Eclipse Solar Crossfire i575R489 review

Eclipse’s Solar Crossfire i575R489 won’t win any admirers on the PC catwalk, but it’s good value. The Hyundai BlueH is one of the ugliest 22in monitors we’ve seen, but it does have a DVI interface. There’s only a VGA cable in the box, though, and the 1,680×1,050 resolution is lower than more expensive 22in monitors, but image quality is good, with realistic colours. There’s no escaping the display’s budget nature, though, and the Microsoft Basic mouse and keyboard are more evidence of corner-cutting. The keyboard’s shallow, curved design makes it a little uncomfortable to type on. The Enermax case is a good-quality model and has plenty of free drive bays. Cables are routed neatly, but you’ll have to cut the cable ties and move the motherboard’s power wire in order to use any of the free 5?in bays. Two free memory slots allow you to upgrade from the installed 4GB of RAM, but while there’s a free PCI-E 16x slot for a second graphics card in CrossFireX mode, it would block the airflow to the Sapphire Radeon 4890. Given the power of this card, though, it’s unlikely you’ll want to add a second. It managed over 40fps in our tough Crysis test. The AsRock motherboard is a microATX model, which means it has fewer PCI slots than full ATX boards, but with 7.1-channel audio, coaxial and optical S/PDIF, eSATA and FireWire on board, not many people will need the extra expansion potential. Eclipse also includes a 1TB hard disk to make up for it. Cooling is provided by 120mm fans at the front and in the power supply, but we’d have liked a third at the rear – it would be simple to install one yourself, though. This should help keep the i5 750 processor cool and reduce the din of the cooling fan above it, which is a little noisier than in Ginger6’s £800 PC.

The one-year return-to-base warranty is a little disappointing, but it’s no worse than its competitors’ cover. However, Mesh’s Ice 5 750 CS matches the Crossfire’s specifications, but has a better monitor and consumes less power.