CyberPowerPC attempts to be all things to all people with systems aimed at gamers on a low budget and players with deep pockets. Our Gamer Xtreme review unit definitely skews to the budget end of the spectrum with a price tag of just $1,099.

That price gets you a Core Ultra 200 Series CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 2TB SSD, and an RTX 5060 GPU. Throw in a stylish case and RGB lighting galore, and you'll see that CyberPowerPC aims to please people on a budget with the Gamer Xtreme.

Design of the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The latest edition of the Gamer Xtreme utilizes a Phanteks NV5 mid-tower case. It’s an interesting design constructed of black-painted stainless steel with a glass front and a glass side panel to give you an unobstructed view of the system's interior components. There’s also plenty of ventilation, with a grill on the right-side panel for three vertically-mounted 120mm RGB fans. The top panel also includes ventilation, with support for another three 120 mm fans or a 360 mm radiator (although our review unit didn’t have the additional fans) and a removable dust filter. There’s a fourth 120mm RGB fan at the rear of the case for exhaust.

In addition to the RGB fans, there’s a light strip at the base of the front glass, and another light strip that traces the “ramp” housing the power supply. The final piece to the lighting scheme is the air cooler for the CPU, which features a 120mm RGB fan.

The case offers good cable management options, with all of the power cables routing beneath the motherboard, mainly leaving uninterrupted airflow to keep everything nice and cool.

The Gamer Xtreme measures 9.4 x 18.8 x 20.8 inches. For comparison, the CyberPower Gamer Supreme has dimensions of 19.5 x 9.3 x 18.1 inches, and the iBuyPower Y40 Pro comes in at 18.58 x 17.28 x 9.44 inches

CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The Gamer Xtreme has a wealth of connectivity options, with ports available at the top of the case and the motherboard I/O panel at the rear. On the top of the case, starting from the front, you’ll find the power button, reset button, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, two USB-A 3.0 ports, an RGB mode button, and an RGB color button.The rear I/O panel is home to one DisplayPort, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, four USB-A 2.0, four USB-A 5 Gbps, one USB-A 10 Gbps, 2.5 GbE, two antenna ports for the onboard Wi-Fi 6 module, and three audio jacks.

CyberPowerPC opted for an Asus B860M Max Gaming AX motherboard for the Gamer Xtreme, which uses Intel’s B860M chipset and supports Intel LGA1851 processors. In our review unit, the socket was populated with a Core Ultra 5 225F processor.

The motherboard features four DIMM slots, supporting a maximum of 256GB DDR5 memory. Our review unit featured two slots filled with 16GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6400 modules.

There are three M.2 slots onboard (PCIe 5.0 x4, PCIe 4.0 x4, PCIe 4.0 x2), along with four SATA 6 Gbps ports for storage. In addition, there is one PCIe 5.0 x16, one PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4 mode), and two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots (x1 mode). For additional storage you can mount HDDs and SSDs to a vertical bracket behind the right-side panel (beneath the motherboard).

Gaming Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

Our Gamer Xtreme review unit came with an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F "Arrow Lake" processor, which is a 10-core design (6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores) with a base clock of 3.3 GHz and a maximum turbo clock of 4.9 GHz. You also get 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory and an MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Shadow 2X OC (8GB) with a maximum graphics clock of 2,527 MHz.

We don't have any additional RTX 5060 prebuilts in our desktop gaming PC testing database, so we have assembled the closest matches that we could find. The CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme is equipped with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32GB of DDR5-6000, and an RTX 5060 Ti. The iBuyPower Y40 Pro enters the ring with a Ryzen 9 7900X, 32GB of DDR5-5200, and an RTX 5070 Ti.

I’ve been playing through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in my downtime and averaged between 120 to 145 frames per second (FPS) at 1080p using Ultra settings.

Beginning with Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest settings), the Gamer Xtreme delivered 128 FPS at 1080p and 39 FPS at 4K. The Gamer Supreme, with its RTX 5060 Ti, was able to improve on those numbers, garnering 149 FPS and 46 FPS, respectively. Of course, the Y40 Pro came out, guns blazing, delivering 100 more FPS than the Gamer Xtreme at 1080p (228 FPS) and 89 FPS at 4K.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings) shows no mercy when it comes to graphics hardware demands, as the Gamer Xtreme could only extract 39 FPS at 1080p. Cranking the slider to 4K turned things into a slideshow, at just 2 FPS. The Gamer Supreme clocked in at 53 FPS at 1080p resolution, and 15 FPS at 4K. Not surprisingly, the Y40 Pro was the clear leader in the benchmarks, with 87 FPS and 29 FPS at 1080p resolution and 4K resolution, respectively.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings), is another veteran of our gaming benchmark suite, and here the Gamer Xtreme pulled 109 FPS at 1080p and a playable 50 FPS at 4K. The Gamer Supreme was about 20 percent faster in each benchmark, while the Y40 Pro doubled the Gamer Xtreme’s performance at 4K (102 FPS).

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings), is still one of the most beautiful PC games I’ve ever played, even six years after its release. The Gamer Xtreme is capable of 84 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 31 FPS at 4K resolution. The Y40 Pro shows the true power of the RTX 5070 Ti, nearly doubling performance at 1080p (161 FPS) and more than doubling at 4K (66 FPS).

Finally, our Borderlands 3 benchmark (Badass settings), showed the Gamer Xtreme delivering 116 FPS at 1080p and 44 FPS at 4K. For comparison, the Gamer Supreme with its RTX 5060 Ti hit 135 FPS at 1080p and 52 FPS at 4K.

The gaming performance of the Gamer Xtreme was quite good, all things considered. The Core Ultra 5 225F is no match for the Ryzen processors in CPU-intensive games or higher-spec RTX 50 Series graphics cards at 4K resolution. But when you consider the $1,099 price tag of the Gamer Xtreme versus the $1,859 price of the Gamer Supreme, the roughly 10 to 20% performance differential between the two systems becomes a lot more palatable for budget shoppers.

Metro Exodus is our go-to resource for gaming PC stress tests, and we used a 15-run loop on the Gamer Xtreme. The system averaged 89.57 FPS at 1080p, with a low of 87.96 FPS and a high of 89.98 FPS. During the test, the Core Ultra 5 225F’s performance cores averaged 4.47 GHz, the efficiency cores clocked in at 4.11 GHz, and the CPU package measured 71 degrees Celsius. The RTX 5060 averaged 2.45 GHz at an average temperature of 69 C.

Fan noise from the 120mm CPU cooler is loud, even at idle. Unlike the gentle hum that you’ll get with AIO coolers, the Gamer Xtreme’s air cooler can get a bit irritating if all you’re trying to do is browse the internet or write a document. Once you start gaming and the fans on the RTX 5060 ramp, the noise becomes even more offensive. Not all air coolers are this loud, so CyberPower’s fan choice here is a bit curious.

Productivity Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The Gamer Xtreme features a Core Ultra 5 225F processor (6 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores), 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. As you’ll see in the benchmarks, the Core Ultra 5 225F’s shortage of cores compared to the Ryzen systems in this test is readily apparent. However, there’s a huge delta in price between the Gamer Xtreme and the other two systems, so always keep that in the back of your mind.

The Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark saw the Gamer Xtreme come to the table with 2,893 in the single-core test and 14,873 in the multi-core test. For comparison, the Gamer Xtreme with its raucous Ryzen 7 9800X3D hit 3,335 and 18,601, respectively.

What it lacked in CPU muscle, the Gamer Xtreme made up for it in storage performance. During our 25GB file transfer test, the MSI M470 Pro SSD sped past the radar gun at 1,964.94 Mbps, putting it well ahead of the more expensive systems in this test. The Gamer Supreme managed 1,664.11 Mbps, while the Y40 Pro was even further back at 1,501.55.

Finally, the Handbrake test really showed the real-world shortfall on multi-threaded performance. When we transcode our 4K video test file to 1080p, the Gamer Xtreme took four minutes and 27 seconds, compared to just two minutes and 58 seconds for the Gamer Supreme. The Y40 Pro was faster still, completing the task in two minutes and 29 seconds.

Keyboard and Mouse with the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

CyberPowerPC includes a basic keyboard and mouse in the box with the Gamer Xtreme. It’s nothing that I would have purchased for my personal use, but as a pack-in with a gaming desktop, it's quite good.

The NOHI 2 keyboard has multi-colored RGB lighting effects and relatively good tactile typing. There are flip-out feet to adjust your typing angle and you can cycle through the different lighting modes using the FN key plus numbers 1 through 0. Using the keyhero.com typing test, I averaged 90 words per minute with 95.67 percent accuracy.

A CyberPowerPC Elite M2 RGB gaming mouse is included, but it’s a little on the small side for my tastes and designed for right-handed folks. The mouse has six buttons (including two on the side and a top button that by default controls DPI). There’s nothing particularly outstanding about the mouse and it works “just fine.”

Software and Warranty

I can gladly say that CyberPowerPC doesn’t include any extraneous software or utilities on the Gamer Xtreme. No system utilities, no warranty apps, no resource-robbing antivirus trials, and no trials for games or VPNs. Instead, you get a bone stock install of Windows 11 Home, which is great news for gamers who want zero bloat to contend with first booting up the system.

Systems purchased directly from CyberPowerPC.com come with a three-year labor and two-year parts warranty. Our particular system, which is available exclusively from Costco, comes with a two-year warranty.

CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme Configurations

Our Gamer Xtreme review unit (Model GXi2000CSTV3) is a Costco exclusive, and features an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F processor, MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Shadow 2X OC graphics card, 32GB of Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6400 (2x 16GB) RAM, a 2TB SSD, and Windows 11 Home. It’s priced at a reasonable $1,099.99.

Best Buy also sells a higher-spec version (Model GXi3400BSTV17) with a Core Ultra 7 265F, GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD for $1,599.

Bottom Line

You get quite a bit for your $1,099.99with the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme. You get 32GB of RAM and a generous 2TB SSD for installing your favorite AAA games. Although the keyboard and mouse that are included in the box aren’t the best, they’re perfectly serviceable for gamers on a budget.

You also get niceties like a roomy case with plenty of cooling and RGB vividness, standard Wi-Fi (albeit the older Wi-Fi 6 standard), and a bloat-free install of Windows 11.

At this price point, it’s hard to find fault with the Gamer Xtreme, other than the grating sound from its CPU cooler, which is loud even at idle, and only gets louder when you start gaming. If CyberPowerPC could swap out the air-cooled solution for one with a quieter fan or AIO unit and bump the price slightly, it’d have a real winner here.

Like many of us, Robert shared the dream of building a custom PC case. However, unlike most of us, Robert made it by combining wood, 3D-printed gears, and acrylic to create a unique kinetic custom case. The case features multiple moving parts that create kinetic movements you get to see on the front panel, operated by gears and shafts behind it, hidden away thanks to the new external casing made of wood.

He repurposed his old PC case as a mainframe to hold the core components of his system. The Corsair Crystal 570X case was ideal for him once he removed the side and front glass panels. He made a new external body out of plywood, with multiple hexagonal cut-outs on the sides. The outer body was designed to have an all-black finish with wooden accents and is pressure-fitted by slipping it over the 570X. Although he considered using fasteners and magnets as mounts for each panel, this was a preferred choice for multiple reasons. After solving the challenges with the wooden surface's paint job, he focused on the front panel movements, a vast undertaking, and the project's highlight.

The Heart and Soul of This Kinetic Movement

The brain of this kinetic movement is an Arduino Uno board with a combination of codes from multiple sources to move the 4988 stepping motor and the Nema 17 motor. Once he got the perfect rotation through trial and error, he installed the setup inside the case and powered it from the motherboard. So far, Robert has been nothing but impressive, and the video does a great job of providing that valuable edutainment. But here comes the complicated part, which demanded much time, effort, patience, and experiments with different materials and gear designs.

He decided on three front panel complications, starting with what he says is the most straightforward design and working his way up to the most complex. The front panel is modular, allowing for different front panels to be switched, each with other complications. The main body and the front panel had to be made seamless, allowing the case to get air in from the sides of the kinetic front panel. The NEMA 17 motor was connected to a gear, which was then installed through the case, moving other gears behind the front panel. The front panels are secured onto the case with custom 3D-printed clamps installed on the 570x's body.

First Kinetic Movement

His main inspiration for the design was David C. Roy, a kinetic sculptor who designed over 150 different and one-of-a-kind complications. The first front panel design used three circles overlapping the three front panel fans on the 570x, with the inner design resembling a rounded stained glass rose window frame. These internal frames would move along with the patterns of the gears. This involved making three gears made of plywood with ball bearings with 3Dprinted gears and crossbars, eventually connecting to the Nema17's main gear.

Every gear and momentum had to be fine-tuned to ensure no friction from jagged edges between the gears. This is combined with a frosted-looking panel using paper over the plexiglass. This resulted in a great diffusion of the lights in front of the fans that can be seen from the kinetic 'rings.' Robert created a smooth and trippy style kinetic motion. He calls this simple, anything but that for any of us. But the next design he did was extraordinarily challenging, and it was impressive to see the entire process explained clearly in the video.

Third and Final movement

The whole 'adventure' encouraged Robert to skip the second design for the third and most complicated design. This kinetic movement is as complex as creating unique movements for a mechanical clock made from scratch and assembled by hand using different materials. The comparison couldn't be far from the truth as this step increased from 14 moving parts to a jaw-dropping 885 parts involving 214 3D printed components. The whole front panel will have hexagon movements, which creates that seamless illusion of synchronous action through different sections of the front panel while making it appear that they're individually moving due to varying heights, like a wave.

Robert had to play it safe with two gear designs to determine the perfect choice after working on each hexagonal tab and its shaft on the front panel that would protrude and depress through. While it used wooden panels and a combination of 3D printed and acrylic parts, he had to fine-tune by sanding every hole and using black vinyl on the components to ensure smooth movements.

The gears connecting the main gear to this complication had a challenge as it involved many more moving parts. Laser-cutting acrylic, though very accurate for the job, does leave jagged edges between the gear teeth. Robert got a great idea by combining 3D printed and acrylic gears, giving him the smoothness of the kinetic transition he required. All the time, money, and hard work resulted in a tremendous kinetic front panel that couldn't be helped but appreciated. With the remaining parts of the plywood, he made matching case feet, and it was a final finish- the first DIY kinetic case with a modular front panel design.

The internal movement was as mesmerizing as its effect on the front. It is tough to say which one looks incredible. Both do. Two different yet beautiful sides of the same front panel!

Inspired by Cyberpower's Once Ambitious but Unreleased Project

This project was inspired by Cyberpower's announcement of the Wild Kinetic series cases, which were supposed to be available for purchase in late 2022. Unfortunately, nothing came out of it, and there were no updates from Cyberpower. That didn't stop Robert. He wanted one, and the second best option was to make one.

This may inspire Cyberpower to speed up the process or return to the drawing board. In any case, it inspired at least one person to build a kinetic case, and I wouldn't be shocked if others followed suit. When this was covered, Cyberpower said its Kinetic cases would cost $249, an incredible value considering the time, money, and effort Robert would have spent on his. But by comparison, Robert made something to be proud of and extraordinary. Buying one off the shelf is one thing, but it is something when building one yourself. Robert is one of the few who lives by Coolermaster's 'Make it Yours' punchline.

Multiple reports have recently emerged about a potential fire hazard with two CyberPower UPSes (uninterruptible power supplies). Hot on the heels of our recent news coverage, a CyberPower UPS owner named Mit, who lives in Maryland, reached out to Tom’s Hardware to share a similar experience he encountered with his unit just last week.

Mit said that he had been using his CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD regularly without issue since he bought it in 2017. However, apparently, on July 6th, he lost power for 15 minutes and the unit turned off instead of operating. When the power came back on, the device began making popping and crackling noises while smoke billowed out. He writes:

“At around ~6:15PM Eastern Time on 7/6/2022, the power goes out. The unit turns off immediately instead of staying on as you'd expect a UPS to do for a bit. At ~6:30PM, power is restored. I check the UPS, since it started making terrifying noises, to see smoke coming out and I pull the power out of the wall along with everything plugged in. I grab a fire extinguisher just in case. The unit is still smoking at this time but not violently, I take it and place it outside due to the fumes and call CyberPower.”

Mit sent us a slew of pictures of his fried CP1500AVRLCD UPS and has also shared a video of smoke still coming from the unit’s vents. He told us that the UPS had been connected to a low-powered PC (100W under full load), a Netgear GS108E Ethernet switch, a Fios Quantum Gateway router, a Philips Hue Bridge and an Arlo Smart Hub. He noted that, during its four-year lifespan, the CP1500AVRLCD had successfully stayed on through multiple power outages of 25 to 35 minutes.

Unfortunately, complaints about smoking CyberPower UPSes  go back a lot farther than the video we reported on earlier this week. We checked Amazon's user reviews of the CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD and counted 47 reviews where users complained of smoke and popping noises coming out of their units. The oldest of these complaints dates way back to 2013 and the newest ones were from the past year. However, the product has more than 15,000 user ratings with an average of 4.5 stars.

YouTuber Mark Furneaux posted a video in May 2021 theorizing that the units are failing because of a yellow glue that “becomes conductive and corrosive” over time.  But adhesive doesn't appear to be implicated, at least in Mit's case.

Tom’s Hardware power expert Aris Mpitziopoulos says he doubts that the glue is the culprit in any failures because it is commonly used in a lot of power supplies and doesn’t cause issues. Mit’s photographs don’t even show any trace of yellow glue on the PCB in his unit.

After viewing Mit’s pictures and reading his account, he notes that the power cables for the main transformer have melted on both sides. Mpitziopoulos said he thinks the UPS’s battery is the source of the smoking and that either the battery pack itself went bad, or the UPS sent too much charging voltage to it. However, he couldn’t say for sure what is causing the different failures without doing a thorough examination and testing of the failed units.

CyberPower also says that the glue is safe to use, writing in a statement that  “we have thoroughly tested the adhesives we use, and our results are aligned with industry and UL standards.”

In its statement, which we published in full in our previous article, the company also says that it takes all such complaints seriously and that it thoroughly tests its products before sending them to market. The company said it was aware of the original smoking UPS video we reported on earlier, but said it had no record of that user opening a case with them. 

As for Mit, he says he called CyberPower as soon as his device started smoking and, though his device was out of warranty, the company offered to send him a new one. Exactly why Mit’s UPS and the others have emitted smoke remains a mystery. The problem could be bad luck as parts wear out or it could be evidence of a defect. 

According to user feedback on Reddit, CyberPower’s CP1500PFCLCD and CP1350PFCLCD uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) can potentially cause a fire hazard. Unverified analysis seems to point the finger at a specific adhesive that may eventually become conductive, can short out some components, and could cause a fire.

The current concern about CyberPower’s units first arose in January on the Canadian RedFlagDeals forum. The thread starter cited a YouTube video from a year ago where computer engineer Mark Furneaux discovered that at least the first and second revisions of the CP1500PFCLCD and CP1350PFCLCD used the everyday yellow glue. The adhesive, which can come in other colors, is common among electronics as manufacturers typically employ it in their products to glue bulky components down to the PCB to prevent their movement. 

The usage of yellow glue in electronics dates back to the 1970s. The problem is that the adhesive seemingly grows corrosive and conductive over time. In addition, the lifespan of the glue varies and depends on the environment’s temperature. When the color turns from yellow to brown or black, it’s a sign that the adhesive has changed its properties.

A couple of RedFlagDeals forum users reported that their units stopped working but didn’t provide any explanations on how the UPSes died. However, once the news made it to Reddit and Hacker News, more user reports of the failure came to light. One Redditor (CP1000PFCLCD) provided a video of smoke coming out of his unit shortly after replacing its battery as per CyberPower’s recommendation.

It appears the units catching fire isn't entirely uncommon among CyberPower UPSes. Multiple user comments on Amazon (some dating from 2017) claim that the CyberPower units are a fire risk. One owner reported seeing smoke from the unit and a burning plastic smell, while another spoke of hearing a bang before the UPS went bad.

CyberPower Responds

We reached out to CyberPower and a company representative told us that it cannot identify the problem from the Reddit video due to the lack of information. However, CyberPower recommends that the affected user or users send in their units to identify the root of the problem. Regarding the yellow glue, CyberPower ensured us that it has thoroughly tested the adhesive, and the results fall in line with industry and UL standards, deeming it safe for usage in the brand’s UPSes.

The CP1500PFCLCD and CP1350PFCLCD have been around for a while, so they’re on the third revision now. Thus far, the user reports correspond to the first and second revisions; it’s uncertain if the latest revision utilizes the same yellow glue. At any rate, it’s not likely a widespread issue as there have been positive reports from other owners with CyberPower units, some with multiple years of operation under their belts. Nonetheless, CyberPower should investigate the claims, since obviously, the potential to start fires, is a serious matter.

You can read CyberPower’s official statement in response to our questions below:

We are aware of the video.

We take all product inquiries regarding appropriate operation and safety seriously. All CyberPower products and components are UL listed and tested for safety. More broadly, it is our intent to bring safe, high-quality power protection products to our customers around the world.

In the case of the video provided, it is not possible to exactly confirm the user’s claim as it does not offer full explanation of usage, analysis of failure, any testing results, or condition of the unit. Currently, we are unaware if this user has contacted us directly or opened a case with one of our technical agents and welcome them to do so as a complete analysis is the only means to validate root cause.

Regarding comments about the adhesive, we have thoroughly tested the adhesives we use, and our results are aligned with industry and UL standards. We conducted a full laboratory study of the adhesive being used in our products and deem it safe for this application.

We encourage all CyberPower customers with product troubleshooting, questions, or concerns to contact our Technical Support team at 1-877-297-6937. Our team is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for product support and assistance.

Sincerely,

Cyber Power Systems (USA), Inc.

Outlandish, eye-catching PC cases–especially motorized ones–are typically the kind of thing we'd expect from InWin at CES, or maybe from a Razer concept. But Cyberpower has stepped into that role this year with its Kinetic Series, a case that features 18 motorized triangular vents that react to internal temperatures, opening up to allow more airflow to your cool air-loving components.

Cyperpower tells us that the vents are controlled by 18 servos connected to a post and collar inside the chassis, similar to (but obviously more complicated than) how umbrellas work. The general idea is that the vents can stay mostly closed, dampening fan noise and keeping out more dust when temperatures are low, but start to open for more airflow when temps get steamier inside your case. 

Unlike an umbrella, though, the vents on the case won't spend all their time just opened or closed, but can adjust in fine detail to "every single degree of temperature change," according to the press release. "It senses the environment and is constantly contracting and expanding to adapt to the situation with micro adjustments."

You'll also be able to adjust the temperature ranges that induce the movement of the vents. And small gaps between the vents and triangle cutouts at the top will mean there will always be some cool air available to the interior of the case, even if the vents are closed. 

Of course, how appealing this all is going to be for many depends on how loud the servo motors and mechanism are. And because we haven't yet seen the case in person, that's impossible to say. The company did say it is still fine-tuning exactly how the motorized mechanism will work, but the way it moves will be the same in the final version.

Moving vents aside, it's obvious that Cyberpower was aiming for a modern art meets mid-century aesthetic look, melded with a functional design. Cyberpower's press release states the case was inspired by kinetic architecture, where parts of buildings are designed to move and change to adapt to a given purpose.

The mid-tower Kinetic Series case will be available in black or white, supports radiators up to 360 mm, up to seven 120mm fans (or five 140mm), and up to ATX motherboards. 

As you might expect with a case that includes 18 moving parts, the Cyberpower Kinetic Series won't be a budget model; the company expects it to sell for a fairly reasonable $249. And if it catches your eye, you have some time to save up, as the company says the case will go on sale sometime in Q3 of this year.

A new review of Intel's Iris Xe DG1 graphics card has popped up, putting Intel's new discrete GPU through its paces and showing that it is surprisingly capable. While the Xe DG1 is far from being one of the best graphics cards on the market, the review shows that the entry-level graphics card holds some value in a time where the graphics card shortage is still going strong and pricing for Nvidia and AMD GPUs has skyrocketed.

Based on a cut-down Iris Xe Max silicon, the DG1 arrives with just 80 execution units (EUs) or 640 shading units, depending on which metric you prefer. Intel's discrete graphics card sports a 1.2 GHz base clock and a boost clock that climbs to 1.5 GHz. The DG1 also wields 4GB of LPDDR4X-4266 memory across a 128-bit interface. It conforms to a 30W TDP, so the graphics card doesn't require active cooling or PCIe power connectors. The DG1 provides one DisplayPort output, one HDMI port, and one DVI-D port for connecting your displays.

A previous generic benchmark revealed that the DG1 was slower than Radeon RX 550, a four-year-old graphics card. However, a single benchmark wasn't sufficient to really determine a winner, and as we all know, there's nothing like real-world gaming results. YouTuber ETA PRIME recently acquired a $749.99 CyberPowerPC gaming system that leverages the DG1, more specifically, the Asus DG1-4G. He has put the graphics card through its paces so we can see what kind of performance it brings to the table. We've got the quick breakdown of results in the table below, and the full video at the end of the article. 

Intel Iris Xe DG1 Benchmarks

The CyberPowerPC system features a Core i5-11400F processor, which explains the DG1's presence. The curious part here is that Intel had previously stated that the DG1 is only compatible with its 9th-Gen Coffee Lake and 10th-Gen Comet Lake processors. The Core i5-11400F is an 11th-Gen Rocket Lake chip. It would appear that the chipmaker secretly added Rocket Lake support on the DG1.

Do bear in mind that the YouTuber swapped out the 8GB single stick of DDR4-3000 memory for a dual-channel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3600 memory kit. The upgrade likely improves the gaming PC's performance over the stock configuration.

The results showed that the DG1 could deliver more than 60 FPS at 1080p (1920 x 1080) with a low graphics preset. Only a few titles, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2, gave the DG1 a hard time. However, the graphics card still pushed more than 30 FPS most of the time.

As we knew from Intel's DG1 announcement, the entry-level market was DG1's objective all along. The graphics card's 1080p performance is more than reasonable if you can live without all the fancy eye candy in your life. If not, you should probably pass on the DG1. It would be interesting to see whether the DG1 can hold its own against one of AMD's latest Ryzen APUs. Unfortunately, that's a fight for another day.

Best Buy have listed a $750 Intel Iris Xe powered "CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme Gaming Desktop" on their site, and it has already sold out. While the Intel Iris Xe may not be a graphical powerhouse, this budget gaming system comes with an 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPU.

The Intel Iris Xe GPU is interesting,  despite its lack of pixel prowess. The Xe DG1 is just visible in the top PCIe slot of the machine pictured on Best Buy’s site, is a passively cooled card with 4GB of LPDDR4X VRAM, and 640 shading units spread across 80 execution units. Best Buy doesn’t supply a pic of the back of the PC, but we’d expect DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort ports, in line with the Asus card already revealed.

The PC in question is a Gamer Xtreme Gaming Desktop from CyberPower going for $750, with an 11th-gen Intel i5-11400F (six cores, 12 threads, boost up to 4.4GHz) with the ‘F’ designation meaning it doesn’t pack integrated graphics. There’s 8GB of RAM and a 500 GB NVMe SSD, so you know you’re not looking at a particularly highly powered model here. Similar money gets you PCs with GTX 1650 GPUs, and the benchmarks that leaked a few months ago don’t look brilliant.

Still, while this is perhaps not the kind of PC that would have us dancing in the streets, it’s an important moment in the history of GPUs: Xe is here, there are now three players in the market, and with the launch of the DG2 cards, built on the more powerful Xe-HPG architecture with hardware-accelerated ray-tracing later this year, things are about to get really interesting.

If you’re after the best Cyber Monday deal around on a gaming PC, you might be tempted to build your own. But we as we recently discussed, that’s not always the case. While pre-built budget rigs often carry a hefty premium, after a $150 price drop, this $599.99 CyberPower rig at Best Buy is cheaper than it would cost to build it yourself. 

You get a current-generation six-core AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, an aging-but-capable AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and a storage combo of a 240GB SSD and a 2TB hard drive. Parting out a similar system, we edged over the $700 mark, although nearly $100 of that budget goes to Windows 10, which you can get for under $30 or even free if you truly want to be frugal.

Other niceties with this rig include what looks to be a case with a tempered-glass side panel (although it could be plastic, since the listing doesn’t specify) and a pair of peripherals. Wi-Fi is also included, which you won’t find on most budget-priced motherboards you’d be likely to wind up with if building a budget PC on your own. 

Cube-shaped PC cases are nothing new, but CyberPowerPC’s Syber sub-brand built a square desktop that looks like it might contain an Infinity Stone. The Syber Cube Series is built around a tempered-glass case designed to sit on a metal pedestal, although it can sit flat on a desk without its stand.

Loaded up with RGB fans, the Cube Series is one of the most-striking desktops we’ve seen so far at CES 2019. And while it can certainly be expensive when packed with a pair of RTX 2080 Tis and a Core i9-9900K, the company says a configuration with Nvidia’s newly launched RTX 2060 will start at around $1,400. If you want to step up to an RTX 2080, the Cube Series will run $1,800 and up.

CyberPowerPC is a custom system builder, so you can configure this PC with whatever parts fit your desires and budget, with a fully maxed-out model priced above $4,000. And because it’s effectively a full-tower chassis, there’s room inside the Cube for lots of high-end parts. The Syber Cube PC is available now from CyberPowerPC, although as of this writing, RTX 2060 cards weren’t yet available as an option.

In keeping with the Asgardian theme, CyberPowerPC was also showing off a monsterous Ragnarok system at CES 2019. The Ragnarok is built around an E-ATX chassis that’s so big, you can even mount a second Mini-ITX motherboard and system on top of the power supply shroud.

As such, the case has two power buttons, one of them near the bottom of the case for that purpose. As configured here, with a Core i9-9980XE CPU, two RTX 2080 Tis and custom liquid cooling CyberPowerPC says the Ragnarok runs about $7,000.

But for the truly rich (and power-hungry), the company says a fully equipped Raganrok with Intel’s upcoming  overclockable 28-core Xeon W-3175X and multiple Titan RTX cards will likely cost about $20,000. No one said world-ending computing power would come cheap.

CyberPowerPC tells us that the Ragnarok is coming soon. We don’t know what the starting price will be, but if you don’t have the riches of a Viking horde and a great hall to house it in, you might want to temper your monster desktop ambitions.

That didn't take long. One day after Windows Mixed Reality debuted alongside the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Amazon bundled systems from MSI, iBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, and others with Acer's Windows Mixed Reality headset. The bundles are currently listed as "temporarily out of stock," but as more shipments arrive at Amazon warehouses, we expect they'll soon begin to fly off the company's digital shelves.

We were surprised not only by how quickly Amazon bundled these items, but also by the fact that they were bundled by Amazon instead of the manufacturers themselves. This seems like a promotion system builders would run—why not take advantage of the hype around Windows Mixed Reality by partnering up with Microsoft and Acer to sell a headset with your system?—but instead it seems Amazon's the one seeing dollar signs.

We found 10 of these bundles as we browsed Amazon's storefront. Four of them are desktop systems, and six are laptops. Each one is bundled with Acer's Windows Mixed Reality headset and two motion controllers. When the bundles were first listed, you could save around $80 by purchasing the package instead of buying the systems and headset individually. Now, however, Amazon lists the bundles at the same price as the sum of each item.

The bundles range in price from $1,099 for a CyberPowerPC equipped with an Intel Core i5-7400 and AMD RX 580 graphics at the low end to $2,899 for the MSI GT73VR Titan Pro 17.3" gaming laptop at the high end. Each is bundled with the same Acer Windows Mixed Reality headset; the only difference is the system with which the headset is paired. We haven't found bundles with other Windows Mixed Reality headsets yet.

It makes sense to bundle VR headsets with PCs that support them. Many people don't want to worry about looking up spec requirements (but of course, you can) or upgrading their systems—they just want to see what all the hullabaloo is about with VR, AR, and every other reality besides our own. HTC and Oculus have offered similar bundles with the Vive and Rift platforms, respectively, to entice people into giving this whole VR thing a shot.

We'll have to see if Amazon cuts the prices of these bundles as they become available or if the original discounts were simply mistakes. If the former turns out to be the case, this could be a decent way to pick up a new system and Windows Mixed Reality headset in one go. If the latter is true, however, you're probably going to be better off buying a system and headset separately. Why get a bundle if there's no real upside?

Acer

Asus

CyberPowerPC

iBuyPower

MSI

CyberpowerPC has a new line of gaming PCs leveraging a plethora of components from Corsair.

The CyberpowerPC Crystal Gaming Series PCs feature a Corsair Crystal Series 570X, a full-tower chassis that sports three Corsair SP120 RGB LED fans and tempered glass panels. Several other staple Corsair components occupy the illuminated case, including an H60 120mm liquid CPU cooler (with an additional SP120L RGB fan for the radiator), Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory, a CX650M 650W power supply, and the Corsair Lighting Node Pro RGB lighting strips.

The RGB components are all controlled via Corsair Link, and the entire Crystal Gaming series also comes with a Corsair K55 RGB keyboard and Harpoon RGB mouse, controlled by the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) software.

CyberpowerPC offers three different base configurations of the Crystal Gaming series (which can be completely customized): Basic, Pro, and Xtreme. The Basic model features the recently released Intel Core i7-8700K seated in an MSI Z370 SLI Plus motherboard, 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory, and an MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor 8G graphics card. The initial storage offering consists of a 240GB SATA SSD and a 2TB 7,200RPM HDD.

The Pro model sports a Core i7-7800X processor on an MSI X299 Raider motherboard, offering more memory bandwidth with a quad-channel platform that starts with 32GB of Vengeance LPX DDR4. The graphics performance also sees an upgrade with a MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Armor 8G graphics card. Storage capacities and performance are also increased, with the Pro model sporting a 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD and a 3TB 7,200RPM HDD at minimum.

The Xtreme model takes things, well, to the extreme. CyberpowerPC switches back to Intel’s flagship Coffee Lake CPU, the i7-8700K, in addition to upgrading the platform to a premium board in the form of an MSI Z370 Gaming Plus motherboard. 32GB of Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory is still the standard, as is a 512GB NVMe SSD. However, the Xtreme model offers a MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, in addition to a 4TB 7,200RPM HDD.

The new Crystal Gaming series PCs are available now at CyberpowerPC’s website, with the Base, Pro, and Xtreme configurations priced at $1,599, $2,095, and $2,259, respectively. However, you can customize the build any way you see fit, and less-expensive CPUs, GPUs, and memory configurations can make the price tag even lower if you’re interested in a Corsair RGB-illuminated gaming PC.

Thanks to the recently-announced Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) feature, the Oculus Rift is able to function with lower system requirements than the next leading VR HMD. As such, CyberpowerPC is now offering an AMD-based gaming rig in a bundle with the Rift.

The CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra VR features an AMD FX-4350 processor with 8GB of memory, a 1TB HDD, and a Radeon RX470 4GB graphics card under the hood. The case sports a side panel window illuminated in red LEDs, in addition to hot swappable 2.5- and 5.25-inch drive bays in the front. There’s only three USB 3.0 ports, but it makes up for that with seven USB 2.0 ports. Although this may not be enough horsepower to get you into a Vive, it’s enough for a Rift, and the mid-tier components dramatically reduces the entry-level price of a VR-capable machine.

The bundle (which includes an Oculus Rift, sans touch) is available now from Best Buy, both at brick and mortar locations and online. At $1,099, the combo saves you approximately $150 (with the PC discounted to $499), and it’s one of the least-expensive entry-level VR PCs currently available.

CyberpowerPC revealed an updated version of its Prostreamer dual-system gaming and streaming PC. The Prostreamer II isn’t just a Kaby Lake refresh version of its predecessor; it’s been completely redesigned with a new chassis that accommodates larger primary motherboards and more storage devices, in addition to improving thermals and the overall aesthetic over the first iteration.

Although the concept of two PCs under one roof (er, case) may be outlandish to some, CyberpowerPC saw a significant response to the original product, enough to create the Prostreamer II. The new version can be equipped with the latest 7^th generation (Kaby Lake) Intel processors and Z270 motherboards (our first reviews here and here), in addition to a plethora of powerful graphics, storage, and memory configurations and customization options including open-loop liquid cooling and other aesthetic extras (RGB lighting, of course).

However, the new Prostreamer II is more than just a CPU update. It improves upon the first version with increased airflow and accessibility, with a repositioned mini-ITX motherboard (which now resides at the bottom of the case, similar to GPU in a riser card), room for a second PSU (one for each system), and space for an ATX motherboard for the main system. (The former edition could support only up to micro-ATX). The new chassis, which is still produced by Phanteks, features a hinged tempered-glass side panel. The front panel I/O for both systems are now in the same place and clearly labeled, as opposed to the previous model, which had the I/O for each system in a different part of the case.

The Prostreamer II we saw here at CES is configured with an Asus ROG Rampage V Edition RGB X99 chipset motherboard for the primary gaming system, with an Intel Core i7 6950X, two MSI Geforce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8GB graphics cards in SLI, 64GB of DDR4-3200, a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD, and a Corsair AX1500i power supply. The streaming (mini-ITX) system featured an unlocked Core i3-7350K processor, 16GB of DDR4-3200, and an Avermedia Live Gamer HD 1080p capture card mounted on an MSI Z270i Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard. The smaller system's PSU is a Coolermaster G650M, which is plenty of juice to feed the streaming PC's components.

As configured, this Prostreamer II is priced at $6,000, but CyberpowerPC offers configurations starting at $2,999. This is higher than the original version’s MSRP, but that’s to be expected when the new case nets $800 at retail with its tempered glass panels and significantly increased real estate. The Prostreamer II ships with a heavy-duty flight case, and it arrives later this month, so gamers won’t have to wait long to start streaming in style.

Introduction And Product Tour

When CyberpowerPC heard we were back in the gaming desktop review business, the company was anxious to get its Syber M Xtreme 400 in our hands, and we were excited at the prospect of testing an entry-level X99 platform against our recently-reviewed Z170 systems to see if the performance of a six-core Intel Core i7 processor and a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card could warrant the $2,200 price tag. Time to see if the Syber M makes the grade.

Specifications

Exterior

The CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 features a custom-designed ATX mid-tower chassis with an angular, yet sleek appearance. For a mid-tower case, it’s sizable, measuring 18.26 x 8.66 x 20.82". It also comes loaded with aesthetic extras, including orange LEDs that adorn the optical drive bay access door and a grill underneath the front end of the case that projects the Syber logo. This chassis is unique among the other desktops we’ve tested, and you won’t find it anywhere else, except from CyberpowerPC.

The top of the case features a removable ventilated panel that gives you access to the backside of the 240mm water cooler, making it easy to clean. The left side panel window showcases an LED-illuminated PSU shroud bearing the Syber logo, with a clear view of the GPU, motherboard, and its other attached components. However, aside from the PSU shroud and GPU LEDs, the interior of our review sample lacks additional lighting, leaving the upper part of the motherboard in the dark. However, if you're partial to well-illuminated interiors, the company also offers remote-controlled RGB LED strip options for the Syber M Xtreme 400.

The rear motherboard panel sports a USB 3.1 Type-C and Type-A port (one each) capable of 10Gb/s data rates. The Type-C port also features 40Gb/s speeds with Thunderbolt 3, and it can provide video output at up to 4096 x 2304 at 60Hz. However, because the X99 platform doesn’t have integrated graphics, the motherboard comes with an adapter cable that allows you to connect one of the dedicated GPU’s DisplayPorts to the motherboard’s DisplayPort input to enable video output through the USB Type-C port. It’s a neat feature, but we can’t see many people being in a position where they would need to connect a display to a Type-C port over the GPU's DVI-D, HDMI 2.0, or three DisplayPort interfaces.

The motherboard also sports three USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port. The five audio jacks (center, subwoofer, speaker-out, line-in, line-out, mic-in) and S/PDIF connector are powered by a Realtek ALC1150 codec that supports up to 7.1 channel audio. The front panel I/O consists of two USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to a mic-in and headphone out jack. A Blu-ray burner is hidden by an LED-illuminated swinging panel (door) that bears the CyberpowerPC logo.

Interior

The Syber M Xtreme 400 is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6800K processor, which features six cores and 12 processing threads. CyberpowerPC overclocked the CPU cores, with single and dual-core operation hitting 3.8GHz. However, engaging more than two cores will limit the CPU multipliers to 35, resulting in a 3.5GHz maximum frequency.

These aren’t huge gains by any means (the base frequency of the CPU is 3.4GHz), but the $19 Pro OC overclocking service guarantees up to a 10% gain or more, and that’s exactly what you get (around 11%, at least, with dual-core operation). An all-core clock frequency of 3.8GHz would have been considerably better, and maybe that’s what you get with the Extreme OC service, which guarantees up to 15% (or more) performance from the base CPU clock rates. However, we don’t get that treatment with this particular review sample, and we’ll have to reserve judgement until we see how the CPU tuning plays out in our benchmark suite.

The processor is seated in a Gigabyte X99P-SLI motherboard. Four of the eight memory DIMM slots are occupied with a 16GB (4 x 4GB) kit of ADATA XPG Z1 DDR4-3000 memory, with CAS timings of 16-16-16-37. The quad-channel memory controller and above-average frequency should provide excellent performance in memory-intensive workloads, despite the somewhat-standard capacity.

Loaded with an Intel Core i7-6800K, the 28 PCIe lanes running to the motherboard support up to 4-way AMD CrossFire and 3-way Nvidia SLI (900 series and below) configurations, with three slots operating in x8 mode and the bottom x16 slot operating in x4 mode when occupied. There also two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots to add a wireless or capture card. The main x16 slots also feature stainless steel shielding that reinforces the PCIe connectors with extra strength for heavy graphics cards.

The M.2 slot is loaded with a 512GB Intel 600p NVMe SSD, and the 2TB HDD is mounted in the 3.5" drive bay (which is accessible from the right side panel). This is plenty of storage for the average user, and the SSD capacity is par for the course. Further expansion options include multiple SATA 6 Gb/s ports (for a total of 10), two of which make a SATA Express connector.

The single EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC graphics card features a base clock of 1,708MHz and a boost frequency of 1,847MHz, which should (on paper) provide a modest performance boost in games and GPU-intensive tasks compared to graphics cards with reference (Founder’s Edition) clockrates. CyberpowerPC ships the Syber M Xtreme 400 with the latest version of the GPU, with the updated VBIOS and added thermal pads, so we shouldn’t run into the same temperature issues some were reporting with the ACX 3.0-cooled graphics card prior to the update.

The CPU is cooled by a beefy Asetek 570LXL LCS closed-loop liquid cooler, which features a 240mm radiator and a copper cooling plate. The radiator sports two of the 120mm Corsair AF120 fans, exhausting heat out the top of the case. Two more of these fans adorn the front of the chassis, which pull air from the illuminated grating on the bottom front end of the PC. There’s also a Corsair AF120 fan exhausting air out the rear, and the upgraded fans account for $63 of the bill ($24 for radiator fans, $39 for case fans).

The Syber M is powered by a Corsair CS650M 80 Plus Gold certified power supply, which is hidden by a sleek PSU shroud and features a single 12V rail with 51A of juice. Although this is plenty of power for the system as it’s configured, we’re somewhat put off by the seemingly-minimalist wattage. However, if you want to upgrade to something with more power (if you’re looking to upgrade to SLI down the line) then you’ll have to throw a little more money down.

The case’s power supply fan intake has a built-in removable filter, making it easy to clean. The semi-modular PSU’s attached ATX and CPU power cables are braided, but the modular PCIe, SATA, and molex cables are flat and smooth, so they aren’t the easiest to tuck away inconspicuously. However, CyberpowerPC’s cable management leaves the visible interior looking clean and tight. The right side panel hides the excess (and 3.5" drive bays), with everything tied up as neat as one could set it, considering the mix of PSU cables.

Software And Accessories

We’ve omitted this section in our other recent desktop reviews, primarily because those vendors didn’t ship their products with any additional pre-loaded software or accessories, such as a keyboard or mouse. CyberpowerPC didn’t do much in the way of software, but it did load the Intel Turbo Max Technology 3.0 software, which allows you to select specific programs and give them a boost in single-threaded clock frequency. However, we left this utility unaltered, and it wasn't enabled in our testing. Other than that, there isn't any additional pre-loaded software.

However, you do get a motherboard box full of the component’s manuals and accessories, including additional PSU and SATA cables, the case’s PCIe lane plates and 3.5" bay cover, multiple color assortments of rims for the upgraded Corsair fans, and that DisplayPort adapter that we mentioned earlier (to enable USB Type-C video output).

The Syber M also comes with a company-branded gaming mouse, with an LED-lit logo and multiple gamer-centric buttons. The center buttons below the scroll wheel adjust the DPI on the fly, and there are also sniper and turbo shot buttons, along with forward and backwards movement buttons near the thumb rest. Under the bottom cover, there are five weights you can remove to adjust how it feels in your hand, and the mouse is a nice bonus that doesn’t affect your price tag.

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Synthetic And Productivity Benchmarks

To compare the performance of the Syber M Xtreme 400, we used the recently reviewed AVADirect Avatar and Digital Storm Vanquish 5 to see where the X99 platform (and its six-core CPU) stacked up against Z170 machines. The AVADirect system is priced about $100 higher than the Syber M Xtreme 400, which currently sits at $2,208 after all the upgrades and extras. The Avatar’s overclocked i7-6700K (set to 4.7GHz) should be a stark contrast to CyberpowerPC’s offering in single-threaded application performance, and possibly even some games (Syber M’s CPU clock rate is 3.8GHz at single and dual-core operation, 3.5GHz at three cores or more). Digital Storm's Vanquish 5 has a similar configuration as the Avatar, but it's clocked to 4.4GHz and features 16GB of DDR4-2666 (instead of DDR4-2400, like the Avatar).

We also looked to our custom-built Z170 test bench to see where default i7-6700K, dual-channel DDR4 memory, and Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 performance stacks up against the Syber M’s factory-overclocked EVGA graphics card (1,708MHz base, 1,847MHz boost clock), higher memory frequencies, and entry-level X99 processor. The full specifications of our reference system are listed below:

Test System Configuration

3DMark

Not surprisingly, when 3DMark specifically stresses the CPU, the CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 tops the charts with its six-core processor. However, the Syber M falls slightly behind the Avatar with its Overall score in the Fire Strike benchmark. The Combined score is also noticeably different when comparing the overclocked AVADirect offering and CyberpowerPC’s specimen, with the Avatar coming out on top. This is because at this particular resolution (1920 x 1080), Fire Strike favors CPU clock rate over core count, and as such, Digital Storm’s overclocked Vanquish 5 also takes a narrow lead over the Syber M in the Combined results. However, the six cores are able to overcome the quad-core i7-6700K at default settings in the Founder’s Edition GTX 1080-equipped test bench.

Cranking up the resolution with Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra yields more favorable results for the six-core X99 platform of the Syber M Xtreme 400, which takes a narrow win in the Overall, Graphics, and Combined tests at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160. CyberpowerPC’s offering also tops the chart in the Time Spy results, with the Syber M leading the Avatar’s Overall score by 230 points.

Cinebench R15

It’s no surprise that the Syber M Xtreme 400’s Core i7-6800K falls to the bottom of the group with Single CPU Rendering in our Cinebench R15 benchmark. Clock rate is king for this particular test, and the Syber M’s overclocked CPU trails even our default i7-6700K by 200MHz, resulting in roughly a 20 point difference.

However, the Syber M also predictably takes a significant lead in the Multiple CPU Rendering test, scoring 1202.36 points, with a 178.53 point lead over the Avatar’s quad-core processor clocked at 4.7GHz. The CPU core count advantage and factory overclocked GPU also place the Syber M on top in the OpenGL Shading test, although by only about 2 FPS, over the Avatar.

CompuBench

Once again, the Syber M’s increased CPU core count and factory-overclocked GPU prove to be advantageous against our custom-built reference system at default settings in the Video Processing portion of the CompuBench test. However, the Vanquish 5 and Avatar still place ahead of the Syber M thanks to their overclocked CPUs.

The Bitcoin Mining test overwhelmingly favors GPU clock frequency, and the Syber M’s EVGA GTX 1080 SC gets the edge over the other systems, all of which feature GPUs with Founder’s Edition (reference) clock rates.

Storage Test

Although the CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 performs admirably against the other systems in our storage tests, the results are hardly anything to write home about. The Syber M’s 512GB Intel 600p SSD is an NVMe SSD, and as such, it’s rated for up to 1,800MB/s sequential read speeds. So why couldn’t it break 700MB/s in our 128K sequential read test? The drive is capable of short bursts of sequential data reads at those advertised speeds, but as soon as the SLC memory buffer is full, the SSD is bottlenecked and will perform only as fast as the slower memory cache will allow.

This isn’t a knock against CyberpowerPC. The choice of storage keeps the cost lower (than say, a Samsung 950 Pro), and it still musters better sequential performance than a standard SATA SSD. However, the random 4K read IOPS of the Intel 600p are dismal, and the 4K random write speeds are par for SATA-based SSDs. But average users will appreciate the SSD speeds, despite how shortchanged it may appear to the enthusiast eye.

PCMark 8

CPU clock rate once again plays a pivotal role in the PCMark 8 test results, with the Syber M placing last in the Office benchmark (which favors higher single and dual-core clock rates) and barely beating out our reference system in the Creative test. The overclocked i7-6700K systems see huge gains in this test, and the Syber M’s i7-6800K simply can’t keep up with its mild overclock.

Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

CyberpowerPC’s Syber M Xtreme 400 starts off our gaming tests on the right foot, commanding the lead at all tested resolutions in the Alien: Isolation benchmarks. The overclocked EVGA GPU is the primary reason for this, and although the gains aren’t substantial (you really won’t know the difference between 81.15 FPS and 83.97 FPS at 4K), a win is a win.

Ashes of the Singularity

At 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, the CyberpowerPC Syber M yields only to the AVADirect Avatar in the Ashes of the Singularity benchmarks. Although we see some marginal gains from the Avatar’s CPU overclock (particularly at lower resolutions) that result in negligible wins against the other Core i7-6700K-equipped PCs, the Syber M’s six-core processor and overclocked GPU lend to a narrow victory at 4K.

Bioshock Infinite

The Syber M Xtreme takes second-place honors in the Bioshock Infinite benchmarks at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, trailing the top spot by slightly less than 2 FPS. However, the CyberpowerPC offering pulls ahead of the pack, though barely, once you crank up the resolution to 4K.

DiRT Rally

DiRT Rally is more platform dependent than other games in our suite, and the results speak to the performance differences between higher clocked quad-core and lower clocked six-core processors. The Syber M falls behind the overclocked i7-6700K systems at 1080p, but the six cores of the i7-6800K are able to push framerates past the stock performance of the quad-core competition (our test rig). The Syber M catches up to the Vanquish 5 (clocked at 4.4GHz) at 2560 x 1440, taking a second-place finish, and it hashes out another narrow win at 3840 x 2160.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V is another title that can see gains with platform performance, but the impact of the lower clocked CPU inside the Syber M can be seen throughout the benchmarks, with the CyberpowerPC offering often placing dead last, albeit with a few narrow second and first place finishes here and there. Despite its factory-overclocked GPU, the Syber M spars with the other systems instead of pushing better performance because of its lower CPU clock.

GRID Autosport

Similar to DiRT Rally, the GRID Autosport results illustrate the same trend of rewarding higher clocked CPUs with small gains. The Syber M is able to outpace our test rig (with default CPU and memory settings), but the overclocked i7-6700K-equipped Vanquish 5 and Avatar take the lead at 1080p, and they both take turns besting the Syber M at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160.

Hitman

The Hitman benchmark rewards higher GPU clock rates with modest performance gains, with the CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 taking the lead at all tested resolutions. Although the Digital Storm follows close behind, the Syber M commands slightly more than a 2 FPS lead against it.

Metro: Last Light Redux

Metro: Last Light Redux is most responsive to GPU performance, with the Z170 platforms and their identical GPU clock rates scoring nearly-identical (and in some spots, identical) framerates. Not surprisingly, the factory-overclocked EVGA GTX 1080 SC inside the Syber M gives it the edge on the competition, with a lead that starts off at 2 FPS at 1920 x 1080, but dwindles to 0.33 FPS when you crank up the resolution to 3840 x 2160.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Similar to Metro: Last Light Redux, the results in our Rise of the Tomb Raider tests show the Syber M besting the other systems in the field with diminishing returns as you crank up the resolution. The factory-overclocked GPU’s increased clock rates can only do so much until the VRAM (which is not overclocked by EVGA) becomes the bottleneck, and the difference in performance between the higher clocked graphics card in the Syber M and the reference clocked competition becomes negligible. When you reach 3840 x 2160, the results are almost indiscernible, with the Syber M only taking the win by 0.54 FPS.

The Division

The Syber M Xtreme 400 is seated at the top of the pack with The Division. The lead is highest in the 2560 x 1440 test, where the Syber M scored 67.7 FPS against the second place Avatar with 65.1 FPS (for a difference of 2.6 FPS). The lead isn’t substantial enough to call dominant, but you can see where the 101MHz base clock and 114MHZ boost clock increase of the Syber M’s factory-overclocked GPU can pay off at the most demanding settings.

Thief

At 1920 x 1080, the Syber M doesn’t fair much better than the AVADirect Avatar, falling below only the Vanquish 5 by a little less than 5 FPS. However, at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160, the CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 once again ascends to the top of the group, finishing out our test suite with a respectable win/loss ratio against the other systems in the field.

Price Analysis And Conclusion

CyberpowerPC threw us a curve ball with its X99-equipped Syber M Xtreme 400, particularly because our primary focus has been on Z170 desktops thus far. The advantages of the Syber M's six-core processor stand out in our benchmark results, but average users will find that if they aren't running CPU-intensive games and applications, an i7-6700K-equipped system will often fare marginally better with it's higher clock rate. However, the factory-overclocked EVGA GTX 1080 SC graphics card gives us notable increases in performance in GPU-intensive workloads, and although these wins are mostly by negligible differences, CyberpowerPC offers us our first look at what a factory-overclocked GPU can do against reference-clocked cards (the rest of the systems we've tested) in a variety of benchmarks.

We were somewhat disappointed at the overclock settings used in the Syber M. Although the base clock of the i7-6800K was increased by 400MHz (the same amount as Digital Storm's i7-6700K-equipped Vanquish 5), it will only achieve this clock rate in single and dual-threaded workloads, with the CPU clocked only 100MHz higher than the 3.4GHz base clock (3.5 GHz) when it engages more than two processing cores. We feel an all-core overclock could have further cemented the performance gains we saw in multi-threaded benchmarks, and given a more-compelling example of its potential to users actually looking for that kind of performance. However, it's among one of the least expensive overclock services we've seen lately, and you definitely get a modest boost in clock rate compared to the base frequency, despite it being only for a couple of the six cores.

The X99 chipset is rich with features, which includes a quad-channel memory controller, 10 SATA 6 Gb/s ports, stainless steel-reinforced PCIe x16 slots, and multi-GPU support. CyberpowerPC took advantage of the robust Gigabyte X99P-SLI motherboard by loading the Ultra M.2 slot with an NVMe SSD. However, we weren't particularly impressed with the 512GB Intel 600p's performance, but because it offers higher-than-SATA sequential performance and keeps the price-per-gigabyte of the SSD down, we can forgive the less-than-stellar benchmark results. Looking at the price, we can't be disappointed with the capacity and speed of the Syber M's primary storage, and 2TB of HDD storage is plenty of room to store a sizeable game library.

We were impressed with the custom-designed Syber M chassis, which gives the system a unique look compared to the sea of "me-too" cases many vendors use to build their custom PCs. It can accommodate more than what our sample was configured with (think custom water loops), and there are plenty of spots to throw extra storage drives. The PSU shroud is a great bonus, and similar to the front 3.5" bay door, it glows orange and gives the Syber M a definitive "wow" factor by hiding all the excess cable and illuminating the left side panel window.

At $2,208, the CyberpowerPC Syber M Xtreme 400 is exactly $100 cheaper than AVADirect's Z170 offering. The Avatar's price is affected by LED lighting (with remote) and its $25 overclocking service, which could be considered a balance of performance and aesthetic value. However, the Syber M puts aesthetics in the back seat to performance, with fan upgrades (non-LED, although they do come with colored rims) totaling $63 and a modest overclock for $19. Forgoing these extras, you still get an X99 platform with an Intel Core i7-6800K (cooled by a 240mm liquid-cooling radiator), 16GB of quad-channel DDR4-3000, an EVGA GTX 1080 SC graphics card, and a 512GB NVMe SSD in an accessible, custom-designed chassis for less than $2,150 ($2,126 to be exact), and we think that's fairly reasonable (and impressive).

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Syber Gaming, a division of CyberpowerPC, announced the debut of its new small form factor (SFF) gaming PC, the C Series. The new device was designed from the ground up and offers big power in a small package.

The Syber C Series comes in four different models: the Core 100, Pro 200, Elite 300, and Xtreme 400. Each version offers your choice of mini-ITX motherboards with H110, Z170 or up to X99 chipsets and a broad range of CPU, GPU, memory and storage options.

Interestingly, all of the Syber C-series PCs with Intel LGA 1151 chipset options are configurable with the same parts, making the distinction between the first three models indiscernible when using the product configurator (the Xtreme 400 is the only way to get an X99 chipset). However, the model names are used as baseline configurations, with each defaulting to a combination of parts at a specific price point--all of which are VR ready.

The Syber C Core 100, Pro 200, and Elite 300 feature a mini-ITX motherboard with up to an Intel Core i7-6700K, 32GB of DDR4-3000 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080. The Xtreme 400 steps up the CPU power with an X99 platform and up to an Intel Core i7-6950X 10-core processor. All of the models feature up to a 2TB SSD (M.2 drives, SATA, or NVMe are available with compatible motherboards) and up to a 5TB HDD. The new systems can also be configured with Intel’s 600p NVMe SSDs, in addition to RAID 0 and dual-drive options (SSD/HDD combos).

Power supply options are restricted to SFX PSUs with up to 600W of juice (from either Corsair or Silverstone). Cooling options are also limited to the stock Intel heatsink or a Zalman low-profile copper-based CPU air cooler, possibly making the Syber C one hot box with the lack of water-cooling options. However, there are plenty of ventilation ducts in the chassis, and the better heatsink could allow for some respectable overclocking headroom.

The company might to be taking aim at the console market with the new Syber C series, advertising Xbox One game compatibility (which is achieved through the Xbox One app in Windows 10, like any other Windows 10 PC). However, when we asked for some insight to the design of the Syber C series, the company appeared even more focused on getting the device into the living room.

"VR and PC gaming are making their way into the living room. Unfortunately, most PC cases do not compliment the aesthetic of a living room," explained Tony Crisp, Co-Founder and Chief Strategist at Syber Gaming. "Therefore, Syber has designed a beautiful and unique small form factor PC that will easily take the place of (or sit next to) an existing console and can easily be transported back to the bedroom."

You can customize your own Syber C gaming PC at CyberpowerPC’s website. VR-ready configurations start at $795, and you can see the default configurations of each model below.

Today’s Victim: CyberPower EC350G

After being pleasantly surprised with what I found in APC’s $30 BGE90M-CA, I decided to investigate what other manufacturers put in the products they pitch as efficient and eco-friendly. I shopped around for the next-cheapest UPS I could find and discovered CyberPower’s EC350G. What are we going to find inside a competitor with nearly three times the output rating? There is only one way to find out: don't turn it on, take it apart.

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Billboard Space

The EC350G’s box is unusually sparse on technical details beyond its 350VA/255W rating and EnergyStar certification. You have to refer to the back for brief explanations of the unit’s features if markings on the unit itself aren’t informative enough for your liking. While the packaging makes it seem like the “ECO” outlet feature may require software support, all it does when enabled is turn on the “ECO” outlets when 5V is present on the USB port. That’s awfully convenient for tinkering.

When I first picked the EC350G up, it was so light that I wondered if the battery might be missing. Specifications printed on the box state a net weight of 4.54 lbs, which is two fewer pounds than the BGE90M.

Unpacking

Half-inch foam covers the EC350G’s front, bottom, and sides, while thicker foam is present up top to form the cord’s stow-away area, and around back to loop the cord around from the unit’s body. Normally I would be a little worried about how thin the foam is, but this unit is so light that I doubt it could damage itself or the packaging from its own weight regardless of how hard it might get kicked around during shipping.

Sizing Up

Measuring 269×150×79 mm, the EC350G’s footprint is nearly twice as big as the BGE90M’s 225×105×132 mm. In terms of total internal volume, though, they are nearly even at 3.19 L and 3.12 L on account of the BGE being nearly twice as tall.

Paperwork

Just in case the sticker in the top-left corner was not enough, CyberPower also includes a reminder about the initial charge and two-second button hold. For the batteries’ sake, I hope none of them get shipped in a state where they actually need anywhere near eight hours to reach full charge; lead-acid batteries deteriorate much faster under low charge conditions. On the folded instructions side of things, a single sheet covers five different models from 350 to 850 VA, some with and others without an LCD panel.

Accessories

The included A-to-B cable might be the thinnest in my inventory. Since many people have a closet or at least a spare parts box overflowing with A-to-B cables, it might be smart for CyberPower to ditch that $0.75 cable and spend more money on higher-quality components inside the actual product.

Plug

I've mentioned how fingers can come close to the live pin a few times before, so I decided to do something different this time around: show where fingers land with what I would consider a normal grip on the ridge behind the plug’s face. The few millimeters of clearance afforded by the raised face do make gripping the plug much safer; my finger would be three millimeters from the live pin without that.

Cord

Here comes another of those 3x#16 power cords, this one rated 300 V at 105 °C. Let’s hope nobody ever finds out if that temperature rating is true. Will we find a 15 A breaker at the other end of this cord or something more appropriate?

Tail End

At the cable end of the UPS, we find the usual pop-up breaker, phone “protection” connections, and the recessed USB connection used for communications. As you may suspect, there is a reason for those quotation marks. Keep reading to find out what it is.

Sides

There is not much to see on the unit’s sides other than those shallow ventilation ridges that could be mistaken for a cosmetic or possibly structural feature. Since hot air rises, ventilation in the bottom third of the unit might not be very effective at preventing heat from building up under the top cover.

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Top

All of the functionally significant features are clearly identified on the top of the unit, except one: you're left to deduce that the singled-out outlet at the top-left is always on. The yellow sticker reminds you to let the UPS charge for eight hours before use, and instructs you to hold the power button for two seconds to turn it on or off. Small text also tells you to remove the sticker before use, even though it does not obstruct any function or instructions.

Back

The unit’s bottom is covered with substantially more text than we're used to. Another detail that tends to dominate at least one side of a UPS but can easily be missed if you aren’t looking for it is the battery door. How many people will look for one before they actually need to replace the power source? I look before I open these devices so I can disconnect their batteries first. For the average person, this translates into the EC350G being mostly disposable, suggesting the whole unit should be recycled instead of recycling the battery and reusing the UPS.

Cautions

CyberPower could not get English or French right in their redundant cautions, such as the brow-raising “Risk of electrical shock-hazardous inside this unit are energized from the battery” The French text has a bunch of lesser grammatical errors and missing words, but nothing quite as noteworthy.

There are multiple mentions of battery replacement related warnings even though there clearly aren’t any means of accessing the battery other than removing the four cover screws. Smells like a free license to pop the rear cover off and expose the electronic bits without voiding the warranty to me.

Label

Here’s another caution referring to battery replacement in the top-right corner, along with a suspicious 6.0 Ah maximum battery size. Why do I say suspicious? Because a 6.0 Ah battery would weigh around 4 lbs on its own, and the whole UPS weighs only 4.54 lbs, which clearly means that we aren’t going to find a 6.0 Ah battery. Based on the electrical specifications area, CyberPower reuses the same outer bottom molds for its 350, 550, and 850 VA units. I bet different interior molds are used to accommodate each model’s different battery.

Parted

What do we find after popping the cover off? Either a huge PCB or an awfully tiny battery. The battery fits lengthwise between two screw wells and has about two centimeters of height clearance with the PCB to fit a ~25% taller power source. I don’t see how a 6 Ah battery would fit.

Different Weight Classes

There is no optical illusion or fancy shot composition at work here. In the background, weighing at 1.95 kg and 151×51×94 mm is the BGE90M’s CSB HR1224 battery. In front, weighing in at 0.93 kg and 102×48×66 mm is the EC350G’s battery, BBB’s CPS3.6-12, which appears to be an OEM part number with no corresponding specification sheet available. The next closest thing I could find from BBB is the SHR3.6-12. I will be using its specs as stand-ins for the CPS3.6-12.

Pay fifty percent more for a UPS with three times the VA rating; get half the battery.

Battery Comparison

On my normalized capacity table, it looks like BBB’s SHR-series battery, which I presume stands for Super High Rate discharge, manages to pull ahead of CSB’s HR1224 at the not-so-super discharge rate of 30 minutes. From a battery half the size and weight, though, this is still commendable.

If you are wondering why my HR1224 values are lower, it is because I originally guesstimated that it was a 6 Ah battery based on rough dimensions due to CSB omitting the 20-hour rating from its spec. I bumped it to 7 Ah based on weight, hence its reduced scores.

Getting A Little Stale

Based on the dating dial, the battery casing was molded in July 2014, meaning this is one more example of a battery that may have sat in warehouses for nearly two years before landing in a product for sale. Keep in mind that this is only a mold date. Final assembly and flooding (putting the acid in) may have occurred months later.

Board On Stilts

In the EC350G, the main board is mounted face-down to four spacers molded into the outlet strip's covers, with all of the wiring stuffed under it.

Under The Hood

What do we find under the board? A fair amount of messy wiring soldered directly to the PCB, which means this is going to be one of those tear-downs where wiring and everything attached to it will keep getting in the way, reminiscent of my Tripp-Lite SMART1000LCD tear-down experience.

Surprisingly, the control panel does have a connector on its cable. And unlike the SMART, it isn’t cemented down.

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C-C-Combo Breaker

Breaking the long streak of UPS and power bars combining 3x#16 gauge cords with 15 A breakers, CyberPower provides proof that 10 A breakers do exist in the EC350G. If you ever need to remove one of these breakers from its enclosure, you have to find some way to pinch the small barbed “wings.” The wide-open wings are there to hold some tension on the barbs so the breaker won’t rattle around.

Outlet Strips

Behind the outlet covers, we find the usual pinchy contact strips for live and neutral, and the torque flaps for ground. The lone piece of contact strip in the upper-right corner is for the always-on surge-only outlet. Its live wire that you see going across the picture goes directly to the breaker.

Nearly every tooling/retaining hole in the ground strip shows signs of kinking. If CyberPower’s employees have to contend with all of those wires and metal strips attached to the board while assembling the UPS, I can imagine how the strips may have been bent a few times along the way.

Jumble To Jungle

It looks like CyberPower managed to get its wire welding station’s settings and wire preparation right this time around. There are no sign of loose strands, crushing, or pitting. In the background, you can see an overview of the mess of wires and metal strips I had to put up with while working with this UPS. They were as much fun to put back in as they were to take out. In the disassembly and re-assembly process, I added many kinks of my own to these strips.

Protection Racket

Here’s that phone line protection: the second pair is wired directly from input to output, while the first pair has one wire going right through and another passing through a fuse with a SIDAC straddling the pair. If there is a surge on one wire, the SIDAC will share it with the other, limiting the voltage difference across the pair. There are no MOVs or quaint little diode circuits to ground to divert surge energy.

This circuit won’t protect your telephone devices from much; CyberPower should have skipped it altogether and spent $0.40 elsewhere.

Cleaned Out

With most of the internals removed, we can clearly see a second battery retaining stop circled in cyan in the top cover with the original battery’s stop just above it. Either CyberPower machines the small stop off for models with a larger battery or has a mold insert to fill it out. On the bottom shell, a pair of pads circled in red have been glued to the back of the wall-mounting slots, presumably to pass the enclosure intrusion part of UL’s certification.

Board Top

After a minute or two of untangling the wires and strips, I finally managed to get a mostly uncluttered view of the whole board. There are many components bent at odd angles, including multiple TO-220 FETs flapping in the breeze (no doubt casualties of the struggle to assemble units with the mess of wires pre-attached to the board).

Similar to any other UPS, the EC350G has the same basic building blocks: power input, filtering, and surge suppression occupying most of of the top-left quadrant, the HVDC converter and output bridge covering most of the top-right, control and monitoring filling the bottom-right, and the power supply nesting in the middle.

Board Bottom

There are many surface-mount chips across the board, including an ST UC3843B PWM regulator for the power supply/charger, an ST SG3525 switching regulator for the HVDC output, some LM358 op-amps, and a handful of opto-isolators. Apart from the micro-controllers on the USB riser and next to the control panel connectors, the rest look like jelly-bean parts.

USB Riser

One USB micro-controller with EC series secret sauce loaded into it, two 50 V, 22 µF Su’scon electrolytic capacitors, a handful of transistors and a 24 MHz ceramic resonator is all you'll find on this little board. I am a little surprised to see 50 V caps used on a USB-powered board that only interfaces with the UPS’ main controller over a pair of opto-isolated signals.

In large enough volume, putting 50 V caps everywhere may be more cost-effective and less of a hassle than stocking 22 µF in a handful of different voltage ratings for non-performance-critical circuits.

Writing On The Board

From the writing behind the USB riser, we learn that this same board design is used for CyberPower’s ECO series at least up to the 650VA models, and that my specific board was manufactured in mid-2014.

Input Section

The input protection and switching section contains the typical arrangement of 14471 MOVs (line-neutral, line-ground, and ground-neutral), a current-sensing transformer, and a 470 nF X2-class capacitor. All four relays are “flux-tight” SPDTs from Song Chuan, model 812H for the main power switch and model 833H for the rest.

Speaking of main power, you can hear a relay clicking upon plugging the UPS in, even while it is still off. Suspecting that the main disconnect relay also disconnects the electronics supply, I attempted plugging in the UPS with no battery and got the expected result: no response. This UPS cannot recover from a completely drained battery on its own. It needs enough charge to operate the main relay and related electronics to turn itself on, similar to the SMART1000LCD.

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Power Supply

The EC350G’s power supply is a mildly odd affair: there is no high-voltage input filter capacitor. In its place, we find a two-millihenries inductor in series with the transformer and a 100 nF X2 capacitor from the inductor-transformer node to circuit ground. On the bottom side, a pair of 3.3 Ω resistors in parallel provide current sensing to the 3843B for the 600 V/4 A/1.76 Ω ST P4NK60ZFP FET. A handful of other components provide snubbing at various points.

How does an off-line power supply work without a filter capacitor? Time to partially reverse-engineering it.

Reverse-Engineering The Supply

This makes more sense, at least to me: instead of using a bulk input filter capacitor like most power supply circuits, the circuit uses a current-fed topology where input energy gets stored in L4. The more power that gets delivered to the output, the higher the current through T2’s primary and the more energy gets stored in L4’s magnetic field to boost voltage on C29 for the next cycle.

While many UPSes warn that there may not be isolation between battery negative and AC input, models with user-accessible batteries are usually isolated anyway. In this case, both sides are clearly tied to rectified AC negative. Since you need to remove the rear cover and expose the main PCB to access the battery, live battery swaps are clearly not a good idea regardless of feasibility.

Beefed Up

On top of the heavily tinned track on the bottom, the battery positive path from the fuse and 2200 µF Su’scon capacitor to the transformer’s primary center-tap gets beefed up with three sections of four jumpers each. Each of the transformer’s two primary halves gets driven by one 60 V/80 A/9.8 mΩ Sinopower SM6002M FET, each on its own towering aluminum chunk. Under full 350 VA load, each FET dissipates about 4 W, which won’t be enough to warm these blocks up by much before the tiny battery runs out. A 650 VA model with a 6 Ah battery might be a different story if the component complement remains exactly the same.

Output Bridge

A pair of opto-isolators and related support components on the bottom drive the output bridge’s two 200 V/18 A/0.15 Ω International Rectifier IFR640N pairs, with the high side fed directly from the step-up transformer’s center-tapped secondary through a pair of 400 V/3 A HER305 diodes with no filtering on the input. There is no filter inductor between the bridge and 470 nF output X1-class capacitor either.

I wrote it before but I’ll write it again: I’m no fan of TO-220s getting bent over and looking like a shorting hazard. Silly little heat sinks like the ones found in APC’s BGE90M’s output bridge would help secure those FETs.

What's There And What's Not

The EC350G trades the parts cost of a full bridge rectifier for the copper and transformer core size cost of a center-tapped secondary. Then, the rectified HVDC gets switched through to the output by the dangling FET bridge. I am expecting to see a lot of whatever it is the HVDC converter puts out to appear directly in the on-battery waveforms.

One Size Fits (Almost) All

I quit looking for capacitor brands other than Su’scon after finding the tenth one. Unlike past CyberPower units that featured a mix of manufacturers, the EC350G is fitted exclusively with Su’scon electrolytics. Most of them are 50 V 22 µF, the two used for the bridge’s high-side drivers are 25 V 47 µF, and there is one 2200 µF 16 V across the battery voltage. While designing products to minimize the number of different components reduces the risk of accidental and potentially catastrophic substitutions, it also trades some efficiency and cost for manufacturing convenience.

Standby Power

The standby current waveform looks pretty much as expected for a power supply with negligible input capacitance. Current rises moderately once voltage reaches the supply’s operating minimum until its output capacitors are topped off and winds down from there until the next half-cycle. Strangely enough, the EC350G draws 50 mA_RMS, 4.3 W, and 5.9 VA regardless of on or off mode, which either means that whatever power is not being spent on that relay gets wasted elsewhere, or that the relay is driven at such low current that it does not register. This is nowhere near as good as the BE550G’s 2.8 W, but still better than some larger units’ 6-9 W or the SMART1000LCD’s 12.4 W.

Output Waveform

As predicted from the lack of output filtering in the HVDC circuit and output bridge (other than a 0.47µF X1 capacitor), we get a really odd-looking current waveform. The voltage waveform, on the other hand, turns out surprisingly clean with a magnitude of about 160 V, an RMS value of 124.5 V, and a THD of 32%. While my 83 W input power on the UPS matches the 86 W from AC power closely enough to conclude that I have a reasonable sample, such an irregular waveform warrants further investigation to see how much of it may be caused by aliasing.

Zooming In

Going from a 20 ms slice to a 60 µs one, the reason for the funky millisecond-scale waveform is an equally funky microsecond-scale waveform. The EC350G’s HVDC converter appears to be operating at roughly 200 kHz, and since there is no filtering at its output, the current gets directly modulated by the SL300’s switching in the neighborhood of 50kHz. This means we can add beats between the two switching frequencies to the list of potential causes of very odd current waveforms and reasons to have a small choke after the output bridge to smooth them out. There is none of that funny business on the BGE90M’s waveform, which has a small HVDC capacitor and a bridge output choke.

Summing It Up

(Doesn't it look much better all straightened out?)

A tiny battery, phone line protection that does nothing except fuse one wire, bent-over capacitors and TO-220 transistors, extremely minimalist UPS output filtering, power supply efficiency that still needs work, and wiring that could really use connectors to tidy things up while reducing the risk that components get mangled during final assembly into the housing.

To be fair on the power efficiency side, the EC350G does have the lowest standby draw of any CyberPower UPS I have done a tear-down of so far (30% less than the 1000PFC) and if you use its ECO mode, then its standby power draw may get eclipsed by savings from cut-off devices.

Aside from its ECO feature, only one polite word comes to my mind to describe the EC350G: unimpressive.

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Today's Victim: CP1000PFCLCD

In several of my previous power-related tear-downs, many readers commented that they wanted to see what goes on inside one of those “Pure Sinewave” battery backup systems, and I finally got around to picking up a CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD on sale from NCIX for $150 CAN. Will it leave a better impression than Tripp-Lite’s disappointing SMART1000? There is only one way to find out: dig in.

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Brown Box

Given a somewhat more business-oriented approach, CyberPower doesn't waste as much money plastering full-color glossy marketing material all over its packaging. Humble black ink on unbleached corrugated cardboard gets the job done.

The printed claims are what we'd expect from a modern mid-range consumer-grade UPS, except for that first point about offering protection specifically for computers equipped with active power factor correction circuitry, which typically implies some form of more sinusoidal output.

Packaging

Inside the box, the UPS is surrounded by a second layer of corrugated cardboard and Styrofoam blocks up to four centimeters (about 1.5”) thick on the sides, protecting each corner. I do not know about you, but I personally find it funny when more than half of a product box’s internal volume is air and shipping protection. Of course, better safe than sorry.

Sizing Up

As usual, my old BX1000 towers over everything else. Compared to the LX1500 in the middle, the 1000PFCLCD is only one centimeter shorter and eight centimeters shallower. Can you guess what component is mostly responsible for the PFCLCD’s smaller size? Let me give you a hint: it is also about three kilos (seven pounds) lighter.

Paperware

The 1000PFCLCD comes with the usual paper assortment: a single-sheet manual, a quick-start guide and a registration card. Surprisingly enough, the accessories bag also contains a software installation disc. While that's nice, it's also usually futile since the shipped version is rarely current. Most people will simply download the latest version instead.

Accessories

We have a full complement of cables here: telephone, coax and USB. How often do you see coax cables shipped with plastic caps to protect the central conductor from bending during shipping? In a properly-made coax cable, that conductor should be cut flush with the connector’s opening and not really require any sort of protection other than the connector nut.

Fancy Coax?

No, there's nothing fancy here. For a moment, I thought that the caps may have been to protect higher-quality cable terminations. But the dielectric that should have been cut flush was instead cut one or two millimeters short of providing uninterrupted coverage in the transition from the coaxial cable to the F-connector it plugs into. This transition from coax dielectric to air to F-connector dielectric will cause unnecessary signal reflections and degradation.

With that said, I have seen many coaxial cables that looked worse. Even the cable bundled with Monster’s HT-800G was of questionable build quality.

Starting From The Wall

In my LX1500 tear-down, I commented that the plug would have been better if it had simply been round. Here, it looks like some people at CyberPower came to the same conclusion and picked a stepped round plug design for the CP1000PFCLCD. But the cord is exiting the “wrong way” to maximize the distance between whichever finger you put on the right side of the plug and the live prong. At least the round design yields a better grip from many different angles, and the grip ridge is rather far from the prongs themselves, which should help reduce the risk of unpleasant surprises.

The Copper Standard

After the handful of 1000VA or smaller systems I have seen with #16 gauge power cords, I doubted I would see another 1000VA UPS with a proper #14 gauge cord again. But here it is: 3x2.08mm.

As a side note, all of the information I could find about UL standard 1363 (relocatable power taps) points towards devices with more than three outlets being considered as branch circuit extensions and should have cords with #14 gauge conductors or thicker. Similarly, what I could find on UL 1778 (UPS) only mentions wire gauges thinner than #14 for control circuits, not power conductors. Have the standards been lowered since their 1997-2001 revisions? The proliferation of #16 cords seems to point that way.

The Back End

What is there to see here? Two sets of five tightly spaced outlets that are going to be a nightmare if you want to plug wall warts in, a breaker just above the cord’s entry point, the two coax F-connectors and two RJ45 for what are likely the same sort of surge protection seen in the LX1500, a wiring fault indicator LED, a USB port for computer-based monitoring and configuration, and a good old DB9 serial port mainly for use with legacy equipment that relies on RS-232.

RS-232 may be old, but it is hard to beat the ease of integration: there is no multi-layered hardware and software protocol stack to worry about, unlike USB. This is even more true when the UPS also exposes basic status and control (such as on-battery, low battery and shutdown) over RS-232 status and control lines.

Side Panel

CyberPower is proud of its glossy plastic, covering most of it with clear plastic to prevent scratches during shipping. Both sides feature CyberPower’s logo and a modest number of cooling vents at the top, bottom and rear. On the bottom-left corner of the right panel, you can also see the “Energy-Saving Technology” sticker, although its color-shifting inks swamped my camera’s sensor in this shot.

While I may like the look of black peripherals and PC cases in general, one disadvantage is that most black finishes rarely look clean for very long. You can see a rather clear hand print from one of the times I grabbed the unit to move it across my work bench on the front (left). Dust is also highly visible on glossy black.

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Top

There's not much to see in this shot except the same initial power-up instructions that were present on the LX1500. There is one interesting difference though: while the LX1500’s enclosure consisted of two halves snapped together at the top, forming a seam along the middle, the 1000PFCLCD’s top piece slides towards the back to release both side panels and the front after the rear cover is removed.

Also unlike the LX1500, the 1000’s power-up label is a thin plastic affair instead of a metallic label with a strong plastic backing, lending additional credibility to my suspicion that the label was indeed structural on the LX1500.

Front

Remember my comments about how the LX1500 could have used one extra button to make configuration easier? The 1000PFCLCD has two extras adorning its glossy black front panel: one to toggle the alarm function and another to access controls. Ironically though, configuration options are limited to line voltage sensitivity only.

On the LX1500, all the basic configuration parameters are accessible through its tedious one-button interface. One step forward, two steps back.

Bottom

The bottom face of the unit is home to the battery door, product information, warnings and miscellaneous other information as usual. I believe this is the first time I have seen a battery door that opens by sliding inward instead of outward.

Printed on the battery door is a mention of patent 7405544. Are you at least a little bit curious to find out what it is about?

Patenting The Obvious

Is that an auto-transformer with some switches or relays to select taps or bypass the transformer altogether? This is fundamentally how tap changers work, and mechanical tap changers have been around for over half a century in power distribution networks. Also, as documented in this patent, Cyber’s AVR would only be capable of boost operation. My old APC BX1000 did buck-boost AVR while leaving its transformer disconnected when not in use (that second part is “GreenPower” in CyberPower-speak) and its main board was manufactured in 2005, one year before CyberPower filed this patent.

Indentity Crisis

In the caution department, I believe this is the first time I have seen an explosion warning about using the incorrect battery type. Different batteries use different form factors to make accidental mix-ups unlikely. Much like APC, CP uses the same enclosure for its 850VA and 1000VA models, and chose to use the same silkscreen with information for both. On paper, the only obvious material difference between the 850VA and 1000VA versions is the battery: 8Ah versus 9Ah.

I’m guessing the blank area framed with a white square was intended for a serial number print or sticker that got omitted for whatever reason.

Battery Door

In my LX1500 story, I had an issue with a broken flimsy tab on the battery door and wrote that CyberPower should have used two thicker tabs instead. In the 1000PFCLCD, it looks like the company got the right general idea. On the other hand, the lips that slide behind the side panels to lock the door in place do not seem like they would survive a hard landing. These should have been a little wider to prevent them from popping out if the sides bow out a little, and thicker to make them less likely snap and reinforce the battery door’s sides.

BBBBBattery!

What lies behind that door? The B. B. Battery HR9-12 is a high-performance absorbed glass mat (AGM) valve-regulated lead-acid battery (VRLA) designed specifically for high drain applications like a UPS. As such, it features an internal resistance of less than 15mΩ when fully charged and a five-second burst current rating of 120A.

Battery Shoot-Out

How does the HR9-12 compare? Instead of hunting down other 9Ah competitors, I chose to switch numbers around and normalize the power rating for a given discharge time per Ah of nominal capacity. Since the BBB lacked ratings for 1.67V (which all of the other batteries are rated at), I used a linear interpolation between 1.6V and 1.7V for BBB.

The BBB unit leads the five-minute discharge race by a hair, then jockeys for third place with Long for all other rates, while CSB splits the distance between third place and Yuasa in the lead. I’d call this a clear victory for Yuasa, a firm second-place finish for CSB and a mixed bag for Long and BBB.

Simple Puzzle

Taking the UPS apart is simple enough: remove the battery door to reveal a hidden screw fastening the top cover to the battery cradle, remove the rear cover’s screws, slide the top cover towards the rear to unlock the front cover, slide the front cover down to unhitch it from the side panels and reveal another screw also fastening the top cover to the battery cradle, gently pry the top cover and off it comes. Getting the battery cradle to separate from the bottom cover takes a substantial amount of force to release its snaps.

Great, Another One

Power conductors in the 1000PFCLCD are crimped and soldered to the motherboard, just like they were in the SMART1000.

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Behind The Front Cover

Here is the front cover. Along the left and right sides, you can see four hooks that slot into the side panels to hold them together. From this angle, they look like slots themselves. Further inside but still parallel to the sides are two columns of translucent gray-brown plastic holding the glossy face panel in place. The bottom edge features three key holes for the battery door’s two tabs to slot into. In the top half, you find the LCD and control module, which has a simple chip-on-board (CoB) device.

Behind The Rear Panel

It looks like the 1000PFCLCD uses the same coax surge protection as the LX1500. Also similar is the lack of a common-mode choke between the cord and protection-only outlets; the protection is downstream from those outlets instead of upstream.

The phone/network surge protection board is different. It also has the wiring fault indicator circuit on it, along with a header to receive a cable from the motherboard providing access to live and neutral (the thin black and white wires in the bottom-left) required by the wiring fault indicator function.

Downsizing

While the cord uses #14 conductors, everything beyond the “protection-only” outlets is #16, which should be fine as long as the site wiring is correct (no live-neutral inversion), the UPS’ own current limiting on the battery backup outlets is working correctly and there is no fault on the motherboard causing it to draw grossly abnormal current without tripping a breaker.

Strips

We find the same pinchy fingers for live and neutral as the LX1500, and the same torque bar ground connections as well. Soldery-weldy joints between the wires and strips look a little dodgy though.

Crushed

Wires were attached to the strips using spot-welding. An electrode compresses the tinned wires’ strands together, then current gets passed through the strip and strands to fuse them together. Here though, the electrode appears to have had a sharp edge that partially gouged its way through the strands along the upper strip edge. In a high-vibration environment, this could cause premature mechanical failure. It could also cause slight hot-spotting under high electrical load, though the strips should provide enough heat-sinking to prevent it from becoming a real concern.

Network Surge Suppression

The layout may be different, but a quick glance at the number of diodes around the RJ45 connectors quickly points towards a similar if not identical circuit as the LX1500’s. If I wanted to be optimist, I’d guess that the messy design was an attempt to keep signal pairs together. But a quick glimpse at the bottom layer shows that some signal pairs are not even routed on the same layer. The layout change was mainly about reducing board footprint.

Quick And Dirty

Whoever manually soldered the ground wire to the circuit board was in a hurry, slipped, scratched the solder mask, did not apply enough heat for the solder to wick through the strands, and we get a joint that looks like the solder tented over the strands instead of forming a uniform solid joint around the whole wire and pad. The wave-soldered joints, on the other hand, look great.

Not A Fan Of The Fan

Sitting just above the transformer on a small bracket is a 40mm fan that kicks on immediately whenever the UPS switches to battery power and remains on for a few minutes after AC power is restored. With no ducting guiding airflow around the transformer or preventing it from recirculating through the fan, I was really surprised to actually feel a noticeable breeze coming out from the top vents.

And yes, this little screamer is no exception to the “small fans are loud” generalization. Considering that the motherboard has a thermistor going behind the transformer, I was surprised that CP does not at least wait for the transformer to warm up a little before turning on the fan at full speed.

Transformer

Instead of having a center-tapped winding on the low voltage side and operating the inverter by alternately driving one half, the 1000PFCLCD uses a full bridge driver, which allows it to use only one winding there. On the high voltage side, I suspect that the AVR primary is the thin wire connected to black and blue doubling as the inverter’s output winding, which may explain why a fan is needed. CP used the absolute minimum wire gauge necessary to provide the 8A of backup power the UPS is rated for (0.9mm including the enamel coating, which means #20 gauge) and may get warm very quickly under heavy load. The buck/boost winding, on the other hand, is 1.5mm thick including the enamel, which puts it about half-way between #15 and #16.

The Main Course

Can you spot the biggest difference between this board and every other UPS I have opened in the past eight months? It has three heat sinks in its inverter circuit instead of two. The two half-width sinks provide the low-side drivers and double as transformer cable terminal blocks, while the wide one hosts the high-side drivers. A small piece of T-shaped scrap PCB inserted between fins acts as a spacer to prevent short circuits between heat sinks.

The other area of interest is the bottom-right corner where all the relays, surge protection and filtering occur.

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B-Side

The soldering looks good overall, except for the “blobby” wire solder joints and the fuse solder joints, which show highly inconsistent solder coverage.

Solder Bubbles

Were the solder mask tracks between fuse tabs intended to trap solder and form solid bridges (as they appear to have achieved between the bottom-left two tabs) or only neatly tin the exposed metal, which you see on the top row between the bottom-right tabs? I doubt the bubbles everywhere else were the intended result.

Su’scon All Around

Just like last time, CP used Su’scon capacitors all over the place. Of the electrolytic capacitors I found on this board, the only exception I noticed is a single Taicon HF on the standby/charging supply output. Three 40A fuses in parallel “protect” the #10 (40A) battery cables and feed the four pairs of Chino-Excel Technology CEP83A3 (rated for up to 100A of continuous current at 5.3mΩ RDSon) that make up the full bridge switching ~100A through the inverter’s transformer.

Take it as a reminder that trying to generate 1000VA from a 12V source yields somewhat crazy current figures.

Surge Protection And Other Nearby Bits

Along the left edge, we have the Viper22 controller and associated components for the charging supply, a bank of three yellow 20D271K MOVs next to a 220nF EMI filter capacitor, four relays handling power routing in the middle and a pair of 2.2µF X2 capacitors smoothing out the inverter’s output.

The UPS was plugged in and splayed out overnight. When I came to take this picture, I noticed that both white relays were a little warm. The same goes for the supply section’s EMI choke. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say at least 3W are being lost in this component cluster. Let’s see what that translates to in actual measurements.

Standby Power

With no load attached, the UPS draws 26.1VA thanks to its output’s relatively large filter capacitor bank, while consuming 6.2W in actual power. That's still not as good as the BE550’s 2.8W, but much better than the SMART1000’s 12W or the LX1500’s 8.8W.

If you were wondering why the current waveform is so noisy, this is attributable to the X2 caps. They're shunting noise present on the AC feed, which translates into noisy current.

Getting Curious

How does the 1000PFCLCD generate its “adaptive sine wave” output and what does it look like? There is only one way to find out: poke around. Here, I am tapped on both sides of the transformer’s low-voltage winding and the inverter output. The little blue capacitor provides AC coupling between the floating inverter circuitry and ground. While not ideal, it's better than blowing something up if there is an operating condition where the low-voltage side may end up connected to line voltage and good enough to find out how the modulation is achieved.

What Does The Scope Say?

There you go, simple as Π: the ‘B’ transformer leg gets switched alternatively between positive and negative battery voltage, while the duty cycle of the 26µs period on the ‘A’ leg gets modulated following a sinusoidal pattern. If you look at the purple trace’s intensity grading, you get a rough idea of how the high/low time varies with output amplitude.

Plugging the oscilloscope’s CSV data output into my analysis spreadsheet under a no-load condition, the output’s THD+N is a reasonable 7.7% while the output voltage is far out in the left field at only 46VRMS. Plug in almost anything, though, and voltage rises to a more reasonable 108V. On the third day of poking around, the low no-load output voltage became intermittent, occurring less than 5% of the time.

Funny Business

Cycling through the LCD’s functions while the 1000PFCLCD is on battery power, with the wacky output voltage showing up on the scope and my multimeter, the UPS still claims that its output is at 120V. It looks like the UPS may be hard-coded to report that figure on battery power instead of actually monitoring its own output voltage.

1000PFCLCD vs SL300

What happens to the output waveform when I plug in my SL300 PSU? The output voltage rises to 108VRMS, THD+N drops to an even better 4.4%, and the built-in display still reports 120V. If this was truly a 120V sinusoidal waveform, it would be peaking at 170V, not 150V. My spreadsheet tells me that the SL300 uses 64.5W and 89.6VA, while the 1000PFCLCD reports 66W and 90VA, which is within my measurement setup’s error margins. Oddly enough, this seems to indicate that the UPS’ power calculation may be based on real output voltage instead of the bogus 120V being displayed. If 120V was hard-coded in the calculation as it appears to be for the display, I would have expected my measurements and the UPS’ to disagree by about 10%.

What Have We Learned Today?

What goes into a $120 “adaptive sine wave” UPS? For the most part, exactly the same stuff that goes into a $50 regular “stepped approximation sine wave” UPS. CyberPower chose to use a full bridge driver with a single low-voltage transformer winding, but it could just as easily have gone with a center-tapped winding and only low-side drivers for each half. In other words: any UPS with fast enough FETs and FET drivers could potentially be converted to sinusoidal output with little more than a firmware upgrade and X2 capacitors on the output.

The overall build and design quality is on par with the LX1500, earning a point for including a #14 cord and then losing it for going cheap on the connectors. The biggest flaws I can find are falsely reporting the output voltage as 120V on battery power and failing to provide an output voltage within 5% of 120V under the same circumstance. Of course, there is also a question mark attached to those Su’scon capacitors, just like there was with the LX.

If you wanted to know the hardware differences between sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal UPSes, now you do: not much.

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CyberPowerPC unveiled its new Arcus AIO gaming PC line, which features high-end GPUs such as AMD’s Radeon RX 480 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080.

The Arcus AIO PCs use a 34-inch curved display with a native resolution of 3440x1440 and a 60 Hz refresh rate. In order to drive games with high settings at this 3K resolution, CyberPowerPC offers the Arcus AIO with a variety of GPUs.

The least expensive system configuration is called the Arcus 34 Core, and it consists of an Intel 6th Gen (Skylake) Core i5-6500 paired with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 2 GB graphics card. This configuration will struggle to run games smoothly with high settings at 3440x1440, but it should be suitable for 1080p gaming.

The second configuration option, called the Arcus 34 Elite, is considerably more powerful, with an Intel i5-6600K and an AMD Radeon RX 480 8 GB GPU. According to our tests of the AMD Radeon RX 480 8 GB, it trades blows with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970 and should be perfectly suitable for gaming at 3K resolutions. As this configuration also has a faster CPU, and it comes with twice as much storage space, this seems to be a far superior option than the Arcus 34 Core.

CyberPowerPC’s third configuration option is the Arcus 34 Pro, which steps up to an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB. This system has the same amount of storage space as the Elite system, but it doubles the RAM capacity to 16 GB. As both the GPU and CPU are faster than the Elite system, the $185 increase in price should be well worth the upgrade.

The final configuration is the Arcus 34 Xtreme, which is far more expensive owing to its use of an Intel i7-6800K and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB. Given the amount of heat generated by the Arcus 34 Xtreme, CyberPowerPC opted to make this model water cooled.

Although these are the primary configuration options available for the Arcus AIO gaming PC, it's also available in custom configurations if you prefer a system that falls somewhere between these pre-configured options. These systems are now available at the prices listed below.

Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton
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Today's Specimen

Most of the markings on the front summarize the UPS' specifications, which are reiterated and detailed on other sides:

 - 1500VA/900W output rating
 - Automatic Voltage Regulation
 - LCD
 - 890 joules surge protection
 - 10 outlets
 - 2.1A USB power source
 - Coax and phone/Ethernet protection
 - Energy Star and Green/Energy Saving credentials
 - An optimistic 450 minutes maximum run time, likely only achievable if all you do is stare at its LCD status display with nothing plugged in

The closest match I could find in general appearance and features on CyberPower's U.S. site is the BGR1500AVRLCD, which has two extra outlets and an RS232 (DB9) serial port.
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Unboxing

This compact yet heavy unit is supported by inch-thick foam blocks on the corners. Unless the bottom and side panels were heavily reinforced to support the batteries through shipping, the packaging could have used additional support along the bottom length. You'll see why later.

Accessories

The only extras I found in the box were a single-page reference sheet for front-panel configuration, a manual in English and French and a USB A-to-B cable. Since there is no packing list anywhere, I presume that's it for accessories.

First Impressions

The first thing I noticed upon picking the LX1500GU-FC up was its weight. Of course, I was expecting this, given the larger batteries listed in CyberPower's specifications. With all of the plastic panels and fasteners in place, the enclosure feels satisfyingly sturdy, though its matte finish is an excellent fingerprint magnet.

Side By Side

The shallower and narrower APC unit looks huge next to CyberPower's solution. In terms of actual volume though, the comparison is 10.8 to 9.6 liters (only a 70 cubic-inch difference). The LX1500 must be using space more efficiently to fit its 25 percent larger batteries and 50 percent higher peak output in an 11 percent smaller volume.

Starting From The Wall

While most enthusiasts don't move their battery backup systems regularly, having a plug with good ergonomics is still nice. Instead of going for the lowest-profile plug design possible, CyberPower employs a sharp ridge standing about half an inch from the wall with ears to provide a more comfortable thumb grip.

There is one minor issue with the design: in a correctly wired installation, the live pin is closer to your thumb than it needs to be. A simple safety improvement would be to make the cable enter the plug from the other side of the ground pin, which would make neutral and ground your thumb's new neighbors.

Power Cord

Now this is disappointing. CyberPower uses a cord with 3x1.31mm (AWG #16) for power. While it's adequate to carry the 12.5A a 1500VA UPS may need to pass through, and just below the UL's 13A recommended maximum for #16 power cords, the extra wiring losses are at odds with energy efficiency goals. Good thing I had no plans to plug anything other than my PC, my LCDs, my USB hub and external HDDs (when in use) into it anyway.

Front Panel

Up front you'll find one button to turn the unit on/off, one dual-purpose "Display" button used to cycle the LCD through various measurements (input voltage, output voltage, output power, output VA, load %, estimated run time and battery charge level) and enter one-button configuration mode, and the status display.

On-device configuration could have been made quicker and easier by borrowing the power button: use it as an Enter key (a quick action that would not interfere with its regular functions, since they require long presses) instead of holding the Display button for three seconds to enter menus and wait for eight more to confirm selections.

Rear End

We get two banks of outlets around back, one surge-only and the other with battery backup. There's also the pop-breaker, the network and cable surge suppressor, wiring fault indicator and a USB port for computer monitoring.

Unless CyberPower provides exceptional surge protection in its mainstream UPS, this seems like too many surge-only outlets for a model that only has a #16 gauge power cord.

Top Label

Plastered across the top of the UPS is a metalized sticker with first-time turn-on instructions. Under the label is a tough plastic sticker, which is either intended as a warranty seal or to prevent the two halves of the shell from coming apart during shipping. Perhaps both.

Bottom Labels

CyberPower reuses the same mold for at least three LX models. The unreadable line at the bottom simply states that input current ratings are for the whole unit, including surge-only outlets. Other information molded directly into the panel includes an FCC compliance declaration, the usual warning complement of indoor use only at 40 °C or less, electric shock hazard and no serviceable parts inside. There's nothing out of the ordinary.

CyberPower also specifies the total harmonic distortion of its modified sine wave output as 46.8 percent with a peak harmonic up to 33.4 percent. In other words, expect the usual bipolar return-to-zero (BPRZ) waveform.

Behind The Battery Door

To access the battery compartment, you must first undo the two screws found on the bottom. Pull the half-panel down until it clears the side rails before you can lift the cover off. What you find in there is a pair of Leoch 12V 9Ah batteries. Their model number, DJW12-9.0, does not appear to be standard stock, and the closest match I could find on their site is the LP12-9.0.

There's no fancy battery pre-packaging or connector. The two batteries sit right there with cables going straight to their spade terminals.

Batteries Out

Getting those connectors on and off in the tight space over the batteries is more difficult than it should be. You have to twist the right battery out to access the positive terminal before you can pull the power source further out to unplug the yellow wire. Once that is done, you can remove the first battery and move the second one to the right slightly to unhook it from behind the front frame. After that, you can twist it out and repeat.

The sharp plastic molding around the cable holes bites into wire insulation and complicates the process. Smoothing the holes would also reduce wear on the wires' insulation.

Breakable Slot

If you were wondering about my comments that the UPS' base should be braced with more foam, this is why I said that. The middle of the battery door hooks into this tab from below to keep the door from bowing out. At some point during shipping, the box must have fallen on its side. Since there is no packaging supporting the middle of the panel, the batteries' weight broke the flimsy slot. You can see the plastic turn white in the inside corners from strain.

The tab and slot should have been thicker, and the slot split in two to limit leverage.

Battery Door

Irregular rib spacing causes the door to warp most visibly around the area with three vent rows when force is applied near the middle. That also happens to be where the bottom locking tab is located, and where the batteries might put the most force. Since the battery door is primarily held in place by a nice track at each end, the door should have had two wider longitudinal ribs to redirect lateral force from the batteries there.

Reinforcement through the rest of the unit is generally shallower, but still feels adequate against external forces when the unit is fully assembled.

Battery Power Levels

How do the Leoch batteries used in CyberPower's UPS stack up against the CSB batteries in APC's? If we scale CSB's specifications by 9/7.2 to extrapolate what a 9Ah CSB battery's performance would be like for a one-hour constant current discharge, we get 6.89A for CSB versus 6.24A for Leoch. Ah-to-Ah, CSB beats Leoch by 10 percent. Repeating the comparison with a 15-minute discharge rate, which is more representative of what a UPS might encounter powering a high-end gaming PC and related accessories, we get 20.6A for CSB versus 20.2A for Leoch. That puts CSB only 2 percent ahead. It looks like Leoch batteries should be on par with CSB's at medium to high loads.

With the regular user/buyer tour out of the way, it's time to get into the more interesting stuff.

Lost?

The left screw inside the battery compartment unlocks the front panel, which can then be lifted and pulled away, revealing a hidden screw hole in the top corner with no screw in it (at least on my unit). Was it accidentally forgotten? Deemed redundant due to the top sticker? Superseded by the sticker because the transformer's weight causes the screw mount to break?

Once the front and rear covers are out of the way, two tabs at the bottom of the battery compartment release the inner shell and top half of the housing. From there, you can gently pry it up while repeatedly tapping the top seam with a plastic screwdriver until the wide clips under the top of the cover disengage.

Peekaboo

And what do we find? One small power PCB with three small heat sinks, one small 5V power supply board for the USB ports, a modestly-sized phenolic board for the high-current components with a small FR4 riser for control logic and one large transformer. CyberPower's LX1500 is a much simpler critter than the old APC BX1000.

Behind The Rear Cover

Behind the outlets, we find a plastic cover. We also find that the live wire from the power cord goes through the breaker and then straight to protected outlets. While this may not seem like much, putting the MOVs half a meter downstream from the first device requiring protection via extra wiring can reduce their effectiveness by 100V or more due to the added resistance and inductance.

Remember when I said this UPS has too many "surge-only" outlets due to its thin wire gauge? It's time to revise that "it shouldn't have any" due to a sub-par implementation.

And what is that I see near the bottom-left corner?

Pinched

The live wire was cut too long, and instead of trimming it down to length before soldering it to the breaker, it was simply tucked between the battery compartment wall and rear cover. That's fine except for the part where the wire ended up straddling one of the screw cups and got pinched hard enough to visibly compress its insulation. When you tuck wires away, make sure you are not putting them where they may get crushed. Tape them down in a safe place if you have to.

Breaker Bad

CyberPower continues to impress, but not for good reasons. There's a 15A breaker on a power cord that should not be used to carry more than 13A. While two or three extra amps before tripping may not be enough to turn a cord into a safety hazard, it is still disappointing to see that CyberPower could not be bothered to use breakers that match the cord's UL rating. When you run 15A through a six-foot #16 power cord, it dissipates around 12W. This may not sound like much, but it is still enough to get noticeably warm, especially if the cord has limited airflow around it.

Old Acquaintances

Removing the outlet strip cover reveals familiar sights to everyone who has seen some of my previous power bar tear-downs: the usual metal strips shaped to clamp the neutral and live pins, and torque flaps for the ground pins.

And yes, the connections in here appear to be tinned wires tack-welded into place with mixed preparation quality. Although it's blurry, the ground wire on the left clearly didn't get properly tinned like the one on the right.
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Behind The Front Panel

There's not much to see here: a chip-on-board to drive the LCD, a connector and some metal tabs to hold the LCD. Both switches are routed directly to pins on the connector header.

USB Connectors PCB

I was expecting to at see at least a 10µF chip capacitor to dampen noise from the power supply and connected devices. Am I asking for too much? Maybe. We'll see how well or poorly it fares on the oscilloscope.

CN12 was visibly intended to be a dedicated ground connection for the USB connector shield, but CyberPower ended up tying the shield to USB neutral with a 0Ω resistor.

Munched Up

Good thing the front panel's cable is sleeved. Whoever placed it put quite a few scrapes into the sleeve by shoving it behind the riser card in the top-right corner of the first internal picture. In the top-left of that same image, you may also be able to see the sleeve oddly deformed above its first hanger. If these were really meant for wire management, I find it odd that the enclosure designers would put features that could crush and shear thin wires there.

Network Surge Suppression

I thought I saw a 1N4007. I did! I did see a 1N4007! Twenty of them, in fact. What sort of transient voltage surge suppression is CyberPower doing here? With a typical 1N4007 having over 10pF of junction capacitance near 0V, this cannot be a good thing for 1GBase-T signal integrity.

As if that was not already questionable, differential routing for pair one is completely ignored. One signal goes along the PCB edge, through the fuse, and back up along the edge to the other connector, while the other signal scoots along the diode row from one RJ45 connector through the fuse and back to the other connector.

Some Reverse-Engineering Required

So, how does the network surge suppression work? All pairs operate on the same basic principle: use 1N4007 diodes to steer over-voltages through either a SIDAC or zener diode. The difference between pair one and the others is that, because it may be used for telephone service, it needs to allow the full open line voltage with ring tone (130-180V_PK), while the other lines only need a few volts.

I bet a TDR cable analyzer would have some interesting things to say about the LX1500's network surge protection. It should work fine on modest cable runs in a quiet RF environment. But for longer cable runs in a noisy environment, you may have to look elsewhere for network surge protection.

Coax Surge Protection

CyberPower's coax surge protector comes in a fully shielded box with the rear cover tacked in place by two small solder blobs. I do not normally bother popping open soldered boxes, but I got curious; this one was easy pickings for a solder wick.

Under The Skirt

What is that going straight from one F-connector's signal pin to the other? No controlled impedance PCB or mini-coax here, just a piece of ordinary #16 electrical wire with a Glass Discharge Tube (GDT) surge suppression device between one connector and a ground plane PCB,which the two F-connector bodies are soldered to.

I do not know what the transmission line impedance of a piece of #16 wire covered in PVC insulation in free air is, but I seriously doubt it is anywhere near 75Ω. A quick check with online transmission line calculators say 25-35Ω. Say hello to signal reflections.

When a cable guy tells you that the coax surge suppression in many power bars is junk, this is exactly what he means.

The Iron Lump

Unlike the APC BX1000, which used a DC-DC converter followed by an output bridge to switch polarity and a separate voltage regulation transformer, CyberPower's LX1500 uses a simpler and older topology where an iron core transformer is used to directly step battery voltage up to AC line level at AC frequency. The same transformer performs double-duty as the AVR buck/boost transformer when not used for battery power.

USB Power Supply

I was hoping to see the 5V USB supply powered directly from the battery charger and battery voltage, which would have provided 5V without having to power up the whole inverter circuit. But instead we have a complete USB AC adapter: a common-mode choke at the input, a pair of Su'scon SK ("Standard") input filter capacitors, a single switching transistor in TO220 packaging, a flyback transformer, two Su'scon HG ("Low-Z, Long Life") capacitors for the output filter and another common-mode choke before the output cable. At a glance, the capacitors' specifications appear to be reasonable.

On the bottom, we find the input rectifier bridge, a PWM controller in SOT23-6 packaging, an 817 photocoupler, a handful of diodes and an SOT23 431 shunt regulator driving the isolator. Nothing fancy.

What does its output look like?

USB Power Supply Output

Under open circuit condition, the supply outputs 5.12V with 60mV_PP of ringing and 100mV_PP of switching transient noise. At 1A output current, I got exactly 5V at the USB plug and the pictured waveforms across my load. Switching transients died down as soon as there was any load on the output, which is good. We can clearly see the 50-70mV_PP turn-on transients at the oscilloscope's trigger point, followed by more small transients and a slight ringing with less than 10mV initial magnitude at turn-off.

Having that 10µF capacitor I mentioned on the USB connector board would have eliminated most transients from the USB output. A common-mode choke does you no good when there is no load attached to close the loop.

For Comparison's Sake

Here is the output from my 2012 Nexus 7's original AC adapter. The thing is over three years old, has been plugged in nearly 24/7 all along, yet still produces output with negligible ripple, negligible ringing and 30mV_PP transients under 1A load.

Genuine OEM adapters usually carry high premium prices as replacement parts or accessories. But some of them are legitimately over-engineered. The LX1500's USB output is almost that good, at least for now.

The Main Board

There are four distinct areas on the circuit board: the low-power, low-voltage control area with the daughterboard and output current-sensing transformer in the top-right corner; the line voltage section with AVR/bypass relays and four 14mm MOVs in the bottom-right corner; the UPS' internal power supply, which also provides charging in the bottom-left corner; and the inverter bridge in the top-left to drive the transformer. All electrolytic capacitors come from Su'scon and include the low-voltage HG series, UX for the battery charger output and SE for the mains input.

The only EMI filtering provided by this UPS is what it needs to suppress noise from its own power supply.

Main PCB Bottom

Soldering quality looks good across the board. Aside from a bucket of resistors, capacitors, some diodes and transistors, its residents also include three 817-style photocouplers. One of those couplers is used for the charger's feedback loop and the two others drive the inverter's MOSFETs.

Driving 1500VA out of the transformer requires pushing nearly 70A. If you have no idea what this translates to in terms of circuit board layout, here is a hint: it is not subtle.

Some Delegation Required

The analog and digital magic required to bring the LX1500 to life requires higher circuit density than what can be accommodated on a single-sided board. Instead of making the main board double-sided and finding space for these components, CyberPower put them on a riser card.

What is on there? A microcontroller, a pair of 324 quad op-amps, a buzzer and a linear regulator on the front. The back side is covered in the usual complement of resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors.

Standby Power

How much power does an EnergyStar UPS draw while doing nothing? The LX1500 had a few hours to top off its batteries and the initial 40W died down to 8.8W. To meet EnergyStar UPS requirements, a UPS must have 96.7 percent weighed average efficiency across 25, 50, 75 and 100 percent load test points weighed 0.2, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.3, respectively. With 8.8W of internal power draw and 5W of weighed wiring losses, the LX1500 should achieve an overall efficiency of 98.5 percent.

Output Waveform

If you were wondering what a "modified sine wave" with 46 percent of THD and 34 percent peak harmonic looked like, this is what the LX1500 produces. Its output goes to 190V with 40 percent duty cycle, which yields 125V_RMS with a slight amount of ringing at each transition. During battery operation, a slight buzzing can be heard from the transformer.

Why do some power supplies with APFC have trouble with this waveform? It is usually because their APFC controller shuts down or misbehaves when it detects a non-sinusoidal input. When the main converter is designed to expect APFC-boosted input voltage, losing the input boost may be sufficient to make it shut down. At 190V, though, most converters should have little trouble operating without it.

More Comparisons

The BX1000's electronic inverter produces perfectly flat plateaus at 160V with a 57 percent duty cycle resulting in 121V RMS. Here, what may look like ringing is actually a choke getting switched in and out to soften the slopes. In operation, the BX1000 generates a distinctly audible 120Hz buzz.

Two completely different implementations of the same general waveform, nearly identical results. But it's still looking good for a 10-year-old device. I just need to investigate why it's excessively sensitive to noise.

Non-PFC Current Waveform

Many people are wary of connecting electronic equipment to a modified sine wave UPS out of fear that the fast edges might damage input rectifiers or capacitors. I decided to have a look.

Here, I am using the SL300 supply I repaired a few months ago to power a 15-foot 12V 80W LED strip. While intuition may spontaneously dictate that the "square wave" plotted in dark green should have worse peak current than smooth AC plotted in dark red, practice shows that flat tops keep capacitors charged longer than AC peaks do. With capacitors having less time to discharge between pulses, peaks remain of similar magnitude but much shorter duration.

Try to avoid connecting large iron core transformers (“linear adapters”) and AC motors to UPS though: the harmonics will greatly increase core losses.

APFC Current Waveform

Some people also believe that an APFC power supply requires a "pure sine wave" UPS. For this round, I used my PC as the load since its EA-650 is the only APFC supply I currently own. As a bonus, it is one of the pre-Green Delta-made EarthWatts models that allegedly had issues with modified sine wave UPS.

As expected under AC, the current follows line voltage, albeit a little noisily. Under battery power, though, the EA's APFC circuit does not skip a beat. The momentary peak at over 5A is caused by APFC trying to follow the rising edge. Once it figures out that the slope is too steep for a sine wave, it switches to boost regulator mode for the remainder of the pulse.

Shaving Pennies

To put it bluntly, I feel like the LX1500 was built down to a price. There's the power cord using #16 wires instead of #14, a 15A breaker instead of the breaker that matches the cord, surge-only outlets built like an afterthought, no EMI filtering for attached devices, LAN surge suppression done in the cheapest way possible with minimal concern for signal integrity and the same for coax protection.

On the plus side, the main reason most people buy a device like this is for battery backup, and in that department the LX1500 delivers: good batteries, good waveform (as far as modified sine waves go) and a status display that covers the essentials. Some people may take issue with Su'scon capacitors, but the brand does not appear to have been involved in notable capacitor failure events since 2006, so I'll take that to mean its capacitors are alright when used correctly, which seems to be the case here.

Would I recommend this UPS? Only, if you do not mind writing off the coax surge protection and possibly the network protection too. What do you, the readers, think? And what would you like to see us tear-down in the future?

MORE: SurgeX SA-1810 Tear-Down
MORE: Tripp-Lite isobar Surge Protector Tear-Down
MORE: Monster PowerCenter HT 800G Tear-Down

CyberpowerPC seemed like one of the few vendors at CES that marched to the beat of its own drum with the debut of the ProStreamer, but the company jumped on the all-in-one (AIO) gaming PC bandwagon when it announced the Archus 34, another curved-screen gaming AIO desktop that can be configured with up to Intel 6^th generation (Skylake) desktop processors and full-sized graphics cards.

The Archus 34 is very similar to the other AIO gaming PCs that made their debut at CES, particularly Origin PC’s Omni. Official specs for the Archus 34 aren’t yet available, but here’s what we do know:

The Archus supports mini-ITX motherboards and full-sized graphics cards, including up to an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X. In addition, the AIO can house a 120 mm closed loop liquid cooler. The Archus 34 is powered by a custom PSU that hasn’t been formally identified, but judging from the above picture, it appears to be 80 Plus Gold certified. There's also a detachable USB camera.

CyberpowerPC’s original estimation was that we would see the Archus 34 this January, but the company recently informed us that the product has been slated for release later this quarter.

Updated: 1/20/2016 3:47 PT: A change was made to remove a comparison to a different product.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

CyberpowerPC may have been following the rest of the pack with the release of its Archus 34 AIO gaming PC (it seems like everyone has one of those nowadays), but the company also debuted a new system at CES that seemed unique to the current market. The ProStreamer is two PCs in one: a dedicated mini-ITX streaming system and a high-performance micro-ATX gaming rig in one chassis using one power supply (and one water loop if you desire).

The ProStreamer is aimed at amateur and professional streamers and is intended to be a solution to a problem. The company explained that most professional streamers use a dedicated streaming system due to heavy CPU usage from some games and many video encoding devices. Streaming from the same system often results in reduced performance, so serious streamers started buying large and powerful companions rigs that were dedicated to their game-broadcasting workloads. CyberpowerPC wanted to make streaming easy and affordable to the masses by combining a high-performance gaming PC and a dedicated streaming system into a single, preconfigured package.

The company also sort of let the cat out of the bag concerning streaming system hardware requirements – streaming doesn’t require extreme graphics configurations or high memory capacities in order to be effective. It relies primarily on the host processor. Delegating that workload to a dedicated system makes for a much smoother gaming experience and stream quality.

The ProStreamer’s mini-ITX PC can be configured with an Intel Core i3-6100, i5-6500 or i7-6700 processor, but that is the only configurable option in the streaming system. An H110 chipset, a 128 GB SSD, an Avermedia capture card and 8 GB of DDR4-2133 are non-negotiable features of the streaming half of the rig.

However, even minimally equipped with a Core i3 processor, Cyberpower PC believes the streaming component of the ProStreamer features adequate horsepower to produce lag-free broadcasting (if you have equally-sufficient broadband Internet). In addition, the company said that the ProStreamer is ready to start streaming to services such as Twitch or YouTube Games right out of the box and is preloaded with OBS and XSPLIT.

Here are the three baseline configurations for Cyberpower PC’s ProStreamer-series gaming PCs:

The micro ATX PC is much more customizable than the mini-ITX streaming system; the gaming rig can be configured with Intel Z170 or X99 chipsets, increased memory and storage capacities and speeds, multiple graphics cards (including closed-loop liquid cooled GPUs), custom water cooling loops, LED fans and custom SLI bridges (from EVGA and MSI). The micro-ATX system can be the beast of your dreams (if you have the cash flow) or the budget build you need to get into the streaming game.

At its core, CyberpowerPC’s ProStreamer series is nothing more than a Phanteks Mini XL dual-system case preconfigured with a streaming PC and a gaming rig. A determined DIY enthusiast could attempt to recreate the ProStreamer with their own hand-picked parts, but CyberpowerPC seems to be one of the only companies even offering to build a dual-system streaming solution, and not everyone who streams is a seasoned system builder. The product solves a particular problem for a particular market segment, albeit a still fairly untested one.

The ProStreamer seems like it could either be the next big thing or the next big fad, and CyberpowerPC may be the first to test the two-in-one streaming system waters. With the popularity of streaming and eSports rising, it may yet pay off.

The ProStreamer series is available now at CyberpowerPC’s website, and it starts at a price of $1,899.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Cyberpower PC unveiled the Fangbook 4 series gaming laptops, and they come in three different flavors: SX, SK-X and Xtreme-series. Each of the Fangbook 4 laptops feature an RGB-illuminated keyboard and a sleek design that seems to offer increased airflow, and they run on the latest 6^th generation Intel (Skylake) processors.

Fangbook 4 SX Series

The Fangbook 4 SX-series offers six different laptop gaming systems:

The Fangbook 4 SX series laptops feature either 15.6 (SX6 models) or 17.3-inch (SX7 models) LCD displays with a 1920 x 1080 resolution (except for the 3840 x 2160 15.6-inch laptop, the SX6-4K). All of the notebooks sport an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor seated in an HM170 platform, 8 GB or 16 GB of DDR4-2133 memory, and either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M (4 GB) or GTX 970M (3 GB) graphics card. At a starting price of $1,185 and a high of $1,629, these SX-series gaming laptops seem to be the Fangbook 4’s entry level.

Fangbook 4 SK-X And Xtreme Series

The SK-X and Xtreme-series notebooks take the Fangbook 4 systems to a new level. All of them feature 16 GB of DDR4-2133, 250 GB Samsung SSDs, 1 TB HDDs, either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M or 980M graphics card, and an unlocked Intel Core i7 processor.

The SK-X-series notebooks sport an overclockable Intel Core i7-6820HK processor on an Intel CM236 chipset and a 1920 x 1080 IPS G-Sync display; the Xtreme-series laptops feature unlocked desktop processors in the form of the i5-6600K and i7-6700K powered on a Z170 platform with a 15.5-inch 3840 x 2160 G-Sync display.

The Fangbook 4 seems to pick up where the Fangbook III left off, offering updated 6^th generation Intel (Skylake) Core-series mobile and desktop processors. The top of the line in the Fangbook 4 series doesn’t exceed $2,300, and it seems CyberpowerPC’s new lineup is aimed at enthusiast gamers that desire high visual fidelity in a laptop without diving into the often-expensive realm of desktop-class GPUs and SLI configurations.

The Fangbook 4-series gaming laptops are available now from CyberpowerPC’s website, and they can be further customized with increased storage (capacity, speed and type) and RAM.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

The prototype we saw back at CES is now a real thing. CyberPowerPC has introduced a new gaming PC called Trinity. What makes this setup stand out among the competition is that it features a three-blade form factor instead of the typical rectangle PC case. And while the Trinity PC looks like a spaceship and should dazzle all onlookers, it's purposely designed to separate certain components from each other so that the entire Trinity rig stays extremely cool.

The company explained that the "Performance Blade" includes the graphics card on one side and several optional SSDs on the other. The "Storage Blade" houses the ATX power supply, up to three SSDs, two hard drives and an optical drive. The "CPU Blade" should speak for itself. It supports mini ITX motherboards (Intel and AMD versions are available), and it's also obviously where the memory is stored. The Trinity offers up to 16 GB of DDR3 RAM.

The Trinity case itself, the DeepCool Tristellar, provides two 12-inch graphics card slots and support for a 120 mm radiator. The front I/O panel includes two USB 3.0 ports, one 3.5 mm headphone jack and one 3.5 mm microphone jack. The case also provides two 3.5-inch drive bays, three 2.5-inch drive bays and a single slot-load bay for a slim optical drive. The case also supports an ATX PS2 full-length power supply.

CyberPowerPC is offering the Trinity gaming PC in three models, all three of which will come with Windows 8.1. These include the Trinity 100 with a starting price of $955; the Trinity 200 with a starting price of $1,339; and the Trinity Extreme, which starts at $1,795. Here are the base specs of each:

Keep in mind that the specs shown above are simply the base configurations, and customers can choose different components for an added price. For instance, customers buying the Trinity 100 have a list of seven AMD CPUs to choose from. The memory can be expanded to 16 GB, and the available GPU list is quite long. The same holds true for the power supply and storage options.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Round Three: The Usual Suspects

Our laundry list for today features the following:

• TrippLite's TL604, $11
• CyberPower's CSB404, $10
• APC's P74-CN, $12

Those prices were valid when I started putting this article together. All three models have gone up by a few dollars, likely to pad margins on Thanksgiving and Boxing Day discounts.

Overall expectations are much higher in this third round. Let's get to it, shall we?

Our Seventh Contestant: CyberPower's CSB404

The smallest unit, sporting only four outlets, CyberPower's is also the only one with a rubbery cap on its power plug. Aside from the UL sticker, writing on the back contains the usual dry-location and no daisy-chaining warnings, along with the 500V surge suppression rating across any two conductors.

I would have preferred to get the CSB604, which was only $1 more, for this tear-down. But it would not ship from the same NewEgg warehouse as the other four, so I picked the CSB404 as a stand-in.

CyberPower's Packaging

CyberPower's front packaging is easily the most barren of the three bars, with little more than than the brand, product name, image and basic features. The unit promises a $25,000 protection warranty with 450J worth of surge suppression. Its side panel adds that the suppression can handle surges up to 7500A and mentions some degree of noise reduction from 150kHz through 100MHz.

Inside The CyberPower

Once again, we are greeted with the familiar outlet and metal strip arrangement. Here, though, we find a PCB soldered top-down on the breaker switch, which has only two terminals. It lacks the neutral connection an illuminated switch would require for power.

CyberPower's PCB

The soldering looks about as good as it is going to get. Getting a nice solder joint on thick metal tabs can be difficult, and part of the reason why they look crooked is because the breaker's tabs have been bent slightly to prevent it from popping off the PCB during soldering. The live and neutral switch islands come awfully close to each other without isolation slots, though that shouldn't be an issue until after the live-neutral MOV fails.

With the breaker being a panel-mount snap-in, getting the PCB out of there is going to require some extra work...

Some Desoldering Required

This is one of those occasions where I wish I had an SMD rework heat-gun: warm up both tabs and pull the PCB off. But I don't, so solder wick it is.

Managing to wick out enough solder from the cut-outs took much longer than expected due to the tabs holding solder in their wiring eyelets. The bent tabs did not help make extraction any easier, either.

CyberPower's Components

Once the PCB pops off the breaker, we get to see a fairly simple component arrangement with the three expected GNR 14D201K MOVs, a WTC thermal shut-off for live-ground and neutral-ground, the live-neutral MOV's thermal shut-off and a 22nF X-cap providing basic noise filtering. It's not exactly the most impressive EMI filter, but still better than nothing.

CyberPower's Switch

Here is CyberPower's breaker switch. You can see how one of the tabs is somewhat bent. It's not much, but still notable enough to make extraction tricky, as if those tabs' solder-thieving holes were not enough. This breaker switch simply gets snap-fitted to the bar's housing like almost all of the other bars so far.

CyberPower's Strip Connections

As far as soldered or welded strip connections go, it does not get much cleaner than this. The way strands are tightly packed together with intact plating says this was a spot-welded with just the right amount of power. There are no loose or broken strands either.

As you can see, CyberPower used winged-type contacts. If you are curious about strip dimensions, the power and neutral strips are 5.5mm wide by 0.5mm thick, while the ground strip is 4.5mm wide by 0.4mm thick after subtracting holes. This is roughly on par for power and slightly chunkier than average for ground.

Our Eighth Contestant: Tripp-Lite's TL604P

Instead of reiterating everything that's practically the same as the other bars so far, let's focus on what is different about this one. There's a little extra shoulder area to better accommodate an adapter brick and a protection status LED. This is the first bar with such an indicator. Also, molding on the back mentions a full set of line-to-line surge protections rated somewhat on the high side at 500V, so we can expect at least three MOVs.

Tripp-Lite's Packaging

Another fairly modest front side. There's not much to say when most of the product is fully exposed anyway. The back more verbosely reiterates the 790 joules surge protection, $20,000 equipment protection and lifetime warranty. Time to take a look at what this translates to inside.

Tripp-Lite's Y-Wings

The TLP604 is the only other bar in this round-up to use security screws of some sort (in this case, the tri-wing or Y1 type). We're presented with yet another occasion to justify tool hoarding.

Trip Inside The Tripp-Lite

TrippLite's layout is similar to CyberPower's, with the PCB soldered directly on the breaker's terminal. And since this one has a switch illuminator, it has the third (neutral) terminal to power it. For some odd reason, Tripp-Lite decided to bring the live wire half-way down the outlet strip instead of connecting near the tip.

Tripp-Lite's PCB

If you like nice and shiny solder jobs on clean PCBs, you might want to avert your eyes. There is a generous quantity of solder flux all over the board, and most leads have blobtastic solder jobs. Fortunately, soldering does not need to look pretty to get the job done.

I am not going to solder-wick this one.

Trippy Spying

From what I can glean from the sides, the live-neutral protection has two GNR 14D471K MOVs and a third blue MOV further back that I can't identify. The main shut-off fuse is sandwiched between the orange and blue MOVs, so I would hazard a guess that the blue MOV has a lower clamping voltage. I could not read the live-ground and neutral-ground MOVs' models, but they also have one each (as expected).

Pinched

Safety codes generally tell people not to use extensions and appliances with damaged power cords. Here, the bar's cable got pinched clean through right at the housing's outer edge when it was assembled. You can see the wires' paper wrap through the hole.

Barely Visible

With the enclosure nearly closed, the nicked cable area is barely visible.

This is one of those cases when trying to file a warranty claim technically proves that you voided your warranty. When I mailed Tripp-Lite about the issue, I was told the company's engineering department would look into it.

Skewy Trippy

Here is more proof that no manufacturer is immune to slip-ups: the tip of that ground strip has a few extra bends to it. While that may not affect performance, it does complicate keeping the strip in place for (re-)assembly.

The TLP604's power strips are 5.2mm wide by 0.5mm thick, while the ground strip is 3.7mm wide by 0.4mm thick, placing both at the chunkier end of the scale.

On Second Thought...

As I was re-arranging the rest of this article to form a third part, I had a change of heart about desoldering Tripp-Lite's entry. The tabs looked straight, after all.

Indeed, the task turned out much easier than getting into CyberPower's unit since the tab holes were far enough below the PCB to not draw solder in. Liberal use of solder flux also helped.

Tripp-Lite's Components

Here are those components I almost didn't dig out. The live-neutral protection comprises two 14D471K MOVs (orange) and one 14D201K (blue), while the neutral-ground has a lone 14D201K and the live-ground has a single 14D471K. The PCB clearly contains a footprint for a 47-100nF X-rated capacitor. Tripp-Lite decided to go with a tiny 1nF Mylar capacitor instead, so no EMI filtering happens.

Hanging By A Thread

Do you see that jumper wire above the 'N'? This is the wire that connects the MOVs to the power cord's neutral line. Above and further to the left is the “Protection Working” LED's anode wire. Does anyone else find it ironic that a LED wire, which carries less than 0.02A, is twice as thick as a jumper wire that may need to bear 3000A during a surge?

Obviously, this piece of wire (and an identical one on the ground side) is intended to serve as a fuse. Tripp-Lite must have calculated them to be sufficient for the surges this bar is intended to cope with. The company could have gone even cheaper by simply using a narrow PCB trace and extra separation between copper islands.

Our Ninth Contestant: APC's P74-CN

This wasn't strictly the cheapest APC unit on NewEgg. But it was only $0.50 more expensive than the six-outlet variant at the time of purchase, so I decided to get the seven-outlet model.

It's the only unit in our round-up with a recessed switch and a wiring fault indicator. Like the Tripp-Lite, it also features a wall-wart-friendly elongated bottom pad.

What APC's Packaging Says

The P74 is the largest unit of today's hoard, it comes in the thickest and biggest cardboard of the bunch, and it's the only one with a packaging window. APC spared no expense on wrapping this thing up. The marketing department went nuts, filling nearly every available square centimeter with neatly formatted fine print.

Specifications include a 840-joule surge rating, which is the highest of the lot, and a $50,000 equipment protection warranty (also the highest).

APC's Label

Language discrimination strikes again. French-speaking users only need to worry about keeping the power bar dry, while English-speaking users also need to be wary of aquariums and plugging power bars into other power bars.

If you were looking for a UL logo or sticker on this particular model (as I was), you will not find any since it carries a CSA mark instead.

APC's Bonus Content

Of the nine units we're comparing, Diamond and APC are the only two vendors that include some form of outlet covers. With APC's offering, you get four branded caps instead of mechanical shutters.

Inside Yet Another APC Product

This is the last unit of the day and its general layout is, unsurprisingly, similar to nearly every other bar. That PCB does look busier though, as you might expect from the presence of a wiring fault indicator.

APC's PCB

In my modern-day SurgeArrest tear-down, some readers expressed doubts about the soldering quality, suggesting the possibility of receiving a curated review sample. Well, our P74-CN came straight from NewEgg and the soldering on it looks every bit as good as the review sample I received from APC back then.

APC's Components

APC's PCB is fully populated. On the bottom-left, we have the wiring fault circuitry, while the protection-good circuitry resides in the top-right corner. The top-left holds a 100nF X-cap for basic EMI filtering, and the MOVs are tied to their respective thermal shut-off with thick shrink-tubing.

Lifting APC's Skirts

Since I couldn't see part numbers with those tubes on, I decided to pull them off. I was expecting to see different MOVs used for live-ground, due to the 500V rating, but all three turn out to be GNR 20D201K.

Toasty

Since MOVs fail by either increased leakage current, dropping varistor voltage or shorting, they need thermal shutoffs to cut power after they fail. However, those fuses do not operate instantaneously, so a failing MOV may still catch on fire or explode before then. This piece of flame-resistant cardboard prevents MOVs from burning or blowing out straight through the top, helping contain catastrophic failures (hopefully) long enough for the fuses to blow and flame retardants in surrounding materials to put the fire out.

APC's Strips

And here are our last strips of the trip, which employ spot-welding to attach the wires. The welds look good except for one loose strand on the ground wire.

As far as dimensions are concerned, the power strips are reasonably chunky at 6.5mm wide by 0.45mm thick, while the ground strips are slightly better than average at 3.5mm by 0.4mm.

Third Round's Winner

CyberPower's unit lacks isolation slots on its PCB, and has neither power nor protection status indicator. With a retail price of $10, there are too many missing features to compete with other $10-15 units.

Tripp-Lite serves up a good PCB design if you do not mind flux all over the board. However, I am marking this bar down for its kinked ground strip, pinched cord jacket and missing X-cap.

This leaves APC's unit. It has practically all of the features you could expect from a budget surge protector, no obvious design or manufacturing flaws and cost practically the same as the other two entries at the time of purchase, making it an easy pick.

Best Value For Your Money

After wrapping up the third round, one fact became abundantly clear: none of the units from the first two rounds belong here. Apart from the Belkin we saw in round two, which deserves a thumbs-up for its MOV safety, the others are only marginally better than Sunbeam's solution from round one. The Diamond may also deserve somewhat of a mention for its shuttered outlets if that feature alone is worth more than $5 to you.

I suppose I am not going to surprise anyone by saying that, out of the nine units I looked into, APC's P74 wins overall. It can still be found for around $12, which is about the same (if not cheaper) than most other brands' nearest equivalent units lacking some of its features.

If the extra bells and whistles are not your thing, then Tripp-Lite and CyberPower also deserve honorable mentions if you can find them for cheaper than APC's first-place finisher.

Power Strip Wrap-Up

What do you get after leaving a bunch of power bars in various stages of (dis-)assembly on your bench? One rightful mess.

Here are my main take-away points for this story:

1. Beware of dollar-store power bars if you did not already
2. Every manufacturer can have a Bad Fur Day
3. If you are going to spend $10 or more on a surge-protecting bar for electronic equipment, stick to companies involved with power and power-related accessories as a core business
4. Belkin really surprised me with its use of flame-resistant fabric hoods

Everyone knows that old adage saying you get what you pay for. But when you see such a broad quality and feature range around the $10 mark, you gain a lot from looking beyond the price tag.

At CES 2015, Deepcool (a Chinese manufacturer of cases, cooling components and PSUs) launched a new chassis called the Tristellar, and it features a rather unique design that is truly unlike anything we've seen before.

The chassis is split into three separate compartments, and contrary to what you might expect, it's actually a quite logical arrangement. One of the compartments can house a Mini-ITX motherboard and a 120 mm liquid cooler, while another could contain the power supply, a pair of 3.5-inch hard drives and a slim slot-loading optical drive. Meanwhile, the third compartment can support a full-size dual-slot graphics card and three 2.5-inch hard drives.

All of the cabling is routed through the center piece which holds all three compartments together. What's more, each section also has its own air-flow loop, ensuring that none of the heat from the CPU or motherboard will interfere with the graphics card, or vice versa.

However, the Tristellar isn't the most practical case we've ever seen. It should prove quite difficult to build in, and servicing it is sure to be a pain, as it's built out of heavier-gauge steel than we're used to seeing — about 50 pounds with an assembled system inside — and the three compartment covers are also difficult to remove. 

But the idea behind this case isn't practicality; it's meant to be a piece of art, and to show off what Deepcool is capable of designing.

Despite using steel instead of aluminum to save on the build cost, the Tristellar will nevertheless be rather pricy. Deepcool hasn't settled on final pricing yet, but the company has indicated that it won't be cheap, possibly costing upwards of $400 or even $500.

Additionally, system builder CyberPowerPC is using the Tristellar chassis to build a system it calls the Trinity. It was built as a showy prototype, and the company told us that the case it had on display was one of only two in existence. Because the internal hardware configuration wasn't yet finalized, the company also couldn't give an indication on pricing. It did, however, value the case at about $369 by itself. Let's try not to think too hard about how much all the tasty components inside the Trinity might add up to.

One thing we'd like to point out about a case like this is that companies don't build them to make money. They cost too much to design and to build, and they never sell in mass quantities. What they do accomplish, however, is draw attention to a brand. Knowing that a company is capable of designing a statement case does say something about what it does in more sensible spaces. It doesn't say everything, but it certainly says something.

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On Friday, CyberPower Inc. introduced a new gaming notebook called the Fangbook III HX6. The default configuration includes a fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce graphics and a 15.6-inch Full HD LED-backlit screen. The starting price is a not-too-shabby $1095.

The list of base specifications show that the notebook features an Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M graphics card with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and 8 GB of DDR3-1600 memory (16 GB maximum). The notebook also provides a 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drive, Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and a full-size keyboard with red backlighting.

It also sports Supreme HD Audio with THX Studio Pro technology backed by a premium stereo speaker system. Other features include gigabit Ethernet, a 2-in-1 SD card reader, an HDMI port, a 2MP webcam, two USB 2.0 ports and three USB 3.0 ports. The Fangbook III HX6 runs a 64-bit edition of Windows 8.1 and runs on a 6-cell Lithium-ion battery.

As a Halloween special, customers can upgrade the CPU to an Intel Core i7-4810MQ (2.80 GHz, 3.80 GHz) for free. Want to pay $874 more? That price will land customers with an Intel Core i7-4940MX Extreme processor (3.10 GHz, 4.00 GHz). The company also offers the Intel Core i7-4910MQ (2.90 GHz, 3.90 GHz) for $330 as an option.

In addition to the CPU, CyberPower allows customers to upgrade the memory (Corsair, G.Skill), add a mSATA SSD drive, and choose their storage option from a plethora of HDDs and SSDs. For instance, the 1 TB Samsung 850 Pro Series SATA 3 SSD will run customers an additional $774, and an overclocked 480 GB Intel 730 Series SSD will cost $540.

This new notebook includes an automatic "kickstand" that props up the rear edge of the notebook, which allows air to flow freely to the intakes mounted on the bottom of the laptop. The Fangbook also sports a black and red color scheme along with red lighting on the lid and around the touchpad. The lighting will enter into a breathing mode when the laptop goes to sleep.

For the price, the new Fangbook seems to be a great deal, especially during the company's Halloween Mega Sale. Customers looking for a new gaming laptop can head here and configure the device based on their budget. Be careful though: the pricetag can reach past $3500.

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CYBERPOWERPC subsidiary SYBER introduced the Vapor Xtreme gaming console packed with Nvidia's freshly-baked GeForce GTX 980 graphics card. This "console" could have been deemed as a Steam Machine had it included SteamOS and the Steam Controller; however, this machine arrives with Windows 8.1 (64-bit) and Logitech's F710 Wireless Gamepad, and it boots directly into Steam's Big Picture mode.

"Thanks to the use of standard off the shelf components, with the SYBER Vapor line of PC Gaming consoles, you will never be locked in to your hardware specifications and experience degraded performance as games become more demanding," the press release said.

The specifications show that the default configuration includes Intel's quad-core Core i7-4790K clocked at 4 GHz, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980 with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, 8 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz memory and a 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drive. Powering this "console" is a 450 watt power supply.

The "Xtreme" model also comes equipped with one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports and an audio/microphone jack on the front. On the back, the device includes headphone and SPDIF HD audio jacks, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI 4.1 output and a DVI-D port. There's also a Gigabit Ethernet port for connecting to a wired network, and it has Wireless N connectivity.

If the cost of the Vapor Xtreme is out of your price range for a console, the company also offers the Vapor A for $599.99. This model includes an AMD Athlon X4 740 CPU clocked at 3.2 GHz, an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, 4 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz memory and a 500 GB SATA 3 hard drive. This rig is powered by a 250 watt power supply, and it comes with Windows 8.1 and the Logitech controller.

There's also the Vapor I, which costs $100 more than the "A" model. This machine packs an Intel Core i3 processor clocked at 3.5 GHz and Nvidia's Geforce GTX 750Ti with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Other hardware features include 8 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz memory, a 1 TB SATA 3 hard drive and a 250 watt power supply. Like the other two, this "console" includes Windows 8.1 and the Logitech controller.

The company also stresses that customers can modify the base configuration through CYBERPOWER PC's VenomX service. Customers can change the CPU and the graphics card, add memory and more. However, the SYBER website shows the Vapor Xtreme as "coming soon" whereas the other two can be pre-purchased now. The release date for the Vapor I and Vapor A is October 27, 2014.

The company points out that Vapor Xtreme will be ready for the Linux-based SteamOS platform whenever it becomes available, meaning this console is waiting patiently to become an official Steam Machine. But don't expect that to happen until 2015, as Valve is currently trying to spit-polish the Steam Controller for mass consumption.

That said, you can download SteamOS already, but Valve recommends that the majority of gamers wait until the platform is ready for the general public.

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Our sweepstakes, which ran over the last couple of weeks (and you may have seen on the last page of our full Haswell-E review), has concluded, and one lucky reader is about to get a very large box on his doorstep. Congratulations to Joseph Rios for beating out thousands of other entrants to win a CyberPowerPC Black Pearl rig!

CyberPowerPC outfitted the sweepstakes prize Black Pearl with a six-core Intel Core i7-5820K (Haswell-E) processor, which is nestled into an EVGA X99 ATX motherboard and cooled by an Asetek 570 LXL 240 mm Liquid Cooling Extreme Performance CPU cooler. There's also an EVGA Superclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (3 GB GDDR5) on board, and the PSU is the EVGA 750 Watt 80 PLUS Certified Ultra Quiet.

For storage, CyberPowerPC went with a zippy 256 GB Intel 730 Series (SATA 6 Gbp/s) SSD paired with a 2 TB (SATA 6 Gbp/s) 7200 RPM HDD, and there's a 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR4-2133 MHz quad-channel memory kit, too.

The system comes with Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-bit) as well as a free 30-day trial of Office 365. The whole schmeer is wrapped in a special black and red NZXT H440 chassis.

Congrats to Mr. Rios!

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A long-awaited day has come, Internet: Intel has lifted the embargo on its new Haswell-E processors, and with it the wraps come off of its associated X99 chipset. Of course, we have the goods to share with our in-depth review of all three new Haswell-E chips, which is also replete with details on the X99.

Of Intel's three new SKU's, two are K-series and one is an Extreme Edition, so overclockers can have their way. They drop into a new socket (LGA 2011-3) and offer support for DDR4 memory.

The flagship chip is the Core i7-5960X ($1,000), an eight-core beast clocked at 3.0 GHz (3.5 GHz Turbo) that boasts 40 PCI-E lanes (at 8 GT/s) and a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller (2133 MT/s). Built on the 22 nm process, the 5960X has a TDP of 140 W.

The two six-core Haswell-E chips, the Core i7-5930K ($538) and Core i7-5820K ($389), are clocked at 3.5/3.7 GHz and 3.3/3.6 GHz, respectively, and the latter sports 28 PCI-E lanes instead of 40.

As always, processor and chipset releases bring with them a slew of new products, and we'll be covering them all as they arrive; get ready for a deluge of new motherboards and refreshed boutique gaming systems from all the usual suspects.

With this Haswell-E release, there's more big news than normal, as widespread DDR4 support is now here, too, and therefore a number of DDR4 RAM kits are dribbling out into the market. 

Finally, Tom's Hardware is partnering with CyberPowerPC for a full-system sweepstakes giveaway -- a CyberPowerPC Black Pearl with an Intel Core i7-5820K six-core processor, an EVGA X99 ATX motherboard, and a tricked-out NZXT H440 chassis. You can find all the giveaway details here.

Stay tuned.

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It’s early in the day, but CyberPowerPC has already announced that it’s refreshing its entire lineup of custom rigs with Intel’s new Haswell-E processors and X99-based motherboards.

A base configuration for a CyberPowerPC system rolling with an Intel X99-based motherboard and a Haswell-E processor starts at $1,699 and features an Intel Core i7-5820K processor, MSI X99 SLI, Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 GPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, 2TB 7200 HDD, Blu-ray combo drive and an 800W PSU.

If you opt for a FANG III full-tower gaming rig, you can also grab yourself a custom liquid cooling system.

The three Intel chips available in CyberPowerPC systems are the Intel Core i7-5820K (six cores, twelve threads, 3.3 GHz/3.9 GHz Turbo), Intel Core i7-5930K (six cores, twelve threads, 3.5 GHz/4.0 GHz Turbo), and the Intel Core i7-5960X (eight cores, 3.0 GHz).

Systems sporting the new gear are available today.

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Looking for a powerful gaming laptop that won’t break the bank? CyberPower Inc. unleashed the Raven X6, a gaming notebook packed with Nvidia graphics and an Intel "Haswell" processor. Available now, the pricing starts at $1,199, which isn’t too shabby for the base hardware you get.

The base specs for this new gaming laptop include a 15.6-inch LED-backlit IPS screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. Backing the display is Intel’s Core i7-4710HQ processor, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 860M GPU with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and 8 GB of DDR3-1600 RAM (1x 8 GB). All of this is powered by a Li-ion battery and the Windows 8.1 operating system.

Also thrown into the default mix is a 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 3 hard drive, an HD webcam, dual digital microphones, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, a 4-in-1 card reader and more. The laptop also sports built-in macro keys and a backlit keyboard so that you’re not hunting keys in the middle of the night.

“By leveraging the latest processor technology from Intel and Nvidia, the Raven X6 sips very little power from the socket until you need it,” the press release said. “That’s when Nvidia Optimus Technology, and Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology kick in to send your computer into overdrive to power through games and applications that require more performance.”

So what can you customize? Not much, really. Customers can choose to add an mSATA SSD from the likes of ADATA, Intel and Samsung, and replace the current hard drive with an SSD. The 1 TB Samsung 850 Pro Series SATA 3 SSD costs an extra $774, and a 1 TB Samsung 840 EVO mSATA SSD costs $573 extra. The memory can be upgraded too to 16 GB (2x 8 GB).

Gamers purchasing this laptop will qualify for one of two Nvidia software bonuses: Free To Play, which includes credits for Warface, Path of Exile and Heroes of Newerth, or a free copy of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The Borderlands game won’t arrive until October 14 here in North America.

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On Tuesday, CyberPower Inc. announced the release of its Zeusbook Edge X6, a thin and light notebook packed with Intel's fourth-generation Core i7 mobile processor and Nvidia graphics. CyberPower reports that the notebook is its thinnest and lightest to date, measuring a mere 0.82 inches thin and weighing 4.75 pounds.

The specs show that this gaming laptop has a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 170-degree viewing angles, and a 72 percent color gamut. Backing this screen is an Intel Core i7-4710HQ Haswell processor and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M with 6 GB of VRAM. Keeping all of this cool is the company’s Supra-Cool cooling system featuring dual fans and heat sinks.

In addition, the new laptop includes 8 GB of DDR3 memory, a 1 TB hard drive and Wireless N and Bluetooth connectivity. On the left side, CyberPower provides a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone jacks, and an SD card reader. On the right side are two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, VGA, and mini DisplayPort outputs. The optical drive is crammed into the front. CyberPower includes Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater.

The laptop also provides a backlit keyboard, illuminated by LEDs, and it uses a light sensor to automatically adjust the brightness depending on the environment. The Windows key can also be turned off so that gamers aren't accidentally pulling up the Start Screen/Desktop.

"The Zeusbook Edge X6 is a loaded warrior that features Nvidia Optimus Technology combined with the power efficiency of the 4th Generation Intel Core i7 mobile processor," according to CyberPower's press release. "The duo works to prolong battery life and manage performance under different usage scenarios, whether it be doing battle in your favorite game, streaming video, or tackling your next big school assignment."

The starting price for CyberPower's new laptop is $1399. Memory can be upgraded to 16 GB, and customers can choose from a long list of mSATA SSDs, regular SSDs and hard drives if 1 TB isn't enough storage. There's also a dual-band option and several external sound options.

For more information about the new gaming laptop, head here.

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CyberPowerPC has launched a new SFF configurator for custom built PCs. For these systems, CyberPowerPC has options for the BitFenix Prodigy, the Corsair Obsidian 250D, the Fractal Design Node 304, along with a Fang BattleBox. Because these are all Mini-ITX cases, the systems also come with Mini-ITX motherboards. As a result, expansion options will be limited to a single graphics card, but for a small form factor system that's okay. These days, all the other hardware such as good sound cards and network cards are not necessary anymore as the onboard hardware is quite good.

For hardware configurations, there are plenty of options ranging from entry-level AMD systems to high-end Intel Core i7 configurations. There are more options for graphics cards than you will ever need as well. Be sure to check our Best Graphics Cards for the Money and Best CPUs for the Money guides while you're configuring a system for yourself. If you need more help picking components, you can check out our How to Build a Gaming PC Guide.

Getting a PC built by a company like this is a good option for those of you who are not as comfortable building a PC yourself but want to be able to pick specific components. It will cost you a little more, but you will also get a warranty on the entire system rather than only on individual components. CyberPowerPC ships the systems with a three-year warranty.

You can find the configurator in its different starting flavors at CyberPowerPC's website.

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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.

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Looking for a PC gaming solution in an ultra-small form factor? CyberPower may have what you're looking for in the form of the FANG Mini series, measuring just 4.5 x 4.3 x 2.4 inches. The FANG Mini R9 starts at $799 and the FANG Mini pro has a starting price of $889.

For starters, the FANG Mini R9 packs a quad-core AMD A8-5557M APU, Radeon R9 M275X graphics (2 GB GDDR5), 8 GB of DDR3L memory, a 1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive, Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and Windows 8.1.

As for the more expensive FANG Mini Pro, this mini PC includes the quad-core Intel Core i7-4770R processor, integrated Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200, 8 GB of DDR3L memory, a 1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive, Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and Windows 8.1.

Both models also include HDMI and Mini DisplayPort outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5 mm headphone jack with SPDIF support, and an integrated Kensington security slot. The two SO-DIMM DDR3L slots can be configured with up to 16 GB of memory, and there's an mSATA slot for an extra SSD. The 2.5-inch expansion bay can hold another SDD or hard disk drive.

CyberPower suggests that these two tiny gaming PCs would be ideal for a crowded entertainment center, or mounted on the back of a large display. They're even small enough to be easily carried to LAN parties (if you dare) without the hassles of dragging around a huge gaming machine.

For more information about the FANG Mini series, head here.

CyberPowerPC has announced a new series of pre-assembled PCs – the MEGA MINER series. This series of PCs is built with the purpose of scrypt-coin mining in mind.

The PCs will come in three models: the Mega Miner 100, 200, and 300. The cheapest model, the Mega Miner 100, is built using one of CyberPowerPC's own enclosures, and comes packed with an AMD FX-4300 CPU along with two AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics cards. Included is 4 GB of memory as well as a 500 GB hard drive.

The mid-tier model, the Mega Miner 200, is built using the same AMD FX-4300 processor, along with the same 4 GB of memory and a 500 GB hard drive. The difference comes in the graphics, as it carries a grand total of three AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics cards.

CyberPowerPC's top gun, the Mega Miner 300, is built using an Intel Core i3-4130 CPU, which comes wired to 4 GB of DDR3 memory along with a 1 TB hard drive. This machine comes packed with three AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics cards.

Both the Mega Miner 200 and Mega Miner 300 appear to be built using XFX's Type 1 Bravo PC enclosure. All three systems are built using one of Thermaltake's new PSUs, specifically of the DPS series, allowing users to interface with their power supply through software to monitor exactly how much power is being consumed, and more.

The Mega Miner 100, 200, and 300 are set to cost $989, $1929, and $2569, respectively. That said, we do feel that CyberPowerPC is a bit late to the bitcoin mining party…

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CyberpowerPC has launched a new line of small form factor PCs, the Zeus Mini desktop series. Customers looking for a lot of stomp in a small footprint can choose between three AMD "Kavari" A-Series processor models, or six Intel "Haswell" models. Pricing starts at $599 USD.

According to the company, all Zeus Mini models sport three standard USB 3.0 ports (two are in the front), HDMI 1.4 output for gaming on large screens, and a high-definition audio port, which includes digital S/PDIF.  They also support Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.

The specs also reveal that the chassis measures just 4.4 x 17.4 x 13 inches. Despite the small size, the internal components are easily swappable and upgradable thanks to a design that allows for standard PC components. Nope, there's no pretend console going on here.

"All CyberpowerPC systems are assembled and supported in the USA," reads the company's announcement. "Every system is meticulously built including precise cable routing to ensure optimal airflow and a clean aesthetic appearance. CyberpowerPC loads every system with Microsoft Windows 8.1 for an enhanced gaming and multimedia experience."

On the AMD front, the Zeus Mini-A 300 has a starting price of $1,079, and features the A10-7850K APU, an AMD R9 290 graphics card (4 GB), 16 GB of memory (8 GB x 2), a 2 TB hard drive (SATA 3), and an 8x slim DVD-RW. If the price is too steep, customers can also customize and purchase the Zeus Mini-A 200 with a starting price of $679, and the Zeus Mini-A 100 with a starting price of $599.

For the Intel fans, the Zeus Mini-I 780 is the most expensive of the series with a starting price of $1,479. This model comes packed with the Intel i7-4770K CPU, a Nvidia GTX 780 (3 GB) video card, 16 GB of RAM (8 GB x2), a 2 TB hard drive (SATA 3), and an 8x Slim DVD-RW drive. There are four other Intel models spanning in price from $659 to $1,099.

"The Zeus Mini more than doubles the cooling performance over standard SFF gaming systems with its ability to install 240mm liquid cooling solutions," reads the company's press release. "The extra cooling support ensures maximum performance and minimal heat and noise."

For more information about the new Zeus Mini series, head here.

CyberPowerPC showed the Fang Battle Box system at CES 2014. Does this rig have anything to do with Nvidia's Battlebox certification? Yes, it does.

As reported several months ago, Nvidia launched its "Battlebox" certification program with a number of partners to provide systems that can handle 4K gaming using Nvidia-based GPUs. CyberPowerPC is one of the Battlebox partners.

According to the company, CyberPowerPC took all that qualifying hardware and crammed it into a suitcase form factor. So not only is this new Fang Battle Box a certified Battlebox, but easy to carry off to a LAN party or some other event.

The specs show that this rig sports an mITX Z87 motherboard packed with Intel's Core i7-4770K CPU clocked at 3.5 GHz, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780 Ti GPU, and 16 GB of dual channel memory. The box supports up to GTX Titan/AMD 7990 sized video cards as well.

The Battle Box also includes a 120 GB SSD, a 1 TB hard drive, and 120 mm Cooler Master liquid cooling to keep the heat at bay. There's also an Ethernet port, Wireless AC and Bluetooth connectivity, a Corsair CX500 power supply, and a number of USB and output ports.

"The Battle Box is a mobile gaming system that features a one-of-a-kind design and is a full performance gaming rig that you can tote anywhere and everywhere," reads the company press release. "The compact gaming box features support for full size graphics cards including the AMD R9 series and Nvidia GTX 700 series."

The Fang Battle Box is scheduled for late Q1 / early Q2 release.

Where some vendors have aligned themselves to either AMD or Intel, CyberPowerPC has chosen to stay neutral and to make one of each. Designated simply as Steam Machine A (for AMD) and Steam Machine I (for Intel), both are in the more affordable side of the spectrum.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

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On Monday CyperPower revealed two Steam Machines powered by Valve’s Steam OS platform. These include one for the AMD fans and one for Intel customers. Both will arrive in a custom CyberPower Steam Machine gaming chassis.

"The revolutionary Steam OS will give you full control over your Steam game library straight from your living room. All Steam Machines will run the latest version of Steam OS, an open source Linux-based operating system developed specifically for gaming and other entertainment," the company said in a statement.

So let’s cut to the chase. The AMD version, Steam Machine A, will have a $499 price tag and come with an AMD A6-6400K APU clocked up to 3.90 GHz and mounted on an mITX motherboard. This machine will be backed by an AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB GDDR5 video card, a 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drive, and 8 GB of DDR3-1600 dual channel memory. Other features include Wireless AC and Bluetooth connectivity, and an included Steam controller.

Moving on to the Intel box, the Steam Machine I, this model will sport an Intel Core i3-4330 clocked up to 3.5 GHz and mounted on a mITX motherboard. Backing this processor will be a Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 card with 2 GB of GDDR3 memory, and the same 500 GB hard drive, same 8 GB of RAM and the same wireless connectivity.  This model will also come with a controller, but will cost a bit more at $699.

"The key hardware feature will be the Steam Controller, which features two circular, clickable trackpads with a touchscreen in the middle," reads the company press release. "Driven by the player's thumbs, the Steam Controller allows for higher fidelity than traditional gamepads, which makes it a better alternative to a mouse and keyboard for controlling PC-centric genres like strategy games and first-person shooters."

The company states that both models will be fully customizable when they become available in the second half of 2014.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

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CyberpowerPC said on Wednesday that its new Hadron AIR Gaming Rigs make no compromises, packing support for Haswell processors and full size GeForce GTX Titan or AMD R9 290X graphics cards in a mini-ITX form factor. These new PC gaming rigs measure just 6.6" wide x 12" high x 12.1" deep. Pricing starts at $599.

"The Hadron gaming desktop supports all mini ITX form factor motherboards with Intel's Z87 Chipset as the preferred choice for the Hadron 100i, 200i and 300i," reads the company press release. "Customers can select from nine Intel processors from the Intel Core i3-4130 3.40 GHz processor to a powerful "Haswell" Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50 GHz processor with 8MB Intel Smart Cache and Hyper Threading technology. CyberpowerPC also has the Hadron 100a featuring AMD A-series "APUs" and its FM2 socket A75 chipset."

The base configuration of the Hadron 100i Gaming PC includes an EGVA Hadron Air Chassis powered by a 500 watt 80+ Gold power supply. There's also an Intel Core i5-4440 processor clocked up to 3.10 GHz (3 MB Intel Smart Cache) and installed on an Intel Z87 Express Chipset motherboard. Other base specs include 8 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz memory, a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD, a 24X slot-loading DVD-RW, and Windows 8.1 64-bit. Pricing for this rig starts at $799.

The base configuration of the Hadron 100a Gaming PC includes an EGVA Hadron Air Chassis powered by a 500 watt 80+ Gold power supply. The rig also contains an AMD A8-6400K APU clocked at 3.90 GHz mounted on an AMD A75 Chipset Mainboard, AMD Radeon HD 8670D graphics and 4 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz memory. Additional specs include a 500 TB 7200 RPM HDD, a 24X slot-loading DVD-RW, and Windows 8.1 64-bit. This rig has a starting price of $599.

The company also offers two additional models: the Hadron Air 200i with a starting price of $1135, and the Hadron Air 300i with a starting price of $1589. All four models provide up to four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, DisplayPort output, DVI output, an eSATA port, Ethernet and optional Wireless networking, audio output and more.

"All CyberPowerPC systems are assembled and supported in the USA," states the company press release. "Every system is meticulously built including precise cable routing to ensure optimal airflow and a clean aesthetic appearance. CyberPowerPC loads every system with Microsoft Windows 8.1 for an enhanced gaming and multimedia experience. All CyberPowerPC desktop gaming systems include an industry-best 3-year limited warranty."

For more information about these new gaming rigs, head here.

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CyberPower said on Thursday that customers can now pre-purchase the "gaming bundle of the year", the Zeus Evo Lightning Battlefield 4 Edition gaming PC. This meaty rig has a starting price of $2169, packing AMD's new Radeon R9 290X and AMD processors like the FX-8350, 9370, or 9590. The PC also uses a black Corsair Obsidian Series 750D full tower case that appears to have a Battlefield 4 logo/soldier engraving on the solid, non-windowed side.

According to the base specs, this Battlefield 4 Edition PC packs a CrossFire-capable Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ motherboard supporting an AMD FX-8350 eight-core CPU clocked at 4 GHz, an AMD Radeon R9 290X PCIe 3.0 video card with 4 GB of VRAM, and 16 GB of DDR3-1600 dual channel memory (8 GB x 2). All of this is cooled by a CyberPower Xtreme Hydro 240MM liquid cooling kit with the XSPC Rasa 750 RS240.

Also crammed into this themed desktop is ADATA's Premier Pro SP900 128 GB SSD with read speeds up to 550 MB/s and write speeds up to 520 MB/s via a SATA 3 connection, and a 1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive connected to another SATA 3 port. There's also a 12x Blu-ray / DVD-RW combo optical drive from LG capable of 3D playback, on-board Gigabit Ethernet, on-board high-definition 7.1 audio, and an 850 watt Corsair Enthusiast Series TX850 V2 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC power supply.

The bundle also comes with the AZZA multimedia USB gaming keyboard, the AZZA optical 1600dpi gaming mouse with a weight adjustable cartridge, and a 64-bit edition of Windows 8. Naturally customers can throw in additional gaming gear through the customization process including a gaming mouse mat, headphones, the Razer Hydra or Logitech G13 gameboard, a wireless network card and more.

"New CyberpowerPC systems based on the new R series are also engineered for Ultra Resolution Gaming at 4K resolutions and beyond," reads the company's press release. "UltraHD/4K gaming has arrived and requires 4X the processing power of 1080p gaming. Loaded with up to 4 GB memory, the AMD Radeon R9 Series GPUs are the graphics cards of choice for this new era in gaming."

Of course, this is just the base configuration. PC gamers can option for the meatier AMD FX-9370 or FX-9590 CPUs, choose from a wide range of motherboards that are CrossFire and Nvidia SLI ready, add up to 32 GB of DDR3-1866 dual channel memory, and choose from a huge number of hard drive and SSD options. The customization fun starts here.

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On Tuesday CyberPower launched a new line of FANGbook Evo gaming laptops, the HX6 series, packing "big performance" in a small footprint of only 15.09 x 9.83 x 1.46 inches. There are three models in all, starting at $1,069 and featuring Intel "Haswell" processors and Nvidia's Geforce GTX 765M (2 GB) GPU across all three.

"The sleek and stylish FANGbook Evo HX6 series is capable of handling any task it is given with the GeForce GTX 765M graphics, which features Nvidia PhysX technology and Nvidia CUDA," the company said. "Users will enjoy fluid and immersive game play with stunning graphics and visuals whether you’re role playing in a MMORPG gaming environment; lighting up enemies in first person shooters; or commanding your army with precise micro management in real time strategies."

According to the specs, this new series includes the HX6-100 with a starting price of $1,069, the HX6-200 for a starting price of $1,125, and the HX6-300 with a starting price of $1,379. All three have a 15.6 inch Full HD LED-lit screen, the Nvidia GPU, Wireless N and Gigabit Ethernet networking, a built-in HD webcam, an 8x DVD rewritable optical drive, a 2-in-1 card reader, and HDMI 1.4 output. All three also weigh around 7.9 pounds with the battery installed.

However, that's where the similarities end. The HX6-100 and HX6-200 have an Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor with a max clock (turbo) speed of 3.4 GHz, whereas the HX6-300 has an Intel Core i7-4800MQ chip with a max clock speed of 3.7 GHz. On the RAM front, the HX6-100 has a default 8 GB of DDR3-1600 while the two other models have 16 GB DDR3-1600 out of the box.

As for storage, all three configurable laptops support up to two hard drives and RAID, yet their default configuration only provides one drive. The HX6-100 and HX6-300 models have a 1 TB 5400 RPM SATA 3 drive, and the middle-class HX6-200 has a 64 GB Sandisk SSD. All three models also come packed with the 64-bit version of Windows 8 Pro, along with Bluetooth 4.0, two USB 3.0 ports, and two USB 2.0 ports.

"Other standard gaming features include HD Surround Sound for crystal clear audio fidelity," the company said. "The anti-ghosting gaming keyboard captures simultaneous keystrokes and allows you to tear it up in a game from day to night with a fully backlit keyboard with red LEDs so you never miss a key. If you're looking for a full-sized QWERTY keyboard and large screen, the FANGbook EVO HX6 is for you."

For more information about the new FANGbook Evo series, head here.

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On Tuesday CyberPower Inc. introduced the Zeus Hercules, a new gaming notebook sporting Intel's Hyperbaric cooling solution and embedded Iris Pro 5200 graphics, the latter of which promises up to two times the 3D performance improvement over the latest, fastest Intel HD Graphics solution on the market. The base price for the Zeus Hercules starts at an admirable $1039 USD.

The specs reveal that the base model features a 14 inch 3.2 mm screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. It's powered by an Intel Core i7-4750HQ processor that can be automatically overclocked to 3.2 GHz via Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 technology, and Iris Pro 5200 graphics that's embedded within the CPU. The graphics aspect has a dynamic frequency, supports DirectX 11, and utilizes Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology up to 1.7 GB.

The base configuration also includes 8 GB of dual channel memory (2x 4 GB) that's configurable up to 16 GB, a 1 TB 5400 RPM hard drive, a six-in-one SD card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, a Wireless N and Bluetooth 4.0+ LE combo card, and a 1MP HD webcam. It also has a multi-language A4 size isolated keyboard and a built-in touch pad with multi-gesture and scrolling capabilities.

Additionally, CyberPower's new laptop comes packed with HD audio backed by a built-in array microphone and two speakers. The I/O portion includes three USB 3.0 ports, a mini display port, HDMI output, and a microphone/headphone combo. There are also two mini card slots: one for a WLAN combo half-size mini card with a PCIe and USB interface, and a second for an mSATA SSD full-size mini card with a SATA interface.

Naturally, this base model can be configured with additional memory, storage and so on. The mSATA SSD options range from 60 GB to 240 GB and spans from $129 to $343 on top of the base price. The 1 TB hard drive can be swapped out with a large number of options spanning SSDs and HDDs. Customers can even option for extra external hard drives and USB flash drives.

Want to update the baseline HD audio? The Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro External Sound Card sets customers back an extra $31 as does the Enermax Dreambass Genie USB Audio Amplifier. The wireless aspect can be upgraded with Intel Centrino and Killer Wireless-N solutions, and there's also plenty of accessories and software to throw into the pot as well.

"Weighing slightly over four pounds and measuring 13.38 inches wide, 9.96 inches deep and just 13/16 of an inch thick, the Hercules is 12 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than competing slim gaming notebooks," the company said. "The Hercules is built for mobility with its size, efficient CPU, and long lasting lithium ion battery giving users up to six hours of continuous use."

For more information about the new Zeus Hercules, head here.

On Thursday CyberPower Inc. introduced the Fang Taipan M2 gaming laptop. It has a base price of $1869, and packs two GPUs in SLI or CrossFire mode, depending on your preferred flavor. Other high-end components include an Intel Core i7-4930MX Extreme Edition CPU, a SanDisk SSD for fast boot times and a speedy OS, an illuminated keyboard for PC gaming in low light conditions and more customizable options.

"The Fang Taipan M2 is the ultimate gaming laptop that can be customized for every buyer with the latest in gaming tech," the company said. "The 'poison' you load in the Taipan M2 to kill your competition is your choice."

The specs for the base model include a 17.3 inch LED-lit display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, an Intel Core i7-4700MQ CPU (2.40 GHz, 3.40 GHz Turbo) and two Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M CPUs (2 GB GDDR5) in SLI mode. Customers also have the option to choose dual GeForce GTX 780M GPUs in SLI mode, dual AMD Radeon HD 8970M GPUs in CrossFire mode and more.

The base model also has 16 GB of DDR3 SODIMM dual channel memory (8 GB x 2), a 64 GB SSD connected via a SATA 3 port, and a 750 GB 7200 RPM HDD. Other features include a fingerprint sensor, Wireless N and Bluetooth connectivity, an 8x Super-Multi optical drive (DVD burner) and two built-in webcams: a 5MP on the back of the display and 1MP on the front. The keyboard is full-sized, color-programmable and provides responsive tactile feedback.

The company said the laptop can be configured with up to 32 GB of dual-channel high-performance Kingston HyperX or Corsair Vengeance memory. It already includes USB 3.0, eSATA and HDMI output ports, and even Intel's zippy Thunderbolt technology. The high-quality Onkyo sound system is supported by premium Sound Blaster X-FI MB3 audio technology.

"The Fang Taipan M2 can be customized to your specifications with more powerful CPUs, greater and faster performance memory, larger capacity SSD storage options, and optical drives," the company said. "All CyberPowerPC notebook systems include a 1-year limited warranty."

To configure and purchase the Fang Taipan M2, head here. The company provides four CPU options, over five memory options, five GPU options, and a load of SSD and HDD options. There's enough to keep customers busy for a while.

CyberPowerPC is showing off its new LAN III series gaming PCs that come in four versions. The LAN III Series gaming PCs from CyberPowerPC are, as the name indicates, designed for LAN parties, and thus come in small form factor enclosures. The three enclosures used are the Fractal Design NODE 304, the BitFenix Prodigy mini-ITX case, and the Cooler Master HAF XB case.

The least expensive model, the LAN III Mini-A, comes in the Fractal Design case. It contains an AMD A4-5300 APU, which has a HD7480D graphics part on-die. There are 4 GB of memory, and a 500 GB hard drive controlled by an A75 motherboard from ASRock.

The second tier model, the LAN III Mini-I, has an Intel Core i7 3770K CPU, 4 GB of memory, an ASRock B75 motherboard, and a 500 GB hard drive. It is housed by a BitFenix Prodigy enclosure. Oddly enough, the two cheapest stock models have no discrete graphics cards.

Moving on to the more powerful gaming machines, the second most expensive model is the LAN III Xtreme, which also comes in a BitFenix Prodigy case. It carries an Intel Core i5 3570K CPU, paired up with 8 GB of 1,600 MHz DDR3, Nvidia's GTX 650 graphics card, a Gigabyte Z11 motherboard and a 1 TB hard drive. This one is also the first that comes with a DVD drive.

The most expensive model, the LAN III Commander, comes in a Cooler Master HAF XB enclosure. It carries an Intel Core i7 3820 CPU, 8 GB of 1,600 MHz DDR3 memory, a GTX 670 2 GB graphics card, and is run by an X79 motherboard from ASRock. Storage is achieved with a 128 GB Sandisk SSD and a 1 TB hard drive. It also carries an optical drive.

Pricing is set at an MSRP of $439, $705, $795, and $1,395 for the LAN III Mini-A, LAN III Mini-I, LAN III Xtreme, and LAN III Commander, respectively.

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Earlier we showed you that Origin PC was showing off that they had the first liquid cooled GeForce GTX Titan, but they aren't the only game in town. CyberPowerPC will also be liquid cooling those cards in its Hydro II Liquid Cooling Kit.

CyberpowerPC customers can configure up to four lineups with the GTX Titan, including the enthusiast Fang III and Zeus lineup, and the gamer Xtreme and Ultra lineup.

Customers can configure the systems to include up to 3-way SLI and can choose from a massive range of AMD or Intel CPUs. Furthermore users can opt for other luxuries such as SSDs, Blu-Ray drives, high-performance RAM and a number of software packages.

CyberPowerPC's systems based on Nvidia's new GeForce GTX Titan start at $1699, and will be available starting February 21. All of CyberPower's systems will sport a three-year warranty.

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On Monday CyberPower launched the FangBook X7, a “blazingly fast, terrifyingly powerful” gaming notebook packing hardware like Intel’s i7-3940XM Extreme Edition Processor and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680M GPU. Of course, it you don’t have the budget for that kind of PC gaming meat, there are also leaner configurations starting at $1,299 USD.

“The Fangbook is an excellent gaming system, and a great GPU is at the heart of every great gaming system,” said Brian Choi, notebook GPU product manager at Nvidia.  “The GeForce GTX 680M is the fastest, most advanced GPU ever built for a notebook and makes a great foundation for the Fangbook to build from.”

The new FangBook X7 takes a bite out of the competition (sorry had to go there) providing a 17.3-inch Full HD anti-glare LED display, and premium speakers with a subwoofer to extend your immersive gaming experience on-the-go without sacrificing quality or performance. A backlit keyboard with spring loaded anti-ghosting programmable keys keeps you in the game even when you’re away from a desktop gaming setup.

CyberPower said its new gaming laptop also offers up to 32 GB of performance memory and up to 2 TB of storage with dual HDD bays that also support RAID 0 or CyberPower’s own Ultra RAID mode. By utilizing two mSATA SSDs in RAID 0, this revolutionary technology breaks the speed limit with lightning fast speeds over 900 MB/s, the company said.

The general list of features include Intel’s Core i7-3630QM CPU, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 675MX, 8 GB of DDR3 memory, a 750 GB 7200 RPM HDD, and a 24x DVDRW. Also on the list is a back-lit RED gaming keyboard, 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, an HDMI port, USB 3.0 and a 720p webcam. The laptop measures 16.85 – x 11.34- x 2.17-inches and weighs under eight pounds.

The new FangBook X7, pre-loaded with Windows 8, is available now, starting at $1,299 USD. The default specs of three customizable models, the X7-100, the X7-200 and the X7-300, are listed below.

FangBook X7-100
Display - 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080p w/ Anti-Glare LED
CPU - Intel i7-3630QM
GPU - Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX 4 GB
Memory - 8 GB DDR3
HDD – 750 GB 7200 RPM HDD
Optical Drive - DVD Super-Multi Drive
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 8 (64-Bit)
Price - $ 1,299.00

FangBook X7-200
Display - 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080p w/ Anti-Glare LED
CPU - Intel i7-3630QM
GPU - Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX 4 GB
Memory - 16 GB DDR3
HDD – 64 GB SSD; 750 GB 7200 RPM HDD
Optical Drive - DVD Super-Multi Drive
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 8 (64-Bit)
Price - $ 1,499.00

FangBook X7-300
Display - 17.3-inch 1920x1080p w/ Anti-Glare LED
CPU - Intel i7-3630QM
GPU - Nvidia GeForce GTX 680M 4 GB
Memory – 16 GB DDR3
HDD – 64 GB SSD; 1 TB 5400 RPM HDD
Optical Drive - Blu-Ray Combo Drive
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 8 (64-Bit)
Price - $ 1,799.00

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Mid-Tower Might From Origin PC

If you’re looking to buy (or build) a performance-oriented gaming desktop, there are a few different directions you can take. The easiest route is to opt for today’s top-end parts and a gargantuan case big enough to house what you need now, plus whatever you might want to accommodate down the road.

Alternatively, if you don’t need multiple graphics cards and don’t plan on cramming additional components into your machine, you could go small and still keep things speedy with a microATX board, a powerful CPU, and a high-end graphics card. Several companies have headed down that route lately, including Alienware with its X51, Falcon Northwest and its granite-footed Tiki, and Digital Storm’s glossy Bolt.

Boutique system builder Origin PC offers something that’s a bit in-between those two extremes with its mid-tower Millennium system. Housed in a slightly tweaked BitFenix Shinobi case with red trim and a soft rubber-like finish, it’s smaller than a full-size tower at just 18.1" tall, but still roomy enough for a trio of powerful graphics cards.

Rather than going all out with two or three pricey Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 cards, Origin strapped a trio of GeForce GTX 660 Tis into the $3,073 test configuration it sent us. Complemented by an Intel Core i5-3570K CPU sporting an impressive 1.2 GHz overclock (to 4.6 GHz), and a pair of Intel SSD 520 drives in RAID 0, we already know from its specs that the Millennium is going to be an impressive performer. Enough so, we'd suspect, to drive a triple-monitor configuration with ease.

The downside to the three-way SLI setup is that upgrading isn’t going to be as easy as it would be with just one or two higher-end graphics cards. After all, you can’t just slap in another identical card a couple of years from now; this thing is completely maxed out already. The boot drive's RAID option also has a downside. While certainly speedy, a striped array is twice as likely to fail (if one drive goes out, your boot drive data is toast). Thankfully, Origin includes a roomy 1 TB hard drive as well, providing plenty of room for backup.

Origin Millennium: Inside And Out

When it comes to ordering from Origin PC's configurator page, you're able to customize the Millennium with any number of components (including four other case options). This system’s starting price is a relatively modest $1,225. For that, you get a Core i3-2120 CPU, an AMD Radeon HD 7750 graphics card, and a 500 GB hard drive. Although you certainly can game on a system like that, our review unit configuration packs a solid choice of components for those seeking more power for multi-screen gaming, all without going off the deep end with Extreme Edition processors and dual-GPU graphics cards.

Before we get into examining the Millennium itself, let's take a minute to discuss Origin's packaging. After all, it’s not easy to ship a system of this size with multiple bulky graphics cards and have it arrive in one working piece. The company smartly ships the Millennium in a wooden crate, with foam inserts above and below the system, and a nice cloth bag covering the case. Inside the system, it also places foam pieces to protect the graphics cards. It's apparent that Origin takes care in getting shipping right. And the unboxing experience makes you feel like you’re getting a premium product as well.

With all that said, the first Millennium system we received, while not appearing damaged in any way, failed to recognize one of the three graphics cards. After going through some diagnostics with Origin’s well-informed and patient support staff, we eventually had to send the system back. The second system arrived with no issues whatsoever in the exact same packaging, so we’re inclined to give Origin the benefit of the doubt and call the issue with our first unit a fluke.

Now, let’s take a look at the system itself. It may not be as flashy as some might prefer, but the Millennium’s Shinobi case has a distinctive look and feel. Red mesh trim running along both sides of the top and front add some flair without being gaudy. And Origin cut its own logo in the front, right where the Bitfenix logo would sit on the stock version of the case.

A partial side window means you can easily see inside the case, and while our review unit lacks interior lighting, you can add it when configuring the system for an extra $20. Those who like easily accessible USB ports (and really, who doesn’t?) will appreciate that there are four at the front of the top panel on the Shinobi case, two of which are USB 3.0-capable as well. Headphone/mic jacks and the power/reset buttons are located here as well.

Occupying the sole external 3.5” drive bay on the front of the system sits a Rosewill multi-format card reader that should handle pretty much every kind of card you’re likely to have lying around. The reader also contains a single USB 2.0 port. While functional, the card reader doesn’t look all that great with its exposed slots and ports. We’d prefer it if we were able to hide the reader behind a drop-down door for a cleaner look when it isn’t being utilized.

Ports on the rear I/O panel of Asus' Maximus V Extreme motherboard should please most users. There are four more blue USB 3.0 ports, four more USB 2.0 connectors, digital and analog audio in and out, PS/2 connectivity, and even a Thunderbolt port. You get connectors for the included Wi-Fi antennas and a gigabit Ethernet jack; the motherboard supports Bluetooth as well.

Then there is the trio of graphics cards, each equipped with HDMI output, DisplayPort, and pair of DVI ports. Naturally, connecting multiple screens is definitely not a problem.

That cable sticking out of the back is the connector for Asus' OCKey dongle. We stuck it in a water-cooling grommet to keep it out of the way.

Removing the partially-windowed left panel reveals that Origin spent some time on cable management. Despite the relatively modest amount of interior space and three graphics cards (totaling 12 six-pin power connectors), the company manages to keep things pretty clean. Given the cooling issues involved with three graphics cards and a heavily overclocked processor, the Millennium's tidy interior is both attractive and functional.

As for future upgrade options, our review unit has space for two additional RAM modules, though the included 8 GB is certainly more than enough for gaming (and most other computing tasks). Five SATA ports are also free, despite the two SSDs, 1 TB hard drive, and DVD optical drive. Six empty hard drive bays are more than enough to utilize all of those available SATA ports, if you want more storage.

Space for add-in cards is limited, since the three graphics cards occupy all but the last PCI Express x16 slot and the stray SATA connector below it. If you plan on installing a storage, network, or multimedia controller in the future, we'd suggest configuring this machine to deliver your desired amount of graphics horsepower using two cards, rather than three.

CyberPower Baseline System And Benchmarks

Since this is the first desktop Tom’s Hardware has reviewed in quite a while (you can expect more soon), we don’t have a whole lot to compare the Origin Millennium build to. System builder CyberPower graciously sent us one of its more compact systems to serve as our new performance baseline.

A $918 configuration of the LAN Party Evo Mini with a single Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card, our baseline system is in a different league than our test configuration of the Origin Millennium. It also sports the same Core i5-3570K CPU as the pricier Origin system, although not overclocked. The LAN Party Evo certainly can’t keep up with the Millenium, which costs three times as much. But it does give us some sense of the performance difference between a sub-$1,000 system and a build that’s north of three grand. However, there are advantages to running a single graphics card and not overclocking your CPU, as you’ll see later on in our power testing.

To get a well-rounded sense of how our baseline and review systems perform, our test suite includes a battery of CPU-centric tests borrowed from our CPU benchmark suite (HandBrake, iTunes, WinZip, and Photoshop CS 6), along with gaming tests that should be familiar to readers of our graphics card reviews (3DMark 11, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City). We’re also testing the drive speed of the boot drive using Iometer, measuring both power efficiency as well as how loud the system is at idle and under load.

Benchmark Results: CPU And Multimedia

While both the Millennium and our CyberPower LAN Party Evo baseline system share the same CPU (a relatively modest quad-core Intel Core i5-3570K), performance on CPU-centric tests is far from equal. CyberPower, perhaps constrained by the thermal issues that come with a compact case, leaves the chip at a stock 3.4 GHz base frequency able to reach up to 3.8 GHz in light workloads via Turbo Boost.

Meanwhile, Origin takes advantage of the Millennium's larger case and its own branded Frostbyte 120 closed-loop liquid cooler, pushing the Core i5-3570K to an impressive 4.6 GHz. This yields an appreciable performance edge in both single- and multi-threaded tasks. The difference is on stark display in Cinebench, yet it manifests noticeably in more real-world tests as well.

Many of these tests are designed to measure CPU performance for processor testing, so the software is offloaded onto a RAM drive, ensuring that drive performance doesn't impact the results. However, most users are likely going to keep their software on the boot drives, and the Millennium’s dual SSDs in RAID 0 give it a distinct advantage there. We’ll delve deeper into that subsystem once we get to drive testing.

However, we know from quite a bit of follow-up testing after this quarter's System Builder Marathon that the RAM drive doesn't actually affect performance that much. Running these benchmarks from an SSD, or even a hard drive, returns similar numbers. So, while the Millennium's two SSDs in RAID 0 are going to really help it with boot times and app loading, don't expect processor-dependent workloads to realize much benefit from them.

With its overclocked CPU, the Millennium’s productivity and media-crunching performance is very impressive. It holds a strong lead over CyberPower's baseline system with the same CPU, sans overclock. In many ways, the Millennium's overclocked Core i5 would likely stack up well against pricier i7 processors at stock settings.

Sure, if you’re a professional content-creator who frequently waits around for media to render, using software that takes advantage of all available cores and threads, you may want to step up to a Sandy Bridge-E-based system. But given the price difference, we maintain that Intel's Core i5-3570K and Core i7-3770K are far smarter options for even demanding gamers.

Benchmark Results: Gaming

It should come as no surprise that the Origin Millennium, with its three GeForce GTX 660 Ti cards, would flat-out smoke our baseline machine from CyberPower with its one previous-gen GeForce GTX 550 Ti (not to mention a price tag less than one-third of Origin PC's). 3DMark 11 certainly drives that point home. In the higher-end Extreme test, which pushes pixels at a resolution of 1080p, the Millennium’s score is nearly 8.5x what the LAN Party Evo is able to deliver. While the performance gap isn’t quite as great when it comes to frame rates, the difference is still quite dramatic.

Running our trio of popular games at 1920x1080 with high detail settings, it’s clear that Origin PC's Millennium has a fair amount of headroom to adopt more demanding resolutions and graphics quality options, while the sub-$1,000 CyberPower system has a tendency to get choppy. Both systems are certainly capable of gaming, but you’ll likely switch off a few things or dial down the settings on the LAN Party Evo. CyberPower's machine serves the purpose we wanted it for, however: to show us what additional performance you get when you spend more.

A couple of important testing notes: We don't include minimum frame rates for Batman: Arkham City because the transitions between scenes in the benchmark tend to make the minimum frame rates artificially low. Minimum frame rates were mostly in the single digits on both systems, but that doesn’t accurately represent what you see when playing the game.

Since the LAN Party Evo’s GeForce GTX 550 Ti card doesn’t support triple-screen Surround gaming, we only have performance numbers at 5760x1080 for Origin PC's system, at least until we're able to create a larger library of test results. But even if you could connect three monitors to the more mainstream system, it's clearly not up to the task of smooth gaming at such extreme resolutions with high settings. On the other hand, the Millennium does pretty well at those extreme settings, although it did briefly dip below 20 FPS in Battlefield 3. Average frame rates remained relatively high on all the tests. However, if you’re a real stickler for gaming at 60 FPS and above, you’ll have to either keep your gaming confined to a single screen or dial back some detail options.

Benchmark Results: Power Usage And Noise

Power consumption and acoustics are the two areas where the smaller, cheaper CyberPower baseline system looks better than the overclocked, triple-card Origin Millennium. While the Origin system is certainly faster in our CPU benchmark suite, it uses about 100 W more, on average, than the CyberPower system.

When we disregard the time it takes to complete our benchmarks, but instead look solely at energy consumption, the CyberPower baseline system consumes less than 60 percent of the power that the Millennium uses. However, the Origin system finishes the suite a full 30 minutes sooner. So, if time is money and your machine is constantly cranking through calculations, the extra speed is definitely worthwhile.

Our sound measurements also come out in favor of the CyberPower system. Despite being small, it’s very quiet, barely tipping our Pyle sound level meter above the ambient noise baseline, even under load. The Origin Millennium is reasonably quiet as well, especially considering its heavily overclocked CPU and trio of graphics cards. Neither system should be all that noticeable when gaming, unless you like playing stealth games at low volume in a quiet room.

Benchmark Results: Drive Speed

With SSD prices falling dramatically over the last several months, it's not surprising that we've seen solid-state storage appear far more frequently in mobility and performance-oriented systems. In this climate, it's not even that unusual to see a two SSDs paired together in performance desktops.

In our Millennium review unit, Origin decided to pair up two of Intel's top-end SSD 520 drives in a RAID 0 configuration for increased speed. As we said earlier, this increases the likelihood of drive failure, since a problem with one drive effectively destroys your boot partition. But when it comes to raw performance, the dual-SSD RAID 0 setup soars past the 7,200 RPM hard drive in CyberPower's LAN Party Evo.

As we expected, the Millennium's two SSDs far outperform the CyberPower system's single hard drive across the board. The general makeup of solid-state storage, combined with the fact that the Origin system has two writable drives, means that drive speed actually goes up along with queue depth. With more files being read or written at once, both read and write speeds approach 1GB/s at a queue depth of four. Meanwhile, the CyberPower drive's performance, limited by its mechanical actuator arm, sees a slight drop in performance as queue depth increases.

If the Millennium was stocked solely with a pair of 120 GB SSDs in RAID 0, we'd probably be knocking it for cramped storage space and the increased danger of drive failure. But Origin smartly pairs fast SSDs with a 1 TB mechanical drive. This gives you extra space for media and programs that aren't as performance-sensitive. There's also plenty of room for backing up an image of the system's boot drive, which we'd strongly suggest you do regularly, given the increased risk of failure inherent to any striped setup.

Origin includes a pair of DVDs that hold the stock drive image, along with a Windows disk. While these discs can get you back up and running in a pinch, they can't replace all the programs and files that you've accumulated since purchasing the system. With this configuration of the Millennium, Origin does a good job of providing the tools to keep all that data safe, but the burden of actually backing up on a regular basis is still on the buyer.

Origin PC Millenium Versus Doing It Yourself

Whenever a system builder’s product gets mentioned on a hardware enthusiast website, comments about building your own and saving hundreds of dollars tend to pile up pretty quickly. In most cases, that's absolutely true, and power users know they can pare back on costs by building their own machines (that's why we do a System Builder Marathon every single quarter). But many people don’t have the time or know-how to build their own machine, nor the patience to troubleshoot issues on their own. If you fret over service and tech support, there’s certainly a benefit in buying a custom-built system.

But in an effort to address the do-it-yourself crowd with a full disclosure, and to figure out just what a company charges for its services, we’ll be pricing out the parts to build a similar system with our desktop reviews. We'll stick as close as possible to the reviewed systems' components, using parts and pricing from Newegg when available. Here’s a breakdown of the parts and prices for the Origin Millennium as of 12/17/2012:

So, you pay about a premium of about $730 for Origin PC's system compared to building it yourself. That's far from insignificant, but we also consider it reasonable for access to a 24/7 tech support number, particularly if you're not confident working on your own rig.

The included one-year warranty covers parts replacement and 45-day free shipping in case there’s an issue with your system out of the box, as we had with our first system. You can extend the free shipping for a full year for an extra $70, or up the warranty to three years for an extra $269.

Sure, much of the Tom's Hardware audience won't need any of that. But if you're shelling out more than $3,000 for a custom-built system that you don't know how to work on yourself, it’s nice to have someone to call when issues arise.

Origin PC Millenium: How Does It Stack Up?

At $3,073, our test configuration of the Origin PC Millennium is far from inexpensive. But compared to $7,000+ full-tower systems sporting Intel Extreme Edition processors and dual-GPU graphics cards, the Millennium will put a lot less hurt on your bank account. Meanwhile, it still delivers enough compute performance to make easy work of all but the most arduous processing tasks. Although the Millennium's three GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics cards could complicate your next upgrade, they deliver enough pixel-pushing power for running today’s games at high settings across three screens, with only occasional frame rate dips in the most demanding titles.

You could build the Millennium up with a trio of GeForce GTX 680s or pair of 690s to push performance even higher, but you’ll certainly pay more in the process. That could be advisable if you want to dedicate a card to Nvidia's PhysX technology, for example, and maintain playability at 5760x1080. Likewise, if you’re setting up a triple-screen system with 120 Hz displays and Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses, you’ll probably want to invest in a higher-end graphics subsystem to counteract the performance hit that comes with enabling stereoscopy.

Aside from those most extreme cases of gaming on three monitors at the highest available detail settings, this $3,073 Millennium build is an all-around strong performer. The thanks goes not only to the three graphics cards, but also to the overclocked processor and pair of SSDs in RAID 0.

If we were configuring our own Millennium, we'd opt for a larger storage hard drive to make sure there's always enough room to keep the vulnerable boot drive backed up. It costs but a measly $29 to step up from a 1 TB drive to a 2 TB model on the Millennium’s configurator page. Considering the overall price of the system (not to mention current hard drive prices), that's a tiny price to pay to keep from losing your operating system image should one of one of the SSDs goes south.

The manufacturer claims that it is the most "customizable gaming laptop". Buyers can choose to equip the system with two Nvidia GPUs, Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors, and memory.

The casing is based on the Clevo P370EM whitebook design, which integrates a 17.3-inch 1920x1080-pixel display with an integrated 2.0 megapixel webcam, fingerprint sensor, and an illuminated keyboard. The base system with an i7-3630QM processor, 16 GB memory, a 60 GB SSD, a 1 TB HDD, a DVD writer, two Nvidia GTX 670M GPUs, and a Windows 8 pre-order is priced at $1,819. Step up to an i7-3940XM processor, 32 GB memory, two GTX 680M GPUs, two 512 GB SSDs, a Blu-ray disc burner, and a dedicated sound card and you are looking at spending about $5,000.

According to Cyberpower, the Taipan, which got its name from the venomous Australian Taipan snake, weighs about 8.6 lbs in a basic configuration with one GPU.

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