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With its CS1209, CCL has attempted to build a powerful PC capable of handling every job; it’s come very close to succeeding, too. The 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor and 4GB of RAM are a powerful combination, helping this PC to a fast overall score of 90. There’s also a dedicated graphics card for playing games. The 1GB GeForce GT220 managed 14.2fps in our Call of Duty 4 benchmark. This is a little jerky, but turn off anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering and drop the resolution and smooth frame rates are possible. The only downside of this card is its size; it blocks a PCI slot, but fortunately there’s a second PCI slot and a PCI Express x1 slot for internal upgrades. Despite its quick performance, the CS1209 was one of the quieter desktop computers here. It’s not completely silent, producing an audible hum even when idle, but it’s far less noticeable than many other PCs. Although the 500GB hard disk should be large enough for all but the biggest media libraries, there are plenty of drive bays for adding more internal storage. There are six 3?in bays for adding more hard disks and three 5?in bays for accommodating more optical drives, but only two available SATA ports on the motherboard. You’ll need a PCI card with more SATA ports should you want more than two hard disks. CCL has managed to keep the price of this system down by not including a mouse or keyboard. Considering this is really a PC for someone upgrading that wants to keep their existing peripherals, this isn’t a problem.
The CCL-CS1209 is a decent all-rounder. Its capable of playing 3D games, is quiet and fast in Windows. It’s a great choice, but there’s stiff competition. If you want the best games performance at this price, CyberPower’s Ultra Athena delivers it in spades, but better application performance would have been good.
