Review: PCSpecialist Quartz Elite R

Conclusion

Building a PC in 2021 isn't as straightforward as years gone by. Ongoing semiconductor shortages have made the latest CPUs and GPUs hard to find, inevitably resulting in inflated prices, and such difficulties in taking a DIY approach provide good reason to consider a pre-built system.

At the more affordable end of the scale, PCSpecialist's Quartz Elite R offers high-quality 1080p gaming credentials at a £1,199 price point. For the fee you get an eight-core Intel Core i7-11700 processor, 16GB of memory, GeForce RTX 3060 graphics and a 512GB SSD. All the essentials for a competent base unit, but noisy fans and the absence of front USB-C take away some of the shine, and gone are the days of next-day delivery with an expected lead time of up to two months.

Desktops at this price point also face growing competition from increasingly powerful gaming laptops. Lenovo's aggressively-priced Legion 5 offers comparable performance at £1,300, yet has the added benefit of portability and an integrated 165Hz G-Sync display. Point is, in these strange market conditions, don't automatically assume the desktop to be the value proposition.

Bottom line: Quartz Elite R is a solid if not spectacular choice for PC gamers wanting to get a taste of latest-generation hardware without breaking the bank.

PCSpecialist Quartz Elite R

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The Quartz Elite R base unit is available to order from PCSpecialist.

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