If you are looking for a 4K or VR gaming system, Fierce PC make have the solution with the Imperial Hive gaming system. It features the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 overclocked to 3.8GHz along with the powerful NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti.
Product on Review: Imperial Hive Full System
Manufacturer & Sponsor: Fierce PC
Street Price: 1869.95 GBP
Not everyone has the time to put together their own system and so turn to renowned system builders to provide them with a well specified system, and Fierce PC has become a trusted brand in the UK due to their quality, service and competitive pricing.
The Imperial Hive takes the meaning of value to the next level but utilising the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU and overclocking it to 3.8GHz. Set into the GIGABYTE AORUS X370 Gaming 5 motherboard and matched with the AORUS GTX 1080Ti 11GB, not only will this system pack one hell of a punch, but it will give gamers a beautiful, customisable lighting. All the components are then housed in the sleek GameMax Onyx mid-tower chassis, which features tinted, tempered glass panels. GameMax have slowly started to filter into the UK market with growing renown for providing excellent quality PC cases at great prices, allowing system builders to provide high-quality, attractive looking systems at a lower price point.
Fierce PC on their Imperial Hive
The Imperial Hive is one of our high-spec Ryzen driven PCs, and thanks to the power of the new chips you’ll have silky smooth, immersive gameplay. The Hive is also powered by the fantastic new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB graphics card, and 16GB of 2400MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX memory, enough to max out any game. Also included is a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO solid state drive which provides NVME-powered super fast access to all your games, programmes, and operating system, along with a speedy 2TB Seagate Firecuda solid state hybrid drive, up to 5x faster than a conventional hard drive, for everything else you need.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications supplied directly from Fierce PC themselves:OS
Windows 10 64-bit
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @ 3.8GHz (8 Cores, 16 Threads)
CPU Cooler
Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120
RAM
16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz DDR4 Memory (2 x 8GB)
Motherboard
AORUS X370-Gaming 5
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce 11GB AORUS GTX 1080ti
Storage
2TB Seagate FireCuda Solid State Hybrid Drive – 5x faster than HDD
250GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVME Solid State Drive
PSU
Cooler Master V650 80+ Gold
Case
Game Max Onyx RGB Mid Tower ATX 3 x RGB Fans Tempered Glass Sides & Front
Weight
20-25KG
Warranty
2 years parts – 5 years labour
Windows 10 64-bit
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @ 3.8GHz (8 Cores, 16 Threads)
CPU Cooler
Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120
RAM
16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz DDR4 Memory (2 x 8GB)
Motherboard
AORUS X370-Gaming 5
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce 11GB AORUS GTX 1080ti
Storage
2TB Seagate FireCuda Solid State Hybrid Drive – 5x faster than HDD
250GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVME Solid State Drive
PSU
Cooler Master V650 80+ Gold
Case
Game Max Onyx RGB Mid Tower ATX 3 x RGB Fans Tempered Glass Sides & Front
Weight
20-25KG
Warranty
2 years parts – 5 years labour
Product Overview
Fierce PC include the motherboard box with all the additional cables and accessories and manuals for the system. Behind the front panel is a honeycomb-hex pattern cut out for intake ventilation, which also adds an awesome lighting effect to the front of the case.
The Game Max Onyx features tinted tempered glass panels on the front and sides.
The advantage to tempered glass is, unlike acrylic, it doesn’t dull over time. When you clean acrylic it starts to pick up very small scratches and over time becomes dull, making it harder to clean dust and fingerprints off. So using tempered glass keeps your system looking clean and attractive for longer. Though, if you are in/out of your system regularly, you may find it tedious having to clean your fingerprints all the time. Here, you can see how reflective the tempered glass is.
The rear IO offers a whole host of USB, audio and dual lan ports, for the full review of the AORUS X370 Gaming 5, click here
This chassis features springy, good quality power and reset buttons, front panel audio, 2x USB 2.0 and 1x USB 3.0. It is a shame that Game Max didn’t feature 2x USB 3.0 ports. There is also a button to change the LED lighting effects on the front fans. There is a selection of colours, breathing effect and a cycling rave effect. However, out-the-box, Fierce PC has colour matched the motherboard, graphics card and the case fans.
The layout of the chassis provides system builders all the space they need for a clean and attractive looking PC, some might still be stuck on wondering where to fit an optical drive, but considering its 2017, its time to start getting used to the idea that optical drives are almost obsolete.
Behind the motherboard tray we see that Fierce PC has done a tidy job of cable managing, with no stray cables causing any problems. This chassis also features a built in fan controller.
The CPU is cooled by the Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120 in push-pull configuration. The pump features dim white LEDs which remains neutral to the overall aesthetic of the system, providing an effective cooling solution for the CPU.
The GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080Ti is a beautifully huge graphics card that has a triple slot cooler which works passively while idle, ensuring a quiet system.
Installed into the motherboard is a super fast Samsung M.2 NVMe 250GB SSD, pre-installed with Windows 10 64bit.
Powered up, the glorious harmony of a 2017 PC system.
Benchmarks: Boot Time & Power Consumption
In this test we observe how fast the boot into Windows 10 is by using a digital stopwatch. Power consumption is another important observation, for this we observe the wattage from the wall while the system is running Heaven 4.0.
Benchmarks: Cinebench R15 & x264 HD
CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor is. x264 is a multithreaded encoding benchmark which measures CPU performance in frames-per-second.
Benchmarks: FutureMark
PCMark 8 Download3DMark Download
VRMark Download
FutureMark has long been considered a leader in performance benchmarking with software specifically created to test the limits of PC systems. They have a selection of software that is specifically designed to measure various aspects of PC performance, from Gaming and Virtual Reality, to Home, media, and content creation.
Benchmarks: Heaven 4.0
Extreme performance and stability test for PC hardware: video card, power supply, cooling system. Check your rig in stock and overclocking modes with real-life load! Also includes interactive experience in a beautiful, detailed environment.
Gaming Performance – RotTR, DX:MD, TW:WH, and DOOM
The Imperial Hive is a high-end gaming system featuring a high-performance 8core 16thread CPU and the powerful GTX 1080Ti graphics card from NVIDIA, and so will be aimed at Ultra HD (4K), and VR gaming. Here we test a selection of recent games to give the system performance at both 1920×1080, and 4K resolutions.
Conclusion
For under £1900 GBP, this is one heck of a system, especially when you consider that the price of the specified parts should you buy separately comes in very close to cost, so it represents huge value too when you consider that Fierce PC have a 2 year parts and 5 year labour warranty policy as standard. The Windows install features no bloatware, other than the various hardware utility apps and a fancy Fierce PC wallpaper.
The Imperial Hive is packed with reputable branded products from Cooler Master, Samsung, GIGABYTE, Corsair, and the system gives gamers a real 4K and VR ready system. Systems at comparable prices, or even more expensive, are still featuring the quad-core i7 7700K, and lower spec graphics cards (either the GTX 1070, or the GTX 1080), so picking parts at the sweet-spot in pricing, Fierce PC have been able to give gamers a powerhouse of a PC.
There are some minor gripes that we could pick-up on, such as using 2400MHz over 2667MHz memory, but that is actually a rather wise move considering that the performance difference from the memory isn’t a major factor overall. I think the only consideration we would make is with the PSU selection. The V650W is enough to power the CPU and the GPU, but the power load of 426W in Heaven is more of a typical loading. Though unlikely to happen in a gaming scenario, full 100% utilisation of both CPU and GPU (for example using MSI Kombustor + CPU Stress) bumped the peak loading over 600W, and so bearing this in mind, we would prefer a 750W PSU. Though this is a minor point to mention as you can change the PSU to the Corsair HX750i and still keep the system build under £1900.
By basing a high-end gaming PC around an overclocking Ryzen 7 1700 CPU, the Imperial Hive system can give gamers unprecedented power and performance at extraordinary value.
Pros
+ Beautiful presentation out-the-box (Customisable lighting)
+ Reputable brands used throughout
+ Tidy cable management
+ High performance CPU
+ High grade GTX 1080Ti
+ 2TB Hybrid Storage + 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD
+ Great value
+ Capable of 4K and VR gaming
+ 2 year parts warranty, 5 years labour warranty
+ Currently includes a free game
Mediocre
+- We would recommend picking a 750W PSU
Cons
– None
+ Beautiful presentation out-the-box (Customisable lighting)
+ Reputable brands used throughout
+ Tidy cable management
+ High performance CPU
+ High grade GTX 1080Ti
+ 2TB Hybrid Storage + 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD
+ Great value
+ Capable of 4K and VR gaming
+ 2 year parts warranty, 5 years labour warranty
+ Currently includes a free game
Mediocre
+- We would recommend picking a 750W PSU
Cons
– None
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
