PC Specialist Hyperion Zen Review

Conclusion

Whenever you’re looking at purchasing a pre-built system there is always a little bit of a compromise between what you’d like the system to have, what you can afford, and thus which builder you should go to.

One of the things that we like about the PC Specialist rigs are that they always minimise the disappointing bits of the specifications, maximise the value you’re getting by spending the budget on important parts, and then build it with fantastic attention to detail. Perhaps better still, particularly with a water-cooled system that you can only buy online, the packaging and transport part of the equation is handled impeccably. I have personal experience of systems arriving in a disappointing condition, but throughout the umpteen PC Specialist systems that have graced the office, all of them have appeared in the same state of perfection as they left their factory or you would expect to find having built it yourself. Additionally you’re supplied with all the screws, fixings, cables, manuals and stuff that you would get if you purchased the parts separately, so changing the system down the line is simplicity itself. Should you wish to do so.

With the Hyperion Zen we think it will be a long time before you come across something that it couldn’t easily handle. The Zen architecture itself is as good as we keep telling you it is, with plentiful connection options and all the latest technologies on board to take advantage of cutting edge hardware. The Ryzen 7 1700 CPU has plenty of cores and more than enough clock speed to handle even stressful tasks like video encoding or rendering, whilst also making a mockery of the claims on some corners of the internet that the Ryzen CPUs aren’t great for gaming. What pish. Sure this has the best in class GTX 1080 Ti at its heart, and one kept cool by a superb waterloop, but there is no lack of CPU horsepower to keep it fed either as our results attest.

When you have a decent sized case with a full EK setup and RGB lighting the looks are hugely important, and the PC Specialist Hyperion Zen is a fantastic looker. Now, we aren’t massive keen on the huge amount of vents on the Corsair 740, but some people who’ve seen it loved it, so we’re not going to knock any points off just for a matter of personal taste. Step aside from that though and the huge side window allows the bright RGB LED strips to shine at their brightest, aided by the highly polished EK water blocks to really let your colour choice illuminate the world. If we had to be seriously picky, and we do, then pearlescent coolant we’ve seen in previous systems would be really good here, rather than the plain clear stuff. Again, personal taste plays a part, but because the reservoir has to be hidden around the back in this case then we’d like the coolant we can see to be more of a showpiece.

Lastly, as you would hope from a system with two radiators, the temperatures and noise levels are excellent. If you’ve only ever had air-cooled systems then the joy that comes from your system being as loud on your desktop as it is when you’re pumping polygons cannot be overstated. This is perfect if you share your room with other people who glare at you when you start gaming and forcing your fans to work hard and thus loud.

The PC Specialist Hyperion Zen shows what a seriously capable setup you can get from the latest AMD hardware, being equally adept at gaming glory as it is at video editing or the more mundane tasks of life. Aesthetically pleasing and with the always crisp PC Specialist build quality, it wins our OC3D Performance Award.

  

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