Review: Want a high-end system? PC Specialist Apollo Q260GTX may well be the one

Final thoughts

The PC Specialist Apollo Q260GTX amalgamates a number of cutting-edge components, in sensible fashion, and bundles them into a workhorse chassis - all wrapped in a £1,349 price-tag.

Prima facie, the asking money seems significant, especially with prices now dropping faster than a woman of ill-repute's underwear. But that's doing PC Specialist a disservice, really, because it has focused on quality rather than superfluous extras.

Packed with a quad-core Intel Q9450 CPU, sat on an nForce 750i SLI motherboard, backed by 4GiB of DDR2 memory and graphically endowed with a GeForce GTX 260, the system has powerful credentials.

Extra touches such as the LG SuperMultiDrive and near-silent operation are welcome, and we also like the finishing kit that comprises of a 24in monitor and Logitech's G-series input devices, so lots of good.

The bad? We're picky enough to want an aluminium chassis and two storage drives, as well as a better restore sequence should matters go awry, but that's us.

Perhaps, too, a cheeky pre-overclock on the GeForce GTX 260 card wouldn't hurt, knowing that PC Specialist is clearly aiming this at those who enjoy gaming.

Performance, though, in our new range of benchmarks is better than a dual-core-equipped machine's, but not by a huge margin, highlighting the current nature of widely-used applications.

We're adamant that a quad-core CPU's intrinsic performance benefit will become more apparent as time goes on, yet a dual-core machine is plenty fast enough for most, so bear this in mind before being blighted by the apparent need to run to quad-core right now.

Overall, the Q260GTX is a thoroughly decent machine that uses well-balanced components to good effect. Perfect? Nope, but it demands to be put on a shortlist if you're after a quality PC.

HEXUS Awards

PC Specialist Apollo Q260GTX system

HEXUS Where2Buy

The system is available for £1,349 here.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If PC Specialist chooses to respond, we'll publish its commentary here verbatim.

HEXUS related reading

HEXUS.net - reviews :: PC Specialist Apollo Q6600-X
HEXUS.net - reviews :: MESH Elite Extreme QX G80
HEXUS.net - reviews :: MESH Elite E6600 Express PC
HEXUS.net - reviews :: Alienware Area-51 7500 PC

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!

Great review,

n.b.:
The “available here” link at the end isn't working
Also you refer to the Asus cooler as a Zalman when you're looking at the guts.

Really like the real world tests, perhaps the inclusion of a couple of the more popular synthetic tests might be appreciated by those who want to compare this system to their own.

Just a thought.

All that money and they can't cable the thing nicely :rolleyes:

Isn't that the same FSP psu that scan were selling for £30 a couple of weeks ago? Wonder if they bought them from scan? :D

Oh and the cabling is a bit messy.

Deleted
Great review,

n.b.:
The “available here” link at the end isn't working
Also you refer to the Asus cooler as a Zalman when you're looking at the guts.

Really like the real world tests, perhaps the inclusion of a couple of the more popular synthetic tests might be appreciated by those who want to compare this system to their own.

Just a thought.

We're still waiting for the link from PC Specialist. I'll have another look now.

The ‘Zalman’ was supposed to be written like this, kind of intimating that it's pretty damn similar.