Excel’s PE-590 ought to have been a cracker of a system, combining the very highly rated Core i5-2500K cranked to 4.5GHz with a high-end GeForce GTX 590 graphics card. And in terms of performance, it doesn’t disappoint. Topping 103fps on AvP at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, there’s enough grunt here to handle any game at any quality setting.
The reason we like the Core i5-2500K so much is that when it’s overclocked, there’s little difference between it and a Core i7-2600K at the same speed — on our application tests, it’s little more than 4% difference and you save about $100. Excel has put that cash towards a GTX 590. It’s not a cheap card, though, costing the best part of $900 retail, and it comes at the cost of some storage, with a smaller 1.5TB hard drive, no SSD and a basic DVD burner on offer here. There’s no digital TV tuner either, although you do get wireless networking.
Still, if you want the fastest gaming PC you can buy for $2,000, this is it.
