PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11 System Review

1. Introduction2. PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11 System (1)3. PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11 System (2)4. Testing Methodology & Configuration5. Synthetic: PCMark 76. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage7. Synthetic: 3DMark 118. Synthetic: 3DMark9. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark10. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra11. Synthetic: CineBench R11.5 64bit12. 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: Alien V Predator (DX11)19. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (DX10)20. Gaming: Far Cry 3 (DX11)21. Gaming: Dirt ShowDown (DX11)22. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs (DX11)23. Gaming: Max Payne 3 (DX11)24. Technical: Thermal Dynamics25. Technical: Acoustics Performance26. Technical: Power Consumption27. Closing Thoughts28. View All Pages

Not everyone has the time or inclination to build a new system themselves and luckily we have some great system builders in the UK. PCSpecialist have proven their worth in previous reviews on Kitguru and today we are looking at their latest Vanquish Z11 system which features an overclocked Core i5 3570K, fast solid state drive and GTX660ti graphics card.

Buyers are spoilt for choice in the United Kingdom right now, we recently reviewed the Wired2Fire Diablo Predator System, and while there were a few minor problems, the system was certainly worthy of a recommendation.

The Vanquish Z11 has a similar array of hardware inside, although PCSpecialist have removed extras from the price – such as monitor, keyboard and mouse and instead opted for the Corsair H40 liquid cooler, the Zalman Z11 case, a faster GTX660ti graphics card and KingstonV300 SSD with matching Kingston 10th Anniversary memory.

On paper it looks very tasty indeed, but how does it hold up under Kitguru testing?

System Specifications:

Name: PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 4.4GHz
Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V LX
RAM: 8GB Kingston Hyper-X 10^th Anniversary
SSD: 120GB Kingston V300
HDD: 1TB SATA III 6Gb/s
GPU: 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660Ti
ODD: 24x DVD-RW
PSU: Corsair TX650V2
Cooler: Corsair H40 + Arctic MX4 Paste
Case: Zalman Z11

Price: £879.00 inc VAT & Delivery

The Vanquish Z11 ships inside a large brown box which offers good protection during shipping.

Inside the main box is a smaller, thin box which contains all the extras such as cables which haven't been used. PCSpecialist include the user manuals and boxes for all the components as well as a quick start guide and driver discs.

Underneath the smaller box is the main system itself protected inside foam pieces. PCSpecialist attach a warning sticker to the outside of the system as they pack the inside of the case with a sculpted foam – this needs removed before turning on. More on this later.

We have never reviewed the Zalman Z11 before, however for a budget oriented case it is actually very well built and looks quite impressive. The dramatically shaped panels catch the eye immediately.

Along the bottom of the front of the case is an intake fan section. The top of the case is angled backwards with the I/O connectors at the front section of the top panel. The main power button resides at the very front. PCSpecialist have installed a DVD writer at the top.

The I/O panel includes two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports for high speed devices, such as external hard drives. There is also a reset button and a headphone and microphone jack on the opposite side. The rear section of the Z11 is designed to represent scales and helps improve airflow outwards through the top of the chassis.

One side of the case has a windowed panel visible meaning you can show off the internal build nicely.

The chunky side panels have air intake vents on both sides. There are fans built into these little sections which we can see once we open the case.

The rear of the case has positions for watercooling, underneath the large exhaust fan. The dual slot graphics card has full sized connectors for HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort. At the very bottom we can see the Corsair TX650V2 power supply.

PCSpecialist use a great foam padding system which is sculpted to fit the internals perfectly. While it offers additional protection against damage during shipping it does need to be removed before firing up the Z11 first time.

First impressions of the Z11 system build are positive. PCSpecialist are using a range of high grade components which will appeal to the enthusiast audience, such as a Corsair H40 and TX power supply.

As mentioned earlier in the review, both side panels of the Z11 chassis have bulging front blocks which contain small fans, as shown above. This will help enhance the air flow.

The Corsair TX650V2 power supply is installed at the bottom of the case, right next to a clear intake fan.

The Kingston 120GB V300 solid state drive is installed above the 1TB mechanical drive at the front of the case. This is a perfect configuration delivering fast boot up and system response while still offering plenty of storage space for files.

The Core i5 3570K is cooled by the Corsair H40, a capable little unit. Underneath is a Palit GTX660 ti graphics card.

PCSpecialist are using the latest Kingston HyperX 10th Anniversary memory, which ships with lovely silver heatspreaders.

PCSpecialist have always paid plenty of attention to cable routing in their systems and we see no problems with this build either.

The other side of the case is where all the cabling is hidden from view. Again a good job by PCSpecialist.

We ran the built in system analyser in Windows 8. The system scored a total of 7.9 points, with the graphics being the lowest scoring component.

The install is exceptionally clean with only the barebones drivers and software already in place. Unlike Wired2Fire, PCSpecialist haven't installed a Start Menu software application for Windows 8. We spoke with the company and asked their views on this as we know it has been a sticking point for many users.

They said “We use the cleanest install we can, with as little extra software/bloatware as possible and let the end user decide which route they wish to go down rather than forcing it upon them.

We allow customers to make their own decision between Windows 7 or Windows 8 though, so if a potential customer has read negative reviews or opinions on Windows 8 they’re welcome to order Windows 7 for the same price.”

An overview of the system build, comprising the Core i5 3570K which is overclocked to 4.4ghz. The company are using an ASUS P8Z77-V LX motherboard which we reviewed over here. The Kingston HyperX 10th Anniversary memory is clocked at 1,600mhz with 9-9-9-27 1T timings.

The Palit GTX660 ti graphics card is clocked at 706mhz and has 1344 CUDA cores compared with 960 on the standard GTX660.

We are using the 30 inch Dell U3011 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)
Far Cry 2 (DX 10)
Far Cry 3 (DX 11)
Alien V Predator (DX 11)
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 overall score of 6,319 shows how well balanced the hardware configuration is. A good indication of results to follow, we hope.

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.

This older Direct X 10 benchmark is still relevant, and the Vanquish Z11 system scores 34,698 points which is very strong.

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 overall score of 8,084 points is very positive and gives a good early indication that this system will be capable of powering the latest Direct X 11 games.

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.

Positive results in the latest 3DMark benchmark, scoring 4,567 points.

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 set the test to 1080p resolution, with 4x Anistropy, shaders high, anti aliasing disabled. Full Screen.

This is an intensive Direct X 11 test featuring high levels of tessellation. The system powers through our test, averaging almost 61 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

The i5 3570k may only be a quad core processor, but when overclocked it delivers high levels of performance. The 1,600mhz Kingston memory also scores well considering the modest speeds.

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.

At 4.4ghz, the 3570k scores 7.19 points. This means it would be ideal for reasonably heavy duty 3D encoding tasks.

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 Kingston Solid State Drive.

The 120GB Kingston V300 Solid State Drive delivers great results, both with compressible and incompressible data tests. The 1TB mechanical hard drive is also a very good performer averaging over 170 Mb/s in both sequential read and write tests.

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 results, verify Crystalmark results, averagering well over 500 MB/s from the Kingston SSD in both sequential read and write tests.

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.

	Nvidia GTX660 ti
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.

Good results, around the same performance level as a reference clocked Core i7 2700k.

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 playing back high definition bluray content, less than 10% time taken throughout this test, with plenty of CPU cycles left over for multitasking.

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.

Flash HD playback is very good, demanding only 8 percent CPU time throughout our test environment.

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.

Good performance with Handbrake, with a final time of 5 minutes and 37 seconds.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1920×1080 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.

Excellent results, averaging a very smooth 76 frames per second at these high settings.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 2560×1600, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High).

Very impressive results with this title, averaging around 110 frames per second.

Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal in conjunction with Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Red Storm, Ubisoft Reflections, and Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to 2008′s Far Cry 2. It has received a lot of acclaim from the public and is up for contention as Game of the Year via many publications.

One of the best games for the PC in the last year and it runs exceptionally well on this system.

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.

We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 1080p resolution and 8x MSAA.

The results mirror the real game experience. Super smooth with no frame rate issues.

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 are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack.

The Z11 has no problems powering these ultra high settings, averaging 36 frames per second.

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 used the image quality settings, highlighted above. Total video memory demand was 1270MB.

Another perfectly smooth gaming experience with the Direct X 11 Max Payne 3 engine.

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 Zalman Z11 case is moving a lot of air as indicated by the results, which are excellent.

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.

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 Zalman Z11 is not the quietest case on the market, although the noise is never that intrusive. The air flow capabilities are very impressive so there is always going to be a trade-off.

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.
Gaming Load: running the ‘combined’ test in 3dMark 11. Processor and graphics card are stressed.

The PCSpecialist Vanquish Z11 System doesn't demand that much power for a high performance gaming system. When idle it consumes 67 watts of power and this rises to 230 watts under gaming load.

There are no shortage of pre-built gaming systems available in the United Kingdom, customers are literally spoilt for choice this year, especially under the £1,000 mark.

PCSpecialist are marketing the Vanquish Z11 system to the gaming audience who want a modestly priced, yet powerful gaming system. The system takes part of the name from the Zalman Z11 chassis which it is built inside. This is the first time I have had a hands on with this particular case and considering the very competitive price point it really does manage to deliver a fantastic experience.

The Zalman Z11 produces a very high level of airflow ensuring that the overclocked processor maintains an effective thermal curve. The Corsair H40 may be a lower specified model in the current range, but PCSpecialist haven't increased the Core i5 3570k voltage significantly over reference settings, so it doesn't have to work that hard.

It isn't the quietest case we have tested, but the noise levels are unlikely to annoy the gaming audience contemplating a purchase. Personally I might think about swapping out a couple of the fans myself for super low noise models from BeQuiet!, but I am quite sensitive to fan noise.

Basing a gaming system around the Intel Core i5 3570k and Nvidia GTX660 ti is a no brainer. They are exceptional performance products which combine at the heart of a system to produce fantastic frame rates, even with the latest Direct X 11 titles. PCSpecialist have included a 120GB Kingston V300 Solid State Drive along with a 1TB storage drive. This ensures fast boot up time and nippy system response, while offering a back up solution for a large amount of data.

PCSpecialist have worked with Kingston in the construction of this particular system, including 8GB of Hyper-X 10^th Anniversary memory. The memory is solid, looks great and produces around 22 Gb/s of bandwidth – it is technically nothing out of the ordinary, but the results are commendable.

PCSpecialist invest a lot of time into their cable routing, which is doubly important in a windowed case system such as this. The routing is excellent and cables are all successfully hidden behind the motherboard tray, out of sight.

For £879.00 inc VAT and Delivery we think this is a killer gaming system and deserving of our highest award.

Buy direct from PCSpecialist over here.

Pros:

• Fantastic cooling efficiency.
• A wish list of enthusiast components.
• Overclocked out of the box.
• all round performance is stellar.
• Handles all the latest Direct X 11 games with high IQ settings at 1080p.

Cons:

• Fan noise is audible.
• Faces stiff competition under £1,000.

Kitguru says: We love this system and would be one of our first choices for a pre-built under £1,000.

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