Thermal dynamics
To measure idle temperatures, a reading was taken after having Windows open on the desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load was taken with Prime 95’s SmallFFt test running alongside 3DMark Fire Strike.
I must admit, I do feel the i5-7600K gets a bit hot. Idling at 43 degrees is certainly on the warmer side, while a peak of 83 degrees is not ideal either. I put this down to the 4.7GHz overclock on the CPU which uses a heavy VCore of 1.38V.
The GTX 1060 stays very cool, though – this is truly a testament to the efficiency of MSI's cooling solution.
Acoustics
Out-of-the-box, the 7EVEN PC was very loud. The fans were clearly running at 100% constantly which is obviously not ideal. I quickly dived into the BIOS to figure out what was going on – it seems Mesh did not enable ‘smart fan control', so the fans just ran at 100% all the time. Enabling the fan control just means the fans speed up or slow down according to CPU temperature, which is obviously what we want. However, it is definitely disappointing Mesh did not configure the fans properly themselves.
Once I enabled the fan control, the system got a lot quieter. It is still not the quietest PC I have ever reviewed, with there being an audible thrum from the machine even when idling. However, the fans did not actually ramp up when gaming so that is a plus – this would be because gaming does not tax the CPU as much as the GPU, so the CPU cooler fans did not have to speed up much to keep temperatures down.
Dominic can I ask what’s with the fingerprints again? It’s a case with a glass window, did it arrive like that or is that from handling? It’s hugely obvious even on the main picture on the title page and if it arrived like that it’s a QA issue, I wouldn’t be very happy with it.
Secondly who the hell names a PC after Len Goodman’s Catchphrase from Strictly Come Dancing, every time you switch it on does it shout SEVEN!!!!!
It does use an i5.
lol I could edit my post but where’s the fun in that?. Everytime I See that I think 6700k. I was probably the only person in the world who cheered when AMD called it’s top GPU the Fury X, now that’s a real name, a name someone who is fond of the odd whisky or two can remember. With an entire Oxford English Dictionary of words I think we should lobby for real names then I can ask my Wife for the new Intel Xylophone for my birthday.
I believe it arrived like that although I could not be sure in the slightest