Eclipse Stealth FX812R795 Extreme Review

Are you looking for the ultimate gaming experience? 3D, triple display, AMD CrossfireX 7950 & with HOTAS Warthog.

Product on Review: Stealth Extreme (FX812R795)
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Eclipse Computers

Street Price £1,999.63 (At time of review)

Building a custom PC is quite a task for many people. Some may not know how to construct a system and others may be weary of choosing compatible components. Whilst there is a huge market for the individual sale of computer components, online retailers have to cater for those who may not be up to the task of building their own machine. Instead, online retailers will build systems in-house and sell direct to tackle this issue. When you think about it, it’s a great idea; consumers can simply order a system based on their budget and purpose of use – not having to worry about the selection of components or building the actual system itself.

Today we will be taking a look at a high-end gaming system courtesy of Eclipse Computers. The Stealth Extreme is a gaming system based around the 990FX chipset and featuring AMD Bulldozer – FX-8120. Along with 16GB of DDR3, SSD, dual HD7950s, triple screen LED 3D display and premium gaming peripherals, is this the best gaming system we have ever tested? There’s only one way to find out…

Eclipse Computer’s take on Stealth Extreme

Designed using the very latest AMD Bulldozer core FX series processors, water cooled and overclocked, along with the super powerful XFX 7950 DD edition graphics cards, the Eclipse Stealth FX812R795 Extreme series systems deliver incredible gaming performance in the latest games, the latest connectivity and the most advanced features available today.

Technical Specifications

CPU AMD Bulldozer FX-8120 3.1GHz AM3+ Black Ed Processor-Retail
Motherboard Asus Sabertooth 990FX AM3+
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8Gb DDR3 1600 (2x4Gb) CL9 Dual-Chan Kit
Cooling Corsair Hydro H40 High Performance Water Cooling Kit
Graphics XFX 3Gb AMD Radeon HD 7950 DD Ed. PCI-e 3.0
PSU XFX 1000W P1-1000-BL Black Edition 80+ Platinum Modular
Storage
1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATA3 32mb Cache
120Gb Corsair Force3 SATA3 SSD
Optical Drives LG CH10LS28R Blu-Ray Rom DVD Writer
Case NZXT Phantom (Red)
Gaming Accessories
Saitek Cyborg V.5 USB Gaming Keyboard – Black/Red
Saitek Cyborg R.A.T. 3 Gaming Mouse 3200dpi
Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog Joystick & Controls
Display
XFX Eyefinity Monitor Stand – (Supports Up to 3 x 24″ Screens)
3x LG D2342P-PN 23 Inch Widescreen LED Monitors (With 3D Glasses)
Software MicroSoft Windows 7 Home Premium – SP1, 64Bit, OEM

Eclipse Stealth Extreme Product Page

Closer Look (External)

The Stealth Extreme has all of its components housed within an NXZT Phantom which received our praise when it was first released. The red may not sit well with everyone but it certainly catches the eye and is very lively. Though I wasn’t quite sure about the colour at first, the appeal is growing on me. Eclipse Computers have attached various impressions of their logo and the very name of this system to the front and side.

A red NZXT Phantom houses all the kit

The front panel controls on NZXT Phantom include – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB 3.0 port, headphone/microphone jacks and a fan controller to manage up to 5x fans. Stealth Extreme has 3x cooling fans. 2x 120mm NZXT fans attached to the prominent side panel and a large 200mm fan located at the top of the chassis. The front intake fan has been removed.

Eclipse Computers branding

Closer Look (Internal)

We’ll now take a look inside Stealth Extreme. Upon removing the side panels we can now reveal the inner-working of the system and show off the components.

Inside, even the motherboard tray has been given a lick of red. Eclipse Computers have been careful to organise the inside of Stealth Extreme, cable management is very tidy. Though the dual AMD HD7950’s are high-end graphics cards and rather big – there is plenty of excess room around them, and indeed the entire system, NZXT Phantom is a large case.

Behind the motherboard tray again there is further evidence of good cable management practise with all of the cables neatly bundled and routed using cable ties.

A very spacious and attractive setup

This system has been build and arranged with care

Though it’s quite hard to make out what motherboard is being used due to the crowding hardware, Eclipse Computers have chosen to go with the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX a very popular 990FX motherboard with military class components and an offering that received another gold award by Vortez. Of course, being 990FX, at the very heart of the system is an AMD processor, namely – AMD Bulldozer FX-8120. This chip is cooled by the well-known Corsair Hydro H40 and as a result the 120mm cooling fan which would normally reside at the back of the case has been removed and replaced with the H40’s radiator. Ideally, the H40 should have been rotated 180 degrees to avoid a collision between the tubing and top mounted case fan.

Eclipse Computers have again gone with Corsair for their memory selection. Rather than just using a single kit of DD3, 2x dual channel DDR3 has been used. Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 has been used. So far for the core components Eclipse Computers have chosen their brands and models very well indeed.

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX with AMD FX-8120 cooled with Corsair H40.

Turning our attention to the graphics cards here we have some serious grunt for graphics delivery – dual AMD HD7950’s in CrossfireX configuration. The actual cards used are XFX Double D Edition HD7950 – another product that we were very impressed by upon release. These cards with their GHOST cooling design are very quiet, very cool and look fantastic. Due to us using a triple display with this system the total graphics memory of 4GB will come in very handy.

Powering all of this lovely hardware is the XFX PRO 1000W PSU. This PSU delivers platinum efficiency (90%+) and whilst a smaller unit would have been feasible the 1000W will give additional headroom to cater for any overclocking the user may wish to do. XFX PSUs are well known for being extremely reliable and boasting an impressive warranty period of 5 years.

XFX R7950 CrossfireX for strong graphics delivery

In terms of storage capabilities, our system takes advantage of a 120GB SATA 3 SSD – Corsair Force 3 for its boot drive giving fast bootup and application read/write times. An additional drive has been installed for further storage capacity. This is a 3.5” Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 – again SATA 3 (6GB/s) and has 1TB of capacity.

Storage drives via 120GB SATA 3 boot-drive and 1TB 6GB/s

Closer Look (Gaming Accessories)

Bundled with the Stealth Extreme are a group of gaming accessories to get your well on your way. Both the keyboard and mouse are from the same company group – Saitek. The keyboard is Cyborg V5 gaming keyboard. This keyboard has backlit keys, anti-ghosting and media controls. The mouse that Eclipse Computers have chosen is the R.A.T. 3.0 – an optical gaming mouse with programmable buttons and on-the-fly DPI adjustment. Both items are very comfortable to use and throughout the testing I was quite surprised by the results. This is the first occasion I have had the chance to ‘try-out’ any R.A.T. gaming peripheral and I really like the look and feel of this device.

Saitek Cyborg V5 and R.A.T 3.0 gaming peripherals

The other additions to the gaming bundle are the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Throttle and Joystick. These devices are extremely well made and as a result carry quite some weight. Both the joystick and throttle controls are replicas from the air-force and have been bundled to enhance games and provide a fully immersive experience. I fully tested this equipment out with Microsoft Flight and both items work very well indeed. If you want a robust gaming bundle to enrich your flight simulators then this kit is the one to go with.

Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog throttle and joystick for the best flight experience

Closer Look (XFX Triple Monitor Stand + Monitors)

Not only do you get a pre-built system and gaming peripherals with Stealth Extreme but the displays have also been provided too. Not one, not two but three LG D2342P-PN 23” LED 3D monitors are included with this system. Having such an abundance of display units is difficult to position on the office desk and so Eclipse Computers have also included the XFX Triple Monitor Stand to allow us to take full advantage of AMD Eyefinity. The XFX triple monitor stand is again another very well made piece of kit. All of the tooling and parts are tough and good quality. Getting the stand up and ready takes little over 15 minutes and once set up, your desk is transformed into a command centre.

XFX triple monitor display stand with LG screens

Great built quality and a robust solution

The XFX stand also has dual USB 2.0 ports and headphone/microphone jacks – these need to be powered via a cable to the computer though.

All three LG monitors come with 3D glasses so that the user can enjoy 3D movies and games. In non-3D and 3D mode the LG monitors offer a very crisp picture. The aspect ratio is 16:9 due to widescreen and full HD 1080p is available with these screens. A huge 5,000,000:1 delivers vibrancy whilst 5ms is perfect for fast paced gaming like FPS. Overall; very impressive.

The choice of 3D to engage in a full immersive experience

Test Systems & Methodologies

Eclipse Stealth Extreme
CPU AMD Bulldozer FX-8120 3.1GHz AM3+ Black Ed Processor-Retail
Motherboard Asus Sabertooth 990FX AM3+
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8Gb DDR3 1600 (2x4Gb) CL9 Dual-Chan Kit
Cooling Corsair Hydro H40 High Performance Water Cooling Kit
Graphics XFX 3Gb AMD Radeon HD 7950 DD Ed. PCI-e 3.0
PSU XFX 1000W P1-1000-BL Black Edition 80+ Platinum Modular
Storage
1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATA3 32mb Cache
120Gb Corsair Force3 SATA3 SSD

Scan 3XS FT03
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (Overclocked to 4.7GHz)
Memory 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz CL9 DDR3
Graphics 2x ASUS NVIDIA GTX560Ti DirectCU II 1GB
HDD 1x 120GB Corsair Force 3 SSD 1x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB
PSU Corsair TX850M V2

Custom PC – Intel Core i5 2500K, ASUS P8P67
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (Quad-Core 3.3GHz)
Motherboards ASUS P8P67
Memory 4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis CL9 1600MHz
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
HDD Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA 2
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W

Benchmarks
Windows 7 Boot Time – Measuring with digital stopclock
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
CrystalDiskMark 3 – Sequential Read/Write
Cinebench 11.5 – CPU Score
AIDA64 – Disk/Cache benchmarks
SiSoftware SANDRA 2011 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark 11 – Performance and Extreme preset
Gaming – DIRT 3 and Skyrim (Average FPS)

The above benchmarks will be run on all systems and compared. The Stealth Extreme delivers mid-high end performance, comparable to the recently reviewed Scan 3XS FT03, whilst the custom PC offers entry-mid range performance.

Real World Performance – Windows 7 Boot Time

Synthetic testing is valuable in the examination of systems, but some of the tests may not mean all that much to some readers so this real world test will show the Windows 7 boot time. A digital stopclock is used to record time duration.

Real World Performance – x264 HD 4.0

Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.

HDD Performance – CrystalDiskMark 3

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful. Sequential read/write performance is monitored.

HDD Performance – AIDA64

Benchmark pages of AIDA64 Extreme Edition provide several methods to measure system performance. These benchmarks are synthetic, so their results show only the theoretical (maximum) performance of the system.

CPU Performance – Cinebench 11.5

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. CPU score is monitored.

CPU Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA 2012

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

3D Performance – 3DMark 11

Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

3D Performance – DIRT 3 & Skyrim

It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because it allows us to test the 3D performance. So here we have some popular titles, critically acclaimed and action-packed. FRAPS and in-house benchmarking tools were used to capture average FPS.

Conclusion

Just shy of £2000, the Stealth Extreme is by no means a cheap investment by any account. But it’s important to consider what is included within the entire package because on offer isn’t just a computer system, there is a triple monitor stand worth over £300, 3x LED 3D monitors worth over £500 and gaming peripherals worth over £350. As an entire package this system is complete, it delivers great performance and on offer is a fully immersive experience.

This is the first time we have experienced a system built by Eclipse Computers at Vortez I have to say they have done a sterling job. The choice of components throughout the system were very good (many having won awards in individual reviews) and total care with how items are installed were of utmost importance – cable management was smart, tidy and kept in such a way that I would build a system myself.

It’s fair to say that the AMD Bulldozer product line has been highly criticised since its launch and many will be reading this wondering why such a platform has been chosen for Stealth Extreme and in some areas there are indeed weaknesses. Suffice to say though, compared to the Scan 3XS ROG SLI system which is based on Intel’s 2500K and Z68 our AMD system did admirably in most of the benchmarks we ran. It’s hard to ignore the fact that at the very heart of this system is a chip that is inferior to Intel’s Sandy/Ivy Bridge offerings – the reality is for a similar price better overall performance and overclocking potential can be had. Also worth mentioning is that the FX-8120 has been left at stock and yet the temperatures reveal no real concern at idle or load states — it would have been nice to see a slight nudge in frequency to enhance the overall performance.

Another aspect which I found it hard to understand was the inclusion of a membrane keyboard rather than mechanical. All of the items included with Stealth Extreme appear to be on another level in terms of quality yet an ordinary membrane gaming keyboard has been selected. I would have liked to see a mechanical offering – especially as the accessibility of such a peripheral is now so readily available.

Stealth Extreme pushes the boundaries for quality and experience. If you have the cash and want a fully immersive 3D gaming experience then this system is a decent choice.

Pros
+ Attractive system inside/outside
+ Excellent choice of components
+ Rich gaming experience
+ Great build quality throughout
+ Good cable management

Cons
– Cost
– Membrane gaming keyboard