Medion Gaming PC System P5370E review – is Aldi's PC worth it?

For aspiring gamers looking to upgrade, Aldi probably isn’t the first retailer that springs to mind. But the Australian arm of the German company Medion is aiming to change all that with the Medion Gaming PC System P5370E — a high-spec machine that’s priced at a surprisingly-competitive AU$1,999. So what exactly does it have under the hood?  

The P5370E packs plenty of gaming grunt, with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 featuring 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. It’s backed up by an Intel Core i7-6700 CPU, which can boost from 3.4 up to 4 GHz. The PC also has a decent (but not quite outstanding) 16GB of DDR4 memory, alongside a speedy 256GB M.2 SSD and a handy 2TB secondary HDD for general storage. The system runs Windows 10 Home (64-bit), and for easy network connectivity as well as lag-free gaming, it has both a Gigabit Ethernet port and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. All the tech is squeezed in simple but reasonably stylish case that’s also quite compact. Actually poking about inside the machine reveals a spare RAM slot (making future upgrades easy), and a range of mostly unbranded OEM parts. 

Gaming and performance

While we’d perhaps wish for some extra RAM, the P5370E has quite powerful specs in today’s market, and Medion’s mercifully shipped it relatively free of bloatware. For gaming, the GeForce GTX 1070 is capable of some real heavy lifting, and will happily plow through all the latest titles with all the bling at speedy 60fps+ frame rates. While the machine does its best work at 1080p resolutions, it’s still more than happy to have a play at 2K or even up to 4K, provided detail levels are backed off slightly.  

This system’s also quite capable of running a VR headset, and scores a 10.8 (Very High) on Steam’s inbuilt VR benchmark. It’s worth noting that our review unit arrived with a slightly out of date Nvidia driver (and no GeForce Experience installed) so you’ll want to grab the latest version yourself. The quad-core Intel Core i7-6700 is no slouch either (and if anything, over spec for the GPU) and ensures that the P5370E can handle tasks such as video editing with aplomb. The included keyboard and mouse are basic but serviceable, and we’d really be aiming to upgrade them for some name-brand alternatives.  

How does it compare?

More RAM, a bigger SSD, better keyboard and mouse or an unlocked K-series CPU are all things that it would, perhaps, have been nice for the P5370E to have, but when you consider the price, it is definitely above average in terms of value.  

Going through the hardware list, you’d have to shop pretty hard to buy all these parts for under $1,999 — and then you’d still have to assemble it yourself. Comparing it to some of our favourite Australian gaming-oriented PC builders, the Medion Gaming PC offers as good, if not better, specs than most of the competition. Its real drawback is that it can’t be customised before purchase, but considering it has the major bases covered, that’s not likely to bother the audience this system’s aimed at. The P5370E is backed by a 2-year warranty, which is pretty much standard on desktop PCs.  

The P5370E releases November 2.

Benchmark results

3DMark: Cloud Gate: 28897; Sky Diver: 29806; Fire Strike: 13918
Cinebench Graphics: 127.4 fps, CPU: 801 points
GeekBench: 4456 (single-core); 13019 (multi-core)
PCMark 8 (Home Test): 4190 points
The Division (1080p, Ultra): 76.7 fps; (1080p, Low): 163.6 fps
Grand Theft Auto V (1080p, Ultra): 58.63 fps; (1080p, Low): 156.99 fps