Small Introduction, Grand Entrance

Usually the review hardware we handle is offered to us, cherry picked by the OEM or dealer as something they want to draw some attention to. The Nano Gaming Cube from AVADirect is different: this one is personal. Our review unit has been shopped around to other sites, but no one bothered to really put it through its paces or even take pictures of the inside of the thing just to figure out what kind of prestidigitation had to occur in order to produce a Mini-ITX gaming system. I had to see it for myself. It may be a curio, it may be impractical, but it's also damn tiny for what's inside it.

The configuration of the Nano Cube is a thoughtful one, starting from the low-voltage processor. An Intel Core i5-750S at stock runs at a low clock speed of 2.4GHz, but also has a TDP of just 82 watts. With two active cores under Turbo Boost, that speed jumps up to a respectable 3.2GHz; the 750S overall seems to sit nicely in between Intel's mobile quads and the higher wattage standard desktop chips. For this build, though, the 750S runs at an overclock of 3GHz, all the time. It won't turbo up to 3.2GHz, and this might not have been the right call as we'll discuss later.

This juncture might be a good place to mention that our review unit is a bit out of date, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The DFI board is less than ideal and hopelessly outdated as far as the I/O goes on the back, but newer boards available shore up its shortcomings. The Gigabyte board available brings USB 3.0 to the table along with all the ports you've come to know and require, and the Zotac boards integrate much needed wireless networking. Since we're in Mini-ITX land, though, we're still stuck with just two memory slots, which in our build are populated with a pair of Kingston 2GB DDR3-1333 DIMMs. AVADirect also offers a newer Silverstone SG07 chassis, which is slightly longer but comes with a 600W PSU, removing the need for the $60 AthenaPower PSU used in our test system.

The rest isn't that exciting. AVADirect continues their tradition of equipping review units with 128GB Corsair Nova SSDs, and we can't complain, though we might suggest going with a larger mechanical drive just to have the storage space required for gaming: 128GB just isn't enough. There's also an attractive slot-loading DVD writer, and a staggering 470-watt Mini-ITX power supply from AthenaPower. The company isn't exactly reputable but they're pretty much the only ones making small power supplies with enough juice to feed a Radeon HD 5870.

Oh yeah, there's a stonking big Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5870 in the case. That third-party cooling system is pretty much essential for cooling the 5870 inside the tiny SilverStone Sugo SG06 case; that, and the ventilation on the side that brings cool air from outside the case into the card. Fitting the Radeon into the case is really the crowning achievement of the AVADirect Nano Cube, and the case actually feels stuffed.

Exactly How Much Power You Can Fit in a Mini-ITX Case?

If the benchmarks on this page look familiar, it's because they're essentially the same charts we used for the review of the CyberPower Xtreme Gamer 8500. In this instance we're highlighting the performance of the AVADirect Nano Gaming Cube. It's a good opportunity to bring up an important consideration here: while the processor in the cube has been overclocked to 3GHz, it's still a quad-core i5 without Hyper-Threading, and oh yeah, it's being handled by a server processor cooler. The cube is substantially daintier than the competition, and expectations should be attenuated. We'll start with the basic system-based benchmarks.

Update: We've added our own "custom built" PC to the benchmarks as another point of reference. That system consists of an i7-920 cooled by a Noctua NH-U12DX HSF with push-pull NF-P12 fans, Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, 6x2GB Crucial DDR3-1600, and CrossFire HD 5850 GPUs, all running off an Enermax Pro87+ 500W PSU. The storage setup is overkill for most: a 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD with a SandForce controller for the OS, and an older OCZ Vertex 128GB SSD. All of this is housed in a stylish Lian Li PC-7B case. Total cost? Pricing out the components on Newegg gets us to just $2300, including the OS (though the two SSDs account for $525, and there's $60 in mail-in rebates available. But there's a catch: the CPU is an old engineering sample that's locked down so tight that overclocking is out of the question. Change the uncore multiplier or raise the BCLK more than 4MHz and the system refuses to POST. Ouch! So this is a super overkill setup intended for overclocking but in need of a different CPU. Not surprisingly, the CPU is clearly holding it back in quite a few tests, and the other components should allow for a healthy overclock; anyway, it's one more system to add to our benchmarks, and it serves as an interesting look at what happens with a stock i7 CPU.

It's fair to say the multi-threaded benchmarks aren't particularly kind to the cube, but also understand that the 750S is running at a still-reasonable 3GHz and doesn't benefit from Hyper-Threading like the i7's do. These numbers are still comparable to the numbers on the Dell Studio XPS 7100 we reviewed, a machine that had the benefit of a full two additional physical cores and a higher TDP. At this point it's worth adding that the iBuyPower Paladin XLC is running at a 3.5GHz overclock on its i7-930, and the CyberPower Xtreme Gamer 8500 has a punishing 3.85GHz overclock on its i7-875K. The competition's fast to begin with.

Unfortunately, performance suffers in every case from the 3GHz clock on the i5. Under ideal circumstances and an even playing field, the GeForce GTS 450's in SLI would be nipping at the heels of the AMD Radeon HD 5870 in the nano cube, but with the substantially faster core clock on the i7-875K (benefitting also from enough space for a watercooling kit), the cube just can't keep up. Having said that, these numbers are still pretty impressive given the tiny footprint of the machine producing them.

Playing Some Small Games

At this point, we really almost want to be impressed that a computer this small plays games at all. Remember, though, this thing has a Radeon HD 5870 inside—a Radeon that didn't overheat once during testing, either.

The cube may be sitting at the bottom of each of the charts, but look at the numbers. There isn't a single game here that isn't playable with plenty of breathing room. At the same time, we have to wonder if leaving the unit running at stock and allowing Turbo Boost to take the i5 to 3.2GHz on two cores might not have improved the standings a bit. StarCraft II, for example, doesn't scale past two cores at all. Seeing that benchmark GPU-limited is actually a rarity. It's academic, though: 57.8 frames per second is still extremely fluid.

Once greater stress is applied to the graphics subsystem, the cube starts to acquit itself better as the 5870 gets to stretch its legs. Framerates are still beyond playable across the board with the exception of STALKER, which hovers precariously close to the 30-frames-per-second mark. In most cases, the cube with its slower processor and 5870 is able to hang extremely close to the heavily overclocked CyberPower unit with its eVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTS 450's in SLI. Meanwhile the pair of GTX 470's in the iBuyPower Paladin XLC blows everything away, much like the leafblower it sounds like under this kind of load.

Putting Together the Cube

Evaluating the AVADirect Nano Gaming Cube is different from handling the other desktops simply because its form factor warrants attention. The design is of an impractical mentality: we climbed the mountain because it was there. They built it because they could. It's a lot like the old Shuttle SFFs we used to review, only this isn't a proprietary case, motherboard, and PSU (thankfully!).

The SilverStone Sugo SG06 case is modded and literally stuffed to the gills. On the right-hand side of the machine (assuming it's facing you), ventilation holes were removed and a 120mm Scythe fan was added to improve cooling. That fan, along with the freakishly large Radeon HD 5870, makes it very difficult to take the case apart. There's just one large panel that bends over the top and sides, and it flexes mightily. It has to in order to fit around everything inside. Word to the wise: if you're going to buy the cube, you'd better buy it exactly how you want it, because everything is so tightly condensed inside (well-routed, but come on, the case is wee) that changing out anything will prove to be a real issue.

And then there's noise. The thing could be a lot louder, and I'm not sure exactly what could've been done to mitigate the problem, but as a whole it's fairly loud under load. Most of that blame can be shouldered by the cooling system on the Radeon HD 5870. Sapphire's Vapor-X system is ideal for a card placed in this kind of build, but it's still noisy, and the much needed ventilation on the side of the case does nothing to mask it. Suffice it to say, if you're sensitive to noise, the cube probably isn't for you.

Where I get really frustrated is the overclock. I've griped about it on the other boutique builds I reviewed and it only gets worse here. The problem is twofold. First, the nominal 3GHz overclock is of questionable value if the system is going to be used chiefly for gaming. The i5-750S at stock speeds will punch it up to 3.2GHz on two cores depending on system load and that's going to be better for certain games since the system seems to be fairly CPU-limited. With a turbo-free 3GHz performance is potentially left on the table for games like StarCraft II. It isn't a dealbreaker and it's not keeping games from being playable, but it's still a small issue.

The other problem is that the overclock is another lazy one. Chip features are disabled, and the voltage and clocks don't drop when the system idles. In a larger desktop this isn't as big of a deal, where the boutique machines can just laugh it off with a watercooling system while you try to figure out why your power bill is spiking. But in a Mini-ITX case where everyone's squished against each other and cold air is at a premium, any savings on heat and voltage is going to make a big impact on noise levels and system wear. Bottom line: if you're willing to cut out the side of the case and put a fan in, you should be willing to properly tune the processor to make the best of that effort.

Someone's probably already thinking that it's completely insane to even try and fit a card like the Radeon HD 5870 into a case like this. I think that person has missed the point entirely. First, the point is the fact that someone was crazy enough to even try to do it to begin with, so the fact that it was successful is really the achievement here. Second, as far as high-performance GPUs go, the 5870 is the most power you're going to get into a single card before you get to cards that most likely will overheat in a case like this: the GeForce GTX 470 and 480, or there's the dual-GPU HD 5970. And for the record: no, AVADirect does not support/offer any of those GPUs as an upgrade for the Nano Cube, and understandably so. If they don't overheat, they'll be obscenely loud, making you long for the halcyon days of the 5870's Vapor-X cooler.

As for the rest of the configuration, the 128GB Corsair Nova SSD sure is fast, but it's also not ideal. SSDs work best as system drives, where a more affordable mechanical drive can provide the kind of capacity needed to hold games that are only getting bigger and bigger as time goes on. The case is able to handle a 2.5" drive and a 3.5" drive, though: going for an SSD system drive and a substantial (hopefully cool-running) mechanical drive would probably be the way to go.

Conclusion: Good Things in a Small Package?

Having gone through the review you've probably already figured out whether or not you're interested in something like the AVADirect Nano Gaming Cube. So we'll cut the crap now: the Cube is a curio. You know it, I know it. It is a cute, woefully impractical idea, and it works. Some people are probably going to be horribly offended by it, mystified as to why anyone would buy anything like it. That's fine, the Cube isn't for them. But other people—and you know who you are—are going to be endlessly fascinated and amused by it. This conclusion is for you.

The three major issues with the Cube (or at least, our review unit) are thus: the DFI LANparty board is feature light and frankly bad compared to what's available (and it's no longer an option in the AVADirect configurator); the overclock is a lazy one and not remotely ideal for the situation; and finally, the Cube can be a bit noisy.

The first has already been taken care of: superior boards are available in the custom configuration, and the cheapest is still a high quality Gigabyte board. The second, we would just advise that you order it without an overclock instead of tempting fate, because you're not going to get the kind of tuned overclock a system like this really demands. The third, I don't know what to tell you. It isn't even a foot long on any side and it has a Radeon HD 5870 in it. There's only so much alchemy that can occur when a gaming machine this small is put together.

I think the only major issue I had with it was that the overclock was so poorly done and so wasteful, because the system is such a cool idea (regardless of practicality) that it needs more attention and care. The cube could probably do a lot better if it were properly tuned.

So with all that said, the cube is an incredibly amusing curio and it is indeed a fully functional, perfectly stable machine. With an incredibly tiny footprint. It will get attention, at least from the geek set. Whether you're willing to pay for the novelty is a decision you'll have to make on your own, but there are few better ways to do a little gaming than the AVADirect Nano Gaming Cube.