AlphaSync Luna Diamond-7 Gaming PC Review

We seem to be making a habit of having AlphaSync systems here at eTeknix, but that's no bad thing, as we've loved their previous efforts. Their latest is the Luna Diamond-7, a pretty powerful gaming rig that's sure to play the latest and greatest games for just under £1000. It targets the most common resolutions of 1080p and 1440p, and features a mixture of powerful hardware that's maybe just starting to show its age. However, that does still mean an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and an Nvidia RTX 2070, which have been with us a while, but by no means are slow components in their own right. AlphaSync Luna Diamond-7 Gaming PC You get quite a bit for your money with this system though, such as a custom PC case with tempered glass on the front and side. You get four built-in RGB fans, an RGB cooler, and both and SSD and HDD to ensure you get a good mixture of speed and capacity for your storage. It's ticking all the right boxes so far, so let's grab the box and dive in for a closer look! Features Now, AlphaSync do things a bit differently to many system integrators. They tell you the performance before you buy it. They build their systems and benchmark them, then share the expectations. This way, you know you're going to get something competitive. As you can see, this system is built well for 1080p and 1440p, albeit it's still OK at 4K but you may want to dial things down to medium. Of course, we'll be running our own benchmarks today too. Specifications AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz16GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 240GB SSDGigabyte RTX 2070 WindforceWIFI, Windows 10 Home3 Year Warranty (1yr parts 3yr labour) For in-depth specifications please check out the official product page here. Packaging The box is pleasantly compact, as I've seen some review systems come in a box that could hold systems 3x the size. This one though, much more fitting. As you can see, the case is protected with thick foam on the sides, and there's a thick carboard spacer to fill any voids. A small component box its included too. It contained any additional cables, instruction books for the components and Windows 10 install CD/key. Ironic they still do this, as the drive doesn't have a DVD drive... I mean, how many do these days? Everything is very well protected overall, with thick foam and plastic. There's plastic film on all the glass too. And an expanding foam layer inside, of course, remove this before you turn it on! A Closer Look While it's obviously not the most extreme looking PC in the world, it's hardly ugly either. AlphaSync has always been on point when it comes to colour matching their hardware, albeit it's just black and white in here, but it's very presentable. The case they've used is quite nice, offering up a good amount of interior space, and a PSU shroud to hide all the cable gore. Oh, and that lovely CV650W PSU down there from Corsair. The graphics cards is a Gigabyte Windforce RTX 2070. It's their more affordable RTX 2070 with the dual fan design. However, it's still an RTX 2070! That's a very powerful GPU and it's going to be perfect for 1440p gaming. Further up, we have the AMD 2700X CPU which is at stock clocks with the stock cooler. However, we know this to be a good cooler and decent CPU overall, so that's fine by me. This being Ryzen AM4, there's room to upgrade things too. We only have the 16GB memory option here, but again there are 4 slots, so you could always add more memory down the line. Cooling looks pretty decent overall, with a trilogy of RGB fans in the front. Of course, the RGB doesn't make the system cooler, but it can make it look cooler. The case features tempered glass on both the left side and the front panel. AlphaSync kept the branding pretty simple here too, just featuring their badge on the bottom of the front panel. It's a very clean design overall. The RGB looks pretty fantastic though, giving loads of style to your build. You can control it via the included remote, or just tap the reset button to cycle through colour and effects. Testing & Methodology To test each system or notebook, we want to stress every component of the system to check stability and performance, giving us an idea as to why those particular components were picked for this particular system. We use a wide variety of applications to gain a broad spectrum of results for comparing diverse aspects of system performance. Games Used All games are tested at both 1920 x 1080, 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160 (4K) (where supported). *Please note that for systems which do not support a particular resolution, such as 1080p laptops, or affordable systems, we will not test the higher resolutions on those devices. In an attempt to bring our games more into line with modern releases and specifically those that offer Nvidia RTX/DLSS features, we have decided to update some of our games accordingly. Please note that not all games listed below may be used in our tests. Games and Settings Used Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX12 Medium Preset - Includes Separate RTX/DLSS Tests - Steam Link1080p1440p*2160p*Deus Ex: Mankind Divided DX12 Medium Preset - Steam Link1080p1440p*2160p*Rise of the Tomb Raider Medium Preset- Steam Link1080p1440p*2160p*Metro Exodus DX12 Medium Preset - Includes Separate RTX/DLSS Tests - Epic Games Link1080p1440p*2160p*Far Cry New Dawn Medium Preset - Steam Link1080p1440p*2160p* World of Tanks enCore Medium Preset - Official website1080p1440p2160p Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download)FireStrike (1080p) BenchmarkUnigine Superposition (download)1080p Extreme BenchmarkPCMark 10 Professional (download)Express BenchmarkWPrime (download)32M and 1024MCineBench R15 (download)CPU MultiCPU SingleHandbrake (download)Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below)AIDA64 Engineer (download)CPU-Z (download)HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the “normal” profile. Obviously, this isn't going to be the fastest system we've ever tested from AlphaSync or in general really. It's a modest hardware setup overall. However, it's still doing pretty great. The performance isn't too far from the AlphaSync 3600XT, albeit they're mostly similar prices. It's got an older CPU but a faster GPU and in some tests, that averages out. It hit 20555 in 3DMark and 4986 in Unigine which is pretty respectable overall. The WPrime, CineBench and Handbrake scores are exactly what we expected from the 2700X CPU, but overall the system scored an impressive 5601 in PCMark 10 Express. It's a well-ballanced system overall. 3DMark Firestrike Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme PCMark 10 WPrime 32m and 1024m Cinebench R15 Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Storage No big surprises here, and actually it performed almost identical to some other AlphaSync systems because they're using the exact same setup. The SSD and HDD all hit their mark as expected. Gaming Performance AlphaSync promised a solid 1080p and even 1440p gaming system, so that's what we tested. I'm happy to report they're right too, with all games hitting North of 100 FPS at medium settings. You could easily crank even the latest games up to very high settings with this PC. However, at 1440p, you're still getting performance above 60 FPS, again you could easily step up to high settings in many games here. World of Tanks enCore Far Cry New Dawn Metro Exodus Shadow of the Tomb Raider Final Fantasy XV Acoustics & Temperatures The system is running within safe limits, so no issues there. Of course, the stock cooler is pretty decent, but you could maybe get a little more from the CPU with a more powerful cooler. However, I'm not sure the cost would justify the upgrade. The case is a little airflow restrictive, but that does help keep the noise down too. The GPU didn't have any throttling issues and it's a warm day in here, and we did rag it with endless benchmarks so that's pretty decent. CPU Temperatures GPU Temperatures Acoustics How Much Does it Cost? Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2700X - £184.97Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 (1x 16GB) - £60.10Hard Drive: 1TB Seagate Barracuda £49.91 + Corsair Force MP510 480GB M.2 - £85.98GPU: Gigabyte Windforce RTX 2070 - £384.99Power Supply: Corsair CV650 - £83Motherboard: ASUS PRIME B550M-K - £133.98WiFi: 11N 300Mbps PCIe Card - £16.99Operating System: Windows 10 Home - £69.00Case: Custom - £69.99 Estimate for similar Self-build price - Approx £1138.91 AlphaSync Price - £949.98 (down from £1099.98 at launch). Overview Once again AlphaSync has proven that they can make an affordable and competitive gaming PC. However, they've been able to do it MUCH cheaper than you could possibly build it yourself. Keep in mind, hardware prices have dropped a little recently, and they're still smashing it. It's almost £200 cheaper than a self-build. They throw in an expert assembly, great cable routing, a custom RGB case, and a brilliant whole system warranty. Plus, they have PSUs, self-building is tough right now given their all bloody sold out. Gaming Performance For 1080p gamers, you've certainly nothing to worry about here. An RTX 2070 makes light work of even the most demanding games at this resolution. You'll even get away with higher refresh rate displays too. For 1440p gaming medium and high settings on the latest games will have you sitting above 60 FPS easily enough. More CPU intensive games light flight simulator 2020 may struggle though, but that's no big surprise, it's a hard game to run well. 4K gaming is still an option, but expect to use medium settings, or DLSS to get you to a good frame rate. However, I'd suggest a step up to an RTX 2080 build for optimal performance here. Day to Day For your typical gaming PC, it's no slouch. However, the addition of a decent SSD boot drive makes it pretty responsive for daily tasks. A bit of light video editing, photoshop and more should prove no issue, and the 8-core 16-thread 2700X packs a good punch despite being on the market for a while now. With 16GB of RAM it's not too bad either, but you have three available slots to upgrade that in the future if you so desire. Should I Buy One? Hardware prices are good right now, but even still, AlphaSync is managing to beat the self-build price quite well. Even if you get a Windows 10 code from the grey market sites, it'll still prove more expensive. Plus, the peace of mind from a full system warranty and assembly are welcome additions. It's just plug, play, and play some more.