FreshTech Solutions Stealth Gaming PC Review

John Williamson / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The Stealth is currently available direct from FreshTech Solutions for £1336.00 and features an immense specification and 1-year collect and return warranty. Ideally, I would like to see the after-sales return period increased to 2-years to enhance the user’s peace-of-mind and encourage them to make that initial investment. As with all our system reviews, we conduct a complete rundown of the components and examine how much it would cost to build yourself.

Case: In Win 503 Black and Red Mid Tower = £59.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5 LGA 1151 = £144.99
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700k Skylake = £334.19
Processor Cooler: Corsair H80i GT Liquid CPU Cooler = £79.99
System Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666MHz Performance RAM = £94.99
Main Boot Drive: 240GB Kingston V300 SSD = £65.99
Additional Storage Drive(s): 2TB Seagate Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM = £57.99
Graphics card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 980 TI 6GB With Assassins Creed Syndicate or Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Game = £499.99
Power Supply: Corsair CX600 80 Plus Bronze Certified 600W Power Supply = £50.99
Optical Drive: Samsung 24x SATA DVD Writer = £14.99
Operating System: Windows 10 64-Bit = £84.99
LED Strip = £6.99

Once totaled up, this equates to £1506.08 and signifies a saving of £140.08 compared to a self-build. Once you factor in the cable management, the significant discount, and after-sales telephone service, the Stealth is an attractive value proposition.

Overview

FreshTech Solutions have combined the extremely capable Intel i7 6700K and GTX 980 Ti to create an absolutely astonishing gaming experience up to 4K resolutions. Whether you’re opting for a 21:9 3440×1440 monitor or high refresh rate 2560×1440 panel, the system consistently attains over 60 frames-per-second. This is very impressive for a single graphics card solution and avoids the complications which can arise from SLI configurations. The reference 980 Ti is remarkably quiet, looks gorgeous and automatically enhances performance via GPU Boost 2.0.

The CPU’s turbo frequency of 4.4GHz involves an increase of 200MHz from stock values and reported fairly strong figures in our testing procedure. Although, in Cinebench and SuperPI, there were some bizarre readings. This was probably due to a software bug though and doesn’t reflect the CPU’s real-world capabilities. On another note, the i7 6700K runs extremely cool under both idle and load conditions. Despite running Prime95 and Heaven 4.0 concurrently, the system didn’t get close to 70 degrees and has the scope for a significant frequency increase.

Arguably, the impeccable temperature readings are caused by high RPM values which become rather obnoxious. However, when the radiator fan is set to quiet using Corsair Link, the thermals only increased by an average of 3 degrees. Given the huge difference in running noise, I would always ensure the system is set to quiet on both the H80i’s fan and pump. FreshTech Solutions also opted for a gaming-themed motherboard which features excellent power regulation, various connectivity options, and rock-solid stability. Additionally, the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5 perfectly balances the high-end features consumers want from a motherboard without costing an extortionate amount.

In terms of storage, the V300 SSD creates a pleasant user experience in Windows 10 and responds rather quickly. From a technical standpoint, the drive’s read speeds are excellent and competes with many premium SATA-based devices on the market. However, the write speeds struggled to reach 250MB/s and paled in comparison to commonly used drives from Samsung and other leading manufacturers. I would recommend, the V300 is dropped for Samsung’s EVO 850 250GB which only increases the cost by £20-30. Then again, the average user isn’t going to notice a difference in daily tasks. The default setup of a fairly large boot SSD without being too expensive and 2TB mechanical data drive is spot on.

The system’s cable management is fantastic when you take into account the chassis’ lack of robber grommets and power supply’s non-modular design. When selecting a pre-built PC, a modular power supply isn’t a necessity but makes the cabling job more difficult. Given these circumstances, I have to commend FreshTech Solutions intelligent and logical cable management which utilizes zip-ties extraordinarily well. Honestly, I would prefer a gold rated power supply for such a high-end system as bronze units are usually seen on budget to mid-range systems. Despite this, the efficiency is more than enough to please the average end-user, but doesn’t evoke the premium feel that some hardware enthusiasts might be after.

In conclusion, the FreshTech Solutions Stealth provides elite-tier performance at a sensible price point. While, the system could opt for more lavish, visually exuberant hardware, this would only increase the price without enhancing the gaming experience. Therefore, for a purist requiring a top-end system, the Stealth is difficult to beat.

Pros