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It's been a while since I last looked at a prebuilt system, but the PCSpecialist Topaz Spark has certainly caught my eye. This gaming PC ships with a six-core Zen 4 CPU, RX 6700 graphics, 32GB DDR5 memory and a 750W 80+ Gold power supply – all for £999. Surely it's too good to be true? We put this system through its paces to find out…
Specification:
- Case: CORSAIR 3000D AIRFLOW MID TOWER GAMING CASE
- Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 5 7500F Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-5.0GHz/38MB CACHE/AM5)
- Motherboard: ASUS® PRIME B650-PLUS (DDR5, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) – ARGB Ready!
- Memory (RAM): 32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
- Graphics Card: 10GB AMD RADEON™ RX 6700 – HDMI, DP – DX® 12
- 1st M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/s R, 2950MB/s W)
- Power Supply: CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD
- Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
- Processor Cooling: PCS FrostFlow 100 V3 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
-
WIRELESS INTEL® WI-FI 6E AX210 2,400MBPS/5GHZ, 300MBPS/2.4GHZ PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
- Windows 11 Home 64 Bit – inc. Single Licence [KK3-00027]
Taking a closer look at the system, we start with the Corsair 3000D Airflow case. We've not reviewed this one but it's an affordable, compact mid-tower with a tempered glass side panel and vented front panel so we shouldn't have any concerns about airflow. PCSpecialist has fitted two 120mm fans in the front acting as intakes, while there's a single 120mm in the rear acting as exhaust, with some assistance provided by the 120mm CPU air cooler.
The CPU itself is a new one to KitGuru, as we've got the Ryzen 5 7500F. This is essentially a Ryzen 5 7600X, offering the same 6-core 12-thread configuration, but with slightly shaved down clock speeds and no iGPU. A six-core Zen4 CPU at this price range is certainly appealing so it'll be interesting to see how that performs in our testing. The 7500F is also cooled by a PCSpecialist-branded FrostFlow 100V3 air cooler in our system, but due to stock it will be replaced by a DeepCool AG400 ARGB cooler for any retail purchases. Both are fairly standard-looking 4-heatpipe tower coolers so I have no concerns there but it is worth noting.
Paired with the CPU we find 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 memory, running at 6000 MT/s. It has to be said the timings aren't the tightest, as this is a CL40 kit, however I think it is hugely impressive to get 32GB at this price point. It's arguably overkill for now, but the longevity this provides is pretty remarkable at the £999 price-point. When we initially spoke to PCSpecialist about taking this review unit they were planning on including a 16GB kit, but told us they could do 32GB for basically the same price – so why not?!
To provide the graphical grunt, PCSpecialist has opted for an AMD Radeon RX 6700, and we have the Sapphire Pulse model to be specific. This isn't the same thing as the RX 6700 XT, it's cut-down in terms of core-count and has 10GB GDDR6 memory, but we're still expecting it to do a very solid job once we get to our game benchmarks.
All that hardware is plugged into the ASUS Prime B650-Plus motherboard. We've not reviewed this one but it didn't give me any problems in my testing and taking a quick look into the BIOS shows most things left on Auto, though XMP and ReBar were enabled as we'd expect. The BIOS version isn't the absolute latest, as there was one newer update prior to the system shipping to me, but it was still from August 2023 so we can't knock PCSpecialist too hard there.
One thing not immediately visible is the SSD. PCSpecialist has opted for a single M.2 drive, and this has been installed in the primary slot underneath the integrated heatsink. Specifically we have a 1TB Solidigm P41 Plus that we have reviewed in the past. It's not the fastest drive in the world, but it will get the job done. That is the only drive in the system though, and with the sizes of current games, 1TB won't get you too far these days – but we appreciate there are some limitations with the £999 price tag. The good news is another M.2 slot is very easily accessible just underneath the graphics card, and this operates at PCIe 4.0 x4 speed, so adding another 1 or 2TB drive down the line would be a doddle.
Round the back of the case we can get a look at the power supply, a Corsair 750TXm semi-modular 80+ Gold unit. As it happens, the final spec of this system will actually be changed to a Corsair RMe series due to low stock of the TXm model, but that's actually an upgrade – PCSpecialist is clearly not skimping here, 80+ Gold efficiency is great at this price-point and 750W is more than enough for the current spec and will carry forward if you upgrade the CPU and GPU down the line, so I'd say it's a very shrewd move.
General cable management is fantastic as well. We can see everything has been tied neatly down behind the motherboard tray and nothing looks unsightly, while the GPU and motherboard 24-pin cables round the front have been tied together and tucked away as best as possible. I can't fault the overall build in general – nothing fell loose in transit, no cables were left unplugged or anything like that, it was a flawless setup experience.
The only other point to mention is relatively minor but if you like a bit of an RGB light show with your PC, the Topaz Spark won't float your boat – the only bit of lighting in the entire system comes from the RGB memory, so for the most part it looks pretty dark and stealthy. Some may like that, some may not, but that's what PCSpecialist has opted for.
