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Overclockers UK King Cobra review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £794
inc VAT

Top notch build quality and components make this a high-quality PC

Specifications

3.6GHz AMD FX-8120, 8GB RAM, N/A display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

AMD Bulldozer processors match their Intel counterparts when it comes to how much power you get per pound spent, and they’re powerful enough for any gaming or standard desktop task. With eight cores, the FX-8120 processor in the Overclockers UK King Cobra is also better equipped to run software that can use multiple cores.

Overclockers UK King Cobra

Happily, the processor does well in our standard single-threaded benchmark tests as well. It’s overclocked to 3.6GHz, which gives it enough raw power to achieve an overall score of 72 in our recently updated benchmark tests and it means it can run everything from video-editing to games software smoothly and easily.

On the subject of games, the PC’s 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7850 graphics card makes it a serious contender if you’re shopping for a gaming PC. It achieved a frame rate of 59fps in Dirt3 and 36fps in Crysis 2, both at full quality and a resolution of 1,920×1,080. In the unlikely circumstance that one graphics card isn’t enough for you, the motherboard, an Asrock 990FX Extreme3, has two more PCI-E x16 slots and supports both SLI and CrossFire. There are also two PCI slots and a PCI-E x1 slot, providing plenty of scope for even the most upgrade-hungry user. The 750W OCZ power supply provides enough power extra peripherals.

Overclockers UK King Cobra

Much of the case is dominated by the huge and rather noisy CPU cooler, which diffuses heat very effectively but takes up what looks like a quarter of the case, and blocks the memory slots. Two 4GB sticks of low-profile 1,600MHz RAM are fitted, but if you want to add more you’ll have to unbolt the cooler. The motherboard has five SATA3 ports, three of which are currently in use.

There are two hard disks: a 60GB SSD system drive and a 1TB HDD data disk. We’re somewhat concerned by the small size of the system disk; the Windows 7 installation with which the PC comes uses around half the available space. Modern software, and games in particular, can rapidly consume the gigabytes, as can temporary files and Windows’ own hibernate file. There’s still enough space to install a few programs, but you’ll have to put most of your software on the slower HDD, along with the rest of your data. An extra £35 will let you upgrade to a 120GB SSD, and we recommend doing this. There’s also a DVD-RW disc drive. That still leaves two empty SATA ports, two 5 1/4in bays and six 3 1/2in bays if you want to add further storage.

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Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Processor AMD FX-8120
Processor external bus 200MHz (HyperTransport)
Processor multiplier x18
Processor clock speed 3.6GHz
Processor socket AM3+
Memory 8
Memory type PC3-12800
Maximum memory 32GB
Motherboard Asrock 990FX Extreme3
Motherboard chipset AMD 990FX + SB950

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 4/8
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/1
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 1 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 3 (2)
Free Serial ATA ports 2
Free memory slots 2
Free 3.5in drive bays 6

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD + Seagate Barracuda ST100DM003-9YN162
Interface SATA3
Total storage capacity 1,060GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7850
Graphics/video ports 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort

Sound

Sound Realtek ALC892
Sound outputs 7.1 line out, coaxial S/PDIF out, optical S/PDIF out, stereo line out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards none
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Screen model none
Native resolution N/A
Screen inputs N/A

Other Hardware

Keyboard none
Mouse none

Software

Software included none
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £794
Details www.overclockers.co.uk

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