Scan 3XS Velocity X79 SLI Extreme review

Scan likes its PCs big and powerful, and the 3XS Velocity X79 SLI Extreme is no different, thanks to an overclocked Sandy Bridge E Series processor and stylish Corsair Obsidian 650D chassis. The biggest draw of all, however, is the pair of hulking graphics cards visible through the side window.

They’re Nvidia GeForce GTX 580s from EVGA, and each comes with a fearsome specification: a core overclocked from 772MHz to 797MHz, 512 stream processors running at 1,594MHz instead of 1,544MHz, and 1,536MB of GDDR5 RAM clocked up to a formidable 4,050MHz.

The two cards in tandem provided some of the best gaming results we’ve yet seen from a PC. The Scan averaged 86fps in our 1,920 x 1,080 Very High quality test, 66fps when we upped the resolution to 2,560 x 1,600, and still 56fps when we added 4x anti-aliasing. That’s much quicker than the only other X79-powered PC we’ve seen, Chillblast’s Fusion Photo OC IV, which included a mere GTX 560 Ti.

The processor’s no slouch, either. Scan hasn’t gone for the top-end Extreme Edition i7-3960X, but a 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K boosted to run at 4.7GHz is still a monster. Its benchmark result of 1.34 is a little behind the 1.39 of the Photo OC IV, but it’s stunningly fast nonetheless.

As well as that raw power, the rare inclusion of a discrete sound card – in this case a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium – will please audio buffs, and the Scan also has 16GB of DDR3 memory, a 120GB Corsair Force GT SSD and a 1TB hard disk. The Blu-ray drive reads but also writes to discs.

The Corsair Obsidian 650D is a tall, striking and well-built enclosure. The painted interior and motherboard tray lend themselves to an attractive, tidy machine, and the top of the enclosure houses a SATA dock. There are two USB 3 ports on the front, and four more, alongside USB 2 and a pair of eSATA ports, on the rear.