CCL Elite Spark Entry Level Gaming System - Just £249.99 inc VAT!

CCL Elite Spark Entry Level Gaming System - Just £249.99 inc VAT!

Not a bad little system this, good for internet gaming or as a secondary system and for the price it packs a mighty punch!



Overview

The perfect introduction to PC gaming and the ideal partner for a modern 19" widescreen gaming monitor. Able to run popular titles like World of Warcraft, Sims 3, Company of Heroes and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 with the detail turned up the CCL Elite Spark should not be underestimated. With an AMD Athlon X2 dual core processor and 2GB of premium quality memory the CCL Elite Spark System is also ideal for office applications, Internet use and media playback. The 250GB 7200RPM hard drive provides ample space for all your documents and media while a DVD-RW gives you the flexibility to create your own movies or backup your important data with ease.

Ideal for...

Internet Gaming
Office Applications
Web Browsing
Email
Music Playback
Video Playback
Viewing Photos

System Specification

CPU - AMD Athlon X2 5000+ 2.60GHz
RAM - 2GB CCL Choice DDR2 800MHz
Hard Drive - 250GB SATA Hard Drive
Graphics Card - ATI Radeon HD 5570 1GB
Motherboard - Asus M2N68-AM SE2 Motherboard
Sound - 5.1 Channel Sound (On-Board)
Optical Drive - 22x DVD+/-RW
Case - CIT2003 Black
Power Supply - 450W Generic
CPU Cooler - CCL Choice AM2 CPU Cooler

Buy Now - £249.99 inc VAT!

 

Does this all come pre-made or will I have to configure and make the PC my self?

 

Its a pre-built machine ready to go out the box if you purchase windows at the same time. We will install fully working drivers before the machine leaves us.

 

A decent spec machine for the cost, but I do wish retailers wouldn't produce systems with budget basic PSUs. Low-wattage OEM PSUs like those used in Dell/HP/whatever systems are fine, but the quality of electronics inside Colors IT [and various other companies like them] PSUs are absolutely ghastly, and eventually CCL are going to start receiving phone calls about lots of their PCs that went up in smoke. It can't surely hurt for business to put a low-end PSU that isn't going to fall to bits in a PC system.

 

Have been using the PSU for several thousand machines and it is perflectly fine for the job. We wouldnt dream of putting a high draw setup through one but you will be surprised to hear the generic PSU we use is not a typical generic unit but made by one of the bigger OEMs. The 450w unit can provide 19A on the 12V rail and is capable of running a 5770 just fine.

Our margin of safety on the PSU comes in with us using a considerably lower spec, we use Corsair CX 400W units as the next step up over this.

Don't underestimate the OEM psus, they are great for machines like this. Same saying goes for performance PSUs that they are not all made equal.

 

Wow thats pretty good and will do the job just fine, I too was wary of generic PSU's with their ticking time bomb life expectancy of 6 months but this will suffice.

 

Do not get me wrong the generic units are not the last word in quality, lack accessories and cable braiding. They also come with no cable management and a limited number of connections.

But - for the right system with the right components they are perfect.

 

Looks interesting. Can we get any benchmarks?

 

Its a basic entry gaming machine ideal for casual games such as Spore, Sims3, Sim City.. anything else by Maxis!

The system is limited by its 5570 but hooked up to a 19" screen it performs just fine and is in line with the overall budget someone would be looking at for the machine.

What benchmarks would you be interested in? Something like 3D mark is a bit pointless on this sort of hardware as it gives you no indication of how a game runs.

 

I'm curious, which OEM is the PSU produced by? 19A is above that of the worst low-grade units, but far below the 30-36A typical of other 450W units.
The issue with budget units is of course not their inability to produce much peak power, that is well-known, but that the low component quality that causes it results in a complete lack of protection of the output devices against failure - i.e. if/when they fail a few years down the line, they take a lot of stuff out with them, as happened with my Qtec 450W - wiped my 40GB OS drive, and destroyed my 200GB tertiary drive, in addition to obliterating a stick of RAM [lots of molten plastic all over the place] and a floppy drive. This is no isolated incident either, this is typical of such units. The destruction occurred when the total required load reached around 200-250W, not a great deal from a '450W' unit.

 

If you search for my comments on other forums under the username Yewen you will see some of my opinions on budget PSUs such as the Q-tecs.

The 450W unit we use is a SI part (system integrator) and designed for use in pre-built machines. It costs considerably more than the "cheap" units I could get my hands on.

CCL would not put the brand name against a product we did not expect to last, would do our reputation no good at all in 12 months if 6000 machines had gone bang due to being installed with a certain power supply.

The 450W unit we have is not the worlds most efficent unit but meets all current UK legislation and exceeds the EU directives for efficiency.

For what we use it for its perfect and does as good a job as a Corsair 650W TX unit would.

You can buy PSUs in for £3+ trade pricing, these are the units you avoid like the plague! There is cheap then there is a metal box with a plug..

 

SI parts are, in my opinion, the right way to do things. That's essentially what I was angling for It's always just a little disconcerting when the brand on the unit is hidden from the specs of the system.

 

Exactly, but when you list a PSU as for example a FSP450-60GLCS it doesnt mean much to most consumers.

 

Means everything to me though Seeing it's an FSP unit would be the difference between me telling someone not to buy the PC and telling them to buy it, but then, most people aren't like me I suppose, thankfully!

 

FSP make units of the very highest quality, they also make some of the lower quality units.

They will make whatever people tell them they want really... Its the model number thats the important bit!

 

FSP450-60GLCS eh? Closest I can find is the 460-GLC on the FSP site [though granted, SI units may not appear on the site] - interesting thing is, the 460-GLC certainly looks like an SI unit, and while it has a 16A 12V rail, that's one of two, the other is 18A, which makes it a much more powerful offering.

 

In a week or so will have some for you.

 

All the units on the site are the off the shelf FSP products.

This system above just for the record does not use the PSU model I quoted, it was just the first one I pulled out of my inbox.

 

Benchmarks 3D mark 06
http://i29.tinypic.com/10r5nd0.png

The CCL pre built computer did 21744., not bad for £250.

 

Run the CPC/Bittech benchmark suite on this PC.