Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-05-11)

23

HOW WE TEST

Computeractive is owned by Future PLC,

which employs a team of specialist

technical reviewers. You’ll often read

references to our benchmark testing,

which is a method of assessing products

using the same criteria. For example, we

test the speed of every PC and the battery

life of every phone and tablet in exactly

the same way. This makes our reviews

authoritative, rigorous and accurate.

Future PLC also owns the magazines

Maximum PC, PC Pro and T3, and the

websites Laptop Mag (www.laptopmag.

com), TechRadar (www.techradar.com)

and Windows Central (www.windows

central.com). This means we can test

thousands of products before choosing

the most relevant for Computeractive.

FAIR AND IMPARTIAL

Our writers follow strict guidelines to

ensure the reviews are fair and impartial.

The manufacturer has no involvement in

our tests.

OUR AWARDS

We award every product

that gets five stars our

Buy It! stamp of approval.

It means we were

extremely impressed by the product, and

we think you will be too.

Every product that gets a

four-star review is given the

Recommended award. We

highly recommend these

products, although they just fail to meet the

high standard of our Buy It! winners.

PRICES

Our reviews contain a link to the best price

we found online at the time of press.

The bottom line is that, no matter what

the size and resolution of your screen,

this graphics card can deliver glorious-

looking, super-slick graphics.

The rest of the PC is as up to scratch as

you’d hope from a machine at this price.

It comes with 16GB of RAM, which is

ample for running Windows 11, though

there’s room to install more in the future

should you need it. You could argue that

the 512GB SSD is a little modest, but it

comes with a 1TB standard hard drive you

can keep all your space-hogging data on.

It also has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 built

in, so you don’t need to worry about it

not keeping up with your home network.

With this much focus put on the

graphics, this is clearly a PC aimed at

gamers, and is unnecessarily expensive

for everyday Windows users.

However, if you or the family

you’re buying a PC for are

looking for gaming or

graphics performance, this

desktop PC is hard to beat

for the price.

SPECIFICATIONS

Six-core AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

processor •• 16GB memory •• Nvidia

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card ••

512GB M.2 SSD •• 1TB hard drive •• Wi-Fi

6 • • 1x 2.5Gb Ethernet port •• 2x HDMI

ports •• 2x DisplayPorts •• Windows 11

Home •• 498x209x499mm (HxWxD)

• • Three-year warranty http://www.snipca.
  com/41646

It’s always a good idea to find out how

much more you can get if your budget

can stretch that little bit further. This

PC isn’t quite twice the price of the

Chillblast Fusion Reaver, reviewed

opposite, but it’s close. Some of the extra

money has been spent on the processor,

with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X using its

six cores to score 7,968 in our benchmark

test, compared with 6,509 from the

Reaver’s four-core processor.

However, it’s worth noting that our

current favourite desktop PC, the £750

Wired2Fire Ultima WS Home (see our

review, Issue 630), scores well ahead

of this with 9,545. This is because it

focused on achieving a high Windows

performance by including a powerful

eight-core Ryzen 7 processor and not

bothering with a separate graphics card.

However, it’s likely to be the graphics

card included with the Fusion Elite that

might tempt you to opt for this model. It’s

the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which

would cost you in excess of £600 if you

bought it separately.

This guarantees you a lot of

gaming power, more than

doubling the graphics power

of the other two. Indeed, in

our 1080p gaming tests it

averaged 179 frames per second

(fps) with all the settings

turned up high. The Reaver

PC opposite managed 64fps,

which is fine for most gamers.

Even if you increase the

resolution, the Fusion Elite

maintains 145fps at 2K

resolutions (also known as

1440p) and even averages a

very reasonable 79fps at 4K.

PC ❘ £1,399 from PCSpecialist http://www.snipca.com/41646

PCSpecialist Fusion Elite

Game for anything

VERDICT An impressive desktop

PC that comes with a very powerful

graphics card – recommended for

serious gamers

★★★★★

ALTERNATIVE Chillblast Fusion

Vanguard £1,500 An

extra £100 could buy

you this faster PC

for better Windows

performance, while

keeping the same

graphics hardware

It delivers glorious-

looking, super-slick

graphics

Issue 631 • 11 – 24 May 2022