Product Reviews

Hi-Grade's Ultis Tachyon may sound like a strange alien device from Star Trek, but it's actually the first PC we've seen to use Intel's new Core 2 Extreme processor. This is the fastest processor in Intel's new Core 2 range, so we weren't disappointed with the Tachyon's performance, although we did find the loud cooling fans distracting.

Aided by 2GB of RAM, the Tachyon made short work of our benchmarks, blitzing through every single test. It scored an incredible 324 in our video-editing test, easily the highest we've seen to date. This is the fastest PC we've ever seen, so it should easily handle any task you throw at it for some time to come.

Although the Tachyon's motherboard supports ATI's Crossfire dual graphics card technology, Hi-Grade has chosen to equip the Tachyon with a chunky Nvidia GeForce 7950GX2 graphics card instead. This squeezes two graphics cards into one PCI Express x16 slot, delivering many of the performance gains of an SLI system without requiring SLI support on the motherboard.

The 7950GX2 clocked up a blistering 143fps in our Doom 3 test. Even at the Ultra quality setting with 8x anti-aliasing, which would bring other systems to their knees, this PC managed a smooth 47.8fps. It was equally impressive

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in our Call of Duty 2 test, managing 53.5fps. With the Optimise for SLI setting turned on, another 10fps was added to the Tachyon's score.

Curiously, the Tachyon has a 150GB Raptor hard disk in addition to a standard 500GB Western Digital model. Windows and all programs are installed on the Raptor by default. The 10,000rpm Raptor is one of the fastest hard disks available, which no doubt helped the Tachyon attain its impressive scores in our image- and video-editing benchmarks as well as speeding up boot times. If you need even more storage space, there are another four free 3" disk bays and four SATA II ports.

A two-layer DVD writer is present, but we were surprised there wasn't another optical drive for easy disc duplication. Other common features, such as a memory card reader and floppy drive, were also missing. These are cheap and can be added easily, so we were disappointed to see them omitted from such an expensive PC.

There are plenty of USB2 ports, though: eight in total, with four on the front and four at the rear. There are also two FireWire ports, useful for connecting digital video cameras and external hard disks. Inside, there is a PCI Express x4 slot and two PCI slots for adding peripherals such as TV tuners.

The two-button optical scroll mouse included is comfortable, but the spongy keyboard is tiresome to type on after a while. No software, monitor or speakers are included, although a 19" glossy Sony display and Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 surround-sound speakers are available for an extra £400.

The Ultis Tachyon is an incredibly fast PC, but it is expensive because of its premium components. If money is no object and you feel the need for speed, this is the PC for you. For everyone else, a slower Core 2 Duo processor and graphics card would be better value.