An overclocked gaming rig, including a
monitor, for less than $1,500
It’s tempting to spend as much as possible
on a new PC, but the proliferation of affordable, effective components means
you don’t have to break the bank to get plenty of speed now. Palicomp’s Alpha
Blade costs $1498.5 but, on paper at least, it has the power to handle the
latest games and applications without breaking a sweat.
As with many pre-built systems, it’s based
on a Core i5-3570K, although here it’s been given a boost, with an overclock
that takes it from 3.4GHz, Meanwhile, gaming power is handled by a PowerColor
Radeon HD 7950, although it’s virtually identical to AMD’s reference model.
That means an 800MHz core clock, 1,250MHz shader clock and 4.3 billion
transistors.
An
overclocked gaming rig, including a monitor, for less than $1,500
There’s also a reasonably sized 120GB SSD
for a boot drive, but it’s an OCZ Agility 3 – a model that’s now been
superseded by newer hard ware. There’s also a Seagate Barracuda 7200. 014 hard
disk offering 2TB of space – plenty for a healthy Steam library and media
collection – and there’s a Blu-ray drive for movie-watching too. There’s no
sign of a discrete sound card though.
This is all, plugged in to an Asus
P8Z77-VLXmotherboard.This isa step down from Asus’ high-end boards, and it
shows in the spec: no on-board wireless, only two USB 3 ports on its back panel
and only one full-speed 16x PCI-E slot—the second is restricted to just4x mode,
so it isn’t ideal for dual graphics.
Expansion is Limited elsewhere too. The
four DlMM slots are occupied, with one blocked by the CPU heatsink’s 120mm fan,
and only two SATA3Gbps ports are free. There’s one USB 3 header vacant, but the
bottom of the PCB only offers two USB 2 headers, and even those are crowded by
trailing cables.
There’s
also a reasonably sized 120GB SSD for a boot drive, but it’s an OCZ Agility 3 –
a model that’s now been superseded by newer hard ware.
The components are all housed in a
Thermaltake V3 BlacX Edition chassis, which is a mixed bag. The black paint on
the inside lends the interior a classy air, and upgrade room is reasonable, but
the build quality is average, with thin side-panels that wobble when flexed.
Meanwhile, the lack of a motherboard tray means cables are painfully visible.
Despite this, PaIicomp hasn’t done a bad
job with cable routeing; the power cables for the motherboard, CPU and graphics
card are tied through the middle of the case, and the rest are bunched at the
bottom. It isn’t elegant, but we had few problems working inside the Alpha
Blade, and the cables don’t disrupt airflow. The fan setup is simple: one 120mm
intake fan1 a 120mm exhaust fan1 al 20mm fanon the Thermaltake ISGC-300 and an
80mm graphics card fan.
The PC includes a monitor too. The
AsusVS247H’s 24m diagonal serves up a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, with HDMI,
DVI-D and VGA inputs. The screen’s quality is good throughout, with the
standard settings providing a brightness level of 293cd/m2, a measured contrast
ratio of 9l5:1 and a Delta E of 3.1.
These figures ensure the screen is more
than bright enough for games and movies, while the contrast ratio makes for a
punchy, vivid panel. Meanwhile, the low Delta E means the Asus delivers good
colour accuracy. There’s a tiny bit of backlight bleed along the bottom edge,
but this didn’t make a difference in everyday use. Its only shortcoming is the
wobbly stand.
Also included is a Logitech MK62Owireless
keyboard and mouse set, which is comfortable to use, and the former includes
media controls. However if you have your own preferred peripherals and monitor
already, Palicomp sells the Alpha Blade as a base unit too — drop the monitor,
keyboard and mouse, and the PC alone will set you back $1342.5 inc VAT.
Performance
The AIpha Blades CPU runs at 4.6GHz, which
is significantly higher than the 4.3GHz chip in the Dino PC Tyrannosaur357üK
(see Issue 107, p36), and this had a notable impact on performance. The Alpha
Blade’s 2,285 score beat the 2,023 scored by the Dino PC in the image editing
test, and the Palicomp’s score of 3,674 in the video encoding test also beating
the 3,417 of the Tyrannosaur. Likewise, in the multi-tasking test, the
PaIicomp’s respectable score of 1,740 trumped the 1,641 of its rival. It all
adds up to an overall score of 2,566, compared to the 2,360 of the Dino PC.
The
Alpha Blade’s 2,285 score beat the 2,023 scored by the Dino PC in the image
editing test, and the Palicomp’s score of 3,674 in the video encoding test also
beating the 3,417 of the Tyrannosaur.
Meanwhile, in the CPU-heavy Total War
benchmark, the Palicomp returned an unplayable minimum frame rate of just 22fps
and an average frame rate of 36fps, although in the Battlefield 3 test, the
system averaged 58fps, with a minimum of 46fps.
Overclocking returned mixed results. We
increased the vcore to 1 .4Vand raised the base clock to 4.7GHz, but this didn’t
give us much extra: the overall score in our benchmarks rose from 2,566 to
2,630 —just above the Dino PCs overclocked result. We wouldn’t recommend
overclocking the CPU any further, though: at 4.6GHz, the core hit a peak
temperature of 89°C, and this increased to 90°C with our tweaks.
We tweaked the graphics card too, raising
its core cLockfrom800MHzto 1,000MHzand its shader clock from 1,25OMHzto
1,35OMHz.Thisincreasewas enough to raise the Total War benchmark to a playable
minimum of 26fps, while adding 10fps to the minimum in Battlefield 3—definitely
a worthwhile tweak.
The
Alpha Blade’s loud components aren’t subtle, and its chassis lacks finesse, but
it gives good performance for the money, plus a decent monitor.
The OCZ SSD didn’t impress us in the
benchmarks either. It’s an older drive, and ¡t showed its age when we tested it
in our AS-SSD benchmarks. Its sequential read result of 199MB/sec is less than
half the speed of the best drives, and its sequential write score of 142MB/sec
isn’t much better. It was slower than average in every test.
The most disappointing aspect of the
Palicomp, though, is its noise level. The Thermaltake CPU heatsink and
PowerColor graphics card aren’t loud, but the intake fan and power supply both
make a racket; this means that the Palicomp delivers a consistent, noticeable
rumble, even when idle.
Conclusion
The Alpha Blade’s loud components aren’t
subtle, and its chassis lacks finesse, but it gives good performance for the
money, plus a decent monitor. If you don’t mind a little noise, and don’t want
to build your own PC, this is a good route to reasonable gaming performance.
