Review: Commodore XX gaming PC

Commodore is back, reborn as a Dutch entity that makes traditional Windows PCs instead of its own designs.

The focus remains on gaming, and we've got the new company's top-end system, the XX, in for test.

Dubbed C-Kin, the impressive design is a collection of fancy metal panels made by electrostatically applying paint in a vacuum, which results in a smooth finish. Paint jobs are detailed and there are over 100 to choose from.

Quality isn't just skin deep though as Commodore has fitted high-calibre components throughout.

Intel's QX6800 Core 2 Extreme processor is accompanied by 2GB of Corsair's high-quality 1,066MHz Dominator DDR2 Ram. This is fitted to an Asus P5N32-E Nvidia 680i-based motherboard with an exotic assortment of copper heat pipes to keep the chipset cool.

A large aluminium heatsink cools the CPU and, although copper would have been better due to its energy transfer properties, the heatsink connects directly to the 850W power supply unit (PSU) via copper pipes. This means the PSU's fan also expels some of the heat from the CPU.

A fan is bolted directly onto the CPU heatsink's side, rather than on top, and cools the high-end memory modules. Cooling is further aided by a fan at the front of the system and a huge 250mm diameter fan on one side. In true modding fashion, blue light spurts out of these fans.

Two Pov-branded Nvidia Geforce 8800 Ultra's prove the XX's gaming prowess. They barely fit into the system and in SLI mode the system scored 13,855 in 3Dmark06 and 17,055 in 3Dmark05, the fastest we've ever seen in our labs.

At 1,024x768 the system scored 162 frames per second (fps) average in Fear. This system will have no problems with games at 1080p (1,920x1,080) resolutions. This truly is a high-definition gaming machine and deserves a big screen to take full advantage of it.

This Fear score was 42fps slower than we saw in a similarly specified Chillblast system using XP. In this game, like many others, a single card is just as fast as two cards. This highlights how poor Nvidia's SLI drivers currently are.

Commodore has fitted two ultra-fast 150GB 10,000rpm Western Digital hard disks in Raid 0 for ultimate performance. As if that wasn't enough, a third 500GB hard disk is also included.

Creative's X-Fi Xtremegamer soundcard is sandwiched between the two graphics cards and should appease surround-sound gamers and audiophiles alike.

Despite housing so much hardware, the case is reasonably compact. All Commodore cases come identically structured and sized, with one 5.25in drive bay occupied by a DVD writer. Two 3.5in bays contain a card reader and a rather flimsy panel containing audio, Firewire and USB ports.

The door hinge on our Commodore test system was less than impressive, though, swinging unevenly after just a week of testing.

With high-end systems such as this, the quality of the cooling and the neat cable management is very important. Commodore does a fair, if noisy, job at cooling but cable neatness was below par. When you remove the side panel the fan cable comes dangerously close to being pulled apart.

Vista Ultimate is the operating system of choice and Commodore provides a decent two-year collect and return warranty.

The price of the Commodore XX might be eye-watering, but it's actually very competitive for such a fast system.