DinoPC C3 Mod Gaming PC Review

Performance Analysis

Our Battlefield 1 benchmark wasn't playing ball in the short time we had with this system, but the older Fallout 4 one is enough to show the speed on offer, and we're all familiar with the GTX 1080 by now. With eight 4.8GHz CPU threads feeding a GTX 1080 overclocked so that it's boosting to 2,050MHz, the DinoPC C3 Mod Gaming PC will have little trouble dealing with modern games at maximum settings at 1440p. At 4K, you may need to drop from ultra to high to keep above 30fps at all times, but this is rarely a massive sacrifice. The custom GPU overclock also ensure that this card will be faster than most on the market, as the 3DMark results point to, and the VRMark performance demonstrates that this is very much a VR-capable system, as if that was ever in any doubt.

In most of the CPU-bound workloads, the system performs very similar to what we saw with our own overclocked Core i7-6700K (also running at 4.8GHz). This is unsurprising, since in terms of instructions per clock, Kaby Lake holds no advantage over the older Skylake chips. In fact, the PCMark 8 Video Editing workload has even the Core i5-6600K (again at 4.8GHz) slightly outperforming this system. That said, in the multi-threaded rendering benchmarks, the hyper-threaded Core i7 parts gain a substantial lead. Our advice here is the same as usual: If you rely on multi-threaded workloads fairly often, stick with the Core i7-7700K, but if you're mainly or only concerned with gaming, the four non-hyper-threaded cores of the cheaper Core i5-7600K will suffice and make it a better option.


The PCMark 8 Photo Editing workload gives this system a brilliant result, but that may well be down in part to its ultra-fast storage. We've reset the storage performance graphs as of this review, but clearly we're dealing with a very fast SSD: over 3,000MB/sec read and over 1,500MB/sec write. The PCMark 8 storage traces also gave us some of the best results we've seen, although it should still be noted that the real-world benefits of NVMe SSDs like this aren't often drastic compared to standard SATA 6Gbps drives, which are still solid choices if you're looking to save cash.

Power consumption is pretty low, peaking at 422W, which is well within the 650W PSU's limits and will have it operating close to peak efficiency in gaming scenarios. There might actually be room for another GTX 1080 (180W TDP), but we'd definitely be more comfortable with 750W if we were going to add a second card clocked as high as the MSI one here is.

When idle, the system is quiet. As mentioned, the three case fans are set to their lowest speed with the case's fan controller by default and emit only a very quiet hum as a result. The PSU and GPU fans remain off completely when the system is idle, so the only other noise comes from the H100i V2 and its fans. Both the pump and fans are set to Performance mode, which locks the pump in at 3,000 RPM or so. This sounds like a lot, but we didn't hear it, and a Quiet mode (around 2,000 RPM) is readily available. The fans, meanwhile, were typically just under 1,000 RPM when idle.


Of course, the real test of a system's cooling potential is when it's under load. After sustained CPU and GPU load, noise did increase, but not to an excessive degree. The GPU fans span up to 51 percent, but couldn't be heard over the other system fans and neither could the PSU fan. The case fans remained locked at their low speed, and we see no real reason to increase this. The H100i V2 fans were the noisiest and most noticeable at around 1,900 RPM, but Corsair Link can easily tame these if needed. The peak GPU temperature of 70°C is testament again to MSI's cooler, but the CPU peak of 86°C is higher than we were hoping for.

Conclusion

This is a strong system from DinoPC on many fronts. For a high-end, single-GPU system, the component selection is very much on point. To save cash, options we'd consider would be dropping the Core i7-7700K to a Core i5-7600K, and swapping the ultra-fast M.2 SSD for a larger SATA one, but this is easy to do with the online customiser, and the components chosen do have clear performance advantages in certain situations.


The quality of the build is very good too, including the cable routing. The vinyl coating we'd probably do without, but it's more just demonstrating a service the company offers – it's totally optional, and the quality of it seemed reasonable enough to us. We also like the attention to detail to the colour scheme through the hardware selection, fans, RGB lighting, and braided cables, with the possible exceptions of the SSD's green PCB and the slightly mismatched PCI-E power cables. The CPU and GPU come with great overclocks, and the Windows installation isn't overloaded with unnecessary software. The cooling system is also sufficient from noise and temperature perspectives, but there's definitely room for improvement in these areas too, especially with the CPU cooler.

Tallying up the total component and accessory costs ourselves, we came to a rough figure of around £2,070. As such, the asking price of £2,110 seems more than fair, given that you're also paying for the £25 vinyl coating, the building (and overclocking) of the system to a high standard, and some decent warranty terms. You even get a free Razer DeathAdder and Goliathus mouse pad at the moment, so on the value front it really impresses. A few minor slip-ups hold this PC back from our top award, but anyone buying this system will have a fast all-round PC to be proud of for years to come (depending on your choice of vinyl, of course).