Yoyotech Fi7epower Cobalt CS review

The hard disks are hooked up to both of the SATA3 ports on the Asus P8-Z77-V LX motherboard. There are four SATA2 ports, two of which are occupied by the front eSATA port and the DVD-RW drive. There are three unused PCI slots in to which you can press sound cards and TV tuners, one empty PCI-E x1 slot (the other is blocked by the graphics card) and a second PCI-E x16 slot, that actually runs at x4. On the back panel are four USB and two USB3 ports. There are another two standard USB ports at the top of the front panel, too. There’s not much beyond that, just the usual Gigabit Ethernet port, optical S/PDIF output, 5.1 analogue surround sound outputs and front-panel audio I/O.

The monitor is a 23.6in matt Hanns.G HL249 display with a resolution of 1,920×1,080 and VGA and DVI inputs. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but we welcomed the spacious screen. The keyboard and mouse are a no-frills Logitech wired set.

Yoyotech’s choice of a Core i7 processor in a price range where most of its rivals have opted for Core i5s should be a major point in its favour, but its overclocked performance doesn’t provide much of an edge over some overclocked Core i5s. This is a good buy if a Core i7 is your priority. Otherwise, the Chillblast Fusion Vantage is a better system overall.