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The ARIA Gladiator 6300 does not ship with an operating system, so it is up to the end user to install this from fresh, along with any drivers and software. The upside is that you can tweak the install completely to your desires and you won't be forced to deinstall bloat ware and clean the registry afterwards.
The downside is obviously the additional cost of the operating system, which needs to be factored into the total cost of ownership.
Above, an overview of the system in CPUz and GPUz. ARIA are using the AMD FX6300, a fantastic value for money processor with 6 cores running at 3.5ghz. The FX6300 can turbo to 4.1ghz under specific load demand situations. Our review build featured 8GB of ADATA 1,600mhz memory with 9-9-9-24 timings. ARIA have told us that the manufacturer of the memory may vary from build to build, depending on what is in stock at the time.
The VTX3D HD7870 Tahiti LE is not based on the Pitcairn XT core, but a ‘cut down’ version of the more expensive Tahiti core. This HD7870 ‘Tahiti LE’ version we know is built from 4313M Transistors (like the 7900 series) and has an upgraded 1,536 shader count. The HD7950 has 1,792 shaders and the earlier HD7870 has 1,280 shaders. In this regard the new HD7870 edition slots firmly half way between the standard HD7870 and HD7950.
There are also now 24 SIMD units, up from 20 on HD7870 and less than the HD7950 (which has 28). The ROP count has not changed from 32, although there are now 96 texture units, up from 80 on the HD7870 but still less than the 112 count on the HD7950.
The core is clocked at 975mhz and the 2GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective) connected via a 256bit memory interface.
We are using the 30inch Dell U3011 for this review today.
Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
Intel E5 2687W x 2
Motherboard: Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS
Coolers: Corsair H80 x2
Memory: 64GB Kingston Predator 1,600mhz 9-9-9-24 1T
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Modular
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000FN
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron GTX SSD
Secondary Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron SSD
Intel E5 2660
Motherboard: Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 16GB G.Skill ARES 2,133mhz @ 9-11-10-28
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000a
Boot Drive: Intel 510 120GB
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB WildFire
Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE
Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB
Intel i5 3570K @ 4.2 – OCUK Prodigy Arctic Gaming System
Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77
Cooler: Coolit Liquid
Memory: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
Chassis: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB HDD
AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire
Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred
Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.
Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB
Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire.
Software:
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2.
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
HQV Benchmark 2.0
SiSoft Sandra
Games:
Max Payne 3 (DX 11)
Total War: Shogun 2 (DX11)
Dirt Showdown (DX 11)
Sleeping Dogs (DX 11)
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus USB BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.
Game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.
How much extra would it have cost to include a 64GB SSD? including a 2.5 inch 5,400 rpm laptop drive seems weird.
getting a system out at £500 quid with everything ‘cool’ in it, is difficult. I think this is quite good. Maybe dropping the LE to a HD7850 and putting in an SSD would have worked out the same price, but overall a better all round performance?
@ Davis. I dont agree. its easy to upgrade with an SSD later, for say £60, and you dont have to bin the 500gb mechniacal drive in the system. the hD7850 is much weaker than a HD7870 Tahiti LE and you would have to bin the HD7850 for an upgrade later.
But if you had an SSD in the system then you could save that £60, and get another HD7850 for crossfire, they are cheap right now, that would buy half of one. and you would be faster than a single HD7870.
The CX500 can’t handle 4 PCI E connectors, it only has 2, so Crsossfire is out of the question, unless its low end hardware.
Have just received one of these systems for my son. Nicely put together. The 7870 Tahiti LE was by far the better choice as they have used a micro ATX mobo that does no support Crossfire. Installing an SSD later will be the way we go.
Also to let folk know, the system comes in the case box with the mobo box taped to the top with all the driver CD’s etc. That then comes in a bigger box with more than enough protection for a sate journey. Our one arrived with the mobo box looking like new. Looking forward to giving it a run later.