Welcome to my Short yet hopefully sweet PC Specialist overall review.
I am happily writing this short review of my Beast and overall experience with PCSpecialist.
Here is what I ordered:
Case - FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU - Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.40GHz)
Motherboard - ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM) -16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card - 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk - 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk - 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
DVD - 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply - CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling - Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Sound Card -Asus Xonar DG 5.1 SoundCard & Headphone AMP (Award Winner)
Monitor -IIYAMA E2473HS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080
Keyboard -Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse - ROCCAT™ Lua – Tri-Button Gaming Mouse
Gaming Mouse Pad -SteelSeries QcK Gaming Mouse Pad
Headset -Creative HS-800 Fatal1ty Gaming Headset
It arrived!
Bright and early on a Saturday morning, I awoke to the sound of my bell ringing. Usually this is a sound to be feared, but not that day!
I opened the door to a smiling delivery man. I opened my big box of goodies which included my PC and all the other extras like mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately I am still waiting for my mouse mat, they were out of stock! I set it all up, turned it on to the whirring of the fans then a satisfying beep. After 10 seconds I started panicking... black screen! The I realised my monitor has a on/off switch at the back! Problem solved!
Use
I did encounter a problem when using my PC on the first day but a little tweak with the over clock, I had a extremely powerful, stable system. I phoned PCS Technical after the weekend who assured me I did the right thing - unfortunately rarely systems can pass the stress testing phase but then have small issues from time to time in real world use.
I've played Skyrim, Crysis 3, Mirrors Edge, Splinter Cell Blacklist (came free with the GTX) all on max settings with no lag, tearing, issues, heat, noise, ANYTHING!
It completely smashes them all. Even without the over-clock I can see my PC lasting at least 4 years before I need to upgrade any parts.
The volume of the tower is so so quiet! The case has 4 soundproofed removable sections to extra case fans, but with 2 (very quiet) intake at the front and the amazing h80i it is running as cool as a cucumber. I chose the black pearl R4 because it is a discreet and mature case for my living room. Also I can pretend to not to be a geek when/if a girl is over.
I am generally staying below core temp of 60c and the other components are below 40.That is really good for an over-clocked system. When web surfing, skype, league of legends, world of warcraft - relatively low CPU intensive tasks, I have to stop breathing to hear my PC! Only on stress-tests, system breaking games or video editing do the fans start to whir a bit - even then it's so stealthy compared to my previous 4 year old Acer laptop.
Changes I made
After having the Beast for around a month, I have done some tweaking of my own.
I have added 1 extra intake at the front, for a total of 2
I have lowered both HDDs and taken out half the HDD stand to increase airflow and so it looks more sexy (If that is even possible?)
I over-clocked my 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz - Its XMP profile is 1600mhz with timings of 9-9-9-27. It is now running at 2133mhz at 10-11-10-28
WARNING - Over-clocking ram is harder, more annoying and gives minuscule performance increase and can also void your warranty, let alone destroy the ram and whatever else. I do not recommend doing so.
See below for photos, and any questions or queries I will be happy to help!
-------------
Here is my set-up at home. Only the speakers, desk and chair I purchased else where!
Inside the case. Looks beautiful, clean, open!
This is the H80i - a closed loop water cooler. One of the things I love best is you can set the fans speed to the pump temp, rather than the CPU temp or load. That was there is no spikes or dips of fan speed.
Here is where I added the second intake fan at the front and lowered the HDD's to allow more air flow and so it looks a bit more tidy.
This is where the magic happened! Those cables are all tucked away at the back, out of sight. Pc Specialist really did a great job with this.
--------------
I hope new buyers have found this review helpful to those considering going with PCS, and I also hope it brings back that feeling of awe excitement for previous purchasers!
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
Rusti
I am happily writing this short review of my Beast and overall experience with PCSpecialist.
Here is what I ordered:
Case - FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU - Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.40GHz)
Motherboard - ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM) -16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card - 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk - 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk - 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
DVD - 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply - CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling - Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Sound Card -Asus Xonar DG 5.1 SoundCard & Headphone AMP (Award Winner)
Monitor -IIYAMA E2473HS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080
Keyboard -Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse - ROCCAT™ Lua – Tri-Button Gaming Mouse
Gaming Mouse Pad -SteelSeries QcK Gaming Mouse Pad
Headset -Creative HS-800 Fatal1ty Gaming Headset
It arrived!
Bright and early on a Saturday morning, I awoke to the sound of my bell ringing. Usually this is a sound to be feared, but not that day!
I opened the door to a smiling delivery man. I opened my big box of goodies which included my PC and all the other extras like mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately I am still waiting for my mouse mat, they were out of stock! I set it all up, turned it on to the whirring of the fans then a satisfying beep. After 10 seconds I started panicking... black screen! The I realised my monitor has a on/off switch at the back! Problem solved!
Use
I did encounter a problem when using my PC on the first day but a little tweak with the over clock, I had a extremely powerful, stable system. I phoned PCS Technical after the weekend who assured me I did the right thing - unfortunately rarely systems can pass the stress testing phase but then have small issues from time to time in real world use.
I've played Skyrim, Crysis 3, Mirrors Edge, Splinter Cell Blacklist (came free with the GTX) all on max settings with no lag, tearing, issues, heat, noise, ANYTHING!
It completely smashes them all. Even without the over-clock I can see my PC lasting at least 4 years before I need to upgrade any parts.
The volume of the tower is so so quiet! The case has 4 soundproofed removable sections to extra case fans, but with 2 (very quiet) intake at the front and the amazing h80i it is running as cool as a cucumber. I chose the black pearl R4 because it is a discreet and mature case for my living room. Also I can pretend to not to be a geek when/if a girl is over.
I am generally staying below core temp of 60c and the other components are below 40.That is really good for an over-clocked system. When web surfing, skype, league of legends, world of warcraft - relatively low CPU intensive tasks, I have to stop breathing to hear my PC! Only on stress-tests, system breaking games or video editing do the fans start to whir a bit - even then it's so stealthy compared to my previous 4 year old Acer laptop.
Changes I made
After having the Beast for around a month, I have done some tweaking of my own.
I have added 1 extra intake at the front, for a total of 2
I have lowered both HDDs and taken out half the HDD stand to increase airflow and so it looks more sexy (If that is even possible?)
I over-clocked my 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz - Its XMP profile is 1600mhz with timings of 9-9-9-27. It is now running at 2133mhz at 10-11-10-28
WARNING - Over-clocking ram is harder, more annoying and gives minuscule performance increase and can also void your warranty, let alone destroy the ram and whatever else. I do not recommend doing so.
See below for photos, and any questions or queries I will be happy to help!
-------------
Here is my set-up at home. Only the speakers, desk and chair I purchased else where!
Inside the case. Looks beautiful, clean, open!
This is the H80i - a closed loop water cooler. One of the things I love best is you can set the fans speed to the pump temp, rather than the CPU temp or load. That was there is no spikes or dips of fan speed.
Here is where I added the second intake fan at the front and lowered the HDD's to allow more air flow and so it looks a bit more tidy.
This is where the magic happened! Those cables are all tucked away at the back, out of sight. Pc Specialist really did a great job with this.
--------------
I hope new buyers have found this review helpful to those considering going with PCS, and I also hope it brings back that feeling of awe excitement for previous purchasers!
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
Rusti