Chillblast new pc ?

PeteMo

PeteMo

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Hi all.

I'm in the market for a new pc mainly for my photo editing needs. I use LR5 90% of the time with the remainder being Elements. I Currently use Windows 7.

I came across Chillblast in a mag and like the look of the Fusion Photo OC Lite with the intention of adding a Dell monitor.

Does anyone have this particular model and would you recommend the company in general ?

I was about to get swept down the Apple route and go for a 27" iMac but I'm not one to get taken in by it's seductive curves so I'm open to any alternatives at a similar price point or less.

A cheaper Chillblast model such as the Fusion Orion i7 may suffice to be honest as my needs aren't that system hungry.

I'd appreciate any thoughts by those of you who are a bit more "pc savvy".

Thanks in advance.
 
link for everyone to save them looking it up - http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Photo-OC-Lite.html

depends really wat you want, you could easily drop the spec a bit to save some money. the GPU is overkill, the water cooling is overkill, the raid1 is overkill (and worth noting, not a backup).

is it literally just lightroom and elements the machine will be used for?
 
I bought one similar to this: http://www.ebuyer.com/570072-zoostorm-haswell-desktop-pc-7873-0485

Mine was £100 less because is 'only' had 12Gb memory and came without OS.

I'm very impressed with it, but I did add a higher end Graphics card as I occasionally enjoy a game and I guessed it would slightly improve LR performance especially as I use twin monitors.

Phil
 
Pretty much Neil, yes.

I use MS office for paperwork etc but as I say, nothing power hungry.
 
Phew, that's expensive, it certainly makes my recent new setup which I assembled in to my old case look el-cheapo ...or is it. Put altogether myself I reckoned I save a few quid Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-HD3 Socket FM2+, AMD APU A10 6800K , Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2133MHz DDR3 , third party cooler Noctua NH-L12 cos stock cooler is too noisy. Total spent £266.11, oh by the way it works great with my Elelments, Lightroom 4, editing photos MS Office stuff etc etc, I can have them all open at the same time without any effort.

If your looking for a decent monitor consider building the computer yourself, if you can change a three pin 13 amp/240 volt plug then you will be able to assemble a motherboard and its bits and pieces. what you save would let you get a decent spec monitor and maybe still have change to get a SSD drive.
 
I recently bought a PC from Chillblast. I found them excellent to deal with and the PC is working great and a lot faster than the pile of crap I got a couple of years ago from Arbico. Had various problems with that one and ended up ditching it.:rolleyes:

I'll see if I can find the spec of mine, which I use for a wee bit of gaming as well albeit I'm not a serious gamer. I currently use Lightroom 5 and Elements 11 for photo editing and it's fast as lightning on my PC. No issues.
 
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Here is mine. Which looks like this http://www.chillblast.com/pconf.php?productid=18353 (although I took mine without the monitor, mouse and keyboard and did upgrade some items)


Chillblast Fusion Longbow1
Chillblast Vantage Black Midi Mesh Gaming Case1
Intel Core i5 4570 Haswell Processor 3.20 GHz (No Overclocking)1
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler1
Generic thermal paste1
Asus Z87-K Motherboard - Haswell CPU only1
16GB PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Memory (2 x 8GB sticks)1
120GB Samsung 840 EVO Solid State Drive1
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650Ti 1024MB Graphics Card1
1000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps1
24x SATA DVD+/-RW Drive1
Blu-Ray ROM / DVD-RW Combi Drive1
FSP Premium Grade 600W PSU1
Onboard High Definition Audio1
17 in 1 3.5" Internal Card Reader1
300Mbps 802.11n Wireless PCIe Adaptor (for Wireless networks)1
4 Port USB 2.0 Card1
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit1
Standard Chillblast Cable Management1
Windows Optimisation Service1
5 Year Warranty with 2 Years Collect and Return1
Install and configure AVG1
Chillblast Family PC Software Pack1
Install and optimise Google Chrome web browser1
Subtotal:£850.78
Shipping cost:£24.99
VAT 20%:£175.15

Total:£1050.92
 
I was looking at that same PC - briefly! I didn't like RAID because I seemed to be a waste of a hard drive especially as I do my own backup. The thing that swung me against it was the overclocking. Apparently with overclocking there is no sleep facility available. Your machine is either on or off. Fine if you can remember to switch it off when you walk away to answer the phone etc, but that's not my style and the thought of having it churning away at full power just turned me off. That may just be the Chillblast way, but I got a machine without the overclocking, and it's fast enogh for my purposes.
 
eh? my i7-2600k is overclocked but sleeps/hibernates? ive got it switched off (for remote access) but the options still work.

becides the PC will not be using anything like "full power" at idle. it'll be a fraction of what is used at 100% load.
 
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OK. I thought it was funny, but Chillblast were adamant that any overclocked PC could not have the sleep facility. It was either on or off; no sleep, no idle - nothing! I assume that this is a Chillblast peculiarity?
 
I've also been looking at the Dell XPS8700 but not sure about Windows 8 and they don't ship with Windows 7 - not even an option at point of ordering.

Is the general consensus to stick with 7 or go with 8 ?
 
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I quote directly from their e-mail to me:-

.....save for the overclocking which we could not provide. It is the overclocking which prevents the 'system sleep' function from working.
 
mickledore said:
I quote directly from their e-mail to me:-
.....save for the overclocking which we could not provide. It is the overclocking which prevents the 'system sleep' function from working.
Click to expand...
not sure what theyre on about. unless they change the S3 (i think, off the top of my head) setting on the bios. but thats not really necessary.
 
Well that's beyond my skill level, so I just looked elsewhere and got a different machine! I just assumed that Chillblast would know what's what about PCs. You live and learn!
 
Just been into PC World to check out the iMacs. Now thinking of the possibility of a Mac Mini as I'm thinking an i5 is adequate plus I believe you can add to the RAM yourself. The only question mark is over the graphics card. At least with a Mini I'm not limited to any monitor and can up or downsize the monitor in future.

Anyone have a Mini and would care to recommend or not ? Any major negatives ?
 
what do you want to do with it ? (and also PC World - seriously ? , they are cack for PC's in my experience so I can't imagine them being any good for apple)
 
big soft moose said:
what do you want to do with it ? (and also PC World - seriously ? , they are cack for PC's in my experience so I can't imagine them being any good for apple)
Click to expand...

See my first post. It's a 4 minute drive from me so was the nearest to go and get "hands on".
 
That Chillblast seems very expensive for what it is. I built a computer to a similar specification with a mixture of new and pre-owned (like new) components for just shy of £700.
 
Eddzz!! said:
That Chillblast seems very expensive for what it is. I built a computer to a similar specification with a mixture of new and pre-owned (like new) components for just shy of £700.
Click to expand...

I'm starting to think the same, although there is scope to builld something within a budget on their site.
 
I've generally used DNUK pcs for many years - they do a good "no nonsence" pc for £550 https://secure.dnuk.com/store/desktops/D540/ which you can upgrade certain parts if you wish - I got a gtx660 (a "mid range" gpu), 16gb ram, i5-4670 and an extra 1gb hdd (for backups) as my upgrades and the system works really well for running capture nx2. I generally don't like buying an o/s with the pc as you normally get an "oem" version of windows which is bad news if you ever get a new machine and wish to move the o/s on to it, so I got a retail version (£100 normally for w8.1) instead.
 
I got mine from Chillblast a couple of years ago and would echo go through the customisation carefully as some of it is OTT.
On the other hand the 120GB SSD is not huge for the operating system and various heavy programs especially if you work with video as well, consider going for the 250.
I did find their delivery estimates were on the optimistic side, allow a week longer.

Don't see the need for water cooling, windows optimisation, family software bundle, 'AVG installed' or 'optimised' chrome :thinking:
I'd leave out the DVD drive too because I have an external one the odd time it's needed.
The gaming case probably has distracting LEDs glaring out - annoying in a dimly lit room especially say you need leave it on doing some task e.g. processing or uploading video - a more regular one would be just fine.

You want a really nice monitor while you are at it from somewhere.
 
PeteMo said:
Hi all.

I'm in the market for a new pc mainly for my photo editing needs. I use LR5 90% of the time with the remainder being Elements. I Currently use Windows 7.

I came across Chillblast in a mag and like the look of the Fusion Photo OC Lite with the intention of adding a Dell monitor.

Does anyone have this particular model and would you recommend the company in general ?

I was about to get swept down the Apple route and go for a 27" iMac but I'm not one to get taken in by it's seductive curves so I'm open to any alternatives at a similar price point or less.

A cheaper Chillblast model such as the Fusion Orion i7 may suffice to be honest as my needs aren't that system hungry.

I'd appreciate any thoughts by those of you who are a bit more "pc savvy".

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


I have that pc and got a 24" Dell Ultrasharp monitor with it. I opted for Windows 7 64 bit with 32 GB RAM.

Chillblast (super company to deal with - I actually have two of their PC's) give you the option to select many of the components, but give recommendations to help if you are unsure. I took a few enhancement such as more RAM quieter fans, water cooling and so on. Very fast PC (mine has a 250GB SSD plus 2 X 1 TB conventional hard drives). Word of warning - once you start adding enhancements the price climbs rapidly, but you can keep an eye on that on the website.

Very fast pc indeed. The large files from my D800E snap open.
 
Pete,

I must appologise. Never properly read your post. Never noticed that you mentioned OC Lite. That is not the one I bought, but another from the Fusion range. Sorry about that, but nevertheless I can still recommend the company. You can go to their website and cost out the build and accessories you want with registering.
 
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