Wired2Fire Workstation Ultima
Hands-down this month’s fastest PC, with a premium M.2 SSD to boot – although it’s integrated graphics only
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PRICE from wired2fire.co.uk
£582 (£699 inc VAT)
Wired2Fire is a company with an affinity for super-fast PCs, so it was perhaps predictable that, even within our tight budget, the Dorking-based system builder would shoot for outstanding performance.
That it’s certainly achieved. The Workstation Ultima is built around a Core i7-6700K processor, overclocked to 4.3GHz. On paper, that isn’t quite as ambitious as Palicomp’s 4.6GHz Core i5-6600K, but factor in the Core i7’s Hyper-Threading capabilities and larger on-board cache, and you’re looking at an unbeatable performer. With an overall benchmark score of 151, this is easily the fastest PC here. It even beats the 148 scored by HP’s Xeon-based Z240 in our recent workstation group test ( see issue 259, p90) – while costing half as much.
After accounting for such a heavyweight CPU, you might expect the budget to be exhausted, but the Workstation Ultima has another high-performance surprise up its sleeve in the shape of an M.2 SSD that delivers read and write speeds up to four times faster than its SATA rivals. This might not transform your productivity, but when applications snap open in seconds it adds to the impression of a powerful and responsive system.
Inevitably, the SSD isn’t huge. It’s a 256GB Samsung SM951, also chosen by Palicomp, so unless your needs are unusually modest, your music and photos will probably end up living on the much slower mechanical data disk. That’s an unavoidable economy, and it’s good to see that Wired2Fire has sprung for a 2TB drive, rather than the 1TB models seen elsewhere. There’s a full 16GB of DDR4 memory too, so even enormous workloads should be digestible.
The Asus Z170-P motherboard is the same model found in the Mesh Elite 6700 PC Pro, which means you get the same generous set of PCI slots, including two conventional PCI slots for older controller cards. The provision of ports isn’t quite so liberal, however: you get just one USB 2 and one USB 3 connector at the front of the case, along with the two ports of each type at the back. USB Type-C makes a welcome appearance though.
If you’re still wondering how Wired2Fire has managed to put together such a powerful system, be aware that all of those PCI Express slots are empty. Not only is there no wireless card, there’s no discrete graphics card either. That should only bother dedicated gamers: the overclocked Intel HD Graphics 530 had enough power to run Dirt Showdown in 720p resolution, with high detail settings, at an average of 54 frames per second. All the same, if you’ve been wondering where the compromise is hiding, this is it.
Everything comes wrapped up in a distinctive white BitFenix Nova case, with a plastic window at the side through which you can gaze upon all those empty slots. It’s a slim and tasteful design, if rather plain, and if white isn’t to your liking then Wired2Fire can supply the same case in black instead. The system warranty includes carriage and return for only the first 30 days, but that should see you smoothly through any initial problems; after that you get a parts-and-labour return-to-base service up to two years, followed by another year of labour-only cover. We’ve certainly seen worse.
Overall, the Workstation Ultima offers astonishing performance for the price, and we were sorely tempted to give it an award. What held us back is the reality that few of us really need this sort of power. If you’re willing to give up a little bit of performance then the Chillblast or the Mesh make for a friendlier all-round system. But if your top priority is a PC that devours desktop tasks at lightning-speed then this is, no question, your machine.