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Gladiator Trident SLI Black Pearl review

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Verdict

Noisy, hot and too expensive, there's little reason to buy this ahead of its rivals

Review Date: 7 Oct 2010

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: £1,190 (£1,398 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
4 stars out of 6

Value for Money
4 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PC manufacturers seem to be getting more ambitious by the month when it comes to overclocking Intel's current roster of processors. As if to demonstrate that fact, Gladiator's latest machine, the Trident SLI Black Pearl, arrived in the PC Pro Labs with its Core i7-930 chip boosted from 2.8GHz to 4GHz.

That isn't the i7-930's only impressive statistic. As befits a part that sits snuggly in the upper echelons of Intel's range, it's kitted out with the full range of mod-cons, from Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading across its four cores, to a combined 10MB of L2 and L3 cache.

The combination of potent specification and dramatic overclock reaped rewards in our application benchmarks. An overall score of 2.8 is the third-fastest in PC Pro history, and only 0.03 behind the current record-holder, the CyberPower Liquid i7 Kraken. In short, it's far more power than most will ever need to fully harness.

Sitting below the processor is a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards. We were impressed with it when it was released in July, and this is the first time we've seen two running in SLI. It's also the first time we've seen these cards overclocked, with Aria boosting the 675MHz core to a nippier 800MHz.

Our tests revealed that lashing two GTX 460s together is a good idea. The Gladiator's score of 57fps in our Very High quality Crysis benchmark is one frame faster than the Mesh 7's, which was kitted out with an ATI Radeon HD 5970, and a playable 35fps in the same benchmark at a higher resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 is even more impressive.

The rest of the specification is just as accomplished. Six gigabytes of RAM is more than we see in most systems. Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit is installed on a 64GB Crucial RealSSD solid-state drive to speed up boot times and system. Traditional storage takes the form of a 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F3 hard disk, and there's a DVD writer too. The only disappointment is the absence of a Blu-ray drive.

The chassis looks good, and although we haven't seen the Fractal Design Desire R2 before, its clean, minimalist lines and glossy black finish make a positive first impression. Build quality is excellent, and there are plenty of ports and sockets, with a pair of USB 2 and eSATA connectors on the front, plus USB 3, FireWire, PS/2 and more on the rear.

Inside, both side panels are coated in noise-absorbing bitumen, and the inside of the sleek door is layered with foam - all nice touches aimed at keeping intrusive fan whirr and vibrations to a minimum. The power supply sits on rubber feet, and the hard disk cages - oddly painted white - are finished with small rubber pads.

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Comments

User comments

So close yet so far...

It's disappointing to see that Gladiator (Aria) have done such a good job generally of picking quality components, taking such obvious care and attention to the build quality, and offering a HUGE overclock - only to be let down by bad decisions on CPU cooling and graphics card choice.

If they wanted to do SLI 460's, (not in itself a bad idea) they could have at least used ones with better coolers.

These two problems would seem fairly easy to remedy: With an equally powerful quality air cooler, (such as a Prolimatech or a Thermaltake) and a more powerful single GPU, (or the aforementioned ones with custom coolers).

A shame Gladiator don't seem to offer the chance to switch components - it looks like it's take it as it is.

A word of warning to anyone thinking of going for either of the two other systems you recommended though, (and who isn't up to speed with gaming components):

Both the 4850 and 4890 cards are fine choices, but, they are getting pretty long in the tooth now.

Not only has the 4xxx series been superseded by the considerably more powerful 5xxx series of cards, but the 6xxx series is due for launch in only a couple of weeks.

Anyone buying either of those systems now with a 4xxx series card in it would be paying a considerable sum of money to be TWO generation behind in gaming technology...

By Mr_John_T on 9 Oct 2010

I whole heartedly agree with the what the comment above pointed out above in regards to the potential of this system and its pitfalls.

The R2 case is a very good choice for those looking for lower noise levels from their hardware but as a case for high end equipment as chosen by Gladiator here its flawed due to poor intake fan placement (behind the case door and then airflow is impeded by the hard drive cages).

In a more appropriate case temperature issues would be less of a concern however the price is rather hard to swallow with better options available.

By Geoff_C1 on 10 Oct 2010

Cooling & VGA

Hi All, taking onboard the comments from PC Pro we have since changed the VGA to the MSI version which offers better cooling with a lot lower noise because of thier Cyclone cooler. We also allow people to change the cooler if they wish and reduce the price if it is cheaper.

By RichAria on 11 Oct 2010

Impressed...

Blimey - quick and decisive action based directly on customer (or rather potential customer) feedback.

I am impressed Rich, I've bookmarked your company's site for future reference.

One thing though: If you don't mind customers altering the spec of a system, you should probably let them know that on your site somehow.

It doesn't have to be a drop-down 'build-it-yourself' type menu like on some sites, but just a line to say you're happy to change components if requested may get you more sales. It may sound stupid, but some people just don't like asking unless they think they're 'allowed' to.

Just a thought...

By Mr_John_T on 12 Oct 2010

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