AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC Review

If you are in the market for a compact, yet powerful, watercooled system - but don't want to build it yourself, then today's review may just tickle the taste buds. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC is built around a Core i5 4670k processor - overclocked to 4ghz. Graphics are handled by the very capable AMD R9 290X, which is also supplied in a heavily overclocked state. The whole system is watercooled with XSPC kit ... featuring 'blood red' fluid. Is it all worth the £1,499 asking price? It is not often we get a prebuilt system which is completely watercooled. AWD-IT have decided to ditch the use of a simple 'All-In-One' liquid cooler and have opted to go with a custom XPSC watercooling kit handling both processor and graphics card. All of this has been installed inside the diminutive Corsair 250D Mini ITX chassis. System Specification Case: Corsair 250D Mini ITX Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W Gold Certified Power Supply CPU: Intel Core I5 4670K Overclocked @ 4.0Ghz (Liquid Cooled with XSPC Raystorm) Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87N-Wifi Motherboard RAM: 8GB DDR3 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit Hard Drive: Seagate 1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive SSD - Samsung 840 EVO 120GB Solid State Drive Graphics Card: Radeon R9 290X (Liquid Cooled with R9 290x Block) Sound: Realtek 7.1 High Definition Channel Sound (On-Board) Optical Drive: N/A Cooling: Custom XSPC Watercooling Retail price: £1,499.99 inc vat. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC ships securely inside a strong outer box, with the main system protected inside the Corsair 250D Mini ITX Box. The Corsair Obsidian 250D case is a little beauty, and a great choice from AWD. We reviewed this case several months ago, and rated it very highly. If you want to recap on the indepth analysis, head over to this link. The custom XSPC reservoir is installed at the front of the case in the optical drive bay, shown above. Several USB 3.0 ports are located at the side, along with a microphone and headphone jack. On such a small chassis, it is important to have the capabilities for plenty of airflow. Both 250D side panels are vented and populated with dust filters. At the rear of the case we can see AWD are using an XFX XTR 650 watt power supply, installed at the bottom. None of the fan slots are populated at the rear, but we will look inside the case shortly. The AMD R9 290X graphics card is installed vertically at the side, so its important to note you don't connect the monitor to any of the integrated graphics connectors on the Gigabyte Z87N-Wifi motherboard. We removed all the 250D panels. One side exposes the custom XSPC liquid cooled R9 290X graphics card. The other side of the case is home to the 240mm radiator. All of the cables are pushed into the lower section of the chassis, hidden from view of the top window. We removed the top panel to get a closer look at the build - this panel is windowed, so you can get a view of the rear half of the system. Its unfortunate that the Corsair Obsidian 250D panel hides the reservoir completely from view when it is installed. A few more pictures of the AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC - with all the panels removed. A shot of the AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC system powered on. The red fan LED lights up the liquid. Its an attractive looking build.On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC is built around a Core i5 4670k which is overclocked to 4ghz. When I first looked at the excellent cooling configuration and checked the BIOS, I felt there should be a lot more headroom available from the 4670k. After a little BIOS tweaking I did get the 4670k stable to 4.4ghz with only a tiny increase in temperatures under load. I need to point out, I didn't test this review system with my own 'tweaked' overclock as people can't buy it at these speeds, but I do feel 4ghz is disappointing. Although AWD don't list details of the DDR3 memory on their website - our review system was using Kingston memory clocked at 2,400mhz with 11-11-11-28-2T timings. One of the few times we have seen a system builder overclock the graphics card in software. AWD have pushed the R9 290X core from 1000mhz to 1,120mhz, and the memory is clocked from 1,250mhz to 1,400mhz. (from 5Gbps to 5.6Gbps effective). You can get the system validation over at this link. We are featuring results today with an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display at 2560×1600 resolution and an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution. Room ambient was held at 23c throughout testing. Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares): Hazer Mini Gaming PC Case: Bitfenix Colossus M Micro ATX Case – Black Power Supply: Corsair VS450 450W Power Supply Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-S2PV Motherboard Processor: Intel Core i3 4130 3.4GHz Dual Core Processor Graphics: Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2GB Graphics Card Audio: Onboard 7.1 Surround Sound Audio Optical Drive: 24x DVD Re-Writer SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300 60GB SATA3 6Gbs Solid State Drive HDD: 1TB SATA3 6Gbs Hard Drive Memory: Kingston HyperX 8GB 1600MHz Memory Mesh Elite Mini Gamer Plus: Power Supply: 750W Cooler Master GX RS-750, 85% Eff’, 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire. Motherboard: MSI Z87I WIFI – Mini-ITX Motherboard Socket 1150. Processor: i7-4770K Quad Core Processor (3.5GHz, 8MB Cache) @ 4.2ghz. Memory: 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory (2x8GB) Kit. Graphics: 4GB AMD Radeon™ R9 290 – 4GD5 Gaming Series Graphics. SSD: 240GB SSD – Solid State Drive. HDD: 2TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms Hard Drive. PCSpecialist Vanquish 230X: Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K @ 4.2GHz Memory: 16GB Kingston HyperX BEAST @ 2400MHz Motherboard: ASUS Z87-A Motherboard SSD: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD HDD: 1TB SATA III 6Gb/s HDD Graphics: 3GB AMD Radeon 280X Graphics Cooler: CoolerMaster Seidon 120M Liquid Cooler Power Supply: Corsair TX650M Modular PSU 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 8 Cinebench R11.5 64 bit Cinebench R15 FRAPS Professional Unigine Heaven Benchmark CrystalDiskMark Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11 Cyberlink MediaEspresso Atto Disk Benchmark CrystalDiskMark SiSoft Sandra Games: Thief 2014 Total War: Rome 2 Tomb Raider Metro: Last Light GRID 2 Battlefield 4 All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page. Some game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia. Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings. Thanks to the R9 290X, the system performs well in this older Direct X 10 benchmark, claiming an overall score of 36,219 points. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D scores well, although we can see the Core i5 4670k lets the overall score a little. We can't help but feel an overclocked Core i7 4770k would have been a better fit for the R9 290X. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” The scoring is strong, although the Core i5 processor is certainly a little outclassed by the AMD R9 290X flagship processor. It brings down the overall score down a little. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We use the settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600. The system performs well at this very high image quality settings, with AA enabled. Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user. Performance is pretty good, maintaining smooth frames at both resolutions. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc. Native ports for all major operating systems are available: Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86) Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64) Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64) Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01) Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02) All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of: SMP – Multi-Processor MC – Multi-Core SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86 IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit Performance is reasonable, although the overclocked Core i5 can't compete with faster Core i7 parts. CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free. 3D rendering performance is decent, although being a simple Quad core processor without hyperthreading support means there are limitations. CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested. CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards. Performance falls in line with what we would expect from a 4670k @ 4ghz. Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0.1 x64. We test the Samsung 840 Evo Solid State Drive, and the Seagate mechanical drive. Performance is exactly as we would expect. The Samsung 840 Evo Solid State drives are fantastic. The mechanical drive is as good as we would hope, averaging around 190 MB/s sequential read and write speeds. ATTO performance mirrors the CrystalDiskMark tests. Under real world conditions, the system boots up fast and is snappy when loading programs. To test the USB 3.0 capabilities of the system, we use one of the fastest drives we have – the Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB. We reviewed this way back in February last year. The Gigabyte Z87N-Wifi Motherboard delivers excellent performance from the USB 3.0 ports. It can deliver a sequential read result of almost 315 MB/s. ATTO performance is never as high as CrystalDiskMark, however the results are excellent, hitting a peak of 270 MB/S in the read test.In Thief 2014 Players control Garrett, a master thief, as he intends to steal from the rich. Similar to previous games in the series, players must use stealth in order to overcome challenges, while violence is left as a minimally effective last resort. We tested the system at Ultra HD 4K at High settings, shown above. Performance is good at Ultra HD 4K, achieving playable framerates - although they are borderline. Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time. Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles. We test at Ultra HD 4K resolutions with the ULTRA preset. The system holds smooth frame rates for most of the time, with a few minor drops below 25 frames per second. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. We switched over to the ASUS Ultra HD 4K monitor and set to the ULTIMATE profile for maximum image quality. Smooth performance at Ultra HD 4K, especially at the highest image quality settings. Reducing the image quality a little would enhance the frame rates. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools. We tested this particular game with the extremely demanding built in benchmark. Settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at High, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled. The benchmark is very intensive with minimum frame rates a little lower than the actual game itself would be. Still, some image quality settings would need reduced for completely smooth performance. Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility. We crank the image quality settings to the limit. Perfectly smooth at these very high image quality settings. The game does look stunning at Ultra HD 4K. Battlefield 4 (also known as BF4) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. The game is a sequel to 2011′s Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 is built on the new Frostbite 3 engine. The new Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new “networked water” system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.Tessellation has also been overhauled. We test at Ultra HD 4K with HIGH image quality settings – shown above. Perfectly smooth - averaging close to 50 frames per second. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Tomb Raider 2014 for 60 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. The XSPC watercooling kit is certainly a step above most of the 'all in one liquid coolers', especially when we factor in the 58c load temperature of the hot running R9 290X. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1,5 meters from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. We use a calibrated meter. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA – Threshold of Pain 140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum The system is quiet all the time, thanks to the watercooling kit. Fan speeds never change under any load situations. We test power consumption at the socket with a calibrated meter under the following conditions. 1: when idle 2: under Cinebench load 3: running the 3Dmark 11 ‘combined test’ 4: running Tomb Raider at Ultra HD 4K with ‘ultimate’ image quality settings. The monitor is not included in the power draw – just the demand via the system power supply. The system consumes 75 watts when idle. When gaming this can rise to 360 watts. AWD have selected an XFX 650W power supply for this system, so under full load, it will be running around 55% load - perfect for maximum efficiency. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC is an impressive looking build thanks to the inclusion of an XSPC custom watercooling kit paired up with 'blood red' fluid. In a dark room the liquid glows menacingly under the red lighting of the fans. First impressions are positive, AWD wanted to build a small system for space restricted locations and subsequently opted for the diminutive Corsair Obsidian 250D chassis. We reviewed the 250D some time ago, and it scored well due to its versatility, build quality and support for high end partnering equipment. AWD have selected a commendable checklist of components for this build, including Kingston 2,400mhz memory, Samsung 840 Evo SSD, Gigabyte Z87N-Wifi Motherboard and AMD R9 290X graphics card. This is a serious checklist of performance hardware and all set up to run with a minimum of noise, even under heavy load. I have to admit, when I first saw the checklist and £1,499.99 inc vat asking price, I had expected the system would ship with a Core i7 4770k processor. I was disappointed to see AWD decided to install a Core i5 4670k instead. There is no doubt that Intel's Core i5 4670k is an excellent processor, but in a system at £1,500 it seems to be a little outclassed, especially when partnered up with a watercooled, AMD R9 290X graphics card. This leads me to point out that I feel certain aspects of this build are a little inconsistent. Using an XSPC custom watercooling kit is a great idea, it differentiates the Ignis Aqua from the majority of systems we get to review fitted with a simple 'all in one liquid' cooler from the likes of Corsair. AWD have clearly given thought to the hardware configuration and the attention to detail in regards to the build is first class. But why include a Core i5 4670k and only overclock it to 4ghz when cooled by such a high performance kit? A few tweaks in the BIOS and we had the 4670k running at 4.4ghz without any problem, a notable 400mhz increase. It only required a little extra voltage, and temperatures never peaked past 65c under load. You could argue that a 400mhz clock increase will give a minimal performance boost, but when you are using a R9 290X it is important to try and elimate CPU limiting. It is also worth pointing out that a system listed with a 4.4ghz clock speed looks more appealing to the audience without advanced knowledge of a BIOS. While our particular sample shipped with Windows 8.1 installed, AWD do offer Windows 7 64 bit (at no cost) if you prefer the older operating system. It is important to add that the latest Windows 8.1 has enhanced support for Ultra HD 4K monitors, so it may be worth opting for the new operating system and installing an application such as Start8 from Stardock (or one of the free alternatives) to bring back the traditional Start Menu. I enjoying using the Ignis Aqua over the last week. AWD clearly know how to build a lovely looking system however this particular configuration is a little unbalanced. If they had pushed the processor harder it would have earned our WORTH BUYING award, as it stands it claims our Worth Considering award. You can buy the system direct from AWD, over HERE. Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE. Pros: fantastic build quality. good selection of components. very quiet. runs cool. all liquid cooled. GPU has been overclocked in software. Cons: 4770k would have made for a better balance between CPU and GPU. 4ghz overclock is weak with this level of cooling. Kitguru says: A great looking system, but at £1,499.99 it needed a bigger overclock or an overclocked Core i7 processor.

KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards

AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC Review

Check Also

KitGuru Advent Calendar Day 18: Win one of FIVE CPS PC Cooler bundles!

2 comments