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The PC Specialist Vanquish HD has an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5-3570K that’s been overclocked to 4.4GHz. The Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard also bears two 4GB modules of fast 1,866MHz RAM, with space for another two and the capacity to handle a maximum 32GB of RAM. The powerful overclocked processor means that the PC had no trouble at all with our benchmark tests, producing an overall score of 145.
There are three empty PCI slots, too. Although the standard is getting on a bit, you can still get a good range of PCI expansion cards, from audio processors to wireless adaptors. You may need these, as there’s only one accessible PCI-E x1 slot. The other is blocked by the double-height graphics card. There’s also a spare PCI-E x16 slot, but it’s worth bearing in mind that it only runs at x4.
As far as storage goes, you’re off to a good start with a 120GB SSD system drive for fast booting and a 2TB hard disk for storage. Once you’ve worked through the 2TB storage drive, there’s room to add at least a couple more. Both SATA3 ports are in use, as are two SATA2 ports, which respectively connect the front eSATA port and the PC’s Blu-ray reader. However, that still leaves two spare SATA2 ports.
Only one of the 31/2in drive cage’s three bays is unused, but PC Specialist can provide an additional compatible cage if required. There’s also a bank of six 51/4in bays, of which five are free. The PC’s power supply is a 650W Corsair TX650, so you have plenty of power for upgrades.
The graphics card is a 2GB AMD Radeon HD7870. It’s a reasonably powerful card, easily up to running the latest games at full quality. We got a playable frame rate of 29fps in Crysis 2 and a blistering 80fps in Dirt 3. The card can run up to triple-monitor Eyefinity multi-screen displays connected via its two Mini DisplayPorts and one of either its DVI or HDMI port.
The matt 23.6in AOC E2450SWDA monitor’s 1,920×1,080 resolution gives you plenty of space to work in, although the display only has VGA and DVI inputs. It also has a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse set. They’re functional, but nothing special.
Sadly, the Vanquish doesn’t have quite as many ports as we’d have liked. There are two USB ports at the front, alongside an eSATA port and the usual 3.5mm headphone and microphone ports. At the back there are another six USB ports, of which two support the new USB3 standard. There’s also a PS/2 port that you can use to connect a mouse or keyboard, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and surround sound audio outputs.
The Vanquish HD is a capable PC that we’d be glad to own. Features such as a Blu-ray reader and an SSD with sufficient space to install software that benefits from faster read-write speeds are also points in its favour. However, the Chillblast Fusion Vantage packs in more features for the same price.
