Arbico Phenom OC 6583 review

Arbico is one of a bevy of manufacturers to recently include an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T processor in a review PC. It's the cheaper of the firm's two new six-core processors, and most recent systems have arrived in the PC Pro Labs with the chip's 2.8GHz stock speed boosted by overclocking.

Arbico's tweak is the most ambitious, however, and the Phenom OC 6583's speed of 3.9GHz the best we've seen from the 1055T.

Unsurprisingly, the overclocked CPU turned in one of the best benchmark results we've seen from AMD's six-core chips: it achieved 2.2 in our real-world application benchmarks and, among six-core AMD PCs we've seen, is only beaten by the Mesh MatriX6, which overclocks AMD's more powerful 1090T to similar heights. Still, this level of performance should see the most demanding applications swept aside with ease.

Arbico has partnered the processor with an ATI Radeon HD 5830 card. This isn’t quite as beefy as the Radeon HD 5850, but still delivered impressive benchmark results. The system scored a respectable 51fps in our High-quality test and then a playable 33fps in our Very High quality benchmark.

The rest of the specification tallies up with what we’ve seen from rival machines, with four gigabytes of 1,600MHz DDR3 memory, a 1TB hard disk and DVD writer in tow.

To house it all, Arbico has chosen an NZXT Beta EVO chassis. It’s the first we've seen of this dramatic-looking case, and it serves up some good features. There’s a raised motherboard tray, for instance, that Arbico has used to keep cables tidy, and a front-mounted eSATA port. On the downside, though, there's no sign of tool-free clips on the drive bays.

Upgrade room is at a premium too. The wide Akasa Nero CPU cooler blocks access to one of the system’s two free DIMM sockets, and there isn’t a spare PCI Express x16 socket. Instead, the Asus M4A87TD/USB3 motherboard, which has appeared in several recent AMD-based systems, offers vacant PCI Express x1 and x4 slots alongside a pair of PCI sockets. There are only two spare hard disk bays, and no front-facing 3.5in bays.

But more irritating than this is that the CPU cooler is noisy, and combines with a trio of 120mm case fans to produce a constant audible whirr. It isn’t the worst PC for noise, but neither is it notably quiet, and could prove distracting when it isn't being drowned out by loud music and soundtracks.

The Arbico is a powerful machine then, thanks to its overclocked CPU and Radeon HD 5830 graphics card. But the all-round build of the system and its noisier than average fan setup mean it isn't the best PC around.

Author: Mike Jennings