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By Mike Joubert 7 May 2010

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The ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card is a monster, both in size and performance.  This encased GPU is two stops away from being top of the current ATI line-up, and you’ll find this DirectX 11 supporting GPU tucked very neatly into Evetech’s Overclocked AMD Custom Built Extreme Gaming PC. The emphasis here is indeed on extreme, since the PC’s performance was simply excellent.

Overclocked CPU

We tested the machine with Metro 2033 and it ran the highest graphical setting without a glitch, also achieving a very respectable 1345.5 point on the 3DMark06 benchmark. The fact that Evetech overclocked the already powerful AMD Phenom II Black Edition X4 965 processor, normally running at 3.4 GHz, to 4 GHZ, of course also helped greatly with gaming performance. The processor ran at a very acceptable 60°C with Thermalright’s Venomous X fan doing the cooling.

Also inside

Our machine carried 4 GB worth of Kingston DDR3 memory, which was more than sufficient to help with multi-tasking. Evetech let us know that they are replacing this in the new machines with G.Skill’s delicious Ripjaws 1333 MHz gaming RAM in future models, which adds that extra bit of juice to help the overclocking run smoothly.
Our machine included a 500 GB Seagate SATA 2 7200rpm hard drive. All this came encased in the good looking Cooler Master Centurion 5 II multipurpose mid-range tower, powered by Cooler Master’s smart GX 650W gaming power supply. Evetech needs to be complimented on the neatness of the machine’s insides. Gaming PCs can look like a crow’s nest at the best of times, but all the cables were sorted and tied, all looking very respectable.
 
Issues

One issue we had was noise from the top fan which kicked up a racket at around 85 - 90° C (Evetech notified us that they've now disabled this fan). There’s also not much place for expansion on the BIOSTAR TA890GXE motherboard, but hey, you’ve asked for a high-end gaming machine and you’ve got it.
 
Evetech’s Overclocked AMD Custom Built Extreme Gaming PC is very respectable in all regards. Solid in performance with both the GPU and CPU to back it up, this PC will be well received at any LAN. From Evetech.co.za for a good R12 699  R12 499 (without an OS), if you pay by EFT. A 12 month guarantee is thrown in. All the specs are configurable on their website.
 
Written in conjunction with Jason Silva. 
PROS
ATI Radeon HD 5870, CPU overclocked to 4 GHz, 4 GB RAM.
CONS
Can get noisy, not much room for expansion.
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