Chillblast’s Fusion Nano might be small, but it uses the stupendous AMD Radeon R9 Nano to cram an unprecedented amount of power inside its tiny case. The R9 Nano uses the Fiji GPU core that underpins its Fury X cards, and the use of 4GB of highbandwidth memory on the GPU package, rather than big GDDR5 chips, has enabled AMD to use a pint-sized PCB too.
However, the Fury X requires liquid cooling, so AMD has turned down the Nano’s GPU clock, so it can be chilled with a hybrid air and vapour-chamber cooler.
The new GPU is backed up by a Core i7-6700K Skylake CPU, which features Hyper-Threading support to boost multi-threading performance, and Chillblast has overclocked it to 4.4GHz – a comparatively modest overclock, but one that makes sense in a small chassis where airflow is limited.
Of course, the tiny size of this PC limits what Chillblast can do in terms of storage, but the Fusion still includes an SSD and hard disk. The boot drive is a Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD that uses four PCI-E 3 lanes and is attached to the rear of the motherboard, while the hard disk is a 2.5in 1TB hybrid drive.
The Asus Z170I Pro Gaming motherboard also sports some decent features, such as Asus’ SupremeFX audio circuitry and dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The rear panel is good too – four USB 3 ports, two USB 3.1 (type-A) ports, an optical S/PDIF and five audio jacks are included, plus HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.
It even has some LEDs and spare SATA ports, but neither are really practical in this machine – the lights are hidden, and the single spare 2.5in bay is blocked by cables. Of course, the form factor naturally restricts it to a single 16x PCI-E slot and two memory slots. The latter can handle 32GB of DDR4 memory, with Chillblast installing 16GB of modest 2133MHz DDR4 RAM.
The high-end silicon is packed inside a red Raijintek’s Metis chassis, which looks great; the brushed metal is immaculate and the edges are bevelled to a shine. The panels aren’t too thick, as it’s still a budget case, but build quality is good, and the Raijintek is both sturdy and light enough to lug to LAN events.
The two side panels are held on by small screws and lift away easily. The interior is cramped, but the layout has been sensibly arranged to eke the most from a small space.
Meanwhile, the PSU is installed vertically at the front of the case with a cable that runs to the rear of the chassis, and the motherboard is installed upside down.
There’s no room to hide cables, but Chillblast has kept the interior as neat as possible. PSU cables run around the unit, bundled above it, which leaves the central area of the case free for the Corsair Hydro H75. The Corsair liquid-cooling unit has two 120mm fans, and Chillblast has sensibly cut a hole directly above the Nano’s 90mm fan to aid air intake.
The Fusion sports Chillblast’s standard five-year warranty, which has two years of collect and return parts and labour cover, plus a further three years return to base, labour only.
Performance
The Chillblast had no problem playing games at 2,560 x 1,440. Even Crysis 3 proved no problem, with the Chillblast never dropping below 38fps. AMD says the Nano can manage 4K gaming, but its performance at this extreme resolution isn’t as clear-cut in this machine. Its Shadow of Mordor minimum of 37fps is fine but its Battlefield 4 minimum of 25fps is only borderline playable, and in Crysis 3, the minimum slipped to an unplayable 20fps. The Battlefield 4 result is possibly a result of the card throttling inside the small chassis, as the card did much better in this test in our review using our standard graphics test rig. Nevertheless, a playable frame rate at 4K is still a good result.
The overclocked Core i7 processor puts up a good fight too, achieving great results in our benchmarks, with an overall system score of 144,701. The Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD doesn’t mess around either. Its sequential read and write speeds of 1,764MB/sec and 1,196MB/sec respectively are several times the speed of your average SATA SSD.
Thermal issues and fan noise are always a concern with small form factor machines, but the Chillblast didn’t falter when running low-intensity tasks. Its CPU and GPU remained cool and the fans were almost silent. The Fusion was barely any louder when we ran game tests, and heat wasn’t an issue either – the CPU and GPU delta Ts of 42°C and 51°C are impressive for such a small machine. The fans were a little noisier when running games, though, and close inspection revealed a bit of the high-pitched capacitor whine common with Fury Nano cards. It was never irritatingly noisy though; even quiet gaming audio will drown it out.
The hottest thermal results were recorded when its GPU and CPU were both running at full load. The CPU delta T of 73°C was particularly high, and the fans then ramped up and churned out more noise. Even so, you’re very unlikely to run both the CPU and GPU at full pelt for long periods, and the temperatures are still within thermal limits. However, we advise leaving plenty of airflow space around the Fusion so that its fans get a decent supply of air.
Conclusion
Small form factor PCs always involve compromise, but Chillblast’s Fusion Nano comes close to replicating a fullsized system in benchmarks. The stupendous Nano card provides more graphics power than we’ve ever seen from such a small graphics card, and the Core i7 CPU is quick too.
Meanwhile, the chassis looks good and is organised as tidily as possible, although it comes with the usual mini-ITX caveats: a lack of upgrade room and hot running at full load.
It’s also a little more expensive than full-sized machines that offer similar power, and you can save money by building your own machine with a similar spec too. However, building a custom rig from scratch isn’t for everyone, and if you’re looking for an attractive, well-built miniature PC that still offers storming performance, the Fusion Nano is a great example. MIKE JENNINGS
VERDICT
An amazing amount of power inside a surprisingly small package, thanks to AMD’s Fury Nano card.
SPECIFICATIONS
CPU 4GHz Intel Core i7-6700K overclocked to 4.4GHz
Motherboard Asus Z170I Pro Gaming
Memory 16GB Crucial 2133MHz DDR4
Graphics Asus Radeon R9 Fury Nano 4GB
Storage 250GB Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD, 1TB Seagate hybrid hard disk
Case Raijintek Metis
Cooling CPU: Corsair Hydro H75 with 2 x 120mm fans; GPU: 1 x 90mm fan
PSU Corsair CS650M 650W
Ports Front: 2 x USB 3, 2 x audio; rear: 4 x USB 3, 2 x USB 3.1 Type-A , 2 x USB 2, 1 x PS/2, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x optical S/PDIF, 5 x audio
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Warranty Two years collect and return parts and labour, followed by three years return to base labour only