Why You Can Trust CNET Digital Storm Ode V2 Level 4 review: Digital Storm Ode V2 Level 4
Despite its older chassis, this year's prebuilt Ode line continues Digital Storm's tradition of offering wisely picked components for an aggressive price.
Digital Storm's preconfigured
Digital Storm Ode V2 Level 4
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Digital Storm has kept its Ode line enclosed in a retro sci-fi, white plastic chassis. It has a clean enough look, if it's not as sleek, or as small as some other gaming PCs this year. The interior might actually be more interesting. Unlike most PCs that leave their transistors and circuitry exposed like common street electronics, the Asus Sabertooth Z77 board in the Digital Storm unit preserves its dignity with plastic plating over the motherboard. The plates also apparently keep away dust.
| Digital Storm Ode V2 Level 4 | Maingear F131 | Velocity Micro Edge Z55 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $2,499 | $2,999 | $2,299 |
| Motherboard chipset | Intel Z77 | Intel Z77 | Intel X68 |
| CPU | 4.7GHz Intel Core i7 3770K (overclocked) | 4.7GHz Intel Core i7 3770K (overclocked) | 4.9Ghz Intel Core i7 2700K |
| Memory | 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM | 8GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM | 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM |
| Graphics | (2) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 | (2) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 | (2) 1.28GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
| Hard drives | 128GB SSD, 1TB 7,200rpm Seagate Digital hard drive | 60GB Corsair Accelera SSD, 2TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive | (2) 60GB Intel SSD, 1TB 7,200 rpm Hitachi hard drive |
| Optical drive | Blu-ray reader/dual-layer DVD burner | dual-layer DVD burner | Blu-ray/dual-layer DVD burner |
| Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) | Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) |
Preconfigured though it might be, the Ode V2 still has all of the trappings of an elite custom gaming desktop. The Ivy Bridge third-generation Core i7 chip still comes overclocked, for example. It also has a pair of higher-end Nvidia graphics cards, as well as a solid state/mechanical hard drive pairing.
Using the $2,999
To further justify the value of Digital Storm's new configuration, I went to three other high-end PC vendors and tried to build a system to match the Ode V2 Level 4. None of them was able to match Digital Storm and keep the price under $3,000.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | Rendering multiple CPUs | | Rendering single CPU |
On general application performance, the Digital Storm system lands so close to the $2,999 Maingear on most tests that the two are essentially tied. The only statistically relevant difference comes on our Photoshop CS5 test, where the Maingear's faster graphics cards give it an edge with Photoshop's GPU compute-enabled filters. For consumer-level multimedia processing, for the most part the Digital Storm system is just as fast as its competition.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,600x1,200 (high, 4x aa) | | 1,280x1,024 (medium, 4x aa) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,920x1,200 (DirectX 10, 4x aa, very high) | | 1,440x900 (DirectX 10, 4x aa, very high) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 2,560x1,600 (DirectX 11, very high) | | 1,920x1,080 (DirectX 11, very high) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| Extreme (1,920x1080) | | Performance (1,920x1,080, 16x AF) | | Entry Level (1,680x1,050) |
The story is mostly similar on our gaming tests. The Digital Storm system lags behind the Maingear by only a few frames per second on the majority of our games. Our Far Cry 2 test shows that in games that use multiple graphics cards with great efficiency, Maingear and its GeForce GTX 680 cards can offer a noticeable performance edge. For the games that don't scale as well as Far Cry 2 (arguably most of them), the performance differences between the Digital Storm and the more expensive Maingear systems are minimal. Each system would make an excellent gaming PC.
Because it's a larger system than the narrow Maingear F131, the Ode V2 has a bit more room for upgrading. You get one full-size PCI Express slot, as well as a pair or 1x PCI Express slots. The latter in particular will be handy if you want to add a wireless networking card. Both the Digital Storm and the Maingear have room for four memory sticks, total. The Maingear lets you add only four hard drives, though. That's impressive given its design, but the Digital Storm's traditional chassis wins out, offering room for six drives.
The Ode V2's connectivity options are just as comprehensive. From the motherboard, highlights include four USB 3.0 jacks, a pair of eSATA outputs, 7.1 analog audio, and an S/PDIF digital audio output. Each graphics card also offers a pair of DVI outputs, as well as full-size HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.
Digital Storm provides you with three years of parts-and-labor warranty coverage with the Ode V2, which extends two years beyond the industry average. Its support hours are limited, though, with phones open only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday. Those hours are a particular inconvenience for anyone on the West Coast with a job or other occupation during standard working hours. Alternatively, Digital Storm offers a number of support videos and other resources on its Web site.
Performance testing conducted by Joseph Kaminski. Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:
Digital Storm Ode V2 Level 4 (Intel Core i7 3770K, June 2012)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 4.7GHz Intel Core i7-3770K; 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 graphics card; 128GB Corsair solid state hard drive, 1TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit; 4.3GHz Intel Core i7-377K (overclocked); 8GB 1,866MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards; 256GB solid-state hard drive; 2TB 5,400rpm Western Digital hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 4.7GHz Intel Core i7-3770K (overclocked); 8GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards; 60GB Corsair Accelera solid state drive; 2TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 4.6GHz Intel Core i7-3770K (overclocked); 16GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards; (2) 60GB Corsair Force GT solid state drives; 1TB 7,200rpm Western Digital hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 4.9GHz Intel Core i7-2700K (overclocked); 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2)1.28GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics cards; (2) 60GB Intel solid-state drive; 1TB 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drive