Reviews - Chillblast Fusion Stealth

[HEXUS]

Ultra quiet and ultra fast. This is our kind of desktop PC.

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[deejayburnout]

Nice Rig.

Imagine the power with SLI and a better OC........................

[Valinor]

Yeah, but imagine the extra noise...

[Honandal]

Silent system fans wrongly set in BIOS

I have just bought (January 2013) my second Chillblast computer in five years so I am reasonably satisfied with the make. But there are some issues I'd like to warn about.

SILENT SYSTEM?
My new PC is a Fusion Stealth which is listed as one of Chillblast's 'Silent Systems'. When I got it the PC was fairly noisy. To cut a longish story short it transpired that the BIOS settings for the fans were incorrectly set at Chillblast. There are four BIOS fan settings and they all should be on 'silent' but in my case they were all on 'standard'. Changing these to 'silent' quietened the PC down considerably but it is not silent: there is a continuous albeit low fan noise.

Chillblast apologised profusely for the incorrect BIOS settings but went on to say:
"The Stealth system is not designed to be truly ‘silent’; only the Fusion Vacuum series are truly silent as they feature no moving parts. The Stealth and our other low noise systems all have fans inside which need to be running during normal use. The advantage is that you can have a much more powerful PC than you can with the Fusion Vacuum series."

I decided in the end that my Stealth was quiet enough but I think it is misleading to list the Stealth on the website at the head of their 'Silent Systems' when it isn't. Perhaps they need to advertise it as a 'low noise system', not a 'silent system'.

The other lesson for buyers of any PC is that you can't guarantee it will be set up correctly. My confidence in the rest of the settings has been undermined but isn't easy to check what they should be; Chillblast assert that everything else was done correctly.

Unless the noise level is given in decibels and you have some way of measuring the PC you are never going to know how the thing will sound or whether your example is working properly.

WINDOWS 8 SLEEP REMOVED

My Stealth was supplied with Windows 8 Standard. My old PC had Windows 8 PRO which I downloaded when it was on special offer. I particularly like the 'Sleep' feature which Microsoft recommend as the default method when shutting down, rather than completely turning off. But I couldn't find the Sleep option on the Stealth and spent much time fruitlessly searching for it and Googling for answers. Chillblast eventually told me that they remove Sleep from overclocked PCs (as the Stealth is) because it may make the system unstable.

DELIVERY TIME

Chillblast quote 7 - 10 working days. My Stealth took nearly 15 working days to arrive. Admittedly snow disrupted supplies and Chillblast were also moving to larger premises during the build period. My beef is that they were poor at keeping me informed about progress. If delivery time is important to you I'd recommend trying to pin them down in advance, which I didn't.

[Honandal]

Revised review 21 February 2013 to reflect Chillblast responses

In January 2013 I bought a Chillblast Fusion Stealth and this is my second Chillblast computer in five years. So I am happy with the make. My experience with the Stealth for nearly three weeks has been positive. But there are some issues I'd like to mention.

SILENT SYSTEM?
The Fusion Stealth was listed as one of Chillblast's 'Silent Systems'. When I got it the PC was fairly noisy. To cut a longish story short it transpired that the BIOS settings for the fans were incorrectly set at Chillblast. There are four BIOS fan settings and they all should be on 'silent' but in my case they were all on 'standard'. Changing these to 'silent' quietened the PC down considerably but it is not silent: there is a continuous albeit low fan noise.

Chillblast apologised profusely for the incorrect BIOS settings but went on to say:
"The Stealth system is not designed to be truly ‘silent’; only the Fusion Vacuum series are truly silent as they feature no moving parts. The Stealth and our other low noise systems all have fans inside which need to be running during normal use. The advantage is that you can have a much more powerful PC than you can with the Fusion Vacuum series."

I decided in the end that my Stealth was quiet enough and Chillblast kindly paid me £50 compensation.

I suggested to Chillblast that it might be misleading to list the Stealth on the website at the head of their 'Silent Systems' when it isn't silent. Chillblast agreed and they have changed the main heading for 'silent systems' to 'silent and ultra quiet'. In addition the individual headings for each PC in this category has been revised to show whether it is silent or ultra quiet.

It remains true that the buyer of any PC can't be sure it will be set up correctly. Unless the noise level is given in decibels and you have some way of measuring the PC you are never going to know how the thing will sound or whether your example is working properly. However, Chillblast are very good at responding to complaints and dealing with them quickly.

WINDOWS 8 SLEEP REMOVED
My Stealth was supplied with Windows 8 Standard. My old PC had Windows 8 PRO which I downloaded when it was on special offer. I particularly like the 'Sleep' feature which Microsoft recommend as the default method when shutting down, rather than completely turning off. But I couldn't find the Sleep option on the Stealth and spent much time fruitlessly searching for it and Googling for answers. Chillblast told me that they remove Sleep from overclocked PCs (as the Stealth is) because it may make the system unstable.

Chillblast also pointed out that their general terms and conditions include a warning that they don't recommend sleep mode because of stability issues and that, specifically, overclocked PCs may have sleep removed. So I admit I only have myself to blame for failing to plough through the lengthy small print! I suggested to Chillblast that terms and conditions usually deal with commercial matters like warranties, refunds etc and not technical choices. Hence I felt it would be better if they had more specific warnings for each PC. This is Chillblast's response:

"I agree that in a perfect world this sleep issue would be more boldly advertised, however please understand that have to carefully tread a middle ground between being as helpful and informative as possible, without putting off potential purchasers by scaring them away. If we stipulated every possible issue in terms of OS compatibility problems, and the steps we take to minimise the likelihood of their manifestation, then we would driving away sales where none of our competitors provide the same courtesy. After all, the sleep mode bug affects all manufacturers of overclocked machines, yet to my knowledge we are the only ones who inform our customers of the potential pitfalls of using it."

Finally, Chillblast came to the view that because the Stealth is not aggressively overclocked it was likely that sleep would in fact work. They gave helpful guidance on how to restore sleep and the Stealth has now worked fine with it for 3 days.

START SHELL
I chose to have the Chillblast optimise my system for an extra £30. This turned out to include the installation of a shell which puts back the old Start button. I did not want this and Chillblast explained how to remove it. They have also revised the options so that optimisation is a separate option from the Start shell.

DELIVERY TIME
Chillblast quote 7 - 10 working days. My Stealth took nearly 15 working days to arrive. Admittedly snow disrupted supplies and Chillblast were also moving to larger premises during the build period. My beef is that they were poor at keeping me informed about progress. If delivery time is important to you I'd recommend trying to pin them down in advance, which I didn't.

[jimbouk]

It sounds like they've very gracious and refunded you some money, very helpful and responded to all your queries, and were only 5 days late delivering despite the snow!

Thumbs up and recommended by you then Honandal?

[Honandal]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I have to give a slightly qualified thumbs up because I can't get over the fact that a supposedly "silent" Stealth was delivered with basic settings wrong. Chillblast responded well and this is excellent. My Stealth continues to perform well. I also still have reservations about the delivery estimates. They couldn't predict the snow but they knew they were moving premises and, presumably, they must have known this might affect delivery schedules. One difficulty I have in commenting is that I only buy a PC once in blue moon so I have little up to date information on competitors. Chillblast are a lot better than Dell who on past experience are far less helpful and display less real knowledge. Dell have (or had) Indian call centres who work to a set script and it seemed to take a lot more effort to resolve problems.

[Viper P D]

For a review that is just over a month old I am disappointed to see that for 1200 quid you no longer get 1,600MHZ memory!! You have to pay an extra £48 for that! Chillblast doing the usual spec it out for review cheaper trick!

As for the cpu cooler: "The Rev. 2 Tranquillo is designed for silent enthusiasts who do not have a big budget and will not be overclocking their system. - Gelid Marketing Taiwan" ... Ok? This IS an overclocked system and they want another £20 for the recommended Dark Rock 2!!

Add some decent thermal paste and pay the delivery and this is actually a £1300 PC!!!

At least the review mentioned the rip off prices for a decent size SSD, now a Samsung 840, and you have a £1400 PC!!

Shame, 'cos I really fancied it

[Viper P D]

For a review that is just over a month old I am disappointed to see that for 1200 quid you no longer get 1,600MHZ memory!! You have to pay an extra £48 for that! Chillblast doing the usual spec it out for review cheaper trick!

As for the cpu cooler: "The Rev. 2 Tranquillo is designed for silent enthusiasts who do not have a big budget and will not be overclocking their system. - Gelid Marketing Taiwan" ... Ok? This IS an overclocked system and they want another £20 for the recommended Dark Rock 2!!

Add some decent thermal paste and pay the delivery and this is actually a £1300 PC!!!

At least the review mentioned the rip off prices for a decent size SSD, now a Samsung 840, and you have a £1400 PC!!

Shame, 'cos I really fancied it

Further to my disappointment above, I emailed Chillblast about their pricing.... Quickly got a reply telling me they had amended the web site with regard to the memory pricing. Bringing it in line with the review price.

I also managed to negotiate a £41 discount on the 250gig SSD

Got an OC at 4.4Ghz if I took the Dark Rock 2 and a little bit of discount here and there. Don't need the Bluray either giving a little discount there also.

I can also collect (being local to them) removing the delivery cost.

I have made a saving of around £120-150 for the spec I want and their correspondence has been excellent today.

Very impressed with the spec and service I have received today from Chillblast, by far the best of all the SI's I have contacted.

I will be ordering my system after the weekend.... Cant wait.

[Moonister]

Hi there,

Thank you for your posts.

Have you ordered & received your PC yet? I'm interested in this rig as well and I'm curious how it performs. Very good points regarding the price. My set up came up to £1,550 with Akasa cooler and 250GB of SSD. Will be asking for a discount though.

I've been looking around for a high-end PC which will be powerful (and stay this way for a few years) yet does not sound like a yet.

I used to have Dell laptop and it was terribly noisy and slow, even at low load. So I decided to jump to OSX and I got a macbook pro which is really quiet / decent. However I'm thinking of giving Windows another chance so planning to sell my Macbook Pro together with my xbox and have all in one piece of equipment for work / entertainment purposes.

I am also considering Chillblast Fusion Firebird which is cheaper (£1,450) with the same case as Stealth and have slightly better specs (i.e. I7 and gtx 680) but it may be louder than Stealth as some components are different.

Cheers,
Adrian

Further to my disappointment above, I emailed Chillblast about their pricing.... Quickly got a reply telling me they had amended the web site with regard to the memory pricing. Bringing it in line with the review price.

I also managed to negotiate a £41 discount on the 250gig SSD

Got an OC at 4.4Ghz if I took the Dark Rock 2 and a little bit of discount here and there. Don't need the Bluray either giving a little discount there also.

I can also collect (being local to them) removing the delivery cost.

I have made a saving of around £120-150 for the spec I want and their correspondence has been excellent today.

Very impressed with the spec and service I have received today from Chillblast, by far the best of all the SI's I have contacted.

I will be ordering my system after the weekend.... Cant wait.

[Viper P D]

Hi there,

Thank you for your posts.

Have you ordered & received your PC yet? I'm interested in this rig as well and I'm curious how it performs.

Yes I bought the Fusion Stealth.

I have had it for just over a week and so far it has exceeded my expectations in terms of it's performance.
When I picked it up it was still on the test rig but this gave me the opportunity to speak with the test engineer about it's performance. It had performed well except the 4.4Ghz clock has pushed the CPU temps higher than they would have liked and had to set the case fan speeds to max. Usually they use the medium setting on the Define R4 case. So the system is quiet not ultra quiet. I was told under normal loads I probably could get away with using it on the medium fan settings and when tried the system really is ultra quiet. This leads me to the biggest headache I had when choosing the spec for this system .. the CPU cooler. Frankly I didn't like any of the components they chose for this system. I went with the Dark Rock 2 which they say is the quietest cooler they have used but I have read some less than positive reviews about it's ability to cool. Which for it's price it should do. Then again the Akasa cooler seems to perform no better and is a lot louder! The Asus GPU is all but silent in the system, performs well and has potential for a bigger overclock. The only noise from the system is from the fans on high but I can live with that it's just a constant hum and a lot quieter than the PC it replaces.

If you decide to go with the Firebird I guarantee it will be considerably louder, the define case fans will be set max. Have a loud Zantac GPU, louder power supply, and louder cpu cooler what ever option you choose. (I would go with the Noctua).

The only thing I regret is getting the slightly greater overclock. It has put doubt in my mind if I should run the fans on medium. If I hadn't then I truly would have had a good performing, super quiet unit that is more than capable of doing anything I have thrown at it. Although I haven't yet given it the test Of Skyrim with hi res textures in 3D yet but it's gonna happen soon!!

Whatever you decide do haggle, even ask for other components. I shoulda got them to fit a Dark Rock Pro but they talked me out of it. Be insistent if they want your business. It's very competitive out there!

[anon87]

Hi.

Would you guys who bought this system still recommend it?

[Viper P D]

Two years in and mine has handled everything I have thrown at it with ease. Would recommend a good sized SSD and an Nvidia 970 now, it would give you a very quiet gaming beast. The spec has changed and not much of the core parts I have are in the current options so bare that in mind.