Dell XPS 27

From budget systems designed for the living room to serious graphic design workstations, all-in-one PCs are increasingly popular. Apple's powerful iMacs remain top of the heap in terms of style and cachet, but there are plenty of challengers lining up to take them on. The Dell XPS 27, also known as the 2720 in its business version, is Dell's latest attempt to steal Apple's all-in-one PC crown, with its stunning 27in IPS touchscreen display and impressively high-resolution of 2,560x1,440.

It's available in two versions, the cheapest of which is priced from £1,449 and has a slower processor, less RAM and a smaller hard disk. We reviewed the more expensive version, which is available from £1,799. That's only a bit cheaper than a Core i7-based iMac, but the XPS 27 is also the first all-in-one PC we've seen with a Intel’s Haswell processors.
PERFORMANCE
The review system came with a 3.1GHz Intel Core i7-4770S processor, a massive 16GB of memory and a 2TB hard disk. It also has a 32GB mSATA SSD drive that's used as a disk cache to provide faster boot speeds and access times. Boot times are a slower than systems that boot from an SSD, though, with the PC taking 17 seconds to reach the Start screen from a cold boot.
The PC produced an overall score of 103 in our benchmark tests. That's pretty good, but it didn’t perform as well as the Ivy Bridge-based 2013 iMac. Even so, this an exceptionally quick Windows-based all-in-one. Plus, the XPS 27 is at least fairly well equipped 3D gaming, unlike many all-in-one PCs. Thanks to its 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 750M graphics processor. It won’t run all the latest games at maximum quality, but most titles are playable and still look good at reduced settings.
The XPS 27 produced an average frame rate of 19fps in our Dirt Showdown benchmark test at a resolution of 1,920x1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and graphics quality set to Ultra. That’s a pass, but only just, and the frame rate’s too low for smooth play. However, the frame rate increased to a smooth, playable frame rate of 43.6fps at 1,920x1,080 when we slightly reduced the graphics quality to High. Reducing the resolution to 1,280x720 and graphics quality to High produced an even smoother average frame rate of 65fps.
If you want to play at the display's native resolution of 2,560x1,440, you'll get a largely playable frame rate of 28.8fps at High quality. Crysis 2 is, as ever, a more challenging prospect. Our standard test at Ultra quality and 1,920x1,080 resolution produced a frame rate of 18.2fps, only just passing the test. Reducing the quality to Very High, however, produced a smooth and playable 38.9fps.
DISPLAY
The 27in IPS display is the most striking feature of the PC. It's glossy, it looks stunning and we weren’t irritated by reflections, which is something that can happen with glossy screens. We measured a fantastic contrast ratio of 1114:1, and you can see lots of fine detail in even the most shadowy images. It did brilliantly in our colour gamut coverage test, too, with a 99.9 per cent sRGB gamut coverage rating.
The ten-point touchscreen is highly responsive, although we're not sure how many people are likely to sit within touching distance of such an enormous screen. You can tilt the display a long way back, making it easier to display images and interact with apps when showing content to a group, but we were surprised to find that it doesn't fold flat.
You can even connect additional monitors or projectors to the PC thanks to its HDMI and Lightning outputs. It also has an HDMI input so you can connect an external video source such as a console or cable box. You can change the displays settings with a touchscreen panel at the lower right of the display.


PORTS AND INSIDE
The integrated speaker is positioned at the base of the display. It's louder than most, and even has a bit of bass to it, but it has a tendency to boom and produce slightly harsh treble. Nonetheless, you could comfortably use it listen to music as long as you’re not on a quest for perfect hi-fi quality.
There are also 3.5mm microphone and headphone ports at the right-hand side of the display, along with an SDXC card reader and two USB3 ports. At the back of the PC are another four USB3 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port. At the right-hand side is a Blu-ray drive. The PC's webcam is positioned at the very top of the display, and there's an endearing manual lens cover that you can slide across if your inner paranoia wants to be sure of privacy. This is a great idea, and we hope it catches on.


Although the system looks like a sealed unit, you only have to remove a couple of screws at the bottom to slide the back panel off. Inside, metal plates protect the various components and expansion slots. It has a pair of laptop memory slots that are easy to access; the hard disk is buried deeper behind the plates. Access panels for other components aren't even labelled. Dell notes that you may void your warranty by making your own upgrades.


The XPS One has a built-in receiver for supplied wireless mouse and keyboard, so you won’t lose a USB port to wireless convenience. The mouse could be more comfortable and drags a little when you use it on most surfaces, but it’s usable and by no means the worst we’ve used. The compact keyboard proved to be fast and accurate to touch-type on. It even has a full numeric keypad.
The combination of a HDMI input, Blu-ray drive, massive resolution, brilliant display quality and overall performance make this all-in-one a great buy if you need a powerful system. It’s especially suited to video- and photo-editing, and is large enough for watching Blu-ray movies and catch-up TV from a distance. The Dell XPS 27 is a great alternative to an iMac. It isn’t cheap, but if you need a Windows all-in-one that can do almost anything, this PC is the Ultimate.
EXPERT EXTRA: Better than an iMac?
[i]Apple has yet to release an iMac with an Intel Haswell processor, which is an immediate point in favour of Dell's system. Of all the Windows-based all-in-one PCs we’ve reviewed, this is the best alternative to the iMac.
Like the iMac, it’s beautifully built and has a stunning 2,560x1,440 27in IPS display with fantastic image quality. It also has a dedicated graphics processor, the Nvidia GeForce GT 750M. It’s powerful enough to play the latest 3D games, but is also great for working with video- and photo-editing software.
Apple’s proprietary Fusion hard disk technology combines solid state and mechanical drive technology. It caches your vital applications with the faster SSD to improve disk speed. The XPS 27 uses a 32GB mSATA cache in a similar fashion to improve responsiveness.
It also has a number of features not seen on any current iMac, including a touchscreen display, a Blu-ray drive and a HDMI input. Between them, these last two features mean you can effectively use it instead of a TV to watch movies and connect a cable box or games console.
This all-in-one might cost about the same as an iMac, but whether you’re watching movies or editing images, the Dell XPS 27 is a fantastic PC and excellent alternative to an iMac.

Dell XPS 18

There's recently been a rush to release the perfect hybrid Windows all-in-one/tablet PC, but the Dell XPS 18 is one of the most elegant we've seen so far. Most of its rivals have been some combination of expensive, larger than you'd expect or packed with cool-looking but slightly over-complicated design features. Dell, however, has taken the simple option: an oversized Windows 8 tablet PC that comes with a dock.

The dock doesn't provide any extra features, such additional ports or a disc drive. Instead, it's just a nicely made adjustable metal stand which can support and smoothly tilt your tablet through a range of angles from completely vertical to almost horizontal. The tablet also has a magnetic rear so it will snap into place for extra security.


DISPLAY
The touchscreen display has a Full HD 1,920x1,080 resolution and its outstanding contrast ratio of 1,194:1 showed plenty of detail in even our darkest images. Its sRGB colour gamut coverage was somewhat less impressive at 83.1 per cent. This is to be expected from a WVA panel, though, which typically have less accurate colours than screens with IPS panels. Instead, its main speciality is its wide viewing angles, which were very impressive indeed. We didn’t see any shift in contrast even when we were looking at it side on and its glossy finish made our photos and video look very rich and vivid.
Colours looked even as well without any particular tints or colour casts visible on even our palest test screens. By default the display switches between portrait and landscape mode as an accelerometer tells it which way up the tablet is, although you can lock it if you want to. Positioning it vertically can be helpful for viewing long documents or un-rotated photos, but it's obvious that the XPS 18 is primarily meant to be used in landscape mode.
PORTABLE-ISH
Measuring 282x462x13mm and weighing 2.31kg, it's much larger and heavy than your average portable tablet but not so large as to be completely impractical to move around. It's best suited to being used on the dining room table or on your lap in front of the TV. Laying it flat makes it easy to use for a variety of multi-user Windows games and apps, such as the pre-installed air-hockey game. A pair of feet pulls out from the rear so you can prop it up even without the stand. We wouldn't recommend slinging it in a bag to carry to work and back, and it's definitely too large to use comfortably on the train.


You won’t be able to stray too far from the mains, though, as the integrated battery lasted just 4h 3m in our light use test. This involved setting the screen set to half brightness and disabling the Wi-Fi, so it will drain even faster if you’re surfing the web with the screen on its maximum brightness setting. It lasted around the same when we played a video on it under the same conditions as well. This isn't great compared to a normal tablet, but it's plenty for moving the PC around the house for occasional use, such as for showing off photos in the living room or looking up recipes in the kitchen.


The XPS 18 has two USB ports and a 3.5mm headset port on the left-hand side, but that's it in terms of connectivity. There's a card reader recessed behind a flap on the left side of the PC, which support SDXC, Memory Stick PRO and xD among other formats. It's handy if you want to conveniently access photos shot on a digital camera. There's no Ethernet port, but the PC supports 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi. The PC has a 500GB hard disk for internal storage, but there’s also a 32GB SSD to cache vital applications to improve disk speed and responsiveness when resuming from sleep mode or turning it on from a cold boot.
A pair of buttons on the left-hand side control volume, while the power switch is on the right. A Windows button is positioned below the centre of the sensitive ten-point touchscreen. Little integrated speakers are positioned on the left and right sides, but you'll want to connect headphones or a pair of external speakers if you want to listen to music. The integrated ones are fine for system sounds or listening to spoken word content but are almost unbearably tinny and entirely lacking in bass when it comes to music.

SPECIFICATIONS
The XPS 18 comes in a range of specifications, but our review sample had a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3337U processor and 8GB of RAM. These are the same components that power most Core i5 Ultrabook laptops, and its overall score of 43 is just a few points behind what we’d normally expect to see from this type of processor. It's not intended for processor-intensive tasks, but if your computer use revolves around web browsing, listening to music, watching videos and the odd bit of document editing, it's certainly up to the job. It'll struggle if you want to do serious photo editing, but it’s still capable enough for the odd touch-up.
The processor's on-chip Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU isn't suited to 3D gaming at any reasonable quality, either. It only just scraped 19.2fps in the laptop version of our Dirt Showdown test with the quality set to High at a 1,280x720 resolution, so you’ll need to keep the settings very low to play 3D games at a reasonable speed. It’s perfectly good enough for 2D Flash games and simple touch-based titles from the Windows 8 Store, though, so you should still be able to have some fun with it.


The system comes with a Dell-badged Logitech Bluetooth mouse and keyboard set. Although both are fairly slim, the Chiclet-style keyboard has a full numeric keypad and well-spaced keys which make accurate touch-typing easy once you've become accustomed to the shallow keys. The slightly blocky-looking mouse is also comfortable to use.
The Dell XPS 18 is pleasant to use and looks great. Its lack of ports won't be for everyone, but at just under £700, this portable PC is one of the cheapest Core i5 all-in-ones around, winning it a Budget Buy award.

Chillblast Fusion Vantage

We expect chillblast to press every last bit of power into its PCs, and The Fusion Vantage has an i5-3570K processor that’s been overclocked to 4.8GHz, producing an overall score of 155 in our benchmark tests. That’s higher than the scores we’ve seen from some overclocked Ivy Bridge Core i7 systems.

It also has a powerful GPU, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 with 3GB of memory. It’s responsible for the PC’s phenomenal gaming performance, which gave us frame rates of 88fps in Dirt3 and 37fps in Crysis 2, both at the games’ highest quality settings. You won’t need to upgrade for a very long time indeed. It’s worth noting, though, that the graphics card makes an audible and somewhat annoying whine when you’re gaming.
The motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-V LX, and it has a reasonable selection of expansion slots, although it’s slightly imbalanced. It has three PCI slots, all of which are vacant, but only two PCI-E x1 slots, and one of those is blocked by the graphics card. There’s also a second PCI-E x16 slot, but it actually runs at x4. The PC also comes with a 700W power supply. It’s Chillblast’s own-brand PSU rather than a more prestigious name, but it should pack enough power to fuel any upgrades you desire. Also impressive are the four 4GB memory modules that provide 16GB of 1,600MHz RAM, more than enough for video- or photo-editing.


The motherboard has six SATA ports, two of which are SATA3 and are connected to the hard disks. The PC’s main system drive is a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD, which provides blistering boot speeds and plenty of room for applications. For data storage and less critical applications, there’s also a massive 2TB HDD. It also has two free 31/2in bays and three free 51/4in bays, so you can add plenty of extra storage.

Sadly, we’re not great fans of the case. It’s solidly constructed without being inconveniently heavy and has a well finished interior, but it doesn’t have adequate soundproofing, which makes it one of the noisier PCs we’ve seen from Chillblast. Even so, the PC isn’t distactingly loud when it’s running (annoying noises from the GPU fan notwithstanding), largely thanks to some fairly quiet case fans and a discrete Akasa CPU cooler. The wide vent grilles in the side panel and at the bottom of the case mean there’s little to stop fluff and dust getting in.

In terms of ports, the PC has a couple of USB ports at the front and six at the rear. Two of the latter are USB3. There’s also a PS/2 port at the back, as well as the usual Gigabit Ethernet and audio ports. For sound output, there’s an optical S/PDIF port and three 3.5mm stereo ports for analogue surround sound. The front panel has 3.5mm microphone and headphone ports.


The mouse and keyboard are a Logitech wireless MK260 set and the monitor is a 23.6in Asus VS247H monitor. It’s a good choice, and has an HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs.
This is a brilliant system, packing in a Blu-ray re-writer, 16GB of memory, an large SSD and an extremely good graphics card. Gamers might prefer the additional graphics power of Wired2Fire’s Diablo GTX, but this is the best all-round PC you can get for a grand. It’s a true Best Buy.

Chillblast Fusion Accelerate

Although the other Windows 8 PCs we've seen so far have been solid performance-orientated models, Chillblast has tried something a bit different with the Fusion Accelerate - it's a quiet PC with an Iiyama touchscreen.
While Windows 7 wasn’t easy to navigate with a touchscreen, Windows 8 is designed with touch interfaces very much in mind. The new Start screen consists of chunky, finger-friendly icons, and many of the new apps are optimised for touch. The Fusion Accelerate's Iiyama ProLite T2451MTS screen supports multi-touch gestures and it works brilliantly with some of Windows 8's built-in apps. We particularly liked flicking through news articles in the full-screen News app, scrolling side-to-side as if we were turning pages in a glossy magazine.

The touchscreen also works well in the Maps application thanks to pinch-to-zoom and we had fun with touchscreen games such as pinball and managed some casual web surfing with the onscreen keyboard. However, instead of responding to touch like the capacitive touchscreens of mobile phones and tablets, the T2451MTS's system works with optical sensors around the edge of the panel. This means you need a rather thick bezel, which makes Windows 8's touch gestures, which mainly involve swiping in from the edge of the screen, difficult to do. We found we mainly used the mouse to launch and close programs, and switched to the touchscreen once we were in one of Windows 8's touch-optimised apps.
The monitor has a glossy finish and that helps colours look pleasingly punchy, but you'll have to look out for the usual problems with reflections from overhead lighting. Our colorimeter reported the screen's colour balance as almost perfect out of the box, and we managed to get it exact with a couple of minor tweaks. After calibration, the colorimeter reported the screen as coming within 98% of the sRGB standard, which is what we've come to expect from a quality TN monitor. We did notice some light leakage at the bottom of the screen, which made blacks right at the bottom of the panel look slightly grey. If you’d rather not have a touchscreen, Chillblast will supply the Fusion Accelerate with an Iiyama ProLite X2377HDS 23in monitor for £949 including VAT. The X2377HDS has an IPS panel, and our calibration tests showed it to have similarly high colour accuracy to the touchscreen, but without any light leaking in at the bottom.


The Fusion Accelerate has a matte black Cooler Master case and it feels very well made. There are USB2 and USB3 ports at the front, alongside an SD card reader. The optical drive is hidden behind a magnetic door, and there's sound-insulating foam behind the door and the PC's side panel. The foam, the quiet processor cooler and the rear exhaust fan make this an extremely quiet PC.
It's also fairly power-efficient, only drawing 55W when idle. Much of this is down to the PC's processor; instead of the monstrous overclocked Intel Core i5-3570K chips we're used to seeing, Chillblast has fitted a relatively low-powered Core i5-3450 running at just 3.1GHz. This led to an overall score of 87 in our benchmarks. That’s fine for desktop applications, but far behind the fastest PCs in intensive tasks.
The PC's Radeon HD 7850 graphics card is a fine mid-range model and could run our Crysis 2 Ultra detail benchmark at a just-smooth 29.9fps. We normally test graphics cards with Dirt 3, but the game wouldn’t run under Windows 8; instead, we upgraded to the newer and far more challenging Dirt Showdown. Even in this test, which we ran at 1,920x1,080 with Ultra detail and 4x anti-aliasing, the PC managed a smooth 38.5fps, showing modern games aren’t a problem.

The inside of the PC is extremely tidy, with most cables routed behind the motherboard tray and out of sight. Four spare 3 1/2in drive bays and two spare 5 1/4in bays should be enough for most upgrade needs, although there’s only one SATA2 port free; the other two SATA2 ports are taken up by the PC's Blu-ray reader/DVD rewriter and its 1TB hard disk, and the motherboard's single SATA3 port is taken up by the SSD boot drive.
This is the PC's main problem; it has a microATX motherboard which cuts down on the expansion options available. There's just a single PCI and one PCI Express x1 slot and we wouldn’t be too keen on using the PCI Express x1 slot due to its proximity to the graphics card's fan.
We're impressed that Chillblast has taken the time to produce a PC that aims to take full advantage of Windows 8's capabilities. It's also quiet and quick in games, but it loses out to some of the other Windows 8 PCs we've seen in terms of desktop performance and expandability, such as the Palicomp Alpha Blade. Nonetheless, if you’re keen for a competent desktop PC with the added fun of a touchscreen, it’s a good buy.

Chillblast Fusion Blaze

The Fusion Blaze from Chillblast is a powerful and well-built Windows 8 system. At £800, it occupies the middle ground between high performance and realistic pricing for a family PC. Chillblast has equipped it accordingly, with more modest components than you'd find in a full-on enthusiast PC. The Intel Core i5-3570K processor is the same powerful CPU that you'll find in many of our favourite performance systems. It has a significant overclock, too, bringing it up to a speed of 4.5GHz from the stock 3.4GHz. This helped the PC to an excellent overall score of 144 in our application benchmarks.

The graphics card is an overclocked 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 OC from Palit. The GTX 660 is an unassuming-looking card which isn’t as powerful as the GTX 660 Ti version, but it's still no slouch; we saw a smooth 30fps in Crysis 2 at 1,920x1,080 and Ultra detail, demonstrating that it's easily able to handle all the latest 3D games. The card has two DVI ports, an HDMI port and DisplayPort, and you can connect monitors to all three for triple-screen gaming; you'll have to drop the resolution and detail levels, though.
The PC's 700W power supply is generic rather than branded, but should nonetheless pack enough power to support significant upgrades. There's certainly plenty of scope to do so. The Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard is a budget model, but it's an ATX motherboard with three PCI slots and two PCI-E x1 slots - one of which is blocked by the graphics card's cooler. There are also two PCI-E x16 slots, but the bottom slot only runs at x4 speed.


There are six SATA ports, two of which are SATA3. There are three free SATA2 ports and one free SATA3 port. The PC has a Blu-ray drive and a 2TB hard disk. We were surprised to find that the Fusion Blaze – unlike most similarly priced systems - doesn’t have an SSD. Although this means that its boot speeds aren’t as fast as computers with a solid state system drive, Windows 8’s own improvements to boot times still make it feel fast. You also won’t benefit from the quicker read/write speeds of an SSD, but the 2TB hard disk gives you plenty of room to install software and means that you won’t have to juggle with the install locations of your favourite games and applications, as you do with small SSDs. If you want to upgrade later, there's lots of room for more drives, with two free 5 1/4in bays, one external 3 1/2in bay and five unused internal 3 1/2in bays. There are two vacant memory slots on the board, too, with the others each holding a 1,333MHz 4GB memory module.
At the front of the case are two USB ports - one USB3 and one USB2, plus 3.5mm mic and headphone ports. At the back are two more USB3 ports and four USB2 ports, as well as a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse. There are three 3.5mm stereo ports for 5.1 analogue surround sound, as well as an optical S/PDIF output and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The case itself is sturdy and well made, although not all the air vents have fine mesh covers to keep dust out. The system is remarkably quiet, thanks to high-quality processor and case fans.


The supplied Cherry keyboard is big and ugly, but its keys feel responsive. The mouse looks similarly old-fashioned but also does the job effectively, despite a somewhat loose scroll wheel. The monitor - a matte-finish 23in Iiyama ProLite X2377HDS - has an even backlight and produces natural colours and blacks.
The Fusion Blaze's sole disadvantage is its lack of an SSD. If you feel that you absolutely need the faster boot times and responsiveness an SSD can bring, then Wired2Fire’s excellent Diablo Ultima and PC Specialist’s Vanquish 650Ti both have fast 120GB solid state drives in addition to large hard disks, but this comes at the cost of gaming performance. In the end, in the face of very stiff competition, the Fusion Blaze's great gaming performance, raw processor power and room for expansion earn it a Best Buy award.

Chillblast Fusion Stealth

The Chillblast Fusion Stealth is a powerful gaming system with all the features you'd expect to see on a high-end PC, such as an SSD, a large Nvidia graphics card with 2GB of memory and an overclocked Core i5 processor. More unusual, though, is the Stealth's near-silent performance.
Most users will find a PC with an Intel Core i5-3570K processor running at 4.3GHz more than powerful enough for their needs, regardless of whether it's overclocked or not. Although we appreciate extra speed and performance, many performance systems can be noisy, but not the Fusion Stealth.

The Stealth is built into a Fractal Design Define R4, one of our favourite cases. It has heavy-duty sound proofing on the side panels, on the front panel’s lid and on the removable covers that cover the fan mounts at the top of the case. Another nice touch, which has nothing to do with soundproofing, is an extra bracket mounting slot at the back of the PC. You could use it to provide extra USB ports without blocking any of your PC's valuable expansion slots, for example.
The case fans are also engineered for quiet operation and the neatly designed drive trays use rubber grommets to mute any vibrations from HDDs. There are eight 3 1/2in bays, but one cage can be removed, leaving you with three slots and extra space in case you want to install an unusually long graphics card such as the AMD Radeon HD 6690. 3 1/2in bays are occupied by a 120GB SSD system drive and a 2TB HDD storage disk, while one of the case's two 5 1/4in bays holds a Blu-ray re-writer. The CPU cooler is also a silent model, a Gelid Tranquillo Rev.2, while a 680W Be Quiet! PSU completes the specification.
Even the graphics card, a 2GB Nvidia-based Asus GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II, is virtually inaudible unless you open the case and put your ear to it. The card has a pair of DVI outputs, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort output, and it can handle up four simultaneous displays for desktop use and three for gaming. Using a single 1,920x1,080 monitor we got brilliant frame-rates of 61.4fps in Dirt Showdown and 45.1fps in Crysis 2, both at Ultra quality.


The Fusion Stealth’s processor is an Intel Core i5-3570K that has been modestly overclocked to 4.3GHz, producing an overall score of 110 in our benchmark tests. Although it's by no means the highest score we've ever seen from this processor, it's more than powerful enough for gaming and desktop use. The system has 16GB of RAM in the form of two 8GB modules, so it’ll easily handle memory-intensive tasks such as high-level graphics and video editing, and there are two vacant slots that will let you upgrade it to the motherboard's maximum 32GB of RAM.
The motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-V. This is a popular, well-equipped board, with an 802.11n Wi-Fi module to accompany its Gigabit Ethernet port, two PCI-E x1 slots (although one’s blocked by the graphics card), two PCI slots and three PCI-E x16 slots. Of the latter, one actually runs at x4 and the topmost slot runs at x16 unless the second slot is populated, in which case both will run at x8. There are four SATA3 and four SATA2 ports, but only one SATA2 and two SATA3 ports are in use, leaving plenty of room for expansion.


There are also two unused USB headers, along with two USB2 and two USB3 ports on the front panel and another four USB3 and two USB2 ports at the back. There's also a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, six 3.5mm analogue audio outputs and an optical S/PDIF output. The usual 3.5mm mic and headphone ports are available on the front panel.
The Fusion Stealth is available to buy with either Windows 8 or Windows 7 preinstalled. Our review sample had Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installed. If you want a powerful PC that doesn't sound like a box of irate bees, this is the PC for you, but quiet, high-quality components don't come cheap and this is reflected in the PC's £1,199 price. We've seen faster-performing systems for less, but this is an outstanding PC and our new favourite silent gaming system. If you're after a hardcore gaming PC for the sitting room, you should also take a look at compact gaming rigs such as the Dino PC Microraptor.

Chillblast Fusion Kevlar

An SSD is a brilliant way to make Windows 8 and applications load faster, but it's not usually something that you find in a PC at this price. We're pleased to see that Chillblast has supplied a 120GB Samsung 840 SSD as the boot drive. With UEFI BIOS, it means you can turn on this PC and boot into Windows incredibly quickly.
For your files and documents there's also a 2TB hard disk. Using Windows 8's Libraries, you can easily configure your computer so that all of your documents sit on this hard disk.

Chillblast has made a good choice of processor and motherboard, too, with an AMD A10-5800K CPU and Asus F2A85-M LE motherboard. While the 3.8GHz processor isn't quite as fast as its Intel rivals, it's still plenty fast enough for Windows. In our 2D benchmarks, the CPU combined with 8GB of RAM managed an overall score of 65.
Where this processor trumps its Intel rivals is with its integrated graphics. Managing 42fps in our Dirt Showdown laptop test at a resolution of 1,280x720, it shows that you can easily play games on this PC. Bumping the resolution to 1,920x1,080 we managed a frame rate of 31.9fps by dropping detail settings to medium.


For more graphics performance, the motherboard also has two PCI-E x16 slots. You can add an inexpensive graphics card and, using CrossfireX, combine it with the onboard graphics for a boost; for even more performance, you can fit two faster graphics cards.
There's no need to install a graphics card to run multiple monitors, though, as the A10-5800K supports up to three displays. With three graphics outputs on the motherboard (VGA, DVI and HDMI), you can run multiple displays out of the box.
The system comes with a chunky 21.5in Asus VE228 monitor, with a resolution of 1,920x1,080. It has VGA and DVI inputs and is a decent matt display with accurate colours and wide viewing angles. Contrast was good with pleasingly deep black levels. Our colour calibrator measured it as producing 86.2 per cent of the RGB colour gamut. This isn't amazing, but given that the monitor costs an extra £80 on top of the base system's £420, it's a decent budget monitor.
The Asus F2A85-M LE uses one of AMD's latest chipsets, so there's excellent support for the latest ports. At the rear are a PS/2 port for keyboard or mouse, two USB3 and four USB ports. There's even an eSATA port, as well as the usual Gigabit Ethernet port and audio ports: three 3.5mm ports for 5.1 analogue surround sound and an optical S/PDIF output for those who prefer to go digital. At the front of the PC are two more USB3 ports, a couple of USB ports, plus 3.5mm mic and headphone connectors.


The case is small, light and easy to fit on or under the average desk. It provides next to nothing in terms of sound- or dust- proofing, but the PC isn't particularly noisy and the loudest thing about it is the fan on the CPU cooler; the case fans are virtually silent.
Inside the case, the layout is immediately striking. Rather than mounting the hard disks into 3.5in bays across the width of the case, the 3.5in HDD and 2.5in SDD are both screwed into place sideways on one of the drive cage's uprights. This leaves a bit more space than usual, so you'll be able to fit an AMD 5970 or similarly sized graphics card in, but anything much over 220mm in length will be a tight fit.
Installing any graphics card into the PCI-E x16 slot will block the board's only PCI-E x1 slot below it. There's also a PCI slot. The motherboard has seven SATA3 ports, three of which are in use for the DVD drive, SSD and HDD. There are only two memory slots, both occupied by 4GB modules to provide a total 8GB of RAM.
Chillblast has supplied a basic Cherry keyboard and mouse. They're not much to look at but the keyboard in particularly if better than you might expect, proving to be easy and accurate to touch-type on.
The Fusion Kevlar has plenty of storage and a fast SSD, which makes it a great buy if you have loads of media to store. The processor's capable on-chip graphics make it a good choice than its Intel-based rivals if you want to do a bit of gaming and never plan on upgrading, but the PC Specialist Infinity A10 has greater upgrade potential while the Wired2Fire Velocity VX is better for 3D games

Chillblast Fusion Sprite

The Chillblast Fusion Sprite is neatly understated, but beneath its cool exterior this mid-priced system is a great all-rounder. It's as well suited for gaming as it is for high-powered desktop applications thanks to its 23in Iiyama ProLite X2377HDS monitor, AMD Radeon HD 7790 graphics card and an overclocked Intel Core i5-3570K processor.
Chillblast has overclocked the processor, upping its standard clock speed of 3.8GHz to 4.5GHz. Combined with the 8GB of RAM, the Fusion Sprite achieved an excellent overall score of 126 I nour application benchmarks.

Graphics performance was equally as impressive thanks to the Sapphire 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7790 graphics card. It produced frame rates of 60fps in Dirt Showdown and 28fps in Crysis 2 at Ultra quality and running at Full HD. Dropping the Crysis quality settings produced an even smoother frame rate of 30.3fps, proving that this PC can cope with high-quality gaming.
Rounding the system off is the excellent Iiyama ProLite X2377HDS, which has a resolution of 1,920x1,080. This IPS monitor has a matt screen, to help cut down reflections. We measured a contrast ratio of 1,013:1 and found that out-of-the box it produced 97.7 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut.
In practice, this translates to vivid, accurately coloured images with loads of subtle detail, even in areas of dark shading. Unlike many screens, further calibration did little to improve this, but as it's already excellent, that just means you don't have to spend any time fiddling with awkward monitor controls. The screen's viewing angles are a little poor and its stand doesn't have much scope for adjustment, but these are minor flaws in an otherwise excellent display. It also has an HDMI input, as well as the usual DVI and VGA ports, so you could hook up a games console or Blu-ray player, as well as your PC.
Inside, we found the Fusion Sprite to be a well-built PC with excellent components. The graphics card occupies the Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard's only full-speed PCI-E x16 slot. A second PCI-E x16 slot actually runs at x4, so it's better suited for an expansion card rather than running dual graphics.


There are also two PCI-E x1 slots - one of them blocked by the graphics card - and three PCI slots, so there’s plenty of scope to install expansion cards if you want them. Two of the motherboard's four memory slots are occupied by generic 4GB Team memory modules. They lack the heat spreaders of more expensive RAM, but we experienced no issues with them during our tests. The motherboard can take a maximum of 32GB of RAM, but 8GB is all most people will need, unless you plan on doing a lot of video editing.
There are six SATA ports, two of which are SATA3. One of the latter is connected to a 1TB hard disk, while the DVD-RW drive is hooked up to one of the SATA2 ports. There are plenty of extra ports free in the neatly laid-out case if you want to add extra storage in the future. There are also six vacant 3.5in drive bays - one of them external - and two unused 5.25in bays.


The PC's front panel is home to two USB ports, one of which is USB3, and 3.5mm mic and headphone ports. On the back panel are three more 3.5mm audio outputs for analogue surround sound and an optical S/PDIF output, as well as a Gigabit Ethernet port and a PS/2 port. There are six rear USB ports, of which two are USB3.
The case is plain, but sturdy, and the system is quiet when running. The 700W CIT power supply should be able to support most upgrades you're likely to want and we were pleased to find that the case's internal bay is large enough for a full-length AMD Radeon 6950 graphics card. Everything’s neatly laid out inside the case, as well.
A great monitor and good graphics card are the key factors that makes this system stand out. If you’re after a £700 PC that's good for everything, buy this one. The Fusion Sprite wins our coveted Best Buy award.

Chillblast Fusion Bandit

The Chillblast Fusion Bandit is the first PC we've reviewed that uses one of Intel's new 4th generation Core processors - also known as Haswell. It's also the first to contain an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 graphics card, so this PC is very much comprised of the latest technology.

The Fusion Bandit has a quad-core Intel Core i5-4670K processor, which is the successor to the very successful 3rd generation Core i5-3570K. The 4670K is available factory-overclocked to 4.7GHz if you want maximum performance or 4.6GHz if prefer a quieter PC. Either way, it's aided by a liquid cooling system mounted at the top of the case.

Intel's latest processor is yet another predictable stride forward
It performed well in our application benchmarks, scoring 132 in our image- and video-editing tests, 127 in the multitasking test and 130 overall. However, we've obtained higher scores using the same processor and motherboard in our test rig.
The installed motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP. As it's designed for 4th-generation Core processors, it uses Intel's new LGA1150 processor socket, which isn't backwards compatible with older Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge CPUs. We were pleased to see that the motherboard has six SATA3 ports, rather than the mixture of SATA2 and SATA3 ports familiar to users of the last generation of LGA1155 boards. This means that you no longer need to worry about running out of faster SATA3 ports. If you buy a new SSD drive, for instance, you can plug it into the motherboard and be confident that it will perform at the best possible speed.


Another notable feature is the presence of two USB3 headers mid-board. One of these is connected to a pair of USB3 ports on the front panel, but the other is vacant, giving you scope to add an additional USB3 backplane. There are also two USB2 headers, both of which are occupied. The rest of the motherboard's specification is a little less exciting. It has two PCI-E x16 slots, but only one runs at x16, the other runs at x4. There are also two PCI-E x1 slots, one of which is blocked by the graphics card, and two PCI slots. There are four memory slots, two of which are occupied by 8GB Crucial modules running at 1,600MHz. The motherboard can handle up to 32GB of RAM.
At the back of the PC are eight USB ports, of which only two are USB2. There's also a PS/2 port should you need to connect an older mouse or keyboard. The motherboard uses a Realtek ALC892 audio codec chip, which has 7.1 analogue audio and optical S/PDIF outputs in addition to the obligatory 3.5mm microphone and headphone ports on the front panel. There are also DVI, VGA and HDMI ports for the processor's on-chip Intel HD 4600 graphics, but you’ll obviously want to use the installed Nvidia GeForce GTX 770.


The GeForce GTX 770 has 2GB of onboard graphics memory and is certainly fast. It provided us with frame rates of 81.5fps in Dirt Showdown and 50.5fps in Crysis 2, both at Ultra quality, 4x AA and a resolution of 1,920x1,080. You’ll have no problem playing the latest games.
The graphics card is massive, but there's plenty of room for it in the extremely sturdy Fractal Design case. Should you want to install an even larger graphics card, the drive cage immediately opposite the top PCI-E x16 slot can be unscrewed and removed.
In total, there are eight bays on vibration-damped rails that can be used for either 3 1/2in or 2 1/2in hard disks. Two of these are occupied by a 128GB SSD and a 2TB hard disk. There are also two 5 1/4in bays, one of which contains a Blu-ray drive.
Although the case has heavy-duty sound-proofing built into it, the Fusion Bandit isn’t quiet. It has lots of fans, great airflow and a liquid cooling system, which means there's a constant low hum when the PC is idle. If you opt for the 4.6GHz quiet overclock, it never gets any louder than that. If you instead opt for the 4.7GHz performance configuration, the noise rises when you encode video or play games. It's not a particularly annoying sound, but you'll definitely want to keep this PC on the floor rather than the desk next to you.
The Fusion Bandit is an extremely well-made system that contains all the latest components. It performed well enough to act as a decent baseline standard by which we can judge future 4th-generation Core-based PCs and its gaming performance is outstanding. However, given that we've squeezed higher scores out of the processor ourselves we can't give this PC are unequivocal recommendation with an award.

Chillblast Fusion Mammoth

The Chillblast Fusion Mammoth is built into what has rapidly become our favourite compact PC case: the BitFenix Prodigy. Larger than your average media centre PC but much smaller than a typical desktop, the case measures 404x250x359mm and is available in a selection of bright colours. Chillblast has the full set available, so you can choose your preferred colour when you order your PC. We're particularly taken by this red version.


The case's interior is surprisingly spacious, providing enough depth for even the longest graphics cards. The case has extra modular 3 1/2in drive bays, but they’ve been removed due to the size of the supplied graphics card. They are, however, still supplied along with the system. This configuration leaves the PC with two 3 1/2in bays, one 5 1/4in bay and three 2 1/2in bays. The system’s fitted with a 1TB hard disk on which you can store your media and documents, and a 120GB SSD on which Windows is installed. There’s a DVD-RW drive installed, too, which leaves one vacant 5 1/2in bay and two free 2 1/2in bays.
The system’s fitted with a Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard. Sadly, it's only got a single expansion slot: a PCI-E x16 slot that’s home to the hefty graphics card. It also has two memory slots, each containing a 4GB module of 1,600MHz DD3 RAM. It also has four SATA3 ports, one of which is vacant, and a USB3 header that powers two USB3 ports on the case's side panel.
Despite the BitFenix Prodigy having its case ports on its left-hand side rather the front or top, we could easily open the panel without pulling out the connections. The system’s three 2 1/2in drive bays are also located on the inside of this panel.
The motherboard may be compact but it gives you plenty of rear ports, with a bank of six 3.5mm audio outputs for 7.1 surround sound, a PS/2 port, four USB3 ports and two additional USB ports. Its network connectivity is outstanding, with dual connectors for the supplied Wi-Fi antenna and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.


The system’s equipped with a powerful Intel Core i5-4670K processor running at 4GHz. It achieved a score of 120 overall in our application benchmarks, so it’s more than powerful enough to run any application you’d care to run. The graphics card is a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 770. It’s an excellent card that gave us a frame rate of 74.5fps in Dirt Showdown and 47.9fps in Crysis 2, both at Ultra quality and at a resolution of 1,920x1,080.


Despite the massively powerful processor and graphics card combination, the PC is very quiet when running desktop applications and doesn’t make much sound when gaming, either. The processor's liquid cooler plays a big part in this, as do the graphics card’s fans three fans. There's also a case fan mounted behind the front panel that’s positioned to help diffuse heat generated by the 3 1/2in drive. The case's elongated shape makes for good airflow. Grilles on the top of the case and the left-hand panel also help with airflow and you can fit more fans at the top if needed.
The case is raised off the ground on plastic stands. These are mirrored at the top of the case where they act as handles. They’re flexible but sturdy, and more than strong enough for carrying your PC around the house or to and from your car. Although it's not exactly portable, the system’s designed to be easy to move. This makes it perfect for those who want to take it to friends' homes for LAN gaming sessions or who just want to use it in more than one room.


The motherboard's built-in Wi-Fi also comes in handy when moving it from one location to another, but even if you never move the computer an inch, this is a brilliantly quiet, attractive and compact gaming system. It's no good if you plan to add more expansion cards in the future, though.
The Fusion Mammoth is very similar to the award-winning Computer Planet ND 5000, which has the same motherboard and processor, but a slightly less powerful graphics card. However, it currently costs £1,004 and its GeForce GTX 760 is plenty good enough to run the latest games at the highest quality. The Chillblast Fusion Mammoth is an excellent PC and a fantastic games machine, but the Computer Planet ND 5000 is the better buy.