The X8a-SLIDC is built around ASUS’s A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 motherboard and AMD’s Athlon FX-60 chip – by far and away the world’s best platform for high-def, lurch-free gaming. The Mainboard is fed by a Zalman noiseless power supply and the processor is cooled by Zalman’s AeroFlower unit, meaning the machine is so quiet alongside less powerful rivals that you could believe it was wrapped in a special noise-cancelling duvet filled with feathers plucked from sound-deadening birds. Left at the Windows desktop, it’s no more noisy than a hole in the ground.

Our purebred is fitted with Gainward’s 7900GT Bliss Golden Sample “Goes Like Hell” Edition, which despite the idiotic name is actually faster than the 7900GTX thanks to tweaked clocks and 1.1ns premium memory. We have yet to find a game which makes it feel anything less than hydraulically smooth at any detail level. Even Oblivion is deliciously fluid.

All in all, the Xworks is the antithesis of your typical gaming rig: quiet, unobtrusive and almost anonymous, it lacks any circus-style gimcrackery and is all the better for it. It’s the PC equivalent of a Q-Car and we’re tickled pink with it.

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