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Overclockers Titan Dagger review

Overclockers Titan Dagger with keyboard, mouse and monitor
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £625
inc VAT, £535 without monitor

The Overclockers Titan Dagger is a pretty PC with capable components, but outright performance is slightly lacking for the money

Specifications

Processor: Dual-core 4.2GHz Intel Pentium G3258 (overclocked, water-cooled), RAM: 8GB, Front USB ports : 1x USB2, 1x USB3, Rear USB ports: 2x USB2, 2x USB3, Total storage: 1TB hard disk, Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti, Display: 21.5in BenQ DL2215, Operating system: Windows 8.1

www.overclockers.co.uk

The Titan Dagger is Overclockers’ value-focussed gaming PC system, coming with everything you need to get started in the world of PC gaming and with plenty of space to upgrade in the future. The Dagger looks sharp thanks to its cheap yet stylish Bitfenix Neos case that comes in eight colour combinations including the black and blue in our review unit.

Take off the side panel of the chassis and you’ll find neatly packaged components and, perhaps most surprisingly, a Prolimatech water cooler for the overclocked dual-core Pentium G3258 processor. The Anniversary Edition Pentium is ripe for overclocking and Overclockers has dutifully done so, taking it from its base speed of 3.2GHz up to 4.2GHz. The water cooler is quieter than most CPU fans and kept the processor cool as it ran through our challenging new benchmarks.

The high clock speed means the image-editing test was completed in under two minutes, giving the system a score of 92 in this test. That’s just eight points off an Intel Core i5-4690K. However, because the processor is a dual-core chip, performance fell off in the multi-core challenging tasks: it scored 59 in the 4K video rendering test and 42 in the multitasking challenge, giving it an overall score of 56. This PC will fly through basic tasks, though, with web pages and productivity software opening in a flash. If you’re going to be editing video, however, expect things to take a bit longer.

A side-on view of the Overclockers Titan Dagger The Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti is the cheapest graphics card available with the Titan Dagger, keeping the price near our £600 target. However, this card is very much an entry-level GPU so some games will need a fair amount of tweaking in order to get them to run smoothly. Dirt Showdown ran at a smooth 47fps in our tests, but 18.3fps in Metro: Last Light was just too low to be considered playable. Knocking down super sampling anti-aliasing we managed to raise this to a much more playable 33fps, however.

The build is tidy and cable management is about as tight as it could be, although because the case has no window you won’t get much time to appreciate the PC builder’s handiwork. If you are looking to replace parts in the future, make sure you have a sharp knife or scissors handy because there are cable ties aplenty inside the Titan Dagger.

You get a single 1TB Seagate Desktop HDD in this base specification model, but there’s plenty of room for expansion if you want to add extra drives later. There are a total of two SATA3 ports and two SATA2 ports, and two are free after the DVD drive (not present in our review model but part of the base specification) and HDD are accounted for. There’s space for three 2.5in SSDs and two extra 3.5in hard disks and two optical drives, too, so you can mix and match as you please.

On the rear of the PC there are four USB ports including two USB3 connectors, with two USB ports on the front, one of which is USB3-compatible. There are also three 3.5mm outputs at the rear in addition to the two at the front of the case. The graphics card has two DVI outputs, one HDMI and one DisplayPort output so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting to a monitor.

A rear view of the Overclockers Titan Dagger

There’s also room for expansion on the motherboard, with three accessible legacy PCI slots and a PCI-E x1 slot for a small sound card or wireless adapter. There’s no room for more RAM, however, because two 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory modules fill both slots. You can upgrade to 16GB of RAM, but you’ll have to replace both modules with more expensive 8GB sticks instead of buying some cheaper 4GB sticks.

The quality of the monitor included in this bundle doesn’t quite match the superb PC build. The 21.5in Full HD BenQ DL2215 isn’t particularly good; it covered a reasonable 91.3% of the sRGB colour gamut but failed to impress with a contrast ratio of 423:1 and very narrow viewing angles, with a high degree of colour shift from the top to the bottom of the monitor.

The Microsoft Wired Desktop 400 keyboard and mouse are basic but functional and comfortable to use. The mouse doesn’t have shoulder buttons, and these are often very useful for gaming and web browsing.

Overclockers’s standard three-year warranty gets you two years of collect and return cover and a further year of labour-only cover. The Overclockers Titan Dagger is a decent gaming PC for buyers on a tight budget. It’s a bit more expensive than similarly-specified systems, though and the peripherals leave just a little to be desired. Still, it’s a reasonable all-rounder that’ll handle the latest games at modest graphics settings. Not your cup of tea? Take a look at our regularly updated Best PC list.

Core specs
ProcessorDual-core 4.2GHz Intel Pentium G3258 (overclocked, water-cooled)
Processor socketLGA1150
RAM8GB
Memory type1600MHz DDR3
Maximum memory16GB
MotherboardAsus H81-PLUS
Motherboard chipsetIntel H81
Ports and expansion
Front USB ports1x USB2, 1x USB3
Rear USB ports2x USB2, 2x USB3
Other ports2x PS/2
Networking1x 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Case typeATX
Case size HxWxD429x185x470mm
PCI (free)3 (3)
PCIe x1 (free)1 (1)
PCIe x16 (free)1 (0)
Serial ATA (free)4 (2)
Memory slots (free)2 (0)
Drive bays 2 1/2″ (free)3 (3)
Drive bays 3 1/2″ (free)3 (2)
Drive bays 5 1/4″ (free)2 (1)
Storage
Total storage1TB hard disk
Memory card readerNone
Optical drive typeDVD RW
Graphics
Graphics cardNvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics/video ports2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort
Sound
Sound cardIntegrated
Sound card outputs3x 3.5mm audio output
SpeakersNone
Display
Display21.5in BenQ DL2215
Native resolution1,920×1,080
InputsDVI, VGA
Other hardware
KeyboardMicrosoft Wired Keyboard 400
MouseMicrosoft Wired Mouse 400
ExtrasNone
Software
Operating systemWindows 8.1
Operating system restore optionWindows 8 restore
Buying information
WarrantyTwo years collect and return followed by one year RTB
Price including delivery (inc VAT)£625
Price excluding monitor (inc VAT and delivery)£535
Supplierwww.overclockers.co.uk
Detailswww.overclockers.co.uk
Part CodeTitan Dagger 

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