Fierce PC Prodigy GT ‘Hulk’ Overclocked Mini Gaming PC Review

1. Introduction2. The Fierce PC Prodigy GT Hulk3. 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 (Direct X 11)16. Far Cry 3 (Direct X 11)17. Tomb Raider (Direct X 11)18. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (Direct X 11)19. Thermal Dynamics20. Acoustics Performance21. Power Consumption22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

Today we are putting the Fierce PC Prodigy GT Hulk to the test. This ITX system is built inside a vivid green BitFenix Prodigy GT and comes equipped with an Nvidia Geforce GTX 770, 16GB Kingston HyperX memory and Intel Core i5 4670k clocked at 4.4GHz. This standard configuration costs £1,135.95 inc vat. and puts the system in direct competition with other system integrators. So, should we start investing in stretch pants and practice our best Hulk impressions?

Today also marks the first time we are reviewing a system from Fierce PC and based on the specifications we have high hopes for this little powerhouse.

Specifications:

• BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Case – Vivid Green
• Zalman ZM600-GT 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply
• Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Motherboard + USB 3.0 & 300Mbps Wireless
• Intel Core i5 4670K 3.4GHz Processor – Overclocked to 4.4GHz
• Zalman LQ310 Ultimate Liquid CPU Cooler
• Nvidia GTX 770 2GB Graphics Card
• Onboard 7.1 Surround Sound Audio
• 22x DVD Re-Writer
• Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA3 6Gbs Solid State Drive
• 1TB SATA3 6Gbs Hard Drive
• Kingston HyperX 16GB [2x8GB] 1600MHz Memory
• Standard 2 Year Warranty

Fierce PC sent the system in a large, brown box without much information and it arrived well-protected with layers of polystyrene foam and air bags protecting all sides.

When we reviewed the BitFenix Prodigy GT case last year it received our Must Have Award. If you missed the review or want a refresher you can catch up here.

The vivid green BitFenix Prodigy GT case has minimal black features on the front and a large black grill up top. The handles, front and top of the case appear to have received a very thin rubberised finish.

The side panel is constructed out of aluminium and its hue is slightly different. This side also has a large mesh to provide ventilation.

Moving to the other side of the case we can see there is no mesh. Instead, the Power button, Reset button, Microphone and Headphone jacks and two USB 3.0 ports have been placed near the front of the case.

The meshed grill on top can be removed by moving the slider's position, granting access to the internals from above.

Around the back we can see a PS/2 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 HDMI ports, a DVI port, 2 ethernet ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports and audio ports to connect a surround sound system. There is also an optical port present.

Fierce PC's choice of the Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI means there is also the option to connect an antenna. Handy for those gamers who have trouble routing cables through their homes.

Removing the side panel we can see the Gigabyte GTX 770 Windforce 3x, Zalman ZM600-GT power supply and 1TB secondary drive.

With the GPU out of the way we can see the motherboard is mounted horizontally, directly above the PSU. A single front in-take fan provides air flow for the HDD and PSU and Fierce PC have taken care ensuring there is nothing obstructing the Zalman cooler's airflow.

From a lower point of view we can see the meshed grill at the top, the optical drive and the plastic cover holding the SSD against the other side panel.

Removing the other side panel we can see that it holds the front and side panel connectors, as well as the SSD. A plastic cover holds it all firmly in place.

 

Cable management in mini-ITX cases will always be a troublesome endeavour but Fierce PC has done a good job routing the cables away from the components and to keep the path of air flow clear. Most cables have been routed along the bottom of the case thanks to the extra space under the motherboard tray. The remaining cables have all been fastened with clips to keep them in place and out of the way.

A final look at the internals before we close the case and run our tests. Despite the small dimensions of the case there is a surprising amount of space left to expand.

Our review sample of the Prodigy GT Hulk shipped with Windows 8 preinstalled. The operating system has proven very unpopular with our audience, based on poll results on our Facebook page and home page. Fierce 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 confirms the 4670k is running at 4.4GHz and the 16GB Kingston HyperX memory is running at 1600MHz.

CPU-Z validation for the system is available here.

   

The system appears to be nicely balanced with all components scoring an 8.1 on the Windows Experience Index and ships without any bloatware clogging up the system.

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
3DMark
PCMark 7
AllBenchmark
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:
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.

Solid performance in PCMark 7 with a total score of 7013.
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.

A score of 34604 is not the highest score we have seen in recent times, though it does indicate solid performance on older DX10 titles thanks to the strong GPU score.

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.

A final score of 10353 indicates we can expect solid performance throughout our tests. The Gigabyte GTX 770 performs admirably again.

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, we did compare the system's score against other Single Nvidia GPU systems on the Catzilla Leaderboards where it currently ranks 35th.

It is worth noting the top spots are occupied by Titan and GTX 780 equipped systems, further cementing the GTX 770's position as an impressive GPU.

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 system delivered smooth frame rates throughout both tests. Using the highest quality settings the frame rate dropped to 14.7 during a scene transition.

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.

Smooth performance throughout both tests. Like we noticed in Unigine Heaven, frame rates dropped during scene transitions.

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 4670k clocked at 4.4GHz could not beat the 4.2GHz sample in the Dhrystone test, though it did score better in the Whetstone test. Memory performance fell in line with what we would expect at these settings.

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.

A score of 7.21 is in line with what we expected based on the results of previous tests with the i5 4670k @ 4.2GHz. This score indicates the system will be able to handle complex 3D rendering tasks without a problem.

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

Solid performance in both the compressible and incompressible tests. Read performance remains fairly consistent throughout both tests, though enabling incompressible data (0x00) significantly improves write speeds.

The Kingston drive delivers solid results in ATTO, scoring 555MB/s in the sequential read test and 530MB/s in the sequential write test.

 

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.

Excellent performance, leaving over 90% of the 4670k's potential free for 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 4670k.

The system completed the task in 13 minutes and 59 seconds. Not the fastest time we have recorded, but impressive considering the straight four core CPU design.

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 frame rate with Fraps.

The GTX 770 had no trouble with Battlefield 3, averaging over 90 FPS.

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.

Smooth performance with an average of 64 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.

 

Turning all the settings up proved no challenge for the GTX 770 at this resolution, averaging 59 FPS.
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.

Despite Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon's intense lighting effects the GTX 770 averaged 39.6 FPS, an impressive result.

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.

The Zalman cooler keeps the i5 4670k in check with a maximum recorded temperature of 68 degrees.

A maximum recorded temperature of 69 degrees on the GPU, courtesy of Gigabyte's excellent Windforce cooler.

The motherboard temperature remained fairly constant throughout our tests with a maximum recorded temperature of 30 degrees.
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 browsing and performing general office tasks the system was generally inaudible. Once we started to load the system the Zalman cooler produced 41 dBa which can be too loud when you keep the system on the desk.
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.

The system uses 72 watts on average when idling, rising to 291 watts when fully loaded.
The Fierce PC Prodigy GT Hulk is the first system by Fierce PC that we have reviewed and it has left a very positive impression.

The combination of a mini-ITX case and high-end hardware can be difficult to balance due to increased temperatures in a smaller space but Fierce PC have clearly taken their time to balance the system's components and to optimize the airflow in the case.

The temperatures we measured during our tests would have been great in a standard ATX case, let alone a mini-ITX case.

Although the system's performance in our synthetic tests felt lacklustre, it more than made up for it in our gaming tests. The GTX 770 has proven to be an excellent GPU and is more than capable of taking on any current titles and we would expect it to run upcoming titles such as Battlefield 4 without much effort.

Fierce PC have wisely chosen to include a large solid state drive with top notch performance characteristics, ensuring the system is snappy at all times.

In terms of aesthetics not everyone is going to like the vivid green case. Luckily, Fierce PC also offer the Prodigy GT systems in Midnight Black, Cobalt Blue and Arctic White varieties.

For a lot of users the decision to buy a system comes down to the price. We priced the parts in the system individually and our grand total came to £1016.75 inc vat. without delivery costs. The £1,139.95 inc vat. asking price is therefore very reasonable in our opinion as it covers labor costs, stress testing and gives users re-assurance in terms of build quality. They also offer a 2 year warranty on the system for added peace of mind.

You can buy straight from their website at http://www.fiercepc.co.uk/

Pros:

• Well-balanced configuration.
• Variety of color schemes.
• Impressive cooling performance
• Competitively priced.
• Powerhouse performance in a portable form factor.

Cons:

• Zalman cooler can get very loud after prolonged periods of system load.

KitGuru says: impressive performance and a solid investment, especially for those who intend to visit LAN parties regularly or simply do not have enough space for a full tower case. We look forward to seeing what Fierce PC have up their sleeves in the future.

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