YOYOTech Black Box X99 systems are a popular choice claims MD

Whenever a new high end platform is launched, the early adopters (as the industry likes to call them) tend to go for fully laden systems – either because they are nuts for power or they are looking for a system that will last a good few years. With Intel's X99, we're past the initial splurge – with a much wider variety of systems coming to the fore. KitGuru casts an eye at the latest offering from YOYOTech.

Say ‘Black Box' to some people and they will be start humming ‘Ride on time'. Most, however, are likely to think about the rock solid data storage device that seems to survive even the harshest of high-speed accidental impacts.

According to Managing Director CK, in YOYOTech's case, the naming strategy actually started with the chassis, “My R&D guys look at a lot of components, continuously testing and retesting every combination you can think of – and they were really impressed with the SilentiumPC Aquarius case” he said. “Then we added their Fortis II cooler with 6 heatpipes and that was the framework sorted”.

“We worked hard to get a balance of components inside, working up from the MSI X99S SLi Plus mainboard and Intel Core i7 5820 CPU”, he explained. “It was important for us not to compromise”.

We asked CK to explain what he meant by ‘compromise'.

“Even though we've kept the target price our the entry level DB version of the Black Box to £999, we have still managed to include a Seasonic 620w PSU, 16GB of 2133MHz DDR4 memory and a Radeon R9 270X graphics card”, he told us. “I have seen low cost X99 systems with the latest Intel Core i7 processors coupled with something like a GeForce GT610 graphics card. It's crazy”.

That does sound remarkably unbalanced.

“While we're proud of the value we've managed to achieve with this system”, said CK. “We are also happy to make the DB4 available at £2,649 – which can also be upgraded!”.

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KitGuru says: A little research using WayBackMachine to search pages from October 2004, revealed that 10 years ago we were all happy to pay £999 for a system with an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor in it – alongside 1GB of 400MHz memory and an ATi X800 graphics card. Times have changed. 

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