Wired2Fire Hellspawn review

Wired2Fire is a new name in the PC Pro Labs but, with the most ambitious overclock we've ever seen, its creatively named Hellspawn PC looks set to crash the performance party. It may only have an Intel Core i7 920 processor inside - a part that's increasingly common these days - but its clock speed of 3.8GHz is indeed a rare sight.

The newcomer blitzed our application benchmarks, delivering an overall score of 2.58, which included mammoth scores of 2.73 and 3.1 in our 2D graphics and multi-tasking tests respectively. It's the biggest score we've seen, outstripping even the 2.44 managed by our Ultimate PC Labs winner, the Scan 3XS Black Widow, which is priced at £3,599 exc VAT. In simple terms, there's little software on the market today that will tax the Hellspawn.

This PC's speciality isn't just raw processing power, though - there's also plenty on offer for gamers. An ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card sits in pride of place and, as with the CPU, it's been overclocked. The 850MHz core clock now sits at 930MHz, and the 975MHz GDDR5 memory now runs at 1,100MHz.

The result is fantastic gaming performance. In our more demanding Crysis benchmarks, the 1,680 x 1,200 high-quality test was despatched at 49fps, with the HD 4890 managing a playable 30fps in our very-high quality benchmark at the same resolution. Only when we upped the resolution to 1,920 x 1,200 did the Hellspawn struggle, running at a near-playable 25fps. Nevertheless, it's a card that should satisfy the most hardcore of gamers.

The rest of the specification is suitably high-powered, too, with 6GB of DDR3 RAM running at 1,333MHz, a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint hard disk boasting 32MB of buffer and a Blu-ray reader for HD movie playback.

While the benchmark results prove that this is one of the fastest machines we've ever seen, you wouldn't know it to look at the chassis. The Antec Three Hundred is a competent if unspectacular case and doesn't come with any of the fancy lights that we associate with other expensive systems, especially those from CyberPower.

Inside, though, it's well organised. The hulking Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink takes up a lot of room, but thanks to some judicious cable tidying it's easy to work inside the chassis. The heatsink also does a good job of keeping the noise levels down; it's by no means a silent PC, but the hum that does emanate from the Antec chassis isn't too distracting.

There's a solid amount of upgrade potential, too. Six empty SATA ports and five free internal 3.5in bays offer room for more storage, and a second PCI Express x16 slot could be used for a second graphics card. There's a pair of 5.25in bays and a single DIMM slot free, too, but with a Blu-ray reader already installed and 6GB of triple-channel RAM already in place, we doubt there'll be much call to employ them.

One weak area is the monitor. While the 22in DGM unit included in our review package is generally inoffensive, it suffers from a little backlight bleed, colours don't look quite right and it has an over-glossy finish to the screen. It's worth noting, however, that it offers about the same level of quality as the similar DGM panel on offer with the A-Listed Chillblast Fusion Spitfire, so it's not a major problem. Other peripherals include a Logitech Internet 350 keyboard, which is basic but comfortable, a Razer DeathAdder mouse and a solid set of 2.1 Logitech X-240 speakers.