Dino PC Dark Reign Review

1. Introduction2. The Dino PC Dark Reign3. Overview & Testing Methodology4. System: PCMark 75. System: 3DMark Vantage6. System: 3DMark 117. System: AllBenchmark Catzilla8. System: Unigine Heaven Benchmark9. System: Unigine Valley Benchmark10. Processor/Memory: SiSoft Sandra11. Processor: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit12. SATA 6Gbps Testing13. Real World: BluRay Playback14. Real World: Media Encoding15. Battlefield 3 (DirectX 11)16. Far Cry 3 (DirectX 11)17. Tomb Raider (DirectX 11)18. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon19. Thermal Dynamics20. Acoustics Performance21. Power Consumption22. Conclusion23. View All Pages

Today we are taking a look at Dino PC's latest offering, the Dark Reign. Built inside a CM 690 III chassis, this system comes equipped with an Intel Core i5 4570k, 8GB Corsair Vengeance memory clocked at 1,600 MHz and a Gigabyte GTX 770. Its £999 price tag even includes a 128 GB Plextor M5S solid state drive and an additional 1 TB storage drive. The big question is, can the Dark Reign live up to its ominous name?

We have looked at a number of systems from Dino PC in the past. If you missed our reviews of the Asusinator and Predator Extreme you can catch up by clicking here and here.

Specifications:

• CPU: Intel Core i5 4570
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87-HD3
• GPU: Gigabyte GTX 770 OC 4GB
• Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit
• Memory: 8GB (2 x 4 GB) 1,600 MHz Corsair Vengeance
• Boot Drive: 128 GB Plextor M5S
• Storage: 1 TB storage drive.
• PSU: Corsair CX600 PSU
• Case: CM 690 III

Dino PC ship the Dark Reign system in a large brown box, protected by layers of styro foam and small bags of air.

Dino PC have chosen to use the CM 690 III for the Dark Reign. With a large front panel and top panel mesh the CM 690 III looks capable of delivering plenty of airflow throughout the case. There is also the option to install either two 120 mm fans, a 180 mm fan or a 200 mm fan in the side panel.

The case's overall black finish is accentuated by its highly reflective trims and top panel cover.

Moving in closer we can see the sliding cover for the top panel. The cover is slightly translucent and reveals a small space to store, for example, USB drives or other personal belongings.

After the system is turned on the cover can be slid back in place. During operation the Power button LED lights up white and can be seen through the cover.

Directly to the left of the Power and Reset buttons we can see two USB 2.0 ports, audio and mic jacks and two USB 3.0 ports.

Removing the front panel reveals the large 200 mm fan. Removing the front in-take fan opens up opportunities for the installation of either two 120 mm fans, 140 mm fans or a single 180 mm fan.

Moving to the back we start at the top. Here we can see the top cover is held in place with a single thumb screw to allow easy access.

Moving down we can see the Gigabyte Z87-HD3 motherboard offers four USB 3.0 ports, a HDMI port, DVI port, VGA port, ethernet port, a PS/2 port and 6 audio jacks.

Directly below that we can see the Gigabyte GTX 770's ports.

Removing the top allows easy access for the installation of a 240 mm top radiator. Alternatively, users can also install either two 120 mm fans, two 140 mm fans or a single 200 mm fan.

Before we move into the case we take a look at the large dust filter underneath the PSU. On the right-hand side we can see four screws holding the bottom right drive cage in place.

Moving to the inside of the case we can see Dino PC have managed to keep the build neat and tidy.

Starting from the bottom there is plenty of space between the Corsair CX600 PSU and 1 TB 7,200 RPM storage drive. Depending on stock availability this can vary between a Samsung, Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital Drive.

Moving up we can see the Gigabyte GTX 770. The card is sagging slightly though it sits firmly in place.

To the right of the Gigabyte GTX 770 we can see the Plextor M5S drive.

Directly above that we can see the 120 mm rear exhaust fan that comes pre-installed with the case.

In order to keep costs down Dino PC have chosen to use Intel's stock cooler for the Core i5-4570. We will find out how the cooler holds up later in the review.

Rounding things out are the two 4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance memory.

Dino PC have taken care to ensure nothing obstructs the airflow in the case, even tying up the rear exhaust fan's cable to keep it out of the way.

A better view of the roof from inside the case shows there is plenty of space in the top and Dino PC have chosen to keep the entire space clear.

The Corsair CX600's cables have been tied together to reduce cable clutter in the bottom of the case. In addition, the front panel connectors have been routed nicely behind the PSU and through one of the cable routing holes directly below the GTX 770.

Before we close the case back up and run our tests we take a look behind the scenes.  The majority of cables have been routed directly behind the cable routing holes and the hard drive cages have been kept clear of any unwanted cable clutter.

Additional connectors are available and have been tied up separately to allow for upgrades without having to disassemble the build.

Our review sample of the Dino PC Dark Reign shipped with Windows 8 pre-installed. The operating system has proven very unpopular with our audience, based on poll results on our Facebook page and home page. Dino PC do offer the option to ship the system with Windows 7 installed or without an operating system.

 

A breakdown of the system in CPU-Z and GPU-Z shows the i5-4570 running at 3.5 GHz and the 8GB Corsair Vengeance  memory is running at 1,600MHz.

We have seen a number of systems using the GTX 770 in recent times and it has proven to be a fantastic card.

CPU-Z validation for the system is available here.

 

The Windows Performance Index score is an early indication that we are dealing with a well balanced system and there is no bloatware whatsoever.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC
Processor: Intel Core i5 4670k @4.2ghz.
Motherboard: ASUS Z87-K
Coolers: Corsair H60 2013 Liquid cooler
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 1,866mhz
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX770
Power Supply: 600w Corsair CX
Optical Drive: 10x Bluray RW SATA
Chassis: Fractal Design ARC Midi R2
Boot Drive: Plextor 128GB M5S SSD
Secondary Drive: 2TB SATA

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
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
PCMark 7
AllBenchmark
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
Atto Disk Benchmark
SiSoft Sandra

Games:
Battlefield 3 (Direct X 11)
Far Cry 3 (Direct X 11)
Tomb Raider (Direct X 11)
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (Direct X 11)

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
30-130 dbA Digital Sound Level Meter
Plug-in Power & Energy Monitor
Canon 1100d with Canon 18-55mm lens.

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.

A detailed breakdown is available here.

The Dark Reign scores well in PCMark 7 with a total of 6422 points.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement), Windows 7 and Windows 8. 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.

A detailed breakdown is available here.

The strong GPU score indicates where the system's strengths lie. Despite a lacklustre CPU score the overall system still scores a respectable 24599 points in 3DMark Vantage.

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 detailed breakdown is available here.

The Graphics score in 3DMark 11 seemed odd at first until it became clear the benchmark kept using the Intel HD Graphics 4600 chipset instead of the Gigabyte GTX 770. Even after we manually assigned the application to the GTX 770 through the Nvidia Control Panel the issue remained.

However, we are including the results here as the system shows a strong Physics score, coming in at 6986 points. In recent times we have seen systems carrying Intel Core i5-4670k's scores around 7500 points, indicating the i5-4570 can hold its own.

Catzilla is an OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 9/11 benchmark for Windows that incorporates a parallel graphics engine that can take advantage of multi-core CPUs.

The benchmarks consist of a literal giant cat fight scene, which stresses both the CPU and GPU, and a set of smaller benchmarks to test CPU rigid body physics, GPU smoke simulation, fur rendering, and liquid simulations.

More information can be found here.

We do not have a database with results for this specific application yet and the results of this benchmark will not have a significant impact on the final score. However, in the top right corner of the results screen we can see the system holds up very well.

As we have come to expect, the Gigabyte GTX 770 is the star of the show.

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 used the above settings to test different quality settings at a consistent resolution.

The frame rate drops happened during scene transitions. Though, overall the system delivered smooth performance throughout each run.

Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark.

The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal.

This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

We used the above settings to test different quality settings at a consistent resolution.

Again, we see similar frame rate drops in Unigine Valley during scene transitions. Overall, the system delivered smooth performance again throughout both runs.

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 i5-4570 manages to keep up with the aging i5 2500k.

Memory performance fell in line with our expectations.

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 i5-4570 proves capable of handling reasonable rendering workloads.

On this page we test the performance of the Plextor M5S Solid State Drive.

Excellent read performance across the board with consistent results in both tests. The Plextor M5S further cements its position as a worthwhile investment.

The Plextor M5S continues to deliver excellent results, maxing out at 521 MB/s read performance and 217 MB/s write performance.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 13 Ultra 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 BluRay Disc of The Dark Knight.

Watching high definition content leaves over 95% of the CPU's resources free for the operating system and other tasks.

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 1.7GB 1080p MP4 file (2h:32mins) to Samsung WMV format for playback on a phablet. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We enabled hardware acceleration of the Intel i5-4570.

The system completed the task in 6 minutes and 31 seconds, an excellent result.

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 settings above and recorded the average framerate with Fraps.

The system powered through Battlefield 3 without any issues, delivering smooth frame rates.

Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed mainly by Ubisoft Montreal in conjunction with Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Red Storm, Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 andPlayStation 3. The game was released on November 29, 2012 in Australia, November 30 in Europe, and December 4 in North America. A stand-alone expansion titled Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was released on April 30, 2013.

The above settings were used for our test and average frame rates were obtained with Fraps.

Despite a single drop in frame rates the system still managed to average over 55 FPS.

After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype.

Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.

We used the above settings and ran the in-game benchmark.

Tomb Raider paints a similar picture as Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3 as the system powers through it.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game, a satire of 1980s action films, takes place on aretro-futuristic open world island crawling with evil, with players assuming the action role of eye-patched cyborg protagonist Sergeant Rex Power Colt. The game was released on April 30, 2013, for PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network and on May 1, 2013, for Microsoft Windows and for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade.

The above settings were used for our tests and we obtained average frame rates using Fraps.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon's intense lighting effects. paired with a multitude of explosions, was the only challenger for the GTX 770. The system still delivered impressive performance.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 22c.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Battlefield 3 for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature.

All fan settings were left on automatic.

Intel has worked hard to improve their stock coolers and it shows in the idle and load temperatures of the CPU.

We have looked at a number of Gigabyte cards using the Windforce cooler and it continues to deliver fantastic results.

Ambient temperatures in the case are kept down without much effort, courtesy of the 200 mm front in-take fan.

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. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 30dBa.

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

Whilst idling the system's noise levels fell below the lower limits of our decibel meter. Once we loaded the system the noise levels increased, though we would not classify the system as loud. Based on our thermal results, coupled with these noise levels, it is clear the CM 690 III offers plenty of airflow.

The CPU fan is clearly the loudest component in the system, though under normal use it never spins up to 100%.

We measure power consumption at the socket via a calibrated meter – system wide. The monitor is not included in the draw.

Power results were measured at idle and when loading the system in the final ‘combined’ test in 3DMark 11.

Whilst idling the system consumes a lowly 40 Watts. Once we fully stress the components this rises to 284 Watts.

Overall, our experience with the Dino PC Dark Reign was an enjoyable one. The Cooler Master 690 III proved to be an excellent match for the component selection and it is also very attractively designed. On top of that, there are opportunities to further improve the system's cooling performance with plenty of space for additional chassis fans.

Although the Core i5-4570 is not the highest performing processor in Intel's line-up it held its own in our synthetic tests. Coupled with the excellent Plextor M5S solid state drive and Corsair Vengeance memory the system felt snappy and responsive at all times.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Nvidia's GTX 770 continues to live up to its reputation as a fantastic discrete graphics solution, perfectly suited for gaming at 1080p with the highest image quality settings. It even holds up at higher resolutions if you are willing to drop image quality a little in some of the latest Direct X 11 titles.

What caught us by surprise is how much Intel has improved their stock coolers. It is not too long ago that using a stock cooler almost guaranteed your processor would slowly get roasted.

The Core i5 4570 in this build peaked at around 66c under load, which is perfectly acceptable long term. That said, we can't help but feel disappointed that Dino didn't upgrade the reference cooler with something relatively inexpensive such as an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13, which would only have added £20 to the overall cost of build.

When we spoke to Dino PC they made it clear their goal for the Dark Reign was to build a gaming system that can handle any current and upcoming titles without breaking the bank. We feel they have done just that.

Of course, there will be those who prefer a CPU with an unlocked multiplier and an aftermarket cooler. Luckily, Dino PC offer plenty of options to customise this system on their website. Playing around with the configuration tool we removed the operating system and selected the Core i5 4670k with the Corsair H100i, bringing our total to £1053,29 inc vat.

At £999 inc. vat the Dark Reign is a solid system build. Unlike high street retailers who sell systems in this price range there is the reassurance of stress testing before the system is shipped and there is a minimal amount of software installed out of the box. This means you don't need to spend an hour deinstalling bloatware then cleaning out the registry before using it.

Pros:

• Free from bloatware.
• Cooler Master 690 III allows for easy upgrades and expansions.
• Competitive pricing.
• Wide range of customisation options to suit a variety of budgets.
• Strong gaming performance thanks to GTX770.

Cons:

• Sliding cover on the Cooler Master 690 III top panel collects fingerprints very fast.
• Reference cooler is always disappointing to see.

KitGuru says: The Dark Reign offers excellent value for money in the sub-£1000 range and stands as proof that pre-built gaming systems do not have to cost thousands of pounds.

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