Product Reviews

PC Nextday's Zoostorm 9-6402 is one of the first PCs we've seen to use Nvidia's GeForce 7900GT graphics chip. Aimed at gamers, it offers a good balance between cost and performance, and this helps to keep the PC at around the £1,000 mark.

The Zoostorm sailed through our Doom 3 and Call of Duty 2 benchmarks as we expected, although the frame rates aren't very different from those of the older 7800GTX. All but the most demanding gamers will be satisfied with this system. The SLI motherboard means you can add a second 7900GT at a later date for a performance boost.

To keep the price down, PC Nextday has opted for a standard Athlon 64 3800+ processor rather than a newer dual-core processor. While the 3800+ might not have the same levels of performance as a dual-core processor, it's sprightly enough for most tasks, as our benchmark results show. If you want to encode a lot of video, though, we'd recommend you go for a PC with a faster processor.

The 300GB hard disk is generous and will provide plenty of room for all your programs, videos, music files and images. A handy memory card reader is included, so it's easy to get pictures from your digital camera.

The bundled 19" Xerox monitor is a strange choice, as it has only an analogue input and the graphics card has dual digital outputs. This wouldn't have been such an issue if the picture quality had been better. We

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had to fiddle with the onscreen controls to get a decent picture and, even after doing so, we were disappointed with the monitor's dingy white and its inability to display a smooth gradient in our greyscale test.

A Creative X-Fi sound card is included, which has support for EAX processing to improve sound in games that support it, such as Doom 3. Although the X-Fi supports 7.1 surround sound, you'll have to be content with the Philips MMS460 5.1 surround-sound speakers instead. Although very loud, there is some distortion at the highest volumes and the treble is a little harsh.

The Zoostorm's motherboard has a large and unusual wind tunnel-like fan duct to keep the processor cool. This blocks access to the two free RAM slots, but it can be removed easily when upgrading. If the two optical drives aren't enough, there's space for three more. There's also room for another three hard disks but space is cramped so installation could be tricky. There are no free PCI slots, which could be limiting if you want to add an internal TV tuner or WiFi card, although the six USB2 ports compensate for this to an extent.

A comfortable five-button wired Microsoft laser gaming mouse has been included, although it isn't as nippy as some other gaming mice we've tested. The wired Genius keyboard feels very responsive, although the curved ergonomic layout could irritate some touch-typists. We weren't impressed with the two chunky Genius USB game pads, which are awkward and uncomfortable to hold.

The Zoostorm 9-6402 is a respectable gaming PC that should keep most gamers happy with its smooth frame rates. But if you want to do more with your PC than just play games, you'll be disappointed by the poor-quality monitor. Systems using the older 7800GTX graphics card, such as the Vantage X2 Extreme Gaming System (reviewed in What's New, Shopper June 2006), can deliver equivalent gaming performance with more expansion options and a faster processor at around the same price.