Digital Storm Core i7-965

Setup and Startup

First off, here's a quick look at the BIOS. It should be noted that it was slightly tricky to get into on this board: it's just the delete key, but as all the drives are initialized and so on there's a distinct delay before the configuration screen comes up.

Maybe we need to coin a new acronym: YAPB, "Yet Another Phoenix BIOS".

Overclocking settings

The system was factory overclocked to 4.00GHz. This is definitely a healthy bump over stock i7-965 at 3.2GHz. Memory is rated at 1600MHz but set to 1333MHz, and more work on the settings here would improve performance.

The first boot is extremely clean, with only the Recycle Bin is on the desktop.

Only 35 processes in Vista is very good.

High marks to the clean desktop and the very low number of processes; this is not a system loaded down with bloatware and extra startup software. We'd like to see Digital Storm's support information (telephone and email) included in the Windows System area. We also like to see some kind of anti-virus solution suggested when not installed by default, such as a link in the Start Menu or otherwise. The video card drivers were up to date at the time of shipping (181.22), and all tests were run with that revision.