NRG Typhoon i502

Last month we took you for a journey through the process of buying and building your own custom-specced gaming PC. If you’re the type to order something built-to-go, however, you still have plenty of options.
Some of the bigger name-brand PC manufacturers don’t usually steer their gear towards gaming but there are plenty of smaller suppliers that do. New Zealand has plenty of talented onshore companies making and selling pre-built gaming computers, but this month we received one from a company based across the ditch.

Aussie brand NRG, part of Altech Computers, has been building ‘Hardcore Gaming Systems’ since 2006 and a variety of NZ stores are now stockists of the products. Altech currently market five different gaming rigs ranging in price from $1,599 to $8,499 NZD – the unit we got to play with is called the Typhoon and retails for $2,399.
So what do NRG give you for that price tag? Take a quick look at the spec, then we’ll analyse what they’ve put together.

The CPU chosen here is probably the best value chip on the market right now. It’s effectively the same as all quad-core i7 chips except it lacks the HyperThreading technology – not a problem for a gaming rig as games rarely benefit from this. In fact, HyperThreading can even hinder performance in this area.