Power
We measure power consumption using a Kill-A-Watt device at the wall outlet. Idle indicates a measurement taken in Windows at the desktop with no applications running. Max indicates the maximum power draw with the system fully loaded (running eight instances of Prime95 and 3DMark Vantage simultaneously). We've also indicated power draw with just the CPU loaded.
With a monitor on the same outlet (another 80W), this was the first time we've hit the thousands place on our Kill-a-Watt with a computer system. Of course, the 941W number shown is the peak power draw we tested, but we saw numbers between 700 and 780W in Far Cry 2 under normal gameplay conditions. That can definitely add up to a lot of money in power bills, so we recommend turning off systems like this when they're not in use. The idle power alone will account for around $300 per year if run 24/7!
Noise
We measured noise with a sound level meter, at distances of 24" and 48". For reference, ambient noise was approximately 37.5 dB(A).
We thought that this was the noisiest system we've tested, and once we made our measurements we confirmed that was the case. The steady drone from the GTX 285s really makes for an unpleasant experience. The system was clearly audible from an adjacent room with the door closed, and we found ourselves leaving the room if we got a phone call. This is a real shame on a system with CPU water-cooling that contributes very little to overall noise levels. Water-cooled GPUs would definitely improve the noise results, although costs will escalate dramatically. GPU cooling for three CPUs will add $720, or a dual-loop water-cooling setup will add $1080.
Temperature
We utilized CoreTemp 0.99.4 to measure CPU temperatures. We loaded each core with Prime95 and ran 3DMark Vantage in the background.
The Core i7 processor runs quite hot, especially when overclocked, and the Swiftech water-cooler is doing a very good job at 4.0GHz.
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san1s - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
red coolant, black + red evga classified x58 and red + black dominator gt ram...I would be proud to show off that system, no matter if its prebuilt or not
rbarone69 - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
It's actually better for the consumer and the company that the margins are higher. This incentives the company to work hard to support the customer and keeps them in business for the term of the support. Overclocked watercooled systems tend to require more hands on and support than the average rig and if the margins were thin then the customers to support engineer ratio would be much different. I'm glad to actually see gross margin calculation although it *may* hurt their sales to the people who think it's "too high" because support is not of any value until you need it.Although for the budget minded, of course building one is going to be cheaper, but if you're time is of any value and building computers isn't "fun" then this is a great deal with an acceptable margin.
Wow on the performance benchmarks! It's sad that it's so loud but I'm sure it'll keep a bedroom warm on a cold winter day.
I do have to say after seeing this I'm going to check them out. I'm tiered of dealing with Dell and my homebuilt systems that tend to be a time sink.
Thanks and keep up the great work on these reviews!
Tyler Lowe - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
I purchased my system from Digital Storm about 2 years ago now. At the time I purchased my system, their entry level systems started at around $699. It's a bit of a shame to see that more entry level customers will simply be priced out of the opportunity to experience the build quality that goes into a Digital Storm system, but I could understand why a builder would abandon those price points.A few things have changed since I bought my system aside from the price range of the systems for sale. For one thing, My owner's binder did have basic benchmark scores hand recorded by the technician running the stress testing and benchmarks. So I guess you might consider the current owner's binder a bit of a step backward from the point of view of the author of this article. On the other hand, they have dome some nice things to dress it up. In particular, that certificate of ownership definitely falls into line with the things they do to help make their customers feel special.
The website has improved dramatically over the past couple of years. Those info links are something that was steadily being improved on during the time I was active on their community forums and it looks like they have really made some progress with the format of their site. The fact that the system configurator does not alert the potential buyer to incompatible selections or incomplete builds, is something that the management at Digital Storm had once been very keen on implementing in their site. I'm a little surprised to see that has yet to come to pass.
The accesories bundle hasn't changed much, but that internal packing material is something that I had hoped to see them adopt and even suggested it a couple of times on their forums. Looks like they were listening to those of us that suggested improving the internal packaging to protect against shipping damage. That is one thing I will say about Digital Storm- they really do listen to their customers. Even if it takes months for the ideas suggested to be formed into some sort of action, if something a customer suggests makes sense, odds are, that suggestion in some form will see implimentation.
When it comes to the interior, if nothing has changed, customers shelling out $1200 can expect that same sort of ultra clean build as someone spending $8,000. That's something that I always admired about the company. No customer is an unimportant customer, and entry level builds recieved the same level of care as the high ticket items.
I have seen several reviews of Digital Storm systems on multiple sites over the past two or three years now, and one thing that never really comes across in those reviews, is what it is like to be a Digital Storm Customer. If a reviewer went through the entire buy process, they would quickly understand why even those that had minor issues give this company such high marks. You get taken care of, no matter what, and you are made to feel special by their customer service reps and community of fellow customers.
I would not recomend them to anyone that already has the skills (and time) to plan and build a system with decent cable management, and the knowhow to overclock it, but for those that do not, and have the means, I really do not have a problem recommending them based on my experience there.
Matt Campbell - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
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