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Aria Gladiator Trident X3 PLUS OC Gaming PC review

Aria Gladiator Trident X3 PLUS OC Gaming PC
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £746
inc VAT

Despite the overclocked processor and fast graphics card, the Gladiator doesn't have the performance to justify its price.

Specifications

3GHz AMD Athlon II X3 425, 4.000000 RAM, 23in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

http://www.aria.co.uk

Simply looking at its specifications it would be easy to write off Aria’s Gladiator Trident X3 PLUS OC Gaming PC as it has an Athlon II triple-core processor, rather than a Phenom II or Core i5 quad-core processor. However, rather than running the Athlon II X3 425 at its native 2.7GHz, Aria has overclocked it to 3GHz.

While the overall score in our benchmarks of 94 shows that this PC is quick, it lags behind those with Phenom II or Core i5 processors. That said, using this chip means that Aria has saved money to use elsewhere in the PC.

While most desktops at this price have an ATI Radeon HD 5750, the Gladiator has the quicker Radeon HD 5770, which is currently our favourite graphics card. Performance from it was very good with 64fps in our Call of Duty 4 test and 24fps in Crysis. Sadly, the processor lets the side down slightly, as the 5770 graphics card managed 33.6fps when tested in our Phenom II X4 920 reference PC.

As with the majority of new ATI cards, the 5770 supports DirectX 11 and has four outputs (two DVI, one HDMI and one DisplayPort). You can power up to three monitors at once in Eyefinity mode, provided that one of the three outputs is DisplayPort.

Aria provides a 23in Digitmate DGM L-2362WD monitor. It has a full HD resolution of 1,920×1,080 and DVI and VGA inputs. Sadly, the DVI input doesn’t support HDCP, so you can’t play protected content using this input; if you upgrade the DVD writer to a Blu-ray drive, you’ll have to watch films using the VGA input. Quality is pretty good, although the backlight is a bit uneven and turning the brightness up too far completely washes out the image.

It’s good to see a 1TB hard disk installed, as this provides a huge amount of storage space for even the biggest of media collections. Should you want to upgrade and add a second disk, there are six free 3.5in drive bays available, although you may want to leave one of the external ones for a memory card reader. Upgrading in general won’t be a problem with this PC providing plenty of free upgrade ports and slots, including three 5.25in drive days, three PCI-E slots and two PCI slots.

The system comes with a Microsoft Basic wired keyboard and mouse set, which are basic but well-made and comfortable to use. The Gladiator Trident X3 Plus OC Gaming PC is a decent desktop, but it’s let down by its relatively slow processor and budget monitor.

Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Processor AMD Athlon II X3 425
Processor external bus 240MHz (2.4GHz HyperTransport)
Processor multiplier x12.5
Processor clock speed 3GHz
Processor socket AM3
Level 1 cache 3x 64KB
Level 2 cache 3x 512KB
Memory 4.000000
Memory type PC3-10600
Maximum memory 16GB
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H
Motherboard chipset AMD 785G + ATI SB710
Power consumption standby 5W
Power consumption idle 139W
Power consumption active 223W

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 2/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/1
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none
Other ports HDMI, DVI, D-Sub

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 3 (2)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 4
Free memory slots 2
Free 3.5in drive bays 6

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Samsung HD103SJ
Interface SATA 300
Total storage capacity 1,000GB
Spindle speed 7200rpm

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770
Graphics/video ports 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

Sound

Sound Realtec ALC889A
Sound outputs 7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out, stereo out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

3.5in floppy drive no
Supported memory cards none
Optical drive model Optiarc AD-5240S
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 23 in
Screen model Digimate DGM L-2362WD
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Response time 5ms
Screen inputs DVI, VGA, line in

Other Hardware

Modem No
Keyboard Microsoft Basic Keyboard 1.0A
Mouse Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse 1.0A

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 £746
Supplier http://www.aria.co.uk
Details www.aria.co.uk

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