PCSpecialist Tempest Elite
A wise choice of Intel inside powers this PC to gaming glory, with the RTX 3060 Ti still a great performer
“Is the Tempest Elite the last word in refinement? No. But the performance you’re getting for the price is simply phenomenal”
SCORE PRICE £916 (£1,099 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk
If you have around £1,000 to spend on a gaming PC, you have a big decision to make when it comes to Intel or AMD. Right now, I would lean towards Intel, and the Tempest Elite demonstrates why.
Two months ago I reviewed the compact Cyberpower Ultra 55 Pro ( see issue 341, p48), which undercuts the Tempest Elite by £100 despite having the same GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card. To hit that price, Cyberpower opted for an aged Ryzen 5 5500 processor, which is both £150 cheaper than the Ryzen 5 7600 (its nearest equivalent in AMD’s new range) and avoids costly DDR5 RAM.
By going down the Intel route, PCSpecialist can still opt for a mid-range chip and DDR4, but it’s based on one of Intel’s latest generation Core processors – and it’s simply more powerful. That’s obvious from every benchmark. Take Geekbench 5. In the single-core test, the Tempest Elite returned 1,734 to the 1,443 of the Cyberpower. Its 16 threads (12 from the six P-cores, four from the four E-cores) gave it a big advantage in the multicore test, too, with the Tempest scoring 10,865 to 7,584 for the 12-threaded Ryzen 5 5500. The same was true in the PC Pro benchmarks, with 383 against 303.
I saw a similar but less pronounced pattern in our gaming tests, starting with 3DMark Time Spy. Here – and remember they’re using the same graphics card – the Tempest Elite returned 11,811 to the Ultra 55 Pro’s 10,508. But the difference was far less pronounced in real games. At 1440p with High settings, the Tempest consistently beat its rival, but only by handful of frames. For instance, in Dirt 5 it returned 111fps compared to 108fps, while there was an 8fps difference in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with 140fps against 132fps. It’s not all rosy for Intel. The systems draw similar amounts of power when in idle and at peak, but the Tempest Elite is noisier in general use as the fans stay on with a constant drawl. You’ll definitely notice this machine if the PC sits next to you on a desk. Another disadvantage of the Tempest is the sheer size of the PCS FrostFlow air cooler. It’s effective – that much is obvious from the benchmarks – but it blocks one of the two empty DIMM sockets, so you will have to make do with the supplied 16GB of memory or switch the cooler in the future. There’s better news elsewhere, with two spare M.2 slots on the Asus Prime B660-Plus motherboard. They’re easy to access, so if the supplied 1TB SSD isn’t enough then you can add more in under a minute.
The motherboard includes two spare PCI-Express slots, even if the x1 slot is uncomfortably close to one of the two graphics card fans. Still, I suspect you could fill it with a low-cost Wi-Fi card (Wi-Fi isn’t integrated on the motherboard) if you prefer to use the x4 slot for a more demanding expansion card.
Removing the right-hand side of the chassis reveals two more easy ways to add storage, with a 2.5in SSD bay and a 3.5in bay both lying empty. You’ll also find a 650W Corsair power supply, which means you can add, say, an RTX 4080 in the future without needing to upgrade the PSU.
It’s a significantly larger chassis than the Cyberpower’s; I mentioned in that review how easy the 55 Ultra was to move from desk to floor, which isn’t true of this chunky machine. Neither chassis deserves the adjective classy, but with three 120mm RGB fans shining through the matt black metal grille – controllable via an LED button at the top of the chassis – the Tempest Elite can be made to look as menacing as its name suggests.
PCSpecialist backs all this up with a three-year warranty, with the first month including collect-and-return cover and the rest return-to-base (where you cover the shipping costs back to the factory). PCSpecialist also scores consistently highly in our annual reliability and service survey.
Is the Tempest Elite the last word in refinement? No. But the performance you’re getting for the price is phenomenal. Intel’s excellent Core i5-13400F and Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti currently make for an unbeatable combination at this price. TIM DANTON
SPECIFICATIONS
10-core (6 P-cores/4 E-cores) Intel Core i5-13400F processor Asus Prime B660-Plus D4 motherboard 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 RAM 8GB GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics PCS FrostFlow 200 air cooler 1TB SolidIGM P41 Plus M.2 Gen4 SSD PCS Spectrum RGB chassis Windows 11 Home 208 x 459 x 400mm (WDH) 3yr warranty (1 month C&R, 1yr RTB parts & labour, 2yr labour) power draw: 55W idle, 329W peak