Introducing the Puget Systems Deluge
It's been a little while since we've had a Puget Systems desktop in, and so far we haven't yet tested any of their big dog gaming machines. Everything else we've tested, we've liked, but what happens when the fine folks over at Puget Systems pull out all the stops and put together a high end gaming machine? The answer: the Deluge, an X79-based rig in a modified Antec P183, employing a custom liquid-cooling loop. It's big, powerful, and expensive. Did Puget Systems hit another custom out of the park, and is Sandy Bridge-E the enthusiast platform we were waiting for?
While we're used to seeing liquid-cooled systems around here, the Puget
Systems Deluge is one of the few we've had in with a fully custom
solution. Puget Systems modified the Antec P183 enclosure substantially,
planting a 360mm Koolance radiator in the top and adding a window to
the side (complete with intake fan). This is really the first
tricked-out system we've received from them, and it's a doozy aimed at
demonstrating what Intel's new Sandy Bridge-E and X79 platform can do.
Needless to say, the rap sheet comes packed with all the latest and
greatest hardware.
Well, I believe that's officially the most expensive configuration I've
yet tested, so if you don't need a car but can afford to buy one, Puget
Systems is willing to sell you a tricked out desktop in its stead.
We start at the top with Intel's shiny new top-of-the-line Core i7-3960X. Built on a 32nm process, the new chip features eight hyper-threaded Sandy Bridge cores and 20MB of L3 cache, although in this chip 5MB of L3 and two of the cores are disabled. There's an unlocked multiplier and quad-channel memory, and it runs at a nominal 3.3GHz clock speed. Puget Systems, however, pushed this baby to 4.6GHz, and strapped to the four memory channels is 32GB of Patriot DDR3 in eight 4GB DIMMs, running at 1.5GHz due to a tweaked BCLK.
It's been a little while since we've had a Puget Systems desktop in, and so far we haven't yet tested any of their big dog gaming machines. Everything else we've tested, we've liked, but what happens when the fine folks over at Puget Systems pull out all the stops and put together a high end gaming machine? The answer: the Deluge, an X79-based rig in a modified Antec P183, employing a custom liquid-cooling loop. It's big, powerful, and expensive. Did Puget Systems hit another custom out of the park, and is Sandy Bridge-E the enthusiast platform we were waiting for?
| Puget Systems Deluge L2 Specifications | |
| Chassis | Antec P183, Modified |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-3960X (6x3.3GHz + HTT, Turbo to 3.9GHz, 4.6GHz Overclock, 32nm, 15MB L3, 130W) |
| Motherboard | ASUS Sabertooth X79 (X79 chipset) |
| Memory | 8x4GB Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3-1600 @ 1500MHz (expandable to 64GB) |
| Graphics | 2x NVIDIA eVGA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB GDDR5 in SLI (2x 512 CUDA Cores, 772/1544/4008MHz core/shaders/RAM, 384-bit memory bus) |
| Hard Drive(s) | Intel 510 250GB SATA 6Gbps SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD |
| Optical Drive(s) | ASUS BD-RE (BW-12B1ST) |
| Networking | Intel 82579V Gigabit Ethernet |
| Audio | ASUS Xonar DX Speaker, mic/line-in, surround jacks, optical out for 7.1 sound |
| Front Side | Optical drive Card reader USB 3.0 2x USB 2.0 Headphone and mic jacks |
| Top | - |
| Back Side | PS/2 5x USB 3.0 6x USB 2.0 6-pin FireWire Optical out 2x eSATA Ethernet 4x DVI-D 2x Mini-HDMI Speaker, mic/line-in, surround, and optical jacks |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 |
| Dimensions | 19.9" x 8.1" x 22" (WxDxH) |
| Extras | Card reader Antec CP1000 PSU Custom liquid-cooling loop with 360mm radiator |
| Warranty | 1-year parts, Lifetime labor and tech support (extendable by up to three years) |
| Pricing | Starts at $3,945 Review system configured at $7,254 |
We start at the top with Intel's shiny new top-of-the-line Core i7-3960X. Built on a 32nm process, the new chip features eight hyper-threaded Sandy Bridge cores and 20MB of L3 cache, although in this chip 5MB of L3 and two of the cores are disabled. There's an unlocked multiplier and quad-channel memory, and it runs at a nominal 3.3GHz clock speed. Puget Systems, however, pushed this baby to 4.6GHz, and strapped to the four memory channels is 32GB of Patriot DDR3 in eight 4GB DIMMs, running at 1.5GHz due to a tweaked BCLK.
