Chillblast Rapier review

Intel’s Core i3 is one of the best value-for-money processors currently available, especially as it’s easily overclockable. Chillblast has done just that with the Rapier, boosting the Core i3-520 to just over 4GHz. This increases performance dramatically, producing a terrific 143 in our multimedia benchmarks. Only multi-threaded applications that can use more than two cores could expose the fact that this isn’t as fast as a true quad-core chip.

The ATI Radeon 5450 graphics card handles high-definition video well, but struggles with most modern games. In our Call of Duty test it managed 11.7fps, but it produced something akin to a slideshow in Crysis. By sacrificing anti-aliasing and high detail settings, it can still perform reasonably well with older titles.

The case has a mesh front panel to improve air circulation. Inside, all the cables are well routed, and there’s plenty of room for further expansion. As well as three empty 5¼in drive bays and a single external 3½in bay, there are five internal 3½in bays for adding extra storage. Installing extra hard disks requires removing both side panels, but this helps keep cabling neat. The power supply has plenty of extra SATA and molex connectors, as well as two six-pin PCI Express power adaptors for high-powered graphics cards. The motherboard has doubled up on just about every expansion slot, with two PCI, two PCI-E x1 and even two PCI-E x16 slots. The single-slot graphics card doesn’t get in the way, but if you install two dual-slot cards they will block off a PCI-E x1 slot and PCI slot.

Connectivity at the rear is impressive, with two USB3 ports joining eight regular USB ports. Audio buffs should be happy with 7.1 line out and optical S/PDIF, plus the HDMI port on the 5450 which supports HD audio. There’s a single FireWire port on the front of the case for connecting older video cameras. Two further USB ports bring the total to ten.

Keeping any processor cool is an important task, but it’s especially true when overclocking. Chillblast has replaced the stock Intel CPU cooler with an upgraded tower-style heatsink that kept temperatures low and was incredibly quiet, even at full load. A 120mm fan at the front of the case pulls cool air inside, while a second 120mm fan exhausts hot air at the rear. The front fan has a bright blue LED, but it’s not overly obtrusive. All cables are routed behind the motherboard to keep the flow of air unbroken throughout the case.

Chillblast includes a decent range of peripherals with the Rapier. The AOC monitor is a 22in model with an unusual stand that sits flush to the desk. There’s a limited amount of tilt adjustment, but viewing angles are very good. The backlight isn’t particularly bright or even and picture quality isn’t perfect out of the box, but there are plenty of settings to tweak. The Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse are both good quality for budget models, with strong tactile feedback when typing and fast response times. A set of USB-powered Gigabyte speakers is a rather worthless inclusion, since without a subwoofer there was no real bass.

The monitor isn’t particularly impressive and the graphics card can’t handle most modern games, but the Rapier is still a very powerful PC. The sizable case, excellent motherboard and power supply mean it’s well prepared for future upgrades, and the overclocked processor should handle just about any application. Ultimately, though, there are other better-balanced systems, such as the latest iteration of the CyberPower Infinity i3 Apollo Elite.