Wired2Fire Diablo GTX review

Intel’s range of Core i5 processors represents possibly the best balance of price and performance from the firm’s current line-up, so it’s no surprise that chips like the i5-760 turn up at PC Pro with alarming regularity.

Wired2Fire hasn’t just settled with the 2.8GHz stock speed, though, overclocking the chip at the heart of its Diablo GTX to a far more impressive 4GHz. It’s a very ambitious overclock and delivered a suitably impressive benchmark result of 2.66, enough power to motor through the most intensive software applications.

Graphical duties are handled by the now-familiar Nvidia GeForce GTX 460, and its results impressed: a score of 52fps in our High quality, 1,680 x 1,050 Crysis benchmark is excellent and a near-playable score of 28fps in the Very High quality test run at 1,920 x 1,080 is good, too, indicating most modern titles won’t make the GTX 460 sweat.

Elsewhere there’s a Blu-ray reader, four gigabytes of DDR3 RAM and a 1TB hard disk, which falls broadly in line with the specifications we’ve seen from similarly priced machines such as the Chillblast Fusion Swift.

The choice of Xigmatek Asgard chassis to house all these components is a good one. It isn't not the largest, but Wired2Fire has made the best of it, with neatly tied cables bundled to one side and other wires lashed to the side of the case. Build quality is fine, and tool-free entry is provided by orange clamps on free drive bays.

There's a reasonable amount of space to upgrade, with spare PCI Express x16 and x1 slots on the motherboard, a pair of DIMMs that aren't impeded by the Xigmatek Scorpion CPU cooler, and plenty of tool-less drive bays lying vacant. It's quiet too: when idling, we had to listen closely to hear any noise, and although the Diablo GTX became louder when stressed, it isn't too intrusive and can easily be drowned out by games or music.

The Diablo GTX's peripherals are generally solid. The BenQ G2222HDL monitor is a good-value choice thanks to its 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution and accurate colours, even if the whole panel does suffer from a slightly pallid tone. The Logitech keyboard is solid enough, while the SteelSeries Kinzu is an excellent mouse. Just note the lack of speakers.

If you can look past the display’s lack of vibrancy, the Wired2Fire Diablo GTX is the ideal system for gamers thanks to its impressive benchmark results. The Chillblast Fusion Swift still has the edge thanks to its credentials as an all-round package but, for raw power, this is a tempting alternative.

Author: Mike Jennings