This is the product which features a hyper
speed in a classical mini-ITX case whose size is just half of most desktop PCs’
sizes.
We have come across with many large-size
powerful PCs from Wire2Fire before, but this is the first small form factor system
coming out from its factory in Surrey.
We witness a wonderful beginning of the HAL
4000 with the Node 304 of Fractal Design, which is one of the best small form
factor cases that we have ever seen. The metal panels contribute to the
classical appearance of the PC, and the tough build quality just brings it
ahead of other cheap PCs. There are some curves in the side panels, but
compared to other senior PCs, it is not bad at all.
Unscrewing two screws is all that you need
to do to get the PC’s accessories. Although it is quite cramped inside, it is
well organized. Half of the front part contains the Xigmatek Tauro power supply
and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 surrounded by cables, which extends along one
side of the chassis.
Unscrewing
two screws is all that you need to do to get the PC’s accessories
Dominant the other half of the PC is the
Antec Kuhler H20 heatsink unit, which is laid between two 120 mm fans and
connected to the rear exhaust mount. Its cables, which are full of coolant,
spiral down to the Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe mainboard, which is too small that makes
many of its capacitors and heatsinks to be deployed in the daughterboard.
Accessing into the mainboard is quite
complicated – you will need, at least, to remove the fans – but it would not be
very necessary go further into the HAL 4000: The only PCI Express slot is the
room for the graphics card; two memory sockets are all in use, and two free
SATA sockets run at the speed which is slower than SATA/300, so for a
mechanical hard disk, it would be very suitable. Spaces for additional storage
are very limited: while there are three removable hard disks in the Node 304.
One of them has two SSD, the second one containing a hard disk and the other
one is for keeping the additional cables tidy.
System with small form factor is no longer
hungry for its large-size copies’ power. An overclocked Intel Core i7-3770K CPU,
which can be overclocked from 3.4 GHz up to 4.4 GHz, has been packed with this
PC. That is enough for achieving 1.25 point for the application benchmark. Such
result defeated computers in our A-list – the PC Specialist Vortex Destroyer
with Sandy bridge-4 chip just scored 1.16.
The
solid outlook
In this product, a super-fast processor and
a factory-overclocked EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 has been combined together. From
the base and boost clock rate of 1,060MHz and 1,058MHz, it is able to raise it
up to 1,084MHz and 1,150MHz. For its 2GB GDDR5 RAM, it is possible to increase
from 6,008MHz to 6208MHz. The overclocking brings moderate benefit: Wired2Fire,
with the score of 79fps in the Crysis 1,920x1,080 at Very High quality, has
4fps more than the PC Specialist, which uses the GTX 680 running at its stock
speeds.
HAL 4000’s storage is not less competitive.
The combination of two SSD Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB drives in the same RAID
array 0 helps it achieving the speed of 818MB/s in the continuous reading speed
test of AS SSD. The performance overhead for running in RAID0 indicates that it
is possible for the array to keep up with this speed elsewhere – the continuous
file writing speed decreases to 183MB/sec – but it is still more than enough to
keep Windows 8 and other applications in high responsive performance and load
game in a blink.
The
back panel
All components of this product are packed
together tightly, but the Wired2Fire does not perform badly in our temperature
tests. The highest temperature of the processor is recorded to be 85 °C, below our
dangerous level, and 82°C is recorded as the highest temperature of the
graphics card.
The HAL 4000 is also equipped with the 8GB
RAM, a 1TB hard disk and a dual-band 802.11b/g/n wireless. That final addition
definitely pleases us: because there is no more room for the optical drive, you
will need to rely on the digital download service or purchase a USB optical
drive in order to load the old games.
Not much potential is brought about
together with the compact size of the HAL 4000 for ambitious upgrade projects,
but there is little reason to fiddle with such huge power given by this product
– It easily defeats the leader of our A-list in applications and games. Providing
a full set of performance in a smart, desk-friendly chassis, the HAL 4000 from
Wired2Fire deserves the champion of A-list title.
Specifications
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Details
·
Part Code: HAL 4000
·
Price inc VAT: $2,161.6
·
Performance: 5/5
·
Features and Design: 4/5
·
Value for money: 4/5
·
Overall: 4/5
Warranty
·
Warranty: 2 years to base
Basic Specifications
·
Total hard disk capacity: 1,240 HB
·
RAM capacity: 8GB
Processor
·
CPU family: Intel Core i7
·
CPU nominal frequency: 3.4 GHz
·
CPU overclocked frequency: 4.4GHx
·
Processor socket: LGA 115
·
HSF (heatsink fan) Antec Kuhler H20
Motherboard
·
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
·
Motherboard chipset: Intel Z77
·
Conventional PCI slots free: 0
·
Conventional PCI slots total: 0
·
PCI-E x16 slots free: 0
·
PCI-E x16 slots total: 1
·
PCI-E x1 slots free: 0
·
PCI-E x1 slots total: 0
·
Internal SATA connectors: 4
·
Wired adapter speed: 1,000Mbits/sec
Memory
·
Memory type: DDR3
·
Memory sockets free: 0
·
Memory sockets total: 2
Hard disk
·
Hard disk: Kingston HyperX 3K SSD
·
Capacity: 120GB
·
Hard disk usable capacity: 111GB
·
Internal disk interface: SATA/600
·
Hard disk 2 make and model: Kingston HyperX 3K
SSD
·
Hard disk 2 nominal capacity: 120GB
·
Hard disk 2 formatted capacity: 111GB
·
Hard disk 3 make and model: Hitachi Deskstar
7K1000.B
·
Hard disk 3 nominal capacity: 1,000GB
Graphics card
·
Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680
·
3D performance setting: low
·
Graphics chipset: Nvidia GeForce GTX 680
·
Graphics card RAM: 2GB
·
Display Port outputs: 1
·
Number of graphics cards: 1
Rear ports
·
USB ports (downstream): 4
·
eSATA ports: 2
·
PS/2 mouse port: yes
·
Electrical S/PDIF audio port: 0
·
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports: 1
·
3.5mm audio jacks: 3
Case
·
Chassis: Fractal Design Node 304
·
Case format: Small Form factor
·
Dimension: 250 x 374 x 210 mm
Power supply
·
Power supply: Xigmatek Tauro
·
Power supply rating: 600W
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