Wired2Fire Hellspawn Xtreme review

£1486
Price when reviewed

Wired2Fire’s Hellspawn Xtreme is the first system to arrive in the PC Pro Labs touting AMD’s Radeon HD 6850 graphics. And in typical Wired2Fire fashion, it comes with not one but two of the monstrous things.

They’re not the highest-end cards, but plonking two of them together makes for some predictably strong benchmark results. An average of 65fps in our 1,920 x 1,080 Very High-quality Crysis benchmark is as good as we’ve seen in a PC, just edging ahead of our tests of the dual-GPU HD 5970 card. It’s also a massive 29fps faster than last month’s Yoyotech XDNA 760 with its Nvidia GeForce GTX 470.

The pair of cards excelled as we moved up the difficulty scale, with a score of 34fps in our 2,560 x 1,600 Very High-quality benchmark with 4x anti-aliasing. Nothing we’ve tested can match that, not even the brand new Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 580 – although of course this is two cards against Nvidia’s one.

Wired2Fire Hellspawn Xtreme

So it’s our new fastest gaming PC, and it’s built inside Corsair’s Graphite Series 600T chassis. It’s striking despite the familiar meshed front, thanks to its matte black surround and squat, curved shape. Build quality is top-notch throughout, with thick, steel side panels that are released using a pair of clasps.

There’s more matte black finish inside, which, when combined with the black cables that snake from the modular PSU, makes for a stylish machine. The motherboard tray contributes to a tidy build, too; cables are hidden, and rubber-ringed holes allow cables to emerge only to access relevant ports and sockets.

The case is peppered with neat touches elsewhere. The bottom half of the meshed front can be removed with a click to access the 120mm fan and its dust filter, and detaching the top of the case allows installation of more case fans and half-height water-cooling reservoirs. There’s also a small lock that can secure the side of the chassis.

The front provides one USB 3 port – albeit routed from the backplate – alongside four USB 2 ports, audio jacks and FireWire. The rear provides a single USB 3 port alongside four more USB 2, two PS/2 ports, S/PDIF sockets and Gigabit Ethernet. Disappointingly, there’s no eSATA, but the USB 3 ports offer a different route to faster external storage.

Warranty

Warranty2 yr return to base

Basic specifications

Total hard disk capacity1,128GB
RAM capacity6.00GB
Screen sizeN/A

Processor

CPU familyIntel Core i7
CPU nominal frequency2.80GHz
CPU overclocked frequency4.00GHz
Processor socketLGA 1366
HSF (heatsink-fan)Corsair H70 water-cooling

Motherboard

MotherboardAsus P6X58D-E
Motherboard chipsetIntel X58
Conventional PCI slots free0
Conventional PCI slots total2
PCI-E x16 slots free1
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 connectors4
Internal SAS connectors1
Internal PATA connectors1
Internal floppy connectors0
Wired adapter speed1,000Mbits/sec

Memory

Memory typeDDR3
Memory sockets free3
Memory sockets total6

Graphics card

Graphics cardAMD Radeon HD 6850
Multiple SLI/CrossFire cards?yes
3D performance settingLow
Graphics chipsetAMD Radeon HD 6850
Graphics card RAM1.00GB
DVI-I outputs4
HDMI outputs2
VGA (D-SUB) outputs0
DisplayPort outputs0
Number of graphics cards2

Hard disk

Hard diskCorsair Nova 128GB SSD
Capacity128GB
Hard disk usable capacityN/A
Internal disk interfaceSATA/600
Spindle speedN/A
Hard disk 2 make and modelSamsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ
Hard disk 2 nominal capacity1,000GB
Hard disk 2 formatted capacity931
Hard disk 2 spindle speed7,200RPM
Hard disk 2 cache size32MB
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 driveSamsung SH-B083L
Optical disc technologyBlu-ray reader
Optical disk 2 make and modelN/A
Optical disk 3 make and modelN/A

Monitor

Monitor make and modelN/A
Resolution screen horizontalN/A
Resolution screen verticalN/A
ResolutionN/A x N/A
Pixel response timeN/A
Contrast ratioN/A
Screen brightnessN/A
DVI inputsN/A
HDMI inputsN/A
VGA inputsN/A
DisplayPort inputsN/A

Additional Peripherals

SpeakersN/A
Speaker typeN/A
Sound cardRealtek HD Audio
PeripheralsNA

Case

ChassisCorsair Graphite Series 600T
Case formatFull tower
Dimensions265 x 592 x 507mm (WDH)

Power supply

Power supply rating750W
Power supply efficiencyN/A

Free drive bays

Free front panel 5.25in bays3

Rear ports

USB ports (downstream)8
FireWire ports1
PS/2 mouse portyes
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports1
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports1
Modemno
3.5mm audio jacks8

Front ports

Front panel USB ports5
Front panel memory card readerno

Mouse & Keyboard

Mouse and keyboardN/A

Operating system and software

OS familyWindows 7
Software suppliedN/A

Noise and power

Idle power consumption194W
Peak power consumption508W

Performance tests

Overall application benchmark score2.79
Office application benchmark score2.46
2D graphics application benchmark score2.96
Encoding application benchmark score2.29
Multitasking application benchmark score3.44
3D performance (crysis) low settings141fps
3D performance settingLow

Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.

Todays Highlights
How to See Google Search History
how to download photos from google photos