PC Specialist Vanquish X200 Gaming Rig Review

The performance of this system was much better than I expected, initial benchmarks were really good and while they didn’t blow me away in terms of huge numbers, there was a certain level of consistency across all the tests that give a clear impression that this system will run any of today’s latest games on a mixture or high and above settings with relative ease. In fact, it should be more than capable of playing the latest games for a few years without too much trouble, and this is mostly down to the system being well balanced and free of bottlenecks and while you may need to dial back on AA and AF, this is not out of the ordinary for a mid range card in a none Crossfire/SLI Configuration.

The GPU isn’t the most powerful on the market and it doesn’t offer a huge amount of excitement but it is very good in terms of price vs performance and for those gaming on a single 1080p monitor, you’ll like have years of fun of all your favourite modern games on high and ultra settings with ease, but for those looking to enjoy 3D gaming, multiple monitors or higher resolutions, I would be looking at either a more powerful card or even just look into adding another card in Crossfire configuration either when purchasing the system or at a later date.

The CPU is as good as any modern gamer requires and while Intel does offer faster chips there is little gain from having anything above the i5 3750k in terms of gaming performance. PC Specialist have put a fairly modest overclock on this chip at 4.4GHz, although it was super stable and the temperatures were very good. Yet with a little knowledge and tinkering we were able to take that to a whopping 5.1GHz, meaning that there is room to squeeze plenty of extra performance from this system which would only help extend its longevity in terms of playing modern games over the next couple of years.

Value for money is high here and while it’s not especially cheap it not terribly more expensive that it would cost you to build yourself, but with the added knowledge that it’s been checked for compatibility, expertly constructed, pre-overclocked, shipped to you by courier and with some level of after support. For those out there that want to keep playing their favourite games or even get into PC gaming for the first time this is a simple and fuss free solution, it’s also a lot quicker than sourcing the parts and doing a self build which is ideal for those short on time.

The only thing I didn’t like on this build was the chassis, the 200R is a great case overall but I feel it’s a little basic for this kind of system and if spending this kind of money on a gaming rig, I at least want it to look expensive. Fortunately because of the way that PC Specialist operate, you are free to customize this on their website and upgrade or even downgrade your chassis as you see fit, although this is true of other components to where you can start with the base model, but add and remove anything from graphics cards, to hard drives and even select the OS you would like.

It’s not the greatest system in the world in terms of performance but it’s no doubt still more powerful than the majority of PC gaming rigs that are on the market today, this is still an expensive system after all and you get a lot of performance for your money and while it does have a fair amount of gaming performance it’s going to perform just as well, if not better, in day to day tasks should you use this system for work, multimedia or just browsing the internet. I really like what PC specialist have done here and with the exception of the chassis, I don’t think I would change a thing on it in terms of components.

Head over to www.pcspecialist.co.uk for more details on getting your own custom build system.