Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
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.
