DigitalStorm BlackOps: Almost Too Fast
by Dustin Sklavos on December 29, 2010 12:45 AM ESTGaming Performance
We were expecting gaming performance of the DigitalStorm BlackOps to be pretty impressive. After all, a pair of the fastest single-GPU card on the market should post some amazing framerates, right? So let's start with our "High" benchmark preset and see just how crazy the two 580s really are.
That seems like a little much. The only game that doesn't break 140 frames per second is StarCraft II, which seems to be largely CPU-limited given the tie between the CyberPower unit and the iBuyPower with the much faster graphics subsystem. Other than that, the BlackOps steamrolls the competition—as it should, considering it costs a lot more than any of these other systems do. Given the surplus of performance we have at these settings, maybe bringing antialiasing into the equation with our "Ultra" preset will knock the BlackOps down a peg?
Nope. At this point you could actually argue fairly convincingly that the 580s are CPU-limited by the 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-950. That would sound crazy, but the results seem to bear that out: adding antialiasing barely affects performance in any of these games. Mass Effect 2 and STALKER both take decent dives in performance, but they're both still far beyond playable. Two GeForce GTX 580s are just plain overkill for the 1080p resolution we test at [Ed: Sorry, no 30" LCD for Dustin!], but if you were planning on going 3D Vision or gaming in surround with a pair it's reasonable to assume they'd be more than up for the task.
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Dug - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
I agree. This guy has got to go. We can get half assed reviews from anywhere.Dustin Sklavos - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
You do know we read these, right?Kaboose - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
He probably hopes so, if you didn't what would be the point of posting?Belard - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Okay, for a TOP of the LINE game system...Win7-64 bit Home edition? I'd go with at least a pro but for about $40 or so for OEM difference, might as well go for the Ultimate, no? For $3200+... might as well have the top-end Win7 OS to boot.
Zan Lynx - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I picked Home 7 for my custom build. I looked at the features on the higher versions and couldn't see a single thing I needed.Nentor - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
I used onboard sound once.You could hear the cdrom spin up through it, hear electrical noise from the videocard and numerous other sources and even instruments and vocals that SHOULD have been there in the audio were either inaudible or barely so. This was on a P35 Gigabyte board btw.
Bought a Xonar D2 not long after and never looked back. Seeing there is a market for $3600 machines without a HQ soundcard makes me weep.
Scootiep7 - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
All other gripes aside, for $3500+ I would expect 8gb's of ram and a Blu Ray burner MINIMUM. And the hack job overclocking just rubs salt in the wound. Like Dustin says, wait for Sandy Bridge.Will Robinson - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
The SLI 580s are a bit silly really,2 x HD6950s would have been a little more technically interesting and saved a considerable whack of money for (at least) a decent audio card,maybe Windows 7 Pro,more memory or even dual RAID 0 SSDs for some snappy fast desktop performance.Not a bad system I guess but its target audience is one I'm glad I'm not a member of...
VStrom - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
If I'm going to pay that much coin for a boutique build, I'm going the Maingear route because of their customer service. There are no real proprietary parts to this build so any builder (boutique or joe user) could do the same. So all things being equal, customer service and warranty is what differentiates their inherent values. As another posted pointed out, DS doesn't exactly have a stellar customer service rep.Kaboose - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
If you are spending 3.5k on a computer that is prebuilt then you probably shouldn't be. Going to newegg in quick 10 min look i pieced together a build with an i7-970, two GTX 580's, a 120Gb OCZ RevoDrive, 1Tb Spinpoint f3, 6Gb of corsair ddr3 2000 (cas 8), cooler master HAF X case, and a 1.2k watt antec PSU.$3,518.87
Comparing to our prebuilt here, this quick build will run circles around it in SSD performance, and general applications, Gaming as well, the i7-970 should overclock to 4Ghz easily with the liquid cooling (also in the budget) and the RAM can OC to 2200 easily. This build also includes windows 7 ultimate (apparently too pricey for the prebuilt here)
Overall for the build in the review it is a $2,753.86 computer with a giant price bump for the "Black Ops" moniker and a half assed OC. This exact build (or as exact as i could make it on newegg) was 2753.86 it has the same everything, case, (had to guess on the PSU as it was left out in the review), A-DATA RAM, graphics cards, CPU, motherboard ,card read, bluray, cd/dvd.....etc. i dont see any real gain in buying this over a custom built (at least with custom you can know what goes in it instead of whatever the company thinks you need. The only thing you gain is a 3 year warranty, however if you buy from respected manufacturers all of your parts should be under at least two year warranty. Lastly, even if you dont know much about computer and want a very high end gaming system (which this is to most people) you would be better off spending a month or two reading up and learning about computers and then building your own instead of buying this over priced gimmick.