A speeded-up Windows 10 desktop
If this computer looks familiar, that’s because the case it’s built into, from South Korea’s Zalman Tech Co Ltd, is used by several British PC manufacturers. Between 120mm fans front and back, it has a generous amount of room for expansion inside - as you’ll see if you peep through the window in its side panel.
One thing you won’t see is the Intel Core i5 processor, because it’s hidden behind yet another big fan, which in turn is mounted on a giant finned heatsink. While they were shopping around in South Korea, they should maybe have skipped the PC cases and just built this machine into an LG fridge-freezer.
Why such a big chill factor? Because, rather than charge you more for Intel’s latest ‘Skylake’ processor, Palicomp has used an older ‘Haswell’ model, but cranked up its speed from 3.5 to 4.5 gigahertz (billions of cycles per second). It’s pulled the same trick with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 graphics card.
After a factory check to make sure it’s not going to melt through your desk or form its own supernova, this should work fine, and in our tests the overclocking paid off. The i5 Revolution almost matched equivalent Skylake PCs in demanding tasks, and ran a full range of Windows software smoothly. The latest 3D games at high quality in Full HD were no problem, either. And the fans weren’t too loud.
A standard 1TB hard drive comes installed, along with a DVD writer, often omitted from PCs these days. Inside, there are two memory slots in addition to the 8GB fitted (the maximum is 32GB). Only one spare SATA3 connection is left for an extra drive, but there’s also an M.2 port for a fast SSD. Wi-Fi is optional and costs extra. With five USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, there’s plenty of scope for external peripherals.
You can pay £100 less for just the PC, but £700 gets you a Samsung LS24D300HS 24in monitor, keyboard and mouse. The screen has fair colour accuracy, covering 92 per cent of the sRGB range, although it hasn’t got great contrast and only looks its best from straight on. The slim keyboard and ergonomically shaped mouse are basic, as you’d expect when they’re effectively being thrown in for free.
VERDICT
The Revolution just goes to show how your money can go further with a built-to-order system rather than an off-the-peg branded PC.
SPECIFICATIONS
4.5GHz Intel Core i5-4960K quad-core processor • 8GB memory • 1TB hard drive • 2GB Nvidia GTX 960 graphics card • 24in 1920x1080-pixel monitor • 5x USB 3.0 ports • 4x USB 2.0 ports • Gigabit Ethernet port • HDMI port • 2x DVI ports • DisplayPort • Windows 10 Home • 465x192x430mm (HxWxD) • Three-year warranty