Chillblast Fusion Triplex review

The PC itself is built inside Lian Li’s PC-A05NB chassis. It’s not the largest we’ve seen, only just able to accommodate an ATX motherboard, but it has a quirk we haven’t often seen since the BTX revolution failed to take off: the motherboard is on the opposite side and upside down, with the PSU sitting at the front of the chassis, which should increase airflow.

The two 120mm case fans proved quiet, and the Xigmatek NRP-PC502 power supply has a 140mm fan – slightly larger than normal to reduce noise – so the whole system barely made a peep during a testing. Cooling performance was more mixed. The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 kept the processor below a peak 69°C, but the graphics card wasn’t as effective, rising to a peak of 94°C – not critical, but higher than we’d like.

The processor, two free DIMM sockets and the graphics card are all easily accessible, and the vacant hard disk and 5.25in bays can be used without the need for tools. There’s also a trio of spare PCI sockets and a PCI-Express x4 slot free.

There’s a DVD writer instead of Blu-ray, but a wide selection of ports and sockets are spread around the case. A pair of USB 3 ports on the rear is joined by USB 2, eSATA, FireWire, two PS/2 sockets and even Bluetooth 2.1, which is included as standard with the Asus motherboard. You also get Logitech’s Desktop Wave keyboard and mouse set, which is comfortable and sports additional media buttons.

As a fast PC with three 23in monitors, the Fusion Triplex is awesome to behold, but so is the £2,398 inc VAT price. We know these monitors, as well as a decent stand, can be had at retail for about £250 inc VAT each. That leaves the PC itself at about £1,400, which looks high for this specification. If the chosen monitors were of a better quality – perhaps Dell’s Ultrasharp U2311H – we could fully jump on board, but as it is the Chillblast is a niche package for home office professionals looking for a quick productivity boost.