Overclockers UK Titan Wave Review

Performance Analysis

With an overclocked GTX 970 at the helm and no shortage of grunt in the CPU department either, it wasn't surprising to see the Titan Wave sit at or near the top of our graphs against other systems we've looked at. Only multiple GPU systems or those sporting more graphics horsepower such as the Cyberpower Infinity X55 Pro GT (GTX 980) or Overclockers UK Infin8 Nebula (2 x GTX 980) were able to pull any kind of lead in our game tests.

Crysis 3 was the toughest benchmark here but the Titan Wave still managed a respectable minimum frame rate of 37fps with an average of 49fps with anti-aliasing disabled. There's probably even scope for dealing with a super wide 3,440 x 1,440 monitor here too but 4K is definitely not on the cards with a GTX 970 in most games.

The PCMark 8 video editing test loves raw CPU grunt but the comparatively low clock speed here did see other, higher overclocked systems perform better, even though they had fewer cores. Switch to a more multi-threaded application such as the equivalent photo editing test and the Core i7-5820K matches quad core CPUs that are overclocked much higher, such as the 4.6GHz Core i7-4790K in the Overclockers UK Infin8 Nebula.


Of course, it's rendering where the six-core CPU really shines and the Titan Wave came top by quite a margin in Terragen 3 and Cinebench R15. The CPU does see the system draw more power - 438W to be exact under full load, which is noticeably higher than the mainstream systems on test, but that's with Prime95 and Unigine Valley running at the same time so comsumption will be less than this in your average game. The storage tests were fairly predictable with the Titan Wave's Samsung SSD 850 Evo coming top of the SATA 6Gbps pile in the sequential tests, and not far off the top spots in the 4KB random test - only the Cyberpower Infinity X55 Pro GT with its monstrous Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD was faster.

Temperatures were excellent, with the CPU never rising much above 60°C with an ambient temperature of 17°C, and the GPU sitting at 70°C in Unigine Valley - both well within check and, as we mentioned earlier, there's plenty of scope for using slower-spinning quieter fans in the front too.

Conclusion

Totalling everything up, you're once again looking at a total component price not far off the total cost of the system, depending where you shop of course. In addition, you're getting a three-year warranty and ready-built system and it's a fast, well-tuned one too. The only fly in the ointment here are the radiator fans, which are by far the noisest part of the PC under load, but could be much quieter, even with overclocked CPU. It's far from intrusive but other PCs we've tested have been less noticeable here. Overall it's a fantastic, solid little system though, with a good choice of case - if you're not too concerned over aesthetics - and hardware that's up for everything except 4K gaming - we'd change little if anything if we were to build it ourselves.