Custom PC - UK (2020-08)

INTELPERFORMANCE

INDEX

285%

SYSTEM

SCORE

325,705

VERDICT

Great gaming speed in a quiet, well-built machine with

solid component choices. However, Intel’s new CPU can’t

beat AMD across the board.

OVERALLSCORE

88 %%

PERFORMANCE

22 / 25

DESIGN

23 / 25

HARDWARE

23 / 25

VALUE

20 / 25

STAR-STRUCK

+ Excellentgaming

performance

+ Quietandwellbuilt

+ Classy,attractive

case

+ Quietoperation

CRASHLANDING

• AMDfasterat
  multi-threading


• NoPCI-E4 support


• Expensive

BENCHMARK RESULTS

GIMPIMAGE

EDITING

64,866

HANDBRAKEH.264

VIDEO ENCODING

728,399

HEAVYMULTI-

TASKING

272,347

dropped slightly in some

tests too. We’d be inclined

to leave it at stock speed.

Nevertheless, there’s

huge gaming speed here.

Whether you’re playing 4K

titles or handling graphically

intensive productivity

software, the Scan can

cope. It never dropped

below 52fps in our 4K

normal game tests, and if

you enable DLSS, you can

even run Battlefield V with

ray tracing on High without

dropping below 56fps.

The SSD is fine as

well, with decent read

and write speeds of

3,508MB/sec and

3,256MB/sec. AMD again has an advantage here,

though, as its latest platform supports PCI-E 4 SSDs that

are around 1,000MB/sec quicker in sequential tests.

The Scan is an impressive thermal performer too.

The CPU and GPU delta Ts of 65°C and 58°C are fine,

and the Scan is quiet too – its low rumble is one of the

most modest noises we’ve heard from a high-end PC

for ages. In a lot of rooms, you just won’t notice it.

Conclusion

Intel’s new CPU is a great chip for gaming and single-

threaded applications, but this kind of multi-core monster

is designed for tougher workloads – and this is where

Comet Lake falls down compared with AMD. If that’s

where your interests lie, then AMD’s chips are faster

and often cheaper – and they’re not exactly far behind

in games and single-threaded workloads either.

It’s a shame, because the Intel chip does have its

strengths, and the rest of the rig is superb – it’s great in

games, the component choices are solid and it’s built in

a strong, good-looking chassis. You can get better multi-

threaded value from AMD-based machines at the moment,

but if you want the fastest gaming rig around, this PC is

certainly a contender if you can afford it.

MIKE JENNINGS

Minimum Average

2,560x1,440,HighestDetail,TAA

SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 96fps 124fps

3,840x2,160,HighestDetail,TAA

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 56fps 69fps

2,560x1,440,UltraDetail,DX11,FXAA

TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 83fps 103fps

3,840x2,160,UltraDetail,DX11,FXAA

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 52fps 60fps

2,560x1,440,Ultrasettings,DX12,High DXR,TAA

BATTLEFIELD V

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 63fps 78fps

3,840x2,160,Ultrasettings,DX12,HighDXR,TAA

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 30fps 42fps

3,840x2,160,Ultrasettings,DX12,High DXR,DLSS

0 40 80 120 160

Scan 3XS Vengeance XTi iCUE 56fps 63fps

either – it only delivered minor improvements to our
benchmarks, and was slower in some circumstances.
It’s better news for gamers. The Intel CPU and
overclocked GPU helped the Scan to deliver superb
results – this PC was often 3-5fps faster than systems with
stock-speed RTX 2080 Ti cards paired with AMD CPUs,
such as this month’s CyberPower system (see p38).
Switching to the Scan’s overclocking mode saw another
frame or two added to gaming results, but the frame rate