Heavy Gear

Heavy Gear March 2010 • Vol.10 Issue 3 Page(s) 30 in print issue
CyberPower Gamer Infinity XLC

Gamer Infinity XLC
$1,586 (as tested)
CyberPower
www.cyberpowerpc.com
CPU Rating: 4

Specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-860 @ 3.25GHz; GPU: HIS Radeon 5870; RAM: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600MHz; Storage: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green; OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Support for the newest technology is a welcome addition to any system, and in CyberPower’s Gamer Infinity XLC, we have USB 3.0, SATA 3.0, and DirectX 11 technology. It also offers a healthy 20% processor overclock and 4GB of memory. We ran this system through our rigorous benchmarking process and came away impressed with the system’s gaming prowess.

This Gamer Infinity XLC’s configuration is close to the base option, so it doesn’t offer much glitz on the outside. The only visible exterior colors are the stock red LEDs from Thermaltake’s Element T in the 200mm top exhaust fan and power button. On the inside, we found a clean interior, with most of the cables neatly routed behind the motherboard tray. We also thought the use of the Element T case gave us plenty of free bays and rear chassis slots to upgrade in the future.

USB 3.0 connectivity for the Gamer Infinity XLC is provided by Gigabyte’s GA-P55A-UD3 motherboard, which offered two USB 3.0 ports and eight USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. Another three USB 2.0 ports are included on the Gamer Infinity XLC’s front panel—one from the 12-in-1 memory card reader and two on the Element T’s top panel. HIS’s Radeon 5870, which is factory overclocked with an 850MHz core clock and 1,200MHz memory clock, provided the support for DirectX 11. The inclusion of Corsair’s TX750W power supply with four power connectors for video cards meant that we could easily add a second Radeon 5870 to this system.

With a DirectX 11 system, we added Dirt 2 to our desktop benchmark testing suite, and although we don’t have any system to compare the Gamer Infinity XLC to, the 36.4fps proved that the Gamer Infinity XLC had what it takes to play Dirt 2 at 2,560 x 1,600 on the Ultra setting. We’ve seen higher numbers in Left 4 Dead and Crysis, but those systems had two or three graphics cards. Bumping the Intel Core i7-860 from 2.8GHz to 3.25GHz gave the Gamer Infinity XLC respectable results in Cine-bench 10 (finished in 44 seconds) and 3DMark Vantage (CPU score of 21093). Its PCMark Vantage Overall score, 9066, was the only real blemish, but the results were brought down by a 4091 HDD score.

The Gamer Infinity XLC, even in a relatively base configuration, delivered quality numbers in our benchmark tests. Combined with compatibility for the newest games and latest technology—as well as a clean system design—and you have yourself a well-made custom PC.

by Nathan Lake