[Old]Steiger Dynamics' LEET - Water Cooled, Dedicated HTPC

[hokiealumnus]

**NOTE** - The press release below has been updated - the biggest changes were to the base configuration and pricing. The updated press release and more detail was posted on the front page. Please check it out and then continue discussing in the article's thread. Thanks!

Post here: http://www.overclockers.com/steiger-dynamics-unveils-leet-extreme-htpc/
Feel free to continue to discuss here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=721913

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Well, this is interesting. I've been contacted by the CTO of Steiger Dynamics regarding their LEET system. It's a powerful, dedicated HTPC solution. Certainly sounds interesting. Here's the press release.

STEIGER DYNAMICS Unveils The LEET™ - The World’s First Liquid Cooled & Most Powerful Gaming Home Theater PC (HTPC)

LOS ANGELES, CA – STEIGER DYNAMICS proudly presents the world’s first liquid cooled and most powerful Home Theater PC (HTPC), bringing high-end gaming to the comfort of your living room.

HTPC reinvented
The LEET™ is a full spec, custom-built PC with a distinct design, form factor, and functionality for the living room. By integrating media center, server, and high-end gaming functionality, the LEET™ represents a whole new generation of home computers – blurring the line between enthusiast desktop PCs, gaming consoles, and home entertainment devices. Connected to a Full HD (3D) TV and surround sound system, the LEET™ delivers an unprecedented high-definition gaming and home entertainment experience to the PC, audio, and video enthusiast. Due to its sleek design, ultra-silent operation, and easy integration with other home theater components, the system perfectly blends into any existing living room setup.

“The living room will play an increasing role in PC gaming. Enthusiasts are looking for the maximum graphics and entertainment experience. Needless to say, their modern living room is more suitable for this than their office. With the LEET™ we created a product that will get PC gamers out from behind their desks,” says Martin Hehensteiger (Co-Founder & CEO, STEIGER DYNAMICS).

“We achieved our goal of creating the ultimate no-compromise living room computer with all the performance and functionality one could possibly imagine. Simply put, the LEET™ is the very best HTPC ever built,” says Martin Gossner (Co-Founder & CTO, STEIGER DYNAMICS).



Brute Performance
Based on ASUS’ top-of-the-line Z77 and X79 motherboards, the LEET™ supports latest generation Intel Core-i7 four- and six-core processors. State-of-the-art liquid cooling solutions allow overclocking to over 5 GHz while keeping the system extremely silent.

“The LEET™ lives up to its name – it is truly elite,” says Thi La (Senior VP & GM of Memory and Enthusiast Component Products, Corsair). “Our Neutron GTX SSDs in RAID 0 mode deliver read speeds beyond 1,100 MB/s. And – when it comes to pure system performance and snappiness – the combination with up to 64 GB Dominator Platinum RAM elevates this Home Theater PC into a league of its own.”

Mind-blowing Graphics
The LEET™ features up to a 4K-ready Quad-SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 configuration. Connected to a large screen TV or projector, the LEET™ lets you play latest PC games with astonishing Full HD graphics, all while sitting in the comfort of your couch.

“The LEET™ utilizes the full potential of EVGA NVIDIA based GeForce graphics cards,” says Bob Klase (VP of Sales, EVGA). “It handles with ease the most graphics-intensive current and future games in high-definition and stereoscopic 3D. All while using the highest possible graphics settings. On a large TV, this experience is entrancing and immersive.”

All-in-one Functionality
In addition to high-end gaming, the LEET™ delivers a full-fledged Microsoft® Windows® 8 experience, Blu-rayTM playback in Dolby® TrueHD™, lossless HD Audio®, HD cable TV, and online streaming services like Netflix and Spotify®. The system stores up to 1,000 Blu-rayTM movies or 3 million MP3s, and its home server functionality allows immediate media streaming to any mobile device.

“The LEET™ creates a user experience that has simply not been offered before. A Home Theater PC with endless functionality and uber performance – that’s really impressive. And thanks to the mutually developed custom liquid cooling solution, it is dead silent,” says Gabe Rouchon (CEO, Swiftech).



Freedom of Control
Users have the freedom of choice when it comes to wireless control. Whether they prefer any kind of smartphone or tablet, remote control, touchpad, or mouse and keyboard, the LEET™ offers all these options and more. In addition, users will be able to play games with Xbox 360® controllers or their favorite race and flight simulation gear.

Cameron Helm, a LEET™ trial customer remarked, “playing Battlefield 3 with a wireless mouse and keyboard from my couch worked perfectly. I am very sensitive to input lags and ergonomics, and I felt no difference to my wired desktop setup.”

Engineering Excellence
Pursuing STEIGER DYNAMICS’ no-compromise approach, every system is handcrafted with ingenious passion, uncompromising quality, and unparalleled attention to detail. The exclusively designed hand-brushed aluminum chassis has an unmatched wall-thickness of 0.2” (5mm). The system’s integrated 7” front screen features the exclusive LEET™ Monitor App, designed to be easily readable from the sofa. This tool constantly monitors and displays system parameters like available drive space, CPU/GPU clocks and load levels as well as respective temperatures.

All system cables are single sleeved and custom-tailored to the chassis, accounting for an extremely clean interior and optimized airflow. The LEET™ is built-to-order and incorporates only the highest-quality components from carefully selected, best-in-category partners. Prior to shipping, every single system is thoroughly stress-tested and benchmarked for 72 hours.



Customers First
The LEET™ comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee, 3 years limited warranty, and lifetime customer care.

“A no-compromise product like the LEET™ deserves only the very best product support. Therefore, we made ‘Customer Care’ a core value of our company." Martin & Martin (Founders of STEIGER DYNAMICS)

Line-up and Pricing
The LEET™ is available in three different lines - Pure, Core, and Reference. The Pure line starts at $2,198 and caters to the Audio and Video Enthusiast. The Core line is available from $2,798 and is tailored to the hardcore overclocker and gamer. The 6-core CPU based Reference line starts at $3,498 and features only top-of-the-line components, delivering the highest processing and graphics power available today.



Additional Product Specifications
• “Wife-approved” black or silver hand-brushed full aluminum LEET™ chassis with an unmatched wall thickness of 0.2” (5mm), perfectly blending into any existing TV and Audio setup
• Integrated 7” Samsung front screen showing the exclusive LEET™ Monitor app
• Front panel with SD/Memory Card reader, USB 3.0 and front HD-Audio connectors
• Liquid cooling solutions for extremely silent 24/7 operation
• Single sleeved cables and cable management for an air-flow optimized, clean interior
• Optional acrylic glass lid and LED lighting
• Up to 5 GHz overclocked Intel Core-i7 Hexa-Core CPU
• Up to 64 GB 2133 MHz DDR3 Memory
• Up to NVIDIA GTX 690 Quad-SLI graphic cards
• Up to 1 TB SSD system drives in RAID 0 mode
• Up to 12 TB storage space for up to 1,000 Blu-ray™ movies or 3 million MP3s
• Optional Full-HD Quad Cable-TV tuner
• Blu-ray/DVD/CD drive/writer
• User-preferred wireless control
• Microsoft ® Windows® 8
• Dimensions (HxWxD): 8.7 x 17.1 x 15.4 inches (22.0 x 43.5 x 39.0 cm)

About STEIGER DYNAMICS
STEIGER DYNAMICS is a revolutionary system builder bringing high-end PC gaming to the comfort of your living room. The company was founded in 2012 by McKinsey Consultant and UCLA Anderson MBA graduate Martin Hehensteiger (CEO) and Mercedes-Benz Product Strategist Martin Gossner (CTO). Both of them became attached to PC gaming with shooters like Doom, grew up with multiplayer-games like Quake, went semi-professional in Counter-Strike and are now enjoying the ultimate 3D gaming experience in their living rooms with latest games like Crysis 2 and Metro 2033. STEIGER DYNAMICS’ products are developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, and the founders ensure that every system is built as if it was their own. For more information, please visit www.steigerdynamics.com and www.facebook.com/STEIGERDYNAMICS.

Their website: http://www.steigerdynamics.com
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/STEIGERDYNAMICS

First impression: It's pretty, and I want one. DO WANT!

Second impression: I had frankly forgotten how much a pre-built system costs. Add water cooling and you can get quite expensive for a CPU + 650Ti combination! I don't know who they've gotten to fab their cases, but if Lian Li has taught me anything over the years, that case is several hundred bucks in and of itself. It will be interesting to see how it works out as a value proposition. Obviously they're not targeting those on a tight budget, but like the Maximus V Extreme we recently reviewed, high prices can be justified if you need the features. We'll have to wait and see if that's the case with the LEET.

 

[EarthDog]

That has to be the coolest case I have ever seen. I may not want the HTPC inside, but damn is the shell sexy.

 

[MattNo5ss]

They need to use cheaper motherboards to get a better GPU in there for the same price. Also, why is this called an HTPC? It's more like one of the best systems you can make, aside from the GPU.

 

[hokiealumnus]

I'd wager they know they are already in a niche market, there is already a semi-saturated niche (CyberPowerPC and the like) for high-end, water-cooled systems. They're carving out their own niche, with (AFAIK) the first HTPC maker of this caliber.

I tend to agree on the motherboard too, perhaps not with the Skt2011 build (that's just an all-out system for all-out system's sake), but definitely on the 3770K build.

Choosing from EVGA's offerings (they are the contracted GPU manufacturer), for the minimum GPU I'd like to see a 660Ti. It can play any 1080p game at max settings well (other than Metro 2033, heh). The 650Ti will require turning some stuff down at 1080p. At this price level, that shouldn't be a requirement.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Agreed, a $3500 system with a GTX 650 and only a 120 Gb HDD is tough to swallow......LOL

 

[hokiealumnus]

Just had a nice conversation with Mr. Gossner. They're quite stoked about this release (understandably!). An interesting note - all PSU cables in these builds are custom made. Not just sleeved, mind you - actually cut to custom length, then sleeved. There isn't much, if any, room for wire management, so that definitely adds to the bottom line.

They are also going to take our advice under advisement and consider other options on the base systems. That's not to say they'll actually act on it, but they're definitely considering what you've said.

Look at you guys, titans of industry. I'm so proud. *Tear.*

They should be sending a system for review in January once they get their review systems in. By then I hopefully will have had time with my home-built HTPC to compare experiences.

EDIT - Oh, and one more thing - the fans they're using are all Gentle Typhoons, which also adds (a good bit) to the bottom line. I can see why they cost what they do. The GPU thing they need to address, perhaps they should change it out for a lower-end motherboard on the base systems and allow MB upgrades as people want. The cost, however, adds up with things like these.

 

[Seebs]

I wonder if they'll also sell just the cases. There is a market for super $$$$ HTPC cases of this caliber... Look at the Origen AE cases; those things are just gorgeous (they better be at $700 for the S16T and $1200 for the S21T units). These Steiger units are up there in "looks" and giving the customer the option to put in the HW they want would make it an easier sell IMO.

 

[Mandrake4565]

That really is a nice case, I might even be able to talk the wife into letting me build a htpc in that and put it in the living room.

 

[hokiealumnus]

I'm going to close this thread because they've updated the press release. Then I'll put it on the front page and put the comments thread in the HTPC section. They took the posts in this very thread to heart and updated the features & pricing. You should like the direction they went.

Post here: http://www.overclockers.com/steiger-dynamics-unveils-leet-extreme-htpc/
Feel free to continue to discuss here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=721913