Zoostorm Edge 65-6503 review

Zoostorm is one of two suppliers this month to base its Core i7 system on a Gigabyte motherboard, rather than the more common Asus. But where Scan goes for the mid-range DS4, Zoostorm uses the high-end UD5 model. That means you get ten SATA controllers, dual Gigabit Ethernet, a rear-facing button to clear the CMOS, and an LED POST display on the board. It's this month's best choice for tweakers, although it's a shame there's no eSATA.

Despite this enthusiast-friendly board, the Zoostorm arrives with a stock CPU speed of 2.66GHz, leading to a 2D benchmark score of 1.92 - unremarkable in this company. In our 3D tests, though, the GeForce GTX 260 graphics card yielded solid results. It wasn't quite on a par with the Radeon HD 4870, but it averaged 40fps in Crysis at 1,600 x 1,200 with high detail, falling to 24 when pushed to very high settings.

It's a similar story elsewhere: good enough, but not outstanding. The 22in widescreen monitor is overshadowed by this month's two 24in units, and the 750GB hard disk suffers a similar fate.

Zoostorm provides a card reader and, unusually, twin optical drives - one standard LG DVD writer plus a combo drive that will read (but not write) Blu-ray discs. That could make the Zoostorm a good option for desktop cinema, especially with its unusually quiet operation, hitting just 36dBA even when driven hard. If you're a serious movie buff, though, you might prefer the Mesh with its 24in Iiyama screen.

Still, this is a well-rounded system and, although it costs more than the rest, it boasts a generous three-year on-site warranty, easily this month's best. If you've a specific need, such as a huge hard disk or ultimate 3D performance, you may do better elsewhere. But for general-purpose computing you could do a lot worse than the Edge 65-6503.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith