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Without wanting to offer too much of a spoiler when we outlined the shipping damage earlier in this review, we refrained from posting a picture of the entire system. This is exactly how the Predator Extreme arrived – with the drives dislodged.
DinoPC has done an outstanding job in building a clean, tidy and aesthetically pleasing system. Cable management is unparalleled; there truly is nothing to complain about. Not a single cable-concealment trick has been overlooked.
A huge amount of deliberation has been put into the component choice, ensuring that the parts' colour schemes complement one another.
Gigabyte's 269mm-long GTX 670 OC WindForce 3x managed to survive shipping, even though it appeared to sag by a rather large degree. This issue is common amongst modern video cards with their preposterously-sized coolers. To completely eliminate the possibility of any type of damage or PCI slot-breakage, DinoPC could use a more secure fastening mechanism, aided by an additional self-designed support bracket. On the other hand, this would increase the system's cost by a marginal amount.
Corsair's Carbide 500R provides an excess of cable management clearance on its rear side. An ingenious design that recesses the motherboard panel presents extra space for bundles of cables to reside near the tightly-packed cable-routing holes. An extrusion to the side panel also ensures that space directly behind the recessed motherboard tray isn't limited.
Clear access to the Corsair H100's backplate has been granted. This condenses the quantity of time required to carry out any CPU-related installation tasks.
A factory-overclocked Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 2GB graphics card provides the power to shred through today's games at their highest settings.
Making use of the company's superb WindForce 3x cooler which utilises a trio of 75mm fans, temperatures and noise output should be kept to a minimum.
Why Gigabyte still insists on using a blue PCB for its graphics cards perplexes us. The decision to switch their motherboard PCB design to a matte black colouring was universally-welcomed and helps their products appeal to a much larger target audience. A similar move needs to be made with their graphics cards. In this instance, the blue PCB doesn't destroy the Predator Extreme system's aesthetic appearance, but a matte black variant would certainly be favourable. This is a fact that DinoPC needs to contemplate.
DinoPC chooses to use a 700W 80 Plus Bronze modular power supply unit from Xigmatek. The Centauro is more than capable of powering an extra GTX 670 graphics card, should you feel the upgrade bug taking effect in the near future.
Installing a 120/140mm fan in the floor mount is made difficult by Xigmatek's physically-large power supply. It certainly isn't impossible, but some of the modular cables may require removal prior to the fan installation process.
A firm favourite amongst system builders, Corsair's H100 CPU cooler is mounted to the case, rather than motherboard, drastically reducing the likelihood of damage occurring. The large heatspreaders of Corsair's Vengeance 8GB memory modules aren't a problem thanks to the H100's accommodating design.
DinoPC makes an inspired decision to mount the pair of 2600 RPM 120mm fans above the radiator, in an intake configuration. This allows the All-In-One liquid cooling unit to unleash its full heat-dissipating potential. And good job – it'll be a necessity with the i5 3570K operating at 4.7GHz.
If the 64GB Crucial M4 SSD isn't enough, or, if like us, you happen to be short of drive trays, you can mount an mSATA SSD in the Z77X-UD3H motherboard's dedicated slot. This port will render one of the SATA 2 connectors inoperative as its connection lanes are re-directed.
Dimming the lights reveals the hypnotic white LED fans housed in the Carbide 500R's front and side panels.
One of my drive bays snapped too 🙁
Nice selection of components. those graphics cards are wicked. nice selection. Id still rather build one myself however, even if it cost more. Good option for the punters who dont want to build their own.
Can you ever go wrong with a Corsair H100 at the heart of a system? im shocked they set the profile to the top however, its really very loud at that setting and I wouldnt use it. the middle option is my choice. it varies but doesnt quite hit the same speeds.
I work for a competitor. All I can say if that’s the best cable management you’ve seen, you haven’t seen ours. Also we ship that particular case with a full system inside and have never had one arrive at our customers damaged in such a way.