Sion Roberts
Co-founder, Punch Technology. Specifying high-performance PCs since 1993.
I have worked in the IT industry since 1993, when I set up my first company with my business partner Ian Fraser. From the start my side of the business was the technical one: working out what goes inside a high-performance PC so that it does the job it was bought for, reliably, for years. That company grew into a UK PC brand that we later sold, and the two of us went on to launch Punch Technology.
More than three decades later, that is still what I do. I look after the technical specification of the systems we build, and every configuration on this site started as a question about what a particular kind of user actually needs: a photographer working with 60-megapixel RAW files, a studio rendering in V-Ray, a research team training models on their own hardware, or a gamer who wants high frame rates without paying for cores they will never use.
What has changed
I have seen a great many changes over the years, but none as rapid as the last twenty-four months. Demand for AI has skyrocketed, and with it demand for the components that high-performance PCs depend on: memory, storage and graphics. At the same time, high-performance PC sales have become mainstream. Systems that were specialist purchases five years ago are now everyday buys for creators, small businesses and home users, and the questions we are asked have changed with them.
That is why we publish what we learn. When we test a processor in Lightroom or compare workstation memory, the results go on this site so that anyone can use them, whether or not they buy from us.
How I work
We have kept Punch Technology deliberately hands-on. The people who specify and build the systems are the same people you reach on the phone and on live chat, and we use the software our customers use, so when you ask about getting the most from Adobe Creative Cloud, DaVinci Resolve or a rendering engine, you are talking to someone who has sat in front of it. We are still based in Merseyside, and every system is built, tested and supported from here.
“First class customer service. Sion really knows his stuff and was extremely patient with all my questions. I’m a professional photographer and the new PC has sped up my workflow no end.”
Robert Canis, photographer
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Get in touch
If you are trying to work out what a particular workload needs, ask. You can reach the team by phone, live chat or through our contact page, and if the question is a technical one it will usually find its way to me.
