[section_title title=Closer Look]Closer Look
Opening up with a general shot of the exterior of the Dominator A10 system, we have the featured PC Specialist custom chassis which has a slightly rugged look to it; not a bad thing given the name of the system is an aggressive one. Now that isn’t to say I don’t like the design, everyone has their own taste and although the case itself features a full steel and plastic structure, it feels relatively alright for a budget case.
This particular chassis doesn’t come with a windowed side panel, but it does have a patterned vent for increased ventilation inside of the system; not much hardware inside to show off and not much to worry about cooling wise either, hence the AMD stock cooler.
PC Specialist have included an optical drive in the form of a DVD-RW with the Dominator A10; a must for those who still strive on using optical media or even those who wish to hook the system up to their television; the spec would be perfect for an HTPC but not sure about chassis. We also have a LED bar across the centre with the PC Specialist logo featured as well.
Front panel connections wise, 1 x USB 3.0 and 1 x USB 2.0 are featured as well as the obligatory 3.5mm headphone/mic jacks; not to forget a power and reset switch.
The Dominator A10 has 2 x 120mm blue LED fans pre-installed in the top which act as exhaust fans; expelling all that nasty hot air out via the top panel, this is ventilated just like the side panel but the top features a honeycombed design.
Although I am not a big fan of *use once* PCI blanking plates, this is a common feature of budget cases with the PC Specialist chassis having room for expansion; 6 slots are available to use, handy to know if you ever plan to upgrade the system to feature a discrete graphics card. It is a good thing to know the PSU is mounted on the floor of the case and unlike the top, the rear exhaust is filled with a smaller than normal 92mm fan.
After taking the side panel off to take a look at the inside, I was greeted with the interior; not a lot to look at really and quite a good job there is no window included on this particular chassis; a miss-match of colours and of course pretty sloppy cable management. The cable management could be a number of factors, could have come loose in transit but I think overall, anyone trying to do cable management in a chassis with little “cable management” potential would have the exact same issues; so I won’t be too harsh on PC Specialist here.
As mentioned previously, the system is powered by a solid and reliable Corsair VS350 350w power supply with not much to power really in the way of components; the AMD A10 7800k is of course the centrepiece of the entire chassis, given the name of the system is the Dominator A10. If this case would have come with a windowed side panel, I would be writing off the choice of components even before I took a 2nd glance but given that there is no window, this isn’t so much of a big deal but those with OCD on this sort of thing will probably want to avoid this kind of setup; we know these kind of people exist! That being said, the ASUS A88XM-PLUS is a top choice for FM2+ in terms of M-ATX boards and the overall choice to included 2133MHz HyperX Beast (8GB) is surely a compliment; AMD APUs tend to have better performance scaling with faster RAM so kudos to PC Specialist for not packing this system off with cheapo 1333MHz memory.
The use of the AMD stock cooler could be considered a lazy move on the part of PC Specialist but given the stock clocks provided on the APU and given that there is little to no hardware to contemplate cooling in addition to the processor, I am not going to be picky because the use of the stock cooler actually credits this build; it keeps the price down!
Installed on the 1TB 7200RPM Seagate hard drive, is a copy of Windows 8.1 64 bit which is a nice touch given the low cost of this price; sure you could probably build cheaper yourself, but it is a completely different market. Not everyone has the knowledge to build their own system and some prefer to buy a “complete” package which includes warranty. That being said, so far the Dominator A10 looks exactly as much as it costs, quite cheap. The main point here though is value for money so let’s see if the PC Specialist system has enough clout to go with its meagre price tag of £399; certainly not a bad price for a system with an AMD A10 7800k APU in it!
