Chillblast Fusion Tracer RX 480

Also important is the inclusion of both a hard drive and a 250GB SSD, which gives a significant boost to general performance

£749 inc VAT & delivery • chillblast.com

Chillblast’s mid-priced Fusion Tracer RX 480 is a strong gaming performance, but also a great all-rounder. Some PCs skimp on the more expensive parts, neglecting overall usability in order to chase a few extra frames per second. The Fusion Tracer, however, offers a carefully-selected list of components, which result in a solid performer without weak points.

Key components include a quad-core Intel Core i5-6402P processor, a PowerColor-branded AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB graphics card and 8GB of 2133MHz DDR4 RAM. The processor is an interesting one: running at a maximum speed of 3.5GHz, it has been designed specifically to provide a 100MHz; speed boost over the standard Core i5-6400 without an increase in price. This has been achieved by reducing the performance of the chip’s integrated graphics, but that’s not something we care about as the PC uses a high performance graphics card instead.

Also important is the inclusion of both a hard drive and a 250GB solid-state drive (SSD), which gives a significant boost to general performance without sacrificing on the storage capacity.

Finished in black and red, the Fusion Tracer is housed in a CiT F3 midi-tower system case. It’s no small form-factor system, but it’s definitely on the compact side of the format. This makes it well-suited to smaller desk spaces, but also means there’s not a lot of room for expansion inside. The case’s signature red strip adds a smart touch to the case, although it does seem a little ‘plasticy’ on closer inspection. Embedded within the strip are the usual power and reset buttons, along with three USB ports and a handy card reader.

Inside, the Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H provides a basic set of features only and it’s here that we come to the only real disadvantage of this system and that is its lack of upgrade options. You may be able to fit a second hard drive in the case, but that’s about it. There are no free memory slots and the only accessible expansion port is a single PCI Express x1 slot. The CPU is topped by a stock Intel cooler, which seems to do an adequate job in this system without creating much noise.

Performance

The combination of the quad-core processor and powerful graphics card in the Fusion Tracer RX 480 means the system is able to achieve solid performance around up to 1440p with Ultra quality settings and might even have a stab at 4K with some less-demanding titles, although would wouldn’t recommend buying this PC as a 4K system. You should be able to run many games at 60fps with this system without resorting to lower resolutions or quality.

The Chillblast also performs well for virtual reality, achieving a ‘High’ rating in the Steam VR performance test and strong results in the new VRMark benchmark.

Although it makes no difference to gaming benchmarks, the SSD in this system makes a huge difference to general system responsiveness as well as game load times. The difference between using the Fusion Tracer RX 480 and a similarly-priced PC without an SSD is very noticeable, with the latter causing us to frequently lose patience.

Service and warranty

Chillblast’s five-year warranty is one of the best in the business, with a collect-and-return service and full parts and labour cover for the first two years. Lifetime phone support is also included with labour costs covered for the remaining three years.

Verdict

As a great all-round gaming PC, the Chillblast Fusion Tracer RX 480 won’t disappoint. It delivers strong gaming performance without cutting corners, although it does lacks upgrade options. It also comes with a five year warranty.