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Chillblast Fusion Vantage review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £999
inc VAT

This brilliant PC hits the sweet spot between power, top-notch components and gaming performance

Specifications

4.8GHz Intel Core i5-3570K, 16GB RAM, 23.6in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

We expect chillblast to press every last bit of power into its Gaming PCs, and The Fusion Vantage has an i5-3570K processor that’s been overclocked to 4.8GHz, producing an overall score of 155 in our benchmark tests. That’s higher than the scores we’ve seen from some overclocked Ivy Bridge Core i7 systems.

Chillblast Fusion Vantage

It also has a powerful GPU, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 with 3GB of memory. It’s responsible for the PC’s phenomenal gaming performance, which gave us frame rates of 88fps in Dirt3 and 37fps in Crysis 2, both at the games’ highest quality settings. You won’t need to upgrade for a very long time indeed. It’s worth noting, though, that the graphics card makes an audible and somewhat annoying whine when you’re gaming.

The motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-V LX, and it has a reasonable selection of expansion slots, although it’s slightly imbalanced. It has three PCI slots, all of which are vacant, but only two PCI-E x1 slots, and one of those is blocked by the graphics card. There’s also a second PCI-E x16 slot, but it actually runs at x4. The PC also comes with a 700W power supply. It’s Chillblast’s own-brand PSU rather than a more prestigious name, but it should pack enough power to fuel any upgrades you desire. Also impressive are the four 4GB memory modules that provide 16GB of 1,600MHz RAM, more than enough for video- or photo-editing.

Chillblast Fusion Vantage

The motherboard has six SATA ports, two of which are SATA3 and are connected to the hard disks. The PC’s main system drive is a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD, which provides blistering boot speeds and plenty of room for applications. For data storage and less critical applications, there’s also a massive 2TB HDD. It also has two free 31/2in bays and three free 51/4in bays, so you can add plenty of extra storage.

Sadly, we’re not great fans of the case. It’s solidly constructed without being inconveniently heavy and has a well finished interior, but it doesn’t have adequate soundproofing, which makes it one of the noisier PCs we’ve seen from Chillblast. Even so, the PC isn’t distactingly loud when it’s running (annoying noises from the GPU fan notwithstanding), largely thanks to some fairly quiet case fans and a discrete Akasa CPU cooler. The wide vent grilles in the side panel and at the bottom of the case mean there’s little to stop fluff and dust getting in.

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Basic Specifications

Rating *****
Processor Intel Core i5-3570K
Processor external bus 100MHz
Processor multiplier x48
Processor clock speed 4.8GHz
Processor socket LGA1155
Memory 16
Memory type PC3-12800
Maximum memory 32GB
Motherboard Asus P8Z77-V LX
Motherboard chipset Intel Z77

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 2/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 3
Free memory slots 0
Free 3.5in drive bays 2

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) OCZ Agility 3 120GB + Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001-9YN164
Interface SATA3 + SATA2
Total storage capacity 2,120GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 3GB AMD Radeon HD 7950
Graphics/video ports DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

Sound

Sound Realtek ALC887
Sound outputs 5.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out, line out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards none
Optical drive type(s) BD-RE, DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 23.6 in
Screen model Asus VS247H
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Screen inputs HDMI, DVI, VGA

Other Hardware

Keyboard Logitech K260
Mouse Logitech M210

Software

Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty two years collect and return
Price £999
Details www.chillblast.com

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