Published in the summer 2011 issue of MyLIFE magazine
There are myriad PC makers out there, and the choices at your local electronics retailer are enough to make your head spin. But for those of us who are looking for something a few levels above the preconfigured mess littering stores shelves and the limited configuration options found at most online PC retailers is a company called Digital Storm. Since 2002, Fremont, Calif.,’s own Digital Storm has been specializing in creating the most technologically advanced systems without sacrificing customer service. Digital Storm is quick to tell you that the company operates on three basic principles: performance, support and value—and it doesn’t disappoint in any way.
The first thing we noticed about our review unit, a Black O.P.S. Enix system with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit on board, was the gorgeous design. Had the case been a gray aluminum, we would’ve thought the guys in Cupertino did the design work. The attention to detail was plainly obvious. Using a sexy, matte black aluminum exterior instead of plastic, the designers elected to move all the requisite ports from an exposed rear panel to a red, honeycomb-covered top panel. This left four sides of this beast flat and clean, save for a single slot-loading Blu-ray drive below the Digital Storm badge on the front. It also aids in heat dissipation, due to heat’s natural tendency to rise. On the downside, all that aluminum is awfully heavy.
Taking off the three removable panels gives you a great look at the innards, and what meticulous craftsmanship Digital Storm put into the system as a whole! Two large, 120 mm fans blow across the Corsair high-performance CPU cooler, creating a pocket of cool air for the 3.4 GHz Quad-core Intel i7 to do its work without fear of overheating.
These systems are designed to be pushed to the limit, so creating a cool space for the CPU is crucial. Also inside we found 8 GB of hand-tested DDR3 RAM, a 1TB 7200 RPM Western Digital hard drive (with space for two more hot-swappable expansion bays), dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580s with 1.5 GB RAM per card and a 1000 W Stryder Gold power supply to make sure you have enough juice to keep the whole thing running. Up top are the usual suspects as far as peripheral ports go: six USB 2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA, gigabit Ethernet and two USB 3.0s nestled next to serial ports for a mouse and keyboard in case you’re rocking an older setup you just can’t let go of. Customization options abound, with several paint and accent color options, interior LED lighting and custom H20 tubing for liquid-cooled systems.
All this makes for an insanely fast machine that is no slouch. You’d already expect an i7 machine to be pretty quick and powerful, but we ran it through the paces using Maxon’s Cinebench, a benchmarking tool specifically designed to take advantage of multi-core processors using 3-D graphics, which is where gaming machines excel. The Enix scored very well when compared against other systems running 2.92 GHz Xeons and 3.99 GHz Core 2s at a respectable 9.25 points. (A full listing of scores can be found at www.cbsscores.com.)
In short, Digital Storm has found a great balance of performance and price. Our review unit rang in at $3,000 with all the options and upgrades provided. If you’re looking for a completely customized PC but don’t want to put in the work yourself, Digital Storm is just a few clicks away, at www.digitalstormonline.com.
