Eclipse Matrix i355r577 OC Xfire review

The Matrix i355R577 OC Xfire is impressively fast for a budget PC thanks to a massively overclocked processor. Eclipse has pushed the Intel Core i3-550 from its original 3.2GHz clock speed up to just over 4GHz, which produced some very impressive scores in our benchmarks. With this much performance, only the most demanding programs will tax the processor.

Despite the overclock, Eclipse has kept the standard Intel CPU cooler and – surprisingly – hasn’t added a single cooling fan to the case. The power supply and graphics card each have their own fans, but we really would have expected at least one exhaust fan to remove hot air from the case. Cable management is very neat, which keeps the flow of air through the case from being obstructed, so temperatures remained at sensible levels.

The bundled monitor is an 18.5in BenQ model, which doesn’t have a full HD resolution. The image quality was very good, with accurate colour reproduction and impressive viewing angles, but we still would have liked a larger screen. It is, however, a good match for the ATi graphics card. The single-slot Radeon HD 5570 managed 26fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, which is borderline-playable. The test runs at a higher resolution than the BenQ monitor can support, so running it again at its native 1,366×768 resolution produced a much more acceptable 39fps. The underpowered card will struggle with demanding games such as Crysis, even at the screen’s native resolution.

The 500W power supply has enough overhead for adding more components, but there’s only one free molex adaptor. This is a shame, as the case has room for upgrades: three empty 5 1/4in and five 31/2in drive bays. If you need a high capacity hard disk, you may prefer to buy a PC with more storage: the 500GB hard disk is the bare minimum we’d expect to see at this price. Adding a second disk won’t invalidate the one-year warranty.

The motherboard also has plenty of expansion options. As well as two PCI and two PCI-E x1 slots, there’s a second PCI-E x16 slot for dual graphics cards. The two free memory slots make it easy to upgrade the PC’s RAM from the existing 4GB.

On the front panel of the case you’ll find two USB ports plus audio in and out minijacks. Around the back, there’s an eSATA port and five USB ports, as well as a single USB3 port can be used for connecting fast external storage. The bundled Microsoft mouse and keyboard use two USB ports, but for budget models they’re good quality and comfortable to use. As well as analogue 7.1 outputs, there’s both optical and coaxial S/PDIF for connecting a set of speakers.

The overclocked processor might provide plenty of power, but the small monitor makes the Matrix an unbalanced budget PC compared to rivals, such as the CyberPower Infinity i3 Apollo Elite. If you don’t plan on upgrading to a higher resolution monitor, the Eclipse will manage most games at medium settings, but as soon as you upgrade screen the graphics card will need to be replaced too.