Gadgetory

sexy computers that were it built by either me or Luke okay that's a little unusual but that's what's going to be happening today welcome to my video on the digital storm bolt three a pre built gaming rig with an attitude as big as its price tag but not as big as the price tag of the machine Luke will be showing off soon massage that like button below if you want to see him bench a computer worth nearly ten thousand dollars fresh books is the online accounting service for small business owners that gives you the tools to make you feel like the boss you are click on my face to learn more about it let's get this out of the way a custom-built machine would be cheaper and it's pretty easy to do these days but by the same token changing your own oil is just plain not that difficult and yet some folks don't want to get their hands dirty so we'll be checking out the digital storm bolt 3 from the perspective of someone who wants a new PC and clean hands now I've been intrigued by the tiny yet powerful bolt series ever since I first laid eyes on one at a party at CES 2013 but it's taken until the third generation for me to finally get my hands on one for review and a lot has changed for one thing the bolt has put on weight at about the same rate as a washed-up celeb it isn't really that small anymore at just shy of 20 liters the bolt 3 is 30% larger than the silverstone Raven are v01 and nearly three times the volume of those custom steam machine prototypes that valve was sending out during the steamos beta but may be big can still be sexy right let's take a tour and see what digital storm has done to justify their tiny beauties additional heft starting at the front is a customized faceplate that includes an RGB backlit digital storm logo configurable through software a slimline optical drive a DVD writer for us and front Jack's including audio and two USB 3.0 ports on the right side is the side panel with a curiously positioned air intake and not much else to see other than perhaps a better look at the black brushed aluminum finish that says irresistible to the eye as it is to your fingerprints on the top is the first hint that there's a serious business PC inside with a grille that covers most of it and two Corsair static pressure series fans acting as intakes through a filter that combined with positive internal air pressure should do a solid job of keeping most of the dust out of this PC which is good because this puppy is a work of art whose Beauty I would never want to see tarnished by the effects of age and the left side panel with its full-sized acrylic window is where we see all of that magic happen perhaps now is a good time to reveal the specs of this bad boy then there's a custom liquid cooled and modestly overclocked core i7 4790k processor on an asus z97 i deluxe motherboard with 16 gigs of dual-channel ddr3 memory a 250 gig samsung 850 Evo SSD a 1 terabyte Seagate hard drive a 600 watt 80 plus gold rated modular silverstone power supply a top-of-the-line gtx 980ti on a pci express riser cable that enables its showcase style mounting at the bottom of the machine and RGB LED strips running through the interior allowing you to change not only that front logo but also the lighting of the entire inside but aside from listing specs what can we say about this hardware well this mix means all of the latest features 2 by 2 AC Wi-Fi enough USB 3 ports to choke a small mammal DIY grade flexibility if you ever want to get into overclocking or throw some significant upgrades at the system with support for standard motherboards and curiously even quadruple width graphics cards means that I guess my summary is this if the point of buying a pre-built machine is to have someone knowledgeable pick everything out for you so you know you're getting the good stuff without putting any time or thought into it then mission freaking accomplished I've seen a lot of expensive computers with proprietary motherboards questionable power supplies and generic memory and digital storm has avoided all of these pitfalls even going as far as to provide custom yellow dyed coolant for the top-of-the-line swift Tec dual 120 millimeter all-in-one water cooler and matching yellow paracord style power cable extensions that give the computer a surprisingly not off-the-shelf look for something that wasn't built by the owner which doesn't mean it wasn't hand-built by someone I actually used to work at a retailer where I was in charge of the custom built computer department and I think you guys would probably be surprised how much work and care goes into building something like this when it's not being done on an assembly line in China somewhere and it really shows in the back you can see the custom controller that digital storm uses for LED management temperature monitoring and fan control and you can also see that they've got tidy cabling down to a freaking science here in spite of the fact that behind the motherboard tray it will have literally no impact on performance it's just taking pride in your work which I guess leads us pretty well into performance doesn't it the big drawback of compact gaming machines in the past has been they're disappointing thermal with throttling being a major issue and/or acoustic performance with even the bolt one with its 1u power supply getting a little bit on the louder side when under load and I guess that's where the bolt three put on some well-deserved extra pounds almost all the cooling in this machine with the exception of the power supply and graphics card is handled by 120 millimeter fans and thanks to the very spacious bottom graphics card mounting area our gtx 980ti not only avoided thermal throttling but turbo dup nicely and stayed quiet even under load which leads us to the conclusion I can do math just as well as you spreadsheet warriors who are crunching the costs of the components of this system in Excel right now so I'll save you the trouble with some promos they have running the bolt three costs a little over $500 more than buying all of the exact same components down to you know the included but thankfully not installed McAfee software the OS was actually very clean wire extensions and water die and all that stuff and then putting them together yourself and the performance wouldn't be different so then what do you get for your money the machine is extraordinarily well packaged which combined with digital storms QA means that the likelihood of dealing with an RMA or an incompatible component is minuscule you get more than just a pretty face with the components they picked out for me being pretty much impossible to criticize from a quality or reliability perspective and you get to just click by instead of tinkering with it yourself for the let's be honest eight would be conservative probably closer to fifteen to twenty hours that it would take for a relatively inexperienced builder to piece together all the parts themselves online and then put it together considering how PCMR showpiece worthy it looks and while as a hot-rodder myself reviewing a stock car off the lot isn't exactly my wheelhouse if I try to think of it less in terms of what I could build for the same amount and more in terms of the other things in my life that I know how to do but pay more to have someone else do for me like eating out at a restaurant or the things that I just don't feel like learning how to do like car maintenance it just doesn't seem nearly as outlandish anymore and I'd feel a heck of a lot better recommending this to a non DIY oriented friend than most of the pre-built pcs I've ever seen so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know where that button is but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button and even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon the directions for which you can find up there in the top right corner buying a cool t-shirt like this one or even with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum now that you're done doing all of that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out my Apple watch video where I tried really really really really really hard not to let it turn into a rant this is not an Apple watch that should tell you all you need to know about the Apple watch will watch the video anyway there's more to say