Puget Systems Deluge Mini: The Art of Custom
by Dustin Sklavos on April 5, 2011 4:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- GTX560
- Puget Systems
- NVIDIA
Conclusion: Worthy of Enthusiast Attention
One of the overarching issues that we run into in reviewing boutique desktop machines is understanding that many of you in our audience prefer to roll your own. It's at that juncture that we have to figure out what each boutique brings to the table that you just can't do on your own. I built my own tower, and the cabling may be kind of a mess behind the motherboard tray but ultimately it gets the job done well enough that I would have a hard time really justifying paying someone else to put the system together.
There's definitely a price to pay, as the components and OS add up to around $1600 if purchased online. Factor in the assembly and overclock and we're still several hundred dollars short of the final sticker price. While it's certainly possible to do all of the work and assembly yourself, as a one-stop enthusiast PC setup there's a lot of custom options to consider.
Puget Systems brings more to the table than any one of us can really achieve. I've had the privilege of looking at the extensive reliability testing they do on the components they use in their builds, and the fact is that very few of us have thermal imaging hardware required to get a really good idea of where the hot spots in our builds are. And then while I'm sure many of you own a dremel and wouldn't have any problem modding your cases, I don't. The Deluge Mini is a custom build of the highest order.
I hate to keep dragging Origin's Genesis out here because it's really an excellent machine, but the Deluge Mini is $300 less for near-equivalent performance in gaming, a smaller form factor, a more finely tuned overclock, and much better acoustics. Origin will give you the 
overclock for free and they'll even do a pretty good job compared to some of the other boutiques, but Puget will spend more time and they'll build your machine with parts they've chosen expressly for their reliability. With that price difference you can grab an i7-2600K and an SSD and bring the Deluge Mini into complete performance parity with the Genesis.
When I was testing and photographing the Deluge Mini I was consistently of the opinion that as an enthusiast first and reviewer second, no, I couldn't do a better job than Puget Systems did with this build. Spending over two bills is still steep for buying a desktop computer, especially given how fast these things are obsoleted, but if you want something powerful, reliable, cool, and quiet, it's awfully hard to beat the Deluge Mini. For that it deserves our Bronze Editor's Choice award.
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Velotop - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I may have to think twice about building my own. Plenty of research time saved with something like this one.michal1980 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
Why? Just use their 'research' and save a few hunderd bucks. I priced out one of their systems vs newegg, and the difference in price was ~400+ bucks. The only thing missing was their water cooling system. Which is worth what? a 100 bucks max.for 300 bucks, you can get a very decent size ssd a
RaistlinZ - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
For $2,200.00 there's no reason not to have at least small SSD in conjunction with the 1TB WD Caviar Black. I really like the system overall though, and that case is sexy.bplewis24 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
That was my initial thought as well. I understand there is a premium for them building it, so $100-200 over cost seems reasonable. I'm curious as to how much the liquid cooling adds to the cost. I would likely do away with one of the GPUs and liquid cooling to get it a bit cheaper.scook9 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I love this case. For 3 years my desktop was in a Mini P180. It can house 2 full length graphics cards easily with the bottom cage removed and even can fit 3x 1.120mm radiators if you want to watercool (I did it :D)This post has all the pictures of the various incarnations I crammed into that case
http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-cosmetic-...
jigglywiggly - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
They just ruined the case by adding that fan on the side, the case is so quiet otherwise... sound dampening materials etc.HangFire - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
Hmm, the review says "one of the quietest gaming desktops we've ever tested", "noise is virtually a non-issue", and "major victory" on "both better thermals on the CPU and much better acoustics".I'm trying to find the "just ruined" in here.
When I build a quiet system I avoid side fans, because it is difficult to keep the side panel from becoming a sounding board and amplifying the noise of the fan mounted on it, and also because the left panel is highly likely to be in line of site of the user's ear.
However just being difficult doesn't mean it can't be done, and it appears Puget Sound has done it, and did it well.
sully213 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
I have to agree that the side fan is adding "noise", but visual noise, not auditory noise. They can keep the fan itself there, internally mounted, but do away with the ugly fan grill and have a honeycomb or some other pattern of holes for the air to flow through. It provides the same amount of air flow without having a distracting and cheap looking grille mounted to the outside of the otherwise smooth visual line of the case.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
I agree, if the fan substantially helps temps I'm all for including it, but a black honeycomb/mesh grille mounted from the inside would look a lot less cheesy.Also, isn't this essentially the same watercooling system you complained about in the Origin system? Any idea why it is so much quieter here? And is it only the overclock resulting in the large differences in power consumption?
A5 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
For the lazy enthusiast, you could just order the base system (with an SSD if you want it - reinstalling Windows after the fact is kind of a pain) and then add in the 2nd card for SLI later, do the OC yourself, and get a big drive for storage on your own to save some coin and avoid the markups. You'd still pay a decent premium, but at least you'd know it worked when it got to your door.