Systems

Stormforce Prism GTX 1080Ti Review

Matthew Hodgson
June 15, 2018 10 Min Read
2 0

Pushing the limits of what’s capable, Stormforce have shoehorned a GTX 1080Ti and an AMD ThreadRipper CPU into a Cooler Master chassis to provide the ultimate in performance.


Product on Review: Stormforce Prism
Manufacturer: Stormforce
Street Price: £3,499.99

Those with deep pockets often feel the urge to splash a large amount of cash on something particularly special; the Stormforce Prism deserves every letter of that definition, with a GTX 1080Ti providing the graphics horsepower and an AMD Ryzen ThreadRipper 1950x CPU to coordinate everything.

Not only that, there’s also a 512GB Western Digital Black NVMe SSD, 32GB of G.SKILL RGB RAM, a closed loop Cooler Master RGB CPU heatsink, fully-featured motherboard, Wireless add in card and much more. The Prism offers anything you could need for gaming, video editing or professional streaming.

The Prism arrives with a truly impressive roster of components, but perhaps the most impressive feature is the case. The Cooler Master C700P is a monster and should be more than capable of keeping everything cool and quiet.



If you’ve got a wallet bulging with cash and need a machine to spend that money on, this could very well be it. Read on to find how it performs in our tests.

Stormforce on the Prism
Built from the ground up to perform, Stormforce proudly introduces the “Prism TR 1950X GTX 1080Ti”. Armed to the teeth and packing heat, this is serious business re-defined. Equipped with an AMD Threadripper 1950X running at 4.00GHz, sporting 16 cores to obliterate any task at hand. Paired with 32GB of 3000MHz RGB DDR4 memory, the “Prism TR 1950X GTX 1080Ti” will decimate your idea of speed.

Technical Specifications

PROCESSOR
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16 Core CPU
3.4GHz, turbo to 4GHz
8MB cache

MEMORY
32GB G-Skill DDR4 3000Mhz RGB RAM
Supports up to 128GB
8x DIMM sockets (4 used)

HARD DRIVE
512GB Western Digital M.2 NVMe SSD Boot Drive
2TB Western Digital HDD

OPTICAL DRIVE
None supplied

SOFTWARE
Windows 10 Home
30 day trial of Microsoft Office included

MOTHERBOARD
ASUS Prime X399-A

GRAPHICS
GTX 1080Ti 11GB

HDMI
DisplayPort 1.4

AUDIO
HD 8-channel audio

NETWORKING
AC 1300 Mbps WiFi
Gigabit Ethernet

POWER SUPPLY
750w PSU

DIMENSIONS
Height: 639mm
Width: 306mm
Depth: 651mm

MOTHERBOARD INTERFACES
1x optical S/PDIF out
2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A + USB Type-C
8x USB 3.1 Gen 1
1x LAN (RJ45) port
5x audio jacks

EXPANSION
4x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (1 used)
1x PCIe 2.0 x4
1x PCIe 2.0 x1 (used)
1x 5.25” external bay
2x 2/5”/3.5” internal bays (1 used)
1x 2.5” internal bay

LEDS
RGB Panels and RAM with Aura Sync

CASE
Stormforce Prism gaming chassis
4x USB 3.0 (front)
1x USB 3.1 (Type C)
2x audio jacks (front)

WARRANTY/MISCELLANEOUS
3 Year Collect, Repair and Return Warranty

Packaging & Bundle

The box that the Prism lands in can be considered as humungous, without question. It stands almost a metre tall and weighs over 30KG. It took a solid effort to get the machine into our office.

Bundled with the system is a whole host of manuals and installation CDs, the Ryzen torque tool, a couple of spare SATA cables, an SLI bridge, in case you feel the need to add another 1080Ti, an M.2 stand for the upright M.2 slot on the motherboard and a twin-aeriel WiFi antenna.

Closer Look

The Cooler Master c700p chassis isn’t something you can throw about easily. The system weighs around 30KG with all internals added and stands almost 700mm tall, but luckily Cooler Master have added some robust handles to the top and bottom to aid shifting it. Almost every piece of the case can slowly be removed to grant access to radiator mounts, dust shields and of course the internal components.



The Cooler Master chassis has been adorned with a Stormforce badge on the front, tastefully positioned and colour matched. It’s not garish or in your face, but you can clearly see the brand. We like that kind of styling.



You’re also provided with a great selection of front IO ports, always handy for USB drives or charging your devices. A pair of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are pretty standard, but a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port is an excellent addition. Here you’ll also find the included fan controller and a button to switch the case RGB lighting modes. There’s also your typical audio in and out.



The left and right-hand sides are mounted on sturdy hinges, with one side being made from a curved sheet of tempered glass.



Swinging the case round, we take a look at the rear IO. Starting at the top, we have a CMOS reset switch for when things go awry, a bank of 8x USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit ethernet, 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and Type-C and the usual 7.1 audio jacks.

The GTX 1080Ti graphics card furnishes you with two HDMI and two DP ports.

The red adaptor card, which you can see peeking through the slots, is an 802.11 AC wireless card, with two large antennas provided.

Closer Look (Internals)

The inside of the Cooler Master c700p chassis is compartmented with specific zones to help keep areas tidy and improve airflow through the case. As you can see, a set of braided cables has been used to tidy up the interior and add a touch of class.



The internals are incredibly will specc’ed, as you would expect for the £3499 price tag. Running the entire system is the ASUS Prime X399 motherboard, currently AMD’s top-tier consumer offering. Housed within is an insanely capable processor, packing a massive 32 threads, the AMD Ryzen Thread Ripped 1950X, overclocked to a solid 4.0GHz. Ensuring the CPU remains cool is a 240mm all-in-one Cooler Master cooling loop, we’ll see how that performs in our tests with 16 cores @ 4GHz.

Providing the CPU with space to work is a 32GB quad-channel kit of G.SKILL Trident Z RGB in the form of 4x 8GB modules. This should be ample for anything you can throw at it, but the motherboard has room for another 4 sticks if you wish to upgrade to 64GB once RAM prices normalise somewhat.



For graphics horsepower, Stormforce have utilised one of the fastest cards available at the moment, an ASUS GTX 1080Ti power house. Just below is an 802.11 AC wireless card with twin aerials, providing fast internet access when a wired option isn’t available.



Hidden by the shroud at the bottom of the case is a 750W PSU and room for hiding any extra length on the used cables, or tucking away the entirely unused cables so they’re completely out of sight.



We’ve recorded a short clip of the RGB RAM and CPU cooler, both of which are being coordinated by the motherboard to be in perfect synchronisation.

Benchmarks: Temperatures & Boot Time

For our first benchmark test we observe the max. CPU/GPU temperatures of the system while allowing Unigine Heaven 4.0 to run on a 30-minute loop. To report back on the temperatures we use RealTemp and GPU-Z which provide the peak figures.




In this test we observe how fast the boot into Windows 10 is by using a digital stopwatch.


Benchmarks: Cinebench R15 & Handbrake

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.




Benchmarks: PCMark 8 & 10

PCMark 10 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 10 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.


Benchmarks: 3DMark & Heaven 4.0

Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs running Windows 10. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.


Benchmarks: Gaming (1080p)

The Stormforce Prism uses the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti for graphics delivery, in this section we test the latest gaming titles to see how effective the 3D capabilities are. We report on the average framerate using FRAPS.


Benchmarks: Gaming (1440p)

The Stormforce Prism uses the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti for graphics delivery, in this section we test the latest gaming titles to see how effective the 3D capabilities are. We report on the average framerate using FRAPS.


Benchmarks: Gaming (2160p)

The Stormforce Prism uses the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti for graphics delivery, in this section we test the latest gaming titles to see how effective the 3D capabilities are. We report on the average framerate using FRAPS.


Conclusion

We’ve looked at a few systems from Stormforce, but nothing quite as special as this. The 32 thread beast under the hood, with a 4.0GHz overclock applied, can devour its way through any task you dare throw at it, while remaining cool thanks to the Cooler Master watercooling loop. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was also incredible, providing us with excellent framerates in all of our titles.

Storage is certainly of no issue, with a 512GB M.2 NVMe Western Digital Black drive as well as a 2TB Western Digital spinning disk for larger files. The WD Black allowed boot times of only 10 seconds which is pretty much as fast as you’ll get in 2018.

The Cooler Master chassis looks excellent, has plenty of potential for upgrades and kept everything whisper quiet, however, if you plan to lug this around to LAN events or even just move it often, the case is certainly too heavy to do that comfortably. The tempered glass with RGB components inside will put a smile on your face, guaranteed; it looks fantastic behind the smokey screen.



Priced at £3,499.99, the Stormforce Prism needs to deliver on every front, and deliver well, which we feel it does. However, if your plan is to spend most of your time gaming and will find very little use of so many threads, there are other specifications available, including an Intel i7-8700K with a GTX 1080 Ti SLI setup for the same money; definitely check those out.

Stormforce offers a 3-year collect-and-return warranty for absolute peace of mind. If it goes wrong, they’ll sort you out.

If you plan to do some professional-level streaming or high-end video/photo editing but want your rig to look beautiful at the same time, grab the Prism, you won’t regret it.

Pros
+ Extremely quiet
+ Incredible performance
+ Looks fantastic with smoked glass and RGB components
+ Front IO is plentiful
+ High quality parts throughout
+ Western Digital Black NVMe is rapid
+ 3-year collect and return warranty

Neutral
+- Pricey

Cons
– Weighty case


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Matthew Hodgson