Chillblast Fusion colossus / chillblast.co.uk

I purchased two of these machines from a southwest UK based company Chillblast around 6 months ago. Chillblast are specialists who customise new Pcs to a customers spec and professionally overclock them. I'd been using cheap factory standard machines and decided, along with my wife, to treat ourselves to something special. There are many scattered reviews which rate chillblasts service positive. This is what initially caught my wifes eye as we both searched for top end specs. Looking at some of their products and trying to decipher some of the terms used was pretty daunting. These suppliers are, for want of a better descriptive term, 'heavy duty nerd territory'. I felt totally out of my depth buying from them, despite their site being well set out and easy to compose orders. With my very limited basic knowledge of pc's and my wifes superior knowledge, we decided on two mid range custom designs for gaming and general media application usage. Both featured 650watt power supplies, Geforce 8800GT graphics cards and duo core processors on asus motherboards. Other features included 320 Gb seagate Hard drives, 2 Gb ram, wi fi cards and custom case designs: namely an aluminium coolmaster and one NZXT Alpha black gloss design. Our orders were processed quickly and we received our machines just after boxing day. All in all, our order came to just under £2000.


Having received our computers, I can't say I was initially impressed. My own Pc casing was quite scratched. Not too badly but just enough looked visibly scuffed. The kind of superficial damage that you can't decide to send back or not for fear of looking overly fussy. I also felt that the machine had been hurriedly and clumsily put together. For example, the side panels were slightly misaligned in comparison. One hosting an acrylic window and case fan was sticking out by a few millimetres. Inside, the rear case fan wasn t even connected to a molex connection. There was also masking tape wrapped around some components. Further inspection revealed the original seagate drives we ordered were infact replaced by western union - a good company but the second best of manufacturers. There was a reduction in price on our invoice, however no explanation. Powering the PC's up was a joy (as always with brand spanking new computers). That was until I noticed how flimsy & loose the dvd eject button was on mine. Even today, it doesn t feel like it's making contact properly when I use it. Sometimes, doesn t react at all. They charge up to £300 for these designer cases. Every enthusiast raves about them but they really aren t that amazing quality at all. The chassis are made of cheap alloy as oppose to steel. The inclusive case fans are also rubbish, leds fade quickly and dull within weeks. I'm not even sure why they cost so much?

My wife has experienced several serious problems with her coolmaster version over the past 3 months. She's had to return it via their reliable citylink service twice. They had us swapping components at home over the phone, until finally they diagnosed a faulty motherboard. When My wife got her computer back (all within a week), all they'd actually done is replaced ram sticks. Of course several weeks later it developed the same problem again - they replaced the ram sticks yet a second time. We are now anticipating this second latest installation to go wrong again. My own Pc has started to develop niggles to. Particularly with sata connection error messages and a mysterious non resident floppy drive'.

We've been laid back up to now but if there are anymore problems, we're going to be seriously questioning our purchase. Without making this review anymore whiney, my conclusion is this: Buy factory standard, research your components and upgrade yourself . Beyond flashy advertising and impressive specs, there's little benefit in spending extra or forking out for specialist deals apart from after sales service. I cannot fault their excellent customer service or the fact that they honour their terms of guarantee. They are quite thorough over the phone, (providing you can get hold of them). Coms aren't brilliant though, for example they'll fix your machine but not provide explanation as to what went wrong.

I see no advantage in the actual PC's over ordinary factory standard ones but am very fussy personally. I found the whole purchase distinctly mediocre for just under 2 grand and I do wonder if I've bought something out of my league. A current del dimension could have probably fit the bill and done just as well. Okay but not overly impressed with this company or their computers.