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PC Specialist Vanquish 650Ti review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £799
inc VAT

This powerful PC has a great range of hardware, fast boot speeds and excellent overall performance but its graphics card isn’t the best you’ll find in systems at this price

Specifications

4.4GHz Intel Core i5-3570K, 8GB RAM, 23.6in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 8

PC Specialist’s first Windows 8 PC has bang-up-to-date hardware, with an Intel Core i5-3570K processor that’s been overclocked to 4.4GHz, the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti graphics card and an SSD for super-fast boot speeds.

PC Specialist Vanquish 650Ti

The PC looks rather snazzy on the outside, thanks to the tasteful blue details on the front of its Cooler Master case. Inside, it’s less attractive, with plain grey metal that doesn’t have any sharp edges but lacks the pleasing finishes found in more expensive cases. Nonetheless, it’s well-designed and fairly dust-proof, even though there’s a wide grille in the side panel. The case’s sound proofing is less effective, although it does help cut out some of the disconcerting whining from the CPU cooler. There’s only a single case fan installed at the rear, with space for two more at the front and sides of the PC’s case.

The 450W power supply is a generic model, which is fine for the PC’s current components but we wouldn’t trust to power any significant graphics card upgrades. The PC has both a 128GB SSD drive that ensures fast boot speeds and a 1TB hard disk for extra storage. There’s also a Blu-ray drive and a multi-format memory card reader that handles all the popular card formats and provides an extra USB port on the front – there are two more USB ports on the front panel alongside the 3.5mm headphone and mic ports.

PC Specialist Vanquish 650Ti

Even with so many storage options, there’s plenty of room for expansion inside the case, with three free 3 1/2in bays and two empty 5 1/4in bays. On the motherboard, although both of the SATA3 ports and one of the SATA2 ports are in use, there are still three free SATA2 ports. There are also three vacant PCI slots, as well as one accessible PCI-E x1 slot (the other is blocked by the graphics card) and a spare PCI-E x16 slot that actually runs at x4 speed.

Two of the Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard’s four memory slots are in use, each containing a 4GB module running at 1,600MHz. 8GB of RAM is plenty for Windows 8, and the motherboard can take up to 32GB if you need more. At the back of the motherboard you’ll find two USB3 ports, four USB2 ports, a PS/2 port, Gigabit Ethernet, an optical S/PDIF port for digital audio and 5.1 analogue audio outputs.

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Basic Specifications

Rating *****
Processor Intel Core i5-3570K
Processor external bus 100MHz (DMI)
Processor multiplier x44
Processor clock speed 4.4GHz
Processor socket LGA1155
Memory 8
Memory type PC3-12800
Maximum memory 32GB
Motherboard Asus P8Z77-V LX
Motherboard chipset Intel Z77

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 3/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 4
Free memory slots 2
Free 3.5in drive bays 3

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Kingston SH103S3120G + Seagate Barracuda ST200DM001-9YN162
Interface SATA3 + SATA2
Total storage capacity 1,128GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Graphics/video ports 2x DVI, 2x mini HDMI

Sound

Sound Realtek ALC887
Sound outputs 5.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out, line out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards SDXC, Memory Stick Pro, MMC, XD, Compact Flash II, microSD
Optical drive type(s) BD-ROM, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 23.6 in
Screen model AOC E2450SWDA
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Screen inputs DVI, VGA

Other Hardware

Keyboard Logitech K260
Mouse Logitech M210

Software

Software included none
Operating system Windows 8
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty three years RTB (first year collect and return, first year parts)
Price £799
Details www.pcspecialist.co.uk

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