DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC (w/ GTX770)

1. Introduction2. DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC3. DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC (Super High Res Gallery)4. Overview & Testing Methodology5. System: PCMark 76. System: PCMark 87. System: 3DMark Vantage8. System: 3DMark 119. System: 3DMark10. System: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. System: Unigine Valley12. Processor/Memory: SiSoft Sandra13. Processor: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit14. USB 3.0 Bandwidth Testing15. SATA 6Gbps Testing16. Real World: BluRay Playback17. Real World: 3D Rendering18. Gaming: Tomb Raider (2560x1600)19. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs (1920x1080)20. Gaming: GRID 2 (2560x1600)21. Thermal Dynamics22. Acoustics Performance23. Power Consumption24. Closing Thoughts25. View All Pages

Today we look at the latest gaming PC from UK system builder DINOPC. Their Asusinator 4670K OC is based around the Asus Z87-K motherboard and features the Intel Core i5 4670K processor, overclocked to 4.2ghz.

Rounding out the specifications is a GTX770 graphics card, ideal for gaming at high settings. How is the build quality and can this system compete with the best of them today?

DinoPC have selected quality components for this system build, using the Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 chassis alongside a Corsair all in one cooler, memory and power supply.

The asking price is £1,199.00 inc vat so there is no doubt it is a significant investment.

Specifications:

Standard Specification:
CPU:	NEW! Intel Core i5 4670K
CPU Overclocking:	4.2Ghz – Moderate Overclock
CPU Cooler:	NEW! Corsair H60 2013 Water Cooler
Operating System:	Windows 8 (64-bit)
Motherboard:	NEW! Asus Z87-K
RAM:	NEW! 16GB Corsair 1866mhz Vengeance (2x8GB)
Hard Drive:	NEW! Plextor 128GB M5S SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Additional Storage:	2TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive:	10x Blu-Ray RW S-ATA
Graphics card:	NEW! NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB
Sound card:	Asus Xonar DGX PCI-E 5.1
Case:	NEW! Fractal Design ARC Midi R2
PSU:	600W Corsair CX
Warranty:	3 Year SureCare Warranty

The DINOPC Asusinator 4670K OC ships inside a large box. Inside the larger container is the Fractal Design box, holding the system inside. Our review sample had no accessories, left over cables or motherboard box with manuals.

The Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 chassis is attractive, moderately compact and with a side window panel.

DinoPC have included a bluray player in the system, installed in the top drive bay. Along the top at the front of the case is a row of connectors. There is a power button here, alongside a microphone and headphone port, and two USB 3.0 headers. A fan control switch is closeby, for low/medium and high settings.


The power supply is installed at the bottom of the case. There is a sound card included in the build, just above the GTX770 graphics card. We can see the Corsair cooling fan here, attached to the H60 radiator. The Asus  Z87-K motherboard has several USB 3.0 ports, alongside 4 USB 2.0 ports and some video out connectors. DinoPC have covered these up so customers will connect their monitor to the discrete graphics card underneath.


The Fractal Design chassis may be small but there is plenty of room inside for cable routing. This isn't the cleanest routing job we have seen however, as the cables could have been hidden out of view better.

The Plextor Solid State Drive is installed in the drive bay rack, above the 3.5 inch mechanical drive.

DinoPC are using the Corsair H60 2013 all in one liquid cooler. We reviewed this a while ago and it scored well in our tests. If you want to read the full review, head over here.

Another system using the entry level Corsair CX600 power supply. This is a decent little unit, but we would expect to see a slightly higher grade unit from Corsair in a system such as this. We did review the modular version of this power supply in April. You can read the full review over here.

The DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC may be named after ASUS, but the company are using a PALIT GTX770 graphics card in this system, which seems a slight oversight to us. After all ASUS produce a series of excellent graphics cards with custom Direct CU cooling.

The ASUS Xonar sound card is installed in the slot above the graphics card, as seen in the picture above.

We removed the other side panel to take a closer look at cable routing.


The cables are routed mainly into a central section of the case. Not the tidiest job we have seen, but the side panel reseals easily enough without ‘bulging'.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.






The DinoPC Asusinator 4670K OC ships 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.


A breakdown of the system in CPUz and GPUz. The Core i5 3670K is overclocked to 4.2ghz and the 16GB of Corsair DDR3 memory is running at 1866hz with 10-11-10-30 2T timings. The Palit GTX770 graphics card runs at 1,046mhz and the GDDR5 memory 1,763mhz (7GBps effective) – the memory is connected via a 256 bit interface. The GTX770 is a powerful card, featuring 1,536 CUDA cores, 32 ROPs and 128 TMU's.

A clean software installation, which is always good to see. No crapware or bloatware taking up valuable space and resources. I installed Start8 myself as I miss the traditional Windows 7 style start menu.

The system scores 8.1 points in the Windows 8 Experience index. This is not the most thorough test, but it gives a good basic starting point.

We are using a 30 Inch Apple HD Display for this review today with a native resolution of 2560×1600.

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:
Tomb Raider (DX11)
Sleeping Dogs (DX11)
GRID 2 (DX11)
Total War: Shogun 2 (DX11)

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.

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 scores 6,513 points in the PCMark 7 benchmark.

PCMark 8 is the latest version in the popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes battery life measurement tools and new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs.



The system scores 5,382 points in PCMark 8, highlighting the well balanced build.

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) and Windows 7. 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.


The results show excellent potential Direct X 10 performance, scoring 43,325 points.

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 system scores 9,882 points, highlighting the power of the GTX770 graphics card.

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.Futuremark say “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.”


The Fire Strike test in the latest 3DMark is very demanding, but the system scores 6,712 points giving an indication of solid all round performance.

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 test with the settings above – at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.


An intensive Direct X 11 benchmark, but the GTX770 is more than up to the task.

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 test at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.


Good results, again due to the GTX770.

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 4670k @ 4.2ghz seems a reasonable performer, closely matched with the AMD FX8150 @ 4.8ghz  in this test.

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.


Interesting to see the performance of the Core i5 4670k @ 4.2ghz is almost identically matched to the last generation 3570k @ 4.2ghz. A score of 7.11 is reasonably good. That said, it would make sense to buy a 4 core processor with hyperthreading to get better performance when rendering, but as an inexpensive option the 4670k looks to be a decent choice.

We test the USB 3.0 performance on the PC Specialist Vanquish Enforcer system with one of our fastest portable flash drives – the Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB. We reviewed this back in February, check it out over here.

No concerns with USB 3.0 performance via the Asus Z87-K motherboard. Our drive scored over 300 MB/s in the sequential read test and 180.5 MB/s in the sequential write test. As good as we have seen to date with this particular drive. Due to the nature of this kind of flash, and via the USB 3.0 interface, 4k and 4k QD32 performance is substantially worse than from a native SSD drive across a SATA connector.

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 shows slightly different results, peaking around 270 MB/s in the read test and around 65MB/s in the write test.
This page tests the performance of the 128GB Plextor M5S Solid State Drive.

The Plextor Solid State Drive delivers very impressive read performance, peaking over 500 MB/s in the sequential test. The write performance is slightly less impressive, scoring around 215 MB/s. We tested with both incompressible and compressible modes above, but the results didn't change dramatically. It is worth mentioning that 4K QD32 performance is excellent in both modes.

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.

ATTO performance results mirror the CrystalDiskMark findings, peaking around 530 MB/s in the read test and around 215-220 MB/s in the write test.

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

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 Hobbit: An UnExpected Journey.

Excellent performance with 1080 bluray playback, demanding around 9-10 percent CPU time, leaving plenty of cycles for multitasking duties.

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.

Performance in our rendering test is acceptable, although a little disappointing considering the last generation 3570k @ 4.3ghz is slightly ahead.
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 4 million copies worldwide so far.

We used the ‘Ultimate’ Preset at 2560×1600, as shown in the images above.

System performance is good, holding a smooth frame rate throughout. There is no doubt that Tomb Raider runs a little better on recent AMD hardware, but the results from the GTX770 are still good.

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 tested this title at 1920×1080 with the highest image quality settings.The GTX770 struggled with this particular engine at 2560×1600 with the same image quality settings.

Performance is acceptable with borderline results at these ultra high settings. The frame rate is generally smooth, but there are some environmental sections in the game when the frame rate drops close to the borderline at 25 frames per second.

Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid.  It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.

We tested at 2560×1600 with 8x AA and HIGH settings, shown above.

Perfectly smooth frame rates with this engine, even at 2560×1600 with very high image quality settings.

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 case pushes a decent amount of air, which helps ensure the motherboard receives a steady stream of cool air. The Core i5 4670k is a hot running processor, much like the 4770k we have reviewed multiple times in the last week. With only 1.17 volts going through the 4670k we would have expected lower load temperatures. This is more a problem with Haswell, rather than anything DinoPC have done.

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

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 28dBa.

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

We tested with the fans at the default middle position.

The system is relatively quiet, thanks to the excellent Fractal Design Arc Midi 2. Under load, the noise level does increase, and it is clearly noticeable although never that intrusive. The Corsair H60 fan has to work hard as the 4670k is producing quite a lot of heat under load. The last generation 3570k certainly operated at a much lower load threshold.

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 demands between 105 and 110 watts when idling in the desktop and this rises to around 285 watts when playing games. This is ideal for the 600W power supply because under full load the CX600 will be operating at peak efficiency.
The DinoPC Asusinator 4670k OC is a capable system that has been built to handle the latest Direct X 11 games. We feel this is a solid buy for a variety of tasks although it would be remiss of us not to mention a few points which lower the overall score a little.

On a positive note, we do like that DinoPC have selected a check list of award winning components. The Fractal Design ARC Midi R2 is a fantastic case which looks great and the integrated fan controller will ensure that noise is never an issue for those with sensitive ears. Fractal Design have always placed a focus on reducing noise levels and it reaps dividends with this particular design. I really did fall in love with this case over the last week of testing.

The Corsair H60 2013 Edition is another product that we really liked when we reviewed it back in December last year. For the modest asking price (around £60) it delivers good cooling performance and leaves plenty of space free around the CPU socket. Regular readers will already be aware that our Core i7 4770k sample is a hot running processor and before I started this review I had expected the i5 4670k to run cooler, especially as it doesn't support hyperthreading.

In reality, the 4670k seems to be another hot running processor and when overclocked with modest voltage (1.17v), the Corsair H60 cooler has to work pretty hard. I wasn't expecting this, especially as the last generation 3570k could be easily pushed to 4.7ghz with a similar cooler. Haswell has been a little disappointing for me, particularly as I am now getting hands on time with more than just one sample. If you are using a discrete graphics card then not many people will care about integrated graphics improvements anyway.

I spoke with several other PC builders before going live with this review and they all confirmed that systems with a 4670k will generally be limited to around 4.2ghz. In the past the same companies were happy selling systems with a 3570k @ 4.6ghz, so we can't help but feel like this is a step backwards, rather than progress.

On a happier note DinoPC are also using 16GB of Corsair 1,866mhz Vengeance memory which performed flawlessly for us during the last week. This is quality memory and with 16GB installed, there is plenty of future proofing well into 2014. We have had great experiences with Vengeance memory over the years, so I couldn't think of a better product to include in a high performance system build.

The Corsair CX600 is a capable little power supply … we did look at the modular version and for the price, it is a bargain. Personally, in an overclocked system costing £1,200 I would use a model slightly higher up the Corsair food chain, such as the TX650 which is only £20 extra. I certainly wouldn't say the CX600 was a problem part of the system build, but I would have spent a little more of the overall budget on a higher grade power supply.

The Plextor M5S 128GB is a good solid state drive, although write performance is limited to around 220 MB/s with both compressible and incompressible data. In real world terms, the system is responsive and the large 2TB mechanical drive is well suited for storage and back up duties.

The Dino PC build is decent if unremarkable and many of our more experienced readers will have noticed that the cable routing was a little untidy in places. Again I wouldn't consider this a problem, but some of the cables could have been hidden out of sight better, important with a windowed panel. There is quite a thick grouping of cables on the other side of the case, which luckily aren't really causing a problem for the ARC Midi R2, although in a different case they might. A modular power supply would certainly have helped.

The name of the DinoPC rig has also caused confusion. If you are naming the system ‘Asusinator' – after the company supplying the motherboard, why not do it right and use ASUS graphics cards as well? They are some of the best on the market and it would compliment the Z87 motherboard. My colleagues felt naming the system the ‘Corsairinator' would make more sense as most of the components inside are Corsair branded.

Overall, this is a decent system build which is certainly worth considering, however with all the competition on the market at the £1,200 price zone we can't help but feel that DinoPC have a tough challenge ahead.

Pros:

• good selection of quality components.
• GTX770 is a monster GPU.
• 16GB of Corsair Vengeance Memory.

Cons:

• non modular budget power supply utilised.
• 4670k is hot running.
• cable routing could be better.
• The ‘Asusinator' could use more ASUS components in the build, such as the graphics card.

Kitguru says: A capable system and worth checking out.

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