Digital Storm unveils Virtue, a customizable Haswell-powered mid-tower gaming rig

By Russ Boswell Published June 11, 2013

DSVirtue1 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Announced in conjunction with E3, Digital Storm’s newest creation, dubbed the Virtue, is aimed to fill a void that Digital Storm considers a “lack of powerful, detailed, mid-tower gaming systems.” The company believes that the current market is flooded with ultra-tower PCs, and that these rigs normally receive much more attention to detail and craftsmanship than a traditional lower-priced mid-tower. According to the company, Digital Storm created the Virtue to blur the lines between what is considered an ultra-gaming PC, and what is considered affordable to the general gaming public.

The Virtue features a customizable setup with four separate levels, each with different stages of hardware to suit different types of gamers. A gamer that dabbles in titles featuring mid-tier intensity graphics and gameplay should be fine with Level 1, while a hardcore gamer who strives for the best graphics and gameplay experiences would be happiest at Level 4.

Recommended Videos

The base tier will get you an Intel Core i5 4570 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB graphics. Now, compare that to Level 4, which boasts an Intel Core i7 4770k processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6GB GPU. Levels 2 and 3 contain hardware that falls somewhere between these in terms of power and capability. The only standard here is a Western Digital brand 1TB HDD (although Levels 3 and 4 feature a special edition HDD, rather than the standard model).

DigitalStormVirtueTable — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The casing is a constant across all levels, featuring a brushed aluminum and steel shell that measures 17.7 inches x 8.3 inches x 17.3 inches. Each level features a Corsair water-cooling system with up to five fans and a large 240mm radiator. You’ll also have access to a DVD burner or Blu-ray player, depending on what package you opt for. Each system comes packed with Windows 8 (64-bit), overclocking capabilities from 4.0Ghz to 4.4Ghz, a three-year limited warranty, and lifetime U.S.-based customer support from Digital Storm’s in-house technical support agents.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming

The current pricing starts at $1,448 and goes as high as $3,218. If you’re interested in getting your hands on a Digital Storm Virtue, check out the company’s website here.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Russ Boswell is an aspiring video game and technology journalist from Colorado. He's been an avid gamer since he was old…

Computing

Nvidia is missing a golden opportunity in PC gaming

Assassin's Creed Mirage on the MSI Claw handheld.

There's a rising tide of handheld gaming PCs, and Nvidia is missing out on the action. The push of handhelds into the mainstream started with some purpose-built AMD systems on a chip (SoCs), but now Intel is joining the fray with its Meteor Lake platform. Out of the big three, only one company is missing: Nvidia.

Nvidia probably isn't too concerned with making an SoC for handhelds -- after all, it was AI that pushed it to become a trillion-dollar company -- and it's a long shot that the company would ever make one. With that in mind, consider what follows to be wishful thinking because Nvidia could make one insane SoC for handheld gaming PCs.
Charted territory

Computing

Don’t believe the hype — the era of native resolution gaming isn’t over

Alan Wake looking at a projection of himself.

Native resolution is dead, or so the story goes. A string of PC games released this year, with the most recent being Alan Wake 2, have come under fire for basically requiring some form of upscaling to achieve decent performance. Understandably, there's been some backlash from PC gamers, who feel as if the idea of running a game at native resolution is quickly becoming a bygone era.

There's some truth to that, but the idea that games will rely on half-baked upscalers to achieve reasonable performance instead of "optimization" is misguided at best -- and downright inaccurate at worst. Tools like Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) will continue to be a cornerstone of PC gaming, but here's why they can't replace native resolution entirely.
The outcry
Let's start with why PC gamers have the impression that native resolution is dead. The most recent outcry came over Alan Wake 2 when the system requirements revealed that the game was built around having either DLSS or FSR turned on. That's not a new scenario, either. The developers of Remnant 2 confirmed the game was designed around upscaling, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a AAA release in the last few years that didn't pack in upscaling tech.

Computing

Nvidia is bringing ChatGPT-style AI to video games, and I’m already worried

Nvidia CEO delivering a keynote at Computex.

Nvidia is bringing generative AI to video games. Announced during its Computex 2023 keynote, Nvidia ACE is a new platform that allows developers to use generative AI to power conversations with characters in games.

Think ChatGPT, but instead of a general-purpose chatbot, you get a chatbot with a specific backstory and lore. Nvidia is stressing that flexibility is one of the most important aspects of ACE, as it will allow characters to have a fleshed-out backstory that informs their responses and keeps them from getting too off-topic. The company's recently announced NeMo Guardrails play a role in this, directing the conversation away from topics the developer doesn't intend.