We’ve stuck to the same tests we used in our review of the OCUK Titan Riptide X99 System as a good way to compare technologies.
For reference, that PC came with a six-core Intel Haswell-E Core i7-5820k processor, overclocked to 4.2 GHz. We noted in our Skylake coverage that a six-core processor is an alternative option to Intel’s Core i7-6700k. Having extra cores will make a significant difference in some tasks which are heavily multi-threaded, such as video encoding, which will see a significant performance improvement. However for gaming, although better use of additional CPU cores is a promised feature of DirectX 12, for now a quad-core Skylake processor could be a better option.
At the time we reviewed it, the OCUK system carried a lower retail price of £1189.98, although the difference in pricing can be explained by the slightly different configuration. For example, a Geforce GTX 970 rather than a GTX 980 and a smaller and cheaper 120GB 850 EVO rather than the 512GB SM951 PCIe SSD in the Chillblast Fusion Master.
It’s worth mentioning that both OCUK and Chillblast allow you to customise your order so these specifications can be altered if you aren’t happy with the SSD, or want a different graphics card, for example.
The memory is running an XMP profile of 3000MHz, with the voltage set to 1.35V. The CPU voltage is set to Offset mode, with it running at 1.36V when we looked (ignore the CPU-Z VCore reading).
It’s worth noting that like its predecessors, the Z170 chipset uses dual-channel memory rather than quad channel, as with X99. The two 8GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz DDR4 have timings of 15-17-17.
On booting up the system, we first looked at the installed programs list. Unlike an OEM PC from the likes of Dell or Lenovo, which contain a large amount of additional (usually unwanted) software, the Chillblast Master is totally clean of such bloatware.
The GTX 980 has 2048 shaders, with a core clock speed of 1140MHz, and a 1754 MHz memory speed (effectively 7GHz).
For our tests, we used an Acer Predator XB280HK display, which is capable of 4K resolution and therefore enabled us to obtain benchmark results for 4K performance.
System Configuration:
- Cooler Master Master Case V
- Intel Core i7 6700k
- Cooler Master Nepton 240M CPU Cooler
- Corsair Vengeance 16GB 3000MHz DDR4 RAM (2x8GB)
- Asus Z170 PRO GAMER
- Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
- 512GB Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD
- 2TB SSHD Secondary Drive
- Cooler Master VS Series V 750W
- Windows 10 64-bit
Price: £1699 inc VAT
Software:
3DMark 11
3DMark
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cinebench R15
CrystalDiskMark
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
SiSoft Sandra
Games:
Tomb Raider
Grand Theft Auto 5
Metro Last Light Redux
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Some game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.