Palicomp Phoenix i5 Supreme review

The Supreme has the usual 3.5mm headphone and mic ports at the front, alongside two USB ports. At the rear of the case are six more USB ports, including three USB3 ports. There’s also a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, Gigabit Ethernet, an optical S/PDIF audio output and analogue 7.1 audio outputs.

Palicomp has opted to use the processor’s integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU. It can’t rival a proper dedicated graphics card, but an average frame rate of 18.9fps in Dirt 3 at a 1,280×720 resolution and high quality indicates that this system will handle most modern 3D games if you’re prepared to compromise on resolution and graphical quality.

The CIT mouse is uncomfortably small and was rather unresponsive in our tests. The keyboard is sensibly laid out, but is also rattly and spongy, with unpleasantly gritty keys. We’d quickly replace these with better-quality models.

The Phoenix i5 Supreme is a capable budget PC no matter whether you want to edit HD video or watch Blu-ray movies. It also has a three-year warranty – the only snag is that you have to pay shipping costs. The PC also has plenty of scope for further expansion and overclocking. The Chillblast Fusion Shadow may lack a Blu-ray reader, but is overclocked to 4.6GHz and has a much more powerful graphics card. Factor in its collect-and-return warranty, it just edges the Supreme.