Chillblast Evolution: a beauty of a PC that's a beast for gaming
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Chillblast Evolution: Two-minute review
If you're looking for a premium PC system, and want the ease and convenience of a pre-build with an outstanding five-year warranty, the Chillblast Evolution is an excellent option. It looks great, and on all-but-one (more on that later) of the games I played on it, in it smashed it on Ultra settings.
To review the Evolution is to also review the UK pre-build PC company itself, as though Chillblast has called this specific configuration the Evolution, you can easily tweak it to your desired specs. Don't want to spend £958 on the RTX 4070 Ti 12GB? You can go to its page, edit and select the Radeon RX 7900 XT 20GB instead, and save yourself £70. Want a darker look? Just select the black shell and save yourself a few quid.
The Evolution offers excellent build quality and some pretty great components, with a 14th generation Intel Core i5-14600KF processor, and high-end Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti 12GB GPU, plus 32GB RAM and a roomy 2TB SSD, so playing your favourite AAA games is buttery smooth and, with a suitable monitor, looks utterly stunning.
Chillblast Evolution: Price & availability
How much does it cost? £2,329.99
Where is it available? Available in the UK only
The Chillblast Evolution gaming PC came out in late 2023, and boasts a brand new and Chillblast-exclusive chassis, in white or black. In total it will cost you £2,329.99 for the build we review here, which comes with an Intel Core i5-14600KF, Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti.
Now, that's a lot for any wallet, so this is probably a good time to stress that this is a serious gaming PC for serious gamers. You can no doubt get a cheaper gaming PC, but if you want to make the most of your favourite AAA games, then the Evolution, just like its price tag, certainly packs a punch.
For a detailed look at the specs, head to the next section below. But for a price context, and as with any pre-build PC, it's always worth finding out how much the component parts would cost you, should you want to construct the PC yourself. Basically, how much is Chillblast's mark up on constructing the Evolution for you?
And it's a fairly easy exercise, as all the parts (excluding the Corsair 3000D AIRFLOW RGB case) are easily available online. Furthermore, you can simply click 'edit' when viewing the Evolution on the Chillblast website, and de-select each part in turn to see how much each component costs.
For example, Chillblast charges you £958 for the RTX 4070 Ti, but at the time of writing you can find the same graphics card for £800 elsewhere. I went through the full specs and found that, if I wanted to buy all the parts and build this PC myself, it would cost me around £1,999.
I'm sure some of you will be thinking that £330 is quite a bit of money to be spending for someone else to make a gaming PC for you. But you're actually getting more than just a high-spec'd PC with the Evolution. You're also Chillblast's impressive five year warranty.
Basically, in the first two years, the warranty covers the buyer for pretty much whatever you can think of – posting it back to Chillblast, them diagnosing what's wrong, replacement of faulty parts with new parts, labour and return post. After that, for three years Chillblast will still cover the labour cost of fixing the PC, but the buyer will cover the post and replacement parts. Perhaps most impressive about this deal is that even if you try your hand at replacing a part of the PC, Chillblast's warranty is still intact, they just won't warranty those parts that you've replaced yourself.
In my view, £300-odd for that kind of peace of mind is great value for money. However, there's another option to spend less money when buying the Evolution from Chillblast. You can go through the specs, and select the cheapest option available. That'll cost you £1,914.24, and I break down what's included in the next section.
Price score: 4 / 5
Chillblast Evolution: Specs
The Chillblast Evolution comes in one configuration, though as mentioned, you can easily go into the Evolution spec list on the website and select some of the component parts to change. These include the case, the GPU (not CPU), RAM, storage, and software (including installing Steam, Firefox and Chrome).
Specs score: 4 / 5
Chillblast Evolution: Design
Beautiful aesthetic
Good port selection
Excellent ventilation
I love the look of the Evolution in white, though you can easily change it to black at no extra cost. Either way, it's a casing that benefits from a closer look. From afar you see a beautifully textured case, and up close there are hundreds of cutout triangles, on four of the six sides - front, back, top and righthand side. On the left you get a clear glass panel to show off the subtle RGB light show inside – a subtle, cool take on the often over-the-top use of RGB in gaming PCs.
Inside, Chillblast have placed its RGB lights carefully, adding two stripped lines over the RAM, accentuating the square CPU, and making the three front fans a pulsing main feature. There's also a changing light on the GPU logo, with all lights moving from cool blues to rich purples, and all colours in-between. I often do non-gaming work on this computer, and it fits in with my home office aesthetics just fine.
While playing the Evolution for hours on end, I never noticed any overheating or loud whirring, as the ventilation of the Corsair 3000D Airflow case and fans is top notch. Although I didn't test this PC during summer heat, there is also a rectangle panel of even smaller triangle mesh on top of the PC that you could take off, should you need further ventilation. Though really the three Corsair iCUE H100i RGB Elite fans up front, and the two non-RGB fans that hover up top are plenty to keep a constant temperature.
Design score: 5 / 5
Chillblast Evolution: Performance
Fantastic gaming performance
Great for mid-level video editing
As with most high-end gaming PCs of this price range, the Evolution can handle any AAA game you throw at it. I was also able to do some of my basic video editing work on it with ease – but who cares about work?
Gaming-wise, just have a glance at the benchmark boxout below, as the numbers speak for themselves. The Evolution absolutely nails 1080p testing and gaming on a range of titles at ultra settings. On low settings, a fast moving game like Dirt 5 achieves 287fps.
But we're not getting this set up for 1080p gaming. Playing Call of Duty: Warzone at 1440p and a mixture of normal and high settings with max field of view is a joy, with buttery-smooth gameplay that gives you the edge. Going for a more graphically-demanding title like Hogwarts: Legacy really showcases the RTX 4070 Ti and i5-14600KF partnership, with beautifully immersive gaming (though not all settings are as forgiving as others).
Chillblast Evolution: Benchmarks
Here's how the Chillblast Evolution performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
3DMark: Night Raid: 77,733; Fire Strike: 40,133; Time Spy: 21,801
Cinebench R23 Multi-core: 21,593 points; Single-core: 1,815 GeekBench 6 Pro: Multi-core: 16,180 points; Single-core: 2,646
PCMark 10 (Home Test): 9,095 points
Total War: Warhammer III (1080p, Ultra): 167 fps; (1080p, Low): 389 fps
Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra): 160 fps; (Low): 182 fps
Dirt 5 (Ultra): 130 fps; (Low): 287 fps
I loved playing Hogwarts: Legacy at 4K with medium settings. The resulting 70-plus fps at that resolution really showcased an utterly stunning world, whether strolling within the school, running in the forests or flying over it all. Ramping the settings to 'High' and 'Ultra' at 4K gave me issues with stuttering, but switching on DLSS with 4K High, and you've got yourself a fantastic gaming experience back at an average of 80fps.
I say 'mostly', as whacking up settings will test the 4070 Ti, and as games get progressively more demanding, that's to be expected. For example, at native 4K Ultra, the 4070 Ti really struggled with ray tracing on Hogwarts Legacy. It's the same story at 1440p Ultra settings. I've found several reports that that's the case even with the RTX 4080, so I don't think this can be chalked as a failure of this PC's specs. However, it should be noted that while the 4070 Ti is a powerful GPU, it's not the most powerful graphics card out there - Nvidia's own RTX 4080, RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4090 are all more powerful, though buying a gaming PC with those installed will prove even more expensive.
Trying to play at 4K with ray tracing on Hogwarts, the game would just stall and close down completely. Ironically, ray tracing is pretty underwhelming in this game, but it does suggest that this PC can't
If we're looking at the full cost version of the Evolution, it ticks a lot of boxes for a premium gaming system that can also handle plenty of creative work, like entry- to mid-level video editing. With its newly-released Corsair 3000D Airflow case, great upgradeability options, integrated WIFI and Bluetooth, loads of USB ports - including Type-C – plenty of RAM and storage, fancy lights (who doesn't love RGB, right?), it's a fantastic PC for serious gamers.
Performance score: 4.5 / 5
Should you buy the Chillblast Evolution?
Buy it if...
You want an excellent gaming PC
From benchmark tests and hours of playing, this PC can handle even the most demanding games with ease.
You want to be covered for five years
Chillblast has a well-earned reputation for providing one of the best warranties out there, which even covers some costs if you want to replace parts yourself.
Don't buy it if...
Your budget is under £2,330
It's a pretty hefty price tag, to be sure, and you could shave £330 off the price if you wanted to build it yourself (but I think the warranty is worth that much).
Chillblast Evolution: Also consider
If the Chillblast Evolution has you considering other options, here are two more laptops to consider...
How I tested the Chillblast Evolution
I tested the Chillblast Evolution for three months
I tested PC games on an array of settings (low to ultra)
I used several benchmarks, used in all TechRadar PC reviews
Once I had the Evolution the right way up, I turned it on and had a mammoth gaming session on it, just getting a feel for it. All drivers came up-to-date, and everything worked from the kick off.
Then came the testing. I ran several benchmark tests to test the GPU and CPU, and played with plenty of different settings in personal gameplay to get a good idea of what the Evolution was capable of.
Having tested all sorts of tech over the years, including gaming laptops and creative PCs, I'm well placed to push a gaming PC to its limits to find out its true potential.
First reviewed January 2024
