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Palicomp’s Alpha Excite was built to play the latest games. Its overclocked Ivy Bridge Core i5-3570K processor and 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7850 graphics card won’t break a sweat, even if you try to play the latest titles at 1080p with maximum detail.
A Cooler Master Elite 330 midi tower forms the backbone of the system. Its reserved looks and lack of LEDs should appeal to anyone not wanting their PC to become the focus of the room. A minimal front panel has just two USB ports and two 3.5mm audio jacks, but the rear I/O panel of the Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard has plenty of I/O ports too.
Four USB2 ports are paired with four USB3 ports, which means you’re unlikely to need a USB hub. There’s one PS2 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port and five 3.5mm audio jacks for 7.1 surround sound. There’s also a digital optical audio output, as well as VGA, DVI and HDMI ports for the processor’s integrated graphics chip.
Two thumbscrews keep the side panel in place, so it’s easy to get in to the case. It’s incredibly tidy, too, thanks to the modular 750W power supply. It tames unruly cables if you don’t want to upgrade, but provides flexibility if you are. Three empty 5.25in drive bays and six vacant 3.5in drive bays use tool-free mounting brackets, so you won’t need a screwdriver to add more storage.
The Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard is dominated by a massive Thermaltake CPU cooler, but it still has plenty of expansion options. Two of the three PCI-E x1 slots are available, with the third being obscured by the dual-slot graphics card, but both PCI slots are ready to use. There’s also a second PCI-E x16 slot if you want to add a second graphics card. An mSATA port lets you add a small SSD, should you want to speed up the system even more. The only negative is that all four memory slots are filled, so you have to remove some of the installed memory if you want to upgrade.
Although the massive Thermaltake CPU cooler keeps temperatures low, even with the huge overclock to 4.5GHz, cooling is otherwise fairly basic. There’s only one 120mm front intake and one 120mm exhaust, with the single 80mm fan mount on the side panel obstructed by the huge CPU cooler. This does mean the system is quiet when idling, but long gaming sessions could see temperatures or fan noise rise.
As expected, our gaming benchmarks were no match for the AMD Radeon HD 7850 GPU, which Palicomp has overclocked for even greater performance. Completing Dirt3 with an average frame rate of 60.6fps, and Crysis 2 with an average 25.3fps, you’ll be able to play pretty much anything without having to drop detail settings. Desktop performance was equally impressive, scoring 142 overall in our multimedia benchmarks.
The Full HD Asus VS247H monitor included with the Alpha Excite has a matt display, so you won’t have any trouble with light reflections. Its colours are slightly muted compared to most glossy displays, but they also look a lot more natural. Viewing angles aren’t the best, but the LED backlight looked even and the HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs provide plenty of flexibility. A very basic Cherry Keyboard and mouse set completes the bundle.
Palicomp has done well to include a high-end graphics card with its Ivy Bridge system, yet still keep the price below £800. The three-year return-to-base warranty is a welcome inclusion, too, as is the massive overclock. It might not have an SSD boot disk, but in all other respects it’s an excellent PC.
