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Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £800
inc VAT

The Hellspawn Ultima’s SSD and overclocked CPU are tough to beat and make it a great system

Specifications

4.6GHz Intel Core i5-3570K, 8GB RAM, 24in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Wired2Fire has pushed the Intel Core i5-3570k inside its Hellspawn Ultima with a hefty overclock, giving it a 4.6GHz clock speed. Combined with dedicated Nvidia graphics and OCZ SSD, it’s an incredibly fast mid-range PC.

In order to achieve the large overclock, the stock Intel heat sink has been replaced with a Xigmatek tower cooler which is much more capable. Wired2Fire also chose a Xigmatek case, the Asgard, for the basis of the system. One 120mm front intake and one 120mm rear exhaust provide ample airflow, but there are two additional 120mm fan mounts on the side panel if you add extra components at a later date.

Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima

The case looks fairly generic from the outside, with one 3.5in and four 5.25in drive bays. A DVD optical drive takes up one bay, but the rest are free for future upgrades. The I/O ports, as well as the power and reset switches, are positioned in the centre of the front panel, which should be within easy reach even if you position the case on the floor. You only get two USB ports, as well as the usual 3.5mm audio jacks, so you’ll need to connect most peripherals to the back of the case.

The Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard’s back panel has four USB ports, two faster USB3, Gigabit Ethernet and one PS/2 port. Audio connectivity includes three 3.5mm analogue jacks for 5.1 surround sound, and one digital optical output. VGA, DVI and HDMI ports let you use the integrated graphics built in to the Intel processor, but the dedicated graphics card is significantly faster.

Wired2Fire Hellspawn Ultima

Inside, there are five empty 3.5in bays. Two are taken up by the OCZ 64GB SSD and 1TB hard disk. The drive cages use tool-free retention mechanisms, so you shouldn’t need to break out the screwdriver just to fit a hard disk. The dual-slot graphics card takes up one PCI-Express x16 slot and obscures a PCI-E x1 slot, but the motherboard still has room for expansion. There are three PCI ports and one PCI-E x16 slot free for upgrades.

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Basic Specifications

Rating*****
ProcessorIntel Core i5-3570K
Processor external bus100MHz
Processor multiplierx46
Processor clock speed4.6GHz
Processor socketLGA1155
Memory8
Memory typeDDR3
Maximum memory32GB
MotherboardAsus P8Z77-V LX
Motherboard chipsetIntel Z77

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear)2/6
Firewire ports (front/rear)0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear)0/0
Wired network ports1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking supportnone

Internal Expansion

CaseMidi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free)2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free)2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports3
Free memory slots2
Free 3.5in drive bays5

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s)OCZ Agility 3 64GB + Samsung HD103SJ
InterfaceSATA3
Total storage capacity1,064GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s)AMD Radeon HD 7770
Graphics/video portsDVI, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort

Sound

SoundRealtek HD Audio
Sound outputs7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out
Speakersnone

Removable Drives

Supported memory cardsnone
Optical drive type(s)DVD+/-RW +/-DL, DVD-ROM

Display

Viewable size24 in
Screen modelAsus VS247H
Native resolution1,920×1,080
Screen inputsVGA, DVI, HDMI

Other Hardware

KeyboardKeysonic KSH
MouseGigabyte M5050

Software

Software includednone
Operating systemWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore optionrestore disc

Buying Information

Warrantytwo years parts & labour
Price£800
Detailswww.wired2fire.co.uk

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