Velocity Micro Vector Z35 Mainstream Desktop Personal Computer

Velocity Micro certainly builds a high quality desktop computer system thanks to their selection of recognizable and reliable brand components for their system. The problem is that the overall component choices put the system at a major disadvantage in terms of performance. It is possible to get a desktop with a faster processor, better graphics card and more memory for less than what the Vector Z35 is going for.

8/13/08 - Velocity Micro has a reputation of building high quality desktops. This comes from their selection of internal components. They use name brands like Corsair, Hitachi and eVGA to name just a few. These components make their systems very reliable and consumers have a better idea of what they are getting.

With the use of such name brand components, the system has a higher overall cost than what other companies offer in their desktop PCs. A good example of this is the Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 processor. This is a high quality Intel processor, but it falls well behind the E8000 series dual core processors or Q6600 quad core processors offered by many of their competitors. This leaves the Vector Z35 at a disadvantage when it comes to overall system performance.

Storage for the Vector Z35 is what one can pretty much expect from a system in this class. The 500GB Hitachi hard drive provides a decent amount of storage and the 20x Lite-On DVD burner supports dual layered and LightScribe media. One unusual aspect is the use of a second CD-RW/DVD combo drive in addition to the DVD burner. Most companies have dropped using two optical drives as it is something many consumers don't really use. They do include a card reader for use with flash media cards that many companies are dropping from desktop PCs and an eSATA port for high speed external storage.

Finally, many people spend more for mainstream systems because they get dedicated graphics cards for tasks such as PC gaming. The Vector Z35 uses an eVGA GeForce 8500 GT graphics card with 512MB of memory. This card doesn't quite have the performance for PC gaming at the resolutions common to most desktop PCs. It would be nice to see Velocity Micro use a newer processor that offers more.

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