Chillblast Fusion Spitfire in Desktop PCs

Chillblast's i7 PC is overclocked to 3.4GHz, giving stellar desktop performance of 2.28 in our benchmarks. It's not quite as fast as the 3.5GHz Eclipse, but you can always tweak the clock speed yourself - and the Fusion Spitfire has much else to recommend it.

One obvious strength is the graphics card: Chillblast has invested in a Palit Radeon HD 4870, the most powerful card here. Coupled with the mighty i7 CPU, it should tear through 3D games for some time to come. In our tests it achieved 52fps in Call of Juarez with high detail settings at 1,280 x 1,024. Even when we turned Crysis up to a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 with very high detail, it still averaged 27fps.

Our 3D tests were a pleasure to behold too, thanks to the bright and colourful 22in DGM monitor. And where other suppliers rely on their monitors' integrated speakers, Chillblast throws in a pair of standalone Logitech S220s with a separate subwoofer. That makes it the most complete gaming system in the group, although die-hard gamers might prefer a larger monitor and more audio channels.

Of course, the Chillblast has its foibles. It isn't the quietest machine, hitting 41dBA when we drove it hard. Its idle power consumption of 220W was this month's highest too.

And since the Fusion Spitfire is based on the same motherboard as several others this month, connectivity is undistinguished; indeed, it has two fewer USB ports than the Eclipse. The 750GB Samsung SpinPoint hard disk is a capacious choice, but less impressive than the 1TB models used by Eclipse and PC Specialist. There's no Blu-ray drive either.

Still, trade-offs are the name of the game this month, and this Chillblast unarguably delivers the goods where it counts. And, as a bonus, it comes with a two-year collect-and-return warranty.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith