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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Review: Palicomp Phoenix i5 Z68 Warrior


Palicomp’s latest high-end PC, the Phoenix i5 Z68 Warrior, is the first we’ve seen based on Intel’s Z68 chipset. It’s the only one to support both K-edition unlocked processors and Sandy Bridge’s integrated graphics.
The company has chosen a Core i5-2500K and overclocked it to a mighty 4.8GHz. That’s the same chip and overclock as in the PC Specialist Vortex Enforcer, but with different results: the Palicomp outscored its rival by 1.17 to 1.13 in our benchmarks. The margin can be explained by memory: while the PC Specialist made do with 8GB, Palicomp has loaded its machine with a whopping 16GB of DDR3 RAM.



The Z68 chipset comes aboard Gigabyte’s Z68A-UD3P and brings one major new feature. Dubbed Intel Smart Response Technology (ISRT), it uses solid-state storage to cache frequently accessed data from your hard disk. In theory, it’s a neat idea: your most popular files benefit from lightning-fast access times and, because the SSD is pure cache, you only need to use a smaller, cheaper drive. Palicomp has opted for a 64GB Kingston V+.
We connected the A-Listed Samsung Spinpoint F3 hard disk and Kingston SSDNow 100V SSD to the Palicomp and ran our tests. An average burst speed of 246.8MB/sec puts ISRT between the 262.9MB/sec of the SSD and the 218MB/sec of the hard disk. Average read performance was just as impressive, with the Palicomp’s 184.8MB/sec slightly faster than the SSD’s 174.2MB/sec, and far quicker than the hard disk.



For graphics, Palicomp has fitted the Phoenix i5 Z68 Warrior with an AMD Radeon HD 6970, enhanced by some crafty overclocking from MSI to run at 940MHz rather than 880MHz. The results speak for themselves: it managed an impressive 55fps in our 1,920 x 1,080 Very High quality Crysis test, and still ran at a playable 33fps when we cranked up the resolution to 2,560 x 1,600.
The Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced chassis is a Palicomp favourite, and with good reason. The black and chrome styling looks great, the metal side-panels and removable plastic façade exude strength, and there’s a useful SATA dock on top of the chassis.

Palicomp has put its own stamp on the system and made the roomy interior feel pretty snug. The lengthy graphics card sidles up to the hard disk bays with barely any room to spare, and the card is held in place by a metal-and-plastic scaffold that blocks many of the motherboard’s free ports and sockets.
Still, if you persevere, there’s a reasonable amount of upgrade room. Four tool-free, side-facing hard disk bays and three 5.25in drive bays lie empty and, behind that scaffold, the motherboard offers a second PCI Express x16 slot running at 8x speed, three PCI Express x1 slots and a pair of PCI sockets. All four DIMM sockets are full, but we can’t see much need to add to the 16GB of supplied RAM.
Palicomp has taken a unique approach to cooling, too, swapping around its fans so air flows from back to front. That may be an odd decision, but the choice of Noctua NH-D14 heatsink is inspired: the overclocked processor peaked at a positively balmy 70°C, with 73°C for the graphics card just as impressive considering the speed.



Our only qualm concerns noise and, even then, it’s a minor complaint. While the Palicomp emits a low hum when idling, it’s slightly quieter than the PC Specialist, and the gap between the two machines widens when stressed: the Palicomp is noticeable, but it isn’t a patch on the PC Specialist Enforcer’s loud, low rumble.
The peripherals are fine, if not quite as impressive. Samsung’s SyncMaster B2430 returned mostly fine results; its average Delta E of 3.1 is pretty good, although a maximum of 9.5 shows there are some colours it doesn’t handle to accurately. A contrast ratio of 1025:1 is also solid, although we noticed backlight bleed around all four edges.
The Labtec keyboard and mouse are reasonably comfortable without ever reaching the heights of the average Microsoft or Logitech set, and the Logitech S220 speakers offer acceptable quality alongside decent bass thanks to the small subwoofer.
The peripherals are good enough, then, but it’s the core PC that really excels. It bests its rivals in our benchmarks and packs in the latest chipset technologies, all in a neat, well-built chassis. What it may lack in glamour and swagger it more than makes up for in all-round appeal, so it leapfrogs the PC Specialist onto the A List almost as soon as it was crowned.

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