Chillbast is well known for producing stunning systems, in terms of both performance and low noise - and also, it has to be said, price. Part of the Fusion range, the new Tsunami 8800 C2D is one of the cheaper models in the line-up but still costs over a grand including VAT and that doesn't include monitor, speakers or keyboard.

So what do you get for your money? Well, you get a nicely built system using top quality parts and an overclocked CPU.

At the heart of this PC is an ASUS P5B-E motherboard which uses an Intel P965 / ICH8R chipset combination. The BIOS of the P5B-E contains a wealth of overclocking options, so if you want to void your Chillblast warranty and feel brave enough, there's more tweaking to be done with the Tsunami 8800 C2D.

The P5B-E is home to an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 CPU which normally runs at 1.86GHz but Chillblast has tweaked the settings so it now runs at 2.56GHz using the standard Intel cooler. In fact this processor is one of Intel's best to overclock, and many people have had it running successfully at over 3GHz, still using the standard cooler.

Back to the Tsunami 8800 C2D. Supporting the CPU is 2GB of PC2-6400 DDR2 memory so, as you might imagine, this system is no slouch when it comes to performance; a SYSmark04SE score of 335 certainly proves that.

Providing the graphics grunt is an Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS, the smaller brother of Nvidia's mighty 8800GTX, the fastest single core GPU currently available. 'Smaller' is a bit of a misnomer, though, as the GTS still comes with 640MB of GDDR memory and clock speeds of 1.6GHz and 500MHz, so you should have no problem playing any of today's games; we measured 105fps average frame rate in FEAR at 1,024 x 768. And, for that matter, tomorrow's games shouldn't be a problem as the 8800 series is DirectX 10 compatible.

All of this hardware is housed in a stunner of a case. Chillbast has elected to use one of Thermaltake's VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream cases which looks the part with its gloss black painted sides and top and black brushed aluminium front door. The side access panel has a large clear cut-out so you see the internals of the system and there are plenty of bright blue LEDs; the large rear fan is lit and the front door contains another two lights.

For storage Chillblast supplies a 7,200rpm, 320GB SATA II Seagate drive, but if this isn't enough space the motherboard supports RAID arrays and there's plenty of room in the case for at least another couple of drives. To off-load your files or to perform backups there is an 18x Samsung DVD burner. A surprising addition is the floppy drive, but don't panic; it's a combo drive with an integrated flash card reader.

All this hardware needs a decent power supply and, sure enough, Chillblast hasn't scrimped here either. Providing the oomph to drive the Tsunami 8800 C2D is a 500W Enermax Liberty PSU, one of the better sources of power around.

So with all these fans and overclocked CPU, the Tsunami 8800 C2D should be noisy. But actually it's remarkable quiet. Not silent, but a lot quieter than many desktops you can buy.

The Tsunami 8800 C2D comes loaded with Windows XP Home SP2 but there is a Vista upgrade voucher so you can upgrade to Bill's latest should you so desire, and you also get a year's return-to-base warranty.

Verdict
Expensive, yes, but if you want a fast, quiet, gaming system that offers a degree of future-proofing with its graphics card and the potential for even more overclocking, then the Tsunami 8800 C2D will save you the hassle of building such a system yourself.

Company: Chillblast

Contact: 0845 456 7830

Tags: central processing unit gddr geforce intel corporation advanced micro devices hardware components nvidia