Product Reviews

The new range of ATI graphics cards, the HD Radeon 4000 series, has generated quite a bit of excitement at PC Pro. They're practically as quick as the equivalent new GPUs from Nvidia, but cost about half the price. Suffice to say, we were just as excited when the first CrossfireX rig boasting a pair of new ATI cards - two HD 4850s, in this case - arrived in the Labs.

Chillblast's effort doesn't disappoint, either, with 3D performance across the range of our benchmarks generally impressive. Our low and medium-quality Crysis benchmarks were dispatched with little fuss - although they didn't show a huge amount of improvement over results with a single card.

However, when we ran the test with high-quality settings and a resolution of 1,620 x 1,200, we saw a significant improvement: from 31fps with a single card to 39fps with CrossfireX, a gain of around 30%. As impressive as these results may be, though, it's still not quite enough to topple the score of 43fps from the Mesh Ultimate XT940 GTO, which came packaged with a single Nvidia GTX 280 card.

Very high settings showed a similar level of performance, with a score of 21fps with a single card increasing to a playable 30fps with two GPUs - one of the best results we've seen in this test from any PC.

It's faster than the 25fps scored by the Cyberpower Gamer Ultra M2 Quad, which had a single Radeon HD 4870 card. Impressively, this score was also only three frames behind that achieved by the formidable Chillblast Fusion Juggernaut, which came complete with an Nvidia 9800 GX2.

Results in Call of Duty 4 - which has a dedicated multiple-GPU option, unlike Crysis - were even more impressive. Once again, our less-demanding tests were handled with little fuss: in the medium benchmark, two cards outperformed one with a score of 257fps to 135fps. The high quality settings test showed a similar level of improvement, with the CrossfireX setup scoring 145fps, compared to 71fps from one card.

Call of Juarez exhibited dramatic improvements at lower resolutions but at higher settings the CrossfireX rig stalled when compared to performance from a single HD 4850 card. In our medium settings test, the multi-GPU arrangement scored 79fps compared to 41fps from a single card. At high settings, though, both configurations hit 30fps.

Super fast

Performance in 2D is spectacular. The Interceptor has an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 inside, overclocked from its stock speed of 2.66GHz to 3.4GHz, and this resulted in a score of 1.92 in our application-based benchmarks. It's not far of the 2.1 scored by the Fusion Juggernaut, our current favourite .

The rest of the specification has also been put together to eke more performance out of the powerful core components. An Asus Rampage Formula motherboard - part of the enthusiast Republic of Gamers range - comes with plenty of oversized specifications: Intel's X48 chipset, support for a 1,600MHz FSB speed, the ability to handle up to 8GB of RAM and an LCD post display that monitors the temperature and performance of the board.

In this case 4GB of RAM is mounted in the board, keeping the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium company - although a 32-bit

Cool runnings

This powerful performance is housed in an Antec 1200 chassis with loads of effective cooling. One 200mm fan sits at the top of the chassis and it's accompanied by five other 120mm fans - two at the back, three at the front - which all keep the case surprisingly chilled. You can adjust fan speeds with externally mounted controls, but you probably don't want to turn them all up to max - you'll be hard-pressed to hear anything over the sound of violently rushing air.

The rest of the chassis is busy but never crowded or messy. The 750W Corsair PSU sits at the bottom of the case, rather than the top, and the huge variety of cables emerging from this box are tied together in a large strand which snakes through the centre of the case like a spinal cord, with wires only branching off where they're needed. Other cables are lashed to various parts of the chassis, so despite the huge amount of hardware in the Chillblast, it's relatively easy to access the important components: the processor - under the excellent Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro heatsink - memory, graphics card and hard disk.

There's expansion potential, too: a pair of free PCI slots are joined by three PCI Express 1x sockets, although the two full-sized PCI Express slots are taken up with the pair of graphics cards, which won't need upgrading for a while yet. There are also plenty of free 5.25in and 3.5in bays for adding a high-definition optical drive, card reader or more storage.

Extras

The range of peripherals is just as impressive as the performance and chassis. The screen, a 24in Samsung Syncmaster 245B, has been a favourite in the PC Pro Labs since its triumphant entrance at the back end of last year. We're still impressed by the accurate colour reproduction, sharp detail and versatile, adjustable stand. Our only gripe is that there's no HDMI input, but that's a minor quibble.

The keyboard and mouse will please gamers, too: a Saitek Eclipse II and Razer Diamondback 3G are a cut above the usual, bland sets we're used to seeing. The keyboard is comfortable to use and comes complete with a set of garish, adjustable lights: there's red, blue and purple, and the intensity of their glow beneath the keys can be easily altered with a circular dial.

Razer's Diamondback mouse has long been a gamer's favourite, and the new model - named the 3G - looks to carry on that tradition. It's comfortable and an 1800dpi infrared sensor offers plenty of precision - although the sensitivity of the Razer is far above that of the average mouse and it took a while for us to get used to it.

Sound is well catered for, too, with a set of Creative T7900 7.1 speakers. We've seen these recently in the Fusion Juggernaut and Cyberpower Gamer Ultra M2 Quad and they're a decent set that provide good sound quality for enjoying games, movies and music. The major omission here is that there's no Blu-ray drive included,

Conclusion

Despite this, it all adds up to a very impressive package. It may not quite scale the heady heights of the Fusion Juggernaut, and isn't quite the all-round that the Cyberpwer Gamer M2 Quad is, but it isn't far off and the price is reasonable.

Stunning performance from both the processor and graphics card contribute to benchmark results that aren't far short of the best we've seen, and the rest of the package - an excellent screen, decent keyboard and mouse and 7.1 speakers - make it worthy of a Recommended award.