WarFactory Sentinel: Gaming on a Grand
by Dustin Sklavos on June 8, 2011 12:01 AM ESTGaming Performance
The GeForce GTX 460 768MB powering the Sentinel is going to seem a little anemic compared to some of these other systems, but again, keep in mind the build's price and remember that many of these results wind up being academic: 30fps is the minimum needed to guarantee smooth playability; 60+ FPS is higher than your LCD's refresh rate and represents the ideal level of performance.
At our high preset the Sentinel proves it can handle gaming at 1080p, as it doesn't struggle with any of the games we test. It even provides reasonable performance in the two games that usually punish weak graphics hardware: Mafia II and Metro 2033. That said, the Phenom II X4 955 seems mostly evenly matched with the GTX 460 but AMD's poor single-threaded performance rears its ugly head in StarCraft II.
Adding anti-aliasing to the equation still results in playable performance in the majority of our gaming tests. Only STALKER and Metro 2033 dip below the magic 30fps line, and while the Sentinel is the slowest in StarCraft II it's still perfectly playable. Generally speaking, the WarFactory Sentinel is a capable gaming machine that's able to handle most modern games at 1080p with some anti-aliasing, and that's all we're really asking for at this price range.
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korle - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Why does this case look so similir to the two year older Antect 300...kuzzia - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Why not Sandy Bridge? Just look at this link from Techspot that shows that when a game is CPU bound (Starcraft II, Civ V), the Sandy Bridge architecture are much superior to the aging AMD architecture.http://www.techspot.com/review/353-intel-sandy-bri...
Buying a Core i5 2300 or 2400 would suffice for the non-overclocker, and the small increase in price is definitely worth the increase of performance. A decent H67-board should also be comparatively priced to a similar AMD mo-bo. The change to Intel could be financed by a 500-600W PSU. Also bya modern one, the Corsair is three years old now!
Otherwise, a great system for its price range!
MKEGameDesign - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
I just built something very similar to this PC, except I went with the HAF 922 and a Radeon card. Using ATI here would make a lot more sense, because the mobo in this build is CrossfireX only, not SLI. Getting an NVIDIA card cramps future upgrades.Also, while they're nice for the money, the HAF cases are dust magnets.
casteve - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Most of the baseline 80% efficient PSUs tend to start ramping their fans up at the 50% load point. The Corsair TX650 follows this. So, you spec for a PSU that is twice your expected load in order to avoid PSU noise - or you buy an 80+ Gold or Platinum supply than has a lot less waste heat.http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/corsair...
Guspaz - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Higher-spec PSUs tend to have better cooling (they need to, more heat to remove). This often means that the more wattage a PSU supports, the quieter it gets at a fixed power level. A 500w PSU at 400w is probably going to be rather loud, but an 850w PSU at 400w is probably going to be pretty quiet.cknobman - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Sorry but for a grand I was expecting more however I thoroughly appreciate these articles/reivews from Anandtech because its a constant reminder of how much better and cheaper it is to build your own rig.Nfarce - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
I had the same thought exactly. But, you have to remember, we home builders are well in the minority when it comes to overall desktop PC ownership figures. There are vastly more people out there who don't want to be bothered with building their own rig from scratch - and probably others who don't even know they can. But I have to agree with the others: this should have been a Sandy Bridge/i5 build along with a stronger video card like a 560 or 5850. Not sure what this company's profit margins are on builds, but I have built rigs for friends and relatives for just $100-150 above cost. My business model would be to lower the price (or increase the quality) and potentially sell more at a lower margin.frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
I have seen a Dell with a 2600 Sandy bridge CPU and a 5770 for less than 1100.00. And if you watch carefully you might even get a monitor for that price too. And I think you could get a similar system to this one for cheaper on iBuyPower or CyberPower.Phenom II X4 = fail in my opinion, except for super budget system.
frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
Wanted to make another comment too. Seems like an odd choice to put an SSD on a budget system like this. Personally, I would prefer to put the money towards a better CPU or GPU.TrackSmart - Thursday, June 9, 2011 - link
SSD's are getting cheap enough, and they make enough of a difference in how fast a system responds, that I think it's a reasonable part of a $1000 system. That said, if you strictly want the best gaming experience for your buck, I agree that a beefier video card would be the better choice...