Palicomp Excalibur 630OC-19 review

We don't expect to see dedicated graphics cards in a PC costing around £500 and when we do see one it's not usually very good. It's quite refreshing, then, to see that Palicomp has managed to fit an ATI HD 5670 in its Excalibur 6400C-19.

This managed a respectable 41.6fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, showing that this PC is capable of dealing with games. More modern titles may need to have detail settings turned down, but they'll still be smooth.

Performance otherwise is pretty good, too. Palicomp has overclocked the AMD Athlon II X4 630 processor from 2.8GHz to 3GHz. Combined with 4GB of RAM the Excalibur managed an overall score of 89. It's quick enough for most jobs, but you can get faster computer for the same price.

Typically at this price, fitting a graphics card means that compromises need to be made elsewhere. In this case, it's the monitor: a small 19in model. In fairness, the BenQ G900WD is a high quality display, with natural colours and decent contrast. With both VGA and DVI inputs (HDCP support), it's a flexible display. However, its 1,440x900 resolution is a little cramped compared to the 22in or larger monitors we're used to seeing with PCs at this price.

Apart from the sole PCI-E x16 slot taken up by the graphics card, there is plenty of room inside the case for expansion, with three PCI slots and two PCI-E x1 slots, although one of these is blocked by the graphics card. Adding more memory should be simple, as the motherboard supports up to 16GB and there are two free slots. All of the memory can be used as Palicomp has opted for a 64-bit version of Windows. If you wanted to add more hard disks to the existing 500GB hard disk, there are four free SATA ports.

Externally, there are also plenty of expansion options: as well as the cornucopia of memory card slots, there are two USB ports mounted on the front panel, and you'll find six more on the rear, although two of these are taken up by a cheap keyboard and mouse set. There are also two older PS/2 ports which will accept older mice and keyboards, but there aren't any FireWire or eSATA ports. However, adding eSATA is just a matter of buying a suitable bracket for a few pounds and connecting it to a spare SATA port inside.

The keyboard and mouse are the first things you'll want to upgrade, as they really aren't up to scratch. The keyboard is very springy, with a half-height Enter key, and the mouse is too small and light for everyday use.

The dedicated graphics card makes this computer capable of playing games, but it comes at the expense of other system components and we're not fans of the small display. If you've already got a monitor that you can use, you can buy this PC without its monitor for £449. However, we think that Mesh's Nero Pro is the better all-round computer, as it's faster, has a 23in Full HD monitor and large 750GB hard disk. We'd rather opt for this and add a graphics card later.