A powerful system based around dual GTX 680s in SLI and an Intel Core i7 3770K at 4.6GHz. How will it perform in our tests?
Product on Review: OcUK Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Overclockers UK
Street price: £2080 inc. VAT (At time of review)
Overclockers UK have put together a system that features some of the best gear currently on the market. With its dual GTX 680s in SLI, an Intel Core i7 3770K, which is overclocked to 4.6GHz and 16GB of RAM, this machine is certainly no slouch. It should be able to chew through whatever games you throw at it without any issues. It has a new Samsung 840 120GB solid state drive and a 1TB drive for storage. All of which is wrapped up in a NZXT Phantom Enthusiast case but there are many different options to choose from in the system configuration, should this one not be to your personal taste.
Before we begin, lets take a quick look at what Overclockers UK have to say about their system.
Overclockers UK Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII – The Overview
The “Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII” is the ultimate evolution of our flagship Sandybridge system. Now featuring the brand new Ivybridge Intel CPU. Continuing the legacy from it’s predecessor, the “Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII” combines impressive performance with cutting edge technology to provide the ultimate gaming machine. The heart of the system is powered by the brand new Intel Core i7 3770K CPU overclocked to a massive 4.60GHz. With 4 cores and hyperthreading you will experience a seamlessly smooth computing experience boosted by a gigantic 16GB of memory! A choice of SSDs allows you to increase the speed of your system by ten fold. A massive 1TB Seagate drive brings in the storage for all your films, games and photos. Last but certainly not least, the “Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII” is powered by the fantastic Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2048MB, delivering extreme cinematic DX11 graphics! Lay waste to all, with the “Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII”
Specifications
The system consists of the following components:
System Specs
CPU Intel Core i7 3770K @4.6GHz
CPU Cooler Alpenfohn K2 Mount Doom
Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD4-TH
RAM Team Xtreem 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3-1600MHz
GPU 2x KFA2 GeForce GTX 680 EX OC 2048MB in SLI
Storage 1x Samsung 840 120GB & 1TB Storage HDD
Power Supply PCPower&Cooling 950w
Case NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case
Operating System Windows 8 Professional 64 bit
CPU Intel Core i7 3770K @4.6GHz
CPU Cooler Alpenfohn K2 Mount Doom
Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD4-TH
RAM Team Xtreem 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3-1600MHz
GPU 2x KFA2 GeForce GTX 680 EX OC 2048MB in SLI
Storage 1x Samsung 840 120GB & 1TB Storage HDD
Power Supply PCPower&Cooling 950w
Case NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case
Operating System Windows 8 Professional 64 bit
Packaging & A First Look
When the system arrives at your door, it will be packaged in the original box that the case ships in, and it comes with some added protection inside the case which you must remove before you attempt to start up the system. It is a great idea to have this protection inside the system as they are fragile, and they do not always get the best treatment during the shipping process. The innards are a little difficult to remove and I was a little scared to break something. You just have to be careful and wiggle it out of its position rather than trying to brutally rip it out.
With such a vast range of cases to choose from, our system came in the NZXT flavour which you can see below. The system itself does not come with any of the stickers applied to the case which means it is left clean and the decision is yours as to whether you wish to stick the stickers on or not. It is a very love/hate kind of situation as some love the stickers and absolutely cake their system in them and others dislike them with a passion. Leaving the choice to the consumer is the easiest way to make sure that you can please both parties, albeit a little more work for those who love them.
A Closer Look
The NZXT case is certainly a case which you either love or hate. It almost has a Star Wars theme going on with its colours and shapes but that is a topic for another day. We are reviewing the system today and not the case, but if you are interested in our review of this particular case, we have a review on the NZXT Phantom right here. Inside the system, there is a huge amount of space for all of your components to fit with ease. Overclockers UK have done a relatively good job at making the cables neat and tidy from the front of the system, but, there are a few things which could have been routed differently, such as the 8pin EPS cable. There is a cut out at the top of the case for the cable to be routed through. However, they have gone with the extension option and they have routed it behind the graphics cards and over the motherboard.
Due to this system not featuring a modular PSU (at least not in our sample), that means that all of the cables are hidden behind the motherboard tray which in itself is the entire point behind it but it does look very cluttered. Another point worth noting is that the side panel actually bulges a little due to the sheer amount of cabling on this power supply. It is a monster power supply but we think a modular one (as the specifications state) would be preferred to keep the clutter down.
With such high-end kit, you would expect to get a plethora of inputs and outputs at the back of the system, right? Well, you certainly will not be disappointed with this lot. Going from top to bottom, they are as follows:
1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
2 x Thunderbolt ports
1 x RJ-45 port
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
5 x audio jacks
A Closer Look (Continued)
The chosen CPU cooler for this build is the Alpenfohn K2 Mount Doom which we have previously reviewed here. It is a different choice over the beloved Noctua NH-D14 and it is nice to see that something else is used instead. They perform very similarly so a change is welcome in our eyes.
A pair of KFA2 GeForce GTX 680 EX OC 2048MB make up the graphics card configuration in this system. They are certainly very powerful and come factory overclocked. They run at 1111MHz on the core instead of the 1006MHz which other cards run at. The only downside to these cards is that they only feature 2GB of VRAM which may be limiting in some of todays and future games at higher resolutions and detail levels.
The storage in this system consists of a Samsung 840 solid state drive which is 120GB and a Seagate 1TB drive. Considering how much this system costs, we feel a 2TB drive would have been better suited to this build.
The power supply is different in our sample from what is stated in the specifications list on the product page. As mentioned previously, it is most likely that a modular (either semi or fully) power supply would be preferred in such a build.
Power Consumption
First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use. Then the system is loaded with 3DMark 11 to stress the system – watts are again monitored throughout the period of testing and the highest and lowest rated watts are then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
2D Benchmarks: AIDA64
This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example – with HyperThreading disabled – the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs. 31-step long pipeline. The CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
2D Benchmarks: 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 is.
2D Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA 2012
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but we believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering the CPU and memory tests.
2D Benchmarks: x264HD Version 4
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. We 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
3D Benchmarks: 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 Benchmarks: Unigine Heaven 3.0
Unigine’s benchmark is to showcase the benefits of DX 11 and the use of tessellation as opposed to normal rendering techniques. The demo has impressive visuals that give an insight into what we can expect from gaming in the future.
Gaming Benchmarks: Crysis 2 & DiRT Showdown
Whether played in 3D or standard 2D, Crysis 2 drops players into a devastated New York in the midst of an attack by a frightening alien species. The alien enemies are armed with deadly weaponry and exceptional sensory abilities that test players’ skill and push them to the limit. These terrifying invaders stalk the streets of New York, leaving the streets in chaos and the skyline in flaming ruin.
Surrounded by catastrophic destruction, players harness the superhuman abilities of the Nanosuit to level the playing field, becoming the ultimate weapon on a mission to save New York.
Surrounded by catastrophic destruction, players harness the superhuman abilities of the Nanosuit to level the playing field, becoming the ultimate weapon on a mission to save New York.
An expansion on the rough-riding racing action of Dirt 3’s gymkhana competition, Dirt Showdown offers three modes focused on the wilder aspects of off-road driving: Race, Showdown and Demolition!
Gaming Benchmarks: Far Cry 3 & SleepingDogs
Beyond the limits of civilization lies an island, a lawless place ruled by piracy and human misery, where your only escapes are drugs or the muzzle of a gun. This is where you find yourself, trapped in a place that’s forgotten right from wrong, a place that lives by the principles of violence.
In Far Cry 3, players step into the shoes of Jason Brody, stranded on this mysterious tropical island. You dictate how the story unfolds, from the battles you choose to fight down to the allies or enemies you make along the way. Slash, sneak, detonate and shoot your way across the island in a world that has lost all sense of right and wrong. Beware the beauty and mystery of this unexplored paradise and live to outwit its roster of ruthless, desperate characters. You’ll need more than luck to survive.
In Far Cry 3, players step into the shoes of Jason Brody, stranded on this mysterious tropical island. You dictate how the story unfolds, from the battles you choose to fight down to the allies or enemies you make along the way. Slash, sneak, detonate and shoot your way across the island in a world that has lost all sense of right and wrong. Beware the beauty and mystery of this unexplored paradise and live to outwit its roster of ruthless, desperate characters. You’ll need more than luck to survive.
Inspired by classic Hollywood and Asian cinema style action thrillers, Sleeping Dogs is a gritty open-world cop drama set in the vibrant city of Hong Kong. Sleeping Dogs catapults players into the role of undercover cop Wei Shen, tasked with taking down one of the world’s most fearsome criminal organizations from the inside… the Hong Kong Triads. As players explore the bustling and crowded Hong Kong Island, through its neon-lit side streets and sprawling street markets, an incredible story unfolds of loyalty and betrayal where Wei begins to question his own motives as he is sucked in deeper than he could ever imagine.
Offering players an island packed with action, every street corner, market stall, harbour dock or city skyscraper can become an opportunity for intense shoot-outs, adrenaline-fuelled street races and intense, brutal martial arts combat. Featuring one of the most intuitive and imaginative combat systems, Sleeping Dogs empowers players to perform an extensive set of martial arts moves, singlehandedly taking on numerous opponents. Players perform bone-crunching kicks and combos, vicious counters and a cinematic set of environmental takedowns making use of countless real-world items from circular saws to phone booths, incinerators to refrigerator doors.
Offering players an island packed with action, every street corner, market stall, harbour dock or city skyscraper can become an opportunity for intense shoot-outs, adrenaline-fuelled street races and intense, brutal martial arts combat. Featuring one of the most intuitive and imaginative combat systems, Sleeping Dogs empowers players to perform an extensive set of martial arts moves, singlehandedly taking on numerous opponents. Players perform bone-crunching kicks and combos, vicious counters and a cinematic set of environmental takedowns making use of countless real-world items from circular saws to phone booths, incinerators to refrigerator doors.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that this machine is a monster and can chew through everything without any hassle at 1080P resolutions. However, as we are unable to test at any higher than that with our current test bench, it is difficult to say how it will perform at a resolution of say 1440P or perhaps with a dual (or more) monitor setup. In our eyes, and taking the cost of this system into consideration, we feel that a 4GB card (or two in our case) would have been more suited towards those wanting ultimate performance and for those wanting their investment to last that much longer. Of course, the other alternative is an AMD HD 7970 which has 3GB of VRAM, thus putting it in the middle of the two, and it actually performs better than the NVIDIA GTX 680s with current drivers. However, the GTX 680 is still a very powerful card and should see your games running at a very high level of detail for a while yet. The KFA2 EX OC cards which are used in this system come overclocked from 1006MHz to 1111MHz on the core, straight out of the box. This will give you extra performance over a standard card.
At the centre of Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII is Intel’s Core i7-3770K. OcUK have overclocked this CPU to a punchy 4.6GHz. This boosts the overall performance of the system significantly. Ensuring additional bandwidth is given in areas that other components cannot.
In terms of the storage options that come with Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII, there is just a single 1TB drive for the bulk of storage which we think could be improved upon for the given cost of the system. 1TB doesn’t last very long with all things considered – games, movies, music and other data can quickly fill up a drive of this capacity. A 2TB hard drive as secondary storage would have been a better choice. Something worth noting is that a variety of systems below this value from other rivals come with a 2TB (or bigger) drive installed. The 120GB SATA-3 SSD which is made by Samsung is a great choice and should provide you with high-end performance and reliability.
The DDR3 in this system runs at 11-11-11-28 which compared to the more commonly used CL9 kits is going to be slightly inferior. The performance difference is within a margin of error but for those forking out over two thousand pounds, it could really be improved upon. The chances are that you will not actually see any difference in your games if you were to use higher frequency memory or a kit with tighter timings. However, the increase in frequency and tighter timings have their advantages. Memory which runs at higher frequencies or has tighter timings can have its benefits in other areas of computing such as encoding which can demand greater bandwidth, thus improving productivity.
The motherboard used in this system is a Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH which is a motherboard with plenty of onboard features such as m-SATA for an SSD cache drive. Its main selling point is the two ThunderBolt connections though. ThunderBolt is one of the connections that are still very few in number but they are going to become more mainstream within the next couple of years. They allow you to connect up to 6 devices on each port, such as external hard drives and other peripherals. You can also use them to power a monitor if you wish to do so. They have 10Gbps connectivity speeds which is blisteringly quick. It also has a three year warranty period and as it is a Gigabyte board, it should outlast that as they have a proven reliability record.
From our experience with Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII we can confidently say that it deserves our Silver award. Ultima 9550i Tyrannosaur MKIII is very powerful and indeed, very capable. It will handle the most demanding tasks without any issues and thanks to a significant boost, the overclocked Core i7-3770K provides a key advantage over it just sitting at stock settings. We have been impressed with this system, it looks great, is reliable and is a good investment.
** UPDATE ** OcUK has taken into account that some areas could be tweaked, memory speed for this system has been adjusted to 16GB 1866MHz, HDD storage drive is now 2TB and PSU is now TX 850 Modular. In our view, this is significant and we commend OcUK for making these changes.
Pros
+ Quality component choice
+ Excellent packaging
+ Excellent gaming performance
+ Very quiet
+ Stable and tidy
+ Very fast loading times
Cons
– RAM specifications
– Higher GPU VRAM expected
– HDD capacity
+ Quality component choice
+ Excellent packaging
+ Excellent gaming performance
+ Very quiet
+ Stable and tidy
+ Very fast loading times
Cons
– RAM specifications
– Higher GPU VRAM expected
– HDD capacity
