Novatech Reign Paladin MKII Gaming PC Review

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, 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 Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided DX12 Medium Preset – Steam Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• Rise of the Tomb Raider Medium Preset– Steam Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• Metro Exodus DX12 Medium Preset – Includes Separate RTX/DLSS Tests – Epic Games Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• Far Cry New Dawn Medium Preset – Steam Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• World of Tanks enCore Medium Preset – Official website
  • 1080p
  • 1440p
  • 2160p
• Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition Medium Preset – Official Website
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*
• F1 2018 Medium Preset – Steam Link
  • 1080p
  • 1440p*
  • 2160p*

Software Used

• 3DMark Fire Strike (download)
  • FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark
• Unigine Superposition (download)
  • 1080p Extreme Benchmark
• PCMark 10 Professional (download)
  • Express Benchmark
• WPrime (download)
  • 32M and 1024M
• CineBench R15 (download)
  • CPU Multi
  • CPU Single
• Handbrake (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.