Palicomp CORE6 1055OC35 review

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Palicomp must be very happy indeed: the firm has used the Cooler Master Scout for several months, and now other firms have begun to copy the look.

The original is still the best, though. The Cooler Master Scout boasts superb build quality, a strong handle, and a host of other features that will endear it to a wide variety of users. The combination of modular power supply and motherboard tray means cables can be kept out of sight, and Palicomp has done a commendable job of keeping things tidy inside. The result is a system that, while slightly cramped, is easier to work with than many of its competitors.

There are numerous small touches that should endear the Scout to buyers, too. The hard disk bays face the side of the case rather than the motherboard and so are easy to access, and the drive bays are equipped with clasps for tool-free entry. Thumbscrews allow the PCI slot blankers to be easily removed, while a switch on the front of the machine lets you turn off the red lights that sit in the 120mm case fans.

The interior is a little cramped, however, and that means upgrade room is limited. The Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 motherboard offers no spare PCI-Express x16 slot, and the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2, while a quiet and effective cooler, overhangs one of the spare DIMM sockets.

Palicomp has ensured, though, that its latest machine won't need to be upgraded for quite a while. The system boasts AMD's cheaper six-core CPU - the Phenom II X6 1055T - and it's overclocked from its stock speed of 2.8GHz to 3.5GHz here. The benchmark result of 2.09 isn't the best we've seen - the Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima scored 2.38 from its overclocked Intel Core i3-530 processor - but it's still more than good enough for most purposes.

Gamers will be pleased with the ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics card too. Its score of 57fps in our High quality Crysis benchmark is far in advance of the Wired2Fire's performance, and it ran through our 1,920 x 1,200 Very High quality test at a playable 33fps. Only at a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 did the card return a below par framerate of 21fps.

The graphics card does come with a sting in its tail, with this particular model (a Gigabyte GV-R58OC-1GB) featuring two rather insistent fans. While the resultant whirr isn’t catastrophic, those for whom a quiet PC is the main priority would be better off going with a system that’s been designed with a bit of sound insulation factored in, as the A-Listed Wired2Fire isn’t the quietest machine either.

The rest of the specification, meanwhile, is decent. Four gigabytes of RAM is enough to keep Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ticking over nicely, and a pair of 500GB hard disks arranged in a striped RAID0 array.

The graphics card’s a tad on the noisy side, then, but this flaw isn’t enough to put us off the Palicomp. The combination of processor and graphics card delivers enough power to handle both intensive applications and demanding games, and the chassis is one of the most impressive around. It’s a worthy award winner.

Author: Mike Jennings