Final thought and rating
Selling pre-overclocked PC hardware bundles is a nascent but burgeoning mini-industry. Usually comprising of a CPU, motherboard and memory, ensuring basic compatibility, the purchaser can either use existing hardware or purchase the ancillary components separately.Scan has been etailing a number of Intel-based bundles in recent months, starting off with a dual-core Pentium E5200 and headlined by the SLIK, based on a six-core Core i7 980X guaranteed to run at 4.2GHz.
Near the cheaper end of the scale - £316 all in - is the SMART bundle, encompassing a dual-core, four-threaded Core i3 530 chip clocked to 4GHz, on top of a Gigabyte H55 motherboard and backed by 4GB of Corsair DDR3-1,600 RAM and a quiet-running Arctic Cooling heatsink that kept the overclocked chip below 60°C at all times.
Our benchmarks show that the 4GHz-clocked SMART bundle produces benchmarks in the vicinity of either a stock Core i5 750 or AMD Phenom II X4 945 - which also includes integrated graphics by way of chipset - and both comparison chips' bundles are available for the same kind of outlay.
The validation and pre-assembly attracts a £30 premium over purchasing the well-thought-out components and building it yourself - or £45 if you make do with the retail-boxed cooler.
The Scan 3XS SMART bundle offers a decent mix of features and performance, based around new technology, but so healthy is the competition at the bundle's price point of £316, that quad-core chips come into play, eroding much of the performance benefit of a 4GHz CPU.
Bottom line: with rock-solid stability and 1GHz-plus overclock on a non-Turbo-enabled CPU, the Scan 3XS SMART is a decent bet for folk looking towards an all-in-one barebones system that's particularly strong in the multimedia department.
The good
Rock-solid stability at overclocked settings
Good choice of supporting motherboard and cooler
Performance boost over stock Core i3 530 is significant
The not so good
Competition is fierce for £330 bundles; Core i3 530 plays against quad-core chips
Extra voltage required for 4GHz pushes power-draw up by 30W
No overclocking on the IGP
HEXUS Rating
Scan 3XS SMART bundle
HEXUS Where2Buy
All Scan 3CS bundles are listed here.
The Scan 3XS SMART bundle is available from, well, Scan:
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As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum. |
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