For the overclocked settings, we pushed our a X9650 a fair amount -- but not dangerously so. We used stock voltages for the CPU, as does the Neptune. 

Here's the 'default' configuration:

• CPU: Intel QX9650 at 3.0 GHZ (333x9)
• Motherboard:  Asus P5Q Deluxe
• Video card: Palit Radeon HD4870X2
• Memory: 2 gigabytes of Mushkin XP2-9200 DDR2 RAM (2 * 1024MB @ 800 MHz[5-5-5-18]) 
• Power Supply: Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W
• Hard Drive: 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA, w/16 MB cache
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U 12
• OS: Vista-32,SP1

And here is the 'overclocked' configuration:

• CPU: Intel QX9650 at 3.6 GHZ (450x8)
• Motherboard:  Asus P5Q Deluxe
• Video card: Palit Radeon HD4870X2
• Memory: 2 gigabytes of Mushkin XP2-9200 DDR2 RAM (2 * 1024MB @ 1128 MHz[5-5-4-12]) 
• Power Supply: Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W
• Hard Drive: 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA, w/16 MB cache
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U 12
• OS: Vista-32,SP1

As you can see, our RAM in particular gained a significant amount of performance going from the default to overclocked configuration.