Month: July 2022

A review of the Ultra 5 Dragon Edition from CyberPower, a gaming PC which combines great performance with consistent design and is also good value for money.

The Cyberpower Ultra 5 Dragon Edition is a technology showcase, not only for AMD, but also for MSI. Core components include an AMD CPU, in the form of the 3.5GHz quad core Ryzen 1500X, a MSI B350 Tomahawk motherboard and an MSI branded AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card.

To top it all off, the whole system is finished in AMD’s signature red and black and then branded with a prominent MSI logo on the front. With a component selection like this, a very high degree of compatibility between components and drivers is assured, although you’re free to mix it up a little via the many customisation options available online.

CYBERPOWER ULTRA 5 DRAGON EDITION REVIEW: PRICE
You can buy the Ultra 5 Dragon Edition from Cyberpower’s website for £1059.60, which also includes delivery. A years’ interest free finance is also available.

The PC was designed to come in just under the £1,000 price point, but fluctuations in component prices mean it’s a little more expensive now.

If you’re flexible on the price, you can click the ‘Customise’ button to make any changes you wish. Some additions will make only a very small difference to the price, but may make a major difference to the user experience as we explain below.

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The Shuttle SZ270R8 Mini PC is an ultra-compact gaming PC you can put anywhere. Despite its small size, it remains surprisingly upgradable and packs a full-size high-performance graphics card. Here’s our review.

Shuttle has been making tiny desktop PC barebones systems for years. You simply add a processor, memory, a hard drive and a graphics card, if you need to. But while you can still do this, you can also buy a fully built system from iCubes in the UK.

SHUTTLE SZ270R8: PRICE
As reviewed, the Shuttle SZ270 R8 Mini PC costs £1,579.25 from iCubes. Alternatively, you can configure it on iCubes’ website with a variety of processors ranging from a Celeron G3950 up to a Core i7 7700K. There are also many storage options, allowing for up to four drives including NVMe support. You can also buy the barebone PC on its own for £320.72 and build a system with your own components.

Interestingly the price changes depending on how soon you want to receive your PC. The default option will see it built in seven to ten working days, but you can reduce this to five working days for an additional £37.52 or three working days for £56.29 extra.

SHUTTLE SZ270R8: DESIGN AND BUILD
Unlike the majority of desktop PCs constructed from carefully selected off-the-shelf components from any number of manufacturers, this mini PC is built around Shuttle’s XPC Cube Barebone system SZ270R8.

This comprises a 14.2 litre case containing a pre-installed motherboard, cooling system and power supply to which a processor, RAM, storage and other components can then be added. It’s around one-third the size of a typical gaming PC.

As its name suggests, the case is roughly cubic in form and has a minimalist design featuring a black brushed aluminium exterior with just a small silver power switch and a pair of tiny indicator LEDs on show. There are no external drive bays present, so you won’t be installing a DVD or Blu-ray drive in this PC.

A pair of front-facing USB 3.0 ports is concealed behind a small hinged flap alongside a pair of analogue audio jacks.

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The best and most powerful iMac ever assembled is an olive branch for creative professionals, but total and utter overkill for the consumer market. Reviewing it on balance proved tough.

Let’s face it. Just like when the iPhone 5 dropped, you lust after the iMac Pro because it is Space Grey. That phone was a substantial but reasonable upgrade – the same cannot be said for the iMac Pro.

This is a phenomenally powerful machine, one that far outstrips the needs of all but a select few users. It is the first Apple ‘Pro’ product that really will only be purchased by professionals with the need for its high-end internals.

Available with an already-insane eight cores up to an almost incomprehensible 18, this is the Mac upgrade the professional world has been clamouring for – except we probably all though it’d be in the form of a new Mac Pro, expected this year.

Instead, a brand new Apple product line is born in the iMac Pro. But do you have five grand spare?

The iMac costs from £4,899 in the UK. This price gets you the base model with a configurable 32GB RAM, 1TB storage and the 8-core Intel Xeon W processor. In the US, prices start at $4,999.

Apple allows you to configure at point of purchase, and the fully specced-out iMac Pro will set you back a touch over £13,000. Yes, we put the comma in the right place.

As you have already balked at, this is a lot. We don’t normally review such expensive computers but, you know, it’s Apple and this is an important product in its history.

The model we had for review was the £9,188 version, with 3GHz 10-core Xeon processor, 2TB storage, 128GB RAM and Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics with 16GB memory plus the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 in that alluring Space Grey.

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Shadow’s new cloud PC subscription could make expensive upgrades a thing of the past, letting you rent access to a top-spec gaming rig in the cloud – and play on it from just about any PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone. We’ve tested Shadow out, and here’s what we think so far.

How would you like to play the latest AAA games on max settings, wherever you are, without spending hundreds on a console – or thousands on a high-spec PC? That’s exactly what Shadow, the first project from French startup Blade, claims to offer.

In brief, the new subscription service lets you rent a high-spec PC remotely, which you can then access from any PC, Mac, tablet, or phone – or the optional extra Shadow box. You can use that PC to play any of your own PC games – or just, y’know, use it as a PC. It’s up to you.

We got the chance to test Shadow out in a briefing ahead of the service’s UK launch, and here’s what we thought. We’re also running a competition to give away three free months of the service – head here to enter to win Shadow for yourself.

Shadow: Price and availability
Shadow first launched in France in 2017, picking up more than 15,000 subscribers by the end of the year. The company is now expanding rapidly to other markets.

The UK is first, with a full launch on 26 January. The US is coming later, thanks to the need to build local data centres, but a beta is beginning in California from 15 February, with plans to expand across the continent by the summer.

As for cost, make no mistake, this isn’t cheap – but it’s still a lot less than buying your own high-spec machine. The cheapest subscription is £26.95 per month for a one-year commitment, with the price rising to £32.95/month for three months, and £39.95 for one month at a time. You can sign up directly from the company’s website.

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The PC Specialist Vanquish Goliath Gaming PC is a great-looking mid-range gaming PC with plenty of additional performance for non-gaming tasks, but is this pre-configured system the best way to spend your money? Find out in our review.

The PC Specialist Vanquish Goliath combines Intel’s latest processor technology with solid gaming performance in a high-quality, yet tastefully understated, system case featuring extensive RGB (full colour) illumination.

It comes with a high-end Intel 8th-gen ‘Coffee Lake’ processor, coupled with an Nvidia GTX 1070 installed in an Asus Gaming motherboard and is capable of delivering Ultra-quality gaming at 60fps in 1080p and beyond, so it’s ideal for playing today’s demanding AAA games.

PC Specialist Vanquish Goliath: Price
You can buy the Vanquish Goliath from eBuyer for £1479.88, which also includes delivery. As an eBuyer special, the Vanquish Goliath – which doesn’t appear on PC Specialist’s website – is pre-configured and ready to ship.

This means you don’t get to customise the machine by picking and choosing individual components as you would when purchasing directly from the manufacturer.

Design & build
The Vanquish Goliath is constructed in an In Win 101 system case featuring clean, minimalist lines and a full-width tinted tempered glass panel forming the entirety of the left side of the case.

The front, however, is left entirely blank giving it a tidy, no-nonsense appearance – and no room for any external drive bays or optical drives. It also features a translucent tab illuminated in red and bearing the In Win logo, beneath which sits a rather well-concealed power switch.

The most striking feature of the case has to be that huge glass side panel which is perfect for showing off the PC’s various self-illuminating internal components, to which PC Specialist has added two 50cm user-controllable RGB LED lighting strips.

Access to the inside is quick and entirely tool-free thanks to In Win’s simple fastening system which replaces tiresome screws with simple plastic latches.

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