The next frontier in PC gaming isn't about bigger, better processors and graphics cards. Premium components will always find their way into elite gaming machines, to be sure, but PC gaming is moving to the living room. With PC-to-HDTV integration becoming simpler than it has ever been, and PC gaming gaining steam with online distribution like, er, Steam, there's a large segment of the PC gaming market that wants to hop on the gaming grid while kicking back on the couch. Recognizing this shift, boutique PC manufacturer Steiger Dynamics has unleashed the LEET Reference ($6,323 as configured), which combines all the hardware of the most premium gaming PC?like the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan)?with a gorgeous design that will blend seamlessly into any high-end home theater setup.
Design
The Steiger Dynamics LEET lineup is designed as a premium gaming desktop packaged as a high-end home theater PC (HTPC). That's not to say that the LEET Reference is anything like the small form-factor gaming PCs we've reviewed recently, like the Digital Storm Bolt?oh, no. This is closer to the giant premium systems like the Maingear F131 Super Stock (GTX Titan) or the Origin Genesis (Core i7-3970X).
Unlike those systems, however, the LEET Reference is designed to be part of your home theater setup, and it has a design that will make it right at home next to a Denon AVR-1613 receiver or an Oppo BDP-103 Blu-ray player. From the black anodized aluminum chassis to the pillar-style feet underneath, the exterior of the LEET Reference looks like high-end stereo equipment.
Set in the center of the chassis front is an integrated 7-inch display?similar to that seen a few years ago on the BFG Phobos, but without touch control?which offers system monitoring in a format that's easy to read while sitting on the sofa a few feet away, cycling through several screens, monitoring CPU/GPU clocks, load levels, and temperatures, along with used and available drive space, and RAM capacity utilization. The display is tied to a customizable app, letting you tweak the displayed information to your liking, or you can simply leave it in its pre-configured state.
The front panel also features a tray-loading optical drive (12x Blu-ray Player/DVD Combo) and a small panel concealing an SDHC card reader, two USB 3.0 ports, and a pair of headphone and microphone jacks.
Features
But while the exterior of the LEET Reference looks like stereo equipment, looking inside is like popping the hood of a chromed-out hot-rod. Glowing interior LEDs highlight the immaculate interior through the acrylic window that makes up most of the lid. Peering inside you'll see the black custom cabling and white tubing for a liquid cooling system, silently chilling the high-end components inside: a hex-core Intel Core i7-3930K (normally 3.2GHz, but overclocked to 4.7GHz), 16GB of RAM (and room to upgrade to 32GB), and a pair of EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 Hydro Copper graphics processors (in an SLI configuration, 4GB of memory each), all plugged into an Asus Rampage IV Formula motherboard. There's also a ton of storage?two 120GB solid-state drives in RAID 0 and four 3TB hard drives in RAID5. Powering the whole thing is a Seasonic Platinum 1,000-Watt power supply.
This is one of the reasons gamers routinely choose boutique vendors over the mainstream behemoths for their premium gaming PCs?this system is lovingly crafted by obsessive-compulsive perfectionists, producing a beautiful system inside and out. And there's still plenty of room to expand, supporting up to quad-SLI graphics, as much as 64GB of RAM.
Turn the LEET Reference around and you'll find an equally impressive array of ports on the rear panel. Four more USB 3.0 ports are joined by seven USB 2.0 ports and two USB/eSATA combo ports, along with a PS/2 port, providing all the peripheral connectivity you could ever want. Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi will more than handle all of your web browsing, including downloading and streaming media. Two DVI ports and a DisplayPort provide connectivity for multiple displays, and an included adapter cable makes connecting to HDMI a snap.
Befitting an HTPC, the LEET Reference also features an array of audio outputs, including optical surround sound, and to take the media angle one step further, there's also an optional integrated Ceton InfitiTV PCIe Full-HD Quad Cable Tuner (an additional $239). With so many connections for home theater and so much available storage space, it should be no surprise that the LEET Reference, in addition to being an effective gaming system, does double duty as a media server, and comes with Windows 8 Pro Media Center preinstalled. Also preinstalled is CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra, Google Chrome, FRAPS for video capture, and GPU drivers from EVGA and Nvidia. And finally, Steiger Dynamics is generous to those who buy its systems?the LEET Reference has a 30-day money back guarantee, the hardware is covered by a three-year limited warranty, and purchasers get lifetime customer care.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/EY4BYNVEza8/0,2817,2418126,00.asp
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