Digital Storm Bolt Combines Supercomputer Graphics with a Super-Thin Design

[Cristian_25H]

Digital Storm, the predominant name in computer system integration and engineering, is excited to announce it will offer a Titan Edition of its award winning Bolt - the slimmest gaming computer ever. The new NVIDIA GTX Titan is the world's fastest graphics card, and utilizes the same technology that powers Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan, the world's fastest supercomputer.

The Bolt's unique ventilation system differentiates it from all other small form factor PCs, making it one of the only systems in its class able to handle the powerful GTX Titan. The custom designed chassis features vents near each critical component, large top and rear vents to eliminate any stagnant air inside of the system, and a dedicated air channel created by a slotted side vent to cool the power supply. The design delivers industry leading thermals and ultra-quiet operation.





The Titan powered Bolt performed exceptionally when running Steam Big Picture, Valve's popular games distribution platform optimized for big screen TVs. The Bolt's unmatched balance of explosive power and size, just 3.6" wide, make it an ideal console replacement and destined to make the move from the home office or bedroom into the living room.

The Digital Storm Bolt Titan Edition is available now at www.digitalstormonline.com and starts at $2,499.

[Animalpak]

alienware x51 is cheaper but this is a real little monster pack...

[mlee49]

Originally Posted by Animalpak

alienware x51 is cheaper but this is a real little monster pack...

But it doesn't come with the Titan; nor the case re-design.

Edit, it comes with a custom 1U 500W power supply. I'm not sure it'll hold up to any overclocking.

[Vinska]

Originally Posted by mlee49

Edit, it comes with a custom 1U 500W power supply.

MEANWHILE Nvidia lists that a 600W PSU is an absolute minimum when using their Titan.
I personally think - with Titan's TDP of 250W, I suppose they can squeeze in the power budget of that PSU if they choose the right CPU + other part combination. But that means as soon as the PSU loses enough capacity (read: right after warranty period ends) the computer WILL asplode (figuratively speaking).

EDIT: OH WAIT it says lifetime warranty. Ah boy, I can already see these units failing en masse && a wave of customer support requests after some period of time.

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by Vinska

MEANWHILE Nvidia lists that a 600W PSU is an absolute minimum when using their Titan.
I personally think - with Titan's TDP of 250W, I suppose they can squeeze in the power budget of that PSU if they choose the right CPU + other part combination. But that means as soon as the PSU loses enough capacity (read: right after warranty period ends) the computer WILL asplode (figuratively speaking).

EDIT: OH WAIT it says lifetime warranty. Ah boy, I can already see these units failing en masse && a wave of customer support requests after some period of time.

Its not about the watts, its about the AMPS on the 12V rails, and the general quality of the PSU. You can buy a 700W PSU and it will pop on you... or you can buy a 500W that will be just fine.

[Vinska]

Even a "just fine" PSU can lose as much as 50% capacity over the years. And for PSUs that don't have much headroom - they would start giving problems eventually.

[mlee49]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

Its not about the watts, its about the AMPS on the 12V rails, and the general quality of the PSU. You can buy a 700W PSU and it will pop on you... or you can buy a 500W that will be just fine.

Your statement is confusing.

Not about the Watts? It's simply Amps*Volts=Watts, so technically "Amps on the 12V rails" is all about Watts.

Quality of the power supply has no bearing on Amps, Watts, or Volts. Efficiency, Protection circuitry, and other factors help define quality.

[Animalpak]

Originally Posted by mlee49

But it doesn't come with the Titan; nor the case re-design.

Edit, it comes with a custom 1U 500W power supply. I'm not sure it'll hold up to any overclocking.

But comes with 80plus gold certification, is this means nothing ?

[Frick]

Originally Posted by Vinska

Even a "just fine" PSU can lose as much as 50% capacity over the years. And for PSUs that don't have much headroom - they would start giving problems eventually.

50% if it's a bad PSU to begin with and you run it at 100% 24/7 for like a decade. A lot of PSU's have a 5 year warranty.

Originally Posted by mlee49

Your statement is confusing.

Not about the Watts? It's simply Amps*Volts=Watts, so technically "Amps on the 12V rails" is all about Watts.

Quality of the power supply has no bearing on Amps, Watts, or Volts. Efficiency, Protection circuitry, and other factors help define quality.

You are confusing things. A 500W PSU can have everything from 2 x 18A 12V rails to 40A on a single 12V rail. A 500W label indicates the total wattage, which means that if it's an older design you can have heaps of wattage on the 3.3 and 5V line and little on the 12V line. Nowadays the most important thing is actually the 12V line.

And the last statement is just wrong, because what you are saying is that things like ripple and voltage stability are not indication of quality. Which is nonsense.

[mlee49]

Other factors Frick, other factors like ripple and stability.


Frickity frick frick

[Vinska]

Originally Posted by Frick

50% if it's a bad PSU to begin with and you run it at 100% 24/7 for like a decade. A lot of PSU's have a 5 year warranty.

Still, on a such a tight power budget, a 20% loss would already be a disaster. And 10% would probably be more than enough to get serious stability problems on very high loads.

[lZKoce]

It's an awesome machine. I watched the preview with one of the guys on their site. Compared to North Falcon Tiki I'd say it scores a little less- because NF managed to squeeze a 120mm slim fan cooled AIO for the CPU cooling in their Tiki as opposed to Scythe Shuriken>>? in this one. But still a great machine. I don't think the PSU will be such a big problem. However, I feel they are a little overboard with the noise advertising. "You are provided with ample ventilation and low noise" - is this combo even possible?

[Vinska]

Originally Posted by lZKoce

"You are provided with ample ventilation and low noise" - is this combo even possible?

Yes.
But as soon as it gathers enough dust, the precise form of all those fans, holes, and so on will no longer mean sh*t, and the weighting+balance of the fans will also go out of whack. Thus it will start to be noisy.
i.e. it can be silent w/ ample of ventilation. As long as it's clean.

BTW same goes for all parts that are very precisely tuned to have low noise. Dust makes them loud after a certain threshold.

[McSteel]

Oh boy. Where do I start...

Originally Posted by mlee49

Edit, it comes with a custom 1U 500W power supply. I'm not sure it'll hold up to any overclocking.

The thermal design of the case itself is restrictive towards OC in the first place. Besides, OC'd IB i7 won't go over 200W unless you at least watercool it with a serious loop (and not the infinite Asetek AIO rebrands out there). The PSU appears to be an FSP server design, so I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss it as incapable. Would've preferred Seasonic myself, but they're expensive and FSP can do a good job when given a proper incentive.

Originally Posted by Vinska

MEANWHILE Nvidia lists that a 600W PSU is an absolute minimum when using their Titan.

Yes, and nVidia says so because you can buy a Diablotek PSU that is declared as being 650W but really only being capable of delivering ~250W of clean (in-spec) power. You only need to look at the card's actual consumption to know how much power you need for it.

Originally Posted by Vinska

I personally think - with Titan's TDP of 250W, I suppose they can squeeze in the power budget of that PSU if they choose the right CPU + other part combination. But that means as soon as the PSU loses enough capacity (read: right after warranty period ends) the computer WILL asplode (figuratively speaking).

Originally Posted by Vinska

Even a "just fine" PSU can lose as much as 50% capacity over the years. And for PSUs that don't have much headroom - they would start giving problems eventually.

I wish people would stop believing this. A Switched-mode Power Supply does not lose it's power over it's service lifetime. Sorry for the bold-underline, but this is becoming irritating. Anyway, the only things that degrade over time, in a well-designed PSU, are capacitors. Their job is to filter out AC components that are inherent to any SMPS (from a phone charger to a triple-redundant server PSU). Another role they play is lessening voltage dips or spikes which arise due to a transient load (going from idle desktop to Furmark/IBT or similar (dip), and vice-versa (spike)). Caps will lose integrity of their electrolyte, which breaks down due to heat, and unavoidable chemical processes due to aging.

Quality Japanese caps (Nippon Chemi-Con, Nichicon, Rubycon, Panasonic/Matsushita, Sanyo/Suncon, etc.) will last you a decade without degrading even 10% of original spec. Other acceptable brands (in descending order: Taicon, Teapo, Samxon, OST) can in most cases last 5-6 years before showing signs of fatigue. The important thing to realize here is that this doesn't mean a power output reduction. It only means that the delivered power will be of lower quality, to a certain extent. A PSU that was able to output 500W will still be able to deliver that much power even after 10 years (provided it hasn't failed completely).

Qualitatively, a test would show an increase in ripple/noise and a looser transient recovery. Quantitatively, the specific figures would depend on the PSU design. If it's made with enough headroom, the difference may not be worth a mention. Say you have a PSU that outputs 500W with ~40mV @ 12V, ~25mV @ 3.3 and 5V rail of ripple+noise peak-peak, and ~300mV @ 12V dip at adding 250W of load dynamically to it, when it's already delivering 150W. After 10 years, in a PSU with NCC caps and a quality ball-bearing fan, those figures would increase to, say, 70/40/500mV respectively. This is all very much within ATX spec, though a little less desirable than the original numbers. You still can utilize the full 500W that were promised at the beginning.

Originally Posted by Vinska

EDIT: OH WAIT it says lifetime warranty. Ah boy, I can already see these units failing en masse && a wave of customer support requests after some period of time.

A lifetime warranty refers to the product lifetime, not the buyer's lifetime. It's not unusual for a lifetime warranty to actually cover less than 5 years, so it, in fact, is not the best kind of warranty out there. Also, that kind of warranty usually bears a nasty asterisk at it's end, where it says "only valid under these circumstances: ...."

The best one could hope for is that invoking the warranty 5+ years after purchase results in getting a different system as a replacement, one with similar performance specs.

[Vinska]

@Mr Steel Thank You very much for this clear and very detailed explanation. I am always glad to learn new things.
(And the warranty part cleared up many questions I had before.)

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by McSteel

Oh boy. Where do I start...
...

good post