PC Specialist Azure (LGA 1151) Gaming PC Review

John Williamson / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Retailing at £1499, the PC Specialist Azure is a considered purchase but offers exceptional value-for-money when you factor in the build quality and high specification. Final pricing is still unknown on Intel’s Skylake architecture so it’s not possible to do a component rundown at the time of writing, but we invite you to do so once Skylake and the Z170 platform launches, as we’ve found somehow in the past that PC Specialist have come out cheaper than buying the components individually and building it yourself. Looking at some rough pricing, the GTX 980Ti will set you back approximately £510 on its own and predicted pricing for the motherboard and CPU brings this figure up to around £850. Then, add in a 850w Corsair power supply, premium case, extremely fast SSD, 3000MHz RAM, and you can easily see the Azure’s value proposition. Furthermore, the build is backed by a comprehensive UK-based 3 year warranty and the fact that you don’t have to build the system yourself making this a win-win in my eyes.

Overview

PC Specialist’s selection of components creates a balanced, enthusiast-grade system with a level of expertise rarely found in pre-configured builds. The Corsair 780T case is characterized by good airflow, quiet operation and a huge windowed side panel. Although, it wouldn’t be my first choice due to the overly plastic construction which feels a bit cheap compared to similarly priced models such as the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe. It’s a shame that the rear grey-coloured fan wasn’t replaced with an AF140 LED as this doesn’t match with the stunning white and black build.

The Asus Z170-A features an astonishing array of overclocking settings, fan tweaks and was rock solid under extreme stress tests. Unfortunately, the i7-6700K had a fairly meager overclock and required manual tuning to fulfill its potential. Although, this could have been down to an early BIOS with the Skylake architecture which reset the CPU overclock back to stock settings. Even at 4.235Ghz, the brand-new i7-6700K performed brilliantly and scored highly in CPU compute benchmarks. Judging from the temperatures in OCCT, there is ample room for a significant overclock nearer to 5.0GHz. Despite this, the system reviews process analyzes the performance on arrival and not with user alterations. This reasoning behind this is that many customers feel uncomfortable doing overclocking themselves and prefer a custom PC builder to find the correct voltage to temperature ratio.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to increase the clock speed and evaluate Skylake’s overclocking ability. The process didn’t differ from any other Intel overclock in recent years, and involved increasing the multiplier whilst balancing the voltage until stable. I managed to reach 4.8GHz with minimal effort using 1.324V. However, this wasn’t the most precise of overclocks and I could easily reduce the core voltage by at least 0.2-0.4v. After applying 1.324v, the load temperatures hit a maximum rating of 77C which is well within the safe operating zone. Overall, Skylake overclocks extremely well but I wouldn’t set the voltage higher than 1.45v due to temperature constraints. Once again I must reiterate, the Z170 platform isn’t mature which explains why the overclock from PC Specialist was so small. Nevertheless, it’s important to mention this and final retail versions should be set at the maximum overclocked potential while keeping temperatures, noise and of course stability at the forefront of the build.

Intel’s efficient yet powerful, i7-6700K is accompanied by a reference NVIDIA GTX 980Ti which easily copes with modern games all the way up to 4K resolutions. Graphically demanding titles such as GTA V and Metro Last Light achieved frame rates well above 60 and made for a smooth experience without hitching or sudden dips. This incredible gaming performance is accompanied by virtually silent operation and low GPU temperatures which allow for a minor core and memory boost. Although, this wasn’t done by PC Specialist and I presume the frame rate advantages would be quite small. Nevertheless, GPU overclocking is a more straightforward process compared to CPU overclocks.

Similarly, I didn’t detect any GPU or PSU coil whine and the overall fan curves were so subtle, it was difficult to gauge any increase in RPM speed. I’m still unsure if the 850w power supply is overkill given the efficient nature of Maxwell and Skylake. While it does provide headroom for future upgrades, I doubt the type of customer opting for a pre-built PC will go down the SLI route. This means you are paying a premium for a higher wattage power supply which you will probably never reap the benefits from.

On another note, the Azure’s 16GB of DDR4 3000MHz RAM makes it a marvelous benching machine in synthetic tasks. In real world situations, this doesn’t offer a tangible difference, but it’s impressive to see such high-graded memory included in the build. From an aesthetic standpoint, the subtle black RAM heatsinks are splendid but I would prefer a white kit of DDR4 to contrast with the motherboard’s MOSFET heatsinks.

In terms of storage, the Kingston HyperX Savage 480GB SSD is a excellent choice and operates at extremely high read/write speeds around the 550 MB/s mark. The only viable alternative in this price range, is the Samsung 850 or 850 Pro which features a better warranty period and similar performance. The 2TB Toshiba mechanical drive is a 7200RPM model which makes it a suitable choice for a Steam drive. While the performance won’t match an SSD, the difference will be minor in loading times. However, I would have personally opted for a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black due to the 5 year warranty.

The PC Specialist Azure is pre-installed with Windows 10 and has a few incompatibility issues. For instance, Corsair Link failed to detect the pump and dual 120mm fans; although this was resolved after a re-installation. I wouldn’t be too concerned though as Corsair should be working on a Windows 10 compliment version of the Hydro software and PC Specialist can’t be blamed for this as Windows 10 is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things. The boot times were also quite poor but thorough testing reveals that this isn’t an isolated incident and even happened on my own personal rig. Another abnormality revolves around the Bioshock Infinite test results. Despite doing multiple runs, the 980Ti consistently performed worse than a GTX 980. This was a bizarre outcome but probably down to a driver bug or possible compatibility issue with Windows 10. As a result, it’s important to clarify areas that are minor bugs in Microsoft’s software and not PC Specialist’s initial setup process.

Perhaps the most impressive attribute of this entire build is the cable management. I cannot emphasize how remarkably neat and professional the cabling has been done and it shows that the engineers take pride in their work. Without resorting to hyperbole, I can confidently say, the Azure’s cable management is flawless and better than I could have done. For example, each cable is made as tight as humanly possible through zip-ties to prevent it from uncoupling. This means the cables are constantly hidden while offering enough room to easily perform upgrades in the future.

Pros

850W Power Supply provides headroom for SLI in the future
Balanced choice of components for a high-end custom machine
Beautiful colour-coordinated build
Fantastic 3 year warranty service
Integrated fan controller offering 3 speed settings
Impeccable cable management
Impressive temperatures under stress
Maxwell and Skylake produces an efficient yet powerful beast
Remarkably silent under idle and heavy load
Speaker installed to improve system diagnostics
Superb documentation, user-guide and component accessories
Unbelievable gaming performance even at ultra-high resolutions.

Cons

Only a small CPU overclock
2TB Western Digital Caviar Black would have been a more suitable choice of hard drive
Rear fan doesn’t fit with the theme and looks out of place
White memory would have contrasted better with the motherboard’s MOSFET heatsinks.

“Overall, the PC Specialist Azure is a competitively priced, no compromise, tour-de-force PC which makes it a stunning choice for gamers on Intel’s latest mainstream platform.”