Zoostorm PC Review (with AMD Vision A6-3500 APU)

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Exterior3. Interior4. BIOS5. Specification and Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: 3DMark 117. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage8. Synthetic: PCMark 79. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven10. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201211. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.512. Synthetic: Super Pi13. Synthetic; CrystalDiskMark14. Real World: Cyberlink MediaEspresso15. Real World: MKV Playback16. Gaming: DiRT 317. Gaming: Grand Theft Auto 4 EFLC18. Technical: Power Consumption19. Technical: Temperatures and Acoustics20. Closing Thoughts21. View All Pages

The Zoostorm brand may not be instantly recognisable to many but they have been around now for a few years. They are a UK based systems integrator who build budget friendly computers predominantly for the home and education markets.  Rather than sell PCs direct to the consumer however Zoostorm have a network of retailers who sell their PCs for them.

Zoostorm supply many of their computers without an operating system installed which will prove valuable if you already own a license.  Today we are going to look at a Zoostorm PC which is targeted at low-budget home users who want a capable multimedia system.  This system incorporates an AMD A6-3500 triple core APU featuring integrated AMD Radeon HD 6530 graphics.

Specification

• CPU: AMD Vision A6-3500 APU
• Motherboard: Asus F1A55-M LE
• Cooler: AMD Reference Cooler
• Memory: 2x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6530
• Power Supply: Zoostorm LPC-300C
• Optical Drive: DVD Writer
• Chassis: Zoostorm Custom Chassis
• Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 750 GB

Zoostorm supply the PC within a plain brown cardboard box which features some basic company branding.  Inside the box, the PC is sandwiched between two slabs of polystyrene for protection.

The included bundle is very limited but this isn't surprising considering the price point. In fact, the only items supplied with the PC are the software CD, user manual for the motherboard and a power cable.  It's reassuring to see that Zoostorm have used an Asus motherboard in the PC, though, rather than some questionable OEM brand.

Our initial impressions of the system are very positive.  The front of the chassis is made from plastic but has a brushed aluminium effect which gives it a sleek appearance.  The backbone of the chassis is constructed exclusively from thin SECC steel.

Behind a flap on the front panel we find a limited selection of connections which include two USB 2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks.  There are also two 5.25″ bays in the front panel of the case, one of which is populated by a DVD Writer.  The chassis also features an external 3.5″ bay behind the flap in the front panel in which you could install a card reader if required.

Moving round to the back of the system we can see a power supply located at the top, above the motherboard connections.  The selection of output and inputs is very limited and we are sad to say that there isn't even an HDMI output, let alone USB3.0 connectivity.

There is a reasonably large fan vent in the back of the case but this isn't populated by Zoostorm.  In fact, there are no fans installed in the chassis to generate airflow which is quite surprising.  We will see how this affects temperatures later on in the review.

The rear I/O panel features the following connections:

• 2x PS/2 ports.
• 1x VGA output.
• 1x DVI output.
• 6x USB 2.0 ports.
• 1x RJ-45 Ethernet port.
• Headphone, Microphone and Digital 3.5mm jacks.

Both of the side panels can be easily removed as Zoostorm has secured them with thumbscrews.  These feature plastic grips which are a lot easier to grip securely than bare metal.

Zoostorm has chosen to use the budget oriented Asus F1A55-M LE Motherboard.

In the centre of the motherboard we can see an AMD reference cooler sitting on top of the triple core AMD A6-3500 APU.  Zoostorm are using the integrated AMD Radeon 6530 graphics chip so there is no discrete graphics card installed in the system.  All of the expansion slots are unpopulated so you can add a graphics card such as the low cost Radeon HD 6670 to boost the graphics performance.

The power supply is a Zoostorm branded unit and is located above the motherboard.  This is clearly a ‘cost effective' OEM unit, though, so caution is recommended when adding additional components to the system.

Sadly, during testing we noticed that this power supply generates a lot of noise It is actually one of the loudest power supplies we have heard to date.

Zoostorm has installed 8 GB (2x 4 GB) of DDR3 1333 MHz memory in the system which fills both RAM slots on the motherboard.  The ‘Goldkey' brand are a value offering.

There is a single Western Digital 750 GB hard drive installed in the system and there is a room for a further drive should you wish to install one at a future date.

We are happy to see that Zoostorm has devoted some time and effort into ensuring that the cables are all well routed.  This isn't likely to affect airflow, though, as this would require fans to be installed in the chassis to begin with!

As we mentioned earlier in the review, this system is based on an Asus F1A55-M LE motherboard.  This features Asus' impressive UEFI interface which we believe is the best available on the market.

After pressing DEL to enter the BIOS, we are greeted by the simplified UEFI interface which provides some basic information and options for the system including fan control and boot priority.

Clicking the ‘Advanced Mode' button lets us access the usual array of configurable parameters.  The AI Tweaker section features all the overclocking options although we wouldn't recommend overclocking this system without improving the cooling of the APU and general chassis airflow.

The Advanced section contains a few more settings letting us enable or disable various functions of the APU.  On the Monitor page, we can see a variety of voltage and temperature readouts alongside some fan control options for the motherboard headers.

The UEFI also features a full selection of boot options and boasts Asus' EZ Flash 2 utility which lets the user update the BIOS very easily.

To test the system today, we are using a mixture of synthetic and real world software as well as a series of games.

Test System

CPU: AMD Vision A6-3500 APU
Motherboard: Asus F1A55-M LE
Cooler: AMD Reference Cooler
Memory: 2x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6530
Power Supply: Zoostorm LPC-300C
Optical Drive: DVD Writer
Chassis: Zoostorm Custom Chassis
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 750 GB

Software
Microsoft Windows Home Premium (64-bit)
PCMark 7
3DMark 11
SiSoft Sandra 2012 SP3
Cinebench R11.5
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink MediaEspresso 6.5
VLC Media Player
Performance Monitor
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Super Pi 1.5 Mod
CPUID Hardware Monitor
CPU-Z
DiRT 3
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

A decent set of results for a budget configuration but they indicate that this system isn't going to be ideal for gaming duties.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10 and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

Like before, the results indicate that the graphics performance of the system is quite weak.

PCMark 7 includes PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

A reasonable score considering the components in the system.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the stock settings for our tests.

While the integrated graphics do support Direct X 11, they didn't achieve very impressive results in this benchmark.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

A solid set of results for the budget PC.

Cinebench R11.5 is the newest revision of the popular benchmark from Maxon. The test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral “No Keyframes” animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores.

In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

The system registered close to 3x scaling, showing the benefits of having a triple core APU. The scores highlight that this system is clearly not designed to handle any kind of serious 3D rendering duty however.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth pace after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU.

In this test the test the system didn't score very well as the single threaded performance of the AMD chip is limited.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64.

Even though the Asus F1A55-M LE motherboard doesn't support SATA-600, the included Western Digital 750 GB hard drive doesn't come close to saturating the bandwidth of the SATA-300 port on the motherboard so this isn't much of an issue unless you're planning to upgrade the system with an SSD.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features:

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 1.09GB 720p MKV file (44mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version of this program.

We weren't able to enable hardware acceleration on this particular system as the video conversion failed every time we tried even though all the latest updates were installed.

It is clear that this system isn't ideal for the user base who need to edit videos on a regular basis as it took almost half an hour to convert the test video file.

Many people who have media systems will be familiar with the Matroska (.mkv) file format which is often used for high definition video. In this test we will be using VLC Media Player to play a 1080P MKV file while recording CPU usage using Performance Monitor.

The CPU usage was very high throughout this test but not high enough to affect the playback negatively.  As long as you don't have a great number of programs running in the background you shouldn't run into any issues.

DiRT 3 was released quite recently and has received a lot of praise from gamers and reviewers across the globe. It is the latest iteration of the Colin McRae Rally series, despite Codemasters dropping the Colin McRae branding. It supports DirectX 11 which enhances detail and brings a number of other visual enhancements to the gaming experience.

DiRT 3 is well optimised for AMD hardware but we weren't able to achieve very good framerates with this system as the A6-3500 only offers limited graphics power.

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City is a standalone compilation of the DLC episodes forGrand Theft Auto IV, containing both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony on one disc. It was released alongside the DLC release of The Ballad of Gay Tony on 29 October 2009 for the Xbox 360 and released on 13 April 2010 for Microsoft Windows and Playstation 3. It does not require a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play, nor is an Xbox Live or PSN account necessary (except for multiplayer).

The engine is still extremely demanding for this game – even now for the newest hardware. The latest version changes some of the rendering calls and is used partially within the latest Max Payne engine. The settings we used to test this game are displayed in the screenshot below.

The performance in this game is more heavily dependent on the CPU performance than graphics. The A6-3500 also struggled in this test.

We measured the power consumption of our entire test system at the wall while loading the CPU using Prime95 and the GPU with FurMark 1.10.1.

This system consumes very little power at full load so won't run up your electricity bill too much.  Idle power is also very low.

Earlier in the review we voiced our concerns about the cooling inside the this Zoostorm PC as there is a lack of airflow through the chassis.

For the temperature tests we left the system idling at the desktop and recorded the temperature after 15 minutes then recorded the temperature again after loading the system with Prime95 and Furmark 1.10.1 for 30 minutes.  Ambient temperature was maintained at 22 degrees C for the duration of the test.

Considering the poor airflow in the chassis the temperature recorded are good and wouldn't prove damaging in the long run.

For the noise level tests we positioned the meter 1m directly in front of the chassis.

We mentioned earlier in the review that the power supply in this system is exceedingly noisy.  These results verify our concerns. If you are in the market for a silent media computer then you should look elsewhere.

It is clear that Zoostorm are targeting this particular computer towards the budget sector, after all the specifications are basic and the system ships with a very limited bundle. When we look at the very modest £230 asking price however we do feel that Zoostorm will sell many of these units to students and people with restricted income.

The build quality is quite impressive considering the low price of the system. The chassis the company have adopted is a customised OEM design which looks attractive and will handle reasonable abuse over the years.

There are a few quality branded components within, such as the Asus F1A55-M LE motherboard and Western Digital hard drive. Sadly these are accompanied by low quality components such as the ‘Goldkey' branded, naked memory.

The Zoostorm PC would have scored higher however if it wasn't for the dire OEM power supply built into the system. It is the loudest unit we have heard in our labs and the fan doesn't seem to deviate from maximum RPM regardless of load. We would need to replace this before considering the Zoostorm PC for media center duties. Such a shame really.

We don't expect amazing benchmark results from a budget oriented system and the performance will be perfectly suited for surfing the web, office work and viewing online content.  It is not ideal for gaming as the integrated graphics processing isn't up to the task. That said, if you want to play games you could consider adding in an AMD discrete graphics card in dual graphics mode for extra power.

We have no faith in this power supply however, so long term we would recommend swapping it out if you were to add a discrete graphics card into the mix.

At a price of around £230 inc. VAT from Ebuyer, we think this Zoostorm Desktop is ideal for people who need a budget computer for basic tasks.  The specification is solid for the price and the lack of an operating system is sure to entice a number of budget-focused users.

Critically we don't recommend this system as a budget multimedia PC, due to the high noise emissions and lack of HDMI port. Two major weaknesses we can't overlook.

Pros

• Excellent Value.
• Attractive case.
• Generous specification.
• Good performance.

Cons

• Painfully loud power supply.
• Poor airflow.
• No HDMI or USB3.0 connections.

KitGuru says: An impressive budget offering from Zoostorm, let down by the high level of noise emitted by the power supply.

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