Braebo Computers ‘Titan’ AMD Gaming System Review

A Closer Look

Before I get on to the nitty-gritty and see what is tucked inside this system, I will point out that if you are expecting the flashy components that we tend to see with the higher end components, then look away now. Entry level systems are not going to have all this and this entails a system that looks more simple and in some respects basic. That said though, with the performance that we are seeing today from even the entry-level end of the spectrum, appearance is one thing whilst power is another.

Looking at the system as a whole, the overall appearance is somewhat understated with a simple black chassis that draws no attention – ideal if you’re after a basic home system that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

On the front of the chassis, the Asgard 381 offers up two USB3.0 ports, a pair of audio jacks, power and disk status LEDs and a power / reset button. We can also see that a DVD-RW is included for burning various forms of media when needed.

Even though the front IO is in a very convenient position and well laid out, there is one thing that I do have to say that I’m not too keen of. This is the intensity of the LEDs that Xigmatec have used. As seen in the photo below, the power LED is particularly bright and at night it lights up the room very clearly – this is no fault of Braebo, more that of Xigmatec, but it may be worth covering this if you intend on getting this system or chassis for your own build.

These days it is typical for each system integrator to brand their system with their own case badge, as seen with CyberPower PC and UKGC for example. The Titan retains a more subtle approach and the only badge on the front that we find is the Xigmatec logo.

Peering on through the grill that is on the side of the Asgard chassis we can see a small green line that runs up along of the motherboard. This line indicates to us that we have a Gigabyte board featuring the latest onboard audio, offering up a far cleaner and enriched listening experience. More info on this can be found in Ryan’s review of this motherboard

Lifting off the back panel we do note that there are a number of unused cables being hidden away here and whilst this is mainly due to the use of a non-modular PSU, Braebo have made a fair effort to keep everything hidden out of sight as much as they can.

Working down the rear IO that the motherboard has to offer we have a lineup of five USB2.0 ports and two super speed USB3.0, a PS/2 mouse and keyboard combo, Gigabit LAN and 7.1ch onboard audio. Whilst the motherboard and APU have the capacity to drive these outputs, the caps have been left on due to the inclusion of a separate dedicated graphics platform. Leaving the caps on indicates to the novice user that in this case, these are not intended to be used.

Below the motherboard IO we find the three display outputs from the R9 270 GPU and blow this is the antennae for the bundled in wireless card. With the G1 Sniper not coming with its own onboard WiFi and the trend to have a wireless platform growing, this is a worthy component to include.

Taking the side panel off the chassis and taking a peek inside we see that there is an orange / green type theme going on with the components and whilst this may not necessarily have been intended, it actually works rather well.

In the rear of the chassis we have a single orange coloured 120mm fan which stands as the only chassis fan in the system. Whilst this does mean that this is the sole item to draw air through the system, the chassis does offer up six additional fan mounting point for future upgrade if needed or desired.

Lying at the heart of this budget system is Gigabyte’s top performing A88X motherboard, the G1 Sniper F2A88X with an also recent addition to the AMD APU lineup – an A10 7700k ‘Kaveri’ processor. Cooling wise we see a stock AMD cooler, which although it doesn’t provide any performance cooling, is more than able to do the job. This does of course mean that there is the flexibility to upgrade the cooling solution yourself in the future, but it with a heatsink or a closed loop water cooling setup. Alongside the APU the Titan also has 16GB of 1600MHz DDR 3 memory from Crucial’s value line of products.

Storage wise the Titan has a [now standard] two drive storage array with an SSD as the boot drive and a mechanical secondary drive for mass storage. What we get in this setup is a small 64GB Corsair Force LS and a 1TB drive courtesy of Seagate with the DVD-RW mounted above.

Whilst the A10 APU does feature on board graphics, Braebo have utilised one of AMD’s latest R9 graphics cards, in this case an R9 270 2GB offering from VTX3D. Below the GPU we can also see a smaller card which, as we saw above is the Asus PCE-N10 wireless card, which in today’s age is a key addition to a non-wireless enabled motherboard.

Lastly looking at the power delivery we find a Corsair CX600 600W non-modular PSU which gives stacks of headroom for future upgrades to the system, be it graphics or processor for example.