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Specification
Before going on to look at the Cryo Quad in the flesh, let's start by giving the system provided to us for review's specification a once-over.
FULL SYSTEM SPEC:
- ASUS Maximus III Formula P55 motherboard
- Intel Core i5 750 CPU @ 4GHz+
- Corsair GT PC3-12800 Dual Channel DDR3 4GB
- Corsair 650W PSU
- Corsair H50 Cooler
- Lian Li PC7-YCF case
- Samsung S223 24x DVD-RW
- Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
- Samsung F3 1TB HDD
- BFG GeForce GTX 295 1.8GB Graphics
The first thing to bear in mind here is that the Cryo Quad specification shipped to us is only one of numerous configurations available on their site for this particular product range, leaving you choices of AMD's latest DirectX 11 graphics cards (if you're willing to wait for stock), more memory, larger hard drives and so on if you so wish. Indeed, there are a vast number of options are your disposal across the board on Cryo's web site, so it's well worth having a look at their Quad configuration page here to see just what is available.
With regard to our specific configuration however, at the heart of the Core Quad we find a sensible choice - Intel's latest Core i5 750 CPU, overclocked by hand to a speed of around 4GHz to offer up a huge amount of raw processing power without breaking the bank on a Core i7 part or the like. To guarantee those high clock speeds, we also find our Quad outfitted with ASUS' Republic of Gamers Maximus III Formula and a 4GB of Corsair RAM with a fair amount of overclocking potential itself.
Graphics come courtesy of NVIDIA's current flagship, dual GPU GeForce GTX 295 (the latest, single PCB version incidentally) in lieu of Radeon HD 5800/5900 series stock, while that heavily overclocked CPU finds itself cooled by Corsair's effective H50 water cooling solution. Corsair also provide the power supply for this rig, via a 650 Watt unit that is just about ample for this specification. Samsung's lightining fast (for a regular hard drive) and spacious 1TB F3 hard disk makes up the Quad's storage capabilities, while the entire rig finds itself encased within Lian Li's simple yet elegant PC7-YCF aluminium chassis. Throw in a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium in its 64-bit flavour and a DVD writer, and you have yourself one complete PC raring and ready to go - Just add the peripherals you need.
The total price of the system picked out for us by Cryo PC? £1297 including VAT, and complete with a two year return to base warranty.
Of course, we can't just mention that 4GHz clock speed on our Quad system's Core i5 CPU without some further discussion to back it up, so let's have a quick look at CPU-Z for proof of just what we're getting with our hand overclocked system.
There you have it - A stable clock speed of 4.1GHz on our particular Cryo Quad system. More on how that speed was achieved via BIOS level overclocking later.
Cryo haven't forgotten the system's memory either, using the 4GB of Corsair RAM supplied to reach a memory clock of over 1500MHz to match that high CPU frequency, but without suffering much in terms of memory timings either.
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Jumping into the BIOS to investigate the system's configuration, we can see straight away that Cryo have made use of the Maximus III Formula's ability to offer up a 21x multiplier on the Core i5 750, matching it with an increased base clock speed and upping the PCI Express bus frequency slightly. We've hidden the exact settings used here at the request of Cryo themselves.
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Both CPU and IMC voltages have been tweaked upwards to support the CPU and motherboard's higher clock speeds as you can see above, while the system's memory also gets some extra voltage to help with its own overclocks. Away from this section of the BIOS, it's also worth noting that Cryo have sensibly disabled the CPU's "Turbo Mode" but left its SpeedStep settings in place, allowing the processor to clock down to a much lower speed at idle to help with both temperatures and power consumption.
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Finally, the BIOS also gives us further confirmation of the custom timings selected by Cryo for the Quad's 4GB of Corsair memory.
In closing for this section, all we can really confirm is that our Cryo Quad build was absolutely, 100% stable at all times throughout our testing, even when stress testing both CPU and GPU for a considerable period of time simultaneously.
Externals
Let's now take a look at the outside of the Cryo Quad, and the system you'll be seeing sat on your desk every day if you were to purchase this particular system.
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I've always been a big fan of Lian Li's chassis (I used to own one myself before desk space became a big concern of mine), and thus I find myself very much approving of the simple elegance of the PC7-YCF case used by Cryo here. It might not have the curves or go-faster stripes of some of its contemporaries, but to be honest I'd rather have the build quality and solidity of a chassis like this any day. Having said that, the lack of basic extras such as USB and headphone sockets is sorely missed, so if you make frequent use of such features then this really isn't the case for you.
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While the front of the chassis might be all about business, Lian Li's offering does at least have a mesh side panel for show, although much of this is dominated by a huge 230mm cooling fan used to pull cool air into the case.
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The top of the chassis features room for a 92mm fan, although this isn't employed by Cryo for this particular system.
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Removing the side panel gives us a proper look at that huge 230mm fan in all its glory.
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Meanwhile, the front of the chassis houses a 120mm fan to pull in air through the front of the system across the installed hard disk drive.
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There's no Blu-Ray support on our particular Quad configuration (it is available as an option), with Cryo sticking with a more traditional and less costly Samsung DVD writer in its place.
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ASUS' Maximus III Formula means that there's a fair amount of connectivity on the rear of the system, with a solitary PS/2 port for a keyboard, no less than eight USB 2.0 ports, and FireWire, eSATA and Gigabit Ethernet ports. A clear CMOS button and ASUS' RoG Connect functionality for remote overclocking is also available here, but chances are you won't be wanting to touch those given the factory overclocked nature of the system.
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The motherboard's SupremeFX X-Fi solution takes up a single PCI Express 1x expansion slot, offering up the usual set of analogue inputs and outputs, while both SPDIF and optical digital outputs are provided. The system's GeForce GTX 295 graphics board takes up an additional two slots and one PCI Express 16x connector, with this card in turn providing a pair of dual-link DVI video outputs. These can be converted to HDMI, although it's worth noting that our system wasn't wired up for SPDIF pass-through so any use of HDMI out of the box wouldnt allow for audio directly over HDMI.
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