Review: Chillblast Hardcore 6600 OC

Like Scan, Chillblast has used a Core 2 Duo E6600 in this PC, but has overclocked the processor to run faster than its standard 2.4GHz. Ramped up to a very healthy 2.93GHz, the Hardcore performed well in all our tests and even manages to outpace the Zoostorm system with its top-of-the-range Core 2 Duo E6700.

Scan has overclocked the Nvidia 7900GT graphics card as well, to provide good all-round performance. The Hardcore doesn’t quite match the top score of 129.1frames per second (fps) in Far Cry achieved by the Scan 3XS C2D-OC, but its own score of 121.7fps still provides outstanding performance that will satisfy even the hardcore gaming brigade.

And it will be more than adequate for other graphically demanding applications.

The Hardcore doesn’t include any speakers – an omission that seems rather miserly for a machine in this price range. But that’s the only criticism we have of this PC.

The 2GB of Ram is very welcome, and will come in handy for multimedia work that generates large audio, video or graphics files, as will the 320GB hard disk.

Like the overclocked Scan 3XS, the Hardcore has a fairly extravagant internal cooling system, with an enormous – but not too noisy – fan sitting on top of the main processor.

However, there’s still plenty of room for future upgrades, with three PCI slots, a 16x PCI Express slot for a second graphics card (although, rather oddly considering Chillblast’s choice of graphics card, the motherboard supports Crossfire not SLI), and room for half a dozen additional hard drives. The built-in wireless networking is another plus point.

The Hardcore 6600 OC is an impressive performer that will meet the needs of any home user who simply wants to play games or indulge in more serious pursuits, such as video editing, music or digital photography.

This article is part of a group test of £1,499 Conroe PCs.
See also

Evesham Solar Plus
Mesh Elite E6600 PCW
PC Nextday Zoostorm 5-7402 Edge PC
Scan 3XS C2D-OC
Apple launches Xeon processor in Mac Pro
Core 2 Duo numbering system

Performance graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf downloads

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