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Review: Scan 3XS SMART pre-overclocked Core i3 530 bundle: 4GHz and counting

by Tarinder Sandhu on 18 March 2010, 23:19

Tags: SCAN

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The bundle explored

Thehardware

Scan's 3XS SMART is one of six pre-overclocked bundles offered by the Bolton etailer. SMART is based around Intel's Core i3 530 chip, a supporting Gigabyte H55M-UD2H micro-ATX motherboard, 4GB of Corsair DDR3 1,600MHz memory, and an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 heatsink. You will need to provide the ancillary components, including an operating system.

The Core i3 chip, clocking in at 2.93GHz with a TDP of 73W, is one of a new breed of Intel 32nm CPUs that uses a dual-core, four-threaded architecture. Bereft of the Turbo Boost feature on Core i5 6xx CPUs, the £94 model retains the package-integrated Intel HD Graphics, which means it can provide both the CPU computational horsepower and external video in one fell swoop.

Intel's chipsets provide the only choice for Clarkdale Core i3/i5 CPUs. Scan has opted for a decent Gigabyte H55 model that supports all LGA1156 processors. The mATX board, etailing for £75, is equipped with four DIMM slots rated to DDR3-1,666MHz when used with the onboard graphics; Gigabit LAN; high-definition audio; two mechanical x16 PCIe slots (x16 and x4 in CrossFireX mode); FireWire; five SATA; eSATA; HDMI and DVI connectivity.

4GB of Corsair's DDR3-1,600 CL9 is a sensible choice, but the increasing cost of system memory means that it's the single-most-expensive constituent of the bundle, costing £100. Intel ships a small cooler with the retail-boxed Core i3 530, and the first indication that this is a pre-overclocked bundle comes in the form of the heatsink that's available for around £15.



And here they are, as shipped by Scan in a box filled with anti-static bubble-wrap. The cooler is pre-fitted to the Core i3 530 chip, as per the picture, which is just as well as it's fiddly to remove and reattach.

The heatsink screws into a bracket that's attached to the motherboard via a counter-intuitive method; one needs to pull out black pins and then remove the holding legs before the bracket can be removed, enabling access to the chip-securing arm. Whilst we're not fans of the mounting system, we don't mark Scan down for it; the cooler's already in place.

Fiddly as it is, the fan is quiet at all load levels.

The range of outputs on the board are media-orientated and above average for an H55 chipset-based board.

There's even IDE for folk who use older drives.

General layout is good, but compromises do have to be made for the mATX form factor. A Radeon HD 5850 graphics card covers the hot-running southbridge and makes it a little difficult to access all the SATA ports.

Scan has made sensible choices with respect to the three components and cooler, we reckon, and they provide the guts for a decent all-round system with a bias towards multimedia usage. The cost of the parts comes to some around £286, including VAT, but Scan is charging £316. Que pasa, hombre?