CyberPowerPC Intros 'Everyman Quad Core' Systems
CyberPowerPC, in partnership with Newegg, has built its EQ100. The company calls this PC an "Everyman Quad Core" system. While we don't agree that it is good for every man, it is certainly more than capable enough for many men and women.
The starting point for the system is an ATX-size gaming case. Not exactly a logical choice for a budget-oriented system on which you'll hardly be able to game, but it'll do the job as an enclosure. It is reasonable to assume that this is a case that CyberPowerPC was able to come by cheaply, which helps lower the final product price.
Inside this case, users will find a system built on the new AMD AM1 platform, which is a nice development to see. While you won't get monstrous amounts of processing power from the AMD Sempron 3850 1.3 GHz quad-core chip, it'll certainly be capable of performing everyday tasks such as web-browsing, emailing, and general media consumption. The AM1 platform is very efficient and cost-friendly; because of this we really like seeing vendors jumping onto it.
Completing the system, users will also find a single 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz module along with a 500 GB hard drive and a single optical drive. Power is provided by a considerably more powerful than necessary 500 W power supply, though that does give users room to add a graphics card or more hard drives.
However, recommending that users buy a low-spec system such as this is difficult. You could build a similar system for around the same price point, and you'd gain a few more customization options. Despite that, pricing for this PC isn't all that bad if you consider what you get for it – a basic but complete system, including an operating system, a keyboard and a mouse.
Pricing is set at $299.99 with immediate availability.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
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n3cw4rr10r That is a damn good price for basic browsing.Reply
@kawininja. No way an Intel processor will give you that much performance, especially graphics @ that price point. -
vmem at that price point it's worth buying just for the insides and the OEM windows license...Reply -
dovah-chan some people may not know this but CPC actually buys cheap chinese ricer gaming mice and keyboards then includes them with their systems. What is interesting about it is that they're actually the same exact way they were when they purchased the product.Reply
Its not like if for example: Origin uses Corsair H100i units in their liquid cooled towers. They rebrand them and place their logo on the pump top.
CPC does no rebranding at all and their exactly the same as when they purchased them (even the manufacturers logo is still there; I'm guessing since their so obscure and unknown people won't notice?)
Not talking down about them as they offer pretty reasonable prices for prebuilt systems that you can customize yourself pretty well. Not a big fan of when they repaint cases though. -
Rakeen70210 For $300 its way better to get a pentium chip right now in that thing. Everything looks pretty decent but I just cant seem to like the CPU. Even if its quad-core for mainstream consumer use I would refuse to give this to anyone. But seriously I still think its good on everything else, but there is no point in having a quad CPU with such weak individual core performance. For say someone that uses applications like Word, Excel, and tons of web browsing getting a dual core pentium with fast single core performance is enough.Reply -
kawininjazx That is a damn good price for basic browsing.
@kawininja. No way an Intel processor will give you that much performance, especially graphics @ that price point.
I'm talking more about the reliability of an intel processor and intel chipset. I have been working on computers for 8 years now, I have worked on thousands of machines, and if you come into my store you will not see a single AMD system for sale, unless it's a refurb. I am just not crazy about them, the chipsets are wonky and unreliable.
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n3cw4rr10r 13522097 said:That is a damn good price for basic browsing.
@kawininja. No way an Intel processor will give you that much performance, especially graphics @ that price point.
I'm talking more about the reliability of an intel processor and intel chipset. I have been working on computers for 8 years now, I have worked on thousands of machines, and if you come into my store you will not see a single AMD system for sale, unless it's a refurb. I am just not crazy about them, the chipsets are wonky and unreliable.
There is nothing wrong with AMD cpus. They are great workhorses. While my gaming rig seen in sig has a i5 cpu, my workstation rig has a Phenom II X6 1090T cpu. I have had no issues with it. While Intel maybe your personal preference, please do not assume AMD doesnt make good cpus and or apus. AMD apus will trounce Intel's integraded cpu line up @ the same price point. -
gggplaya That is a damn good price for basic browsing.
@kawininja. No way an Intel processor will give you that much performance, especially graphics @ that price point.
I'm talking more about the reliability of an intel processor and intel chipset. I have been working on computers for 8 years now, I have worked on thousands of machines, and if you come into my store you will not see a single AMD system for sale, unless it's a refurb. I am just not crazy about them, the chipsets are wonky and unreliable.
There is nothing wrong with AMD cpu's, you're taking things out of context and making apples to oranges comparisons. AMD cpu's are generally found in lower end PC's which cost much less. Manufacturers will penny pinch to get some margin and make profits. So they also buy cheaper motherboards to accompany that CPU, which lowers the overall price drastically. Cheap motherboards lack quality control, poor capacitors etc.... So yea, they will be a bit wonky. Buy a decent motherboard to go with that AMD CPU and you won't have any issues. I've never had a problem with any of my AMD cpu's, but i always buy Asus motherboards.
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Onus This box is awful as a "gamer" as it is advertised. The pics of it show it uses a PSU-shaped object from Apevia (the "Turbolink"), which is maybe going to be good for half its label (HardwareSecrets reviewed the "450W" model some time ago). This means either no graphics card, or you'll install one and blow it up.Reply
$299 for a general purpose web-surfer probably isn't bad for what you're getting, but throw in a 300W Seasonic and call it a day.
...and don't call it a "gamer."
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Jay Stew Gamer alright. First thing you have to replace within 3 months is the PSU because any self respecting gamer will slap a GTX or GT something in there and boom the PSU will crack in half under the wattage. Next you have pop out that CPU. CPUBOSS tells the real story on that Quad Core lol but did you really not guess that a quad core at 1.3ghz was nothing but garbage?Reply
The only thing the "everyman Quad" has going for it is that is uses less power. I ran it up against a first generation semi-real quad core which provides decent performance today even though its from 2007. The Q6600, and the Q6600 7 years old still has much better single core processing speed compared to this hunk of junk at stock speeds. Who doesn't OC their Q6600 because you can take that from 2.4ghz to 3.0-3.2 on air cooling.
Try getting your 1.3 Sempron up to 3.2ghz on air, water, liquid nitro, or antimatter, its just not happening. With only 2MB of on CPU L2 cache in 2014 this is supposed to be a gamer unit really? So what thats half a megabyte per core. Why dont you just do your video encoding on your Galaxy S4 if you wanna call it quad core.
When you replace the CPU then you have to pop out the mobo and probably the RAM too. So really this is more of an investment in an expensive case. The primary use for a quad core cpu is to either do heavy multi-tasking or video encoding. Neither is real useful at 1.3ghz. I would be willing to bet a fast dual core around the 3.8ghz level would be faster still anyway.
Heres another thing the author of this post should have done before hawking this product. You go to the CyberPowerPC website and you will see reviews. Hundreds of them for each of their products rated on a 5 star scale. Every single review is 4 or 5 stars. Not a single review is rated 1 - 2 - 3 stars. Even Newegg the best products on there have 1 - 2 - 3 star ratings. Amazon same thing. There is no product in the history of mankind which only gets 4 or 5 stars on a 5 star rating. Someone doesn't like something about enough to rate it accurately.
Pure marketing. Perhaps this article itself was a 5-star promotional item. I think I'll rate it 5/5 STARS
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/testimonials.aspx?c=BLKPEARL
Here is a selection of 3 reviews which I think speak for themselves.
Diamond gems like this in the rough make me wonder about a company that will re-write the score of the rating without omitting the actual text of the feedback...
"This is my 2nd purchase, i wish there was a returning customer bonus or discount. I enjoy the free give aways but sacrificed the case I wanted in order to get the 50 dollar gift card. I will continue to purchase from cyberpower because of the better website design than competitors and you appeared to be more price competitive. YOUR VERIFICATION CODE IS TOO HARD TO READ, THIS IS THE 9th TIME I ENTERED A CODE BEFORE I GOT IT CORRECT AND I KEPT LOADING UNTIL I FOUND ONE I CAN SEE. I'M SO FRUSTRATED AT THE MOMENT I DON'T EVEN WANT TO FINISH YOUR SURVEY..."
4/5stars
"The system arrived with one of the drive bay blanks loose and inside the case. So far it seems to be working well, after some minor fixes on my part. The front usb ports weren't working. Re-seating the usb connectors on the motherboard got two of them working, but two are still dead. Also, the HDD activity light on the case wasn't working. It turns out the connector on the motherboard had been put on backwards. I've not had a chance to see if the front audio connector works."
4/5 Stars
When I bought my system some of the free Items that I selected were not included in the perches so I tried to call in and waited on hold for 2 hours...so I waited until the weekend was over and called in again and still was unable to reach any one to get the items included...then I e-mailed in my concern and was given the reply that they would not fix the order I had to delete the order and re order however the sale was over and so it the same deal was not available that was their when I made my order. Thus I was basically told SOL... ...I was told it would be shipped to me by the 12th of December it wasn't even shipped until the 17th....I paid for 3 day shipping and it took 4 days...when it was shipped it was not packed well and some of the packaging boxes were completely squished...Over all I will probably give iBUYPOWERr next time because of the lack of concern about my situation when I tried to express my concerns (I paid over $2,200.00 for my system and you would not even fix a glitch that was your fault.
4/5 Stars
Or how about this product
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/testimonials.aspx?c=NTBKHX6_100
"One thing that is slightly annoying about the product is the highly sensative synaptic touch pad, and apparently no way to disable it. I could not find a way to disable the touch pad. I use a wireless mouse and when I am typing things if my hands or fingers happen to brush the touchpad it messes up what Im typing. There is an option in the SMC to turn off the touchpad, however even though it indicates that the touchpad is off, it is not. It is an annoyance now, and If I have to deal with this for the life of the computer I will grow even more frustrated. This is an issue you should address."
4/5 Stars
Come on guys even my Intel Atom ACER ASPIRE can have its touchpad disabled. tiny as it is for a netbook and if I dropped a grand on a laptop that D-bagged the interface due to poor design I'd send it back not slap 4/5 Stars.
"I love my new laptop. I do have one question though. Why was the integrated GPU not disabled? The way mine was setup the Intel HD 4400 was not only enabled but set as the default instead of the GeForce 765. Is this normal?"
4/5 Stars
3rd Product Almost $2k for this model.http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/testimonials.aspx?c=INF8800PROSE
"Everything is great but one of the legs was broken when we received it."
5/5 Stars
"The system is amazing, smooth and lightning fast. I love it. That said, a wire got unplugged during shipping and I had to call your tech center (I'm not hardware saavy, and didn't spot the plug which looked like it was still in). Anyway, while it may have been trivial, your call agent sounded like a bored 16yr old son rebuffing his boring dad. I swear I could hear his eyes rolling at me lol. Seriously, amazing product and service but your phone folks need some training. Nothing can kill such a great reputation quicker than a rude phone agent."
5/5 Stars
Buried down aways...
"Was a little disappointed. Some of the wires are not tied back even though we paid extra for this service. For the price we paid, there was an expectation of receiving a pristine tower built using brand new parts. The SATA port of the top/front was bent. My husband was able the fix it. The state of the fins in the radiator faceplate for the liquid cooling fan was the worst of the damaged areas. Many of them are bent or damaged. While the computer runs very well, the quality of some of the parts was not what we expected from this company."
4 out of 5 MO FO STARS you guessed it. Nobody ever dares rate CPPC anything less than 4 or 5.
"usb 3.0 ports on top do not worl"
5/5
"The system shipped without any defects (I ordered the enhanced packaging). After two days, the system locked up and the screen just went black. It would not restart and Microsoft could not fix itself, so I was forced to do a clean install of everything. Sorry Cyberpower, I know you worked hard making sure everything was already up to date on my computer. One blue screen of death and a clean install later, my system is running perfect. It runs all my games on max setting without breaking a sweat (GW2 at constant 50 FPS). I am sure I will enjoy it for a long time and I am sure it has a long life expectancy. I would definitely order from Cyberpower PC again and recommend it to all my friends."
4/5
Really? You dropped 2 grand for a system that BSOD on delivery and you are apologizing to the company that sent it to you?
Since this is in partnership with NEWEGG. How does the lone rating for this system get on NewEgg? 3/5Eggs What? NO 5/5 or 4/5
Read it yourself folks
Pros: Decent specs for the price.
Nice looks.
Cons: I am a professional system builder and Power Supply expert.
I review and test Power Supply units and can guaranty you want to replace the junk Turbolink PSU that comes in it.
CyberPower is a good system builder, but are notorious for cutting corners in the power supply department.
I have personally replaced 15 different junk PSU's from otherwise good Cyberpower PC's...
They usually last about a year, and then conveniently die after the warranty is up.
3 Units died well within the warranty period, but it was less expensive and less hassle to simply purchase a new unit and replace on their own.
So plan on replacing the power supply unit with a decent brand when buying.
You have been warned.
Other Thoughts: You could replace the power supply, add an SSD, and a midrange video card for a very decent gaming machine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229562&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
Guess we all know the real story now.