Review: Zoostorm 7260-0019 desktop PC Introduction and design Zoostorm is one of the few UK-based desktop PC manufacturers that has survived (and thrived) in the tablet era. It was known back in its heydays as PCNextday but changed its main brand, Zoostorm, in a move similar to what RIM did with BlackBerry. The company now sells its products essentially through third parties like Ebuyer or Amazon and the 7260-0019 desktop PC which Ive been sent is actually one of its most expensive desktop PCs at …. £450 (about $700, AU$750). Out of the box, the 7260-0019 is as boring as its name sounds. The base unit is a grey mid-tower with a black facia that houses two USB ports and two audio connectors. The power button is oddly located on the top edge – not an ideal location – and theres a door hiding the optical drive. The PC comes with the usual accessories – wired keyboard, wired optical mouse, Windows, a manual and a power cable. The input peripherals are decent, the keyboard keys provide with a good feedback and the mouse is a comfortable basic model. Lift the base unit and it feels almost too light. In fact, most of the interior of this computer is empty which means a few things. Firstly, air circulates more freely in the case, making cooling easier. Theres also a lot of expansion capabilities should you want to add a graphics card or a couple of hard drives. Zoostorm made it easy to pry open the tower thanks to four screws; unscrewing them frees two side rather flimsy panels, one of which is partly filed with holes to ease ventilation, a Windows certificate of authenticity is attached to the other. The tower has two free 3.5-inch bays and a free 5.25-inch one. Inside the beast The 7260-0019 is a powerful reminder of how far computing has evolved over the last decade. When we last reviewed a Zoostorm PC, back in 2006, it had a single core processor, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. Eight years later and theres a quad-core processor, 16GB of RAM (on two DIMM slots) and a 3TB hard disk drive. The processor is an A10-7850K accelerated processing unit (codenamed Kaveri). It shares some DNA with the AMD chips inside both the Xbox One and the Sony PS4 as both its CPU and GPU shares the system memory. Launched in January, it has a base core clock speed of 3.7GHz, 4MB L2 cache and eight graphics compute units clocked at 720MHz. The graphics sub-system is based on the Hawaii GPU architecture that powers AMDs discrete Radeon cards. A powerful mix of hardware that shows in the benchmarks – more on that later. The microATX motherboard – a Gigabyte GA-F2A78M-DS2 - that houses the processor and the A78 chipset. It also sports a GbE Ethernet connector (courtesy of Realtek), three audio jacks – supporting a 5.1 integrated sound solution, DVI and D-Sub ports (both of which can be used simultaneously in a dual monitor mode), a PS2 connector and six USB ports (two of them USB 3.0). At least one corner has been cut though, with a 250W PSU being chosen, that is unlikely to be enough to power a decent graphics card. That a shame given that you could theoretically add a second AMD video card (an R7 200 model) and improve the graphics performance of your rig significantly. Specification, performance and verdict All in all, the Zoostorm 7260-0019 is a decent mid-range system that is capable of handling all mundane tasks and then some, with power to spare for a foreseeable future. It is not aesthetically appealing but if it is bound to sit under a desk, then that wont be an issue. Spec Sheet CPU: AMD A10-7850K clocked at 3.7GHz Graphics: ATI AMD Radeon R7 (1GB shared) RAM: 16GB dual-channel DDR3 (clocked at 800MHz) Storage: Western Digital 3TB WD30EZRX (5400RPM, 64MB cache) Optical Drive: Literon iHAS122E 22x DVD writer Ports: 8 USB ports (two USB 3.0), GbE, D-Sub, DVI, PS2, Audio Connectivity: four SATA 6Gbps, one PCI-e x16, one PCI-e x1 and one PCI slot Size: 375 (h) x 180 (w) x 360mm (d) (14.76 x 7.08 x 14.17 inch) Performance The 7260-0019 provided with a more than adequate performance during use. I was pleased with the fact that Zoostorm chose not to pack the PC with a lot of bloatware as some other rivals would normally bundle. It did perform well in all our benchmarks even the high end ones thanks to its Radeon graphics. 3DMark: Fire Strike: 1345; Sky Diver: 5081 Cloud Gate: 6303, Ice Storm: 61597 PCMark 8: 2543 (home), 2719 (work), 2197 (creative) Cinebench: CPU: 308cb, graphics: 39.77fps Verdict Put it simply, theres not much to complain about the Zoostorm 7260-0019. Had I been asked to build a balanced system that can handle both everyday office tasks and the occasional game, I would probably have ended with roughly the same parts and the same outlay. The added advantage here is that someone else has built the parts and installed the operating system. Throw in the unexpected goodies (cashback and free game) and youve got all the ingredients of a genuinely compelling product. We liked The performance of the Zoostorm 7260-0019 is similar to a low-end workstation albeit at a much lower entry point and although it doesnt have the expansion capabilities or the build quality of a Dell Precision or a Lenovo Thinkstation, it offers more than enough to make the average gamer/computer user content. I love the fact that you dont need a screw driver to take it apart plus how light and how quiet it is. Zoostorm also sells the same system with Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.1 for the same price. We disliked The 250W power supply is not powerful enough if you want to add a mid-range graphics card if youre thinking of converting it into a gaming rig. I would prefer to see a HDMI port in lieu of the D-Sub or the DVI input. As for the PCI and the PS2 connectors, they no longer belong in a modern computer. Other minor niggles include the optical drive door, the location of the power button which is not intuitive, the highly reflective (and distracting) front facia which is a real fingerprint magnet. Final verdict Pleasantly surprised is how I would describe my encounter with my first Zoostorm. It didnt wow me but for the price, £450 at Ebuyer at the time of writing, its a hard-to-beat, well-balanced package. Until the end of August 2014, Zoostorm is offering £100 trade-in or, if you dont have an old PC to swap, £40 cashback – which brings the cost of the computer to just under £410. Terms and conditions can be found here and here. Zoostorm also bundled a free downloadable copy of the action game Thief, courtesy of AMD and worth £27; theres no indication as to when that promotion ends so you might want to check with Zoostorm directly.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 09:33:19 +0000
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