Boston Venom 2500-0P Gaming PC Review

John Williamson / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Boston has set a retail price of £3275 + VAT which is much cheaper than I anticipated due to the expense of a 5960X and Titan X. These two components alone would cost around £1800, and when you take into consideration the Intel premium-grade SSD and stunning Supermicro X99 motherboard, the price becomes rather appetizing. Of course, it’s a huge investment but surprisingly affordable for a top-of-the-range system. Furthermore, the 3-year UK warranty adds the kind of aftersales service you would expect on a system which your livelihood depends upon.

Overview

The Boston Venom 2500-0P features an exemplary specification and easily copes with multi-threaded workloads, gaming, and any task requiring large CPU horsepower. While the Supermicro mid-chassis is visually stunning, I wasn’t overly impressed with its construction. For instance, the thumbscrews didn’t tighten very well and resembles something from a ultra-budget, £30 case. Another issue revolves around the flimsy front dust filter which snapped off due to the very lacklustre plastic mechanism. This occurred without applying any force and now the system has to be used without a filter, and exposing the front fans to significant dust build-up. Overall, it’s a solid case but not something I would accept at this price range. Perhaps a better choice would be the Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV or Corsair Air 540, something you could no doubt arrange with Boston.

Boston expertly pre-overclocked the PC to 4.1 GHz using Supermicro’s incredibly stable X99-motherboard. Under extreme stress, the motherboard maintained a 1.160v core and delivered the huge power demands in a consistent manner. Additionally, the radiator and chassis fans contained a silent PWM curve and didn’t become obnoxious even when reaching over 2000rpm. Under idle conditions, the fans only operated around the 1000rpm range and became virtually impossible to detect. In terms of temperatures, the 5960X performed well within its thermal limitations and the core probably had enough room for another 200-300 MHz increase with a small voltage boost. However, I believe the 4.1GHz 1.160v setting is pretty much perfect because it’s not on the bleeding edge and able to withstand hefty increases in environmental temperature. This means the overclock should be stable in both summer and winter seasons.

Performance-wise, the 5690X is predominately designed for demanding multi-threaded operations and falls behind mainstream chips in single-core tasks. This is to be expected given the lower clock speed, and optimization for multi-core workloads such as video rendering or CAD. Therefore, the results in PC Home 8 are nothing to be concerned about and we can gauge the system’s real performance in Cinebench 15. Here, the extreme-grade CPU lives up to its name and provides an unbelievable amount of processing power. Please note that the gains in games will be minimal as very few titles are actually CPU-bound or properly take advantage of multi-cores.

The gaming benchmarks across every major release almost defies belief and emphasizes how capable the NVIDIA Titan X is. This particular graphics card pokes fun at the widely adopted 1920×1080 resolution and attains framerates in excess of 200. Obviously, a card of this magnitude is designed for either 2560×1440, 3440×1440 or 4096×2160. Currently, I decided to focus on 2560×1440 as 21:9 resolutions and 4K displays are still quite niche and rather expensive. Even at 2560×1440, the Titan X manages to remain well above 60 frames-per-second in every game tested and the perfect accompaniment to a high-end gaming system. Its performance could be enhanced further with a manual overclock to the memory and core without any major voltage changes. On another note, you could also argue that the Titan X is absurdly overpriced compared to a 980Ti given the similar performance results. While this is certainly true in gaming benchmarks, the Titan X’s CUDA count is higher at 3072 compared to the 980Ti’s 2816 which helps in non-gaming tasks.

In terms of storage, the Boston Venom 2500-0P is nothing short of revolutionary and utilizes an Intel PCI-e SSD reaching absurdly high read/write speeds. As a result, Windows 10 feels responsive, and applications open within milliseconds. Also, this greatly enhances the system’s boot times and makes industry applications write to the hard drive without any latency. This is vital in some applications where data needs to be transferred as quickly as possible. Clients won’t really notice a major difference in game load times compared to other SSDs on the market. On another note, the 400GB capacity is well-thought out to allow for advanced video-editing without impacting disproportionately on the system’s price. Of course, a 1TB version would be ideal, but there isn’t enough benefits to reap from such a huge price hike.

The mechanical RAID array isn’t anything to write home about, if you’ll excuse the accidental pun, and only viable for basic storage purposes. However, I appreciate the multi-hard drive setup which lets you record data onto a secondary disc without causing any major problems. Video editing on a single HDD is bound to cause complications, so the combination of an ultra fast SSD, and dual HDDs is perfect.

Finally, we come onto the system’s swansong moment which is the impeccable cable management. Boston’s engineers have employed careful planning, and superb skills to make the cabling very sleek, and professional looking. Not only that, the cable management allows for better temperatures and ensures the side panels are easier to close. In all honesty, I was surprised to see such a neat finish given lack of a windowed side-panel. Less-attentive engineers might have dismissed the cabling because once the system is shut, you cannot see any of the workmanship. Boston’s build team opted for tightly packed cabling using zip-ties and properly utilized the case’s rubber grommets. For first-time builders or the inexperienced, this quality of labour is worth paying for.

To conclude, the Boston Venom 2500-0P exudes quality and epitomizes the company’s focus on reliable systems without charging customers for gimmicky features. If you’re looking for a high-specification, versatile Gaming PC, the Venon 2500-0P is difficult to beat.

Pros

Attractive red and black case design
Amazing results in multi-threaded applications
Extremely versatile and the perfect system for various usage scenarios
Good value given the individual cost of a 5960X and enterprise-grade SSD
Great cable management
Sensible overclock which expertly balances performance, thermals and noise
Stunning and intelligent selection of industry-leading components
Supremely quiet system makes it a complete joy to use
Unbelievable gaming benchmarks at demanding, ultra-high resolutions

Cons

Case thumbscrews could be thicker
Front dust filter feels ridiculously cheap, and unacceptable for a high-end system
No accessories included
Windowed side-panel would add some visual flair

“The Boston 2500-0P is a sublime Gaming PC which offers stupendous performance for any task and features workmanship of the highest calibre.”

Extreme-Performance