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The advantage of buying a desktop PC over an all-in-one system or a laptop is that a PC gives you room for expansion, in the shape of drive bays, PCI slots and a wider range of outputs. Compared to most PCs we see, Eclipse’s Matrix i25z68 has more room for expansion, with a total of six PCI and PCI-E slots, 10 drive bays and a good range of outputs.
That’s not to say that it’s incomplete: you also get a fine BenQ 22in monitor, with a Full HD resolution, and it’s powered by the excellent Core i5-2500K processor. The K suffix indicates an unlocked multiplier: Eclipse has used this to boost speed from 3.3 to 4GHz. The Matrix’s overall score of 115 means it’s around 15 per cent faster thanks to this speed hike.
The G2220HD monitor won our Best Buy award almost two years ago, but it’s still a top display. Despite its non-LED backlight colours are strong and contrast very good. It’s a shame that Eclipse hasn’t included a DVI cable in the box to take advantage of the digital input, which generally produces a sharper image. Another worry was that the VGA port wasn’t firmly seated against the back-plate of the case, and the entire port assembly felt as if it might snap off from the motherboard if we pressed too hard.
Inside the spacious case, there are five free hard disk bays and three optical drive bays, as well as two PCI slots, three PCI-E x1 slots and one PCI-E x16 slot. The latter is for graphics cards, and there’s room enough for even the longest AMD cards. The 650W power supply should provide enough overhead to handle the extra power requirements. There are also two free RAM slots, so if you wanted to upgrade you wouldn’t have to dispose of the existing DIMMs.
If you did want to add a graphics card at a later date, you might also want to consider some more cooling. There aren’t any case fans fitted, and while Intel’s Core chips are generally very power-efficient, Eclipse has stuck with Intel’s standard fan, despite the overclock.
Externally, there’s a total of eight USB ports, two of which are on the front panel. Two of the rear ports support the faster USB3 standard, and two are used up by the budget Logitech keyboard and mouse set, which are fine as a starter set. Audio buffs are well-catered for: as well as five 3.5mm jacks for 7.1 surround sound, you also get an optical S/PDIF that can be used with older AV equipment that doesn’t support audio via HDMI.
The Matrix i25z68’s overclocked chip and 1TB hard disk make it an interesting proposition, and there’s plenty of room for upgrades, but its 22in monitor lets it down slightly. The Dino PC Jurassic 2500 is almost as fast but adds a Blu-ray drive and a 24in monitor to the mix, making it better value.
