The Velocity Micro Vector Campus Edition (starts at $639; $999 as tested) is a space-saving midrange desktop geared toward students with a good feature set and solid performance. It's not the highest-end performer, and it doesn't deliver much beyond the essentials, but it's an attractive option if you're seeking value, particularly if you're living in tight quarters, like a dorm room. Its larger, slightly more expensive cousin, the Velocity Micro Vector Z35 remains our top pick by justifying its added cost with upgrades in every area. But the Vector Campus Edition offers a compact, quality build with plenty of storage and discrete graphics while saving you some cash.

Design and Features

The 2016 Vector Campus Edition sports Velocity Micro's NX case, which looks like a short, squat version of the MX3 tower the company used for the Z35. It's entirely black brushed aluminum, with a small blue Velocity Micro logo on the front and blue fan lighting on the top panel. It stands 13 by 7.75 by 12.5 inches (HWD), so it isn't particularly thin, but it has a small overall footprint. Given its name and intended audience, that size is a bonus for cramped dorm rooms or apartments. The Z35 is taller and a lot deeper at 15 by 7 by 19 inches, while the Dell XPS 8900 Special Edition, a similarly priced compact but gaming-focused desktop, is a little larger at 16.01 by 7.30 by 17.49 inches.

The process for opening up this case is a bit unusual. Typically you would remove each screw on the side panel, but all but one of the screws on this case are star-shaped Torx screws, which users generally don't need to remove. It turns out these screws hold internal mechanisms in place that allow you to simply slide the panel up and off after removing a single standard screw, providing full access to the interior. The NX tower can fit full-size expansion cards—even an Nvidia Titan X video card—though of course you'll need to be able to power them (the unit comes with a 500-watt power supply). The wiring job is done by in-house professionals at Velocity Micro, a bonus since it's neater than most users could accomplish on their own.

There are no open memory slots or drive bays, so the only way to upgrade is to replace. As far as memory, there's 8GB of DDR4-2400 RAM. You also get a 240GB solid-state drive (SSD) and a 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive, a combination that provides fast loading times and plenty of storage. The Z35 configuration we tested does offer a bit more (two 250GB SSDs in a RAID Level 0 array as well as a 1TB hard drive), but it is a more expensive machine.

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Port options are modest on this desktop, but it includes the essentials. On the rear panel, there are two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a DVI port, a VGA port, a DisplayPort connector, an HDMI port, and an Ethernet port. There are two more USB 3.0 ports on the right edge of the front panel, rather than on the top panel as we often see with Velocity Micro's cases. The system also features 802.11n Wi-Fi, and is covered by a one-year limited parts warranty, with lifetime phone support.

Performance

This Windows 10 system includes a 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-6500 processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 video card to go along with the 8GB of memory. The system scored 3,390 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, which means it places a little behind the Vector Z35 (3,499) but ahead of the XPS 8900 Special Edition (3,088). Multimedia test results were also strong, with the timed Photoshop and HandBrake test results coming in just behind those of the Z35.

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Though the graphics card isn't cutting-edge, 3D and gaming performance were above par. The Vector Campus Edition scored 16,004 on the 3DMark Cloud Gate test and 2,779 on the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme test. On these tests, the Z35 scored 17,230 and 3,534, respectively, while the 8900 Special Edition scored 16,915 and 4,791. The Vector Campus Edition reached more than 100 frames per second (fps) on the Heaven and Valley tests using medium quality settings, and was able to stay above 30fps on these same tests when we increased the graphics details and upped the resolution to 1080p. It is certainly capable of gaming at high settings, and though the newest games may require you to turn down some settings, this is not bad at this price.

Conclusion

With a compact build, a reasonable price, and good performance, this Velocity Micro Vector Campus Edition is a strong choice if you're in the market for a general-purpose desktop. It's a jack-of-all-trades thanks to the components, which makes it a good fit for students, as does its space-saving size. Professionals or hard-core gamers will want something more specialized, and the Velocity Micro Vector Z35 justifies its price increase with more memory, higher storage capacity, and a better graphics card. But the Vector Campus Edition is a good alternative if you don't need the upgrades and don't have the room for a larger tower.