Computer Planet’s Fusion X7 GT has flamboyant green design that really makes it stand out. The fans on the Corsair Hydro H80i and two intake fans are equipped with green LEDs, and a strip of lights sits behind the raised section in the middle of the case. Meanwhile, the MSI GTX 980 Ti card has been fitted with a green-accented cooler, and the NZXT S340 case has a huge Razer decal down one side and green lights on the base. Even the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Game Plus motherboard has green heatsinks.
Not only that, but the Corsair RAM is topped with green heatsinks and the cable ties are green. Even the motherboard screws have been painted. Computer Planet has also swapped the side panel for a windowed version to show off the interior.
The NZXT S340 is a great case, of course, being on our Elite list for over a year, and Computer Planet has used a special Razer edition with a tinted window and lots of green Razer touches. The PSU, cables and storage rack are hidden behind a dark aluminium shroud, and every air intake has a dust filter. Around 90 per cent of the chassis is made from steel too, so build quality is impressive. The only notable downer for some people is that there’s no 5.25in bay for an optical drive.
The specification is a mixed bag though. The most exciting component is the MSI GTX 980 Ti card, which should enable borderline playable frame rates in games at 4K. It has three speed modes; the Silent option maintains stock speeds and the Gaming mode – which Computer Planet uses – ups the clock to 1140MHz. The most demanding option is OC mode, which runs the core at 1178MHz.
Meanwhile, processing power comes from Intel’s Core i7-4790K. It’s a powerful quadcore part with Hyper-Threading and loads of cache, and Computer Planet has overclocked the 4GHz chip to 4.6GHz. It’s an older chip than today’s current Skylake CPUs, though, being based on Intel’s Haswell architecture.
The use of an older CPU also means use of an older chipset, and in this case, you get a Z97 Gigabyte board, which offers dedicated audio circuitry and also includes an M.2 slot. However, the latter is limited to using two PCI-E 2 lanes, rather than the four PCI-E 3 lanes available on Skylake boards. It covers all the basics, but it lacks enthusiast features such as a clear-CMOS button, on-board power and reset switches, or a POST code display and it also lacks USB 3.1 support. The machine also sports 16GB of DDR3 memory, which is plenty, and despite being DDR3, it runs at a decent speed of 2400MHz too. Meanwhile, the PSU is a 750W Corsair RMX model, which features 80 Plus Gold certification – a cut above the bottom-end PSUs we often see in review machines.
The biggest issue, though, is storage. There’s just a 240GB Mushkin Chronos G2 SSD, and no hard disk. That SSD won’t be competitive in terms of speed, and the lack of any extra capacity is going to limit the number of games you can install, let alone any extra data you want to store locally. You might expect such a storage system in a budget PC, but not in a £1,499 GTX 980 Ti gaming rig.
Finally, Computer Planet’s warranty is a three year deal, which includes two years of collect and return service that covers both parts and labour – a good deal.
With its GeForce GTX 980 Ti, all our game tests were great at 2,560 x 1,440, with Crysis 3 and Fallout 4 never dropping below 50fps. Even 4K gaming is possible, with The Witcher 3 minimum of 36fps being fine, and the 26fps minimum in Fallout 4 being borderline playable – dropping the settings from Ultra to High will easily make this game smooth. Crysis 3 didn’t quite hit our 25fps minimum target, but it wasn’t far off – a little tweaking will make this game playable.
Thanks to a hefty CPU overclock, the Fusion is also plenty fast enough in our application benchmarks, being nearly 16 per cent quicker than our reference PC. As a point of comparison, though, the CyberPower Infinity X77 Deluxe has a Skylake Core i7-6700K overclocked to 4.7GHz, and managed a score of 329,911 in our video encoding benchmark, compared to the Computer Planet’s 287,027. Of course, the CyberPower is much pricier, and Skylake Core i7 CPUs are currently expensive, but you pay a small performance sacrifice by opting for a last-gen CPU. For most people, the difference is negligible, though, and it will make little difference to games.
Meanwhile, the Mushkin SSD struggled through our sequential read and write tests to speeds of 364MB/sec and 187MB/sec respectively, being a long way behind even the best SATA SSDs, such as the Samsung 850 Evo or even the Crucial BX100, let alone PCI-E drives. It’s quicker than a hard disk, but you can definitely find much quicker drives and, when you combine this speed with the system’s disappointing lack of storage capacity, it’s clear that storage is the main issue for this system.
The Fusion gets toasty too. Its CPU delta T of 69°C came from a peak CPU temperature of 92°C, which is very high. The noise output was consistently noticeable too, with the fans churning out an obvious rumble, even when the PC was idle. Thankfully, the fan noise didn’t modulate up and down in games like some machines, but it would be much better if it stayed quiet when its components weren’t taxed.
Computer Planet’s Fusion X7 GT gets a lot right. It looks fantastic, and it’s great to see so much attention paid to colour-matching components. It’s also amazing to see a GeForce GTX 980 Ti card included in a sub-£1,500 machine, resulting in some great gaming performance, plus you get 16GB of RAM, a decent PSU and solid warranty coverage.
The system is unbalanced though. The storage setup is particularly disappointing when you consider the size of some of today’s game installs. It’s worth paying extra for a faster and higher-capacity SSD here. With a little tweaking, the Fusion X7 GT would be a great, attractive machine, even at a higher price, but it’s too unbalanced in its current form. MIKE JENNINGS
VERDICT
Great looks and amazing speed in games, but this system is hampered by compromises in other areas.
SPECIFICATIONS
CPU 4GHz Intel Core i7-4790K overclocked to 4.6GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Game Plus
Memory 16GB 2400MHz Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3
Graphics MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB+
Storage 240GB Mushkin Chronos G2 SSD
Case NZXT S340 Razer
Cooling CPU: Corsair Hydro H80i GT with 2 x 120mm fans; front: 2 x 120mm fans; roof: 1 x 120mm fan
PSU Corsair RM750X
Ports Front: 2 x USB 3, 1 x audio; rear: 4 x USB 3, 4 x USB 2, 2 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 parts and labour collect and return, followed by one year labour only return to base