Review: Arbico Silent 6880GT desktop PC

Exceptional performance without the need for noisy cooling

Arbico is an expanding British PC company created five years ago that now sells around 250 desktops every month.

Its latest design, the Silent 6880GT, uses a select range of components to attain near-silent operation.

An Antec Sonata III case is the starting ingredient. It’s a small ATX tower standing 42.5cm high with an attractive black steel construction.

While some cases use internal foam panels to absorb noise, the Sonata keeps noise down by using an efficient 500W power supply, a slow but variable 120mm system fan and a washable air filter to remove dust.

Removable hard disk caddies with rubber fittings to reduce vibrations are a standard feature of the Sonata III, but Arbico goes a step further by fitting its 500GB Sata hard disk in a dedicated Zalman hard drive cooler.

It occupies one of the 5.25in bays, below the DVD writer, and uses an array of heat-sinks to keep the hard drive cool. These not only prolong the drive’s lifespan, but also dampen the hard disk clicks heard during use.

A Core 2 Duo E6850 processor and 4GB of Corsair 800MHz DDR2 Ram sit at the heart of the Silent 6880GT. The CPU is overclocked to 3.4GHz, with a 0.075v increase available if the processor should need it. The Ram is overclocked to 850MHz to synchronise with the overclocked front-side bus (FSB).

Performance was very good, reflected by a score of 8,817 in PCmark05. Another benefit of using a dual-core chip instead of a quad-core is that it draws less power and generates less heat, especially when overclocked. A Scythe Katana 2 heatsink and fan kept the temperature down to 49°C under load, with just a whisper of noise.

The CPU drops to 2.55GHz when not under load, where we measured an outstanding 26°C on the die.
Gigabyte’s P35 motherboard, used here, has plenty of overclocking potential and provides good connectivity too, with the exception of a Firewire port. Two USB ports, one eSata and a headphone jack sit on the front of the case, while eight USB ports and surround sound connectors are fitted into the rear panel.

The motherboard doesn’t have a second PCI Express slot and you’re left with a single Sparkle Geforce 8800GT with 512MB 1.8GHz GDDR3 Ram, which has excellent performance and, in a first for 8800GTs, is silent due to passive cooling.

Excellent scores of 13,529 in 3Dmark06 and 19,810 in 3Dmark05 reflect the 8800GT’s pedigree. These scores are even faster than Alienware’s 3GHz quad-core, dual-8800GTX £2,400 base unit, proving that four cores aren’t always faster than two. Modern games at high resolutions are within its grasp, proved by the Silent 6880GT managing a just-playable 37fps in World in Conflict at 1,920x1,200 with high details.

Power consumption was relatively low, sticking to 91W when idling and peaking at 175W. Throughout a day of vigorous testing the PC sounded as if it was idling.

Our system came with Windows XP Home, which could only see 3.5GB Ram. Vista Home Premium is a free alternative, although Arbico says XP’s performance is better. If you want to see all 4GB Ram, a 64-bit version of Windows can be selected for no additional cost.

The high price reflects that quiet technology costs money. You can build an identical system for less, but Arbico configures it well, with delivery and a two-year return to base warranty included in the price.