Chillblast Photo OC VII
If you can swallow the price, this is a true enthusiast’s PC with bags of potential for the future too
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE chillblast.com
T£1,667 (£2,000 inc VAT)
from
he clue is in the name. While Scan goes for all-out gaming with its GeForce GTX 1080-powered system ( opposite), Chillblast has its eyes on the photographer who wants the last word in image-editing speed. To that end, it overclocks an Intel i7-6800K Broadwell-E processor from 3.4GHz to 4.18GHz, and marries it with one of the fastest M.2 SSDs around – and a gluttonous 32GB of RAM.
The OC VII tore through our benchmarks, beating the photoediting time of the record-breaking Armari Magnetar workstation by a whisker ( see A List, p17). It carried that explosive form into our videoediting and multitasking tests too; there are few tasks where this machine will keep you waiting.
Chillblast thoughtfully provides two 3TB hard disks set up in a RAID1 mirrored array, so you can be sure that whatever you store will have an immediate replicate if a drive fails. Or you can archive a project to a Blu-ray disc, thanks to the inclusion of an LG BH16NS40 rewriter. It’s also great to see an Akasa card reader – supporting CompactFlash, M2, SD, Memory Stick and microSD formats – sitting in the external bay just below.
Need more storage in the future? Then there’s bags of potential, with six 3.5in bays free inside the cavernous Fractal Design case. A Corsair 750W power supply means you won’t run short of juice, and neat cabling ensures easy access to all the motherboard’s available slots: two PCI Express x16, one PCI Express x4, one PCI Express x1, and four DIMM sockets too. It’s an upgrader’s paradise.
Likewise for external expansion, with the Asus X99-A II motherboard offering four USB 3 and four USB 2 ports at the rear, plus USB 3.1 and Type-C slots. There are a further two USB 2 and USB 3 ports sitting atop the case, along with the power button, mic and headphone sockets.
As with the Scan, a stylish Corsair water-cooling unit keeps the processor at a suitable temperature, with three large fans constantly whirring. Naturally, these are all quiet units, and you’ll barely notice the hum in most environments. Chillblast even goes so far as to match the black-and-white theme of the motherboard with its choice of rear fan – nice attention to detail. It adds up to a high-quality unit that’s bulky but befitting the power inside.
Which brings us to the graphics card. While Chillblast shied away from choosing a top-of-the-range GTX 1080, which would have pushed the price to over £2,200, the GTX 1070 here has an immense amount to offer demanding gamers. It couldn’t hit the same dizzy heights as the Scan, but a 160fps average in Dirt Showdown at 1080p Ultra settings indicates its quality.
If you’re more familiar with Nvidia’s previousgeneration GPUs, think of the GTX 1070 as a souped-up successor to the GTX 970. Some of its speed increase is
“Chillblast thoughtfully provides two 3TB hard disks set up in a RAID1 array, so you can be sure your data is safe”
down to Nvidia’s updated Pascal architecture, but much is simply due to the fact it has 8GB of RAM, twice that of the GTX 970. This lack of memory severely dented the latter’s 4K performance, whereas the 1070 is capable of delivering strong results. It managed 76.4fps in Dirt Showdown at 4K in Ultra settings, and was unsurprisingly slick during gameplay. The more demanding Metro: Last Light Redux inevitably proved a greater struggle, but by reducing settings (as with the Scan) it hit 37fps. Still, you should upgrade to one of Nvidia’s GTX 1080 cards if 4K gaming is a priority.
It all adds up to a well-rounded system that’s backed by a two-year collect-andreturn warranty, with a further three years of support where you cover delivery costs. It’s expensive, of course, but it’s also clear where the money has been spent. If you’re serious about photography, or just want a PC that flies, the Chillblast Photo OC VII is an excellent choice. 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-6800K CPU overclocked to 4.18GHz 32GB DDR4 2,400MHz RAM Asus X99-A II motherboard 8GB GeForce GTX 1070 graphics 256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD 2 x 3TB hard disks Fractal Design Define R5 chassis 2yr C&R plus 3yr RTB warranty (parts and labour) 232 x 520 x 457mm (WDH) Windows 10 Home