OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 (3.6GHz FX-8120 / 2GB Radeon 7850)

1. Introduction2. OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2: Packaging and Bundle3. OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2: Shipping Damage4. OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2: Exterior5. OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2: Internals6. OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2: BIOS Configuration7. Installed Software, Hardware Configuration and Test Methodology8. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra9. Synthetic: PCMark 710. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit11. Synthetic: Super Pi12. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark13. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage14. Synthetic: 3DMark 1115. Synthetic: Drive Performance16. Real World: MKV 1080P Performance17. Real World: Flash HD Performance18. Real World: Media Encoding - MediaEspresso19. Real World: Media Encoding - HandBrake20. Gaming: Battlefield 321. Gaming: Crysis 222. Gaming: Metro 203323. Technical: Acoustics Performance24. Technical: Thermal Dynamics25. Technical: Power Consumption26. Closing Thoughts27. View All Pages

The first system to hit our labs in 2013 is OverclockersUK's Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2. Featuring an overclocked octa-core processor from AMD and a 2GB Radeon HD 7850, can the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 plough its way through our set of tests?

Based around an AMD backbone, the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System aims to offer solid performance at a very competitive price point. Ensuring that good performance is achieved, OcUK has overclocked the FX-8120 processor to 3.6GHz by pairing it with a high-end 990FX motherboard from ASRock – the 990FX Extreme 3. Add Sapphire's 2GB Radeon HD 7850 Dual-X graphics card, a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD and Samsung's overclocking-friendly Green 30nm DDR3 memory into the mix, and the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 starts to look like a real gaming powerhouse.

With tough competition coming from system builders such as Cyberpower and DinoPC as well as Aria's Gladiator range, can the OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System offer performance good enough to beat down its rivals?

Specifications:

• Processor: AMD Bulldozer FX-8120 3.10GHz overclocked to 3.60GHz
• Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme 3
• Memory: 8GB Samsung Green DDR3 1600MHz 30nm
• Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Dual-X
• Solid State Drive: 60GB OCZ Vertex 2
• Hard Disk Drive: 1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 14X
• Case: BitFenix Shinobi USB 3.0 Gaming Case
• Power Supply: OCZ ZS Series 750W
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB 24x DVDRW
• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

OverclockersUK ships the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System in the BitFenix Shinobi case's box, without any external packaging. After spending 20 minutes re-assembling the box to make it fit for photography, it's safe to say that this packaging is inadequate.

A larger external box with additional protection via bubble wrap and air-filled protectors should be used to absorb the impact of incidental blows. A customer receiving the package in the condition that we received it in would be silly to accept delivery.

A large bag filled with impact-absorbing foam is used to protect the heavy CPU cooler during transport. Some additional protection underneath the graphics card would be a thoroughly-worthwhile addition, especially given that the customer has to open their system before using it.

Another recommendation to OcUK's system builders would be to install the power supply with the fan facing downwards. This would eliminate the possibility of screws or case material coming loose during shipping and falling into the unit, creating a potential safety hazard.

Over-heating wouldn't be an issue as the BitFenix Shinobi chassis features a bottom vent built for downwards-facing PSU fans.

We would typically outline the bundled items here, but there was no bundle supplied with our review sample of the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System, not even spare SATA cables or the case's removed PCI shields.

Unfortunately, with the package arriving in such poor condition, we could foresee a system damage page being put into our review.

We found 5 small pieces of plastic, which were later confirmed as broken clips, freely moving around the system's internal area. If one of these were to fall into the power supply, the outcome wouldn't be good – further reasoning for orientating the power supply fan in a downward mounting position.

The clips were intended to hold the BitFenix Shinobi's roof panel in place. With the clips broken, the roof panel was free to move and was impossible to secure to the case. While the issue may not be system-threatening, no customer is going to be happy to receive a system in less-than-perfect condition.

The problems may be courier-specific and you may be lucky enough to avoid any issues, but if OcUK used an additional external box filled with impact-absorbing packaging, the system damage would be far less likely to occur. I'm sure that customers would be happy to pay an extra £5-10 packaging and delivery charge to ensure that their system arrives safely and in its intended condition.

The black, non-windowed version of BitFenix's Shinobi chassis is given the task of housing the OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System's components. OverclockersUK attaches its logo to the case's left side panel.

An elegant top panel features the Front IO connections towards its forward edge, with a 2x 140mm fan vent towards the rear. Placing the front panel ports on the case's top side promotes a floor-mounted approach.

The Shinobi's Front IO connections consist of a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, headphone and microphone 3.5mm jacks, power and reset buttons and activity LEDs.

Due to the ASRock 990FX Extreme 3 motherboard's lack of internal USB 3.0 header, only 2 of the 4 USB ports are active. OcUK gives no warning of this – not even a sticker covering the inactive ports.

The black bezel of Samsung's SH-224BB DVD drive blends perfectly with the Shinobi's elegant front panel. Recessed motherboard and PCI port areas make connecting cables a simple task that doesn't cause additional interference.

Motherboard rear:

• 1x PS/2 mouse port
• 1x PS/2 keyboard port
• 1x Coaxial SPDIF out port
• 1x Optical SPDIF out port
• 6 x USB 2.0 ports
• 2 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1x eSATA3 connector
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 6 x audio jacks (Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone)

Graphics card outputs:

• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x HDMI
• 2x DVI-I (1x Dual Link & 1x Single Link)

OverclockersUK's system builders have managed to build a system with adequate cable management while using a non-modular power supply. Unused PSU connectors coupled with the Shinobi's limited cable-hiding locations doesn't assist in improving the system's internal appearance.

Thankfully, as the non-windowed version of the BitFenix Shinobi has been used, the unused power cables won't be such an aesthetic issue.

Zalman's huge, dual-tower CNPS 14X CPU cooler managed to survive the journey without a scratch, thanks to the effective protection. Being kept cool by the Zalman CNPS 14X is AMD's FX-8120 Black Edition octa-core processor that has been overclocked by OcUK to 3.6GHz. We invite you to read our full, indepth review of the FX-8120 here.

Sitting beneath the CPU cooler's front 120mm fan is a pair of Samsung's Green 30nm memory modules that are renowned for their tremendous overclocking potential, as outlined in our review of the product. We had to reinstall one of these modules before testing the system, but cannot confirm whether the stick was incorrectly installed when sent, or if shipping bumps caused it to pop loose. Based on the DIMM slot locking mechanism, we would assume the former was to blame.

Sapphire's stock-clocked Radeon HD 7850 2GB graphics card is equipped with the company's twin-fan ‘Dual-X' cooler. Keep an eye out for the 1GB version's appearance in an upcoming graphics card round-up.

We noticed that the lower screw holding the card in place was absent. After searching the entire case, we found it inside the rear cable management area. We cannot see how a tightened screw can possibly come loose during shipping, so this indicates poor workmanship by the OcUK system builders.

Being forced to manually connect the rear case fan reiterates the feeling that the system has been rushed during its build phase.

The system's OCZ Vertex 2 SSD is installed in the Shinobi's 3.5″ drive bay via an adapter tray. Drive temperatures will suffer due to the omission of a front intake fan.

ASRock's 990FX Extreme 3 motherboard is used as the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 system's foundation. The board offers CrossFireX and SLI support with its 42 lanes of PCI-E 2.0 connectivity. Six SATA 6GB/s connections are natively offered by the board's SB950 Southbridge, but ASRock chooses to allocate one of the lanes for rear panel eSATA duties, leaving five internal ports.

A sore exclusion from the board is an internal USB 3.0 header. Given that the majority of newly-released cases utilise the connection, we are disappointed that a high-end board such as this doesn't offer compatibility.

Cables are neatly routed behind the motherboard tray to their destination. Unused cables are stored in the lower right corner of the Shinobi's rear side, adjacent to the drive mounting location.

A large CPU cooler backplate cut-out provides clear access to the motherboard's underside, allowing quick and easy heatsink changes.

Information relating to the processor and memory is displayed on the main page of the ASRock 990FX Extreme 3 motherboard's UEFI BIOS.

An overclocked CPU frequency of 3.6GHz is achieved by means of a 200MHz base clock and 18x multiplier with a core voltage of 1.2750V. The CPU Northbridge frequency and voltage configurations have also been tweaked to allow for enhanced stability and additional performance.

As the FX-8120 processor is a ‘Black Edition' part, the unlocked multiplier can be used to achieve higher CPU overclocks, without sacrificing the system stability that exists with a 200MHz base clock.

Voltages, temperatures and fan speeds are displayed in the ‘H/W Monitor' page of the UEFI BIOS. As our testing wasn't conducted in the heart of a Siberian blizzard, the -60.5°C ‘recorded' CPU temperature indicates that there still hasn't been an outright fix for the widespread problem of incorrect readings that has existed on many recent AMD-based set-ups.

Whether it's the fault of board manufacturers or AMD themselves, this issue really should have been solved by now.

According to the ASRock motherboard's BIOS, the 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 HDD was configured as the main boot device. This is incorrect – we booted directly from the Vertex 2 SSD without changing any settings.

The system builders configure the storage drives' default mode as IDE, rather than the more favourable AHCI mode. While this isn't a major issue and one that is likely to have few real world impacts, it's missing out small touches like this that can make the difference between a system being great or just good.

A short list of installed programs indicates that OcUK is happy to let the customer install software by their own accord. A few additional monitoring utilities such as CPU-Z and Argus Monitor are welcomed additions that allow users to verify their system's configuration and stability out-of-the-box.

OcUK doesn't ship the system with Google Chrome installed – that was added by us.

A very respectable Windows score of 7.2 is achieved by the OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System. The graphics, CPU and memory configurations all score highly with only the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's 7.2 rating trailing behind.

CPU core voltage loiters around the 1.215-1.235V mark in a low-load environment. As soon as a heavy load such as Prime95 is applied, the level drops to 1.160V.

Samsung's enthusiast-grade Green DDR3 1600MHz modules are set to operate at their default – 1.6GHz – frequency. We know that some of these modules are capable of reaching high – 2400MHz+ – frequencies, as shown in the kit's review that can be accessed here.

The system's ASRock 990FX Extreme 3 motherboard features the 990FX Northbridge that offers 42 PCI-E 2.0 lanes and the SB950 Southbridge that is equipped with 6x SATA 6GB/s connections. If, further into the system's life, a gaming-related upgrade is planned, users are given equal amounts of freedom when opting for nVidia or AMD graphics cards, thanks to support for both SLI and CrossFireX.

Our validation can be found here.

Sapphire's Radeon HD 7850 2GB Dual-X graphics card is set to operate at reference 7850 frequencies of 860MHz core and 1200MHz memory. Users are free to overclock this card with a tool such as Sapphire TriXX or MSI Afterburner.

Keep an eye out for the 1GB version's admittance into an upcoming graphics card round-up that we are currently working on.

OverclockersUK installs Windows 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1 software, leaving users to configure the OS for themselves and download the relevant updates. The Seagate 1TB Barracuda 7200.14 hard drive has to be manually formatted via Disk Management.

After installing the appropriate Windows 7 updates, we were left with 29.3GB of free space on the Vertex 2 SSD. Once further applications and programs are installed, there should be enough free space on the SSD for 1-2 ‘average-sized' games. Avid gamers would be wise to opt for a larger SSD such as the 120GB Samsung 840 Basic that can be selected in the build's editor.

As the system's hard drive wasn't even formatted on arrival, the default directories for Documents, Videos, Pictures, Music, etc. are located on the small – 60GB – SSD, not the larger HDD. We would recommend changing the directories to the less storage-confined HDD as a main priority when initially configuring the system.

Specifications:

• Processor: AMD Bulldozer FX-8120 3.10GHz overclocked to 3.60GHz
• Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme 3
• Memory: 8GB Samsung Green DDR3 1600MHz 30nm
• Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Dual-X
• Solid State Drive: 60GB OCZ Vertex 2
• Hard Disk Drive: 1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 14X
• Case: BitFenix Shinobi USB 3.0 Gaming Case
• Power Supply: OCZ ZS Series 750W
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB 24x DVDRW
• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Software Suite:

• 3DMark Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• PCMark 7
• SiSoft Sandra 2013
• Super Pi
• Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 3.0
• ATTO
• CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2
• VLC Media Player 2.0.5
• HandBrake 0.9.8
• CyberLink Media Espresso 6.5
• Battlefield 3
• Metro 2033
• Crysis 2

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

The octa-core FX-8120 CPU exhibits strong performance in Sandra's suite of benchmarks.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

Achieving a PCMark 7 score of 4190, the OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System should be able to offer very good performance in a variety of lightweight and demanding tasks.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all – it’s completely free.

Eight cores clocked at 3.6GHz chomp through Cinebench's intense workload to output a good score of 5.90.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU.

We used Super Pi's '32M' benchmark setting.

Super Pi's single-threaded workload exploits a weakness in AMD's FX-8120 processor. The FX-8120 CPU's single-threaded performance is poor; a similarly-priced Intel processor will complete the same task in around half the time.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing: off. Anisotrophy: 4, Tessellation: normal. Shaders: High. Stereo 3D: disabled. API: Direct X 11.

The 2GB Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 flexes its muscle to output a good level of frames per second in the Unigine Heaven benchmark. Manually overclocking the graphics card is an easy way to further increase performance.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

3DMark Vantage shows that the 2GB HD 7850 graphics card and 3.6GHz FX-8120 is a well-matched pair, in terms of gaming performance.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

A 3DMark 11 score of 5357 is very respectable and indicates that this system should be capable of good frame rates at a 1920×1080 resolution.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use one of our favourite benchmark utilities – CrystalDiskMark X64 Edition – to rate performance from the on-board SATA controller.

4K performance of the ageing Vertex 2 SSD is strong, but it can't match the modern powerhouses such as OCZ's own Vertex 4 and Crucial's M4. Then again, the Vertex 2 SSD's real world performance will be perfectly adequate for daily and gaming usage.

Good sequential numbers are posted by the 1TB HDD. As a storage drive, high sequential read and write transfer rates are beneficial.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

We couldn't reach the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's rated speeds of 285MB/s sequential read and 275MB/s sequential write, as shown by the image on the left. This is due to Windows and background processes limiting the drive's performance.

The right-side image shows that Seagate's 1TB ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14 HDD is able offer excellent sequential read and write speeds, managing to surpass the 200MB/s barrier.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in VLC or Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed.

We played our 1080P MKV rip of The Dark Knight using the latest version of VLC Media Player.

A low amount of CPU performance is required for 1080P MKV playback. This makes the system a good choice for users wanting to enjoy media without having to worry about heat output and electricity bills.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. Full hardware acceleration is enabled.

General tasks won't be slowed down by the introduction of a program utilising Flash HD playback; only 9% CPU usage was required by the overclocked octa-core processor.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Hardware acceleration is enabled.

We would deem 13 minutes and 31 seconds to be an acceptable period of time to wait for an almost 2 hour-long HD MKV file to be converted, although, given the FX-8120's 8 physical cores, we would have liked this conversion to be slightly faster.

HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.8 version.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format, using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile, for playback on High-Resolution devices. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Encoding time increases when converting to a higher-resolution format, in comparison to the Apple MP4 file output by our MediaEspresso test. As with the lower-resolution media encoding test, we would have liked to see the FX-8120 make better use of its 8 processing cores by outperforming Intel's similarly-priced quad cores, not just matching their performance.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

We used the game's demanding ‘Ultra' setting to push today's gaming hardware.

Playable frame rates are produced by the 3.6GHz FX-8120 and 2GB Sapphire 7850 at Battlefield 3's most-demanding – ‘Ultra' – setting.

Released in March 2011, Crysis 2 was the highly-anticipated sequel to Crytek's triumphant predecessor. The CryEngine 3 game engine is able to deliver stunning visuals of New York's urban scenery as well as the intense conflict. Those stunning visuals and intense battles demand powerful PC hardware.

We used the game's ‘Very High' setting to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

We are also utilising the DX11 and High Res Textures pack as well as the game's latest patch – version 1.9.

An average frame rate of almost 40 FPS with a 1920×1080 resolution is good performance, given the demanding nature of Crysis 2. There are a few sections when the frame rate drops below an acceptable level however.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.

We used the game's ‘High' setting to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

Metro 2033's second most demanding – High – configuration is no match for the OcUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 system's gaming core. An average frame rate of almost 60 FPS shows that image quality can be increased while still maintaining playable performance. A few parts of the environment prove very tasking at these settings, almost hitting single digit figures.

We measured the acoustic output of the entire system when idling and when under the intense load of Prime95's Small FFTs setting and FurMark. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the acoustic output while playing Battlefield 3.

We measure at a distance of 1 metre from the chassis with our digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation. We allowed the CPU and graphics card coolers to operate at their default settings.

Please refer to our KitGuru noise guide for a comparison between the noise levels of this system and everyday scenarios.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Manually set at 100%, the Zalman CNPS 14X fans contribute to the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 system's higher-than-average idle noise levels. On the opposite end of the scale, the same level of acoustic output is measured in a gaming scenario which represents very quiet operation. The graphics card fans' increased speed doesn't account for a detectable increase in noise output.

Full load forces the Sapphire Dual-X cooler's pair of fans to raise their speed to a more audible level, increasing the measured acoustic output.

The tests were performed in a controlled environment with the temperature maintained at a constant 21°C. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 15 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running FurMark and Prime95's Small FFTs setting together for 15 minutes. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the temperatures while playing Battlefield 3.

We allowed the CPU and graphics card coolers to operate at their default settings.

Firstly, as pointed out earlier in the review, the CPU temperature sensors of the ASRock 990FX Extreme 3 motherboard and readings from HWMonitor, Speccy and CoreTemp were all displaying incorrect figures. For this reason, we cannot report the CPU temperature during each test.

Without any type of intake fan, a demanding load sees the GPU temperature rise to levels in excess of 60°C. We can only estimate that the CPU exhibited similar behaviour, based on the grounds that the incorrect reading's 27°C increase may be linearly proportional to the actual rise in processor temperature.

The system's HDD temperature rises steadily as additional heat is dumped inside the chassis. We would recommend investing in a cheap 120mm front intake fan to offer a more balanced cooling configuration. An additional 120/140mm exhaust fan placed in the roof would also help to further reduce component temperatures.

We measured the power consumption of our entire test system at the wall while loading the CPU using Prime95's Small FFTs setting and GPU using FurMark.  We also measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 7 desktop. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the power consumption while playing Battlefield 3.

Idle power consumption is very good at less than 100W. This is largely thanks to AMD's effective ZeroCore technology implemented in the Radeon HD 7850 GPU.

As the load increases, power consumption rapidly increases to a maximum of 355W which is high for a system of this calibre. OCZ's ZS Series 750W PSU won't struggle with the task of powering this system – you could even add an additional Radeon HD 7850 graphics card without power-related problems.

With the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2, OverclockersUK have used the competitive price vs performance attributes of AMD's upper-market components to build an effective high-resolution gaming machine that doesn't break the bank.

Gaming performance of the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 is very good, with the system outputting playable frame rates in three of the market's most demanding games at a 1920×1080 resolution. Image quality can be increased to allow for the DX11 enhancements to be enjoyed while a playable gaming experience is maintained, thanks to the performance of the overclocked AMD FX-8120 processor and Sapphire 2GB HD 7850 Dual-X graphics card.

Productivity is hit or miss due to the AMD FX-8120's weak single-threaded performance and average – 3.6GHz – clock speed (by today's standard), but good multi-threaded performance thanks to the CPU's 8 processing cores. As pointed out in our review of the FX-8120 Black Edition processor, the chip could be capable of much higher frequencies by way of overclocking.

On the topic of overclocking, with such a high performance CPU cooler being bundled with the system and the AMD chip being rated as a Black Edition part, we would usually see no harm in raising the frequency. This is where the inaccurate CPU temperature readings really cause problems. How do you know when to stop pushing the frequency or voltage? With no accurate CPU temperature reading, it's a guessing game that we'd opt to avoid, but that's just our preference.

Acoustic performance, component temperatures and power consumption levels can be considered acceptable for all but the most environmentally-friendly of users who will dislike the load electricity usage. An additional 120mm fan to use as a front intake is recommended; it'll offer a more balanced cooling configuration and keep component temperatures down when the gaming sessions start lasting for the day's majority.

We can see the thought that has been put into the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 system's build quality and aesthetic appearance, but our sample did little to prove the implementation. Well-chosen and colour-coordinated components are good, but our sample seems to have been rushed through the build phase.

A fan cable was disconnected, a screw wasn't installed correctly, the SATA mode was left at IDE and a RAM stick was loose. There wasn't any warning of the two inactive front panel USB ports, either. These may be small niggles that are easily solved (with the exception of the SATA ports' IDE mode), but they are the difference between a customer being delighted with their new system and just pleased.

And on to the biggest issue of all: packaging. Shipping a system in a case box without any additional protection isn't a good idea. We were lucky that our sample's damage didn't affect the system's functionality; others may not be so fortunate. OverclockersUK needs to package the system in the case's box and then post it in an additional external box with padding that can be used to absorb impact blows. The negligible cost increase is a worthwhile compromise for effective shipping protection.

The closest configuration to the reviewed sample that we could select from OverclockersUK's Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 product page would cost £835.99 with a faster – 60GB Intel 330 – SSD, but lower performing – Prolimatech Lynx – CPU cooler, Corsair GS 600W power supply and different memory. As OverclockersUK allows over-the-phone upgrades to be made, we would estimate today's reviewed system to cost around £860 with the upgraded CPU cooler and power supply, but slower – Vertex 2 – SSD.

Buying the components separately would cost around £835, but that doesn't include the guaranteed overclock and is more effort, without a warranty system in place. A slightly different system customised around DinoPC's Intel Core i5 3570K-based ‘Black Ops II GTX 660‘, tailored to closely match the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2, would cost around £20 less. We wouldn't call the Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 a bargain, but we would say that it is priced fairly.

Offering solid high-resolution gaming performance and a well-chosen set of components, the OverclockersUK Titan 8350a King Cobra MK2 Gaming System is worthy of consideration.

Pros:

• Good high-resolution gaming performance.
• Upgradable system – good case, power supply and motherboard choices.
• Well-picked, high-quality components.
• Out-of-the-box CPU overclock to 3.6GHz.
• 60GB SSD.

Cons:

• No front panel USB 3.0 connection due to lack of motherboard header.
• Inadequate packaging with a high possibility of shipping damage occurring.
• No bundled items, not even cables or manuals.
• Build stage seems to have been rushed, rather than completed to an appropriate standard.
• Tough competition from similarly-priced Intel-based systems.

KitGuru says: A good system in terms of gaming and general performance, but the seemingly rushed build phase and tough competition close the door to a higher award.

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