JW Computers Power Max
A water-cooled ‘Powered by ASUS’ monster, complete with SLI graphics.
Abit of a mix between ASUS’s Samurai and Sensei watercooling PC designs, this JW-built system makes some strategic upgrades to create a unique but powerful gaming PC. For a start, it uses the ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha, rather than an ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming. Sitting inside under a water-cooling block is the Intel Core i5-6600K, a quad core that normally boosts from 3.5GHz to 3.9GHz, instead of the more powerful Intel Core i7-6700K. However, to ensure top performance the JW team has actually overclocked the i5-6600K all the way up to 4.5GHz.
To offset the gung-ho CPU, the Power Max runs dual ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 980s set up in SLI. Importantly, both are water cooled, with a custom block that handles the two cards. The system also has 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro SSD. No secondary drives are included, but they are available as an extra upgrade.
The boffi ns behind the Power Max have put special effort into the Bitspower/ EK acrylic tubing watercooling system. Instead of squeezing the reservoir into the rear of the case, where it makes access to I/O ports awkward, the PC places it next to the GPUs. And for maximum bling, the PC uses pearlescent coolant, which looks great as it swirls gently under the case lights. The system dumps heat via a tri-fanned 360mm radiator in the rear. Importantly, it’s very quiet, even when under heavy load. The cable routing is also worth a mention; it’s easily the best laid-out and secured of the ASUS watercooled PC’s we’ve tested.
The internal illumination is also excellent, with Thermaltake colourchanging fans and recessed LED strip lighting.
The ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha offers more features than we have space to detail — including 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi, SupremeFX audio, as well both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1 ports. The system’s powered by a modular Cooler Master V1000 PSU, and sits inside an In Win 909 case. While huge, and with restricted access to the rear I/O ports, the tempered and tinted glass panels do a great job of showing off the internals.
The Power Max offers a fairly compelling mix of performance. While slightly slower than an i7, the overclocked i5-6600K is more than enough for CPU-intensive tasks, and won’t bottleneck the GPUs. As a comparison, for single core tasks, it is almost on par with the i7, and only falls a little behind when using all four cores. By running dual 980s, the system excels at tasks that make good use of SLI, but doesn’t offer a lot of value for less intensive games.
The Power Max is an interesting mix of SLI and a mid-range overclocked CPU, which all works very well together to create a high-end gaming machine that can handle 4K gaming. The downside is that the impressive hardware and cooling setup results in an expensive, albeit easy on the eyes, machine.