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The strength of this
machine lies in the CPU and the GPU. The i7 920 is an amazing piece
of technology in its own right, but with hardly any effort at all,
it can be overclocked to crazy speeds! I'm currently running at
4.0GHz with water-cooling but will probably drop it down to 3
because there are currently no games that can tax it - well not with
the Radeon HD5870 in tow.
The Radeon HD5870 is
(at the time of writing) the fastest single-gpu video card in the
world and the ONLY one which is DirectX 11 compatible. Despite being
frighteningly fast, it consumes relatively little power compared to
the competition, thanks in no small part due to the fact that it can
match the performance of twin-gpu cards. And best of all, if games
move on, a further two HD5870's can be added in Crossfire mode,
virtually tripling the power. Jeez, that would be over 6 billion
transistors!!!
The whole package is
wrapped up in a Coolermaster HAF932 tower case. It's a bit on the
big side, but it is superbly designed and has a top quality airflow
system to keep temperatures down. Two huge fans run at low speed to
move air without sounding like a wind tunnel. The other three Akasa
fans are controlled by the NZXT fan controller and in Auto Mode, the
whole thing is so quiet that you forget the PC's switched on.
The 24" Hi-Definition
Iiyama LCD monitor was a real good buy! Just about the right size
for desktop use and amazing adjustability in the stand. It runs at
1900 x 1080 and using PowerDVD Ultra, BluRay films look fantastic.
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The panel above shows the CPU at
4GHz performing a TORTURE test using Prime95 and 8 threads!
This is the ULTIMATE test for any processor and there's no
game in the world gonna push things this far! As you can see,
temperatures rise up to the 80's but still no errors and still
a nice safety margin. |
The panel above show a more
realistic strain on the CPU. This game (Black Shark) is an
extremely demanding flightsim and in this test, ALL settings
were maxed out to the very limit and the sim was played at
full HD resolution of 1900x1080. Even at this pace, the
processor temps remained in the 60's. |
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Games
Played |
- Crysis
-
X3 Terran
Conflict
- Wolfenstein
- Operation Flashpoint
- DCS Black Shark (Combat Sim)
- Lock On (Combat Sim)
- Falcon 4 (Combat Sim)
- Microsoft Flightsim X
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