Overclockers UK King Cobra review

At the top-front of the BitFenix Shinobi case are four USB ports, two of which are USB3, as well as the obligatory microphone and headphone ports. At the back are two more USB3 ports, six standard USB2 ports and an eSATA3 port for storage. There are also two PS/2 ports to connect a mouse and keyboard. The motherboard’s Realtek ALC892 audio processor can output analogue or digital surround sound via either a set of six 3.5mm stereo ports, coaxial or optical S/PDIF. Finally, there’s the obligatory Gigabit Ethernet port.

As far as gaming PCs go, this is an excellent system. It’s powerful, well-specified and well-built, if a bit noisy. Although an AMD processor might not be the first choice for most users, it’s proved itself to be up to the task, while the system’s top-notch graphics card and high-end motherboard both add to its power and upgradeability. However, at almost £800 for this specification and £836 if you select a larger SSD, it’s not very good value when compared to gaming PCs from rival manufacturers. The Chillblast Fusion Blaze, which didn’t do quite as well in our gaming tests but was faster in application benchmarks, costs £697 without a monitor. The King Cobra can’t quite match that kind of low pricing, but a combination of a brilliant graphics card and a motherboard that invites expansion earns this PC four stars.