It’s a well-balanced system for those
who are on a budget, but the lack of expansion options could be a problem.
Price: $1,045
Ranking: 3/5
Cyberpower
Scylla Elite
Scylla Elite is one of those cheapest
Windows 8 PCs we’ve ever seen, but is still accompanied by a 23.6-inch
widescreen Asus VS247H. This is a good-quality screen, with natural colors and
even lighting. It also has a matte surface, so you won’t face any trouble with
any light sources from above, which is popular among those screens with
reflective surfaces.
The PC has an AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics
card with 1GB of memory. It is not a high-ranking card, but can obtain a quite
good frame rate of 15fps in Crysis 2 at 1920x1080 Ultra detail – we had to
reduce to High quality before seeing a smooth frame rate. The Cooler Master
500W power supply will provide you with enough power for all except those cards
on the top rank. However, you need to make sure that you have measured the case
in advance, as there may not be enough space for longer cards.
The Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 AM3+ microATX motherboard
has only one PCI-E x16 slot, which is used by the graphics card, one PCI-E x1
slot, which is blocked by the graphics card, and one PCI slot, which is both
free and accessible. You can use it to add a TV tuner, a sound card or some
additional USB ports, but if you need more space for expansion, this is not an
ideal PC for you. At least, there are quite many SATA ports. They are mainly SATA2,
but it is good enough for a supplied 1TB hard disc and a DVD drive. However,
you will encounter a speed bottleneck if later you want to install a DVD drive.
The
case feels reasonably solid but only blocks a little of the sound from the
noisy CPU cooler.
The PC has four empty SATA ports, as well
as space within the case for three 5¼-inch drives and six 3½-inch drives. Two
of the 3½-inch slots are external versions; therefore, you can use them to add
external drive caddies or card readers. The case feels rather sturdy but is
incapable of keeping away all the sound coming from the noisy CPU cooler.
The processor is a 4.6GHz AMD FX-4170. This
is quite a good processor for a mid-range PC, and it obtained an overall score
of 83, which is moderately good in our benchmark tests. The motherboard has two
vacant memory slots, with two other slots are occupied by a pair of 1333MHz 4GB
RAM modules. The motherboard can use 32GB RAM.
Scylla Elite doesn’t have many ports. At
the back there are two USB3 ports and four USB ports, one PS/2 port for an old
mouse or keyboard, one Gigabit Ethernet port and three 3.5mm stereo ports that
can be used for 5.1 analog surround sound. The keyboard and mouse are a
standard wired Logitech set. The mouse has nothing to complain about and feels
comfortable to use, but the keyboard is a bit shabby.
This
is quite a good processor for a mid-range PC.
This mid-range PC won’t break any record
for speed, but it’s a well-balanced system that can handle comfortably almost
all the games and applications, no matter how you much you use a lot of
multi-tasking programs or want to challenge it with tasks such as
virtualization. It is a good PC at this price, but if you are searching for an
expandable one, this is not an ideal one for you. Mesh Elite 3450-W8CS has a
smaller monitor but more powerful, which makes it a good buy if you are on a
budget.
|
Basic
Specifications
·
Part Code: Scylla Elite
·
Rating: 3/5
·
Processor: AMD FX-4170
·
Processor external bus: 200MHz
(HyperTransport)
·
Processor multiplier: x23
·
Processor clock speed: 4.6GHz
·
Processor socket: AM3+
·
Memory: 8
·
Memory type: PC3-10666
·
Maximum memory: 32GB
·
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
·
Motherboard chipset: AMD 760G + SB710
|
