Overclockers UK ForceBox Gamer Review

Performance Analysis

While the ForceBox Gamer often languished near the bottom of our graphs, it's important to realise this is one of the cheapest systems we've reviewed for a while, including a rare non-K edition CPU that obviously runs at stock speeds. However, at 1080p it returned playable frame rates in our demanding Battlefield 1 and Fallout 4 benchmarks, despite each game set to its respective 'Ultra' settings. Clearly, by lowering the settings a little you'll improve things, or you could overclock the GPU if you're that way inclined - the minimum frame rate of 32fps in Fallout 4 would welcome some improvement although it was perfectly playable.

Raising the stakes to 1440p, we still saw a minimum of 30fps in Battlefield 1 -a great achievement, although our particularly testing scene in Fallout 4 saw the minimum dip to 21fps - clearly you might want to switch to the 'High' setting here, especially as this saw our admittedly more CPU-potent graphics system achieve a minimum of 48fps with an MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X 4GB in the same test recently. Interestingly, the ForceBox Gamer was able to better the minimum specification required by the Oculus Rift VR headset in VRMark's The Orange Room test too - just.


Elsewhere, it was pretty much as expected - the Core i5 CPU was noticeably quicker than the Core i3-based CCL Elite Strix 100 system in many tests - 15 seconds quicker in the PCMark 8 Photo Editing test for example and it cut the time in half to complete the Terragen 3 rendering test too, while scoring a much more potent 519 in Cinebench R15 compared to 351 for the Core i3. Meanwhile, the various K-series systems we've reviewed really do show how much of a benefit higher clock speeds are in many non-gaming tests.

The storage benchmarks showed the Samsung 750 Evo to be a capable SATA 6Gbps SSD with the only models able to offer noticeably more speed being PCI-E based drives. Finally, the power consumption was exceptionally low at just 130W under full load. As a result, the ForceBox Gamer was very cool-running, topping out at a CPU delta T of 40°C and GPU delta T of 35°C (ambient temperature 17°C), with the system being one of the quietest we've tested too.

Conclusion

Totalling up the cost of the components including a copy of Windows 10 Home, you're already saving around £40 buying the system compared to building it yourself. Add into this the fact you'll be receiving a built and tested PC that comes with a three-year warranty and it's hard to argue with the ForceBox Gamer's value.

Performance is perfect for a value-conscious gaming system and the while the Core i5 quad-core adds a good £80 to the price, it will serve you well in the latest games, especially as newer APIs are starting to demand more of the CPU, and in anything to do with photo or video editing - it's definitely what we'd pick given a similar budget. The storage options are solid, with enough space for several top titles and a 1TB hard disk for archiving and dumping rarely used programs into.

It might not have the grunt we're used to, but then it costs half the price of the typical system we review. As well as solid 1080p gaming and potential for smooth 1440p frame rates if you lower some settings, the ForceBox Gamer is a refreshing change from your typical tower PC. It's quiet, cool and supremely compact, so if you want an SSD-equipped gaming system but don't have much space, it's perfect. In spite of its size, you can easily add in a more powerful GPU too, either using Overclockers UK's configurator or in a few years' time as an upgrade.