Scan 3XS Z170 Performance GTK6

Intel’s Skylake processors are hot off the press; they’re a worthy, if slightly expensive, upgrade, requiring a new motherboard and DDR4 memory. If you’re looking to start again with a fresh PC, however, the new processors couldn’t have come at a better time. Scan’s £1,000 3XS Z170 Performance GTK6 has everything you need to get started with Skylake.

Performance

The quad-core Core i5-6600K has an awful lot of overclocking potential; it runs at a 3.5GHz base clock speed and Turbo Boosts to 3.9GHz when thermal conditions allow, but you’re doing the multiplier-unlocked chip a disservice if you don’t overclock it. Scan has duly done so, installing a BeQuiet! Pure Rock air cooler and turning up the Turbo Boost speed to a huge-but-stable 4.6GHz. Even taxed to the max, the cooler remains extremely quiet. The processor is backed up by 8GB of 2,666MHz DDR4 RAM.

Scan’s overclocking efforts set a new Labs record for a Core i5-powered desktop PC, managing an overall score of 145. This was achieved with individual scores of 144 in the image conversion and video rendering tests and 145 in the multitasking test. For comparison, the £1,129, 4.4GHz Core i7-powered Chillblast Fusion Raptor scores 151 overall. The i7-4790K has Hyper-Threading, which gives it a boost in multi-threaded tasks – hence the superior score.

Either way, the Scan 3XS Z170 Performance GTK5 is a processing force to be reckoned with. It isn’t underserved in the graphics department either, with an overclocked EVGA GeForce GTX 970 boosted from 1050MHz to 1190MHz. Despite the overclock, the fans don’t even spin up until the GPU reaches 60 degrees Centigrade, meaning it’s completely silent on the Windows desktop. Even when the action picks up it’s never overwhelmingly loud.

Our gaming benchmarks were unsurprisingly no challenge for the GTX 970, which managed an average 131.6fps in Dirt Showdown and 50.3fps in Metro: Last Light Redux. Ramping up the resolution to 2,560×1,440 proved to be more of a challenge in Metro, but we were still able to reach 55fps at Very High settings by disabling HSAA. 4K resolution gaming at the highest settings proved too much, but if you have a 3,840×2,160 monitor, dropping graphics settings will get a playable frame rate. In Full HD, at least, you can expect to be playing the latest games at High settings for years to come.

Ports and expansion

You might be just a little disappointed by the Corsair Carbide 100R chassis. It’s too little plain for our tastes, and while a little bit of design flair would have gone a long way, you can always swap out the case for an alternative when configuring your machine on Scan’s website. It does keep noise well insulated, though, preventing the slight whine of the power supply and the cooling fans from becoming a distraction. The window on the left side of the case lets you look in on the excellent cable routing; you won’t find any wires floating across the case obstructing airflow here.

The Asus Z170-K motherboard Scan has used here has a huge amount of room for expansion, including a second free PCI-E x16 slot for another graphics card, two legacy PCI slots and a PCI-E x1 slot for smaller peripherals. There are two free DDR4 RAM slots if you want to double your memory in the future. Elsewhere, there are three free SATA3 connectors for extra storage, with two 2.5/3.5in drive bays free inside the case, although Scan has used up the ports that double as SATA Express – meaning you’ll need to swap the cables to install a SATA Express storage drive. There’s also an M.2 slot for high-speed SATA or PCI Express-based SSDs.

The supplied storage is generous, though: you get a speedy 256GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD, more than enough for Windows and your games, while a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk handles your other large files.

At the rear of the motherboard there are some fairly unusual ports including two USB 3.1 ports and a USB 3.1 Type-C connector. There aren’t many peripherals that currently support the 10GBps speeds of “SuperSpeed” USB, but this is a futureproof motherboard that makes total sense if you’re going to keep your PC for several years. There are two standard USB ports here, too, with a further four USB3 ports at the front of the case. Two of those USB3 ports are part of the 3XS-branded (including multi-coloured light-up 3XS logo) Akasa card reader unit that sits in one of the 5 ¼ in drive slots at the front of the chassis, above the DVD drive.

Purchase options and warranty

Scan’s generous three-year warranty includes one year of on-site coverage including parts, and a further two years of RTB cover, again, including parts. If you want to upgrade your PC and it’s still under warranty, Scan will also cover labour costs for upgrading your machine; you just pay for the parts.

Conclusion

The Scan 3XS Z170 Performance GTK6 is a powerful desktop PC with impressive processing and graphics performance for £1,000. When you’re spending this much, future-proofing is important, but with USB 3.1, plenty of expansion slots and graphics performance that’ll handle the latest games for years to come, this is one of the best PCs you can get for the money.