PCSpecialist Onyx Desktop Review (i5-14400F/4070)

1. Introduction2. Thermals, Noise & Power3. Game Benchmarks4. Synthetic Benchmarks5. Final Thoughts6. View All Pages

The PCSpecialist Onyx desktop offers decent performance when gaming at 1440p. Pushing the resolution up to 4K does lead to sub 30fps performance in some of the titles that we tested, which was to be expected when considering the RTX 4070 GPU.

Overall performance, out of the box, is held back by the restrictive power limits applied by having ASUS Performance Enhancement 3.0 disabled by default. Turning this setting on and allowing the CPU to use more power saw greatly improved performance during a Cinebench multicore benchmark.

This setting is disabled by PCSpecialist to help prevent overheating issues on system with high end processors. However, we feel the combination of the Core i5-14400F CPU and PCS FrostFlow 100 CPU cooler do not need this cautious approach and it does reduce performance. Any potential customer who purchases a machine that is setup in this way may not know to enable the setting and will have to settle for a rough 10-15% reduction in all-core CPU performance.

On a more positive note, the system has been put together well and care has been taken with cable management. The non-modular Corsair CX650 power supply doesn't allow for the tidiest of builds overall, but PCSpecialist have done a good job on presenting this system well. The pairing of the mATX ASUS PRIME B760M-A WIFI motherboard and Fractal Design Focus 2 case leaves quite a lot of empty space – which may look strange but provides plenty of space for airflow and any future upgrades.

It is good to see 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200 memory, however. 16GB was a standard in mid-range gaming systems for a long time so to see the total amount of system memory sitting at 32GB was a nice surprise. Then add on to that the fact that the system is running on a DDR5 platform only sweetens the deal.

The offer pricing of £1249 (until 21/04/24) makes this a relatively affordable way to get your hands on the latest generation of GPU, CPU and memory.

You can purchase the Onyx desktop directly from PCSpecialist for £1249 until the 21/04/24 HERE.

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Pros:

• Well priced.
• Tidy build and cable management.
• 3 year warranty as standard.
• DDR5 board and memory.
• Capable for 1440p and even some 4K gaming.

Cons:

• Only 1TB of storage.
• CPU performance hindered by stock BIOS settings.
• mATX board looks out of place in the Fractal Focus 2 case.

KitGuru says: The Onyx is a decent mid range PC featuring the latest generation hardware, though it could run faster with some tinkering in the BIOS.

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