Chillblast Fusion Mammoth review

The Chillblast Fusion Mammoth is built into what has rapidly become our favourite compact PC case: the BitFenix Prodigy. Larger than your average media centre PC but much smaller than a typical desktop, the case measures 404x250x359mm and is available in a selection of bright colours. Chillblast has the full set available, so you can choose your preferred colour when you order your PC. We’re particularly taken by this red version.

The case’s interior is surprisingly spacious, providing enough depth for even the longest graphics cards. The case has extra modular 3 1/2in drive bays, but they’ve been removed due to the size of the supplied graphics card. They are, however, still supplied along with the system. This configuration leaves the PC with two 3 1/2in bays, one 5 1/4in bay and three 2 1/2in bays. The system’s fitted with a 1TB hard disk on which you can store your media and documents, and a 120GB SSD on which Windows is installed. There’s a DVD-RW drive installed, too, which leaves one vacant 5 1/2in bay and two free 2 1/2in bays.

The system’s fitted with a Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard. Sadly, it’s only got a single expansion slot: a PCI-E x16 slot that’s home to the hefty graphics card. It also has two memory slots, each containing a 4GB module of 1,600MHz DD3 RAM. It also has four SATA3 ports, one of which is vacant, and a USB3 header that powers two USB3 ports on the case’s side panel.

Despite the BitFenix Prodigy having its case ports on its left-hand side rather the front or top, we could easily open the panel without pulling out the connections. The system’s three 2 1/2in drive bays are also located on the inside of this panel.

The motherboard may be compact but it gives you plenty of rear ports, with a bank of six 3.5mm audio outputs for 7.1 surround sound, a PS/2 port, four USB3 ports and two additional USB ports. Its network connectivity is outstanding, with dual connectors for the supplied Wi-Fi antenna and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The system’s equipped with a powerful Intel Core i5-4670K processor running at 4GHz. It achieved a score of 120 overall in our application benchmarks, so it’s more than powerful enough to run any application you’d care to run. The graphics card is a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 770. It’s an excellent card that gave us a frame rate of 74.5fps in Dirt Showdown and 47.9fps in Crysis 2, both at Ultra quality and at a resolution of 1,920×1,080.

Despite the massively powerful processor and graphics card combination, the PC is very quiet when running desktop applications and doesn’t make much sound when gaming, either. The processor’s liquid cooler plays a big part in this, as do the graphics card’s fans three fans. There’s also a case fan mounted behind the front panel that’s positioned to help diffuse heat generated by the 3 1/2in drive. The case’s elongated shape makes for good airflow. Grilles on the top of the case and the left-hand panel also help with airflow and you can fit more fans at the top if needed.

The case is raised off the ground on plastic stands. These are mirrored at the top of the case where they act as handles. They’re flexible but sturdy, and more than strong enough for carrying your PC around the house or to and from your car. Although it’s not exactly portable, the system’s designed to be easy to move. This makes it perfect for those who want to take it to friends’ homes for LAN gaming sessions or who just want to use it in more than one room.

The motherboard’s built-in Wi-Fi also comes in handy when moving it from one location to another, but even if you never move the computer an inch, this is a brilliantly quiet, attractive and compact gaming system. It’s no good if you plan to add more expansion cards in the future, though.

The Fusion Mammoth is very similar to the award-winning Computer Planet ND 5000, which has the same motherboard and processor, but a slightly less powerful graphics card. However, it currently costs £1,004 and its GeForce GTX 760 is plenty good enough to run the latest games at the highest quality. The Chillblast Fusion Mammoth is an excellent PC and a fantastic games machine, but the Computer Planet ND 5000 is the better buy.