Stealth is carving a niche for itself by building PCs with the grunt for gaming in cases that are small and quiet. Its first effort, the Stealth 1.0, had reasonable power but uncomfortable audio levels; its second system looks to address those issues.
The Stealth 2.0 doesn’t just rely on an APU this time – the machine now pairs one of AMD’s mid-range A-series chips with a discrete half-height Gigabyte graphics card based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 750 Ti. This GPU was the first Maxwell part, so it’s very efficient in terms of both temperature and power consumption. In this case, the GPU’s original 1020MHz core has been upped to 1033MHz, while its 2GB of GDDR5 memory remains at the stock speed of 5400MHz.
However, Stealth has stuck with the AMD A10-6700 for the second version of its small-form-factor system. It’s a quad-core chip (four integer units, but only two floating point units) that runs at 3.7GHz with a Turbo peak of 4.3GHz, but it’s based on the Richland architecture from 2013, so it’s getting a bit long in the tooth now.
In other departments, you wouldn’t know that the Stealth 2.0 is a tiny PC. It has 8GB of DDR3 memory, a 240GB Kingston SSD and a 1TB hard disk, and it’s all based on a Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI motherboard. This mini-ITX board is well laid-out and includes dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
All the kit is squeezed into a Thermaltake SD101 chassis, which is many times smaller than an average gaming tower, but it isn’t particularly stylish. The Stealth 2.0’s components could barely fit inside the case, with some sections of the case bulging. It’s also disappointing to see single-channel memory used, rather than dual-channel memory – a setup that can negatively impact performance and saves little money. However, the Thermaltake is functionally an improvement on the Stealth 1.0’s chassis, enabling Stealth to keep the cabling marginally neater. It also houses more hardware while not taking up any more space, including the 180W 80 Plus Bronze PSU, which is preferable to the Stealth 1.0’s external brick.
Of course, you end up paying a premium for having such a small chassis. As a point of comparison, the PC Specialist Hailstorm GT costs £150 more than this machine, but it includes an overclocked Core i5 Skylake processor and a fantastic GTX 970 graphics card, which both trump the Stealth’s specification by a significant margin, albeit in a far larger case. Stealth adds value by including a carry case and a keyboard and mouse set, although they’re all budget options. The Stealth 2.0 also includes a two-year collect and return warranty.
Performance
The biggest change between the two generations of Stealth machines is the GPU, so it’s no surprise that version 2.0 proved far more adept in games. Its Battlefield 4 1080p minimum frame rate of 23fps isn’t far away from being playable, and our test is run at Ultra settings, so you’ll only need to drop the detail a little to get a playable frame rate.
Its Shadow of Mordor minimum of 37fps was even better – you won’t have to tweak any graphics settings to run the game smoothly at top settings. The Stealth 2.0 struggled to a minimum of 18fps in Crysis 3, but that’s no surprise – it’s our toughest test game. Comparatively, the Stealth 1.0’s APU graphics could only manage a playable frame rate in BioShock Infinite once we’d dropped the quality and resolution drastically.
Meanwhile, the Stealth 2.0’s application benchmarks are similar to those of the previous machine, as they both share the same processor. The Stealth 2.0 returned an overall score of 48,476, which is only slightly quicker than the first machine. It’s enough to handle general computing tasks and it won’t bottleneck the GPU in 1080p games, but any tougher applications will strain the chip.
Of course, noise output is an important aspect of a system called the Stealth 2.0, and the situation has improved dramatically since the original machine’s consistent racket. The machine is virtually silent when idle or running lowintensity tasks, and a GPU stress test only saw the noise increase a little – the difference was barely detectable. With the processor stress-tested, the noise levels were similarly modest, and with both components running at 100 per cent load, the fan noise was reasonably consistent and low.
The Stealth is quieter than the average desktop gaming PC and, if you’re taking it to LAN parties or playing with speakers and headphones, you just won’t notice its fans – the room will have to be silent before it becomes irritating. Our stress testing didn’t cause any thermal issues either, despite the case’s tight confines. The highest temperature came from the GPU, but its peak delta E of 62°C isn’t a cause for concern.
Meanwhile, the Kingston SSD returned a decent sequential read score of 485MB/sec, but faltered with a write speed of 162MB/sec. It isn’t the fastest SSD, but it’s still much faster than the lone hard drive in the Stealth 1.0.
Conclusion
Stealth’s second crack at a small, quiet gaming PC doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it’s an improvement in several areas. The AMD processor is a little long in the tooth now, but it has enough power to handle the tasks that will be required from this system, and the addition of a discrete graphics card adds gaming abilities that Stealth’s first PC sorely lacked. The inclusion of an SSD is very welcome too.
Crucially, Stealth has also managed to cut the noise down. This system is quieter than the vast majority of gaming systems, and you won’t notice its noise output if you’re at a LAN event. The Stealth 2.0 is very small and quiet, but still significantly more powerful than your average NUC machine, even if it’s not quite as small. For this reason, we’ve based the scores below on mini machines, rather than comparing it directly with full-sized desktops. After all, the Stealth 2.0 only measures 119mm across.
However, the choice of an APU is questionable once you add a discrete GPU. The main benefit of an APU is the integrated GPU, as Intel’s CPU cores are otherwise significantly quicker, and Stealth has missed a trick here.
The other question is the price, as you’ll get significantly more power from a traditional desktop PC for similar money. However, if you’re looking for the smallest possible PC that can handle games at half-decent settings, while not making a racket, the Stealth 2.0 is surprisingly capable. MIKE JENNINGS
VERDICT
An exceptionally small gaming PC that can still churn out half-decent frame rates without making a racket, although it isn’t cheap for the power on offer.
SPECIFICATIONS
CPU 3.7GHz AMD A10-6700
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI
Memory 8GB 1866MHz Kingston HyperX Fury DDR3
Graphics Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Storage 240GB Kingston SSDNow V300 SSD, 1TB Western Digital hard disk
Case Thermaltake SD101
Dimensions (mm) 119 x 264 x 261 (W x D x H)
Cooling CPU: SilverStone AR05 with 1 x 90mm fan; GPU: 1 x 50mm fan; top: 1 x 80mm fan:
PSU Thermaltake TT-180AH7NIB 180W
Ports Front: 2 x USB 3, 2 x audio; Rear: 2 x USB 3, 4 x USB 2, 1 x optical S/PDIF, 5 x audio, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x PS/2
Operating system Windows 8.1 64-bit
Warranty Two years parts and labour collect and return