Vibox Wildfire desktop gaming PC review

The Vibox Wildfire gaming PC looks good and offers decent gaming framerates. Read our Vibox Wildfire PC review. Also see:  Best gaming PCs 2015.

Coming in at just under £1,000, the Vibox Wildfire is a complete overclocked PC gaming system, featuring Nvidia’s latest GeForce GTX 960 graphics processor and including a monitor and keyboard so you can get started right away.

Like most of the gaming PCs we’ve reviewed recently, the Vibox Wildfire uses a quad-core Intel Core i5-4690K processor, which offers great performance combined with value for money. This particular example has been overclocked from the standard 3.5GHz up to 4.4GHz, delivering a considerably boost to general system performance. The CPU is chilled by a Corsair H75 liquid all in one cooler, which helps keep the inside of the case tidy and improve air flow.

The case in question is an NZXT H440 in bright red. This case is a step up from the very popular NZXT Source 340 we’ve seen used in many gaming PCs in this price range. Both models come with a blank front panel with no external drive bays. Vibox has therefore included an external USB DVD burner which can be plugged in as necessary. Inside, the H440 includes excellent cable management features and comes with dust filters fitted as standard. Its full-height transparent side-widow gives a clear view of the case internals which have been tastefully illuminated by a strip of white LEDs. Also see:  Best gaming laptops 2015.

The Wildfire also includes 16GB of Kingston Hyper-X Beast DDR3 memory running at 2,400MHz – by far the fastest memory speeds of any achieved in the gaming PCs we’ve reviewed this month. This is backed by a large 240GB Kingston V300 SSD which offers enough space to house the Windows operating system along with a full collection of games which will therefore be able to benefit from decreased loading times. A 1TB hard drive is also included for bulk storage. At the heart of the PC is MSI’s Z97 Gaming 3 motherboard, featuring an Intel Z79 Express chipset and enhanced quality audio outputs incorporating a headphone amplifier.

General system benchmarks are around what we would expect from a system of this specification. Although we didn’t notice much performance gain from the high speed memory in general use, some gains are noted when gaming, where this PC pulls ahead of those fitted with a similar graphics card and processor. Most game benchmarks turned in scores a few fps faster on the Vibox Wildfire. System temperatures peaked at a manageable 85 degrees Celsius in our stress tests and the power draw of 307W under full load is around what we would have expected and well within the specification of the installed Superflower Golden Green Hx650W gold power supply. See all  PC reviews.

The Wildfire comes with a 23.6 inch AOC E2470SWDA monitor with a fast TN panel. It’s not a dedicated gaming display, but its 5ms response time and decent contrast ratio make it a good entry-level display for a gaming PC. Also supplied is the Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse bundle, featuring coloured LED backlighting and high-dpi settings.

You can, of course, opt to buy the system as a base unit only and use the peripherals of your choice instead.

The system is backed by a 1 year parts and labour warranty with a 90-day collect and return period. This is the only disappointing feature of this PC and by far the shortest standard warranty offered in our gaming PC group test.

See all  gaming PC reviews.