Overclockers Kinetic H1
The fastest gaming PC here by some distance, but numerous sacrifices are made in the process
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PRICE from overclockers.co.uk
£583 (£700 inc VAT) espite the company name, the Overclockers Kinetic H1 comes equipped with a stock-speed Core i5-6500 CPU. For sure, it’s a formidable processor, with all the power you need to make modern applications whizz along. But compared to the rest of this month’s group, it’s the most lightweight option. With the exception of CCL’s Nova Pro 250, Overclockers’ rivals have all opted for faster Core i5 or Core i7 models.
The difference in performance was exposed by our benchmark tests. With an overall score of 103, the Overclockers system took nearly 50% longer to complete our tests than Wired2Fire’s outrageous Workstation Ultima, and around 20% longer than the group average. To reiterate, this is still a very fast PC; but if you run up against an unusually heavy workload in the future, you might wish you’d chosen a system with more headroom.
It’s a similar story with memory. Overclockers has chosen to include only 8GB of memory, rather than the 16GB provided by all the other retailers. Objectively speaking, this is still a perfectly generous provision – indeed, it could be a smart economy to start off with 8GB, and add more memory in the future as and when you need it. Unfortunately, the Asus H110M-K motherboard chosen by Overclockers offers only two DIMM slots, which arrive occupied by 4GB modules, so your upgrade path isn’t as straightforward as it might be.
Windows 10 Home comes pre-installed on a Kingston SSDNow V300 solid-state drive. Our tests placed this drive on the bottom rung in terms of performance ( see graphs, p93), but it’s close enough to other SATA drives that the differential can probably be ignored. Its capacity of 240GB should be ample for your applications, but the 1TB Seagate hard disk seems mean: several rival PCs offer twice as much data storage.
Clearly, then, Overclockers has taken a frugal approach to the core components, and the reason becomes apparent when you fire up Steam. The Kinetic H1 comes with a 4GB XFX Radeon R9 380X graphics card – a stonker of a GPU that flew to a clear first place in our gaming benchmark. At 1080p and the highest detail settings, Dirt Showdown kept up an average of 98 frames per second, and even maintained a smooth 45fps when we switched to 4K. If you’re into gaming, that could easily shunt the H1 from the bottom of your list to the top. The fan on the graphics card is quite audible under load, but it doesn’t whine or rattle, and so isn’t too annoying.
Despite its big gaming capabilities, the Kinetic H1 is a relatively compact system: the Kolink Victory case is modestly functional, which is fine by us. Connection options are somewhat limited, however. With the graphics card occupying the only PCI Express x16 slot, your only routes to internal expansion are a single PCI Express x1 connector and two free SATA ports.
Externally, the system offers five USB 2 ports in total, but only three USB 3 ports – two at the back and one at the front. And there are no extras: no wireless, no card reader, no optical drive and not even an aperture at the front for installing one.
But let’s not be too negative about the Overclockers Kinetic H1. There’s something rather heroic about the budget-juggling that’s evidently gone into creating a system capable of ultra-high-quality 4K gaming at this price. The PC also comes with a reassuring two-year carriage-andreturn warranty, which is a better deal than you’ll get from most of Overclockers’ competitors.
Ultimately, though, the Kinetic H1 only makes sense if gaming performance is your top priority. Otherwise, there are plenty of better-balanced bundles to be had.