3XS Z77 Performance Q10 - Review

[Andy14]

My system was delivered yesterday (just under 6 days after placing the order) so I'm taking the time to place a few initial thoughts that will hopefully be useful for people buying + general feedback to SCAN. I'll update this with further thoughts in the next few days / more specific data when I have time.

Specification

3XS Z77 PERFORMANCE Q10

• CORSAIR OBSIDIAN 550D BLACK CASE
• GByte GA-Z77-D3H Z77 MoBo
• Intel Core i5 3570K s1155 @ 4.4Ghz
• 16GB 1600 Memory
• 2GB ASUS GTX680 DC2 OC
• 512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD
• 2 x 3TB WD SATA3 HDD
• Clabs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio
• SH-224BB/BEBE x24 DVDRW
• 27 Dell U2713HM LED WQHD Monitor

Delivery

• The delivery service is very personal. They help you to unbox everything, remove packing from inside the system unit & locate it anywhere you wish. This definitely saves some time and if anything is dead / damaged on arrival then they would spot it and report it / fix it for you.
• A small point to note. I was under the impression they took away all the packaging, however they don’t.
• I think the biggest plus point of all is that you know the system hasn't been manhandled badly before arriving. Boxes were all looking as good as when they left SCAN.

Build Quality

• I’m told that these 550D cases are very easy to mark / get fingerprints all over, yet mine arrived absolutely spotless.
• Inside the PC is immaculate. A work of art (as SCAN describe). Cables are beyond “tidy” and it’s fair to say I could never come close to this level of quality doing it myself.

Speed

• After installing Windows 7, office, a few essentials and doing a few hundred patches (I kid not) I finally had a little fun with the Heaven benchmark and a couple of hours playing WoW MoP.
• Running Heaven at 2560x1440 it still achieved scores over double that of my old system @ 1920x1200.
• When running WoW I was able to run at 2560x1440 on “Ultra” settings without any noticeable issues. My old system started to struggle on “high” at the lower Resolution.
• So far therefore – everything I’d hoped for.

SCAN Performance Data

• 3D Mark 2011 9471 / 9785
• Performance Test 4234.2 / 4117.6

Boot Time

• With a fairly clean Window 7 build (fully patched now) this is very quick to boot. Since my old PC (4 years ago) the biggest improvement seems to have come from BIOS loading times. Instead of several screens full of checking drives / etc, now it just skips through quickly despite there being 3 drives installed.
• Testing tonight - 27 seconds from power button to Login screen. First 15 of which is to Windows loader screen.

Noise

• My old SCAN PC was already fairly quiet and based around a soundproofed case; so I was expecting this to be fairly similar. Obviously anything with a 3 slot NVidia GTX680 card in it isn’t exactly going to be silent…
• Well…. So far this PC has exceeded my expectations. Even after playing WoW for 2 hours and running benchmarks it’s incredibly quiet. If it gets louder under load then it’s subtle. Much quieter than the old system.
• When the DVD drive kicks in to load an app it’s comparatively deafening. Like someone playing Steel Panther in a Library !
• I did have headphones on some of the time last night however, so I will monitor this more over the coming days.

Monitor

• Very pleased with the monitor. Excellent quality straight out of the box.
• Comes calibrated at the factory and with the test details to prove it.
• Plenty of connections.
• USB3 hub built in.
• Very good stand that’s fully height adjustable.
• Only downside is that there is no displayport cable included.

Overall

Very pleased. Another superb system from SCAN that’s incredibly well built and perfectly fits the original design parameters of being powerful, yet as quiet as possible.

[James @ Scan]

Hi Andy

It's always good to hear from customers, so I'm glad to hear that your Q10 arrived safe and sound and that you've been enjoying so much.

[drharvey12]

Very well written and detailed review

I've had a couple of systems off them now like you and the service I have received is always top notch. That's why they tend to get a lot of repeat business from me as I recently took the plunge and built a system myself with parts from them...of course They're always very competitively pricxed anyway and couldn't find anything significantly cheaper from anywhere else so I just let them handle the whole order. Not worth the hassle IMO saving a couple of quid here and there and ordering from 3 or 4 different places. Was much easier to ring them up - speak throug what I was panning on doing with one of their sales team amd then going through each piece with him for ease of installation and quality / price.

Anyway, good to hear that everything's going well. That's a pretty serious PC you have there now

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi Andy14

Thanks for the detailed and great review, with reference to the packaging we ask that customers retain the case box and the polystyrene inserts in the unlikely event that if the system has to be returned to Scan this packaging is designed to cushion the case and system in transit

The DVD drives can be quite loud when they first spin up and this can also depend on the media in the drive as some disks are pressed thinner in manufacture

Regards

Ben

[Andy14]

Hi Ben, in answer to your points.

• There were 4 big boxes that came in the delivery, only one of which was a system box. The delivery guy couldn't take any away with him. It's not the end of the world, but it's not the John Lewis levels of service that I thought you were striving for using this special service.
• As the system has 1 year of on-site warranty I would not expect it to be sent back to SCAN under any circumstances. So therefore the System box could be discarded too.
• My comment about the DVD drive was merely in jest because the rest of the system is so quiet. It's amusing that a simple thing like this is 10x louder than an overclocked i5 and GTX860 put together Not an issue because the DVD drive is hardly ever used.

I gave it a lot more use last night and so far it has been flawless. Don't let the above small comments detract from this being an excellent PC.

[shrek101]

Thanks for review I been toying with getting on myself with i7 and Corsair Obsidian Series 650D case

I also may get 2x3tvb drives and a 512gb OCZ Vertex 4 SSD is the os on ssd drive?

[Andy14]

Thanks for review I been toying with getting on myself with i7 and Corsair Obsidian Series 650D case

I also may get 2x3tvb drives and a 512gb OCZ Vertex 4 SSD is the os on ssd drive?

I've installed Windows 7 onto the SSD and all games / applications. Only data will be kept on the 2 Hard Drives. I considered the i7 upgrade too, but reviewing benchmarks it only gave me an advantage if running applications that made extensive use of multi-threading.

After about 6 hours of extensive testing (it's a hard job, but someone had to do it) last night I'd add the following observations to my review :-

• The noise levels after gaming extensively are as high as my previous machine now, however this is only a level where you hear it if there's no other noise in the room / you put your head under the desk.
• If not gaming then it's practically silent.
• Most importantly, there are no whining or clicking noises, it's just one big swoosh of fans.
• The PC does get quite warm. Put this under the desk on a winters evening and you won't have cold legs !
• No crashes so far. Nothing untoward at all. Windows and PC working in perfect harmony.
• It handles 2560x1440 resolutions in games far better then I expected. Going to extend testing to Borderlands 2 this weekend.

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi Andy14

As you have installed the OS on the SSD there are a few tweaks for stability for and Overclocked System with an SSD please drop me an email with your Build and Invoice number to systemsupport@scan.co.uk and I will email these to you tomorrow when back in work

Regards

Ben