PC Specialist Vanquish X79 review

Six of its eight DIMMs sockets are also vacant and easily accessible, and the Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard can handle a maximum 64GB of memory. The two hefty graphics cards mean both PCI Express x1 slots are blocked, but there are two more PCI Express x8 sockets free in between the GPUs. Rounding off the connections are four free SATA ports (two at 3Gbits/sec and two at 6Gbits/sec), and the bottom of the motherboard has three free USB 3 headers.

The level of performance calls for plenty of cooling. Two 120mm fans in the front of the machine propel cool air into the chassis, and two 120mm fans in the roof of the case pull it out. The watercooling unit on the CPU has its own 120mm spinner, and each graphics card also has two 70mm fans of its own.

That’s a lot of fans, so it’s no surprise that the processor idled at 45°C and peaked at a respectable 79°C despite the large overclock. Both graphics cards hit peak temperatures of 82°C, a fine distance below their danger threshold.

That cooling, though, also provides the PC Specialist’s biggest headache. The idle rumble it emits is not too bad, but the two graphics cards with four fans between them, and all those other fans in the case, mean it hit an uncomfortable volume during our stress tests and gaming benchmarks. You’ll want a set of speakers to drown it out when you’re gaming.

The PC Specialist does have its flaws, then, but they’re mainly a result of it being a frighteningly powerful system. It costs a bit more than the Chillblast and it’s certainly noisier, but it’s also much faster in games. As long as you can drown that noise out, the Vanquish X79 is an impressive high-end gaming package.