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The Overclockers UK Cobalt Overclocked Gaming PC is a great showcase for the Coffee Lake Intel Core i3. It doesn't quite humiliate the more expensive processors in the comparison systems. But considering that the 8350K is at least £20 cheaper than the AMD Ryzen 5 1600X and £60 cheaper than the Intel Core i5-8600K, the fact it can keep up reasonably well or give better results in some titles is very commendable.
The Core i3 doesn't have the multi-threaded grunt of the six-core CPUs we tested against, but there's still a decent amount of quad-core grunt available from the 8350K, while it also offers impressive single-threaded performance thanks to the 4.8GHz overclock. This is evident in the very good showing in our synthetic and real gaming tests.
The fact that Overclockers UK has been able to use a cheaper CPU means you can get a more rounded system in other areas. We might have preferred a NVMe SSD and 2TB instead of 1TB of conventional hard disk space, but the GeForce GTX 1060 is a solid choice for 1080p and 1440p gaming, the chassis is stylish and well made, plus the whole PC has been put together with considerable care.
The price is just about right for what you get, too. The low power consumption and lack of noise are merely added bonuses. This may not be the absolute fastest gaming PC you can buy for around £1,200, but it's overall a well-balanced configuration that gives you plenty of PC for your money.
You can buy the Overclockers UK Cobalt for £1,234.94 (inc. VAT).
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Pros:
- Intel Core i3-8350K provides great 4.8GHz overclock.
- Attractive Phanteks chassis.
- Decent 16GB of memory.
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a great mid-range graphics choice for gaming.
- Low power consumption when gaming.
- Quiet.
- Reasonable storage allocation.
Cons:
- NVMe SSD would have been the icing on the storage cake.
- Ryzen 5 1600 offers 6C/12T for only a little extra compared to this i3.
- A 2TB+ secondary hard disk would give more room for huge game installs.
KitGuru says: The Overclockers UK Cobalt Overclocked Gaming PC really shows the leap that Intel has made with Coffee Lake, as its Core i3 now gives the last-gen Core i5 a serious run for its money. It's a very good system overall, too, with a balanced selection of components throughout.
