ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 i5-3570K GTX660 SLI OC Review

1. Introduction2. ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 i5-3570K SLI OC PC (1)3. Testing Methodology4. Synthetic: PCMark 75. Synthetic: 3DMark 116. Synthetic: 3DMark7. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark8. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra9. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64bit10. Synthetic: HDD & SSD Testing11. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.012. Real World: 3D Rendering13. Real World: BluRay Playback14. Real World: Flash HD Playback15. Real World: HandBrake 9.516. Gaming: Alien V Predator (DX11)17. Gaming: Far Cry 3 (DX11)18. Gaming: Dirt Showdown (DX11)19. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs (DX11)20. Gaming: Max Payne 3 (DX11)21. Gaming: Total War: Shogun 2 (DX11)22. Technical: Thermal Dynamics23. Technical: Acoustics Performance24. Technical: Power Consumption25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the new sub £1,000 gaming PC from ARIA – the Gladiator Warbird 660, which features the Core i5 3570K processor and a pair of GTX660 graphics cards. The company also incorporate 8GB of Corsair memory, a 120GB SSD/1TB HDD configuration and a Corsair HX power supply. The all important question remains to be answered however – how does it handle?

The spec list is certainly impressive, and keeping the total cost below £1,000 is quite tricky, especially when considering two GTX 660 graphics cards. ARIA don't include any operating system with the Gladiator Warbird 660, so you will need to factor in the additional costs when budgeting. The upside is that you will get to configure the operating system from the very start, exactly to your desires.

ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 i5-3570K SLI OC PC

• Overclocking: Intel i5 professionally Overclocked to 4.60GHz.
• 3rd Generation Intel Core (Ivy Bridge) i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor.
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2048MB GDDR5 DirectX 11 Graphics.
• 8GB Corsair 1600MHz DDR3 (2x4096MB) Dual-Channel Memory (32GB Supported).
• 120GB Samsung 840 Series SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Solid State Drive (85,000 IOPS) – OS & Applications.
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Hard Drive – Storage.
• GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 Express Chipset Motherboard – Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 & RAID 10.
• 650W Corsair HX Series V2 80PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply.
• NZXT Phantom 410 Black Midi Tower Window Gaming Case.
• Corsair Hydro H60 V2 Water-Cooling CPU Cooler.
• Pioneer DVDRW Dual Layer DVD Rewriter (m-Disk Support) 24x DVD±R.
• Onboard 2/4/5.1/7.1 Channel High Definition Audio.

Price: £995.95

The ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 is built around the excellent NZXT Phantom 410 case. We reviewed the Limited Edition GunMetal version of this chassis back in March last year and it picked up our ‘Worth Buying' Award.

The NZXT Phantom 410 is an attractive looking case although I must admit I personally really dislike the overly glossy piano black surface. It attracts fingerprints and dust within a couple of hours and needs constant cleaning.

There are plenty of ports on the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H and we can see the dual graphics cards in this shot. The power supply is bottom mounted and there is a large exhaust fan next to the I/O panel. For those interested we reviewed the Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H back in June last year, over here.

With the side panel removed we can get a better look at the system build.

ARIA are using two MSI Twin Frozr III GTX660's in this system in an Sli configuration. We didn't notice any missing, or misplaced screws either.

The Corsair H60 is immediately noticeable, with the radiator and fan mounted to the rear of the case in an exhaust position. There is 8GB of Corsair gaming memory installed.

ARIA are using the Corsair HX650 power supply in this system, a unit which is modestly priced but well constructed.

At the top of the case is the optical drive. Below are the 1TB hard drive and the 120GB Samsung 840 Series Solid State Drive.

Cable routing in this system is very good, it looks clean and all the cables are neatly tied together.

Some close up shots of the routing from the rear side.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 doesn't ship with an operating system, however the company include all the driver discs and excess cables left over from the build.

I found that the bios was configured to boot first from the mechanical 1TB hard drive, so you need to pay attention to this and choose the optical drive first, and then the Solid State Drive.

You don't want to be installing the operating system on the mechanical drive, so do pay attention with the prompts.

An overview of the system in CPUz and GPUz. Even though ARIA advertise the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 as being clocked to 4.4ghz, our sample was running at 4.6ghz, with a core voltage just shy of 1.3. The differences in the real world will be very minor, so either way, the system will be a good performer. Memory is configured to run at 1,600mhz with timings of 9-9-9-24 @ 1T.

EDIT: ARIA changed the final clock speed to 4.6ghz for public systems.

The MSI GTX660 is clocked at 980mhz core and 1,502mhz (6Gbps effective). There is 2GB of GDDR5 memory onboard which is connected via a 192bit memory interface.

A validation online of the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660.

We are using the 30 inch Dell U3011 for this review today.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

Intel E5 2687W x 2
Motherboard: Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS
Coolers: Corsair H80 x2
Memory: 64GB Kingston Predator 1,600mhz 9-9-9-24 1T
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Modular
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000FN
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron GTX SSD
Secondary Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron SSD

Intel E5 2660
Motherboard: Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 16GB G.Skill ARES 2,133mhz @ 9-11-10-28
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000a
Boot Drive: Intel 510 120GB
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB WildFire

Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE

Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

Intel i5 3570K @ 4.2 – OCUK Prodigy Arctic Gaming System
Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77
Cooler: Coolit Liquid
Memory: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
Chassis: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB HDD

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire.

Software:
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2.
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
HQV Benchmark 2.0
SiSoft Sandra

Games:
Max Payne 3 (DX 11)
Total War: Shogun 2 (DX11)
Far Cry 3 (DX 11)
Alien V Predator (DX 11)
Dirt Showdown (DX 11)
Sleeping Dogs (DX 11)

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus USB BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

Game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia. Special thanks to Adam Ross for his Romulan Warbird Valdore render.

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.

The system is well balanced and scores 6,003 points, a positive indication of future 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.

The overall score of 11,309 is excellent, especially the graphics performance from the twin GTX660 graphics cards.

3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.

To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.

A score of 6774 points in the demanding Fire Strike test is excellent, thanks to the power from the Sli'd GTX660 graphics cards.

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 set the test to 1080p resolution, with 4x Anisotropy, shaders high, anti aliasing disabled. Full Screen.

As we would expect based on previous results, the GTX660 in SLi are fantastic. Over 100 frames per second average in this benchmark is a very commendable result.

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 Core i5 3570k is an excellent processor, even with the relatively simple straight Quad core architecture. When overclocked the performance levels improve significantly.

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.

The system scores a total of 7.45 points. In layman's terms this overclocked system could handle a decent level of intensive rendering duties, if required.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64. We use this program to test the onboard Samsung Solid State Drive.

As we know from past experience, the 120GB Samsung 840 Series can handle compressible and incompressible data equally well.

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.

The ATTO Benchmark highlights similar results. A maximum performance speed of around 545MB when reading and around 135MB/s when writing. In real world terms, the Solid State Drive is snappy and the Warbird boots quickly in a manner of seconds and the operating system is responsive and quick to open programs.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	GTX660
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	3
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	5
Total	192

The hardware scores 192 points out of a possible 210 which is excellent.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render.

When the 3570k is placed in a comparison with the more expensive, high end Intel processors it struggles to compete. That said, for the price, this system performs very well, showing you don't need to spend a fortune to get a capable, balanced system.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 12 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of ‘The Road’.

No problems playing back 1080p media with this system with plenty of CPU cycles free for multitasking.

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.

Again, with hardware acceleration enabled, under 8% average CPU time is required for media playback.

Handbrake is a fantastic free program which we wanted to include to confirm findings with Media Espresso, earlier in the review. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.5 for testing today across all platforms. We encoded an DVD.MPG file.

Excellent performance in HandBrake, with a final time of 5 minutes and 35 seconds.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.

Good results, highlighting the power of the GTX660 cards in SLi.

Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal in conjunction with Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Red Storm, Ubisoft Reflections, and Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to 2008′s Far Cry 2. It has received a lot of acclaim from the public and is up for contention as Game of the Year via many publications.

The ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 runs this title beautifully, averaging just over 70 frames per second.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 1080p resolution and 8x MSAA.

Excellent results from the system, averaging 75 frames per second.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

We are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack.

The ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 has no problems powering this game at extremely high settings. These settings can cause problems for a lesser gaming system.

Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable.

In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession.

We used the image quality settings, highlighted above. Total video memory demand was 1270MB.

One of my favourite games from last year and very impressive running on the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

We run the DX11 Graphics High 1080p benchmark, available for this game in STEAM. You can therefore directly compare against your own system. Frame rates are rounded up or down to the nearest digit.

The two GTX660's power through this demanding Direct X 11 title averaging almost 100 frames per second at 1080p with high image quality settings. Excellent results.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The system never runs too hot, even with the decent overclock. The CPU peaks at around the 70c mark, as does the pair of GTX660's.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
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

The noise levels can be tuned … when the fans are on high, the system can be clearly heard. I would opt for the quietest fan settings as the air flow is fine and the whirring of the fans drops noticeably. The Gladiator Warbird 660 is always audible however so if you want a silent system, look elsewhere.

We used a calibrated meter to measure the power at the wall. No monitors were factored into the readings. The system power drain was measured in the following states:

Idle: when resting at the desktop.
CPU Load: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit benchmark run.
Gaming Load: 3Dmark 11 ‘combined test'.

The overclocked system is reasonably energy efficient. When both graphics cards are loaded the total demand rises to just under 300 watts.

The ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 is a system designed to meet the £999 sweet spot. Honestly, for the money we can't imagine you could pick a better selection of components, especially when it comes to graphics performance to handle the latest Direct X 11 games.

ARIA have wisely decided to base the Warbird 660 around Intel's Core i5 3570k … a processor widely used by the educated enthusiast audience. It isn't rocket science to adopt this chip, after all it is reasonably priced yet powerful, especially when overclocked. Millions of people use the 3570k for a reason and if you have read this review from start to finish then you don't need us to tell you why.

The secret sauce in the Gladiator Warbird 660 is hinted at in the product name – the use of not one, but two Nvidia GTX660's. These cards are surprisingly inexpensive, yet when paired up can stand head to head with the leading flagship cards on the market today. ARIA haven't lazily opted for reference boards either, they are using MSI Twin Frozr III GTX660's which are quieter, faster and cooler. A win all round in my book.

Other components deserve a mention, the 650W Corsair HX Series V2 power supply is not only 80 Plus Gold Certified, but a modular design. The 120GB Samsung 840 Series is an ideal boot drive equally capable with compressible and incompressible data. 120GB is a great size for a boot drive and the more serious storage duties can be handled by the additional 1TB mechanical drive.

Thanks to the cooling proficiency of the NZXT Phantom 410 case the system runs nice and cool, even in the heavily overclocked state. If you are sensitive to noise, you may want to drop the fan speeds a little, I know I did – with little reduction in cooling performance. My only concern really with the NZXT Phantom 410 in gloss black is the fingerprint mess that you will leave, even with modest handling. This is the kind of case you will always need a polishing cloth close at hand.

If you are in the market for a new system and don't have a desire, or the time to build your own rig but don't want to settle for a Dell, or mass manufactured pre-built then the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 deserves serious consideration. You will need a little experience to install the operating system and to install the drivers, so this isn't aimed at the newb market. You get the choice the configure the ARIA Gladiator Warbird 660 exactly the way you want, with no crapware hogging up valuable resources.

We highly recommend this system, it does face stiff competition but if you value build quality and a fine choice of high grade components then it certainly needs shortlisted. Snag one for yourself over here.

Pros:

• Overclocked nicely out of the box.
• Nice selection of quality components.
• Well routed.
• No BIOS instability concerns.
• Competitive pricing.

Cons:

• You need to set up the operating system and drivers from scratch.
• Piano black case is a fingerprint nightmare.
• Stiff competition from other system builders at the £1000 mark.
• Not the quietest system.

Kitguru says: A high value for money system with fantastic out of the box, overclocked performance.

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