Digital Storm showcased an upcoming revision of its Bolt-branded custom-built small form factor (SFF) gaming PC, the Bolt X, at CES 2017. Although the company didn’t tell us when we’d be seeing the new device hit the market, we can safely assert that it will likely be after the launch of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, with Digital Storm saying that it would support both Intel 7th generation (Kaby Lake) and the upcoming AMD flagship processors.
The Digital Storm Bolt X’s redesigned chassis is sleeker than previous models with a repositioned front-panel I/O, and the company also ditched the optical drive. It still sports a tempered-glass side panel and options for the company’s HydroLux Hardline tubing and up to a 280mm radiator. Full hardware specifications of the Bolt X are currently unavailable, but Digital Storm said it would accommodate Intel and AMD mini-ITX motherboards with each respective company’s new CPUs, up to 32GB DDR4, and graphics cards up to Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan (Pascal) and the upcoming AMD Vega GPUs.
We asked Digital Storm why it shifted from a number-based name scheme for its Bolt-branded PC revisions, and the company explained that when it developed the Bolt X, the X represented a variable that the company had not yet decided on. However, the X stuck and the variable became a constant, giving us the Bolt X.
One variable we’re not sure of is the starting price, which we imagine would land somewhere near its predecessor’s minimum configuration (currently starting at $1,906). However, with AMD Ryzen pricing currently unknown and the company’s clear intention of offering the new red-team CPUs, the Bolt X could come in at a much lower starting price point. Digital Storm didn’t offer a specific release date for the Bolt X (it’s also still a variable), but the company said we could expect to see it arrive in Q1 2017.
