Gladiator Computers Studio review

The Gladiator Computers Studio is a simple budget PC system with a great-looking case and a 3.9GHz AMD A8-6600K processor. The latter is from AMD’s previous “Richland” generation, so would seem an odd choice given that AMD has recently released its latest A10 Kaveri processors, but we found that there’s not much to choose between this processor and the new Kaveri A10-7700K when it comes to our 2D application benchmarks.

We saw an overall score of 65 from this PC in our 2D benchmarks, which involve tasks such as image editing and video transcoding, including a challenging multitasking test. The system’s performance indicates that it’s certainly adequate for what most home users need of their PCs, whether it’s ripping CDs or retouching photos, or even editing video. The PC’s 8GB RAM is what we’d expect at this price, and is certainly adequate for most tasks.

It’s the processor’s integrated graphics that really differentiate this PC from one with a newer Kaveri processor. In our Dirt Showdown benchmark, the Gladiator Studio managed a smooth frame rate of 41.5fps in Dirt Showdown at a resolution of 1,280×720, 4x AA and High quality, which is about 10fps slower than Kaveri-based PCs manage. The PC coulnd’t run the test properly at 1,920×1,080 and Ultra quality, and High quality only produced 26.9fps, but dropping the quality to Medium did the trick and produced a playable average frame rate of 31.5fps. That’s quite a bit worse than the gaming performance we’ve seen from the integrated graphics of systems with more recent AMD processors, but if you’re not really into 3D games, this won’t be a major concern.

You could always increase gaming performance in the future by adding a dedicated graphics card. The Studio has more upgrade potential than most PCs in its price range, largely thanks to its full-size ATX Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H motherboard. The board is equipped with three PCI-E x1 slots, two PCI slots and two PCI-E x16 slots. The top x16 slot runs at full speed, while the lower slot runs at x4 and is best used for a secondary CrossFire-linked graphics card. If you install a graphics card in the top x16 slot, it’ll block a x1 slot below it, but that still leaves two x1 slots and two PCI slots for you to add all the expansion cards you should need. While the case’s drive cages can’t be removed to make room for extra-long graphics cards, there’s nonetheless around 300mm of case depth in which to install even the most powerful cards on the market, but the 450W XFX PSU will limit you more to mid-range and upper-mid-range models.

There’s plenty of scope to supplement the PC’s memory and storage capacity, too. Only two of four memory slots are in use, and only two of the PC’s eight SATA3 ports. As shown in our photo of the system’s interior, there’s an extra SATA cable plugged in, but this isn’t actually connected to anything, merely conveniently routed to the back of the drive cage ready to be plugged into a new drive. It’s a nice touch. The case is equipped with three 5 1/2in bays, three 2 1/2in drive trays and three 3 1/2in trays. Currently in place is a single 1TB hard disk and a DVD-RW drive.

The BitFenix Comrade case feels well-made and is nicely finished inside. The system’s very quiet, partly because of the case’s substantial materials, but also because the only sources of noise are the CPU cooler’s fan and a single rear exhaust fan. You can add a couple of fans behind the front panel if you need greater airflow. The case has a USB and a USB3 port on the front right-hand side, along with the usual 3.5mm mic and headphone ports.

At the back, the motherboard has four USB ports, two USB3 ports and a PS/2 port. There are HDMI, DVI and VGA graphics outputs, an optical S/PDIF audio output and five 3.5mm software-configurable 3.5mm stereo ports for up to 7.1 surround sound. The Studio comes with a Microsoft Wired Keyboard 400 and Basic Optical Mouse v2.0. Both feel a little cheap and plasticky, but are functional and comfortable enough for everyday use. The mouse is a little small but is still comfortable in your hand, but we found the keyboard to be a little unresponsive, with less key travel than we’d like.

The monitor is a 21.5in Benq DL2215. It’s a matt display with rather restricted viewing angles, and we measured its black levels as a poor 0.47cd/m2. Its contrast isn’t too impressive, either, at just 345:1. The screen’s colour reproduction isn’t too bad for a cheap monitor, though: our test device reported it as displaying 88.8% of the sRGB colour gamut. This screen is fine for general desktop work, but isn’t ideal for image editing.

Although invited to submit a system at £500, Gladiator Computers has opted to launch the Studio at the fantastically low price of £420 with a monitor or £380 without. This will go up to £500 for the full system on the 25th of May 2014, so snap this PC up quickly if you want it. Other PCs we’ve tested have better monitors and gaming performance, but none offer quite so much at such a good price as the Studio. It’s a Budget Buy.