Chillblast Fusion Whisper review
Quiet, quick and with plenty of room for expansion. An excellent low-noise PC
Specifications
4.2GHz Intel Core i5-2500K, 8GB RAM, N/A display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
The PC can’t match the Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire in our benchmarks, with its monstrous overclock to 4.8GHz, but it is significantly quieter. You’d be able to edit high-definition video all day on the Fusion Whisper without even noticing it was under your desk. It also can’t match the XFire in games – 53.6fps in Crysis at 1,920 x 1,080 and High detail is 20fps slower than the XFire’s AMD Radeon HD 6970 could manage, but the Fusion Whisper will still shrug off any games you throw at it unless you decide to game on three monitors. The HD 6970 is also a noisier card than the GeForce 560 Ti, so probably wouldn’t fit with the Fusion Whisper’s ethos.
Inside the PC all is tidy, and you have some room for expansion, with spare PCI Express x16 and x1 slots, and a couple of free PCI slots. Storage-wise you have a 1TB Samsung hard disk and a Blu-ray ROM and DVD writer combo drive, and if you need more space you can take advantage of some of the seven spare 3.5″ drive bays and four free SATA3 ports on the motherboard. There are also two free memory slots should you wish to fit yet more RAM – the motherboard can take up to 32GB.
Chillblast will supply the Fusion Whisper with a 24″ HDMI Asus monitor for £143, which would take the price up to £982 including VAT. This makes it around the same price as the Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire (and almost exactly the same price once you’ve thrown in a basic keyboard and mouse). It’s not quite as quick in 2D applications or games, but has the advantage of being very nearly silent. If you want performance without whoosing noises, the Fusion Whisper is a great buy.
Basic Specifications | |
---|---|
Rating | ***** |
Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K |
Processor external bus | 100MHz (Sandy Bridge DMI) |
Processor multiplier | x42 |
Processor clock speed | 4.2GHz |
Processor socket | LGA1155 |
Memory | 8 |
Memory type | PC3-10700H |
Maximum memory | 32GB |
Motherboard | Asus P8P67 |
Motherboard chipset | Intel P67 |
Ports | |
USB2 ports (front/rear) | 2/10 |
Firewire ports (front/rear) | 0/1 |
eSATA ports (front/rear) | 1/1 |
Wired network ports | 1x 10/100/1000 |
Wireless networking support | Bluetooth |
Internal Expansion | |
Case | midi tower |
PCI-E x1 slots (free) | 2 (1) |
PCI-E x16 slots (free) | 2 (1) |
Free Serial ATA ports | 4 |
Free memory slots | 2 |
Free 3.5in drive bays | 7 |
Hard Disk | |
Hard disk model(s) | Samsung HD103SJ |
Interface | SATA2 |
Total storage capacity | 1,024GB |
Graphics | |
Graphics card(s) | Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti Phantom |
Graphics/video ports | 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA |
Sound | |
Sound | Realtek ALC892 |
Sound outputs | 7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out, stereo line out, mic in |
Speakers | none |
Removable Drives | |
Supported memory cards | none |
Optical drive type(s) | DVD+/-RW +/-DL BD-ROM |
Display | |
Screen model | none |
Native resolution | N/A |
Screen inputs | N/A |
Other Hardware | |
Keyboard | N/A |
Mouse | N/A |
Software | |
Software included | none |
Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
Buying Information | |
Warranty | two years collect and return |
Price | £839 |
Supplier | http://www.chillblast.com |
Details | www.chillblast.com |