Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima review

Wired2Fire’s latest system – the third to arrive in our labs to bear the Hellspawn name – is the cheapest we’ve seen from the Surrey-based firm, but the inclusion of Intel’s Core i3 processor means it’s no slouch.

The Core i3-530’s stock speed of 2.93GHz is immediately impressive, but Wired2Fire has taken this one step further and overclocked the chip to a mighty 4GHz. The result is a benchmark score of 2.38 which is almost as quick as the A-Listed Chillblast Fusion Midgard, which costs closer to £800 exc VAT.

The Ultima also performed reasonably well in our games tests. It’s indicative of ATI’s recent success that the mid-range Radeon HD 5750 romped through our Low and Medium-quality tests and then scored 35fps in our High-quality Crysis benchmark; more than enough to handle most modern titles. Only Crysis’s Very High settings defeated the Ultima, but you’d have to spend quite a bit more for a PC capable of that.

The rest of the specification is good, too. 4GB of RAM keeps Windows 7 Home Premium ticking over, the 500GB hard disk swallows the largest of media collections, and the DVD writer is a standard addition; Blu-ray doesn’t quite fit into this price just yet. It’s also worth mentioning the power supply, an OCZ Stealth XStream that claims to be whisper-quiet and more than 80% efficient.

The components are housed in Cooler Master’s Elite 334 chassis, which boasts a keen sense of style and solid build quality. It doesn’t have the enthusiast features or noise-cancelling foam of more expensive cases, but it’s roomy, there’s a motherboard tray to hide spare wires, and drives can be clipped in and out without the need for tools.

Wired2Fire’s fastidious approach means the Ultima is also tidy inside. Potentially messy cables are tied together and lashed to various internal structures, and there’s a good amount of upgrade potential, with a PCI-Express 16x slot, a pair of DIMM sockets and a whole raft of drive bays empty. None of these areas were blocked by cables, other components or coolers.

It’s quiet, too. The squat Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro cooler was discreet, and the fan on the XFX graphics card whirred a good deal less than on basic stock ATI cards. The resulting noise was nothing more than a gentle hum, and should only prove intrusive in the quietest of rooms.

The 22in Hanns.G HH222DPB monitor combines a glossy, stylish exterior with good image quality for gaming and movies. It’s just a shame its native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 is short of full HD. The keyboard and mouse, a wired Logitech set, are both extremely comfortable.

Good peripherals, an impressive chassis and superb performance mean there are few chinks in the Wired2Fire’s armoury. It’s a tremendous package for the price and, as such, earns a deserved Recommended award.

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