The ‘pint-sized powerhouse’ is in the spotlight, featuring NVIDIA’s new GTX Titan, an overclocked Intel Ivy Bridge 3770K and much more.
Product on Review: Pandora
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Utopia Computers
Street price: £2178.40 inc. VAT (At time of review)
Utopia Computers are no stranger to Vortez. We have reviewed their computer systems in the past and it’s fair to say that we have certainly been impressed. Utopia recently had their website completely revamped and with this came a new-look and configuration tool. Take a look at their website here.
Fresh off the back of a new website, Utopia have also been hard at work designing new computer systems for customers and today we will be taking a look at one such offering. Pandora is described by Utopia as ‘the pint-sized powerhouse’. It may not be exactly the size of a pint, but you get the idea – this system is very compact and is able to house high-end components.
Utopia Computers on their Pandora
Introducing the Pandora! 50% smaller than our Ballista system, the Pandora is the ‘Tardis’ of our PC range. In this tiny chassis we can fit some of the world’s fastest components, including Nvidia & AMD’s top of the line graphics cards. Constructed using 2.5mm thick, sand-blasted and anodized aluminium, the outer shell of the Pandora lets Utopia set new standards in the small form factor computer systems market. All in all, this tiny-tower is an extremely powerful and aesthetically stunning piece of kit.
Today’s review sample has been configured to showcase the absolute best specification Pandora can offer. Below is our video review of Pandora:
Full specification
• Chassis: SilverStone Fortress FT03 Mini Chassis w/ Advanced Vertical Heat Dissipation – Custom painted in Dodge Challenger Yellow
• CPU: Intel i7-3770K 3.50GHz – OC’d to 4.20GHz using Utopia’s ‘PROLINE Overclocking Service’
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 liquid cooler
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
• Graphics: 6GB EVGA Super Clocked GeForce GTX Titan (876MHz – 928MHz/6008MHz)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Mini-ITX
• PSU: 450W Silverstone Strider SFX 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular
• SSD (Boot): 2x 120GB Corsair GTX Neutron drives in RAID 0
• HDD (Storage): 2TB Seagate Barracuda 3.5” 7200rpm
• Optical Drive: 8X Dual Layer DVD RW Drive Slot Loading (Blu-Ray available)
• OS: Windows 8 64-Bit (Windows 7 available)
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 Unigine to apply a stress load – 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 – Cinebench 11.5 & x264 HD 4.0
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.
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 – Unigine 3.0 & 3DMark 11
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.
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.
Game Benchmarks – Sleeping Dogs, Dirt Showdown, Crysis 3 & Far Cry 3
Throughout the gaming benchmarks we use cutting-edge gaming titles which are renowned for both popularity and complex rendering styles. This helps to establish how well the system can handle 3D processing
Conclusion
We’ve previously reviewed two other computer systems under Brendan’s watchful eye but it falls to myself to see first-hand how this passionate company present their pre-built offerings.
Pandora is described as ‘The pint-sized powerhouse’ and we can easily understand why. This system is very compact indeed, so much so that cable management is a trial and tribulation. The SilverStone FT03 Mini which we have previously reviewed is a premium choice for mini-ITX, it boasts top-class engineering and has all the features you could want. With the advent of Intel Z77 in the shape of Mini-ITX, power can be directed towards smaller systems such as Pandora, bringing in support for Ivy Bridge, PCI-E 3.0 and dual channel DDR3.
The choice of components is ultimately down to the consumer but for our sample today Utopia Computers have armed Pandora with every conceivable flagship. Our review sample represents the absolute best configuration that Pandora can offer and is an impressive showcase. The Intel Core i7-3770K has been overclocked to 4.2GHz and is cooled via Corsair’s Hydro H60 – resulting in low-noise and pleasing temperatures. NVIDIA’s new GTX Titan just about fits inside FT03 Mini and delivers a massive 6GB for those gaming above 1080p. Another product which we have reviewed also made an appearance inside Pandora – Corsair’s Neutron GTX. Utopia installed two of these drives and configured them in RAID0 to maximise transfer rates for fast access to data – combining this with Windows 8 and you only have to blink and you are into the OS.
The performance benchmarks over the preceding pages are testament to Pandora’s claim as a ‘powerhouse’. It tore through the latest gaming titles, demonstrating confidence where other systems could falter.
Priced at over £2000 this system is not for the faint hearted. As we have previously said, it’s really a showcase of the ultimate specification with a “money no object” approach to system building. Do bear in mind that £2000 isn’t the base price for Pandora, for each aspect there is the choice to pick different CPUs, memory, graphics cards etc.
It’s also important to outline the extras which come with this and other systems delivered by Utopia Computers. Pandora was shipped to us in ‘Utopian Transit Armour’ which is a new undertaking – giving the system added protection and a touch of exclusivity. Also available is the possibility of coating the exterior and interior of the system in a custom-automotive colour. There are other bonuses offered too including a phenomenal 10 years warranty – the longest currently available in the UK and an offer of lifetime technical support which proves handy for even experienced users.
Pandora epitomises ‘mini powerhouse’, our top-spec offering cut through everything we put in its path. Armed with high-quality components this compact system is perfect for gaming. Utopia Computers have done an excellent job building this system and have gone the extra mile with providing features which frankly, other retailers wouldn’t dare to.
Pros
+ Very powerful
+ Quality components
+ Easy to move/transport
+ Custom automotive paint-job option
+ 10 years warranty support
+ Lifetime technical support
+ Easy to configure specification on website
Cons
– Dust can fall into chassis easier
+ Very powerful
+ Quality components
+ Easy to move/transport
+ Custom automotive paint-job option
+ 10 years warranty support
+ Lifetime technical support
+ Easy to configure specification on website
Cons
– Dust can fall into chassis easier
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