Overclockers UK present their Titan Prodigy Polar – A LAN gaming system using BitFenix Prodigy, Intel Ivy Bridge, KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC and much, much more!
Product on Review: Titan Prodigy Polar
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Overclockers UK
Street Price: £1185.95
In the world of computing not everyone has the expertise to building their own custom PC. To many it can appear a daunting task to undertake and not least of all because there is a requirement to choose compatible hardware. Although many computer etailers allow for the purchase of individual components the bigger companies out there have put considerable time into designing and building their own systems for consumers to purchase. So if you don’t have the know-how, you can still get on the road to gaming stardom (or whatever else) without having to build the system yourself.
Today we shall be taking a look at a LAN gaming system named Titan Prodigy Polar from Overclockers UK. Our system today features an overclocked Intel Core i5-3570K, custom cooled/overclocked GTX 660Ti and much more! Join us as we put this system under the spotlight!
Overclockers UK on Titan Prodigy Polar
The award winning “Titan Prodigy Polar” is one of our smallest, most compact systems gaming systems to date. This special “Polar Edition” is available only in the White Prodigy case. Featuring the Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz utlising hyper threading quad core performance and a massive 8GB of Corsair White RAM the “Titan Prodigy Polar” contains enough power to glide through everyday tasks and to power through intense applications and games with ease. The latest DX11 GFX cards provide superb cinematic graphics. All wrapped up inside the awesome new Bitfenix Prodigy case. Perfect for LAN, perfect for the desktop.
Features
System Specification
– Case: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
– Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
– CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz Ivybridge Processor overclocked to a staggering 4.20GHz
– Motherboard: ASRoc Z77E-ITX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 mini ITX Motherboard
– Cooler: Corsair H60 CPU Cooler
– RAM: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
– Hard Drive: 120GB SSD & 1TB HDD
– Graphics Card: KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB
– Sound: High Definition 7.1 Onboard Sound Card
– Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray Reader / DVD±RW Drive – OEM
Service Package
– Full 24 Month collect and return warranty
– Each specification is assembled from handpicked components for compatibility and stability
– Telephone, web note and forum technical support
– Case: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
– Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
– CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz Ivybridge Processor overclocked to a staggering 4.20GHz
– Motherboard: ASRoc Z77E-ITX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 mini ITX Motherboard
– Cooler: Corsair H60 CPU Cooler
– RAM: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
– Hard Drive: 120GB SSD & 1TB HDD
– Graphics Card: KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB
– Sound: High Definition 7.1 Onboard Sound Card
– Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray Reader / DVD±RW Drive – OEM
Service Package
– Full 24 Month collect and return warranty
– Each specification is assembled from handpicked components for compatibility and stability
– Telephone, web note and forum technical support
The System
OcUK’s Titan Prodigy Polar takes its name from its computer chassis, the much loved BitFenix Prodigy which attained our prestigious Gold award. The white variant of this case is a firm favourite in hardware circles and it’s not hard to understand why – this case oozes style and charisma. The only telling feature which differs from the original Prodigy case from the outside is the optical drive OcUK have used which is an LG Blu-Ray Reader 10x / DVD±RW Drive 16x.
BitFenix Prodigy Arctic – Mini-ITX at its finest
Around the back there are a plethora of available ports to take advantage of, these include:
• PS2 keyboard/mouse
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• Dual wireless antennas
• Onboard DVI/Display Port/HDMI
• Clear CMOS button
• 2x USB 2.0 ports + 1x eSATA port
• Gigabit LAN
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• 6-channel audio with optical SPDIF
Additional to these ports our system has the KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB which gives dual HDMI and dual DVI (D+I) ports for display.
An assortment of options on the rear I/O
Taking the side panels off we can gain insight into the hardware used within Titan Prodigy Polar. On the prominent side we are met immediately by the graphics card KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB – this is KFA’s custom cooled GTX 660Ti which is also pre-overclocked. The Core clock is set to 1006MHz with a boost to 1084MHz with reference cards giving 915MHz and 980MHz boost – a small nudge in speed to gain added FPS.
By now we can also identify the PSU which is situated at the bottom of the case; this is an OCZ ZS 750W. OcUK have used a bigger PSU for this system because of the specification of the card plus the CPU is overclocked – there is also some headroom should the consumer want to alter the configuration.
Storage is also viewable from this side – OcUK have furnished Titan Prodigy Polar with two drives, the operating system drive being an Intel 330 Series 120GB SATA 3 SSD and general storage relies upon a Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3 mechanical drive. Both are known to offer a great balance between reliability and performance.
A look inside the system
The other side
At the heart of Titan Prodigy Polar are a number of great products. First of all at the core is an Intel Core i5-3570K (Ivy Bridge) which has a stock speed of 3.40GHz but OcUK have overclocked the CPU to 4.20GHz to help improve performance even further. Cooling this CPU is Corsair’s Hydro H80 which is a liquid cooler capable of giving low temperatures and is ideal for use in the Prodigy case. OcUK have attached dual BitFenix Spectre 120mm cooling fans to the radiator to act as a push/pull configuration. Giving the system all its functionality and backbone is the ASRock Z77E-ITX – an Intel Z77 motherboard using ITX form factor capable of entertaining Ivy Bridge, high-end graphics cards and the 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP White 1600MHz (CL9) DDR3 memory. The basis for this system is strong, it can and does harbour some excellent hardware so it will be intriguing to know how much of a punch this small system can pack.
A closeup look at the fundamentals
Test Systems & Methodologies
OcUK Titan Prodigy Polar
CPU Intel Core i5-3570K (Overclocked to 4.20GHz)
Motherboard ASRock Z77E-ITX
Memory 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz CL9
Cooling Corsair Hydro H80
Graphics KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB
PSU OCZ ZS 750W
Storage Intel 330 Series 120GB SATA 3 SSD / Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3
CPU Intel Core i5-3570K (Overclocked to 4.20GHz)
Motherboard ASRock Z77E-ITX
Memory 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz CL9
Cooling Corsair Hydro H80
Graphics KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB
PSU OCZ ZS 750W
Storage Intel 330 Series 120GB SATA 3 SSD / Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3
MSI GT70 Notebook
CPU Intel 3610QM
Motherboard MSI-1762
Memory 16GB DDR3 – 1600MHZ CL11
Graphics 4GB NVIDIA GTX 680M
HDD 2x 128GB SSD (RAID0) 1x Hitachi Deskstar 750GB
CPU Intel 3610QM
Motherboard MSI-1762
Memory 16GB DDR3 – 1600MHZ CL11
Graphics 4GB NVIDIA GTX 680M
HDD 2x 128GB SSD (RAID0) 1x Hitachi Deskstar 750GB
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
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
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
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 Titan Prodigy Polar delivers mid-range performance and will be compared to a series of previously reviewed systems.
Titan Prodigy Polar takes advantage of Intel Ivy Bridge’s Core i5-3570K which uses 6MB Smart Cache and has a stock frequency of 3.4GHz (boosts to 3.8GHz). This chip has been overclocked and thus is set to 4.20GHz. Intel Speedstep is enabled so when idle the chip will sit at 1.6GHz.
Titan Prodigy Polar uses 8GB of DDR3 operating at 1600MHz and CL9. Graphics power comes from the KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB and combined with a punchy Intel 330 SATA 3 SSD we have the makings for a very good setup.
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.
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 – Borderlands 2 & Sleeping Dogs
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.
Borderlands 2 and Sleeping Dogs are both new titles and because they weren’t available when testing subsequent systems the benchmarks here are standalone.
Conclusion
For anyone wanting to build a mid-range gaming system, acquiring quality products and building the system will require a decent wedge of cash and expertise, so how does Titan Prodigy Polar size up?
Well from a visual aspect BitFenix Prodigy Arctic is always going to be a popular choice and choosing it to house a mini-ITX system is a good decision. It looks fantastic and oozes quality. Inside, the system specification is again well chosen. The system is based around Intel’s Ivy Bridge which has been a worthy contender in the mid-high end desktop market. OcUK have taken the Core i5-3570K, combined it with the Corsair H80 and overclocked the chip to 4.20GHz for extra performance boost. It doesn’t end there either; key elements of the system have been given careful consideration too. The graphics card used in Titan Prodigy Polar is the KFA2 GTX 660Ti EX OC 2GB, not only is this custom cooled for more silence and better thermals but this card also has pre-overclock too. A blend of 8GB Corsair Vengeance and SATA 3 HDDs means access/load times are speedy and all are from respectable brands which can be relied upon, all of this great hardware is hosted on ASRock’s popular Z77E-ITX which brings a whole platter of functionality.
All of this hardware translates to solid performance for a range of uses. Regardless of whether the system is used for gaming, web browsing or even media editing Titan Prodigy Polar delivers the kind of results most are seeking.
The only area for improvement we can think of is the cable management which could have been arranged more neatly – although we appreciate the Prodigy chassis isn’t the easiest to work with in terms of cable management options, there are limited places to store cables. Noise wasn’t a major issue but the H80 did emit a buzzing noise which is well documented around the web. An alternative may have been better.
Pricing for Titan Prodigy Polar obviously varies depending on the configuration options the consumer goes with. Our system had a different graphics card compared to the default arrangement and also includes Windows 7 Home Premium which isn’t usually included by default. The pricing for the entire system is very fair indeed, buying the components individually would total a price not far from the asking price. Also consider the new 24 month warranty and the boxes are all ticked.
Pros
+ Looks stylish
+ Compact and easy to transport
+ Excellent hardware specifications
+ Very good performance
+ Pre-clocked GPU/CPU
+ Reasonably priced
Cons
– Cable Management
– Could be quieter
+ Looks stylish
+ Compact and easy to transport
+ Excellent hardware specifications
+ Very good performance
+ Pre-clocked GPU/CPU
+ Reasonably priced
Cons
– Cable Management
– Could be quieter
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
