Polywell ITX-Z6800: Great Meat; Needs Potatoes - tathamferamplon

At a Peek

Skilful's Rating

Pros

Stately unspecialised performance
Diverse rear connectivity

Cons

Lack of Blu-Ray limits media center functionality

Our Verdict

This big-fast system of rules costs a pretty penny for just that: Where did all the other features go?

For a organisation priced at a cool $1000 (technically, $999 as of 1/3/2012; the Price may drop), you'd expect a desktop PC–and a compact PC, no little–to come with some bells and whistles. But the simply sound we hear coming from Polywell's ITX-Z6800 is unmatched of raw performance. Don't get us improper: We love a speedy system. However, the market is cluttered with Compact and Budget PC contenders that offer a good deal more than what the ITX-Z6800 delivers in total.

Polywell stashes the lower-power variant of Intel's Congress of Racial Equality i7-2600 CPU into this 8-by-8-by-3.5-inch organisation. This gives the ITX-Z6800 a trifle of an vantage on cooling due to the lower might draw, as the i7-2600S CPU runs at 2.8GHz versus the i7-2600's full 3.4GHz, helping this concise PC run a little quieter during normal surgical process. Just, as hinted above, the ITX-Z6800 is no slouch in the performance department: Intel's Turbo Boost boast allows the i7-2600S to jump capable a clock speed of 3.8GHz when incumbent. And this flexibility actually comes across on our WorldBench 6 suite of tests, where the ITX-Z68's speeds deliver a superhigh seduce of 147.

Here's the trouble, though: Other inexpensive systems hit the general execution ball a bit further, and do so with more features than the ITX-Z6800 brings to the table. To put it other way, the Price-to-performance ratio of this model is a bit out of line. And because of its compact size, the ITX-Z6800 isn't identical friendly on the inwardly, plane for tough tinkerers.

One area where the social unit does manage to surpass is in connectivity–on the nates, that is, as exclusive unmatchable sad USB port is on the front. Impudent the box around, nevertheless, and you'll be treated to no less than four USB ports, cardinal USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, a SPDIF optical port, one gigabit ethernet port, a VGA port, and integrated 7.1 besiege sound. That would amount to an ideal frame-up for a parlour PC, except for the ITX-Z6800's high price tag and its down the stairs-average repositing (500GB).

So, to tally the wins, the ITX-Z6800 really nails it for general-purpose performance and connectivity. It loses in the graphics department–we didn't mention that earlier, because there's itty-bitty Charles Frederick Worth mentioning, only the organization can't game for beans. We had to telephone dial our Pictured Tournament 3 benchmark down to a resolution of 1024-by-768 (happening high quality) to achieve playable frame rates, and that's just not an accepted graphical barter-off for the modern gamer.

Other losings revolve about the organization's Leontyne Price and what you'rhenium acquiring for what you're putting in: no Blu-beam player (you get a DVD-CDRW combo parkway rather), below-average storage capacity, frustrating upgradability, and less general performance than what Thomas More inexpensive systems offer. Shoot, our ITX-Z68, as reviewed, didn't even number with a mouse or a keyboard.

This is a great example of why it's important to look beyond a system's speeds when picking a new PC to buy in, as clock speeds and performance scores are antitrust single measurements. They're one side of a die (arguably, two), but they arrange nothing to tell you whether you're acquiring the best system for your investiture. You have to think holistically on the turn down end of the Budget Personal computer spectrum. And when you do, Polywell's ITX-Z68 sportsmanlike doesn't pan stunned arsenic a great choice.