YOYOTech XDNA 760 System Review

KitGuru's often spend their time salivating over some of the finest prebuilt systems on the market from the likes of Cryo.  They usually feature all the latest, greatest and most expensive tech and are finished off with a full water cooling system.

Such systems usually demand a price of £3000+ so are simply unobtainable to most users.

With this in mind we were excited when a very modestly-priced water-cooled system arrived at our offices from YOYOTech. The YOYOTech XDNA 760 features a water cooled Intel Core i5 760 CPU which is overclocked to a massive 4.2GHz along with nVidia's latest GTX470 graphics card. £1,499 inc vat is the asking price, which should certainly appeal to a much wider audience.

Specification

Case: Cooler Master HAF X
Power Supply: Thermaltake 775W
Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E
Processor: Intel Core i5-760 OC'd @ 4.2GHz
CPU Cooler: Custom Water Loop
Memory: Kingston 2x 2GB DDR3 RAM
Boot Drive: 64GB Solid State Drive
Storage Drive: 1TB SATAII Hard Drive
Optical Drive: Samsung Blu-Ray Combo
Graphics Card: Asus GeForce GTX 470 1280MB
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Warranty: 1 year return to base

To save unnecessary waste and cost, YOYOTech ship the XDNA in a Cooler Master HAF X box which the case would have originally been supplied in.  The box had clearly been knocked around a fair bit by the courier (Citylink?) en route on the way to us, but thankfully this had only caused a couple of the (removable) fan blades to come lose

Mainstream system builders always supply you with several boxes of additional peripherals, like low cost keyboards and mice. It would seem YOYOTech have gone for the ‘less is more' approach as there are no additional peripherals whatsoever supplied with the system.  Anything you actually need can be purchased from their online store, but none of your budget has been wasted on bits you might not use. Refreshing.

YOYOTech have used the popular Cooler Master HAF X case as the chassis for their XDNA system, which is sure to keep all those components nice and cool.  It's look won't appeal to everyone, but the ongoing popularity of Cooler Master's quasi-military styling means it is well loved in come quarters. It's visage is definitely transformed when you power up the system and the deep red illuminations glow from within.

All four 5.25″ drive bays are filled with a Scythe Kase Master Pro fan controller at the top, an attractive-looking Samsung blu-ray drive below and a dual-bay watercooling reservoir at the bottom.

Above these we find the plentiful selection of front panel connections which consist of 2x USB3.0 ports, 2x USB2.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Firewire port and two 3.5mm audio connectors.

Moving around to the back of the case, we find all the I/O connections alongside a red 120mm exhaust fan and the Thermaltake 775W power supply.  As there isn't yet a standard internal front panel header for USB3.0, there are two USB3.0 cables which are routed through a hole at the top of the system and plugged into the rear USB3.0 connections.  These cables have been secured as neatly as possible to keep them out of the way of the remaining connections using numerous cable ties.  If you would prefer to use the rear USB3.0 connections instead of the frontal ones, then they can simply be unplugged.

In an effort to discourage users for fiddling with the system's internals, YOYOTech have replaced the standard thumbscrews on the side panels with regular screws.  This is no bad thing, though, as the water cooling loop inside could be damaged quite easily if not treated properly.

The left hand side panel sports a large acrylic window which gives us a glimpse of the exciting internals.  Unlike some, though, this doesn't fill the whole area as there is a large 200m intake fan attached to the panel.

After unscrewing the side panel, the true inner beauty of the XDNA becomes apparent.  YOYOTech have used a red theme with the cooling system consisting of LED-red fans from Phobya, red cold cathode lights and red water in the cooling tubes and reservoir.  This theme doesn't continue into the components, though, as the ASUS motherboard and Kingston RAM are both blue in colour.

YOYOTech have based the XDNA around an Asus P7P55D-E motherboard paired with an Intel Core-i5 760 processor which we wouldn’t usually expect to see in a water-cooled machine.  This is because they are renowned for being quite cool running and should be able to reach their overclocking potential on air.

But just because it doesn’t really need a water-cooling loop, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t have one. After all, we would be lying if we said we really needed that second 6870 or 256GB solid state drive for our machine. No doubt, this system has been water cooled for look and feel as much as anything else. We checked and YOYOTech confirmed that they are happy to supply the XDNA with a Core i7 set up with an option for water cooling on the graphics card(s) as well.

At the top of the case we find the sizable 240mm Phobya radiator which is cooled with two Phobya LED fans.  This is connected to the water block and the dual bay reservoir that sits in the front of the machine.  The 12V Swiftech MCP350 pump is situated at the bottom of the machine next to the hard drive bays.

YOYOTech have chosen to use an Asus GeForce GTX 470 that will let you play all the latest games at decent settings and is a perfect match for the mid-range CPU.  It would have been nice to see the graphics card water-cooled as well but this would increase the price beyond the magic £1,500 barrier.

The 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 storage drive is accompanied by a Kingston V-Series 64GB solid state drive which allows for speedy boot times without adding significantly to the price of the system.  It’s worth noting that it’s impossible to install any further drives into the system without rerouting the cables that YOYOTech have passed through the drive bays. If you're likely to need more drive space, then let them know when ordering so they can alter the routing for you.

On the subject of cable routing, YOYOTech have done a very impressive job.  All the cables are routed tidily behind the motherboard tray and those that are visible look extremely neat.  This is helped to an extent by the PSU cable cover that is part of the Cooler Master HAF X.  This sits behind the PSU and shields the cables from view.

The power supply used in the XDNA is a high quality Thermaltake 775W unit that we reviewed a while back.  It is good to see that unlike some manufacturers, YOYOTech isn’t cutting corners by using unbranded PSUs.

Unlike some manufacturers, YOYOTech don't fill their systems with crapware.  In fact the only programs that are preinstalled on the system are driver related.

We used a Viewsonic VX2260WM 22″ monitor for testing as we feel it reflects what people who buy this system will use.  All testing was carried out at 1920 x 1080. This resolution is by far the most popular among the enthusiast audience.

Case: Cooler Master HAF X
Power Supply: Thermaltake 775W
Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E
Processor: Intel Core i5-760 OC'd @ 4.2GHz
CPU Cooler: Custom Water Loop
Memory: Kingston 2x 2GB DDR3 RAM
Boot Drive: 64GB Solid State Drive
Storage Drive: 1TB SATAII Hard Drive
Optical Drive: Samsung Blu-Ray Combo
Graphics Card: Asus GeForce GTX 470 1280MB
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Warranty: 1 year return to base

Windows 7 64bit – all latest patches/updates
Fraps Professional
Valve’s Steam Platform

Cinebench R10
Cinebench R11.5
Sisoft Sandra Professional
KitGuru Photoshop Benchmark V1(4)
3dMark Vantage
Pcmark Vantage
Crysis Warhead
Medal of Honour
Grand Theft Auto 4: Episodes From Liberty City
F1 2010

Cinebench R10 has since been replaced by V11.5, but many people have a better indication of relative performance by the results from R10 – after all it has been around for years. We will however include R11.5 results on the following page. For those who don’t know Cinebench is not just a mere synthetic benchmarking application, it is based on the rendering engine from Cinema 4D.

The CPU test renders a 3D scene photo-realistically while applying performance intensive functions such as area light sources, procedural shaders, Ambient Occlusion and multi level reflections. Especially when used on faster, multi core CPU systems, MAXON CINEBENCH R10 delivers much more accurate results.

This is an impressive score for an i5 system but is about what we would expect considering the high level of overclocking.

Cinebench R11.5 is the newest revision of the popular benchmark from Maxon. The test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral “No Keyframes” animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores.

In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Again, this score reflects what we would expect from an overclocked i5 system.

SiSoft Sandra is a great benchmarking suite and one I have used for many years now. We are using the two popular CPU intensive tests, Dhrystone and Whetstone and the result being the number of executions of the suite, per second. These run entirely within the CPU and cache memory and its a good synthetic test to analyse general core efficiency.

The SiSandra results are very healthy indeed, aided considerably by the huge clock boost on the processor.

When I was in charge of DriverHeaven I wrote a scripted benchmark which was not only used to help users ascertain system specific performance levels but was useful in reviews to accurately measure performance in key areas. Leading tech sites such as Madshrimps, Hardware Canucks, Benchmark Reviews and Hardocp used my benchmark in their reviews also.

This version of the script has been thoroughly tested on Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS4 and is compatible with Photoshop 7. It is important to document however that different versions of Photoshop give different end results. Adobe have been fine tuning the program over the years and enhancing specific filters and algorithms for better performance (some filters were rewritten during the CS2 time period). This means ultimately that comparing times with users running other versions of Photoshop is not going to give consistent results.

The i5-760 achieved  a good level of performance in this benchmark as it really benefits from the increased clockspeed.

3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. We’ve been making 3DMark for over 10 years, with each new edition using the latest 3D technology to determine real-world performance.

A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

The overall 3Dmark score achieved as 16050 which is an impressive score, especially for an i5 based system.

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

Crysis Warhead, like the original, Crysis, is based in a future where an ancient alien spacecraft has been discovered beneath the Earth on an island east of the Philippines. The single-player campaign has the player assume the role of (Former SAS) Delta Force operator Sergeant Michael Sykes, referred to in-game by his call sign, Psycho. Psycho’s arsenal of futuristic weapons builds on those showcased in Crysis, with the introduction of Mini-SMGs which can be dual-wielded, a six-shot grenade launcher equipped with EMP grenades, and the destructive, short ranged Plasma Accumulator Cannon (PAX). The highly versatile Nanosuit returns.

In Crysis Warhead, the player fights North Korean and extraterrestrial enemies, in many different locations, such as a tropical island jungle, inside an “Ice Sphere”, an underground mining complex, which is followed by a convoy train transporting an unknown alien object held by the North Koreans, and finally, to an airfield. Like Crysis, Warhead uses Microsoft’s new API, Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) for graphics rendering.

We are using several sections of gameplay which feature some of the most intensive action in Crysis. You can therefore base these results on a firmly ‘worst case’ scenario situation.  We used ‘gamer' settings and gamed at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 during this test.

The XDNA is still a great machine for gaming.  Playable framerates were achieved throughout our Crysis Warhead tests with gamer settings.

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City is a standalone compilation of the DLC episodes for Grand Theft Auto IV, containing both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony on one disc. It was released alongside the DLC release of The Ballad of Gay Tony on 29 October 2009 for the Xbox 360 and released on 13 April 2010 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3. It does not require a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play, nor is an Xbox Live or PSN account necessary (except for multiplayer). The content is also played straight from the disc, and does not need to be downloaded to a hard drive to play, like various other disc-based expansions for other Xbox 360 games that have been released in the past.

The engine is still extremely demanding for this game – even months later for the newest hardware. The latest version changes some of the rendering calls and is used partially within the latest Max Payne engine.  We maxed out all the settings and played at a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

We saw a little more variation in the framerate when playing GTA4: EFLC than with other games, a likely result of the CPU dependent nature of this game.  But playable framerates were achieved throughout our tests, even with all the settings on maximum.

Electronic Arts latest Medal Of Honor game has received much hype already – this is a big franchise which has always sold well. The latest title has the series removed from World War 2 into the present day, within the conflict in Afghanistan.

We maxed out all the settings and played at a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Despite cranking up all the settings we could, the XDNA managed a solid framerate that was stable throughout our tests.

F1 2010 is the first multi format high def Formula one title, having been in development for almost 2 and a half years now you can tell Codemasters are not messing around when it comes to releasing the best game they can. F1 2010 is packed with everything, from fine tuning your car setup, practising laps with goals to achieve, detailed stats, various difficulty settings for newbs and pros and even a helmet selection!

We maxed out all the settings and played at a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

The XDNA produced impressive framerates that remained very good throughout the entire test, only varying slightly.

To measure temperatures we started the system and let it idle for 30 minutes. To test load temperatures we used Prime95 and loaded the CPU for 30 minutes.  We measured temperatures with Everest Ultimate and room temperature was maintained at 20c throughout the tests.

The CPU temperatures recorded are impressive for a system overclocked to this level despite the motherboard temperature being a little on the high side.  The graphics card also ran quite hot in this system but this is the result of fan profiles rather than poor airflow.

Power Consumption was measured with a plug-in power monitor and all external devices such as monitors are excluded.

At idle, the system consumes just under 200W, rising to just under 400W at the wall when running Crysis Warhead.  When running Prime95 and Furmark this increased further to around 460W. Way inside the capabilities of Thermaltake's Toughpower XT.

On the whole, the XDNA is a fine system that is built to very high standards by the engineers at YOYOTech.  The Cooler Master HAF X is functional and provides a good basis for the system, delivering has all of the features that we could ask for, including USB 3.0 support.

The inclusion of a front-mounted fan controller is very useful as it allows us to reduce the system noise significantly without detracting greatly from thermal dissipation.  When adjusted properly, the system becomes almost inaudible when idle, but under load the reference GTX 470 graphics card soon changes this. We'd suggest that you ask for an alternative version of the GTX470 as there are several available now with improved coolers.

For those who want a pre-built water-cooled system, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend the XDNA.  Building water-cooled systems isn't something we would recommend for less advanced users as there are so many risks involved with water so close to electronics.  So a pre-built system would be preferable and the XDNA has a price that is difficult to match with any other manufacturer at £1,499.

KitGuru Says: A top notch system from YOYOTech that ticks all the boxes. Looks great in the dark and will provide a serious talking point when your mates come over for an AvP or StarCraft 2 session.

Water you got to say for yourself?  Let us know, below.

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