Aftershock Bolt Gaming PC Review — Unsurprisingly great

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Aftershock PC, a customized PC builder in Victoria — Australia. I reviewed their unimaginable Explorer Open-loop Showcase PC and liked the craftsmanship, design and efficiency. However once you pay $4000 for a PC, you naturally count on excellence.

So can you continue to get the identical loving consideration to high quality and efficiency from a $1,800 PC? The Aftershock Bolt line screams a definitive ‘Hell Yeah’. Like all Aftershock PC’s, the Bolt is configurable with a dizzying array of choices. Beginning at underneath AUD $900, there’s one thing for everybody.

The $1800 overview unit they despatched to us had an AMD Ryzen 3600, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Tremendous, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD. All that is hand-built by expert technicians and lovingly packed into a beautiful case with a screw-less frosted glass panel. And also you higher imagine that you just nonetheless get that candy distant management to point out off the case RGB lighting profiles.

Let’s get craftsmanship out of the way in which first. The Bolt is constructed round, or ought to I say inside, an attractive, minimal metal case. You may get it in both Slate Black or Gunmetal colour. It’s nowhere close to as flashy because the open Thermaltake case from the Explorer. The Bolt is somewhat easy however in a sublime approach.

The facet panel is a frosted glass that makes use of a ‘Zero Mount’ to connect to the case. The panel slots right into a groove on the backside of the case and the highest is magnetized to stay to the highest of the case. All it takes is a robust tug and carry to take it off giving entry the Bolt’s innards.

The case stands 400 mm tall and is 385 mm lengthy and 185 mm extensive. It’s little too huge for my tastes however it means there’s loads of room for prime finish elements. The Bolt can simply home an ATX motherboard, a 3-slot NVIDIA GPU and a CPU cooler as much as 160mm tall. The case also can take as much as 5 120mm followers to maintain air flowing. The Bolt has loads of I/O on the again together with a USB-C and Ethernet port. On high of the case is the ability/ reset buttons, two extra USB-A slots and audio jacks.

I want there was one other USB-C up high. The one on the again is squished between the various USB-A ports and might be exhausting to achieve when they’re populated. And sure, there’s loads of RGB within the case which you’ll be able to management utilizing the bundled distant management. It’s all very elegantly performed in order that it doesn’t distract however compliments the understated design.

Gaming benchmarks
Artificial benchmarks

The craftsmanship that goes into each Aftershock construct extends to the selection of elements and mixtures that give the very best efficiency and stability. Our overview unit is completely tuned for 1080p gaming with highest settings. It is going to even handle 1440p gaming when you can tweak a number of the settings. Try the ends in our gaming suite.

I’d heard lots of good issues in regards to the AMD Ryzen 3000 chips and it doesn’t disappoint for gaming. Nonetheless, turning to different CPU intense functions and the Ryzen 3600 is exhibiting its age. I’ve seen superior efficiency from AMD’s personal Ryzen 4 laptop computer chips just like the one within the funds Asus TUF A15. It handily thrashed the larger Bolt in Geekbench and Cinebench scores — one thing I didn’t count on.

The saving grace is that the Bolt can maintain excessive efficiency at cooler temps far longer than any gaming laptop computer. At its highest stress limits, the 3600 maintained a cool 61C with a most temperature of 75C. There was additionally no noticeable throttling. You’ll be able to thank the capacious case, glorious CPU cooler and beneficiant serving to of followers for that.

So on your on a regular basis Home windows apps and duties, the Bolt flies with no drawback. Multitasking is a breeze because of 16GB of Corsair RAM and 512GB + 1TB storage. Most individuals will likely be very happy with this reminiscence and storage configuration. When you wish to have a number of video games put in, the 1TB can rapidly replenish(thanks CoD:Warzone).

The Aftershock Bolt is all the things I anticipated. It proves as soon as once more that our native builders can combine it up with the very best of them. The Bolt is beautifully constructed, appears nice and performs splendidly. On a regular basis efficiency is elegant and 1080p gaming is nice. With a couple of tweaks, 1440p 60FPS gaming is out there as effectively. And when you want extra energy, the accessible and spacious case makes it simple to improve.

I’ll admit, $1800 isn’t the most affordable and if you recognize what you’re doing, you’ll be able to construct one thing related for a couple of hundred much less. However PC constructing isn’t one thing many players actually need or can truly do. Even getting the components is usually a severe problem because of COVID19 — not to mention getting the very best efficiency mixtures.

Aftershock provides loads of configurations for each want and funds. These go all the way in which as much as the model new RTX 3000 collection GPU’s and the insane 16 core RYZEN 9 3950X. Add on normal 2-year warranties, dependable buyer help and frequent reductions, there’s barely excuse left. So, sure — the Aftershock Bolt wins our two thumbs up but once more.

Aftershock PC Australia loaned the Bolt to PowerUp! for the aim of this overview.