Digital Storm Bolt II: Devil’s Canyon Inside

by Joshua Gulick — Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 12:00 PM EDT

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Performance Summary and Conclusion

The popularity of the living room PC concept has ebbed and flowed over the past decade. Luckily, the Bolt II doesn’t make you commit to any one use for it. If you want to put the system on your TV stand, it has feet on its side and a Blu-ray player up front – it’s ready to go. But if you decide to take it back to your home office so you can get some serious FPS action in at your desk, well, the Bolt II is ready for that too.

Find Digital Storm Systems @ Amazon.com

The Bolt II is a strong example of Digital Storm’s craftsmanship. Every cable is in its place and every inch of the chassis is free from blemishes. Digital Storm’s hardware choices make for a powerful gaming system, and its thermal management package is a nod to enthusiasts who want to know what’s going on under the hood. We like this rig.

Whether you like it as much as we do depends on what you’re looking for. As a gaming PC, the Bolt II is strong, but you can get better performance from a full-tower system with multiple cards and heavy-duty cooling solutions. And, while we like the Bolt II’s dark exterior, we can see why some users would want a more flashy system for the price that the Bolt II commands. Dark and brooding isn’t for everyone.

Still, we like the Bolt II and think it does justice to Intel’s Devil's Canyon processor. Our test system rings in at $3,481, but if your budget is smaller, hit the online configurator and play around with the component options. The Bolt II starts at a more palatable $1,725.


Solid gaming performance Can stand or sit to suit your preference Easy access to internal components	Understated Exterior (this may be a plus for some) Kind of Pricey