http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/desktops/361453/chillblast-fusion-swift

I am seriously considering ordering one of these this week or next. It is to replace my 8.5 yr old Evesham which, despite soldiering on, is now driving me mad with it's performance.... or lack of !

I don't need the speakers or monitor (though I'm tempted to keep the Samsung).

My present rig is an Athlon XP 2100 running at 1.7mhz with a mighty 512mb memory driving an ati card that struggles to run flash games and iPlayer, never mind anything more demanding. You're talking Ark computing here !

I'm not really putting down the Evesham. It has performed amazingly over the years and was built when that company had a name one could be proud of but it is really time to change and save the few pounds VAT that I will pay if I leave it much longer.

I know I'll get a huge increase in ooooomph but what do you guys think of this pc and more importantly, is it worth waiting for anything just round the corner that would make the VAT savings inconsequential.

I think this is a good replacement.. what do you think ?

on their website you can pick and choose componants and cut out what you don't need, unlike many where it's all or nothing. Same for the second place machine, which actually seems a little better balanced when you cut out the monitors and tweak a bit.

Looks a nice computer although PSU seems a bit weedy.

Yes, and when you spec a better case as well, the price is a fair bit higher, hence the wired being worth a look. Also, not sure if the bluray software is included, which is definately listed on thje runner up

The Chillblast site states an EZCool 700W power supply. I too thought 400 was a little on the low side particularly when considering future additions to the pc.

Why don't you just build one Paul?

The Wired2Fire is an i5 cpu though whereas Chillblast offer the i7.

Yes but the Chillblast i7 model is based on socket 1156 - the same socket as the i5.

I would either go for an i5 760 using socket 1156 or go for an i7 930 on socket 1366 and make use of the triple-ram ability.

Make sure it has USB3 ports. They're the future.

Is nobody gonna spec this man a machine??

I was tempted but then people might think I'm touting.

Damn it John!! I could build better than that PC Pro POS in my sleep. I can only imagine what you could do

OK OK - this is what I would recommend. Something like:-

Asus P7P55D (socket 1156) motherboard as has Sata 6Gbps and USB 3
Intel i5 760 cpu
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 cpu cooler
4Gb (2 x 2) Corsair Dominator DDR ram (PC3-12800)
1Tb Samsung F3 hard drive
LG Blu-Ray reader and DVD ReWriter combo - if not fussed re. blu-ray then straight dual-layer DVD rewriter
AMD Radeon 6850 graphics card - or possibly nVidia GTX460
620w Seasonic modular PSU
Antec Three-Hundred case
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

That all comes to around £820 on Scan's website if went for blu-ray reader

If it was mine I would also probably get a 64Gb Crucial C300 SSD for extra £109 and have that as the boot drive and use the Samsung for things like music, videos, games etc.

Sounds good. What about a monitor?

Paul said in his 1st post he didn't need one.