Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out CyberPower Gamer Xtreme XE Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear May 2009 • Vol.9 Issue 5 Page(s) 34 in print issue Add To My Personal Library CyberPower Gamer Xtreme XE CyberPower Core i7-Based PC $2,999 (as tested) www.cyberpowerpc.com CPU Rating: 4 Specs: Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe; CPU: Intel Core i7-940 @ 3.53GHz; Memory: 6GB Kingston DDR3-1600; Graphics: 2x Evga GeForce GTX 295; Storage: 2x 150GB Western Digital VelociRaptor, 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B; PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower 1000W; Windows Vista Home Premium. Here’s a question for the die-hard do-it-yourselfers out there: When does it make sense to buy a preconfigured machine rather than piece one together on your own? How about when the prebuilt box is every bit as fierce as you’d wish for in your own dream machine and it costs less than parting the system out piece by piece? CyberPower sent us a Core i7-940-based Gamer Xtreme XE with a gaggle of complementary high-end parts. Even two weeks after its build date, we weren’t able to source the parts list online for less than CyberPower is asking. And the setup is pure enthusiast, too. In addition to the Core i7-940, the system sports 6GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a pair of dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295s, Asus’ P6T Deluxe motherboard, and two Western Digital VelociRaptor drives in a RAID 0. But where the builder really seems to excel is its understanding of technology and how to use it. We’ve seen some genuinely wonky setups from top-tier vendors—high-end processors with minimal memory and entry-level graphics, for example. In contrast, the CyberPower box is balanced the way a power user would demand. The striped 150GB VelociRaptors, for instance, are installed next to a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B, which is slower but better suited for housing lots of music and movies. Moreover, a pair of GeForce GTX 295 cards in Quad-SLI absolutely need a powerful CPU behind them. And while the Core i7-940 isn’t the quickest chip Intel sells, it’s the second-fastest and known for offering serious overclocking headroom. In fact, our system arrived already tuned to 3.53GHz—a service CyberPower included at no extra cost. Unfortunately, the massive Cooler Master V10 CPU cooler, which can dissipate more than 200W of heat, didn’t seem to make good contact with the processor’s surface. Given the overclock, the system shut itself down before completing its POST. In order to get the machine running stably at its default 2.93GHz, we had to lay it on its side and apply constant pressure to the top of the large heatsink. Given its 1.2kg weight, The V10 was likely tweaked in shipping. Cyber-Power purportedly expected something similar from the heavy GeForce GTX 295s, so it packaged those separately, counting on the customer to install them. The only other configuration faux pas CyberPower made was forgetting to bundle the SLI connector cable needed to link our two graphics cards. Once we got the Gamer Xtreme up and running at the default speed, it performed like a champ, absolutely smashing our reference PC with its GeForce GTX 280 and single Seagate Barracuda 7200.11. The striped Raptors and muscle-bound graphics subsystem helped push our overall PCMark Vantage scores up above 8000. Our Main-Concept and Xvid encoding tests both exhibited the sort of gains we’d expect going from a 2.66GHz to 2.93GHz CPU, and game tests took off through the roof. CyberPower’s build was clean and professional, exhibiting meticulous cable management. The configuration’s performance was clearly exceptional; the vendor’s techs had even popped the hood on Vista to optimize performance and increase usability. With the exception of some shipping damage, which we’re confident would be covered in the company’s three-year labor warranty, the Gamer Xtreme XE is a real winner—one with an unbelievably competitive price. by Paul Cross Benchmark Results CyberPower Core i7-940 System Core i7-920-based reference system 3DMark Vantage Overall Score P25854 P10374 GPU Score 24696 8198 CPU Score 30089 41149 Far Cry 2 1,920 x 1,200 (no AA/AF) 104.97 53.18 2,560 x 1,600 (no AA/AF) 75.81 41.78 PCMark Vantage Overall 8240 5128 Memories 6744 5394 Productivity 8280 5128 HDD 7024 3317 Mainconcept* 1:34 1:43 Xvid Encoding* 2:57 3:07 Sandra Memory Bandwidth Integer Buffered iSSE2 18.55GBps 18.80GBps Floating Buffered iSSE2 18.62GBps 18.79GBps *minutes:seconds  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? 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