Vigor Gaming Force Recon BT

Inside the case, the Force Recon BT offers a good amount of expandability with its two PCI slots and five PCI Express slots. The interior is generally well organized, but the layout needs improvement. The graphics system obstructs two card slots. One of the rails supporting the power sits in the way of the external drive bays; you'll need a screwdriver to remove the offending rail. Also, I noticed that our test unit was missing a couple of drive-bay trays.

The Force Recon BT provides plenty of ports, including eight USB, two eSATA, and two FireWire ports. Two USB ports, a headphone jack, and a microphone jack reside on the top of the case for easy access--the exact placement could be better, though, as the ports sit close to the center of the case top, which might be difficult for you to reach when the system is under a desk.

Compared with the test results from other gaming machines, the Force Recon's numbers won't blow anyone away. That said, it held its own in overall performance, with a WorldBench 6 score of 127. The computer's dual ATI Radeon HD380 graphics processors and 512MB of video memory yielded good (but not amazing) graphics performance in comparison with other gaming systems we've tested.

Though serious gamers likely won't be in awe of the Force Recon BT, Vigor has put together a respectable all-around gaming system.