I used to be somebody that thought if you didn’t build your own PC, you just didn’t do it right. However, in recent years that view has largely changed, due to a variety of factors. From costs of individual parts, to their availability, to just the peace of mind that comes with having a robust warranty on the system, I’ve found myself recommending pre-built PCs to people who ask for my opinion on the matter more often than not.
Starforge Systems is one PC builder I’ve had my eyes on ever since it launched, and every time I’ve seen their PCs in person, whether it’s at a trade show or in a video, they’ve intrigued me. A creator-led venture owned by OTK and MoistCr1TiKaL, Starforge Systems itself is helmed by industry vets, including the former COO of Artesian Builds, with the aim of building powerful, stunning PCs.
We had the chance to test the Voyager II PC over the past few weeks. The entry point for their creator PC tier, the Voyager II is marketed as a PC geared towards gaming performance and content creation. But how does it hold up, and is it worth the price tag?
Specifications:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K
- CPU Cooler: Starforge Custom Bitspower 360mm Liquid Cooler
- RAM: Teamgroup Delta RGB 32GB DRR5 6000 CL38 (2x16GB)
- Motherboard: MSI Z790 Tomahawk Wifi DDR5
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super 16GB
- Cables: CableMod Pro ModMesh Sleeved Cable Extensions (Black)
- Primary Storage: 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (min 7000 read)
- Power Supply: MSI MAG A850GL PCIe 5
- RGB Fans: 6 x Bitspower 120mm ARGB
- Case: Lian Li O11D EVO RBG Mid-Tower (SMITE Custom Printing Version)
- Comes With: SMITE-themed Starforge Platelight (additional Platelights extra) ; Windows 11 Home
- Price: With Standard Case: $2,849.99; With SMITE Case: $3,049.98 (via Starforge Website at the time of publication of this review)
First Thoughts And Unboxing
When the Starforge Systems PC showed up at my doorstep, I felt a rush of excitement I’ve not had in quite some time with a hardware review. My first gaming PC was a prebuilt, and even the one that followed, it’s only been the last ten years I’ve ardently advocated for only building your own, really. So that rush of excitement was mirroring what I felt when I brought my last pre-built into the house back in 2013.
There’s something inherently magical about unpacking an anticipated piece of hardware, and despite the fact that I knew this review rig was a loaner and it would be going back to Starforge, that excitement wasn’t diminished in the slightest.
Unpacking the box, I was pleasantly surprised to see the care with which the Voyager II PC was packed away. Instead of using a custom box, Starforge uses the Lian Li O11D EVO box the case came with (it’s good enough for Lian Li, it’s good enough for them) but packs it in a larger outer box to further protect the goods inside.
Damage doesn’t usually occur while shipping because a box takes a hit—it usually happens because the items in the box have room to move around and slam into things. So seeing the box packed pretty tightly so there wasn't much movement at all is good. As someone who used to ship multi-thousand-dollar instruments across the country, I appreciate a good packing job.
Grabbing the PC itself out of the box, the inside components are protected during shipping with the expandable foam many PC builders use now. This allows the packaging to form itself around the PC's components and keep them stabilized while shipping.
The Voyager line of PCs from Starforge comes in three variants: the base level, the Pro, and the Elite. As you move up the line, you start to see upgrades mainly to the CPU and GPU on offer, with the Pro sporting an i9-14900K and RTX 4080, while the Elite jumps up to the RTX 4090 (with both PCs seeing power supply upgrades to support the extra power needed to run these behemoths of silicon). We opted for the entry-level Voyager II, which came equipped with the excellent RTX 4070 Ti Super and an i7-14700K, a superb CPU for both gaming and content creation.
Our review version of the Starforge Systems Voyager II also came with the custom SMITE-themed case, and it’s stunning in person. I had seen this case on display, along with many of the other custom printed cases Starforge offers, earlier this year at LVL Up Expo here in Las Vegas, and Starforge does a great job of making these cases pop. Every inch of the metal parts of the Lian Li case is covered in custom 6-panel UV printing, popping with detail and color that gives it so much personality compared to just the standard black and glass case you’d otherwise receive.
Even the front panel glass has printing on it to tie everything together, and I daresay I’m a bit bummed my ASUS ROG case on my main gaming rig now looks pretty ordinary by comparison.
Starforge’s expert PC builders have created a stunning-looking case design, but honestly, I think I got most excited by just how clean the inside of the case looked. It is cable managed to perfection, without a stray connection wire poking out somewhere. Everything is in its right spot, and the custom CableMod cables surely help with this, though once I was done admiring the cable work, the giant acrylic platelight panel caught my attention.
This is a cool feature for practically any Starforge PC that comes with a Lian Li O11D EVO case, as there is a vertical fan mount on the backside of the case that doesn’t really need to be used with the cooling solution Starforge is using. As a result, this is typically just going to be wasted space in any other PC, so Starforge has turned it into a spot to put some more personality into their build.
In my case, the platelight was also SMITE themed in keeping with the custom print job across the board, but realistically any of the platelights that Starforge sells separately will work. It’s rather easy to swap out also, you simply open the back of the case, pop the spring-loaded top-loader out and swap the plates.
While the Voyager II comes with a single platelight as part of the package, you can snag additional plates with your purchase, and the company has been known to run sales that include all of the plates that accompany a themed case (much like they have been doing lately with their Old School Runescape promotion). The plates themselves run about $40, which, if you’re spending over $3000 on a custom PC, might feel like a drop in the bucket to some.
Thankfully, if you can’t add them to an existing order, you can order these (and the custom cases) separately. If you already own a compatible O11 Dynamic EVO case, you can buy the platelight and acrylic plate separately to customize your existing PC.
One thing I will note is the custom printing does not make the case more fingerprint resistant. I’ve found myself dealing with smudges as I’ve moved the PC around the desk it’s currently sitting on, so you’ll want to keep a wipe handy if this bothers you. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me; a dark case would hide those normally, but seeing fingerprints on the yellow parts of the SMITE case has been a smidge annoying. But this is my own issue, not really the fault of Starforge or even Lian Li - I just hate smudges on my electronics, so I tend to buy darker cases to hide the worst of them.
I also appreciate the 2TB of NVMe SSD storage that comes standard with the Voyager II. With games taking up so much space on drives now, knowing that I won't need to upgrade to a larger storage device anytime soon is a good piece of mind. Additionally, the inclusion of the NVMe SSD allows for blistering loading times, meaning less time is spent waiting and more time is spent in-game where I want to be.
The Starforge Systems Voyager II PC aims to bring excellent PC performance, as well as performance for creators, in an all-in-one package. But how does it stack up in our testing? Let’s go to the benchmarks.
Starforge Systems Voyager II Benchmarks
One thing I’ll note is that any gaming PC builder worth their salt is going to do burn-in testing and all that from the factory before shipping the PC, and Starforge does this as well. They not only assemble the PC here in the US by hand, and you can actually pay extra to watch them do this on a livestream if you really want to, but they will put it through some testing before shipping it out to make sure that there aren’t any issues once the customer has it in their hands.
On paper, Starforge has built a pretty powerful machine here, with the i7-14700K CPU and the RTX 4070 Ti Super leading the charge. Both are powerful components, with the CPU’s P-cores able to take the brunt of the gaming workloads in those applications while also having plenty of power for multitasking, content creation, and more. Running a high-fidelity game while capturing footage with OBS was a sinch, with the 14700K barely breaking a sweat.
Total War Pharaoh Max Settings 1440p
The MSI RTX 4070 Ti Super our Voyager II comes equipped with is a stellar mid-range GPU as well. The Ada Lovelace GPU has enough power to even bring some 4K gaming, especially in games equipped with DLSS and frame generation like Cyberpunk 2077, and solidly ran any game I threw at it in our testing. Pax Dei looked and played incredibly, especially when frame gen was enabled, while Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s new graphical update popped on the Voyager II PC.
The Voyager II also holds its own during synthetic gaming benchmarks, which are designed to push the hardware to its maximum during testing. Quality scores in FireStrike, TimeSpy, and even the ray tracing Port Royal tests all point to a gaming experience that won’t leave much to complain about, especially if you’re upgrading from a rig running an older Nvidia or AMD GPU from yesteryear.
Funnily enough, I expected the PC to be loud, considering it has six separate case fans all blowing, and the GPU has its own fans to keep the card cool. Yet during gaming, even when playing something like Cyberpunk 2077 with its Path Tracing feature turned on, the PC was eerily quiet. It wasn't silent for sure, but playing without headphones so I could hear more clearly, and the Voyager II only let out a dull hum despite its fans working to keep things cool behind the glass. I was incredibly impressed, as I can typically hear my own personal rig, which houses nearly as many fans, pretty clearly when under load.
It isn’t just gaming tests we looked at, though. The Starforge Systems Voyager II is marketed to creators as well, and while this can mean many things in today’s landscape, from streamers to video content creators, we wanted to test some additional workloads the system might be put under.
Using CyrstalDiskMark, we tested the NVMe SSD’s read and write speed, putting that rated minimum 7000 read speed to the test (which it passed). We also spent time in Cinebench 2024, testing the i7-14700K itself in both single and multi-core testing, which you can see in the benchmark above.
Final Thoughts And Verdict
So where does this leave us? The Starforge Systems Voyager II is a powerful PC, no doubt. Regardless of the game I threw at it, the PC handled it admirably, at high framerates, and without really breaking a sweat—which is important as someone who lives in a desert determined to heat itself into a field of molten glass.
The cost, with the base version costing over $2800 USD, is not cheap. Using PC Partpicker, you can build a similar PC for about $2200-2300 USD, so the upcharge for labor, parts, and more isn’t nearly as egregious as it can be with other manufacturers.
Starforge has faced some criticism in the past over its pricing, especially compared to its competition in NZXT and more. Similarly specced PCs from NZXT and even iBuyPower are cheaper, though it should be noted there isn’t a 1:1 prebuilt on offer with the exact same spec, with the Starforge system offering a bit more in power on the CPU front, as well as an extra TB of storage space in both examples, just to name a few differences.
What you’re getting with Starforge is incredible build quality, both inside and out, which makes it easier to justify the build cost here in my opinion, especially considering the care taken to create a stellar-looking and performing package. The markup lands somewhere in the middle of what we typically see with other system builders, such as iBuyPower, Origin, Falcon Northwest, and the like. It's not cheap, but it's not egregious.
This is coupled with a 2-year warranty on the system, and as someone who has had CPUs fry and GPUs crap out on PCs I built, only for hardware manufacturers to deny warranty replacements, that extra piece of mind from Starforge is huge.
While our version came with the custom print job on the Lian Li O11D EVO RGB case, if you want to save some money, you needn’t opt for this upgrade. The PC will still come with the platelight loader on the Voyager, with a Starforge-emblazoned acrylic plate that can easily be swapped if you choose to buy a new plate later.
If you’re someone who is looking for blistering gaming performance, the power to stream, create video content, and more, the Voyager is a great option. It certainly makes the case that you no longer need a second PC to stream effectively if you’re a serious creator, as the i7-14700K is perfectly suited for the task.
In the end, the Starforge Systems Voyager II is an excellent PC and worth a look if you’re in the market for a pre-built system. With premium parts, incredible cable management, and stellar build quality that clearly shows the skill of the folks at Starforge, the Voyager II is an excellent bit of kit for anyone who looks to both game at incredible framerates with max settings while also dabbling in content creation.
Couple this with the customization options such as a UV-printed case with myriad choices, as well as the incredibly cool acrylic platelight system to give it even more artistic flair, Starforge seems to be carving its own spot in the system builder space with style, and I’m eager to see where they go from here.
Full disclosure: A loaner PC was provided by Starforge for the purposes of this review.
