It's pricey for a single GPU gaming rig, but the Bolt II's performance and near silent cooling do a lot to justify the cost.
If you looked at the price above and thought, "Why would I spend almost $4,000 on a living room PC?" you're not alone. I had the exact same thought when Digital Storm's Bolt II was announced, amid a sea of other small-form factor gaming PCs branded with the Steam logo. Who needs this much PC in your living room?
But thinking of the Bolt II as "just a Steam Machine" is flat-out wrong. Before it's a living room PC, the Bolt II is a gaming PC. And that means it packs a whole lot of power into an itty-bitty box.
Stuffed inside Digital Storm's custom "Lust Red" case is a Core i7 4770K, cranked way up to 4.5GHz, and Nvidia's fastest single GPU videocard, the GTX Titan Black. Add in 16GB of high-performance Corsair memory and plenty of SSD and HDD storage, and you've got a pretty stout machine that, frankly, should sound like a jet engine while it's running.
But it doesn't. In fact, Digital Storm's custom watercooling setup keeps the CPU, the Titan Black, and the case temperatures down to more than manageable levels and keeps the noise so quiet that you might forget the rig is running at all. I did, even while benchmarking.
Speaking of which, the Bolt II racked up 39 frames per second in Unigine Heaven, and even a slick 32fps in Metro: Last Light at Very High quality settings and 2560x1440 resolution. For a single-GPU system, that's pretty great.
That's also the biggest downside: because of its form factor, you'll be limited to only one videocard in the Bolt II. Everything else is upgradable, and easily, but there just isn't enough room for an SLI setup.
That said, this is a stout little gaming rig. I'd be happy to have the Bolt II sitting under my desk, and when the Steam Machine version is released, any television would be better if it has this much machine attached to it.
SPEC
CPU Intel Core i7 4770K (Overclocked to 4.5GHz)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB
Motherboard Asus Maximum VI Impact
Storage 256GB Samsung SSD / 2TB Western Digital Black 7200 RPM
Cooling Custom CPU/GPU watercooling
BENCHMARKS
3DMark 11 5498
Unigen Heaven 39fps (2560x1440, Ultra setting, 4xAA)
Metro: Last Light 32fps (2560x1440, Very High quality, SSAA enabled)
Total War: Shogun 2 165fps (2560x1440 High setting)
Thief 53fps (2560x1440 Ultra setting)
Tomb Raider 67fps (2560x1440 Ultra setting)
digitalstormonline.com/bolt-ii.asp
