23HOW 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.Issue 630 • 27 April – 10 May 202229fps. It’s important to remember that
the Wired2Fire PC uses the graphics
hardware on its processor, rather than a
standalone graphics card like the
Vanguard’s 3060 Ti. Have a look at the
prices of these graphics cards on Amazon
and you’ll understand the discrepancy
in price between these two PCs – at the
time of writing, we struggled to find a
3060 Ti for less than £600.
Its 1080p resolution is at the lower end
of what gamers would prefer, however. At
the other end of the spectrum, in our 4K
resolution gaming tests, the Vanguard
maintained a very respectable average of
79fps. In contrast, the Workstation can
only muster 7fps at this resolution with
all the settings cranked up.
The rest of the PC is impressive, too:
32GB of RAM, a zippy 1TB M.2 SSD,
and two USB-C ports to complement
the generous amount of USB 2.0/3.0
ports. The only slightly disappointing
specification is Wi-Fi 5, which could
perhaps have been Wi-Fi 6 for those
that need it, but it’s a small blip in an
otherwise spectacular (if expensive) PC.SPECIFICATIONS
12-core Intel Core i7-12700K processor •• 32GB
memory •• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card- • 1TB M.2 SSD •• Wi-Fi 5 •• 1x 2.5Gb Ethernet port •• 2x
HDMI ports •• 2x DisplayPorts •• Windows 11 Home ••
466x230x453mm (HxWxD) •• Three-year warranty
http://www.chillblast.com
We’re used to seeing gaming PCs ablaze
with colourful lights, but this can be a bit
of a Marmite scenario – some may love
these illuminations, while others hate
them. The Chillblast Fusion Vanguard’s
toned-down exterior will please the
latter group. The only radiance to see
through the tempered glass is the bright
white of the Corsair liquid cooler and a
small flash of coloured light on the side
of the graphics card.
Most of the time the Vanguard stays
almost silent, emitting only the lowest
of hums. Even when pushed to its
maximum in high-resolution games,
we doubt you’ll find it a distraction.
There’s plenty of gaming power on offer,
too, with Chillblast choosing an Nvidia
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card,
which alongside the Core i7-12700K
processor, makes this a solid all-round
PC, though at £1,500 it doesn’t come
cheap
So let’s take a look at what doubling
the price of the Wired2Fire Ultima WS
Home Office Workstation, reviewed
left, will get you. First up, Windows
performance. We wouldn’t expect
the Vanguard to be twice as good here
but we’d expect some improvement.
In our multi-core test, the Vanguard
scored 13,535, a 42-per-cent increase
on the Wired2Fire’s already excellent
score of 9,545.
It’s in the areas of gaming and graphics,
however, where the Fusion Vanguard
really pulls ahead. In our 1080p graphics
tests, it averaged a frame rate of 177
frames per second (fps), more than six
times higher than the Workstation’s
PC ❘ £1,500 from Chillblast http://www.chillblast.com
Chillblast Fusion Vanguard
Power station
VERDICT Twice the price of the
Wired2Fire PC reviewed opposite, but
it’s an all-round powerhouse if your
budget can stretch★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE
PCSpecialist Titan Spark
£1,350 This would
save you £200 while
keeping the same
powerful graphics card,
but swapping the i7
processor for an i5Understated
exterior conceals a
Windows and gaming
powerhouse