Palicomp EXC7

This desktop computer comes as a base unit only – it doesn’t include a keyboard, mouse or screen. But what it does come with is a large amount of computing power.

The processor inside the Palicomp EXC7 (or the Excalibur X6 1055OC35 Base Unit, to give it its full name) is an AMD Phenom II X6 AM 3 1055T, which has been overclocked slightly for a speed boost.

There’s 4GB of memory, which is as much as we would expect to see from a modern computer, and 1TB of hard disk space. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD5770 model with 1GB of its own memory. Combined, they provide enough power to make easy pickings of any office tasks as well as more taxing tasks such as games and video editing – it performed very well in our tests for both.

The computer comes in a large-ish 'tower' case. The front panel houses the CD/DVD writer and has several spare bays for expansion. At the top is a panel with four USB sockets, an eSata connection, headphone and microphone sockets and the power and reset buttons.

At the back are the network connection, sound outputs (stereo and optical for surround sound), keyboard and mouse sockets, two Firewire ports and eight more USB sockets, including two that work with the latest and fastest USB3 standard.

There aren't yet many USB3 devices available, but its presence here is a definite plus point for future-proofing.

The graphics card has outputs for DVI and VGA monitors as well as an HDMI socket for connecting a flat-panel TV. Inside the case there's plenty of room for expansion, with two spare memory sockets, free PCI Express slots, drive bays and power connections.

We had some problems setting up the computer, which wouldn’t start when we took it out of the box. Palicomp said it had been having problems with components becoming unseated in transit. We were able to open the PC’s case and sit the processor properly in its socket which fixed the problem, but most users won’t be expected to perform this procedure. Palicomp has informed us that affected PCs will be collected and returned under the warranty.