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Palicomp Alpha Blade review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £1000
inc VAT

The Alpha Blade has it all, from storage to desktop and graphics performance

Specifications

4.6GHz Intel Core i5-3570K, 8GB RAM, 24in 1,920×1,080 display

http://www.palicomp.co.uk
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APPLICATION PERFORMANCE

The processor’s Intel Core i5-3570K processor has been overclocked to 4.6GHz. That’s a hefty overclock, if not as sky-high as the Wired2Fire Diablo Predator’s 4.7GHz. The chip’s kept cool by a large Thermaltake processor cooler, and 148 in our application benchmarks puts this PC right at the top of our performance charts.

The Alpha Blade is also very quick in games. The Radeon HD 7950 graphics card may be large, need two PCI Express power connectors and make a bit of a whoosh, but you can’t argue with its gaming performance. The card’s been overclocked from the standard 800MHz to 950MHz, which led to a smooth 36.1fps in our demanding Crysis 2 test, which we ran at 1,920×1,080 with Ultra detail and the high-resolution texture pack installed.

GAMING PERFORMANCE

We couldn’t get our normal Dirt 3 test to run under Windows 8 (previous tests of the Radeon HD 7950 have shown 90fps in this benchmark), so we switched to the more modern Dirt Showdown. This is a much more challenging benchmark than Dirt 3, but even at 1,920×1,080, 4x anti-aliasing and Ultra detail the Alpha Blade managed 41.1fps in this test. This PC will have no problems with current-generation games at maximum settings, and the power supply’s twin eight-pin power connectors and rated 850W capacity means you won’t have a problem if you need to upgrade the graphics card in the future.

MONITOR

Games certainly look great on the PC’s Asus VS247H display, thanks to the high brightness levels and punchy contrast of its TN panel. Its gloss chassis also makes it look smarter than many budget screens, and it has a useful tilt adjustment on its stand. Horizontal viewing angles are wide, but there’s some distinct colour shift when you move vertically, so you’ll need that tilt adjustment.

The monitor could display 98.4% of the sRGB colour gamut before calibration, and 98.8% after we’d run our Dispcalgui calibration program with a Spyder4Express colour calibrator. However, we weren’t so convinced in our subjective tests, where reds had a slight orange hue. It’s a fun monitor to use, but we’ve seen better overall image quality from IPS panels such as the AOC i2352Vh included with the Wired2Fire Diablo Predator and Scan Value G31.

CONCLUSION

Palicomp’s first Windows 8 PC may not look particularly posh, but it gets the internals right. It’s a seriously powerful PC with excellent desktop and graphics performance, as well as a useful 2TB of storage for your files. If you’re after a better monitor and smarter chassis we’d recommend the Scan Value G31, but if performance is all, the Alpha Blade is the PC to buy.

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Basic Specifications

Rating *****
Processor Intel Core i5-3570K
Processor external bus 100MHz
Processor multiplier x46
Processor clock speed 4.6GHz
Processor socket LGA1155
Memory 8
Memory type DDR3
Maximum memory 32GB
Motherboard Asus P8Z77-V LX
Motherboard chipset Intel Z77 Express

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 2/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 2
Free memory slots 0
Free 3.5in drive bays 4

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) OCZ Agility 3 + Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001
Interface SATA3 + SATA2
Total storage capacity 2,168GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB
Graphics/video ports DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

Sound

Sound Realtek HD Audio
Sound outputs 5.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards none
Optical drive type(s) BD-ROM, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 24 in
Screen model Asus VS247H
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Screen inputs DVI, VGA, HDMI

Other Hardware

Keyboard Logitech Wireless Desktop MK260
Mouse Logitech M210

Software

Software included none
Operating system restore option Windows 8 disc

Buying Information

Warranty three years RTB
Price £1,000
Supplier http://www.palicomp.co.uk
Details www.palicomp.co.uk

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