OP3 Fermion Red review

Ignore the Fermion Red’s name: whatever OP3’s website may want you to think, this PC is pink. Not garishly bright pink, but rose-coloured at least. The only visible red comes from the LEDs on fans behind the front and top grills, all of which combines to give this PC the look of a devilish pig when viewed head-on.

It’s a bit larger than your average shuttle PC, giving room for a mini-ITX motherboard, a full-sized graphics card and multiple hard disks. It’s also ready to buy now, as it uses no recalled Sandy Bridge parts; instead, we’re back on to the existing quad-core Core i5-760 and 4GB of DDR3, which pushed it to a perfectly capable 2.06 in our benchmarks. That looks weak by Sandy Bridge standards, but it’s plenty for a small PC like this.

The graphics card is also last-generation, but the overclocked AMD Radeon HD 5770 managed a reasonable 40fps in our High quality Crysis test at 1,920 x 1,080. Upping that to Very High quality dropped the average to 25fps, but with a few tweaks you’ll be gaming on a big TV without a hitch, and older games will be fine.

The other interesting component in the Fermion Red is the 60GB OCZ SSD that complements the 1.5TB hard disk and Blu-ray drive. Windows feels responsive in use, and boots in 65 seconds. It’s a combination we’re seeing more and more of as SSD prices continue to fall. Add in a pair of USB 3 ports on the front of the case and two more on the rear, along with optical S/PDIF, DisplayPort and all the usual suspects, and you have a fine core specification.

The OP3 Fermion Red’s big problem is that colourful Lian Li chassis. It’s not the pink that bothers us – we’re in touch with our feminine side – but the poor decisions Lian Li has made with the design. There’s an awful lot crammed inside, but none of it seems to be in the most logical place.