VERDICT
Great performance in games and multi-threaded work. It’s
expensive, but you get a superb spec for that money.
OVERALL SCORE
85 %
PERFORMANCE
24 / 25
DESIGN
21 / 25
HARDWARE
20 / 25
VALUE
20 / 25
WIRED2FIRE
+ Excellent gaming
performance
+^ Terrific CPU
+ Generous
warranty
+ Cheaper than
competition
WIRED4SOUND
-^ Mediocre
motherboard
- Average case
-^ Middling storage
capacity
BENCHMARK RESULTS
The Nvidia GPU also achieved a 99th percentile result
of 37fps at 4K in Metro Exodus with ray tracing and 48fps
with DLSS. Not surprisingly, that’s faster than the AMD GPU.
Without ray tracing, the Nvidia’s minimum of 47fps was
a couple of frames per second behind the AMD GPU, but
that’s a minor difference. The Wired2Fire machine only fell
behind significantly in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but while
the AMD card had a decent lead there, the RTX 3080 Ti still
comfortably plays the game at 4K.
GIMP IMAGE
EDITING
64,770
HANDBRAKE H.264
VIDEO ENCODING
951,126
HEAVY MULTI
TASKING
364,490
SYSTEM
SCORE
355,019
The processor is no slouch
either. The Wired2Fire
system delivered Handbrake
and multi-tasking results that
crept ahead of the Chillblast,
and it was barely slower
in the image editing test.
The differences are small,
though, and both systems
offer a huge amount of
power from their Ryzen 9
5900X CPUs.
The Samsung 980 Pro
SSD is a great inclusion as
well – its respective read and
write speeds of 7,134MB/
sec and 5,195MB/sec in this
machine are superb, and while you won’t often see those
speeds in standard use, it’s good to know you have such fast
data transfer speeds on tap if you need them.
The Wired2Fire was good in thermal tests as well. It was
consistently quiet, with the noise from this machine and the
Chillblast both proving easy to overpower with speakers
or a headset. The CPU and GPU delta Ts of 53°C and 51°C
are solid too. The Wired2Fire’s processor was marginally
quicker than the Chillblast’s during work benchmarks: in
an all-core test, it hovered at around 4.15GHz, and single-
core testing regularly saw the chip achieving its 4.8GHz
Turbo pace.
Conclusion
Wired2Fire’s Ultimate system impresses. The RTX 3080 Ti
will tackle any gaming task, it has ray tracing and DLSS, and
it’s usually quicker than the rival Radeon RX 6900 XT. The
AMD CPU is great for content creation, and this rig has loads
of memory and a great warranty.
It’s cheaper than the Chillblast, but this does mean a
weaker motherboard, a smaller SSD and a case with limited
upgrade potential. These aren’t major issues for most
people, though, and while this system costs over three
grand, it does offer Nvidia’s latest GPU without paying the
silly prices we see for individual cards on eBay. This rig is
fast, reasonably affordable and available, making it a solid
gaming choice if you can afford it.
MIKE JENNINGS
99th Percentile Average
2,560 x 1,440, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settings
DOOM ETERNAL
0 100 200 300 400
Wired2Fire Ultimate 254fps 388fps
3,840 x 2,160, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settings
0 100 200 300 400
Wired2Fire Ultimate 144fps 231fps
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra High settings, High AA
ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 59fps 81fps
3,840 x 2,160, Ultra High settings, High AA
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 44fps 58fps
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra preset, no ray tracing
CYBERPUNK 2077
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 70fps 82fps
3,840 x 2,160, Ultra preset, no ray tracing
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 38fps 43fps
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RT
METRO EXODUS
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 53fps 93fps
3,840 x 2,160, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RT
0306090120
Wired2Fire Ultimate 37fps 56fps