AWD-IT Aura (GTX 1070) System Review

1. Introduction2. AWD-IT Aura3. Testing Methodology4. SiSoft Sandra5. Cinebench R156. Handbrake Video Encoding7. SSD Performance8. USB 3.0 Bandwidth Testing9. 3DMark 1110. 3DMark11. VRMark12. Grid Autosport (1080p, 1440p and 4K)13. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (1080p, 1440p and 4K)14. Grand Theft Auto V (1080p, 1440p and 4K)15. Doom (1080p, 1440p and 4K)16. Thermal Dynamics and Acoustics17. Power Consumption18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

All-in-all, the AWD-IT Aura is a well-balanced and well-built system.

For starters, the cable management is exceptional – from the back or the front of the case, the wires are expertly tucked away and kept out of sight. This is important as nobody wants to spend £1499 on a messy system. In this regard, AWD-IT have done an excellent job.

The one downside with the build is the lack of lighting. The motherboard and graphics card do emit some light (the motherboard has integrated RGB LEDs, for example) but given the tinted glass panel on the Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Glass, it is not enough to allow you to properly see the components inside the chassis. This is a shame, as it almost renders the glass side panel redundant – why have it if you cannot really see the components through it? A white LED strip would have made a big difference, and I would have liked to see one included by default.

That being said, Aura is a great performer when it comes to games. It handles 1080p and 1440p gaming with no issues – although 4K gaming is a mixed bag. Less demanding games such as Grid Autosport and Doom (2016) will run fine, but more demanding titles such as Grand Theft Auto V and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt prove the GTX 1070 is not quite up to the task of heavy 4K gaming.

One other area of contention for me is the default storage configuration. The Aura comes with a single 500GB Samsung 750 EVO SSD, with no other drives present. I would have preferred to see a 250GB SSD alongside a 1TB mechanical hard drive as this provides greater capacity for those with large Steam libraries or media collections. AWD-IT do tell us potential buyers can request a different configuration, but by default, a smaller SSD alongside a mechanical hard drive would have been a smarter choice.

Nonetheless, the AWD-IT Aura is a very capable system. It would be great for high refresh-rate 1080p or 1440p gaming, while the overclocked i7-6700K even enables some video editing or content creation to be possible.

This specification costs £1499 and you can buy it directly from AWD-IT HERE.

Pros

• Very tidy.
• Tempered glass Phanteks Enthoo Pro M.
• Strong performance from the CPU and GPU.
• Smart and well-balanced specification elsewhere.
• Reasonably priced.
• Room to upgrade with a spare PCIe x16 slot, as well as an M.2 port available.

Cons

• Could do with an LED strip to get a proper look inside.
• Default storage configuration is not optimal.
• Fans needed configuring in the UEFI.

KitGuru says: AWD-IT have done a great job with their Aura system. It is well-balanced, powerful and very tidy inside. If they made just a couple of minor adjustments, it would be pretty much perfect.

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