Digital Storm Bolt II review: Rise of the un-Steam machines

Digital Storm Bolt II $2,857.00 The Bolt II proves that you don’t need a massive gaming tower to get massive gaming performance—as long as you’re willing to pay for the privilege of petite.

“If Valve’s SteamOS isn’t ready, we’ll just make do with Windows,” said gaming-PC manufacturers. And so it was done. Steam Machines have begun to hit retail sans the SteamOS. And if the smallish form factor Digital Storm Bolt II is an indication of what we can look forward to, that’s a-okay with us.

To be fair, Digital Storm’s Bolt line existed long before Valve ever kicked off its Steam Machine initiative. And in terms of its hardware build, the Bolt II is identical to what Digital Steam’s first Steam Machine would have been. It’s a beautiful machine no matter which OS it might run.

In case you can’t tell from the photos, the Bolt II is small: We’re talking 16 inches tall, 14 inches deep, and just 4.5 inches wide. That’s nothing compared to most desktop gaming rigs. And this incarnation of the Bolt II features feet on its left side, so that you can lay it horizontally or vertically against the side wall of your entertainment center without worrying that it will suffocate and overheat. This machine is thinner than my A/V receiver. And that’s perfect for the Bolt II’s mission: bringing high-end PC gaming into the living room.

Michael Homnick

Digital Storm's Bolt II is amazingly small considering the power that's packed inside its diminutive case. (Note the elevator feet on the left-hand side.)

The trade-off, of course, is internal expandability: The Bolt II is a tightly tailored machine with absolutely no wasted interior space. It’s not quite as cramped as a laptop, and it’s not as awkward to work inside of as the original Bolt, but it’s far from spacious.

The 'Pick two: Small, powerful, cheap' paradigm is in play here.

It’s not as if the Bolt II is crowded for no reason, anyway. Au contraire, the Bolt II is packed with hardware, and that’s what makes it such an interesting sell for the living room. The model Digital Storm provided us for review was the top-of-the-line, $2857 configuration, with a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-4790K processor and a video card based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics processor.

The components are packed tight inside the case, but Digital Storm's engineers made sure you can access everything without too much trouble.

Digital Storm offers three other pre-built SKUs, with the least-expensive model selling for $1725. That one comes with a Core i5-4590 CPU—cooled by a heatsink and fan—and a video card based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 760. Each of the four models can be customized to your liking.

The model reviewed here also comes with 16GB of DDR3/1600 memory; a 120GB SSD; a 1TB, 7200rpm hard drive; and a slot-feed DVD burner. The RAM is easy enough to replace, but swapping hard drives requires removing and replacing an internal drive bay. There is no room for a second video card—or adding any other type of card—so SLI configurations are out of the question.

Check out how that video card is mounted!

Still, the Bolt II took everything we threw at it with aplomb, producing a Desktop Worldbench 9 score of 134. That score is 34 percent higher than that of our baseline desktop, which features an Intel Core i7-4960X and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780. In fact, only one machine we’ve reviewed recently has scored higher—the generic-looking Micro Express MicroFlex 97B, which scored a 147.

The Micro Express MicroFlex 97B edged the Digital Storm Bolt II on our productivity-oriented benchmarks, but that rig would never fit—much less survive—in your entertainment center.

Then again, the MicroFlex 97B beat the Bolt II on only one gaming benchmark: Running Battlefield 4 2560x1600 resolution with image quality at ultra, the MicroFlex’s AMD R9 290X graphics card pumped out 68 frames per second to the Bolt II’s 52. In every other case, however, the Bolt II outperformed the MicroFlex and a host of other machines. BioShock Infinite at 2560x1600 with visual quality at ultra? A whopping 73.8 frames per second. Compare that to 57 for the MicroFlex and 58 for our baseline system.

This was the only gaming benchmark where the Bolt II didn't finish in first place.

And lest you forget, that oversized performance is coming from a seriously tiny machine.

I do have a few complaints about the case. Most importantly, it gets hot. That’s no surprise, considering how little space is inside the case and how much performance this baby packs in, but it makes me worry about the longevity of the system under that extra stress. To its credit, Digital Storm includes a host of software tools for monitoring temperatures, but that’s an added hassle compared to a system with plenty of airflow.

I also don’t like the front-panel USB, mic, headphone, and other ports being located on the side of the case. That makes them very awkward to access, and heaven forbid you should decide to place the right side of the tower against the wall (that would block them entirely). Orient the case horizontally, and any cables you plug in will stick inelegantly straight up in the air.

Locating the front I/O ports on the side of the machine is far from optimal. And why not give us the choice to nix the optical drive?

Finally, I could do without the optical drive. It spoils the machine’s sleek looks, and who relies on discs in this age of digital media streaming? What’s even more annoying is that Digital Storm’s online order system will let you upgrade from a DVD burner to a Blu-ray drive for an additional $85, but it won't let you delete an unwanted drive for a credit.

Okay, now add up what the Bolt II’s parts would cost if you built your own PC. Go ahead, I know you’ve already started. You’ll probably conclude that this machine is overpriced. You’re looking at $700 for a 780 Ti. Throw in another $350 for the 4790K, a couple hundred for storage, and so on. You’re gonna come up well short of the Bolt II’s $2,857 price tag.

What you can’t include in your spreadsheet is the engineering cost to design this system. The “Pick two: Small, powerful, cheap” paradigm is in play here. You’re paying for a quiet, small system that can sit unobtrusively in your living room or look great in your office. Yes, you could assemble the same collection of components, stick them in a behemoth of a tower case, and come in a few dollars cheaper. You must decide if the Boutique PC Tax is worth paying.

The Bolt II is a powerful desktop gaming system without the desktop footprint. Could it go in your living room? Sure. Could it go in your office? Absolutely. It’s a beautiful system, regardless of what use you find for it. Awkward ports and a hot case aside, this is PC engineering at its finest.

On the other hand, you sacrifice some upgradability and (potentially) longevity. And then there’s the price tag. Even stuffed with top-of-the-line hardware, it’s clear you’re paying at least as much for design and engineering as you are for components and a case. It’s a niche product for a niche consumer, and it looks mighty pretty on a shelf.

As for SteamOS? Maybe next year.

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Digital Storm Bolt review: small package, small price, big performance

Digital Storm's Bolt doesn't look as intimidating as those ginormous gaming PCs that glow and take up a third of your desk, but don't let this machine's slender profile fool you. This little monster is brimming with powerful components and stands ready to crush any game that gets in its way.

Measuring just 3.6 inches wide, 14 inches tall, and 15 inches deep, the Bolt is the Micro Machine of performance systems.

This sleek rig isn't plastered with decals, and it doesn't boast a fancy paint job or bright LEDs that can double as a nightlight. It's available in just two colors: white or gunmetal gray. The only decoration aside from the stylishly functional black air vents is the Digital Storm and Bolt logos. The design is fetchingly minimalist.

The front of the system houses only the DVD drive, and that's about all that would fit. Two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and the microphone and speaker jacks are inconveniently located on the bottom right-hand side of the case, which means you'll be dropping to your hands and knees each time you need to plug in a thumb drive or your headphones.

ROBERT CARDINThe rear of the system has plenty of ports and video options.

Four more USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two ethernet ports, and two antenna connections are around the back, along with all the audio ports and more video outputs than you'll ever need. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti graphics card can drive up to four displays using any combination of DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort. However, given that there's no room inside the case for adding storage, it would have been nice to have an eSATA port here.

No matter what type of desktop rig you buy, you're going to crack it open from time to time. Whether you're swapping out components or just evicting dust bunnies, you'll need to be careful dismantling this intricate puzzle.

ROBERT CARDINThe inside of the Bolt is packed tight.

The cover is a pain to remove when cables are plugged into the back. Unlike the typical case, where the side panel comes off, the Bolt's entire shell slides off the back. Cables get caught up in the mix and snag along the way, so it's just easier to open it up when everything is unplugged.

Our eval unit came with a 120GB SSD and a 500GB 7200 RPM mechanical drive, and there was just enough space to accommodate one more SSD as an eventual upgrade. The setup can also be configured to house two full-sized drives if you opt out of SSDs.

Nearly the entire motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI) is covered by the heat sink and a 120mm fan, which you'll need to remove in order to access the motherboard's single PCIe slot and its two DIMM slots.

Enough with the looks, this isn't a fashion show—so let's get to the number crunching. The Bolt's Intel Core i7 3770K and 8GB of DDR3/1600 RAM managed to crank out a whopping 201 on our Worldbench 7 benchmark suite. That's more than double the score of our baseline system from a package nearly half its size. If that isn't enough performance for you, the CPU's multiplier is unlocked and begs to be overclocked.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti also produced some impressive benchmarks: We ran both Crysis 2 and DiRT 3 at 2560-by-1600 pixel resolution with settings on ultra to really put the system to work. It averaged 54.1 frames per second on DiRT 3, and 28 frames per second on Crysis 2. DiRT 3 looked silky smooth and nearly hit that coveted 60 frames-per-second target. Crysis 2 struggled just a bit, but remained thoroughly playable. Taking the game's settings down to high produced an average 44.6 frames per second, while dropping the resolution to a much more common resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels with settings at high produced average frame rate of 80.6 frames per second.

When you put high-end components in a small package and run them hard, heat usually becomes an issue. But the Bolt is dressed to the nines in fans and vents and manages to stay both cool and quiet. I had it running right next to me, at ear level, for an entire day and barely noticed its noise signature.

Digital Storm's Bolt packs beefy power into a slim, sexy package. It's a bit of headache to get inside, but you shouldn't need to upgrade this machine for some time to come. This is a great choice for a PC gamer with a smaller room and a smaller budget. It will fit anywhere, play anything, and it's priced right at $1599.

Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry.
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Digital Storm x17: It's a more portable gaming option

Even the untrained eye can spot a Digital Storm laptop from across the room, thanks to the company’s insistence on slapping its huge logo across the lid of each system. The overbranded, gaming-oriented x17 is no different: There’s also a large logo on the wrist rest. That said, at just 8.8 pounds sans accessories, it is actually one of the lightest 17.3-inch gaming laptops we’ve seen.

Our review model, which costs $1777 as configured, packs a third-generation Intel Core i7-3610QM processor, 16GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon HD7970M graphics card. The system also features a 750GB hard drive, built-in Bluetooth, an 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, and a DVD-RW optical drive. The x17 runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

In PCWorld’s WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, it scored 99 out of 100. This means it’s only one percent slower than our reference machine, a desktop PC with a second-generation Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. While this is an acceptable score for a desktop replacement—the Dell Inspiron 17R-1316MRB scored just 86 on WB7—it’s a little low for a gaming-oriented desktop replacement. The Alienware M17x R4 and the Samsung Series 7 Gamer both scored decently higher on WB7, with scores of 146 and 123, respectively.

The x17’s performance is just about what you’d expect on individual tests. It starts up in 35.6 seconds, which is about 10 seconds slower than the aforementioned gaming laptops. It manages 15.6 frames per second in our Web Performance tests (just a little slower than the Alienware and the Samsung), and it scores only 2006 in the PCMark 7 Office Productivity tests, compared with the Alienware’s 4549 and the Samsung’s 2513.

Luckily, while the x17 may not have gaming-laptop WB7 scores, it does offer up gaming laptop level of graphics. In our Crysis 2 graphics tests, it managed frame rates of between 44.4 (maximum-quality graphics, 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution) and 94.4 (low-quality graphics, 800 by 600 pixel resolution) frames per second. By comparison, the Alienware and Samsung managed frame rates of between 42.8 and 95.7 fps, and 27.7 and 96 fps, respectively, on the same tests.

In our battery life tests we managed to eke out three hours and 54 minutes of battery life, which is just around average for the desktop replacement category.

Gaming laptops are not known for their sleek profiles or light weight, and the x17 is no exception. This 17.3-inch system weighs just under 9 pounds sans accessories (about 11 pounds with the 3-pound power block), which is average for the desktop replacement category, but below average for the gaming-oriented desktop replacement category.

It comes housed in a solid black chassis with robust hinges, a thick base, and a sturdy, unshakeable lid. The cover features a black brushed-aluminum plate with tapered plastic edges. The interior features more brushed aluminum on the wrist rest area, a full-size backlit keyboard with a number pad, and a medium-size touchpad with two discrete mouse buttons and a fingerprint reader.

The keyboard has regular-style keys with flat, plateau-like surfaces. It's nothing special, the key surfaces are a little small, and the keys offer somewhat stiff tactile feedback. Digital Storm squeezes in a 10-key number pad next to the keyboard. The keyboard is backlit, and you can change the backlighting color scheme. The backlight editor lets you choose different colors for each of the three keyboard sections, as well as different pulsing rhythms.

The touchpad, which is located directly below the keyboard on the wrist rest, is a disappointment. It’s attractive enough—textured with the same brushed aluminum styling as the wrist rest, and it blends right in, but it’s not very comfortable to use. The cursor moves sluggishly, and multitouch gestures are jumpy and erratic. The two discrete mouse buttons are stiff and difficult to press, and because they lay flush with the wrist rest, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two. To be fair, most gamers will use a cabled mouse while gaming, so a crappy touchpad isn’t as much of an issue as it would be on a more mainstream laptop.

The x17 has a 3-in-1 card reader, one combination USB 3.0/eSATA port, two USB 3.0 ports (one of which is a Sleep-N-Charge type), a FireWire jack, and a gigabit ethernet port on its left side. The right side has four audio jacks (microphone, headphones, line in, and S/PDIF) and one USB 2.0 port, as well as the DVD-RW optical drive. There’s a lock slot, one DisplayPort, one HDMI out, one DVI out, and a power jack around the back.

The x17 sports a 17.3-inch glossy LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The screen is surrounded by a shiny black plastic bezel, which contains a built-in webcam. For the most part, the screen looks excellent, rendering text and pictures crisply with well-saturated colors. HD video plays back seamlessly.

After closer inspection, however, we began to notice issues with darker scenes, a distracting shimmering effect while watching videos containing lots of blacks and dark grays. Apart from that, the screen looks very good, with excellent contrast and brightness.

The x17 delivers very good audio, too, thanks to the presence of Onkyo speakers above the keyboard, near the laptop’s hinge. But laptop speakers can only do so much, given the limitations of the form factor, and most gamers will plug in headphones or a headset anyway.

Digital Storm’s x17 is a good gaming machine that’s lighter than most desktop replacements—but it delivers less performance. If you can plump up your budget by $200, you can grab something like an Alienware M17x R4, which costs $1974.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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Digital Storm x17: It's a more portable gaming option

Even the untrained eye can spot a Digital Storm laptop from across the room, thanks to the company’s insistence on slapping its huge logo across the lid of each system. The overbranded, gaming-oriented x17 is no different: There’s also a large logo on the wrist rest. That said, at just 8.8 pounds sans accessories, it is actually one of the lightest 17.3-inch gaming laptops we’ve seen.

Our review model, which costs $1777 as configured, packs a third-generation Intel Core i7-3610QM processor, 16GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon HD7970M graphics card. The system also features a 750GB hard drive, built-in Bluetooth, an 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, and a DVD-RW optical drive. The x17 runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

In PCWorld’s WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, it scored 99 out of 100. This means it’s only one percent slower than our reference machine, a desktop PC with a second-generation Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. While this is an acceptable score for a desktop replacement—the Dell Inspiron 17R-1316MRB scored just 86 on WB7—it’s a little low for a gaming-oriented desktop replacement. The Alienware M17x R4 and the Samsung Series 7 Gamer both scored decently higher on WB7, with scores of 146 and 123, respectively.

The x17’s performance is just about what you’d expect on individual tests. It starts up in 35.6 seconds, which is about 10 seconds slower than the aforementioned gaming laptops. It manages 15.6 frames per second in our Web Performance tests (just a little slower than the Alienware and the Samsung), and it scores only 2006 in the PCMark 7 Office Productivity tests, compared with the Alienware’s 4549 and the Samsung’s 2513.

Luckily, while the x17 may not have gaming-laptop WB7 scores, it does offer up gaming laptop level of graphics. In our Crysis 2 graphics tests, it managed frame rates of between 44.4 (maximum-quality graphics, 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution) and 94.4 (low-quality graphics, 800 by 600 pixel resolution) frames per second. By comparison, the Alienware and Samsung managed frame rates of between 42.8 and 95.7 fps, and 27.7 and 96 fps, respectively, on the same tests.

In our battery life tests we managed to eke out three hours and 54 minutes of battery life, which is just around average for the desktop replacement category.

Gaming laptops are not known for their sleek profiles or light weight, and the x17 is no exception. This 17.3-inch system weighs just under 9 pounds sans accessories (about 11 pounds with the 3-pound power block), which is average for the desktop replacement category, but below average for the gaming-oriented desktop replacement category.

It comes housed in a solid black chassis with robust hinges, a thick base, and a sturdy, unshakeable lid. The cover features a black brushed-aluminum plate with tapered plastic edges. The interior features more brushed aluminum on the wrist rest area, a full-size backlit keyboard with a number pad, and a medium-size touchpad with two discrete mouse buttons and a fingerprint reader.

The keyboard has regular-style keys with flat, plateau-like surfaces. It's nothing special, the key surfaces are a little small, and the keys offer somewhat stiff tactile feedback. Digital Storm squeezes in a 10-key number pad next to the keyboard. The keyboard is backlit, and you can change the backlighting color scheme. The backlight editor lets you choose different colors for each of the three keyboard sections, as well as different pulsing rhythms.

The touchpad, which is located directly below the keyboard on the wrist rest, is a disappointment. It’s attractive enough—textured with the same brushed aluminum styling as the wrist rest, and it blends right in, but it’s not very comfortable to use. The cursor moves sluggishly, and multitouch gestures are jumpy and erratic. The two discrete mouse buttons are stiff and difficult to press, and because they lay flush with the wrist rest, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two. To be fair, most gamers will use a cabled mouse while gaming, so a crappy touchpad isn’t as much of an issue as it would be on a more mainstream laptop.

The x17 has a 3-in-1 card reader, one combination USB 3.0/eSATA port, two USB 3.0 ports (one of which is a Sleep-N-Charge type), a FireWire jack, and a gigabit ethernet port on its left side. The right side has four audio jacks (microphone, headphones, line in, and S/PDIF) and one USB 2.0 port, as well as the DVD-RW optical drive. There’s a lock slot, one DisplayPort, one HDMI out, one DVI out, and a power jack around the back.

The x17 sports a 17.3-inch glossy LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The screen is surrounded by a shiny black plastic bezel, which contains a built-in webcam. For the most part, the screen looks excellent, rendering text and pictures crisply with well-saturated colors. HD video plays back seamlessly.

After closer inspection, however, we began to notice issues with darker scenes, a distracting shimmering effect while watching videos containing lots of blacks and dark grays. Apart from that, the screen looks very good, with excellent contrast and brightness.

The x17 delivers very good audio, too, thanks to the presence of Onkyo speakers above the keyboard, near the laptop’s hinge. But laptop speakers can only do so much, given the limitations of the form factor, and most gamers will plug in headphones or a headset anyway.

Digital Storm’s x17 is a good gaming machine that’s lighter than most desktop replacements—but it delivers less performance. If you can plump up your budget by $200, you can grab something like an Alienware M17x R4, which costs $1974.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
More by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

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Digital Storm Marauder review: Good gaming, little else

Digital Storm’s Marauder gaming desktop is perfectly named, but for all the wrong reasons. The only thing this system is going to plunder is your bank account, and it will leave little to show for the pillaging. True to its design, the Marauder is decently geared for gaming given its budget appeal ($999). And if you're buying the PC simply as an affordable gaming system, you'll do fine. But in nearly every other respect, this system suffers from critical deficiencies that make it less appealing for general use.

In our review unit as configured, a 3.1GHz AMD FX-8120 Zambezi processor and 8GB of memory serve as the brains and heart of the system. However, with a less-than-impressive score of 77 on our WorldBench 7 suite of tests, the Marauder barely had a pulse, as it was soundly bested by comparably priced, Intel-driven budget desktops such as the $999 Asus Essentio CM6870 and its WorldBench 7 score of 106.

Gaming is the Marauder's specialty, though. Armed with a Radeon HD 7700 graphics board, which launched in February of this year and uses a single 28-nanometer “Cape Verde” GPU, the Marauder pumped out 80.4 frames per second on our Dirt 3 benchmark (1920-by-1080-pixel resolution, high quality). On this test, the Marauder even scaled as high as 2560 by 1600 and retained playability, achieving a frame rate of 52.6 fps. Our Crysis 2 benchmark is a tad more demanding: The Marauder was able to run it at a maximum playable resolution of 1928 by 1080 (high quality), hitting a rate of 42.8 fps.

In gaming, at least, the Marauder trounced the aforementioned Essentio CM6870, which eked out only half the Marauder's frame rate on the Dirt 3 benchmark run and looked completely overwhelmed by its trip through Crysis 2.

But when I say that gaming is this system’s only bright spot, I mean it. The single 500GB hard drive in this machine is a low-end choice even for a budget desktop, especially when lined up against the full 2TB of storage that the Essentio CM6870 bestows. And that’s not even the worst item on the Marauder’s spec sheet: This Digital Storm desktop sports a simple DVD combo drive, whereas Asus manages to pack a full Blu-ray player into its sub-$1000 system.

We’re big fans of the Marauder’s lovely Corsair Vengeance C70 chassis. The military theming carries well across the olive-green chassis, up to and including a reset switch (with a finger-flip cover) that makes you feel a little like you’re taking the country to DEFCON 2 instead of power cycling your system; the case’s convenient carrying handles and side-panel latches are a nice touch too. We love the fact that we don’t have to fiddle with screws to pop off the case’s windowed or solid sides, even if it’s a bit loud to do so. Two side fans, two front fans, and one rear fan circulate air around the Marauder’s interior, but you can add two more on the case’s top—or a liquid-cooling radiator—if you want to change up the cooling.

You'll find plenty of room for upgrades within the Marauder, and the Vengeance C70 makes that process as smooth and streamlined as possible. The system’s three 5.25-inch bays (two of which are free) use built-in locking mechanisms to secure your components sans screws. The case can hold a total of six hard drives, and easy-to-operate, slide-out trays transform the process of adding and removing storage into a task you can measure in seconds, not minutes.

A single PCI Express x16 slot remains free on the motherboard (we’d use it to install another graphics board in CrossFire), alongside one open PCI Express x1 slot and two PCI slots. Thumbscrews secure the Marauder’s PCI-based components in place, a practical but imperfect solution for a case that’s almost entirely screw-free.

The biggest drawback of the Vengeance C70 case is that it allows for only two USB 3.0 connections on its front. Four would have been better, and we even could have settled for a mix of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The system’s rear is more USB-friendly, with two USB 3.0 ports and six USB 2.0 ports joining an optical S/PDIF connection, a gigabit ethernet port, and connections for 7.1 surround sound. The Marauder’s Radeon HD 7700 graphics board supports one DVI-I, one HDMI, and two Mini-DisplayPort connections. In total, the Marauder presents an average assortment of connectivity; a bit more, and some extra diversity, would have been appreciated.

Digital Storm didn’t include a mouse or keyboard with our system as reviewed, but you can select from a variety of options when customizing a system on the company's site.

You’d have to be a pretty enthusiastic gamer with barely a budget to work with for Digital Storm’s Marauder to appeal to you. Digital Storm has recently upgraded this system to include an AMD FX-8150 processor, so the CPU performance should be marginally, but not substantially, better. Otherwise, there’s little about this $999 gaming desktop that similar systems don’t thoroughly squash. Unfortunately, at the bottom, choosing a PC often involves a trade-off: You get great general performance or good gaming, but rarely both.

WorldBench 7 benchmark results
Games at 1080p Games at 2560 by 1600

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Digital Storm ODE Level 4 Review: Sleek Performer, Steep Price Tag

Digital Storm has released another iteration of its ODE desktop, the ODE Level 4. At $3499 (as of March 27, 2012), the price tag rivals those of most of the top performance desktops--but does this PC have the chops to rank among the best? According to our tests, it does.

The Level 4 carries a lightning-fast Intel Core i7-3930K CPU that runs at 4.6GHz, as well as 16GB of DDR3 RAM. This system flew through our WorldBench 6 benchmark, earning an impressive mark of 213. In comparison, the original Digital Storm ODE posted a score of 198 in July 2011. The quicker processor and generous amounts of RAM allowed the ODE Level 4 to breach the 200 mark.

Using two AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards in CrossFire, the ODE Level 4 achieved some stunning scores on our graphics benchmark tests. Running Crysis 2 and Dirt 3 at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution, on Ultra settings, the system managed an average of 71.9 frames per second on the former and 108.5 fps on the latter--admirable scores on those graphically intensive games.

Speedy performance is coupled with speedy storage: The included 120GB solid-state drive cuts boot times and revs up applications and games. For everything else, the ODE Level 4 offers a 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive. That amount of storage may not satisfy the most hard-core users or media enthusiasts, but it's a great start.

The system includes a Blu-ray rewriter for ripping and burning DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but media lovers won't find much else here that's enticing. The PC lacks a card reader, too, but it has plenty of room for you to add one.

With a total of seven USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, and a FireWire port spread out over the case, you will not want for connectivity options. You'll also find two DVI ports, two mini-HDMI ports, and four mini-DisplayPort connectors between the two graphics cards.

The ODE Level 4's case resembles that of its predecessor, but retains the same positive aspects. The exterior is a glossy white with rounded corners, a unique look. The abundant fans all over the case keep the interior cool and functional, yet they aren’t especially loud. The processor comes equipped with a Corsair liquid cooler, which feeds into yet another fan on the top. A few interior lights give the case a soft red and white glow, lending the machine a bit of style without being obnoxious.

Speaking of interiors, the inside is clean and organized, with plenty of room to tinker. Two spring-loaded latches allow easy, tool-free acess. The two graphics cards take up most of the motherboard space, but two PCI slots are still open in between, if you can manage to fit anything between the CrossFire link. Only three of the internal bays are occupied, leaving three open exterior bays (for adding, say, extra media devices) and four interior hard-drive bays. It is also worth noting that only half of the DIMM slots are occupied, which leaves room for more RAM if needed.

The ODE Level 4 also offers two gigabit ethernet ports, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Getting online and connecting your devices could not be easier.

As for how the ODE Level 4 stacks up against other recent performance PCs, it tops the Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960, which earned a score of 206 on our WorldBench 6 benchmark; it's also $1000 cheaper than the Ignition (which was $4599 at the time of our review). The ODE Level 4 has a bit less RAM and only one SSD (in contrast to the Ignition’s pair), but ultimately it’s a little more cost-effective.

The Digital Storm ODE Level 4 is a clean, quiet, and powerful machine. It's unfortunate that this PC's price tag exceeds many people's budgets; if you're looking for a better bargain, you can find options on our Top 10 Performance Desktops chart that offer comparable power at a palatable price. But if you have a little extra cash to spend, the ODE Level 4 is an attractive powerhouse, and a solid choice.

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