VERDICT
A fast and versatile system with solid hardware choices,
but there are better (and cheaper) options for 4K gaming.OVERALL SCORE
83 %
PERFORMANCE
22 / 25
DESIGN
22 / 25
HARDWARE
22 / 25VALUE
17 / 25OUTRUN
- Superb 12-core AMD CPU
+^ Versatile, feature-
packed motherboard
Large and generous enclosure
Excellent warranty
OUTCLASSED-^ AMD GPU beaten by
RTX 3080 Ti
- Chassis will be too
large for some - Pricier than rivals
results – they’re easily ahead of the Wired2Fire’s RTX 3080
Ti too. Elsewhere, though, AMD’s card fell behind – a sole
victory in Doom Eternal’s 2,560 x 1,440 benchmark isn’t
much to celebrate.
The Radeon RX 6900 XT zipped through Metro Exodus
without ray tracing with a 49fps 99th percentile result, and
it got beyond 30fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K, but that’s
pretty much unplayable in this game. Nvidia’s card is faster
here, and AMD’s relative lack of ray-tracing power and the
absence of a DLSS equivalent means you can’t enjoy those
technologies on the 6900 XT. Indeed, it couldn’t even play
Cyberpunk 2077 with Medium ray tracing at 2,560 x 1,440.
On the plus side, AMD’s 12-core processor is superb. Its
single-threaded image editing score of 66,973 is solid, and
its result of 942,675 in our heavily multithreaded Handbrake
test is sensational – far beyond Intel’s Core i9-11900XE.
That makes the Ryzen 9 5900X a fantastic choice if you
need content creation and gaming ability in equal measure.
It’s a little slower than the Wired2Fire, but the difference is
negligible. The SSD is brilliant too – its respective read and
write speeds of 7,126MB/sec and 5,202MB/sec are great,
and you get 2TB of space as well.
What’s more, Chillblast’s system is an impressive thermal
performer. The fan noise is modest and manageable when
gaming, and the GPU ran at boost speeds beyond 2400MHz
during games. The machine was barely any louder during
a full-system stress test, and in a multi-threaded work
benchmark, the Chillblast was consistently quiet, with the
CPU running at just over 4.05GHz across all cores. There
were no temperature issues – the CPU and GPU delta Ts of
51°C and 56°C are fine.
BENCHMARK RESULTS
GIMP IMAGE
EDITING66,973
HANDBRAKE H.264
VIDEO ENCODING942,675
HEAVY MULTI
TASKING360,048
SYSTEM
SCORE352,183
99th Percentile Average2,560 x 1,440, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settingsDOOM ETERNAL0 100 200 300 400Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 265fps 381fps3,840 x 2,160, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settings0 100 200 300 400Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 142fps 216fps2,560 x 1,440, Ultra High settings, High AAASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA0306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 75fps 101fps3,840 x 2,160, Ultra High settings, High AA0306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 49fps 64fps2,560 x 1,440, Ultra preset, no ray tracingCYBERPUNK 20770306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 55fps 83fps3,840 x 2,160, Ultra preset, no ray tracing0306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 33fps 40fps2,560 x 1,440, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RTMETRO EXODUS0306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 50fps 75fps3,840 x 2,160, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RT0306090120Chillblast Fusion Testarossa 29fps 40fpsConclusion
The Testarossa is expensive, but it does go some way to
justifying that price with excellent hardware. The processor
is a top-tier content-creation option, the motherboard is
packed with features, the sizeable SSD is fast, and the case
is large, accessible and versatile.
Those attributes bode well for tough workloads, but the
Testarossa isn’t infallible. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is fast,
but the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is generally faster,
particularly when you add ray tracing to the mix. Wired2Fire’s
system is significantly cheaper too, even if both PCs cost well
over three grand. The Chillblast Fusion Testarossa is a great
machine for content creation, future upgrades and additional
storage, but it’s not necessarily the best option in this price
bracket for gaming.
MIKE JENNINGS