Wired2Fire HAL 9000 Compact PC
Don’t be fooled by its size; this is a powerhouse for gaming and all-round tasks – and it runs quietly, too
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PRICE £1,583 (£1,900 inc VAT) wired2fire.co.uk from
The Wired2Fire HAL 9000 follows a pattern of compact gaming/creative PCs to land at PC Pro recently, including the PCSpecialist Torpedo R (see issue 363, p56) and HP Omen 35L (see issue 364, p60). They cost a similar amount to the HAL 9000, too, at £1,799 and £1,800 respectively. But where the Torpedo and Omen included RTX 4070 Super graphics, Wired2Fire ups the ampage with an RTX 4070 Ti while making the package smaller: its total volume is 18.25L compared to 25L for the Torpedo and 35L for the Omen.
The Cooler Master NR2300P Max V2 chassis is finished in an anodised grey that looks much better in the flesh than it does in photos, and sits squat on a desk with a 185 x 295mm footprint. Measuring 377mm high, you could even pop it onto a shelf; the front-mounted USB ports, (two USB-A and one USB-C) sit neatly next to the power switch and 3.5mm audio jack at the front. Most of the time this PC runs near silently, with the fans disturbing the peace only when I pushed the CPU in benchmarks or the GPU in games.