NRG Tornado

A solid performer with a great selection of components and hefty overclock.

Both NRG systems were an absolute joy to work with, and the Tornado is a near-perfect display of careful building, well-chosen components and serious performance.

On paper there are a lot of similarities between this PC and the entry from DCA, but when you get down to the details the NRG is just a touch better in almost every way. You pay for that, of course, and you technically end up with less ‘stuff’ for it, too, but in the end this is a superior system.

To start with you get a very compact Antec 900 case, which, though not to everyone’s taste, is still a solid component. The powersupply is, unsurprisingly, an Antec model, and more powerful to boot; similarly, you get a better processor, with an even better overclock – and E8400 sporting a 1GHz improvement over its stock-rated 3GHz. Impressive stuff, and you get a good after-market CPU cooling solution to make sure the all important silicon doesn’t cook itself into the grave. On top of all that you’ve got a terabyte of storage in RAID 0, so you’ve got spaciousness and data security nicely taken care of.



Better gear aside, the DCA and NRG Tornado are very similar, but the NRG definitely has the performance edge. What we’re now seeing in higher end machines like these – and it’s even more obvious in higher-specced PCs – is that the CPU is the main bottleneck in any system. Thankfully, the SLI GTXs are really able to stretch their legs when backed up by a 4GHz clock-speed; 3DMark performance is well ahead of the DCA entry, as is normal 4x AA Crysis. DCA does have the edge in 8x AA (where the Tornado actually dropped to 0fps at one point), though. which means you may get overall smoother performance. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

The Tornado is very well put together, though it is a little cramped inside the Antec 900. For instance, the hard drives are quite inaccessible thanks to their placement in line with the SLIed GTXs. This does make for more efficient airflow, but it also means that any hard drive maintenance requires the removal of the graphics cards. Aside from that, this is a picture of good cable management, and every component is securely installed.

About our only complaint, apart from the price to performance issue we addressed earlier, is the tackyfeeling DVD writer. A nice touchy-feely Razer keyboard and mouse more than makes up for that, though.