Everybody wants to become the best, especially in PC gaming, where performance commands premium prices, and boutique vendors race to create systems while using hottest hardware every time a whole new part is released. It is a constant race to claim it of most powerful gaming PC, and also the latest entrant is that the Digital Storm Coridium a premium-priced high-end gaming desktop that pushes the envelope further than any system before. AMD's cutting-edge graphics card, the dual-chip Radeon R9 295X2, is that the latest ammunition inside the ongoing battle for faster, more powerful gaming rigs, and also the Coridium boasts two on the beasts, plus an overclocked hex-core Intel Core i7 processor. The effect can result in ridiculous power—enough to enjoy gaming on multiple 4K monitors—but it costs a whopping $7, 779 (as tested). If you are looking for the quickest gaming rig around, and please don't mind spending around a used Toyota Corolla, the Coridium is our new Editors' Choice for high-end gaming desktops.
Design and Features
The Coridium is built in an exceedingly Corsair Obsidian Series 450D chassis, which features a steel body, a brushed-aluminum the front panel, and a big, acrylic side window for showing off what is beneath the hood. The entire thing measures 19. 44 by 8. 26 by 19. 56 inches (HWD), putting it squarely inside the midtower category, and not just so big on overcrowd a desk. To get this build, Digital Storm has slightly modified the front panel, filling the 2 drive bays having a tray-loading optical drive (12x Blu-ray and DVD writer/reader), and also the front of the cooling reservoir for Digital Storm's own HydroLux liquid cooling system. Also upon the front on the case is really a Power button, two USB 3. 0 ports, separate jacks for any headphone and microphones, and also a Reset button.
Along the back on the tower, you will find lots of connections, Digital Storm Coridium - Rear Panel
with nine USB ports (four USB 3. 0, five USB 2. 0), one dedicated port for BIOS Flash, and two USB/eSATA combination ports. There is a PS/2 port for older gaming peripherals, and also a FireWire 400 port, together with Gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF for digital surround sound, as well as other standard audio ports. There will be two graphics cards inside, combining to provide two DVI-D outputs and eight mini DisplayPorts.
Browse the left side on the case, and you may find an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard, established for overclocking and outfitted having an Intel Core i7-4930K hex-core processor overclocked to 4. 6GHz. Right next towards the CPU you will find it's unlikely that any, but two giant AMD Radeon R9 295X2 graphics cards, dual-chip cards built for blazing graphics performance at 4K resolution. With two dual-chip cards in Quad-Crossfire configuration, there is lots of hardware between you and also the motherboard, however we could see which our review unit came with 16GB of RAM, with four 4GB sticks of 1866MHz Corsair Vengeance Pro RAM filling four on the eight available slots.
This high-powered hardware generates lots of heat and demands lots of power. The 2 graphics cards have built-in liquid cooling, so each card has tubing and also a radiator to contend with, besides the overclocked processor, and that is cooled using its own Digital Storm HydroLux cooler, using its radiator positioned just below the optical drive. It is a mess of tubing, and though it is surprisingly quiet, It'll complicate any maintenance work or upgrades within the case. Then there will be the ability requirements ; the overclocked hex-core processor needs lots of juice, nevertheless the set of two AMD R9 295X2 cards have heavy power demands and specific support requirements. So, the Coridium is powered by your 1, 500-watt Silverstone power supply.
Crack open the proper side from the case, and you could see two identical-looking Samsung EVDO solid-state drives (SSDs). One SSD serves like a boot drive, with 250GB capacity, while other 1TB SSD will be the storage drive. Choosing the 2 slim SSDs is really a smart move, since they could be tucked from the way without having to contend using the bulk of an everyday hard drive—with multiple radiators, five cooling fans, along with a sizeable PSU, There Is Not lots of free space during this tower. The flash-based storage also offers faster performance than spinning drives, so it contributes towards the already-obscene speed promised via the Coridium.
Digital Storm Coridium
Performance
Talking about speed, the Coridium delivered some impressive numbers on our benchmark tests. Amongst the overclocked Intel Core i7-4930K hex-core processor and the 2 beastly Radeon R9 295X2 graphics cards, the Coridium chewed through all our tests without hesitation, easily taking its place among the quickest, most powerful systems we have reviewed.
The Coridium is built to harness the might of two Radeon R9 295X2 graphics cards, and also the graphics performance is really the highlight from the system, putting every comparable system to shame in the following gaming tests. In Aliens vs. Predator at 1, 366-by-768 resolution and low detail settings, the Coridium shattered records having a category-leading 641 frames per second (fps), and 302fps when dialed as many as 1, 920-by-1, 080 with full detail settings. In Heaven, the Coridium produced 245fps at baseline settings, and 245fps at 1, 920-by-1, 080 and full detail settings. These results place it inside the upper echelon of top-tier systems, even outdoing other multiple-GPU systems, such as the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan). And also at full 4K resolution the Coridium will still play any game, at maximum settings and full resolution, and provide impressive frame rates performing it.
For people who want to utilize some with this power for something in addition to gaming, the overclocked CPU offers potent performance without a doubt, having a CineBench score of 13. 88 points, putting it before nearly every competitor. The Coridium completed Handbrake in 20 seconds, and that is slightly before other high-powered competitors, however that performance wasn't consistent across all multimedia applications. In Photoshop CS6, the Coridium completed our test in 4 minutes 46 seconds ; it is an admirable score, but nowhere near to the 2 : 41 from the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan), or maybe the 2 : 30 from the Maingear Epic Rush X79.
Conclusion
The Digital Storm Coridium is removed from affordable, and in many cases with overclocking and top-tier components, it does not quite offer one of the best general-use performance. But it surely does a thing you need better than other gaming rig we have seen : pump out more frames at higher resolutions than other machine we have tested. If you would like the most beneficial 4K gaming performance, nothing tops the Coridium using its double-dose of dual-GPU AMD cards. It puts our former Editors' Choice, the Falcon Northwest Fragbox (GeForce GTX 780 SLI) to shame in gaming tests, and it also pulls before the similarly priced Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan). If pure, unbridled graphics performance is what you are after, the Digital Storm Coridium delivers like simply there is no other. It is our Editors' Choice for high-end gaming desktops.