Housed in an unassuming and deceptively compact Corsair Carbide 300R case, the 3XS Performance GTX is one of the most powerful gaming PCs you can buy. See Group test: What's the best gaming PC?
Inside we find a 3.4GHz Intel Core i5-3570K pushed to the limit and reaching 4.6GHz, cooled by a huge Thermalright Macho cooler fitted with multiple heatpipes and a single fan. This cooler dominates a large proportion of the inside, but there’s still room for a factory overclocked EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX 680 and an Asus Xonar DG 5.1 soundcard which provides EAX effects for gaming, and Dolby Headphone for surround processing via a headset. See all PC reviews.
The motherboard is the popular Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. It’s a powerful motherboard but it lacks the built-in Wi-Fi and Nvidia SLI support offered by the more expensive Gigabyte model use by Quiet PC. See also Arbico 5300-HD Media Centre.
Performance-wise the 3XS system lives up to its name, delivering very high scores in both the overall PCMark 7 benchmark and across all of our gaming tests. However, it’s also the third most expensive just behind Computer Planet’s massive Extrme Gaming PC. Take a look at Yoyotech Warbird 3570XTA too.
| PCMark 7 Score | 6485 |
| Hard Reset fps (Medium/Ultra) | 149.2 / 129.4 |
| Lost Planet 2 fps (Medium/Ultra) | 93.1 / 77.4 |
| STALKER CoP fps (Medium/Ultra) | 254.0 / 121.0 |
| Alien vs Predator (Medium/Ultra) | 111.8 / 60.4 |
| Sniper Elite V2 (Medium/Ultra) | 93.9 / 23.2 |
However, your £1849 gets you not only one of the very fastest gaming PCs we’ve tested, but also a superb Asus PB278Q monitor with delicious IPS image quality, a height-adjustable pivoting stand and a pin-sharp 2560x1440 pixel resolution. All other displays in this round-up are completely outclassed by this beast.
The system is completed by a bundle of Corsair gaming goodies: a Vengeance K60 keyboard, Vengeance M70 mouse and Vengeance 1300 headset. The K60 features a brushed aluminium housing and uses Cherry MX Red mechanical switches. The all-important W,A,S,D keys are coloured red and feature a grippy soft touch, as do the weapon-selecting number keys 1-6. It also provides a 20-key rollover via the USB interface.
The M60 mouse is also constructed from aluminium and features a sniper button which will temporarily lower the dpi to allow for more controlled aiming.
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