Reviews - 3.5GHz Core 2 Quad and Radeon 4870 X2: the Chillblast way

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Chillblast unleashes the Fusion Gemini: the pre-built PC for the enthusiast?

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Read more.

You know what really grinds my gears?

http://img.hexus.net/v2/systems/Chil...G/Side-big.jpg

Obviously anyone who knows me here understands the comic side of that, but genuinely if a "professional" system builder can't be bothered to cable the thing properly.. why would they expect people to pay inflated prices for things they could build themselves (apparently a lot better)?

They've used the holes to go behind the mobo tray for a few bits and pieces but why not the rest of it, I'm sure those cables are long enough and if they aren't then they could have extended them for pennies.

Also the freezer 7 pro is a bit of a weak link for me but I suppose if it does the job it's OK. Looks a bit dwarfed in the 1200 which seems a bit overkill for the basic setup.

And what is wrong with that graphics card lol

it does look like the viddy cards ripped the pci-e socket out the board ?

it resembles the POS scan tried to fob me off with as a replacement for my 8800gtx !

the banana card as i called it :)

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Originally Posted by GoNz0

it does look like the viddy cards ripped the pci-e socket out the board ?

it resembles the POS scan tried to fob me off with as a replacement for my 8800gtx !

the banana card as i called it :)

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Got to say it definately looks like theres a problem with the graphics card, the PCI-Express port looks fine but the card aint right! if that was my computer id be worryin!
And you had an problem with scan?! from my experience you've been very unlucky! they bend over backwards to help me and wer even happy to accept a return because I ordered the wrong part (Ordering to quick without reading it lol). Out of the computer sites I've used, scan is always the first one I go for.
Apart from the graphics card issue, that is a nice peice of goodness, yeah u can build it urself and save some money, but for anyone who has bothered overclocking, its such a pain in the a$$e I'd happily pay someone an extra £100 to do it all for me, especially if it came with a full insurance backed 2yr warranty. Sadly though as noted, the company goes down and so does your warranty!
Good job Chillblast!

It's not gonna fall out of the slot just sitting there, but I'd remove it if I were transporting the case somewhere. :P


Nice set of benchmarks Tarinder. Just a question over the boot times though. Where are you stopping the clock? When the OS becomes responsive? When hard drive activity stops?

My Vista install kicks in straight away from when the welcome screen disappears, and I can play to my heart's content, but then a 'second wave' of start up programs come along*.

* things like SetPoint annoyingly, so I'm already in a browsing session, checking messages, hit back without any response, then 20 seconds later, when SetPoint's loaded and that back request is answered. Grr. :P

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

They've used the holes to go behind the mobo tray for a few bits and pieces but why not the rest of it, I'm sure those cables are long enough and if they aren't then they could have extended them for pennies.

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Antec couldn't have made it any easier in that case, it's like they haven't even tried.

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Originally Posted by this_is_gav

Nice set of benchmarks Tarinder. Just a question over the boot times though. Where are you stopping the clock? When the OS becomes responsive? When hard drive activity stops?

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I think he should use the script I posted here

http://forums.hexus.net/operating-sy...ml#post1521030

All you need to do is set autologin on and run the script and when it gets control again at login it calculates the time for the boot. Although it's the reboot time it gives a good and accurate indication on how long it takes.

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Originally Posted by this_is_gav

It's not gonna fall out of the slot just sitting there, but I'd remove it if I were transporting the case somewhere. :P


Nice set of benchmarks Tarinder. Just a question over the boot times though. Where are you stopping the clock? When the OS becomes responsive? When hard drive activity stops?

My Vista install kicks in straight away from when the welcome screen disappears, and I can play to my heart's content, but then a 'second wave' of start up programs come along*.

* things like SetPoint annoyingly, so I'm already in a browsing session, checking messages, hit back without any response, then 20 seconds later, when SetPoint's loaded and that back request is answered. Grr. :P

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The boot sequence is hand-timed from when the power button is pressed on the test rig to when the Gadwin PrintScreen pop-up - a program used for capturing screenshots - appears in Vista. This isn't the total loading time, but it is remarkably consistent between cold-boot runs.

I believe I allude to it in the system setup page. :)

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Originally Posted by moogle

Antec couldn't have made it any easier in that case, it's like they haven't even tried.



I think he should use the script I posted here

http://forums.hexus.net/operating-sy...ml#post1521030

All you need to do is set autologin on and run the script and when it gets control again at login it calculates the time for the boot. Although it's the reboot time it gives a good and accurate indication on how long it takes.

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moogle,

I've tried running that script and the variance between reboots is as much as 15 per cent, stemming mainly from how long the system takes to actually reboot. Hand-timing it, as above, gives me time variances of no more than three per cent over three runs.

Let me know if you're seeing extremely consistent times with the script.

Tarinder I get consistent times all the time. I'll do like 10 runs now and see if it does differ. It only differed for me when I had a new install and it took time for the actual time to settle (prefetch, superfetch, configurations, windows updates etc)

I'll go try now.

EDIT: Too lazy to do 10 :P but I did do 5! (3's the standard for Physics so be grateful :mrgreen:)

I got

64
63
62
60
61

So about 4 seconds from low to high. I just ran the script on a fresh boot (no programs running from before) and each time I noted the seconds down then ran the script again while the mouse pointer was not busy.

I guess it's more than 3% but it's good so us users can compare it easily without whipping our stopwatch out :P

moogle,

Each system is configured differently and we don't tweak pre-built systems at all - it's is the vendor's responsibility to ensure that it is working, and tweaking it would manifestly change what a potential buyer would be getting.

Still, nice little app.

if that's the best they can squeeze from that cpu i feel sorry for them my q6600 does 3.6 on just over 1.2volts and my temps are lower that cpu should easily beat the peoples champion i cant see how they can warrant the prices either alright the gpu and motherboard and cpu are high end parts but they have spoilt that by using the cheapest nastiest optical drive money can buy i had one and within 2 weeks and unplugging twice the sata connecter came away a pionner would have cost £2 more all in all way to much money.

I can understand their prices, running a business the same as theirs myself and I compare mine to theirs and other's all the time, mine win.

they've higher advertising costs, utility bills, salaries and other such costs, whereas I and a select few others haven't.

To be fair to them, and others like pc specialist, that system from scan, self built would cost £1274.16 + delivery

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

You know what really grinds my gears?

http://img.hexus.net/v2/systems/Chil...G/Side-big.jpg

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That's terrible. I've got that case, and although i'm mid-build - it's a HELLLVA lot better than that.

The cards look terrible (either the cards will damage like that or the mb will - are the PCIE power connectors actually pulling down the corner of the card?!?!), the PSU is the wrong way up (there are standoffs for it at the bottom the of the case so you don't need to mount it upside down to get air to the fan) and the cable management (which the case provides ample facility for) has basically been ignored.

You can run all the cables through the lower hole next to the drive bay like so:

http://i37.tinypic.com/25tgtbt.jpg

That was a while back when i hadn't even really done any cable tidying (ignore the SATA cables/fan cables)! Why on earth run the mb power/cpu power leads over the front of the board? Urk! You can see they'd easily reach round the back!

"Cabling is good, if not excellent," - but it's horrific! Do what?

Hi guys,

I thought I'd respond to a few post here, constructive criticism is of course always welcome :)

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Originally Posted by dangel

That's terrible. I've got that case, and although i'm mid-build - it's a HELLLVA lot better than that.

The cards look terrible (either the cards will damage like that or the mb will - are the PCIE power connectors actually pulling down the corner of the card?!?!)

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Clearly there has been some movement in transit here as the system was sent by Courier to Tarinder. We will supply retail units with internal packaging to prevent the cards from drooping down like that. The PCIe Connectors are not pulling anything down. :)

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Originally Posted by dangel

the PSU is the wrong way up (there are standoffs for it at the bottom the of the case so you don't need to mount it upside down to get air to the fan)

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The Antec Twelve Hundred has no venting under the PSU. We were not happy with the tiny clearance (about 4mm) for the single 120mm fan on the underside of the Corsair PSU. The Antec has mounting holes for either orientation, and this orientation reduced PSU temperatures significantly. This was a conscious decision.

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Originally Posted by dangel

...and the cable management (which the case provides ample facility for) has basically been ignored.

You can run all the cables through the lower hole next to the drive bay like so:

That was a while back when i hadn't even really done any cable tidying (ignore the SATA cables/fan cables)! Why on earth run the mb power/cpu power leads over the front of the board? Urk! You can see they'd easily reach round the back!

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Whilst they reach around the back (and we routed all of the fan, front panel and USB/FW cables around the back), the thickness and relative stiffness of the braided Corsair PSU main loom prevented the side panel from closing completely flush. This made the case slook slightly odd with a bulge on one side :). The decision to route the cabling around the front was therefore made. The 12V AUX cables don't actually reach around the back unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by dangel

"Cabling is good, if not excellent," - but it's horrific! Do what?

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I'm sorry you don't like our cabling Dangel, but it’s governed by functionality and we were not willing to suffocate the PSU causing potential premature failure just to make the cables look perfect. If we had put the PSU the other way around, all of your cable recommendations would have been sound. As it stands, the cable arrangement won't move in transit, is well secured and has been arranged so that the majority of it is hidden by the side panel. :)

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Originally Posted by poly69

if that's the best they can squeeze from that cpu i feel sorry for them my q6600 does 3.6 on just over 1.2volts and my temps are lower that cpu should easily beat the peoples champion i cant see how they can warrant the prices either alright the gpu and motherboard and cpu are high end parts but they have spoilt that by using the cheapest nastiest optical drive money can buy i had one and within 2 weeks and unplugging twice the sata connecter came away a pionner would have cost £2 more all in all way to much money.

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Wow, you certainly have an excellent Q6600! We sent this review machine to Tarinder without any kind of component cherry picking. As he states in the review, even adding extra vcore did not significantly increase overclockability. We have special Q9550 CPUs we use for testing that will do 4GHz, but as most of the chips simply don't hit this speed at acceptable voltages what would be the point in sending Hexus one to review? This is a machine we warranty for two years of stable operation and this speed is a suitable compromise of performance vs. reliability using a CPU cooler that can be safely shipped in transit. If you price up all of the components in this machine, I do not think you will find it to be exorbitantly priced. If you do, I’d love to see at which store as I might have to start purchasing from them ourselves ;)

Overall I think this is a very fair and well written review, and aside from the rather worrying alignment of the card, which we will definitely be taking steps to fix, I'm very happy with all of the conclusions Tarinder has made.

Cheers

Ben

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Originally Posted by Chillblastben

I'm sorry you don't like our cabling Dangel, but it’s governed by functionality and we were not willing to suffocate the PSU causing potential premature failure just to make the cables look perfect. If we had put the PSU the other way around, all of your cable recommendations would have been sound. As it stands, the cable arrangement won't move in transit, is well secured and has been arranged so that the majority of it is hidden by the side panel. :)

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Even still with the PSU facing upwards it doesn't mean you can't route the EPS12V connector through the motherboard tray holes. Or was the connector too short?

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Originally Posted by moogle

Even still with the PSU facing upwards it doesn't mean you can't route the EPS12V connector through the motherboard tray holes. Or was the connector too short?

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Just too short, by about 2cm unfortunately :(