MESH Slayer 3770K OC System review (w/ GTX Titan)

1. Introduction2. MESH Slayer 3770K OC System3. MESH Slayer 3770K OC System (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Synthetic: PCMark 76. Synthetic: 3DMark 117. Synthetic: 3DMark8. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark9. Synthetic: Unigine Valley10. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra11. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit12. Synthetic: HDD & SSD Testing13. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.014. Real World: 3D Rendering15. Real World: BluRay Playback16. Real World: Flash HD Playback17. Real World: HandBrake 9.518. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (DX11)19. Gaming: Dirt Showdown (DX11)20. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs (DX11)21. Gaming: Max Payne 3 (DX11)22. Technical: Thermal Dynamics23. Technical: Acoustics Performance24. Technical: Power Consumption25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the new high end system from MESH – the Slayer 3770k OC. This system includes the highly overclockable i7 3770k and the ultra high end flagship GPU from Nvidia, the GTX Titan. On paper this looks to be a gaming beast and today we will put the system through its paces, including a look at MESH build quality.

Building a system around the Core i7 3770k is a no brainer, it is one of the most best choices you could make when building your own high end enthusiast rig. MESH are including the Corsair H100 liquid cooler in the Slayer 3770k OC and as the ‘OC' tag would suggest, applying a pre-configured overclock – in this case to 4.6ghz.

MESH Slayer 3770k OC Specifications:

• Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl Mid Tower Ultra Low Noise Performance Case
• 1200W High Efficiency Modular Power Supply
• MSI Z77A-GD55 Intel® Z77 ATX Motherboard – CrossFireX™/SLI™ Support
• Intel® Core™ i7-3770K Quad Core Unlocked Processor (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache)
• Corsair H100 Extreme Performance CPU Liquid Cooler
• Overclock Configuration (available when Liquid CPU Cooler is selected)
• 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory (2x8GB) Kit
• 6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX Titan – 2688 Cores,2 DVI,HDMI,DP – 3D Vision Ready 1
• 240GB SSD
• 4TB (2x 2TB) SATA III – 6Gb/s 7200rpm Hard Drives
• Pioneer Blu-Ray Writer (read & write Blu-ray, DVD and CD)
• Memory Card Reader – (Internal 80 in 1) 1
• Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-channel Audio
• High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
• Microsoft Windows® 8 – 64 bit inc. DVD & Licence
• FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft Office 2013
• BullGuard Internet Security ver. 13 – 90 Day Trial (pre-installed OS required)
• Free 3 Years Gold Warranty – (2 Years Parts, 3 Years Labour, 3 Months Free Collect & Return)

The Slayer 3770K OC system arrives inside a huge box, comprising four separate boxes inside as shown above. MESH include a Microsoft Wireless 3000 keyboard and mouse.

The two smaller boxes include all the left over components from the system build, including power supply cables, operating system disc, driver discs and manuals.

MESH are using one of our favourite cases, the Fractal Design Define R4 which we reviewed way back on September 16th last year. If you want an indepth look at this case, then follow the link.

The front panel resides at the top of the case, which is both easy to reach and fully featured. MESH have installed the Corsair H100 liquid cooler at the top of the case, slightly off center. At the front they have installed a Pioneer Blu-Ray Writer and an AKASA multi card reader.

From the rear we can see the large exhaust fan, MSI Z77A-GD55 I/O panel and bottom mounted power supply.

MESH stick a small sheet of paper to the wrapping alerting the user to disconnect the side panel and remove the padding inside the case. This ensures nothing can move during transit.

Like many cases designed in recent years, the Fractal Design Define R4 is painted black inside, with the drive bays finished in a contrasting white colour.

Our system shipped with a 1200W Cougar CMX power supply.

MESH include two 2TB SATA 6Gbps hard drives, alongside a 240GB Samsung Solid State Drive intelligently configured to handle boot/OS duties.

The Corsair H100 is mounted into the top of the case, with just enough room to install the motherboard underneath. MESH have opted for high grade Corsair 1866mhz memory (2x8GB).

Underneath is the Nvidia GTX Titan, which has been getting an extraordinary amount of press coverage in recent weeks.

It is worth pointing out again that the Fractal Design Define R4 case has sound proofing on the front and side panels, as shown above. There is a single Cooler Master fan in place as exhaust on the right side panel, close to the graphics card.

Cable routing is very good with all of the cables tidied out of the way behind the motherboard chassis. We have seen slightly better jobs in recent months, however I would class this job as well above average.

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.

The MESH Slayer 3770K OC system is shipped with Windows 8 pre-installed. MESH include all the discs in one of the boxes, if you ever need to reinstall again at a later date.

The bios is configured nicely, with only a minor core voltage increase to ensure complete stability from the Core i7 3770k processor.

The system scores 8.1, dragged down from 8.3 by the drive performance. Still, these are excellent results. We don't rate the Windows Experience system too highly, however it is a useful little tool to get a quick overview of potential system performance.

The default software install is quite clean, although we would de-install BullGuard and use our own preference of protection software. Not a huge issue, but it slightly taints the overall install as we know enthusiast users are very selective with third party software such as this.

Above an overview of the system in CPUz and GPUz. We can see the Core i7 3770k is overclocked to 4.6ghz and the memory is correctly configured to run at 1866mhz with 9-10-9-27 timings. The MSI Z77A-GD55 is running with V1.8 bios.

It would have been difficult to avoid the GTX Titan in recent weeks, but we can see the breakdown of the architecture in GPUz. We like the fact it has 6GB of memory onboard, that should help at ultra high resolutions, and across multiple screens.

An online validation of the system is available over here.

We are using the 24 inch Dell U2411 for this review today.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Games:
Max Payne 3 (DX 11)
Total War: Shogun 2 (DX11)
Dirt Showdown (DX 11)
Sleeping Dogs (DX 11)

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

Game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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 exceptionally well in PCMark 7, 6345 points to be exact. The highly overclocked components and fast SSD certainly help performance.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

Excellent performance in this benchmark, scoring 13,814 points.

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

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

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

The powerful Nvidia GTX Titan scores incredibly well in this intensive benchmark. The final score is just shy of 10,000 points, at 9777.

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

The GTX Titan is a beast of a GPU, averaging 141.6 frames per second at these settings.

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.

The system scores extremely well in this test, averaging 123.3 frames per second.

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

Excellent performance results, due to the substantial overclock.

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 overclocked Core i7 3770k scores 9.21 points, meaning this system is ideally for heavy duty rendering duties at home.

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

The latest Samsung Solid State drives are equally good with both incompressible and compressible data.

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.

Excellent results, scoring around 560 MB/s read and 262MB/s in the write test.

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

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

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

Read our initial analysis over here.

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

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

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

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

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

Major new features:

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

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

Excellent results from the overclocked Core i7 3770k, scoring a final time of 6 minutes and 16 seconds, just behind the 990X Extreme Edition at reference clock speeds.

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

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

No problems with bluray 1080p playback, with hardly any CPU time taken at all.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

Again, no problems playing back flash media online.

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

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

Thanks to the overclock, the system finishes the task in just over 5 minutes, which is an excellent result.

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

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

Real in game performance varies substantially across the environments and levels, but we include these results so you can compare directly with your own system. If the game delivers good frame rates with the 1080p benchmark, you can sure it will run well with high image quality settings in game too.

Excellent performance, well over 100 frames per second.

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

The GTX Titan should be powerful enough to handle this game with all the settings cranked to the absolute limit. We tested with 16QCSAA and the ULTRA preset. Enough to bring lesser videos cards to their knees.

Even with these crazy image quality settings, the system still managed to average almost 100 frames per second.

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

We cranked the image quality settings as high as we could, enabling the high resolution textures.

Not often we can get such a smooth gaming experience at these settings, but the engine held well above 40 frames per second at all times.

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

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

We configured very high image settings as shown above. These settings demanded 2030MB of GTX Titan memory.

With these incredibly high image quality settings, the game was still playable, averaging 55 frames per second and holding close to 40 frames per second during the most intensive section of the environment.

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 Corsair H100 handles the overclock without a problem. The CPU peaks at 73c under continued, synthetic load.

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

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

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The system is audible, but never intrusive. At full load, the fans spin up and a total of 36.9dBa was measured. With an overclocked system, it is important to ensure there is enough air flow, and MESH have achieved quite a good balance, including an additional Cooler Master fan in the side panel.

If you wanted to reduce noise a little, you could easily swap out the case fans for BeQuiet! models.

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

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

The system is actually relatively efficient, considering the overclocked state. When under gaming load it consumes around 350 watts of power.

There is no doubt that the MESH Slayer 3770K OC is a powerhouse computer designed to cope with the latest Direct X 11 games at very high resolutions and image quality settings.

While the name of the Slayer 3700K OC system pays homage to the excellent Core i7 3770k processor, the GTX Titan really should have factored into the naming convention. I feel the ‘MESH Titan 3770k OC' would have worked better for them, especially to attract the attention of the hard core gamers out there with a couple of grand to spend on a new system.

First impressions of the Slayer 3770k OC are very positive. The system is well packaged, and all the extra cables, manuals and driver discs are bundled into separate boxes for future use. As we mentioned earlier in the review, MESH are using the excellent Fractal Design Define R4 chassis which won our highest award last year when it was released.

This case includes sound dampening material to try and help mask fan noise and it works relatively well. Due to the all the fans and the high level of overclock, there is always a level of fan noise apparent, but it is unlikely to concern a performance oriented enthusiast user seeking high levels of gaming performance. Swapping out some of the fans for premium BeQuiet! models would certainly reduce noise levels a little further.

Performance doesn't disappoint. The Core i7 3770k @ 4.6ghz can easily power through a myriad of duties, including 3D rendering and video encoding. As a gaming system it excels, handling many of the current titles with extremely high anti aliasing settings. Dirt Showdown was perfectly playable on the ‘Ultra' setting with 16QCSAA for example.

Build quality and cable routing are first class and we didn't notice any concerns when analysing the selection of components. Personally I would have opted for a quality Corsair, Seasonic or BeQuiet! power supply, rather than Cougar but that would be really the only thing I would change.

We haven't reviewed the 1200W Cougar CMX power supply in a dedicated review, but the company are normally a couple of levels down from the market leaders. Regardless, it is completely overkill for this system, as we measured a load demand under 400 watts, so there is plenty of future proofing if you wanted to add in another GTX Titan at a later date.

This is one of the most powerful gaming systems we have reviewed this year and we wanted to check stability under intensive stress. We placed it under a synthetic stress loop at midnight and it hadn't crashed or hardlocked when we checked again at 10am the following day. The MSI Z77A-GD55 really is a rock solid motherboard.

MESH are pricing The Slayer 3770k system at £1999.99 inc vat … the component selection is almost faultless and it is exceptionally well put together. We will update this page with the direct store link when MESH update their site.

EDIT: After our feedback MESH renamed the Slayer to “Slayer Titan 3770K OC”. A good move!

You can buy the system now – over here

Pros:

• Overclocked 3770k is formidable.
• GTX Titan handles anything.
• H100 cooler is great.
• high level of overclock.
• Doesn't run hot.
• not too loud.

Cons:

• Cougar wouldn't be our first choice for a power supply.
• £1,999 inc vat.
• A couple of higher grade BeQuiet! fans wouldn't go amiss.

Kitguru says: A formidable all round system able to tackle anything you throw at it. Exhibits no weaknesses.

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