Internals and monitor
By inference, an overclocked system should be one that pays a little more care to cooling than otherwise is the case. Increased pure speed, albeit with little or no extra voltage, still raises wattage and heat output. Scan uses what it terms its IOSS After Cooling system. The semi-transparent plastic cover can hold a single 60mm and 80mm fan for extra cooling. Scan uses a 60mm fan aimed towards the graphics card. Like MESH, Scan's choice of case allows it to mount the two Maxtor 80GB hard drives in a sideways fashion. The drives are held in by rails and are easily removable. There's space for 4 more, too.
The distinctive pink colouring of the Gainward graphics card, which appears to be the FX PowerPack! Model Ultra / 960 TV-DVI-DVI Golden Sample, by dint of its GS status, is guaranteed to overclock to 500MHz core and 1000MHz memory (carefully screened DDR2 memory, apparently) provides the midrange clout. Scan has chosen to use its 500MHz core speed but left the memory at most FX 5700 Ultra levels, that is, at 906MHz. We're somewhat surprised at that. Intel's standard heatsink is reckoned to be more than good enough for 2.6GHz CPU overclocked to 3.12GHz. The cooler's fan attaches to IOSS'; Cooling After system. It keeps the fans spinning (at a reduced RPM) for a short while after the PC has been switched off. This helps negate the problem of temperature spikes as soon as the power has been cut. We appreciate that kind of attention to detail.
Gainward's souped-up FX 5700 Ultra is the recipient of dual-DVI treatment. The IS7 adds in decent feature integration, so Scan decides to use just one PCI slot for a v.90 modem. As mentioned before, a discrete sound card was expected for a PC at this pricepoint.
Scan realised the need to pair high-speed memory with the overclocked CPU and motherboard. It decided on a 20% FSB increase. That gives rise to a ~240MHz or pseudo PC3840 RAM requirement. Scan pulls no punches in including 512MB of Corsair's XMS4000 C3 memory. The two 256MB modules run in tandem for dual-channel goodness. We hazard that Scan could have gotten away with 512MB of TwinMOS PC3700 and reduced the overall asking price a little.
Scan also opts for a meaty 450w dual-fan PSU from Channel Well Technology. Decent rail ratings, plenty of molex connections and a couple of integrated SATA plugs make it a wise choice. It was pretty quiet in usage, too. Subjectively speaking, internal build quality was excellent. There's masses of room to work with, decent cooling and airflow, and enough expansion bays to hold a scary amount of storage. Our only gripe is with the weight of the system. It's heavy enough to make transporting the case a real chore, so it's not recommended for uses who frequent LAN parties.
The supplied TFT is one of the highpoints of the package. Iiyama's excellent 17-inch ProLite E431S has a sharp image and a 16ms response time. A thin bezel and excellent response time make it a good choice for the overclocked system. It also has built-in speakers, although we recommend a discrete set of speakers. Our one compliant has to be the lack of height adjustment available. Still, we'd take this panel over almost any 19-inch CRT monitor. The main software bundle was limited to Windows XP Home and Works. Pretty good thus far.
