Fierce PC Prodigy GT Review

Fierce PC Prodigy GT Review

Manufacturer: Fierce PC
UK Price (as reviewed): £1,134.79 (inc VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): N/A

Despite its shortcomings, namely slightly wobbly FiberFlex feet, BitFenix's Prodigy (check out our review of it here) is proving to be pretty popular choice for those wanting to compact but powerful PC. BitFenix has since released it in a variety of colours too, meaning it's pretty easy to build and own a distinctive looking PC. The case is also making waves with system builders too and Fierce PC has sent us its Prodigy GT overclocked system to take a look at.

Fierce PC has chosen the white variant of BitFenix's case - colour is nearly as subjective as the overall shape of the case itself but if you like super-clean looking cases, then a white Prodigy will probably score highly in your books. It's the first time we've seen an alternate colour Prodigy and we have to say we're pretty impressed with the paint finish.

You have the option of a black or white case and Fierce PC's website also offers the usual array of options allowing you to tweak your system quite extensively. Our sample retails for £1,135 including a copy of Windows 8 - thankfully you can 'downgrade' to Windows 7 and pick and chose pretty much any component, although being a high-end pre-overclocked gaming PC you've only got the option of a Core i5-3570K or Core i7-3770K CPU (both overclocked to 4.2GHz). However, you can select from a range of SSDs, power supplies and graphics cards - all the way from an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 2GB to a GeForce GTX 680 2GB.


Our sample sports 8GB of RAM, a Zotac GeForce GTX 670 2GB and the 4.2GHz Core i5-3570K option. This is cooled by Thermaltake's Water 2.0 Performer all-in-one liquid cooler. This has a single 120mm-fan radiator, which sports two fans and exhausts air from the case, while a single 120mm fan acts as in intake at the front of the Prodigy case.

To make way for the hefty graphics card in such a small case, Fierce PC has done away with the middle 3.5in hard disk caddie. However it still comes with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk for bulk storage and a Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA 6Gbps SSD located behind the side panel for the boot drive, to keep things nice and speedy.

Fierce PC has opted for a 650W Fractal Design Integra 80+ Bronze PSU. There's a DVD Re-writer (upgradeable to blu-ray for £20) but no discrete sound card due to the mini-ITX motherboard only having one PCI-Express slot, which is occupied buy the graphics card. So, using either the motherboard's onboard sound or a USB sound card will be the way forward.


Finally, the motherboard of choice is Gigabyte's GA-Z77N-WiFi. It's a cheaper model than Asus and ASRock's current Z77 mini-ITX offerings and does have the limitation of no vcore control, meaning overclocking will be fairly limited. Even so, a 4.2GHz overclock is nothing to be sniffed at. The motherboard also sports built-in WiFi, a total of four USB ports (two via on board header and two at the rear) as well as dual Gigabit LAN ports.

Specifications

• CPU Intel Core i5-3570K overclocked to 4.2GHz
  
• Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WiFi
  
• RAM 8GB 1,600MHz Kingston HyperX
  
• Graphics card Zotac GeForce GTX 670 2GB
  
• Case BitFenix Prodigy
  
• CPU Cooler Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
  
• Storage 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 240GB Kingston HyperX SSD, DVD Rewriter
  
• Operating system Windows 8 Pro
  
• Warranty Two years Return To Base