AVADirect Mini Gaming PC: Titan in a Small Package

Name: AVADirect Mini Gaming PC with GeForce GTX Titan
Brand: AVADirect

by Joshua Gulick — Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 01:00 PM EDT

The AVADirect Mini Gaming PC is extremely quiet and the soft noise it creates is unobtrusive. There is no whine, which is as we expected, but there isn’t even the low, mechanical hum that you get from most systems. This rig’s noise just sounds like soft wind. We won’t go so far as to say that we prefer it to silence, but it’s so quiet and tolerable that we didn’t notice it after sitting next to the system for a couple minutes.

We also checked out the system’s power consumption. To run this test, we first measure the system at idle, then load up Prime 95 and Futuremark’s 3DMark11. The combined draw on CPU and graphics resources makes for substantial load, and that’s where we expect to see a real increase in power consumption by the PSU. For all of these tests, we measure power consumption at the wall outlet.

The Mini Gaming PC started at a higher idle draw than we’ve seen in several previous contenders, but keep in mind that those systems have lower-end hardware on-board. The Mini Gaming PC has more power-hungry components on-board compared to several of the systems in our chart. So, power draw is notable here, but isn’t likely to detract from the value of the system for most gamers.

Tags: core i7, Gaming PC, AVADirect, Ivy Bridge, BitFenix, Titan

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.