A Bit of History and my Purchasing Rationale... you can skip this bit if you like!

Having managed to kill my old computer stone dead (who realised upgrading a graphics card could be so amazingly awkward?!?!), I decided that the time had come for me to get a serious gaming PC.  In the old days the "multimedia" options, mid-ranged and mid-spec, seemed a more econimnical choice and certainly cheaper.  However in the wisdom that comes with age (well, it comes sometimes...), I came to realise that this was actually false economy.  Though the idea of a "Gaming" PC might make it sound that you are not a serious PC user who's going to make use of the full range of possibilities of the computer, in fact this is tosh... a gaming PC will be able to do everything that any other type of PC can do, of course, and will do it better because it's far more powerful.  So I decided to go for a machine that would keep me going for 4/5 years without being so seriously outdated that it struggled to even run the more modern games.

This may also be over-optimistic of course - technology moves on apace and today's powerhouse is tomorrow's antique... but the iPower X9810 is so far ahead of my previous machine, which has only recently started to struggle with my gaming requirements (I'm not a truly hard-core gamer and I balk at the idea of buying games at full price, usually waiting for them to come out on budget or at least be reduced) that I believe my confidence isn't misplaced.


It's ... ... ... HUGE!!
 
The first thing that struck me about this machine when it game out of the box is its size - this is by far the biggest desktop PC I've ever seen!  So any prospective buyers would be well advised to make sure they have space first, though happily for us our computer desk set up was fine anyway.  I measured it as 21" (51cm) long, 8" (20cm) wide and a whopping 21½" (55cm) deep.   Not that it should put you off if you want a powerful machine, but it's something you need to take into account when considering buying it.


It Certainly Has Style...

The black casing and design of the machine is stylish enough in itself, but add a see-through side that let's you look right into the heat of the machine without having to open it up, coupled with blue lighting for all the main components and "iPower" projected by this light to show on the surface underneath in front of the machine, and you have a very eye-catching piece of technology.  Maybe it doesn't actually do anything for the performance of the machine, but it sure looks good!

Another thing that I immediately noticed, in stark contrast with my old Packard Bell Computer, is how quiet it is - you can barely hear it, and my wife suggested that maybe the lights mentioned above were simply so you knew it was actually turned on!  I've heard about some powerful  graphics cards being very noisy, but this one certainly isn't.  There are two fans on the back of the PC, presumably one oft he CPU and one for the graphics card, but they make barely any noise.

It has a power switch at the back as well as an on-off switch at the front, which is behind a lockable fascia.  The side opening up onto the internal workings is also opened by key.


But Does It Have Substance?

The answer to that is most definitely YES!   This is a beautiful machine but it's not all about being pretty, there's plenty of raw power in this beast.  It handled everything that I could throw at it with ease, every game at maximum settings without needing to pause for breath.  Admittedly I have few very recent games at the moment to try out on it, but my old PC was already struggling with a lot of these games.  In particular Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown looks beautiful and runs smoothly on the absolutely highest settings - this was a game that has somewhat flummoxed all my previous computers and graphics cards (my last computer ran it okay, with all the settings maxed out it only managed about 3 frames per second!).  LEGO Indiana Jones with all the effects turned right up looked fantastic - and the few graphical bugs that I'd noticed previously were erradicated.  The GeForce 9800GT is fully DirectX 10 compatible and has the most up-to-date shader models, so it'll be a very long time before anything comes out that it won't be able to cope with at all.

All the applications I've tried (AVG, MS Office 2007 and miscellaneous others)  worked fine and there was an appreciable improvement in the speed of resource-intensive operations.


About the Performance
 
Using the free version of benchmarking software 3DMark05 (this isn't the most modern and perhaps not the most up-to-date version of the software, but it's what I used on my old PC so I wanted to have a fair comparison), the iPower X9810 achieved a score of 14,435 3D mark scores for the GPU, 12,967 for the CPU.  The GeForce7500LE I had previously scored almost exactly a tenth of that for the graphics card.  (I can't remember what the CPU score was for the last computer).  The highest 3DMark score ever recorded was just over 45k, which must have been on a custom-built, over-clocked rig.  Needless to say the performance on the iPower X9810 leaves medium-range machines standing.

 
Core Technical Specifications:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 CPU (each core running at 2.33GHz)
4Gb RAM  (DDR2 running at 667MHz)
550Gb 7100rpm SATA HDD
nVidia GeForce 9800GT 512Mb to 1919Mb GPU
DVD RW R9

6 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x IEEE 1394 Livewire port
18-in-1 media card reader

Additional hardware included:

Logitech G5 Gaming Laser Mouse
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard

The mouse seems a rather unusual design but it feels natural very quickly, and has a few extra features, not that I'm particularly likely to use them.  The keyboard, like the computer itself, lights up if you want it too - every key on the keyboard can be lit up, though since I touch-type I often don't notice! - and there are 18 programmable gaming keys and 3 macro playback keys.   The keys are a tiny bit smaller than a normal keyboard, which caused me some difficulties at first, but I soon got used to it.  There are two additional USB ports in the keyboard, just in case you didn't feel you had enough already!

Software included (may be different depending on vendor / package):

Microsoft Windows Vista Premium SP1 (64-bit)
Microsoft Office 2007: 60-Day Trial
Microsoft Office SE 9
Carbonite
Norton Internet Security: 90-Day Trial
Magic Desktop: Secure Kid's Environment
Nero 8 Essentials
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6: 30-Day Trial
BT Internet

The bundled software isn't much to brag about, but then I didn't expect it to be; 64-bit Vista is fine, unlike many people I've not particularly had problems with Vista, and Works SE is okay but I already have Office 2007 (so the trial version of that was moot too).  I also have Photoshop Elements courtesy of a year-end Epinions bonus a few years ago.  I use AVG Internet Security so Norton got uninstalled immediately, and I use AOL so didn't need the NT Internet option.  Since I don't have kids and none will be allowed near my new technological baby for a very long time Magic Desktop held no interest for me, though I think that for parents it is a nice option to have.  Nero8 essentials is a DVD-burner with cover design etc options; not really likely to use that.  Carbonite is a free trial of an automated online secure backup system; probably a good idea... but I deleted it anyway.  I don't want anything else eating into my budget and I'll do my own backups when necessary thanks very much!


Negatives
 
There are very few negatives about this PC, though the hefty price (about £800 in the UK) is obviously something to consider.  Whether it's a design fault or just something wrong with the way our particular PC was put together I don't know, but the DVD drive seems too far back, making it slightly awkward to gets discs in and out of it.  I'm reluctant to mess about with my new baby so it's something I'm willing to put up with.  It did once refuse to boot up, causing me quite some level of panic - especially since it was only the second time I'd turned it on!  However this seems to have been a one-off - obviously if it becomes a recurrent problem, I will update this review.

Some might be a little disappointed that the memory is only DDR2 Ram, but it doesn't bother me - I'm not quite that much of a performance freak to worry what speed the RAM is being accessed at while in the middle of doing something!  The lack of a Blu-Ray drive (compared to it being a crucial selling point to many current similarly-priced gaming PCs) could be a negative aspect for some people; personally I have no interest in getting Blu-Ray, so it's not an issue for me.

 
Overall Verdict
 
If you're still reading this, I'll assume you're either an avid gamer or want a computer that is as "future-proof" as possible, though the term future-proof is an oxymoron in itself.  One thing I should have learned anyway is that for games you need to be sure your graphics card is a top-end model in its class - ones with GS, LE etc stuck onto the title mean that it's going to be a stripped-down mass-produced version with a fraction of the power similar GT / GTS / GTX models have.  I was aiming for a GeForce 9600GT model but the 9800GT is significantly superior, and will certainly keep me happy for quite a while.  I've never been convinced of the efficacy of dual-core and quad-core machines, but I suspect that as time goes on, programmers will make better use of their capabilities and they will more obviously out-perform single-core CPUs.  The RAM, HDD space and plethora of USB ports and drive spaces (there are spaces and rails for up to 5 hard drives /  CD/DVD-ROM drives at the front of the machine) are more than adequate.  The tower design is superb, and the machine is not only powerful but also very quiet.

In short, unless you're going to order a custom-built machine or make your own PC (if I tried to do that, I expect all I would succeed in creating is a crater), the Packard Bell iPower X9810 is among the most powerful desktop PCs you can buy at present.  The power comes at a price, but with the need to upgrade within a couple of years obviated (at least for me and, I suspect, most people), it's worth it.


Other Desktop PC Reviews

Packard Bell iMedia J2489 Desktop PC - my previous computer

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1177.5
Operating System: Windows