A fast desktop PC with the latest Intel processor
Before we get to the review, we need to talk about processors. They’re at the heart of every PC in the central processing unit, or CPU. You can’t see the CPU, unless you have a scanning electron microscope or X-ray vision, because it’s a bunch of tiny slivers of silicon encased in plastic, behind a metal cover under a heat sink. But you’ll see the results of its efforts every time you click.
The more capable the CPU, the faster each operation can be completed. This might reduce the short pause as you switch from one window to another, or the couple of seconds it takes to apply a photo filter, or even the half-hour it takes your video-editing app to render your home movie to an MP4 file. So when you choose a new PC, the CPU is important. Most PCs at the moment use processors from Intel, but AMD makes them too. The two companies use different chip designs – or ‘architectures’, in the industry jargon – so you can’t directly compare them.
Within Intel’s range, there’s a hierarchy of ‘families’. Atom CPUs are the least powerful, in both senses: they don’t work very fast, but they don’t use much electricity either, which is good for mobile devices. Then come Celeron and Pentium, which now use the same architecture as Atom, and are typically found in budget laptops. Finally, the Core family, divided into i3, i5 and i7, is for solid all-round PCs. There are also Xeon and Itanium CPUs for high-end specialist machines.
Every year or so, Intel develops each family of processors. Advances are made when the transistors inside the CPU are made smaller. This is followed by an intermediate step where the architecture is refined. Intel calls this process ‘tick-tock’. The last ‘tick’ for the Core family (codenamed Broadwell) shrank 22 nanometre (22 millionths of a millimetre) transistors to 14. The development proved harder than expected, and was delayed from 2014 to early 2015.
Now it’s time for the ‘tock’ (known as Skylake). We’re nearing the limit of how small transistors can get. Quantum physics may seem like exotic theory to most of us, but to chip manufacturers it represents an everyday engineering challenge.
Anyway, to this Chillblast tower system, which may not look like it’s pushing the boundaries of science but does contain a Skylake CPU – a quad-core 3.5GHz i5, to be precise. It’s overclocked to run even faster, and with a reasonable 8GB of memory and Windows 10 installed on a 120GB SSD, there’s nothing to hold back performance. The sturdy case (made by Zalman), with its big grilles, includes plenty of fans to keep everything cool. A 1TB hard drive provides space for all your media and documents, but a DVD drive is an extra-cost option.
Although these Intel processors come with their own pretty decent graphics chips, known as Iris Pro, you’ll still want a 3D graphics card for best results with games. The Centurion’s Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 will cope with most games, but its 1GB of memory may struggle with the most demanding, even if you turn down the quality settings.
You could buy a cheaper system that would be better for games, and one with a less impressive CPU could feel just as quick for most purposes. If you do a lot of processor-intensive work, though, such as converting big files, working with databases or editing DSLR photos, a fast CPU could pay off. You could also see it as future-proofing: replace the graphics card later, and the CPU will still keep up.
SPECIFICATIONS
3.5GHz Intel quad-core i5 6600K • 8GB memory • 120GB SSD • 1TB hard drive • Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 graphics card with 1GB video memory • Windows 10 • 465x192x430mm (HxWxD) • Three-year warranty
VERDICT
At £650, not the best value PC for everyone, but probably the fastest processor you’ll see at this price.