Scan 3XS GTK SLI Intel Sandy Bridge system review

by Tarinder Sandhu on 17 February 2011, 12:00 4.5

Tags: SCAN

Final thoughts and rating

A comprehensive look at the Scan 3XS GTK SLI system shows that you don't have to spend an extraordinary amount of money in order to gain tip-top performance.

Underpinned by a super-high-clocked Core i5 2500K chip and two GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards with a dollop of extra frequency over already-overclocked speeds, CPU and GPU performance is excellent for a £1,349 base unit. Indeed, the potency of the graphics cards paves the way for multi-monitor and 3D support - both of which are available for this PC through a comprehensive online configurator.

Backed by a sensible array of supporting components and presented nicely in a budget Lancool chassis, the Scan 3XS GTK SLI sets a new standard on just what to expect for an outlay that won't have the bank manager wincing. By the way, those who want even more performance can simply choose a Core i7 2600K at the time of purchase.

However, any review of a Sandy Bridge-based system in February 2011 cannot ignore the still-to-be-resolved problems with the P67 chipset, though ASUS is expecting new silicon in a matter of weeks, not months. Scan says it will swap-out defective motherboards at no cost to the purchaser, if you'd rather not wait a short while for new boards to come in.

It's hard not to be impressed by tasty cutting-edge technology that's sweetened by significant boosts in speed made by the manufacturer. With the comparative benchmark results in mind and price factored into account, we have little hesitation in recommending the Scan 3XS GTK SLI.

The Good

Super-high CPU and GPU clocks
Excellent gaming performance for the money
SSDs are always appreciated
Thoughtful integration

The Bad

Sandy Bridge problems still haven't been resolved

HEXUS Rating

Scan 3XS GTK SLI system

HEXUS Awards

Scan 3XS GTK SLI system

HEXUS Where2Buy

The system can be purchased by heading over to this link.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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… folding performance…?

It's good to see that an SLI rig heavily overclocked is being compared to a single card rig at stock speeds. The pros and cons are missing something… The SLI rig cannot be upgraded any further, whereas the X58 board will almost certainly be able to take SLI or even TRI sli. I'd argue based on that, that they are meant for entirely different markets…

I am pleasantly surprised to see that the frame rate in SLI is seriously enhanced by SLI at HD resolutions.

Good write up otherwise…

maybe I'm being blind, but this articles doesn't mention what the GPU overclock is set at, and neither does the Scan sales page for this product…

Tattysnuc
<snip> The SLI rig cannot be upgraded any further, whereas the X58 board will almost certainly be able to take SLI or even TRI sli. I'd argue based on that, that they are meant for entirely different markets… <snip>

To be fair, I don't think the review is trying to judge which one of these two PCs you should buy - obviously, if you can afford the £3,000 one you wouldn't even be looking at the £1,300 one - but instead the X58-based machine is included to put the performance of the review machine into perspective.

Either way I'd say it's undeniable that this machine offers a staggering amount of performance for your money :surprised:

andyb123
maybe I'm being blind, but this articles doesn't mention what the GPU overclock is set at, and neither does the Scan sales page for this product…

andyb, the details are buried in the first page:

“Scan opts for two pre-overclocked GTX 560 Ti cards from EVGA and pushes them farther, to 900MHz core and 4,056MHz memory”

We'll update the specification table to make it a little clearer.

Tattysnuc
… folding performance…?

It's good to see that an SLI rig heavily overclocked is being compared to a single card rig at stock speeds. The pros and cons are missing something… The SLI rig cannot be upgraded any further, whereas the X58 board will almost certainly be able to take SLI or even TRI sli. I'd argue based on that, that they are meant for entirely different markets…

I am pleasantly surprised to see that the frame rate in SLI is seriously enhanced by SLI at HD resolutions.

Good write up otherwise…

why can't it be upgraded further ? if you had the single card setup you can only add another one of those cards (£500) but by the time this is actually needed we'll be 2 or 3 generations down the road and £500 would probably buy you 2 new cards that would have better performance than SLI'ing your current single card

also then you have 2 cards you can ebay and get some money back :P