Chillblast Fusion Eyefinity review

£2299
Price when reviewed

It’s not every day a new technology promises to run games at a resolution of 5,760 x 2,160 and across six screens, but that’s the aim of ATI’s Eyefinity. The process is surprisingly simple: multiple monitors are automatically grouped together by ATI’s Catalyst driver so the GPU sees them as a single, continuous desktop.

For its Fusion Eyefinity PC, Chillblast has picked an ATI Radeon HD 5870 card and, while this may not be the rare (we suspect non-existent) Eyefinity 6 Edition that can power six screens, it can still output 5,760 x 1,080 across three Full HD displays.

Chillblast Fusion Eyefinity

ATI claims Eyefinity’s increased resolution makes games more immersive and the average PC far more versatile; at first glance, it’s hard to disagree. Burnout Paradise’s palpable sense of speed is heightened with two extra monitors to show the world whizzing past, while the jungles of Crysis impose themselves far more when you’re hemmed in by them.

Potential problems are tackled at the driver level. The left- and right-hand images are very slightly blurred and stretched in the style of a fisheye lens (see below), with the effect more pronounced towards the far edge of the image. It’s a neat trick that does a decent job of replicating our peripheral vision.

The 18mm side bezels on the monitors weren’t as irritating as we expected, either. While it’s impossible not to notice them, especially when fast-moving images jump across the divide, we found our eyes merely adjusted and filtered them out, much as they do with a car’s A-pillars.

However, several niggling issues can’t be ignored. Heads-up displays in games were stretched across the full resolution of the screen, with mini-maps and gauges shunted to the furthest reaches of our peripheral vision. It’s possible to glance at these comfortably only if you’re sitting a fair distance back from the screen, which is both impractical and rather defeats the point of the surround experience.

In fact, we found that, while huddled up at a desk, we couldn’t concentrate on such a vast area at once. Where that’s the intention – such as Burnout’s blurred sense of speed – it’s not an issue, but details on those side screens can feel dislocated from the core experience.

ATI also claims Office applications benefit from Eyefinity, with the vast desktop space lending itself to multitasking. However, the extra video outputs are the only tangible benefit here over a traditional dual-monitor setup.

Eyefinity aside, the three 22in Dell Professional P2210H panels offer Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolutions, so three together makes for a long, narrow viewing area. With good image quality and accurate colours, they’re more than good enough for everyday use, even if the darkest black shades expose slight backlight bleeding at the bottom of the screens.

Warranty

Warranty2yr collect and return

Basic specifications

Total hard disk capacity1,080
RAM capacity6.00GB
Screen size22.0in

Processor

CPU familyIntel Core i7
CPU nominal frequency2.66GHz
CPU overclocked frequency4.00GHz
Processor socketLGA 1366
HSF (heatsink-fan)Domino ALC

Motherboard

MotherboardAsus P6T SE
Motherboard chipsetIntel X58
Conventional PCI slots free1
Conventional PCI slots total2
PCI-E x16 slots free2
PCI-E x16 slots total3
PCI-E x8 slots free0
PCI-E x8 slots total0
PCI-E x4 slots free0
PCI-E x4 slots total0
PCI-E x1 slots free1
PCI-E x1 slots total1
Internal SATA connectors6
Internal SAS connectors1
Internal PATA connectors1
Internal floppy connectors1
Wired adapter speed1,000Mbits/sec

Memory

Memory typeDDR3
Memory sockets free3
Memory sockets total6

Graphics card

Graphics cardATI Radeon HD 5870
Multiple SLI/CrossFire cards?no
3D performance settingHigh
Graphics chipsetATI Radeon HD 5870
Graphics card RAM1.00GB
DVI-I outputs2
HDMI outputs1
VGA (D-SUB) outputs0
DisplayPort outputs1
Number of graphics cards1

Hard disk

Capacity1.00TB
Hard disk usable capacity931GB
Internal disk interfaceSATA/300
Spindle speed7,200RPM
Cache size32MB
Hard disk 2 make and modelIntel X-25M SSD
Hard disk 2 nominal capacity80GB
Hard disk 2 formatted capacityN/A
Hard disk 2 spindle speedN/A
Hard disk 2 cache sizeN/A
Hard disk 3 make and modelN/A
Hard disk 3 nominal capacityN/A
Hard disk 4 make and modelN/A
Hard disk 4 nominal capacityN/A

Drives

Optical driveLG GGW-H20L
Optical disc technologyBlu-ray reader
Optical disk 2 make and modelN/A
Optical disk 3 make and modelN/A

Monitor

Monitor make and modelDell Professional P2210H
Resolution screen horizontal1,920
Resolution screen vertical1,080
Resolution1920 x 1080
Pixel response time5ms
Contrast ratio1,000:1
Screen brightness250cd/m2
DVI inputs1
HDMI inputs0
VGA inputs1
DisplayPort inputs1

Additional Peripherals

SpeakersN/A
Speaker typeN/A
Sound cardAsus Xonar
PeripheralsN/A

Case

ChassisSilverstone Raven RV02
Case formatFull tower
Dimensions212 x 643 x 503mm (WDH)

Power supply

Power supplyOCZ
Power supply rating700W

Free drive bays

Free front panel 5.25in bays3

Rear ports

USB ports (downstream)8
FireWire ports1
eSATA ports1
PS/2 mouse portyes
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports1
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports1
Modemno
3.5mm audio jacks10

Front ports

Front panel USB ports2
Front panel memory card readerno

Mouse & Keyboard

Mouse and keyboardLogitech Deluxe Wireless 660 keyboard, Razer Salmosa mouse

Operating system and software

OS familyWindows 7
Recovery methodRecovery disc

Noise and power

Idle power consumption194W
Peak power consumption354W

Performance tests

Overall application benchmark score2.80
Office application benchmark score2.37
2D graphics application benchmark score2.95
Encoding application benchmark score2.32
Multitasking application benchmark score3.54
3D performance (crysis) low settings70fps
3D performance settingHigh

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