The Impulse is a small form factor gaming PC from Aftershock, a company who specialise
in custom gaming PCs in Singapore who recently came to Australia. In this review we’ll
check out gaming performance, overclocking, thermals and basically everything else too.
The Impulse is available with different hardware configurations. In my unit there’s an Intel
i5-8600K CPU, Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics, 16GB of memory running in dual channel, a 256GB
M.2 SATA SSD and 1TB hard drive.
When ordering online you’ve got the option of selecting different hardware, check the
link in the description to see what’s available. For the CPU you can select the i3-8100 up
to i7-9700K, for graphics you can go from the 1050 Ti all the way up to a 2080 Ti, while
memory can go up to 32gb in the two available memory slots. You’ve also got the option
of picking between a H310 of Z370 board, so if you’re going for a K CPU and plan on
overclocking make sure you pick the Z370 board upgrade too.
They seem to be using the Kolink Rocket Mini-ITX case here, it’s made of aluminium and has
a brushed finish on all panels. Aftershock are also offering custom paint jobs though
if you want something other than the default silver. The left and right side panels have
holes for airflow, and each panel can be removed by taking out four screws with a phillips
head screwdriver, giving us access to the internals. The sides of the panels were a
little sharp in areas, so be careful there.
On the left we’ve got the vertically mounted graphics card, in this case the Zotac Gaming
RTX 2070 mini. Otherwise on this side we can see the 600 watt power supply. On the right
we’ve got the motherboard, and in this case an Intel stock CPU cooler, however you’ve
got the option of upgrading this when ordering, and I’ll cover the thermal performance a
bit later.
I’ve got a H310 motherboard here, so I wasn’t able to overclock the i5-8600K CPU, there
is a Z370 option for $39 more though. At the top of the board there’s a single M.2 slot
and it’s got two memory slots. There are two 2.5 inch drive bays found below the case,
and they simply slide out.
For I/O on the back of the motherboard we’ve got HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI for using with
the Intel CPU graphics, as well as two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, PS/2 port, gigabit ethernet,
two USB 3 Type-A ports, WiFi antenna and 3.5mm audio jacks. On the 2070 graphics card there
are three DisplayPort outputs, HDMI and DVI port, though all of this will vary based on
the motherboard and graphics selected.
On the front there are two USB 3 Type-A ports along with the power button just above which
lights up white while running. The white lighting matched the Zotac graphics card in this particular
build, which could be seen through the left side panel.
Underneath there are just four sticky rubber feet, while the top of the case is just smooth
brushed metal.
Now let’s look at the thermals, testing was completed with an ambient room temperature
of 26 degrees celsius, a bit warm as it’s summer here at the moment. Testing was completed
with the side panels on, however results will of course vary greatly depending on hardware
selection.
Starting at the bottom of the graph I’ve got the idle temperatures, and it was running
fairly cool and quiet, no problems there. I tested gaming with Watch Dogs 2 as it uses
a good combination of CPU and graphics, and both were around 80 degrees Celsius, not too
bad. I wasn’t able to boost the fan speed of the stock Intel cooler, so instead went
with a -0.1v undervolt on the CPU, and I maxed the fan out of the graphics card while overclocking
it by 200MHz with MSI Afterburner. By doing this the CPU temperature lowered 4 degrees
and the graphics temperature rose 5 degrees from the overclock despite the boosted fan
speed.
The stress test results are from running the Aida64 stress test and Heaven benchmark at
the same time, in order to try and fully utilize both the processor and graphics in a worst
case scenario. Continuing up the graph at stock both CPU and GPU are in the mid 80s,
and by undervolting the CPU and overclocking the graphics again with the fan maxed out
the results basically swap.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. The 200MHz graphics
overclock and fan boost is giving us a nice improvement, we’ll see how this affected
gaming performance a bit later. The CPU clock speed was the same regardless, it was sitting
at a 60 watt TDP at stock, no thermal or power limit throttling so it was able to achieve
its 4.1GHz all core turbo speed no problems even with the Intel cooler. Again I wasn’t
able to overclock the 8600K as my unit didn’t have a Z370 motherboard.
As there was no way to modify the CPU the Cinebench test was pretty boring, no way to
improve performance as it’s already performing as best as it can here.
As for the fan noise produced by the system I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was still audible, the fans of the Zotac 2070 don’t seem to stop when not
doing anything. Under stress test with the fans at stock it gets fairly loud, similar
to while gaming. With the graphics card fans maxed out it’s now quite loud, and again
I wasn’t able to boost the CPU fan speed.
While gaming I did notice that the case felt fairly warm to the touch, so I pulled out
the thermal camera and had a quick look. It was getting close to 50 degrees Celsius in
some parts, so fairly warm, but realistically not an issue, it’s not like you’ll be
leaning on it or anything. The only exhaust is a single 80mm fan up the top.
Overall despite the Intel CPU cooler it performed perfectly fine with no thermal throttling
with this hardware combination, however if you’re looking at picking a higher tier
CPU I’d recommend going for the cooler upgrade as well. By default Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
thermal paste is used which is great, and you’ve got the option of upgrading to conductonaut
if you’re after liquid metal, which may honestly be required in such a small build
if you go for the 9700K. The CPU and graphics have access to their own fresh air through
either side of the case, though it’s worth noting that there is no dust filtering in
the case.
I’ve also measured total system power draw from the wall, at idle we’re looking at
around 50 watts, then 263 watts with the Aida64 stress test and Heaven benchmark running.
This rises by around 30 watts once we overclock the graphics. I didn’t show it here, but
we could drop around 20 watts with the -0.1v CPU undervolt, which as we saw earlier also
improved CPU temperature.
Finally let’s get into some gaming benchmarks, I’ve tested these games at stock settings
as that’s probably how most people will use the PC, don’t worry we’ll look at
overclocking after. I’ve tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions at all setting levels
so that we can really see what this hardware is capable of.
Let’s start out with Battlefield 5 which was tested in campaign mode, as that can actually
make use of RTX which our 2070 supports. At 1080p it was kind of playable at ultra and
high settings, not excellent I’d definitely be sticking to medium or low settings, but
even there the 1% lows weren’t great. Personally I’d stick to RTX off, at least with this
hardware, ultra settings with RTX off looks nicer than medium settings with RTX on in
my opinion, and it performs way better. Stepping up to 1440p RTX on is still able to average
60 FPS with the 2070 at medium settings or below, but again same deal looks nicer at
ultra with it off and performs better. At 4K you’re not going to want to bother with
RTX on at all here, even the 2080 Ti struggles with it at 4K, and low settings with RTX off
were required for a solid 60 FPS.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature, and as a well optimized game at 1080p we were
getting very high frame rates even with the settings maxed out at epic, no problems at
all. At 1440p the frame rates are still excellent, with over 100 FPS achievable with max settings.
At 4K 60 FPS was still possible with high settings, while stepping down further was
still able to maintain well above 100 FPS.
Far Cry 5 was tested with the built in benchmark, and at 1080p it was performing quite well,
over 100 FPS at ultra settings with decent 1% lows. At 1440p the results are still quite
respectable, still above 80 FPS even at ultra settings with the 1% lows again not too far
behind the averages. 4K really drops the performance in this test, with 60 FPS averages no longer
possible even with low settings.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical benchmark, and as usual on modern hardware we get very
high frame rates in this test, with over 300 FPS possible even with all settings on maximum.
At 1440p 300 FPS was still almost possible with all settings maxed out, though fairly
good 1% low improvements at the lower settings which is likely what you’d use playing competitively
anyway. 4K was still playable, with almost 300 FPS achievable with the settings on minimum.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark, and as another pretty well optimized
game we were seeing very high frame rates in this test, running very nicely even at
ultra settings at 1080p. At 1440p the results are still quite high, with 180 FPS reached
with ultra settings with a 1% low that’s still quite high. The 1% low results at 4K
are still quite decent, so not many dips in performance, and the average frame rates are
still decent too, with above 100 possible at high settings.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and at 1080p as usual there wasn’t too much
of a performance difference seen between the different setting levels, with over 100 FPS
at ultra settings. At 1440p there wasn’t much change at the lower settings, but the
higher levels drop back as the hardware gets put to work, with 100 FPS averages still possible
at high settings. Not sure why you’d be playing this game at 4K if you’re actually
after the chicken dinner, but with very low settings it was still going alright, with
the 1% low still above 60 FPS.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested using the built in benchmark, and at 1080p even
with the highest settings 100 FPS was only just out of reach. At 1440p highest settings
still scored over 60 FPS, with 100 now possible at low settings, and then finally at 4K lowest
settings were required to maintain above 60 FPS averages in this test.
I’ve also got some Dota 2 results at 1080p, keep in mind that I tested this using an intensive
replay that doesn’t represent actual game play, it’s a worst case scenario so that
I can compare these results with other machines. I did play a quick game with the settings
maxed out though, and I was able to average around 120 FPS there.
We’re seeing pretty nice performance from the i5-8600K CPU and RTX 2070 graphics at
both 1080p and even 1440p with good settings. While some less demanding games are capable
of running at 4K on this hardware, I don’t generally consider the 2070 a 4K graphics
card, so I’d suggest going for something higher if you’re after 4K.
As mentioned before it was possible to improve performance by overclocking the graphics,
so let’s take a look at how these settings helped out. I did also undervolt the CPU,
though as we saw earlier this had no practical effect to performance as there was no throttling.
I’ve retested Far Cry 5, and we can see that there is an improvement to frame rates
with the overclocks applied. I’ve only tested ultra settings at all three resolutions, and
at 1080p there was just a 1% improvement to average FPS. At 1440p there was a larger 7%
improvement to average FPS and a 4% improvement to 1% low, and then finally at 4K there was
a larger 10% improvement to both average frame rates and the 1% low. Performance improves
at higher resolutions as the CPU becomes less of a factor, and as shown here we can get
some nice boosts.
I’ve used Crystal disk mark to test the storage, and my 256GB M.2 SATA SSD was performing
fairly, and the 1TB 5,400RPM hard drive was perhaps a little above average, although results
will vary based on the hardware you select, you can go up to a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD and 2TB
2.5 inch SSHD.
For up to date pricing check the links in the description, as prices will change over
time. At the time of recording, here in Australia with these specs it’s going for around $2400
AUD. Before all my international viewers say that’s too high, again this is in Australian
dollars, stuff here not only costs more but we also have a 10% tax on top of everything
too, without our tax and after conversion it’s around $1500 USD.
The Aftershock Impulse has quite a lot of different hardware selection available. The
Kolink rocket case is nice and small and in my opinion looks great, although smaller sizes
always come at the cost of having limited cooling options, an AIO liquid cooler for
example is not possible here. This machine is definitely prioritizing the amount of physical
space that it takes up at the expense of other options such as cooling, however with the
decent specs I had here it wasn’t thermal throttling, though this did mean it needed
to run the fans somewhat louder than I’d like, but you’d likely see better results
going with the cooler upgrade and liquid metal option.
Let me know what you guys thought about the Impulse from Aftershock down in the comments,
and if you’re new here get subscribed for future tech videos like this one.