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Stormforce specialises in creating prebuilt gaming computers for a mass audience and back in October we reviewed one of their budget systems (HERE). Today in this review I evaluate the more high end Stormforce Crystal featuring a Ryzen 5 3600 & RTX 2070 Super – which will be great for playing the latest games at high settings. It is priced at £1279.99 but there is currently a £160 off deal for £1,119.97 – so should it be on your shortlist for a new system?
Gallery:
Specifications:
- PROCESSOR: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Cores: 6 Cores, 12 Threads
- Core Frequency: 3.6GHz
- Max Boost Clock: 4.2GHz
- Cooler: Cooler Master ML120L RGB AIO Watercooler
- MEMORY: Kingston Hyper X Fury 16GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM (2 x 8GB)
- Storage: Seagate 1.0TB Barracuda 3.5″ 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive, WD 500GB M.2 2280 Blue SN500 NVMe PCIe SSD
- MOTHERBOARD: ASUS TUF B450-PLUS GAMING
- GRAPHICS: Asus GeForce DUAL RTX 2070S GDDR6 8GB
- GPU connectivity: 2x HDMI Port, 2x DisplayPort
- NETWORKING: 300Mbps WiFi, 1 Gigabit LAN Controller
- POWER SUPPLY: FSP 750w ATX PSU 85% Efficiency Rated – Stormforce Customised SKU
- DIMENSIONS: Height:468mm Width:218mm Depth:496mm
- CASE: Cooler Master Masterbox MB520 RGB Black Trim ATX Case
- Front IO: 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, 2x audio jacks
- OS: Windows 10 Home
- Warranty Information: Stormforce Gaming systems all ship with a 3 year collect, repair and return warranty for the full term. Collection costs are included in the warranty for the full 3 years.
I priced up the components used in this Build on PC Part picker and the total price including OS at the time of review is £1121.45 you can find my list HERE. (prices may fluctuate, accurate at time of publication).
Screenshots:
The CPU that comes with this system is the Ryzen 5 3600 which is equipped with 6 cores and 12 threads. The Max boost clock speed it can achieve is 4.2 Ghz and we saw the CPU in our Crystal system reach 4.0Ghz on all cores most of the time making it a very capable CPU. The motherboard used is the ASUS TUF B450-PLUS GAMING and you also get 2 x 8GB sticks of 3200Mhz Hyper X Fury memory.
The GPU in this system is the ASUS Geforce DUAL RTX 2070 Super which is supplied with a base clock speed of 1605Mhz and a boost clock speed of 1770Mhz. The 8GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 1750Mhz (14,000Mhz effective).
CrystalDiskMark:
CrystalDiskMark tests the raw speed of a storage device. It uses a test file to write data to or read data from the drive. I tested using the default 1GB file size.
In operation, and thanks to the fast SSD drive, the system feels snappy and responsive at all times. The mechanical hard drive is a welcome addition and maintains speeds around 170-180 MB/s.
Cinebench R15:
Cinebench R15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures CPU performance. I compared the Stormforce Crystal against results KitGuru have collected from testing other pre-built PCs.
Cinebench R20:
Improvements to Cinebench Release 20 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user.
Cinebench results:
The R5-3600 is a great bang for Buck CPU and it gets a really good score in both Cinebench tests thanks to the 6 core / 12 thread architecture with reasonably high boost clock speed.
The Crystal doesn't perform quite as well as the Fierce PC Shuriken we tried with the same CPU but this is likely due to slight variations in the RAM timing and Motherboard used.
The R5-3600 is a great choice for gamers. and would be sufficient to undertake other more CPU intensive tasks on a casual basis. Though if you're looking to do them on a regular basis you would likely want a system with a more powerful CPU.
Thermals:
To test the cooling performance of the Stormforce Crystal I ran AIDA64 and Unigine Heaven for 10 minutes. I tested the CPU & GPU at the same time to ensure that the cooling is sufficient to keep the thermals of both under load simultaneously.
The idle temperatures I saw from this PC are pretty good. The CPU runs a little warmer than I usually see but its not really an issue as it will have no effect on performance. Under load the temperatures are spot on.
The Coolermaster case looks quite restrictive but there seems to be no problem and both the CPU and GPU stay reasonably cool. This is likely thanks to the AIO cooler on the R5 3600 and the Asus Dual aftermarket cooler on the GPU.
Noise levels:
I measured fan noise levels using a sound meter while the PC was idle with no programs open, and then during stress testing to get a reading with the system under load.
The decibel levels I recorded coming from the Crystal are higher than I normally see from Desktop PC's. The idle levels and under load levels are pretty similar which makes for noticeable fan noise constantly while the PC is turned on.
The noise comes from the Cooler Master fans and the front three fans run at 100% speed constantly because Stormforce opted to use a Molex adapter instead of a fan controller. This won't be a problem if you're a headset user but I did find it to be pretty annoying and easily avoidable.
Power Consumption:
The Stormforce Crystal has a 750W FPS ATX PSU that was created specifically for Stormforce and comes with a 85% efficiency rating.
While Idle I took a reading of 80.3W and then while under load the Stormforce Crystal used 350.6 Watts. This shows that the 750W power supply selected for this system is a good choice as PSUs are most efficient between 40-60% load. The 85% efficiency rating on this PSU is the equivalent to a 80 plus silver PSU which isn't the best available but it is a good balance between price and performance for this system.
3DMark testing:
For this test, I ran the Stormforce Crystal through Time Spy Extreme, Time Spy, Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra.
3D Mark is an artificial benchmark but it does give us a good idea of what this PC can do and how well it performs compared to similar PCs. Overall the results are pretty impressive and there is no doubt this is a powerful PC. The R5 3600 has a great price to performance CPU for gaming however you can see that in most of the results however that this PC is more on the GPU heavy side.
The 2070 Super is definitely the stand out component in this system and it makes it's presence known. Its clear to see this system is designed around the 2070S and the other components are chosen to get it at a more affordable price point without negatively impacting its performance.
Gaming Performance:
To see how well this PC performs I used the Stormforce Crystal to play different popular games to see just how powerful this PC is when it comes to gaming. I tested the games at different resolutions with Medium and High image quality settings.
F1 2019: This is the most recent release in my line up of tester games and gives the Stormforce Crystal a chance to show what it can do on a newer title.
Far Cry 5: was released on March 27, 2018 but is still a popular and demanding game. The gigantic open world of Hope County has plenty of beautiful scenery to test how well this PC performs. I tested on the Normal and High preset with AA disabled.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: is a relatively recent release that supports Nvidia’s RTX technology. I tested the game at Medium and High settings with DX12 on & Ray tracing turned off at various resolutions.
Gaming Performance Conclusion:
The games that I used to test the Stormforce Crystal are all recent releases which demand decent graphics power in order to achieve good fps results. 1080p and 1440p displays with a high refresh rate are the most popular monitors so this is what I wanted to test this PC could handle. There was very little difference between medium and high fps results and this PC can certainly handle these games with more demanding graphical settings. The increase in resolution shows a more significant difference as expected but the 2070 Super is a powerful card that can still create a good gaming experience. This PC is great for users who want the best of both worlds and would pair well with a 1440p, 144Hz gaming monitor.
Conclusion:
The Stormforce Crystal is a PC that is centered around the 2070 Super at its heart. Stormforce have it priced aggressively at £1,119.97 which means that you wouldn't even be able to build this PC yourself for the same money. A rare occurrence with Prebuilt PC's especially when you consider the 3 year collect and return warranty it comes with as standard.
There are some areas that we feel could be improved. I am not really fan of the ketchup and mustard PSU cables but some people may not care too much. My main gripe with this PC is the fan noise. Without headphones on it is distracting and irritated me when using the system. We feel if they were paired up with a fan controller that the noise levels would be much more tolerable. Sadly Stormforce opted to use a molex adapter instead of a fan controller so the front three fans are always running at full speed.
Apart from that it is a good little system. I would be tempted to request a different case or for Stormforce to switch out those fans when you order. You get 16GB of RAM from a well known brand that runs at a nippy 3200Mhz clock speed. The R5 3600 is a good bang for buck CPU that pairs well with the 2070 Super for gaming.
Because of the large aftermarket cooler on the Asus Dual card and the AIO cooler the components stay cool. The Powersupply has a fair efficiency rating and we have no complaints with the storage configuration – a fast SSD drive, paired up with a high capacity storage drive.
When it comes to performance this PC is certainly more suited to gaming. A 2070 Super is a good GPU to find at this price point and it gets some great fps in all of our tester games. It would pair well with a 1440p high refresh rate monitor for a great experience on the latest games.
Pros:
- 3 year collect and return warranty.
- Good price.
- High end gaming performance.
- RGB Lighting.
Cons:
- Unsightly PSU cables.
- Fans could be set up better – running at 100%.
You can find the Stormforce Crystal for sale HERE. It is currently on offer for £1119.97 (Normally £1279.97)
Kitguru says: The Stormforce Crystal isn't perfect but you do get great performance at a very competitive price.
