PC Specialist Infinity K7 review

The PC Specialist Infinity K7 isn’t much to look at, with its squat black-and-grey case, but it’s equipped with one of AMD’s latest integrated-graphics processors; the “Kaveri” A10-7700K. However, in this system, the processor produced one of the worst performances we’ve seen, with an overall score of just 63 in our benchmarks, compared to the 67 we’re used to seeing with the chip running at its stock speed.

Graphics performance in our 3D gaming benchmarks was also rather disappointing. We don’t expect even the latest integrated graphics to handle Dirt Showdown smoothly at 1,920×1,080, 4x AA and Ultra quality, but the Infinity K7 also struggled at lower resolutions. At 1,280×720 and High quality, we only saw a not-quite-playable 27.2fps, while to get a playable frame rate of 31.3fps at our monitor’s full 1,920×1,080 resolution, we had to drop the game’s graphics quality to Low.

This was surprising, considering we’ve seen this processor produce over 50fps in this benchmark at 1,280×720. We’ve seen Kaveri graphics affected by RAM speed before, as well as running much better with dual-channel RAM than with a single module. For this reason we exchanged the PC’s single 8GB 1,333MHz module for two 4GB 1,600MHz modules in dual-channel mode, but this failed to improve our scores.

We suspect this is a problem with the Asus A55BM-E motherboard, and specifically its cut-price AMD A55 chipset. You’d need to add a discrete graphics card to give this PC acceptable gaming performance, but bear in mind that the 350W Corsair PSU will limit you to low- and mid-range cards.

You’ll also have to remove the very useful Wi-Fi adaptor which occupies the motherboard’s only PCI-E x1 slot, as it’ll get in the way of most graphics cards’ coolers. There’s only one PCI slot in addition to the single PCI-E x1 and x16 slots, so if you’re looking to make significant future upgrades, you’re best off looking elsewhere. At least there are six SATA ports, of which only two are currently in use, but they’re only SATA2 models, not SATA3. This will cause a performance bottleneck if you want to add an SSD to the system. The ugly, roughly finished interior of the case has two 5 1/4in bays and two 3 1/2in bays; one holds the PC’s 1TB hard disk, and the other is an external bay. There’s also a mounting point for an upright 2 1/2in drive at the right-hand side of the case.

The PC’s hard disk is fitted to an upright bay behind the front panel, but even with this in place, there’s over 300mm of space available if you ever want to fit a really hefty graphics card – but as mentioned above, anything too powerful will be too much for the low-power PSU to handle. The case’s exterior is as ugly as its interior, but it’s at least small, easy to fit discreetly out of sight and easy to open, thanks to clips on each side panel. The front panel has, along with a DVD-RW drive, two USB ports and 3.5mm mic and headphone ports.