Packard Bell Ipower review

Not a brand that leaps to mind when you think of high-end gaming systems but Packard Bell has a tendency to market computers at killer price points; the fact that you could walk out of PC World with an SLI system for £1400 is astounding.

Witness the power

This model hasn’t been named flippantly. It’s the most powerful PC that Packard Bell makes and has twin 256MB nVidia graphics cards, two RAID-arranged 250GB drives and 2GB RAM. 

Where’s the compromise, you’re thinking. Well, the ipower has a lower spec: the AMD processor runs at 2.2GHz. It has bigger but slower-spinning drives, and lower-grade graphics cards, albeit with healthy video memory.

Let the games begin

It’s also the only system of its type not to use the Asus A8N-SLI motherboard. It looks like a standard PC, not a gaming powerhouse, but it did manage decent frame rates with Unreal and Doom 3, as well as dealing with 1600x1200pixel Far Cry on the highest detail setting.

It can play but it’ll benchmark lower, as its innards dictate.