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Palicomp’s Phoenix i5 Supreme is a relatively inexpensive PC base unit with a powerful Intel Core i5-2500K processor and a whopping 8GB of RAM plus a Blu-ray reader. These are excellent components but Palicomp has made some obvious savings on the case and peripherals to keep the overall price down.
The case is a simple black and silver box with a plain grey interior. Some of the mesh grilles that cover unused drive bays are prone to bending at the least pressure. We were pleased to find two case fans, neither of which is loud enough to make more than a faint rushing sound with the side panel fitted. There’s also plenty of room for upgrades with three unused 5 1/4in drive pays and space for six more 3 1/2in drives, one of which can be used for card readers and the like.
The Core i5-2500K processor has been overclocked to 4GHz. It’s not the fastest speed you can push either the motherboard or the processor to, but it performed well, with an overall score of 112 in our tests. The processor is installed on an Asus P8Z68-V LX motherboard. It has six SATA ports, two of which support high-speed SATA3. Both of the latter are free – two of the SATA2 ports are connected to a 1TB hard disk and the Blu-ray drive. This means that the Supreme is well equipped for both storage and entertainment.
The motherboard also has two free PCI-E x1 slots, two PCI-E x16 slots and three PCI slots. If you add a large graphics card to the primary PCI-E x16 slot, the x1 slot below it will be blocked, but that still leaves one free. Serious upgrades may require a replacement power supply, as the supplied 450W PSU only has a couple of spare Molex connectors.
The Supreme has the usual 3.5mm headphone and mic ports at the front, alongside two USB ports. At the rear of the case are six more USB ports, including three USB3 ports. There’s also a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, Gigabit Ethernet, an optical S/PDIF audio output and analogue 7.1 audio outputs.
Palicomp has opted to use the processor’s integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU. It can’t rival a proper dedicated graphics card, but an average frame rate of 18.9fps in Dirt 3 at a 1,280×720 resolution and high quality indicates that this system will handle most modern 3D games if you’re prepared to compromise on resolution and graphical quality.
The CIT mouse is uncomfortably small and was rather unresponsive in our tests. The keyboard is sensibly laid out, but is also rattly and spongy, with unpleasantly gritty keys. We’d quickly replace these with better-quality models.
The Phoenix i5 Supreme is a capable budget PC no matter whether you want to edit HD video or watch Blu-ray movies. It also has a three-year warranty – the only snag is that you have to pay shipping costs. The PC also has plenty of scope for further expansion and overclocking. The Chillblast Fusion Shadow may lack a Blu-ray reader, but is overclocked to 4.6GHz and has a much more powerful graphics card. Factor in its collect-and-return warranty, it just edges the Supreme.
