Published: July 2, 2025 | Source: PCSpecialist | Price: £1349 | Author: Von Blade

PCSpecialist Topaz Spark R Review

Conclusion

As regular readers will know, getting great value for money is something we’re always keen on. Given the current global financial climate it’s perhaps more important than ever. One way you can help yourself is to be honest about your needs. Is your monitor only a 1080 number, or have you got a 1440 affair? We mention this out of the gate because if you actually only have a 1080P panel, and don’t expect to upgrade in the near future, then the PCSpecialist Arc Nova S is £400 cheaper and just as capable. Partly because the Radeon RX 9060 XT is good but not spectacular, and partly because the Intel Arc B580 GPU is insane value for money.

However, maybe you like a little bit of a performance overhead. Or maybe you wish to have a little more performance in rendering and other creative tasks. Maybe you want some futureproofing, or just the assurance that comes from a company guaranteed to support graphics cards in the long term. In which case the PCSpecialist Topaz Spark R is excellent value. It’s very much gone down the middle route in nearly all the hardware choices, and it’s a testament to the Wakefield company that they’ve not been tempted to push the boat out needlessly.

Wise Move

Yes, you could go for a X870E motherboard, but why when the B850 has all the speed, reliability and connectivity you could hope for? The Ryzen 9600X is more than enough processor for anyone but the most render-intensive users. We know that the Radeon RX 9070 XT is a much better graphics card, but it’s twice the price. If you haven’t got a 4K panel, and on a budget you probably haven’t, then using the RX 9060 XT is perfect. If you can run Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-tracing at 1440 and still get over 60 FPS, you don’t really need anything beefier. Lastly the drive can make a massive difference to the responsiveness of your rig and the Samsung 990 Evo is exceptional.

Like all PCSpecialist builds the Topaz Spark R blends careful component choices with high build quality for a affordable proposition that goes harder than you might expect just from the tag. 1440P gaming splendour for £1349 is enough to win it our OC3D Value For Money award.