Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima review
The Hellspawn Ultima’s SSD and overclocked CPU are tough to beat and make it a great system
Specifications
4.6GHz Intel Core i5-3570K, 8GB RAM, 24in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
In terms of performance, the overclocked processor is more than fast enough for everyday desktop tasks. It’s a quad-core model, so heavily multithreaded applications will run smoothly. This includes our multimedia benchmarks, and the Hellspawn Ultima managed to score 141 overall.
The AMD Radeon HD 7770 is an overclocked Asus model, so it should perform slightly quicker than other stock-clocked models. This could be seen in our gaming benchmarks, where Dirt3 produced an average frame rate of 41.7fps. Crysis 2 was significantly more demanding, only reaching 21.1fps. If you want to play the latest games, you’ll have to drop detail settings or disable anti-aliasing.
Wired2Fire sells the Hellspawn Ultima with a 24in, Full HD Asus VS247H monitor. It’s a matt display, so light reflections shouldn’t be a problem, with an even LED backlight and the option of DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs. The Keysonic keyboard is fairly generic, as is the Gigabyte mouse, but they are at least better than some bargain basement peripherals.
With an SSD and a heavily overclocked processor, the Hellspawn Ultima is definitely fast. If frame rates are your main concern, the similarly priced Palicomp Alpha Excite may be a better choice, but there’s little to fault with this system.
Basic Specifications | |
---|---|
Rating | ***** |
Processor | Intel Core i5-3570K |
Processor external bus | 100MHz |
Processor multiplier | x46 |
Processor clock speed | 4.6GHz |
Processor socket | LGA1155 |
Memory | 8 |
Memory type | DDR3 |
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 | 2 |
Free 3.5in drive bays | 5 |
Hard Disk | |
Hard disk model(s) | OCZ Agility 3 64GB + Samsung HD103SJ |
Interface | SATA3 |
Total storage capacity | 1,064GB |
Graphics | |
Graphics card(s) | AMD Radeon HD 7770 |
Graphics/video ports | DVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort |
Sound | |
Sound | Realtek HD Audio |
Sound outputs | 7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out |
Speakers | none |
Removable Drives | |
Supported memory cards | none |
Optical drive type(s) | DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD-ROM |
Display | |
Viewable size | 24 in |
Screen model | Asus VS247H |
Native resolution | 1,920×1,080 |
Screen inputs | VGA, DVI, HDMI |
Other Hardware | |
Keyboard | Keysonic KSH |
Mouse | Gigabyte M5050 |
Software | |
Software included | none |
Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
Operating system restore option | restore disc |
Buying Information | |
Warranty | two years parts & labour |
Price | £800 |
Details | www.wired2fire.co.uk |