Gladiator Computers BATTALION 800 Gaming PC Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing 

When determining a system’s value proposition, it’s essential to investigate the current cost of an identical self-build and compare the results. Currently, the BATTALION 800 is available directly from Gladiator Computers‘ website for £899.99 and includes a very generous 4-year warranty. While it’s a considered purchase, this is fairly affordable for a custom rig and I’m interested to see how cheap a self-build can be using identical parts.

• Case – Game Max Destroyer Windowed = £39.99
• Motherboard – Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3 = £94.99
• Processor – Intel i5 6500 3.20GHz Base, 3.60GHz Turbo Quad Core CPU = £181.97
• Processor Cooler – Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler = £17.09
• System Memory – Corsair 16GB DDR4 Vengeance LPX 2133MHz = £56.99
• Main Boot Drive – 120GB Samsung 850 EVO Series Solid State Drive = £52.98
• Additional Boot Drive – 1TB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive 3.5″ SATA III = £39.99
• Graphics Card – Zotac GeForce® GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4GB = £249.99
• Power Supply – Corsair VS550 550 Watt 80+ White Rated ATX = £38.99
• Optical Drive – 24x LiteOn Internal DVD-RW Drive = £12.92
• Extras – None

Once totalled up this equates to £785.90 including postage for the entire build. As a result, purchasing the system from Gladiator Computers will cost you an additional £114.09. This isn’t a huge increase considering the four-year warranty and brilliant cable management. Of course, it depends on the user in question and if they feel that these extras are worth paying for.

Overview

The system’s default configuration includes an extremely cheap chassis and it’s clear the company has prioritized selecting better internal components. While this is a sensible strategy, there are significantly better cases on the market within a similar price bracket. For example, the Corsair SPEC-01’s matte finish and neutral styling would enhance the system’s aesthetic appeal without increasing costs by an exponential amount. Annoyingly, the Game Max Destroyer’s gloss coating, front door mechanism, and old school sharp lines fail to enthuse a premium feel. To test this hypothesis, I asked a number of close friends about the system’s appearance and every single person remarked on the chassis in a negative manner. The glossy coating loves to attract fingerprints which makes it almost impossible to maintain the factory finish.

On a more positive note, the case’s frame is surprisingly strong and offers good reliability. Thankfully, it’s easy enough to upgrade to a better chassis when compiling your custom rig. Of course, it’s important to have realistic expectations when analysing a budget chassis. However, when it’s impacting on the system’s entire appearance, you have to adopt a more critical approach. In terms of component selection, Gladiator Computers have done a stellar job and produced a very balanced system. There’s nothing which seems out-of-place and each component falls within a similar performance category. The Raijintek Aidos is capable of maintaining exceptional temperatures at absurdly low operating noise levels. I was astounded by the system’s silent nature which creates a marvellous user-experience. Granted, this is helped by the locked CPU multiplier, but it shouldn’t detract from the quiet load output.

Undoubtedly, the system’s greatest attribute revolves around cable management which is some of the best I’ve witnessed. The ultra tidy cabling and logical arrangement results in a marvellous finish especially when you take into account the power supply’s non-modular nature. This level of expertise is nothing short of sensational and I’d gladly pay extra for someone of this skill level to perform perfect cable management. The engineer responsible for this build deserves a lot of credit because the clean construction is utterly sublime.

In terms of performance, the BATTALION 800’s GTX 970 is a superb choice for consumers opting for a 1920×1080 display and even manages to play games at 1440P using high settings. Currently, it’s one of the best price to performance graphics cards on the market and caters towards mainstream users exceedingly well. As a result, it’s not overly difficult to achieve an average figure of 60 frames-per-second in a wide range of visually intense games. The system’s lack of overclocking didn’t have a noticeable effect during games and only became a factor in synthetic benchmarks.

Also, the system’s boot SSD recorded superb read/writes and is large enough to accommodate the operating system and a few basic applications. Ideally, I’d like to see the capacity increased to 250GB to allow you to store your favourite games. Overall, the level of performance is superb and showcases what a relatively affordable gaming PC is capable of. Once again, please remember you will pay extra compared to a self-build, but I believe it’s worth it because of the cable management and extensive UK warranty.

Pros

• Balanced component selection
• Excellent four-year warranty
• Fantastic temperatures
• Great packaging
• Impeccable cable management
• Includes four red LED fans
• Low power consumption
• Superb gaming performance
• Unbelievably quiet

Cons

• Case doesn’t evoke a premium feel
• Higher cost compared to a self-build than other systems

“The Gladiator Computers BATTALION 800 is characterized by an exceptional level of workmanship and features some of the best cable management I’ve encountered. Unfortunately, the base package’s default chassis isn’t ideal and I’d recommend paying slightly more for another case better suited to modern hardware.” 

Gladiator Computers BATTALION 800 Gaming PC Review

Thank you Gladiator Computers for providing us with this sample.