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Chillblast Fusion Midgard review

in Desktop PCs

Verdict

A PC that offers blistering pace in both applications and games, and at a remarkable price too

Review Date: 4 Nov 2009

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: £779 (£896 inc VAT)

Overall Rating
6 stars out of 6

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
6 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Details
Part Code Fusion Midgard
Review Date 4 Nov 2009
Price ex VAT £779
Price inc VAT £896
Overall rating 6 stars out of 6
Performance 6 stars out of 6
Features & Design 5 stars out of 6
Value for Money 6 stars out of 6
Warranty
Warranty 2yr collect and return
Basic specifications
Total hard disk capacity 500
RAM capacity 4.00GB
Screen size N/A
Processor
CPU family Intel Core i5
CPU nominal frequency 2.66GHz
CPU overclocked frequency 3.60GHz
Processor socket LGA 1156
HSF (heatsink-fan) Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme
Motherboard
Motherboard MSI P55-CD53
Motherboard chipset Intel P55 Express
Conventional PCI slots free 3
Conventional PCI slots total 3
PCI-E x16 slots free 0
PCI-E x16 slots total 1
PCI-E x8 slots free 0
PCI-E x8 slots total 0
PCI-E x4 slots free 0
PCI-E x4 slots total 0
PCI-E x1 slots free 2
PCI-E x1 slots total 2
Internal SATA connectors 6
Internal SAS connectors 1
Internal PATA connectors 1
Internal floppy connectors 1
Wired adapter speed 1,000Mbits/sec
Memory
Memory type DDR3
Memory sockets free 2
Memory sockets total 4
Hard disk
Hard disk Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
Capacity 500GB
Hard disk usable capacity 465GB
Internal disk interface SATA/300
Spindle speed 7,200RPM
Cache size 16MB
Hard disk 2 make and model N/A
Hard disk 2 nominal capacity N/A
Hard disk 2 formatted capacity N/A
Hard disk 2 spindle speed N/A
Hard disk 2 cache size N/A
Hard disk 3 make and model N/A
Hard disk 3 nominal capacity N/A
Hard disk 4 make and model N/A
Hard disk 4 nominal capacity N/A
Drives
Optical drive Optiarc AD-7240S
Optical disc technology DVD writer
Optical disk 2 make and model N/A
Optical disk 3 make and model N/A
Rear ports
USB ports (downstream) 12
eSATA ports 1
PS/2 mouse port yes
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports 0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports 0
Modem no
3.5mm audio jacks 6
Graphics card
Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 5850
Multiple SLI/CrossFire cards? no
3D performance setting High
Graphics chipset ATI Radeon HD 5850
Graphics card RAM 512MB
DVI-I outputs 2
HDMI outputs 1
VGA (D-SUB) outputs 0
DisplayPort outputs 1
Number of graphics cards 1
Monitor
Monitor make and model N/A
Resolution screen horizontal N/A
Resolution screen vertical N/A
Resolution N/A x N/A
Pixel response time N/A
Contrast ratio N/A
Screen brightness N/A
DVI inputs N/A
HDMI inputs N/A
VGA inputs N/A
DisplayPort inputs N/A
Additional Peripherals
Speakers N/A
Speaker type N/A
Sound card Realtek HD Audio
Peripherals N/A
Case
Chassis Xigmatek Midgard
Case format Full tower
Dimensions 208 x 515 x 479mm (WDH)
Power supply
Power supply Cooler Master RS-500
Power supply rating 500W
Free drive bays
Free front panel 5.25in bays 3
Front ports
Front panel USB ports 2
Front panel eSATA ports 1
Front panel memory card reader no
Mouse & Keyboard
Mouse and keyboard N/A
Operating system and software
OS family Windows 7
Recovery method Windows disc
Software supplied N/A
Noise and power
Idle power consumption 53W
Peak power consumption 377W
Performance tests
Overall application benchmark score 2.48
Office application benchmark score 2.17
2D graphics application benchmark score 2.58
Encoding application benchmark score 2.06
Multitasking application benchmark score 3.11
3D performance (crysis) low settings 60fps
3D performance setting High
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From around the web

User comments

However...

There is nowhere on their site that I can find this overclocked PC with the specs described.

By matbailie on 4 Nov 2009

When will this be available to buy??on there website

By WILKY99 on 4 Nov 2009

Midgard availability

Thanks for your comments - I've been in touch with Chillblast so hopefully the Midgard will be available to buy before the end of today.

Mike

By Mikey_Jennings on 4 Nov 2009

In fact, I've just been told that the system is live on Chillblast.com right now :) - sorry for the delay!

By Mikey_Jennings on 4 Nov 2009

The right picture?

The picture of the inside of the case is the same picture used in the previous review of the PC Specialist Vortex. Which is wrong?

By phantombudgie on 4 Nov 2009

Hey guys, I've just added it to the front page for easy finding. Inside shot looks right to me :)

By Chillblast on 4 Nov 2009

Radeon 5850 card costs extra !!!

The Midgard actually only comes with the Radeon 4890. You have to pay an extra £83 + vat for the 5850. Either pc pro's editorial was wrong by not saying that they upgraded their spec or Chillblast didn't tell them it comes with a lower spec card and upgraded the machine they gave to PC PRO without telling them so the graphics performance figure comes out better. tut tut !!

By lgray on 4 Nov 2009

The price of the midgard with the 5850 upgrade is exactly as PC Pro's price. This is all by design to give people various graphics and pricing options :)

By Chillblast on 4 Nov 2009

Chillblast. I understand what you are saying but Mike does say base unit and base unit is the starter un-upgraded unit. This isn't. enough said.

By lgray on 4 Nov 2009

Hi Igray

A base unit is simply any PC sold without peripherals, which this is. To be clear, no user upgrades are required at all, it simply offers our customers a choice of various different cards when specifying their Midgard :)

Thanks!

By Chillblast on 4 Nov 2009

Sounds good but...

Sounds good but why do I want to spend this amount of money when an AMD machine will cost you a fraction of the price and deliver similar results?

By sayl1000 on 5 Nov 2009

Delivery Charges to Ireland!

Was trying to order this. Firstly I had to fill out the registration form 6 or 7 times. Each time failing because of invalid username. No reason why. Eventually realised,No capitals allowed. Maybe I'm blind but I don't see any mention of this anywhere.
Should have given up at this stage but tried to check out. I got to the payment page and nearly fell over. £128.40 delivery and wait for it... £19.26 VAT on delivery charges. It would be cheaper to fly over, pick it up myself, spend a night in a quality hotel and fly home. I'm used to rip off prices in Ireland but that is beyond belief.

By ScobieDoo on 5 Nov 2009

Delivery Charges to Ireland

Comment by ScobieDoo refers. I live in Ireland too so I know how we suffer from higher delivery charges applied by many companies. However, I have previously purchased from Dell and from Mesh and I can tell you that you will not be disappointed from buying from Chillblast. You get a competitively priced 5* product, from a small but expert company who provide excellent back up and support (from Martin S) who seems to be in the same place as where the computers are built rather than some disjointed helpdesk in some faraway place.

By PaulDs46 on 5 Nov 2009

Hi Scoobie

If you'd like to email me the system you are thinking of to customspec "AT" chillblast.com I'd be happy to give it the once over and see if we can ship it more competitively for you. Sometimes we can get special one-off rates from City Link if it's close to a weight threshold :)

By Chillblast on 5 Nov 2009

Other Benchmarks

Is there a benchmark for the quietness of the Midgard? As there is normally one for the 'published' review. And on that note, will this review be published in a future issue of the magazine. Thanks

By mr_fitz on 15 Nov 2009

Delivery Wrong

Ordered a stinger system from them a week ago website says shipped in 7-10 days had e mail today after chasing saying delivery is 2-2.1/2 weeks!!

By WILKY99 on 24 Nov 2009

Don't forget the Mesh has an SSD

"The Mesh Elite Ice 5 Pro, which currently sits atop the A List, may boast a 24in Iiyama monitor, keyboard and mouse, but it's slower in all our benchmarks - and almost £100 more expensive. Add peripherals to the Midgard and you'll be getting a more powerful, longer lasting package for not much more."
Add an SSD, as well as the other peripherals, to the cost of the Midgard and it will surely be quite a bit more expensive. Whether SSDs are actually a good buy at the moment is another matter; but it seems to me that could make a big difference to system performance which may not register on your benchmarks. Also, the Ice5 has a bigger hard disk, which is worth a few quid in itself.

Personally, I'd rather have a system with an nVidia GPU as I do quite a bit of OpenGL and ATI drivers have a bad reputation for that (and also Linux in general)... good bang for the buck for gaming, no doubt, but perhaps not ideal for me.

By ptodd1 on 17 Dec 2009

...and also

I also didn't mention that the E2407HDSD screen that comes with the Mesh seems to cost about £160 if brought separately (although annoyingly they only take £95 for configuring without it).

By ptodd1 on 17 Dec 2009

A-listed items should be at reccomended operating conditions and not overclocked

I am surprised that A-listed Pc's etc. are tested on their overclocked conditions rather than the manufacturers reccomended operating settings. If these are tested overclocked then what is the expected life span under these operating conditions?, as a potential customer I would hate to buy a PC for say video editing only to find that after a year my expensive kit fails potentially loosing valuable data and having to waste time re-installing and re-registering software.
Please have a thought about reliability and comparing like for like under normal operating conditions, the fact that some PC's can be overclocked could attract additional points but that should be that.

By georgioua on 29 Dec 2009

Would this be a good system for 3D design work

Hi all,

Just need quick advice. I need to purchase a high-end PC for 3D design work in 3ds-max and AutoCAD. Unfortunately PC Pro do not have a Labs section for such systems.

So can anyone hazard a guess whether this would be a good system for what I need to do?

Thanks.

By valentine_101 on 14 Jan 2010

Stay Away

Speced a system and was told to order by the guy on here and he'd sort out a lower delivery fee to Ireland. When I ordered I got an e-mil from their sales team telling me they don't ship to Ireland. When I queried this i got no response from either the sales guy or the guy on here. Ordered from Overclockers and got a much better system for a better price. delivery for £18 from Overclockers when the initial delivery quote from chillblast was £135 and the cheapest they could do was £54. Totally unprofessional service from Chillblast. Stay away!

By ScobieDoo on 30 Jan 2010

Havoc57

Yikes - Looks like a few 'issues' going on before I place my order with Chillblast - 'tis an icy wind' and all that!!!

By Havoc57 on 1 Feb 2010

What a shame!

This review started so well and leaves you scratching your head...

By Nicedreams on 14 May 2010

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