Eclipse Evolution Crossfire i87r583 review

While most vendors selling PCs at this price have opted for an overclocked Intel Core i5-760 processor, Eclipse has decided to go down a different route, kitting its Evolution Crossfire i87r583 out with Core i7-870 running at its standard speed of 2.8GHz.

While this processor is faster than the Core i5-760 at default speeds, the Evolution Crossfire lagged behind PCs with overclocked chips. Combined with the 4GB of RAM, the PC’s overall benchmark score of 154 shows that this computer is still quick, but you can get significantly faster computers for the same money. The advantage of not overclocking, though, is that Eclipse has only needed to fit a standard Intel cooler. This is very quiet, while the processor generates less heat than overclocked chips.

Gaming performance is provided by a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card. This is a decent card, producing 75.5fps in our Call of Duty 4 test and 38.6fps in our Crysis test. Pushing the resolution up to 1,920×1,080 still got us a silky-smooth 34.7fps in Crysis, showing that this computer can easily cope with high definition gaming.

That said, other PCs at this price have come fitted with faster graphics cards. While they’re mostly only a few frames per second faster, this could make the difference in newer titles between smooth at high detail settings or having to drop resolution or quality settings.

We were very pleased with the BenQ G2420HDBL monitor. This 24in Full HD display is absolutely brilliant. It produced a clean, evenly-lit picture with bright whites and deep blacks. With vibrant, rich colours and decent viewing angles, it’s one of the best displays that you can get. In fact, you definitely won’t want to upgrade or replace this monitor. Its Full HD resolution means that it’s also great for watching movies, which you can do thanks to the built-in Blu-ray drive. There’s also a second DVD writer, should you want to copy discs.

A 1TB hard disk is par for the course with computers at this price and provides plenty of storage space for most people’s files. Should you want to add more storage, there’s plenty of space inside for another internal hard disk, plus four free SATA ports (two of which are SATA III). There are even two USB3 ports on the rear, should you want to add super-fast external storage.

There’s plenty of other upgrade potential inside, too. The two free slots will let you double the PC’s memory easily, plus you can replace all the RAM and fit up to 16GB in total, all of which you can use thanks to 64-bit Windows.

There’s a free PCI-E x1 slot, although its position and the internal cabling probably mean that it’s easier to use the spare PCI-E x16 slot first, assuming that you don’t want to fit a second ATI graphics card. Two PCI slots give you further expansion options.

Externally, the case doesn’t look particularly pretty, but we like the fact that it has eSATA, audio and two USB ports mounted on the top, making them easy to reach when the computer’s placed on the floor. With 10 further USB ports at the rear, you have plenty of ports for all of your peripherals. We were pleased with the bundled Microsoft keyboard and mouse. Both are basic wired models, but we found them comforatble to use and we managed to type quickly and accurately.

Ultimately, the Eclipse Evolution Crossfire is a decent computer with a superb monitor. However, for the same money you can get better performance and the same-quality display. As such, the Core i5 Blast 760OC4-24 is a better buy for most people.