Vanquish 4 Review

Hello! This is my review of the Vanquish 4 from Digital Storm.


MY GOAL

I am not a die hard gamer, but I definitely do like gaming from time to time. Years ago I used to build my own PC's, so I am somewhat familiar with hardware and the like, but I have been using laptops for the last five years or so. I was looking to upgrade to a desktop PC for work (software development) and gaming (while keeping the laptop for portability when needed). I had a budget of $2,000, which took me several months to save up (that's a lot of money to me, so it was important I get the most bang for my buck).

Having used an iMac (and it's insanely great display) at work, I knew from the start I wanted a 27 inch display, with at least a 2560x1440 resolution. I also wanted an IPS display panel that could capture 100% of the sRGB color space (after using an iMac there was no going back to TN display panels). I did some research and settled on this monitor: ASUS MX27AQ (I can't post links but a Google search will get you there).

My only complaint with the monitor is that it is 60hz, but "gaming" monitors at 144hz with IPS are out of my price range so I had to make some compromises. The monitor was a bit more expensive than I would have liked (at $450), but the display is incredible. If this monitor had G-Sync, I would rate it as "perfect".

My two favorite games by far are Bioshock:Infinite and Grand Theft Auto 5. My current laptop has a respectable (or so I thought) GeForce 765M chip, so I can play these games at 1080p on low or medium settings. My goal was to have a machine that could run either game at the native 2560x1440 resolution, at a solid 60fps, and with high/very high/ultra settings. In other words, I needed a beast of a machine.

Enter Digital Storm.


THE MACHINE

I found Digital Storm thru Google. Some of their machines are truly insane, but unfortunately not in my budget. I was very pleased when I saw the Vanquish 4 line, which is geared towards people like me: a high performance PC at a great price, with some limited customization. There are four different "levels" available, and I opted to go for the "ultimate level" for $1599 (ok so I went a little bit out of budget when combined with the monitor, but it was worth it).

The specs are outstanding for the price:

- Intel Core i5 6600K CPU
- NVIDIA GTX 980 4GB
- 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory
- 250GB Samsung EVO SSD
- 1TB 7200RPM HDD
- Upgraded CPU Air Cooling
- Z170 Motherboard
- 750W Power Supply
- DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW
- Microsoft Windows 10

I did some research and found the unlocked i5 6600K to be an outstanding chipset, built on Intel's 6th generation SkyLake architecture. I was conflicted about whether I wanted a machine with an i5 or an i7. The i7 has multithreading, which doubles the number of logical cores the OS sees, making it a great choice for general purpose computing (editing videos and rendering and things like that). However, I was more interested in the gaming aspect, and an i5 (overclocked at 4.4GHz) is more than enough to blast thru today's games. Also, with an i5 chip, that allowed the graphics card to be upped to a GeForce GTX 980 instead of a GTX 970. The 970 is perfectly capable, however I was driving a 2560x1440 display, not a 1080p, and I wanted it to be as close to 60fps as possible, so I was very happy that I was able to eek out a bit more performance with a 980.


THE PURCHASE

I ordered the computer on Black Friday, and got a bumped up warranty as a result (also got "Assassin's Creed Syndicate" for free, as part of a Nvidia promotion). The computer shipped in about seven or eight days, as advertised. It arrived a week later (I live in PA, and the computer shipped from California). The delivery got delayed a day or two because of bad weather on the west coast (certainly not Digital Storm's fault, but it was killing me waiting for my machine!).

The packaging was excellent. The computer was carefully and fully protected. A foam insert is used inside to hold the graphics card in place, and is easy to remove. The tower itself is a good size (great for cooling and expansion possibilities), and pretty sharp looking too (it has a window on the side, allowing you to see the internals... I wasn't originally excited about this but it turns out to be a really cool bonus).

I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the internal foam packing to see the quality of the components in the machine. The specs just call for a "NVIDIA GTX 980 4GB", so I was expecting a stock reference card. Instead it came with an Asus Strix GeForce GTX 980, which runs about 30% cooler than a reference 980, and is a bit overclocked to boot. Even the power supply was a nice EVGA unit, and not a generic one.

All of the cables were nicely bundled and out of the way, allowing for good air flow. It was obvious that whoever put the machine together knew what they were doing.

I hooked up a USB keyboard and mouse and the monitor and turned it on. I figured it would be a minute or two before Windows 10 initialized and did its thing. I was extremely surprised when the desktop came up a few seconds after hitting the power button. I almost thought something was wrong at first. Between the overclocked CPU, 2666MHz memory, and solid state drive (which I've never had before, and am blown away by), this thing is FAST, not just for gaming, but for everyday tasks (web, office work, development work, etc.).


THE GAMES

After getting online I installed Steam and downloaded Bioshock: Infinite and Grand Theft Auto 5. I used GeForce Experience to tweak the video settings. Bioshock downloaded first, and ran easily at 2560x1440, at 60fps, with ultra settings. The graphics are simply amazing. I very much like the visual style of Bioshock, with bright colors and lots of lighting and shadows. Between the GeForce GTX 980 and the monitor, it was by far the best version of Bioshock I ever played thru.

Next came Grand Theft Auto 5. This one was a bit trickier, as that game is DEMANDING, and can require dual graphics cards to hit 60fps at high resolutions. I was able to run at ultra settings at 2560x1440, and would occasionally hit 60fps, but was hovering around 40fps. That wasn't good enough for me. I wanted a silky smooth 60fps at (almost) all times. Fortunately, I did some research and found an article from Nvidia to help (Google "geforce gta 5 performance guide" to find).

This performance guide goes over all the different options in GTA 5, and which ones hit your system performance the most versus image quality. I was willing to sacrifice image quality a bit to hit my 60fps mark. Fortunately, I didn't have to sacrifice much. Mostly I just turned down the anti-aliasing to FXAA. (Some people prefer anti-aliasing maxed out, but given the 2560x1440 resolution I don't think anti-aliasing is as important as it used to be, simply because the pixels are so dense anyway. This is completely subjective, of course, and just my preference.)

Here are the settings I ended up using with GTA 5:


Ambient Occlusion                           High
Anisotropic Filtering                      x16
DirectX Verion                             DirectX 11
Display Mode                                Full-screen
Distance Scaling                            100%
Extended Distance Scaling                   30%
Extended Shadows Distance                   20%
FXAA                                        On
Grass Quality                               High
High Detail Streaming While Flying          On
High Resolution Shadows                     Off
In-Game Depth of Field Effects              Off
Long Shadows                                On
MSAA                                        Off
NVIDIA TXAA                                 Off
Particles Quality                           Very High
Population Density                          50%
Population Variety                          100%
Post FX                                    Very High
Reflection MSAA                             Off
Reflection Quality                          Very High
Resolution                                  2560x1440
Shader Quality                             Very High
Shadow Quality                             Very High
Soft Shadows                                Softest
Tessellation                                Very High
Texture Quality                             Very High
Water Quality                               Very High
NVIDIA Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-aliasing    Off


The result? An absolutely incredible gaming experience, at full 2560x1440, and 60fps in almost every situation (being that GTA 5 is open world, with changing weather and characters, etc., it's tough to nail down... but I'm blasting thru at 60fps pretty much 98% of the time).


THE VERDICT

Having had this machine for almost two weeks now, I can say that it has exceeded my expectations in almost every way. It is an outstanding PC for the price. It is blazingly fast, runs very cool (temperature wise), and also fairly quiet. The machine has no problem with demanding applications like Visual Studio, or demanding games like Grand Theft Auto 5.

I would absolutely recommend this product to a friend (I already have, actually), and would definitely do business with Digital Storm again.


THE PICTURES
















Edited by Flick - 29 Dec 2015 at 6:04pm

Very nice! Thanks for the pics!

Thanks for the kind words and pics! We are all super pleased you are happy with your purchase.

So... my level 4 shipped today. Does this mean it will have the Asus Strix GeForce GTX 980 as well? :)

Oh- great review btw. Makes me even more excited for next week (if that's possible).

Edited by Jdot - 06 Jan 2016 at 8:07pm

Originally posted by Flick Congrats JDot! You won't be disappointed. A few weeks later and I'm still loving my Vanquish 4. I even installed a few more games (Call of Duty:Ghosts and Fallout 4) and the machine just crushes them. Very happy with my purchase. Flick

Thanks Flick! I'm so excited. It just dawned on me this morning that I'd need to order a wireless adaptor. I probably spent more than I needed to, but I ended up buying one from Asus. My keyboard came last week. :) (the stuff you need when you're used to only laptops!)

There are two 3.0 ports on the front, two 2.0 ports on the back, and two 3.1 ports on the back.

Flick

Hey- another question. When did you receive the codes for the free game(s)?

I was supposed to have a choice between two games and then another I believe. When I emailed and asked I was told that I would receive them once the system had been tested.

I'm on the East coast too and the computer has made it to my town this evening! So I will receive it tomorrow. I'm super excited. I just thought I'd ask about your experience with the free games.

@Jdot,

You actually placed an order during a dead time when we did not have game code offers, you will notice this on your order, as you do not see any game codes on your invoice.

I am working with the team to see what we can do, stay tuned via email.

Thank you for the kind words.