The BIGGEST Mini Gaming PC - Bolt X
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,239 words · ~6 min read
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nearly two years ago we asked if there was a place in the
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market for pre-built compact gaming pcs
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like the digital storm bolt 3 and i guess given the rise of machines like
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the Corsair 1 and MSI's trident well
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it's safe to say that yes yes there is so when digital storm
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called us up and offered to ship us their new bolt x for an exclusive early
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look how could we say no
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cooler masters 25th anniversary edition
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cosmos 2 features a unique dual curved tempered glass side panel
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check it out now at the link below
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from the outside the bolt x is pretty similar to the bolt 3 we reviewed back
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in 2015. it retains the clear edge to
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edge acrylic side panel the strange placement of ventilation holes on the
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other side panel and the separate upper panel where the 240 millimeter cooling
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radiator hides like the bolt 3 the bolt x is available
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in both the brushed aluminum fingerprint magnet finish of our older unit and the
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shiny exotic paint finish of our bolt x
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digital storm also lifted up the base of the case providing a little bit more
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clearance for air intake on the bottom
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one odd thing that you might have noticed by now is that there is no front
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i o not even a power switch to accompany the
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RGB front logo no digital storm instead
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opted to put it on the side aesthetically this clean look works
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really well for us but the option for our front optical
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drive is also gone and whether cables
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sticking out the front or out the side is best really depends on your desk
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layout but enough boring stuff let's get inside it's impossible to miss the
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immaculately run custom sleeved power cables and all hardline water cooling
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setup with red dyed liquid to match the exterior
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our unit has both the GPU and video card
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water cooled which ended up giving us a bit of a surprise when we fired up our
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benchmarks more on that later but it's also available in a less expensive CPU
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only config there is no question that hardline looks
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great mwah but as a tinkerer if i was buying a bolt
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x i might not configure it this way for
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a couple of reasons flexible tubing doesn't look as good i know but it gives
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you quick and easy access for troubleshooting or upgrades while
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hardline requires you to dismantle the whole loop in order to get at virtually
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anything other than the RAM and drives
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one saving grace with this particular machine though is that as long as you're
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careful about it you actually could probably pull the whole assembly out
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through the top panel so unlike the main gear omen x with hardline you could swap
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a failed component like a motherboard without a plumbing certificate from the
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local community college but we still think that the happy medium
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is hardline for the CPU only
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for easy graphics card upgrades in the future or soft tubing all around if you
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want the extra performance and on that subject there's plenty of
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that our ASUS rog strix z270i gaming is
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equipped with an Intel core i7 7700k
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and 32 gigs of ddr4 3000 RAM and as for
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the GPU well that my friends is what a
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water-cooled GeForce gtx 1080 ti looks
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like and the whole thing is running off
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a lienly 750 watt 80 plus platinum
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modular power supply so then it should come as no surprise that even without
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the five gigahertz factory overclock option our both x killed our 1080p
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gaming test suite but what might be surprising is just how
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well it killed it we gathered all of these results
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at stock speeds for both the CPU and GPU
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meaning that the performance difference over our test bench here was purely
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driven by the efficiency of digital storms hydrolux water cooling loop
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no part of our system ever dropped from max turbo which was
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totally what i should have named my son
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max turbo anyway sorry
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even synthetic tests including a combined load of fermark and ida 64
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didn't manage to make it throttle which is great results in a doomsday scenario
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for any unified cooler and it doesn't really get terribly loud
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while gaming either with the fan spinning up to a light whoosh under
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normal loads and only really ramping up higher when under those synthetic loads
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i mentioned before we wanted to give you accurate numbers
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for the noise levels but unfortunately the studio is presently a construction
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zone so yeah that's that's not happening
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but bottom line is it worth the price tag well it's tough to say not because
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we don't have the results or because we're
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waffling on making a recommendation it's actually because we don't have a price
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tag yet digital storm won't be releasing the bolt x to the public for another
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couple of months and while the preliminary pricing that they've given
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us says it will be starting at 1 500 us
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dollars their starting configuration for the bolt 3 at that price suggests that a
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bolt x as shown here will cost a pretty
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penny more than that but maybe that's the point
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what you'll be getting with the bolt x is a machine that absolutely crushes it
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in terms of performance and with headroom for some overclocking thanks to
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its excellent cooling setup it is far from the smallest gaming rig
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we've ever seen it's even bigger than the last generation bolt but it's still
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not unreasonable so if you've got the cash and you want a water cooled gaming
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rig done right i think the bolt x has got you covered
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ting is a mobile carrier that cares about your satisfaction it truly is an
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unusual thing isn't it so when you call them you don't speak to a robot you get
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put through directly to a person and it
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doesn't cost extra in fact you pay only
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for what you use with the average ting bill coming in at just 23 bucks a month
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and if you're stuck in a contract they will also cover 25 of your cancellation
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fee up to 75
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so check them out today and take advantage of their lower mobile data
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rates beyond the first gig is just 10
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per gig and every single ting customer they're porting it backwards will be
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able to reap the benefits of this new change so head over to Linus.ting.com
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to try out their savings calculator and see if you'll save by using ting and
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when you sign up at our link you'll even get 25 bucks in service credit or
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towards a new device so thanks for watching guys if you dislike this video
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subscribed and maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description
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also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one as well as our community forum which
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you should totally join