Overclockers UK Titan Wave Review

Overclockers UK Titan Wave Review

Manufacturer: Overclockers UK
UK price (as reviewed): £1321.64 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): N/A

While Intel's Skylake CPUs and Z170 chipset make a pretty big song and dance in the mid-range, the high-end PC is all about Intel's X99 chipset and its six and eight-core CPUs. In fact, where the Core i7-6700K and Core i7-5820K meet is a pretty grey area. Both CPUs cost pretty much the same - around £300 - and both sit in systems that typically support next-gen storage standards. The main difference is multi-GPU support - X99 wins here and it also calls the shots when it comes to multi-core performance, as the Core i7-5820K sports six cores as opposed to four for the Skylake chip.


Add in the fact that motherboard and RAM prices aren't that much different, and the choice is a tough one. Overclockers UK has opted for X99 with its Titan Wave system though, and if you thought this kind of beast had to be huge then you'll be pleasantly surprised. It has chosen Corsair's Carbide Air 240 case, which is barely any bigger than a BitFenix Prodigy and sports a large side window to show off your new shiny hardware - especicially so with the addition of a BitFenix blue LED strip. The downside is that it is a little plain-looking, especially compared to the slick NZXT Source 340 used in Cyberpower's Infinity X55 Pro GT.


The case only supports up to micro-ATX motherboards though, so Overclockers UK's options were rather limited. Thankfully, Gigabyte's X99M-Gaming 5 fits the bill perfectly and while the Titan Wave includes just one GPU, you get the space to throw in another at some point too. The Air 240 has ample space for liquid cooling gear, whether you're dealing with an all-in-one liquid cooler or completely custom water-cooling kit. There's an OcUK-branded liquid cooler here, with a half-height double 120mm fan radiator and a pair of Noiseblocker fans either side at the front of the case.

This is backed up by a pair of fans in the roof too, which are hooked up to a pair of 5V molex cables - and they're lovely and quiet. The front fans spin up to a fairly audible thrum at full speed and this is noticeable outside the case as the Air 240 is fairly porous plus the radiator is located at the front of the case. On closer inspection, two appear to be connected to 12V molex connectors, which seemed odd - OcUK told us that they too should be connected to the motherboard so if you splash out on a Titan Wave, make sure that's the case as the system will be much quieter as a result.


The CPU has been overclocked to 4GHz, up from a maximum turbo frequency of 3.6GHz, but a vcore of 1.2V is fairly lowly so things remain well within check - in fact we'd even consider limiting all the radiator fans to 5V too for a quieter system that still offers ample cooling. Thankfully, the KFA2 GTX 970 OC Infin8 Black graphics card was pracitcally silent and inaudible. Performance here, then, is likely to be in the 2,560 x 1,440 territory as the GTX 970 isn't quite a 4K beast. That said, it has been factory overclocked with the core rising from 1,050MHz to 1,178MHz and the boost clock from 1,178MHz to 1,329MHz - the memory, however, remains at 7GHz effective.

All the other specs are top-notch too - you get 16GB of DDR4 2,400MHz memory and of course the CPU is hyper-threaded so can run up to 12 threads, while the Core i7-6700K only has a maximum of eight. There's no next-gen storage here, and this is a sensible choice at this price - the latest M.2 SSDs are ridiculously fast but they still demand a hefty premium. Overclockers UK has done the right thing and opted for a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo, along with a 2TB Seagate Barracuda so there's plenty of storage space for the OS and games plus extra for your data.


The operating system is up to you - the price above is without an OS but there are Windows 7 and Windows 10 options from £79.99. A warranty is included which spans three years with 24 months collect and return and 12 months of labour covered. As per usual, Overclockers UK's configurator allows you to tweak nearly all the options and they're happy to discuss anything more detailed over the phone.

Specifications

• CPU Intel Core i7-5820K (overclocked to 4GHz)
  
• CPU cores Six physical, 12 logical
  
• Memory 16GB 2,400MHz Team Group (4 x 4GB) DDR4
  
• Graphics KFA2 Infin8 Black Edition GeForce GTX 970 OC (2x Dual-Link DVI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI)
  
• Storage 1 x 250GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD (OS), 1 x 2TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard disk
  
• Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X99M-Gaming 5
  
• PSU SuperFlower HX 650W
  
• Optical Drive None
  
• Cooling OcUK Techlabs 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler
  
• Case / Dimensions (mm) Corsair Carbide Air 240 / 260 x 320 x 397 (W x D x H)
  
• Networking Gigabit LAN
  
• Audio 8-channel Realtek ALC1150 (on-board)
  
• Operating system None (Windows 7 and Windows 10 options)
  
• Audio and USB Ports 8 x USB 3.0 (2 via header), 8 x USB 2.0 ( 4 x via header), 1 x LAN, audio out, line in, mic, Optical S/PDIF out
  
• Warranty 2 years Collect and return + 1 year labour