To start this review off, let me just say that this is my first gaming pc ever. I have been wanting one for half a year. First I did research on getting a gaming laptop because I am pretty used to using laptops. I knew desktops were better, but I liked the portability of laptops. Then I just realized I don't need to carry it around. Desktops simply are less hot, typically quieter, and offer more value and upgradability. I thought building a pc would be great. I thought about going with a ryzen 5 and a gtx 1060. But GPU and ram prices are stupid high. I took a look at some prebuilt pcs. I saw this one at $750. I said that's a pretty good deal. I waited a bit and bought it when it was 720. This pc offers more value than building it yourself. I went on pcpartpicker and building this would be over 780 bucks, not including Windows 10, mouse. keyboard, and wifi adapter. Now lets get on with the review.
CyberPowerPc is not very clear on the exact components so I thought i would list them here.
CPU: Intel i5 8400 6 core/6 thread. 2.8ghz base/4.0ghz boost (it comes with the terrible intel stock cooler and i have never seen it above 3.8ghz)
GPU: MSI Armor RX 580 4gb OC (2 fans)
MOBO: MSI B360M Bazooka. (micro atx, with 4 dimms, and plenty other features.
RAM: GEIL Evo Potenza 8gb (1x8gb stick) ddr4 cl16 timing 16-16-16-36 (its red and it looks cool)
HDD: Western Digital Blue 1tb 7200rpm.
PSU: 500 watt, I was unable to get a good look at it, but its not a name brand. Super loud and rattles sometimes. I recommend you replace it.
CASE: CoolerMaster MasterBox Lite 5 mid tower atx case. Glass side panel and front panel (blocks airflow for front fans, but is removable)
CASE FANS: Xpevia red ring LED fans. (cheap, not very good)
This computer runs every game i have on high settings at 1080p with over 60fps. I bought a 75hz freesync monitor and i recommend you do the same. Freesync is the greatest. Just set FRTC to 75 and you are golden.
In the future, I will upgrade the following. I will add another 8 gigs of ram, I will replace the power supply, and I may add optane memory to accelerate the hard drive.
Cons and things I don't like.
The keyboard is going to be hard to get used to. its big and the keys are spread apart a lot. It's membrane. but it is loud and the keys wobble quite a bit. The mouse is fine.
The power supply is really loud. under a heavy lot the pc gets jet engine level noise, so take the front panel off.
The case is a fingerprint magnet,
The same model of ram is not on Amazon nor GEIL's website. They only sell 2x4gb, so I cannot run in dual channel when I upgrade
Other than that, this pc has been great, it looks cool, and offers better value than building it yourself. I hope this review helped. I know it was long, but I had a lot I wanted to say.
First let’s just say that this computer is amazing. Its a little pricey but is worth everypenny.
Here are some games that I play and the FPS listed
Fortnite: 240 FPS (Epic View Distance, Low Post Processing, Low antialiasing, 100 Resolution, Textures Medium, and the other thing is Medium) 60-80 FPS All Epic
Rainbow Six Siege: FPS 200+ High settings FPS 60-70 Ultra Settings
Terraria: FPS 200+ Ultra
Minecraft (Java Edition): FPS 70-100 Medium Settings (Can not handle over 10 TNT explosives, will lag a bit)
Overwatch: FPS 150+ Max Settings
OBS Streaming/Stream Labs OBS (SLOBS): 60+ FPS (If using right settings) (Doesnt lag gameplay)
OBS Recording: FPS 60+ (if using right settings) (Doesnt lag gameplay)
Ports Available: 2 - 3.0 USB (Front of PC Near Power on Button)
1 - Audio Port (Front of PC Near Power Button)
1 - Mic Port (Front Of PC Near Power Button)
2 - HDMI (Back Of PC)
1 - Keyboard Mixer Port (Back of PC)
1 - Mouse Mixer Port (Back of PC)
5 - 3.0 USB (Back of PC)
1 - Ethernet Port (Back of PC)
1 - Mic In (Back of PC)
1 - L-in Port (Back of PC)
1 - L-out Port (Back of PC)
3 - Display Ports (Back of PC)
2 - DVI Ports (Back of PC)
(Other Useful Info)
4 Ram Slots Total, 3 Unused.
Dust Filter at the Bottom, clean monthly.
Cable on Motherboard? (Not sure)
When you first get the PC, make sure to turn on the switch at the Back of the PC
When you first get the PC, make sure you have a screwdriver to remove the packers inside the PC (They keep the PC components safe when being shipped)
Material 4/5: Very Durable, I have a desk with many things in it (am a messy person) And occasionally something drops and hits the PC, no dents, works perfectly.
Versatility (Ability to Adapt) 5/5: Adapts perfectly and whatever I throw at it I will handle the task.
Overall 5/5: Amazing PC in general, (no I am not BIASED, this is based on my experience with the PC)
Remember to vote my review “helpful” if you found it helpful so others can see. Also, thanks for reading, I am about to clean my dust filter now. :)
This is the real truth! I just trashed my DELL INSPIRON, which was one of the worst computers I’ve ever had in my life, and took a chance on this PC. I had heard of this company before but was a real little reluctant because of the safety with the big names. WRONG!! I cannot tell you how well this thing runs. Freakin sick how smooth this thing operates. I’m not a big gamer but I have checked it across STEAM and oculus rift parameters and it easily surpasses the requirements.
The thing about this computer is it is so fast… So fast! The machine starts quickly shut down quickly and goes from app to app with no delay.
The computer was boxed perfectly… Totally secure. It comes with the coolest keyboard and mouse that you’ve ever seen before… Like literally ever. And I have to say… That the way this thing lights up in a room is just freaking sweet. Very very cool.
Again this is a legitimate review… No crap. If you are deliberating on getting a computer, whether it be for gaming, virtual reality, or anything else, I promise you… No BS… This is THE computer to get and THE BEST DEAL MONEYWISE out of every single place I checked on the internet. THE BEST for the money. And stay away from DELL INSPIRON!! At all costs!
LEGIT! The BEST setup I’ve EVER owned! ***FAST***
I saw this setup on Amazon and like many people immediately also saw the specs in awe. That oh so wonderful i5-8400 and RX 580 combo in such a sexy case for $699, unreal. I went to PC Part Picker and of course saw that this same build with a keyboard and mouse would cost a little over $1000 currently. Dang miners, get a real job and stop killing my passion! Anyways, after researching and almost going with Dell, I just couldn’t pass up the gorgeousness of this case and went for it. When it arrived, everything appeared In order but the wire assembly inside the case wasn’t that great and two of the fans had been disconnected. Additionally, there seemed to be some kind of short in the motherboard or something as it fried one of my SSD’s. Yes I discharged my electricity and the hardwares, stop judging me and keep reading. So returned it. A couple days later I received my replacement (Thanks Amazon, love ya) which was in much better shape. I hooked up a new (Also replaced, thanks again Amazon ;) SSD, threw 8 more gigs of that Potenza RAM in there and bam, has been running great since. Well a few weeks to be exact since this was pretty recent.
I love this combination and with a fast SSD and 16 gigs of ram you’re looking at a very nice mid-range rig. I have played many popular titles (GTA V, Shadow of War, Assassin’s Creed, CoD, Witcher, you name it) and it runs all of them on very high or ultra. As a matter of fact, at the very worst, I have just had to sacrifice ultra texture loading and maybe shadows since this is only the 4GB 580. And these are the heaviest popular titles out there. Another bonus is playing DirectX 12 games (Strange Brigade, AC) which the 580 was built for. I easily get 80-100 FPS on all of them consistently.
As far as full specs go I haven’t seen anyone list them all nor CyberPower so here you go. You’re all welcome, no thanks needed, just keep reading my incredibly long review that I wrote because I don’t really have a life... at all.
-Intel Core i5-8400
-Intel BXTS15A CPU cooler
-MSI B360M BAZOOKA
-GeIL Evo Potenza 8GB (1x8) DDR4 2400MHz
-Western Digital HDD 1TB 3.5’’ 7200rpm
-MSI Radeon RX 580 4GB ARMOR
-Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 5 ATX
-Thermaltake SMART 600w Power Supply
-Windows 10 Home 64-bit
-TP Link or alternative 10/100/1000mbps internal network adapter
-TP Link or alternative 802.11 b/g/n wireless external network adapter
- (4) Apevia 12L-CRD 57.7 CFM 120mm case fans
I see many reviewers stating that the PSU was crap and it is apparent CyberPower has listened and upgraded. There is no longer a need to change it out with 600 watts from a known company. It is plenty of power for additional upgrades as well. As far as cooling goes, I will agree the case tends to get hot but I have yet to see any of my components surpass 75c except for the GPU which hit around 80c. The case doesn’t get to hot to touch and hasn’t destroyed anything yet so I’m content with that. I’ll agree two small vents on the front don’t seem quite adequate and should have been altered for better suction. As at as circulation goes, four case fans and 7 fans in total is plenty of cooling. One exhaust fan is once again not the best but the system has not gotten hotter than needed and I haven’t seen any throttling from it.
The accessories included are decent. The mouse is nice, it has a good grip, sensitivity, and padding. The colors are nice and I love color changers. The keyboard is cheap and is so cheap that CyberPower doesn’t even sell it on their website. For $10 they have the exact same thing but it actually has LED lighting. This doesn’t. But the membrane keyboards are easy to get used to. If only the keys weren’t so loud. Either way I replace it with a better keyboard but it’s a decent backup. The littler stickers and booklets are nice to have and all the cds for the hardwares drivers, utilities, etc. However, with no CD/DVD drive I don’t know what I’m supposed to put these in? Still nice to have if you have a second computer with a USB and for some reason the manufacturers site is down.
So pushing aside my first arrival being not so great, there is another reason I only give four stars and not five considering it truly is an amazing deal, especially after some upgrades. This is because of CyberPower. I called them to register the serial and take advantage of the cheap free headset (because why not) and decided to inquire about how my service will
be once I no longer have Amazon to back me up. Like many have said for years, it was not stellar. The representative I talked to blamed
my systems failure on UPS of which I know the driver personally who delivered it. She is a very nice and caring worker. She does not treat people’s items like trash and is under surveillance to prevent these things. Also, he pointed out that the only reason CP changed the PSU is because gamers are just too stingy and want everything for nothing. I can agree that gamers are a pain to deal with sometimes but giving out faulty equipment that hasn’t been tested and then pointing the finger at anyone but yourself is pretty stingy, wouldn’t you agree? In addition, know that if you do have to replace something with CyberPower they only
cover shipping to you, not to them. You will have to come out of pocket to send the faulty parts and you will not receive that replacement part until CyberPower deems it their fault. That is the worst return policy I have ever seen from a computer manufacturer/seller and especially
from a company that sells high end, top dollar machines. Speaking of the testing, the systems are not tested and a sticker will come with it stating just that. While the original build was tested, each individual build is not. Poor salesmanship that even the most low end manufactures like Acer or Lenovo would not take a chance with.
Pushing the negatives aside, I really enjoy the computer now and it has been trimming excellently. It is a fantastic deal and I now have a beautiful, red and black mini Ferrari with a mouse and keyboard for around $900, much better than my friend who just paid around $1,300 for virtually the same specs (GTX 1060 3GB lol lol). For $700, you’d be a fool if you think you can find a better deal, just better make sure it all works before your warranty with Amazon is up.
Hello all! I'm here to leave my review on this CyberPowerPC gaming computer. (Just a heads up, this is a LOOOOOONG review, so if you want, you can skip to the bottom for the TL;DR version, or stick around for the sweet deets.) Now I'm not like a super-enthusiast, or professional bench-marker/tester or anything, just a dude who likes to play PC games with the FPS counter on to see how well it's running, and thought I would share my experiences with you today. I do really enjoy PC gaming and was wanting a nice rig to game on with good graphical settings and more importantly, good frame-rates while having it look pretty. So let preface this review with a little history for you.
I have been playing games since I was very young, probably 6. I used to play the point and click kids games from Humongous Entertainment on PC (Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, etc.) as well as Wolfenstein 3D. I moved over to consoles when I was around 8-10 with the N64, GameCube, Original Xbox, Xbox 360, and PS3. When I was in my late teens/early 20's around 2010-2012, I built my first PC for gaming. At the time it was a decent machine, but not super high end by any means. I built it around the specs to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which I recommend to any FPS-RPG & cyberpunk fans). Around 2013-2014, I stopped gaming completely until this year, where I went back and forward between console and PC. I got a gaming PC off Goodwill Online that was alright, but didn't run well because something was wrong with it, and it eventually shorted out.
Cut to now, where I have purchased this CyberPowerPC gaming rig. This is my first purchase of a pre-built gaming PC, and 6-8 years ago I would have scoffed the idea of buying a pre-built vs. building my own. Things are different now, so I'd like to share my personal pros and cons of the machine, but first, since PC gaming is more varied depending on the hardware being used, let me share how some games I played ran on this machine, with a couple things to consider about how my play testing went first:
While I actually want to do this review myself and tell everyone how my personal experience was and share my own honest opinions, I would like to disclose that inside the box for the PC was an offer that said if I leave a review for the product and either take a screenshot of the review or send a link to the review to CyberPowerPC, I'll get a free gaming headset for my computer. So just a heads up, I am supposed to receive a free headset in exchange for leaving my honest review.
Everything below is going to be a bunch of technical PC terminology that if you are unfamiliar with, might not make sense. I'm assuming whoever is reading this knows what I'm talking about, but if you don't, it's OK, the main things to know are that the higher graphics settings are, the better the game will look. The same goes with the resolution, as it will look less grainy with higher resolutions. Frame-rates are basically how smooth the game looks when things happen fast. (If you want to see the comparisons, YouTube a game that is on game consoles & PC, and search that game with 'frame-rate comparison' to get a side-by-side view.)
All games were played in 1920x1080p (Full HD) resolution
Unless otherwise mentioned, all games were through Steam with the FPS counter on.
With a couple exceptions, I only played each game here for a few minutes, to see how it ran at start. If the game gets more resource intensive later in certain spots, the performance might drop below 60FPS with max settings, and may need mild tweaking.
My goal was to play each game with the highest possible graphical settings while maintaining a frame-rate of at least 60FPS.
I like to initially play games with V-Sync off, so that I can see the FPS counter in Steam telling me the frame-rate. My monitor is only 60hz refresh rate, so I am unable to tell you how it might look at anything higher than that, but it's a good way to see what settings you can comfortably run. For example, if I play a game at Low settings and can run it a 350FPS, then I know I have room to increase the graphic settings until it starts to get too close to where I want it to maintain. I want the settings to be able to keep the game around 100FPS, so if there is a load spike in the game, the frame-rate doesn't take a hit that knocks it below 60FPS.
Finally, like I said above, I took about a 4 year break from gaming. Therefore, my library is somewhat outdated. I did try to pick the most modern, popular, and intense games I owned to test with, but that being said, I don't have most of the most popular games like PUBG, Overwatch, Rocket League, etc., so I can't tell you how those run. However, there are websites where you can check your PC specs against the game specs to see if you can run the game, and apparently I can run those game at Recommended settings, but I don't know about Max settings. That's something someone else will have to tell you.
OK, with all that out of the way, let's get to my game-playing experiences.
Bioshock Remastered – Played this with max settings, and was consistently pulling 100+FPS, so no problem here for even frame-rates. The game both looked well and ran well. I will mention that the area on side door where graphic card is did get warmer than it did while playing other games, but didn't seem to affect performance in any noticeable way.
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare – Played this game with max settings as well, and I was pulling 60 FPS even with V-sync off, leading me to believe this game might have a capped frame-rate. Everything ran well though, and while it never went above 60FPS, I don't recall any drops below that number either, so that's a plus.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive – One of the main E-Sports games. This might be one that a lot of people are interested in, so I felt obligated to include it. I played CS:GO at max settings, and got 100+ FPS on the maps Shipped & Insertion with V-sync off, 60FPS solid with V-sync on, which is good, because I think these two might be some of the more resource intensive maps to run. Insertion is just huge, and Shipped has lots of water all around, so plenty of effects to run.
Crysis – Ahh Crysis. Anyone who is into PC gaming knows how famous (or perhaps infamous is more appropriate) this game is when it comes to performance. It was notorious for being extremely difficult, maybe near impossible, to run at max settings. It was a beast of a game to handle. I am extremely pleased and proud to say that I was able to play the game at max settings, and got a range of 80-110 FPS. This is impressive because, well, it's Crysis. I would like to point out that the PC did get louder while running this maxed, but not too loud. It was just the sounds of fans kicking in to keep things cool. For this feat alone, I would like to commend this PC & CyberPowerPC, for creating a decent rig that can put down the old gaming meme of 'But can it run Crysis?' Yes. Yes it can.
Dead By Daylight – Another really popular game played by lots of YouTubers, since I got it in a Humble Bundle, thought I'd throw it in the mix. Played at max settings, 60FPS consistently. Like, nothing above that, because I think the frame-rate might be capped here as well. I did get one drop below 60FPS while playing the tutorial, but didn't have that problem again, and it could have just been a loading thing.
Fortnite – OH MY GOD try to look at anything gaming today and not see Fortnite. It is everywhere, on nearly every system and platform imaginable. I won't be surprised if you can play Fortnite on your smart fridge soon. All jokes aside, I played at max settings, getting around 60-70FPS most of the time. This isn't on Steam, but the game does have a built-in FPS counter. This was the first game I played to have noticeable occasional FPS drops below 60. If you tweaked a couple settings to high instead of ultra, you could probably eliminate those drops. And get butter smooth 60FPS.
GTA IV – Grand Theft Auto IV (that's 4, not 5, because I don't have 5 because I'm outdated) was a strange experience performance wise. I got max settings for all the graphical settings like textures, shadows, etc, except for the view distance, vehicle density, and detail distance. Those seemed to cause too many issues at 100, or even around 60-75. I got a little annoyed trying to tune the game myself, so I used the auto-configure button, which set those things around the 25-30 mark. It also set some things on High instead of Very High, but I changed them to Very High while leaving the view distance, etc., and I got around 70ish FPS consistently, but could change in more dense/intense scenes. This one is a game that could use tweaking.
L.A. Noire – Well I was going to play L.A. Noire because I remember it was very impressive even on the PS3, and thought it would look amazing with this computer. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to run. Now, before you start trash-talking this computer for not running a 7 year old game, I would like to point out that I did some research, and other Steam users are having the same problem. There are different fixes one could try for it, but I didn't feel like messing with that for now.
Minecraft – So Minecraft is another one of those games like Fortnite that is everywhere and in everything, and also isn't on Steam, and while it doesn't have a built-in FPS counter, I was able to run it with the Steam overlay, so I could use the Steam FPS counter. Naturally, I had bought it years ago and wanted to test it on my new gaming PC. Funny enough, for a game where the entire world is made of blocks, and is not very detailed, I actually had more trouble with this game than any other one. I was able to run max graphical settings, but that comes with an asterisk like GTA IV, because the view distance was what game me trouble, along with something called biome-blending, which I assume means that when the environments change, how much they transition so it is not just a sudden 'Whoa I was next to a forest and now there's a beach 3 steps this way' I had to drop the chunk distance down to 15, and the biome blending at either 5x5 or 7x7, I don't remember which one worked. I had to tweak it so much for my consistent frame-rate, but I did manage 100FPS eventually. At first I had changed the Field Of View to Quake Pro (Max FOV), but dropped it back down to normal, while trying to get steady frames. I might be able to bring it back up and still have good frame-rates, but I didn't test that.
Payday 2 – I got Payday 2 to run at max settings, hitting 100+FPS after loading the level. There's a small starting window while the game finished loading the level where it was choppy, but smoothed out afterwards. Since one of the settings is how many bodies stay on screen, the frame-rate could drop in levels where bodies would stack in large amounts, but I'm not sure, because I didn't play that long to get to that point.
Portal 2 – I know Portal 2 is really old but I was rummaging though my library for the best games I could find for testing and I wanted this in there. Played at max settings, and got a whopping 200+FPS for this gem.
Resident Evil 6 – Another old game, but still ran at max settings, at 120FPS. I think the frame-rate is capped here as well, but I must say, I love Resident Evil and this game looked fantastic on this PC.
SUPERHOT – SUPERHOT is special to me in this review for a few reasons. It is the only game I played without Steam's FPS counter or a built-in one, so I have no FPS numbers for you here. It is also the game I decided to break my gaming PC in with, so it's my first game on this rig, and it's also the only game I played and finished during all this testing out the PC. Since I have no counter, I don't know the quantifiable FPS amount, but I can tell you I played at max settings, and while I may have gotten one or two stutters, I can't specifically remember them like I could in Minecraft, Fortnite, and GTA IV. Also, this is a really awesome game. One of the most innovative shooters I've played in years. ;)
Team Fortress 2 – Valve's quintessential shooter. Few PC gamers probably HAVEN'T played some TF2, and it runs at max settings at 100+FPS. Very nice, now if only people will spy check...
That was all my PC gaming experience so far with this rig. It ran nearly everything I threw at it on max settings with almost always have a minimum of 60FPS, with a few exceptions. It kind of goes without saying that virtually any game that is mainly 2D graphics will run exceptionally well with no problems (Think things like visual novels, FTL: Faster Than Light, Organ Trail, Hotline Miami, etc.), and on those 2D/low resource games, it might even be do-able to run them at 4K resolution, but I haven't tried that yet, so no promises.
Now that the performance section is done, I'd like to talk about the pros and cons of the machine itself.
I'll start with hardware. This machine packs a real punch for all its internals, but first, the outside of the machine. Simply, it's gorgeous. You get what feels like a ATX mid-tower that isn't too bulky, and is just as amazing/incredible/slightly ominous looking as it looks in the photos (after all, its a beast of a machine inside, and it looks it on the outside). You get a tinted transparent front cover with some nice geometry lines, and a giant see-through panel, also tinted, on the side to see all the guts of the computer in their glory. You have your standard power button/reset switch combo on the front, along with 2 USB 3.0 ports, a headphone jack, and a mic jack. One thing I have to comment on with that headphone jack, is that I have an external 2.1 speaker system, plugged into the rear 3.5mm jack. When I use my headphones on the front jack, the audio will play through both outputs at once instead of toggling between them if the headphones are plugged in or not. I'm not sure if this is a con or not, but just be mindful to turn off your speakers if you don't want anyone else to hear what you're hearing. You also have 4 red LED 'halo ring' fans inside, three up front and one in the back. I would like to point out that the LEDs in the fans are just red, they aren't RGB like the mouse is. It would be nice if the fans were RGB also, but honestly, at the price point for this PC, that would be unrealistic, as RGB parts aren't particularly cheap. I'm not totally sure, because the fans turn while on, and this machine has spent very little time off since it has been in my possession, but I think they are Apevia branded fans. They do the job though, as the machine gets warm while playing, like any computer does, but never seems to get too warm, probably no more than a game console would get when playing. The area on the side panel above the graphic card does get warm and even somewhat hot when playing more intense games, but I'm impressed with this machine's ability to cool down quickly after playing. It doesn't take long to get back down to normal temps. Those same fans also are remarkably quiet. Like, I can't even hear the things unless I actually put my ear about 3 inches from the front of the case. I do have an window AC in my room about 8 feet from my desk, so there may be mild fan noise, but it's pretty mild. Like I mentioned above, they did get audibly louder while running Crysis, but that was the only time I heard noise, and it wasn't bad.
On the inside, you get a Intel i5-8400 processor, which is very good for gaming (check the benchmark score online, it's pretty sweet for the money), which is cooled by what looks like a stock cooler. I would have liked to seen a different cooler, maybe a Cooler Master or something, but the intel one is low profile, and because of that it doesn't obstruct air-flow, so having a different cooler might be a mixed bag. According to my motherboard manual (yes, they actually give you the manual like you would have if you built it yourself) my rig came with a MSI H370M/B360M Bazooka motherboard, which has 4 RAM slots, supports 64GB of RAM, at speeds of 2666/2400/2133 MHz. The board has one PCI 3.0x16 slot, so there is no dual vid cards with this rig, but that's alright by me. Some other reviews mentioned they got 2 sticks of 4GB RAM, but I, like some others, got a single stick of 8GB RAM. I must say I prefer this, as if I want to upgrade my RAM, I can buy a single other 8GB stick and still have two more free RAM slots. I know I don't get the dual-channel benefits right now with one stick, but I don't know that it's going to make a difference for most people.
You get a AMD Radeon RX 580 GPU, which is a fantastic graphic card. It's about the equivalent of a NVIDIA GTX 1060, for the NVIDIA fans out there. Being the powerhouse it is, the card is large and equipped with dual fans to stay cool during intense gaming. You also get a 1TB HDD with the PC, which leads me to one of my only (and honestly, quite nitpicky) negatives about this machine. The former of the two options I'm about to present would be preferred, but either would be good, and that is, why is there not SSD boot drive here for the OS, or if not that, simply a 2TB regular HDD? SSDs have gotten very affordable, and could have been thrown in here to hold the OS and your basic programs, and games could go on the HDD, and it would have made a HUGE performance increase on this already impressive machine. Barring that, why not simply a 2TB HDD instead of a 1TB? The price difference between the two is a matter of around $15, but with games getting larger as graphics get better, 2TB would have been a welcome inclusion. Nonetheless, it is a very trivial thing to gripe about, and I will move on.
Onward to the software side of things, you get Windows 10 Home 64-bit with this machine, which is nice. Few people have need for the Pro version of Windows, so adding that would be unnecessary added cost. Windows 10 apparently has a lot of gaming-friendly features, like screenshoting, video clip recording, broadcasting (to where, I don't know, maybe Mixer?) and something called Game Mode, which I think is supposed to be like a performance boosting thing, but I haven't used it yet. I tried to use it on Minecraft, but I couldn't access the hotkey shortcut once the game started. One thing I am a little disappointing with is the lack of a Windows disk for reinstalling the OS. This particular thing stings a little extra since there isn't a SSD or a larger HDD, so if you wanted to add one of those things, I don't know how you would reinstall Windows. Perhaps if you contacted CyberPowerPC they could be of assistance with this, I intend to contact and find out, as I would like to eventually get a SSD boot drive and upgraded HDD.
Finally, I would like to wrap this review up by talking about the included peripherals. In addition to the PC tower itself, you also get a wired gaming mouse & keyboard, along with a wireless USB 802.11 AC WiFi adapter. So, first the mouse. Honestly, I love it. I think it may be the best mouse I've ever owned. I never had a Razer or any of the big name brands, but it feels to me like something you would pay decent money for. You have your main 2 buttons and wheel, along with 2 buttons by the wheel for DPI switching, and then 4 buttons on the side. From what I can tell, they are page forward and page back buttons, the one in the middle between those two seems to be a double-click button, and then one that seems to change the color of the mouse, but also seems to change the DPI with it. Basically, I'm not totally sure how to change the color while leaving the DPI at my preferred setting. I'll thumb through the documentation again, but I didn't see anything about how to do such things with the mouse. So if it's there and I missed it, my bad, if not, CyberPowerPC should include some docs for this and the keyboard, simply so I can make the most of it. Also, real quick, all those extra buttons on the mouse I mentioned? I don't think they are programmable cause I didn't notice any software to setup macros for it, and they seemed to be more for general use than gaming (although they may be mappable in-game, I didn't try to keymap anything to those buttons in a game).
The keyboard is fantastic, and I absolutely love the feel when gaming and typing. It's not quite mechanical or membrane, and I THINK it says this on the box, but man I love it. It's all black keycaps except for the arrows, WASD, and multimedia keys, which are red, so that the WASD keys are easy to find at a glance if you lose your finger positioning. Also, one thing that I really appreciate is the dedicated multimedia keys on the sides of the keyboard. You have a music player button, play/pause, mute, internet browser on the left side, and previous, volume up, volume down, and forward buttons on the right. I honestly don't care about these for any reason other than the volume. I use Google Play Music for my music streaming and don't actually own MP3s, so the play/forward/back buttons are useless to me there, but the volume buttons are amazing. I like this so much in a keyboard because my last gaming keyboard combined volume controls with some of the F Function keys, so if I wanted to turn down the volume in game, I had to hit Fn+F whatever. I could use both hands, but I liked keeping a hand on the mouse while gaming, so I usually stretched my left hand across the board for volume control. Same thing while watching YouTube. With this, I just tap the key of choice for volume control with one finger. Seems trivial, I know, but I honestly love this keyboard and mouse so much that I looked at the CyberPowerPC website to see if I could buy another one of each in the event I have to replace them. That's how good they are to me.
Finally, the WiFi adapter. It's not the fastest Mbps speed in the world, but if you need WiFi and dual-band AC connectivity, you've got it now. Personally, I just use Ethernet since my router is about 3 inches away from my PC, as hardwire connections are always going to be more reliable than WiFi. No interference, faster steady speed, etc. Now, I did end up needing this thing for another computer in our home, as the WiFi adapter we bought for it was a real piece of crap, so it worked out in this instance, but personally, I would have rather had an included Bluetooth adapter vs WiFi, as I have Bluetooth headphones that I use. Well, now that I've droned on for this long, it's time to wrap this up, as I've said all I could really say about this computer.
TL;DR Every game I threw at it ran well with few exceptions, and those only needed minor graphic drops to increase performance to acceptable ranges. It'll play Fortnite, CS:GO, at max/near max settings, and it should be able to run PUBG, Overwatch, and Rocket League at recommended spec as well. It's silent nearly all the time. It gets warm/hot during more intense gaming, but not too hot, and cools down quickly. There's good airflow, good components inside, and a good experience to be had here. Would I have liked an SSD or larger HDD? Sure, but in the grand scheme of this PC it's something one could live without for the price (or at least until you added one in yourself for cheap). You get a great mouse and keyboard to game with, and while I'd like a manual (that may be here and I just missed) for the mouse so I could learn how to work the freakin' LEDs on it, these are all extremely minor issues. There's no real deal breaker to be found with this. I was able to get this PC because the base price was cheap, but the reason I'm writing this review on the actual PC is because I could afford it now through the Amazon Payments thing. $750 chopped up into 5 payments of around $140 so I can game now? Yes please. If you are like me, and just want a good gaming PC, even if you know about all this stuff, it's hard to go wrong with this one. If you want to be able to have dual-vid cards or extreme enthusiast level stuff like that, you might be better off building your own, as that's gonna be a specialty thing anyways. Most people, like myself, who can't spend $2K buying something akin to a NASA prototype will be extremely happy gaming here.
After all, it can run Crysis. ;)
Feature Product
- System: Intel Core i5-9400f 2.9GHz 6-Core | Intel B360 Chipset | 8GB DDR4 | 1TB HDD | Genuine Windows 10 Home 64-bit
- Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 580 4GB Video Card | 1x DVI | 1x HDMI | 2x DisplayPort
- Connectivity: 5 x USB 3.1 | 2 x USB 2.0 | 1x RJ-45 Network Ethernet 10/100/1000 | Audio: 7.1 Channel | Gaming Keyboard and Mouse
- Special Feature: 802.11AC Wi-Fi adapter | RGB 7 Colors Gaming mouse
- Warranty: 1 Year Parts & Labor Warranty | Free Lifetime Tech Support
Description
Destroy the competition with the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme series of gaming desktops. The Gamer Xtreme series features the latest generation of high performance Intel Core processors and ultra-quick DDR RAM to easily handle system-intensive tasks, such as high definition video playback and gaming. Coupled with powerful discreet video cards, the Gamer Xtreme series provides a smooth gaming and multimedia experience.
Writing this review in case it helps others with some items I was concerned about. I wasn't entirely clear on a few of the specs but I took a risk and bought this PC anyway because overall design seemed good and the price is right. My main concern was making sure I could easily upgrade the memory and replace the hokey USB WIFI adapter - both of which proved to be no problem.
There are two open PCIe slots to add a dedicated WIFI card, and the whole side of the computer pops off with thumbscrews, so access to the inside of the box is great. The huge fans on the graphics card partially blocks one of the PCI slots, but thankfully the second is just one bay down and leaves plenty of room. Weirdly, there are no screw-on plates to add additional PCI cards, so you need to bend-and-twist the cover off and source your own screws. I had old parts around to use so it was not a problem. Just be sure to make life easier and download the Windows 10 driver with the dopey supplied USB WIFI dongle and have it on-hand before you install the card to avoid driver conflict.
There are four DDR4 RAM slots, and in my case only one was being used by the factory-installed memory. I added an additional 8gb of RAM with no issues at all. Only hangup was that I chose a "non optimized slot" for the first one. The windows startup screen advised me to change slots - when I did all was well.
Additional notes, the box runs fairly cool and is relatively quiet considering it appears to consist of 90% fans. The red LED lights around each fan aren't too obnoxiously bright, although the whole thing kind of looks like hot plate when it's turned on. I didn't even bother with the supplied keyboard and mouse, I picked up an inexpensive wireless set and gave the "gamer" set to my kids. They like it, but just know that they are strewn with LED lights so they both look like UFOs - a bit much for my taste, but then again I'm old.
Final note - the box that this PC ships in a bright red box strewn with "ULTIMATE GAMING SYSTEM" propaganda on all sides, including a picture of the PC itself. There was no outer shipper. If you live in an area where theft could be an issue, I strongly recommend you stick around for the delivery. I live in a very safe neighborhood so UPS usually leaves packages unattended, but when I saw this box I was a little surprised. Seriously, it might as well have a "please steal me" sign on it.
All in all I'm very pleased with the design and setup, again with the above modifications. I will put it through its paces with both games and video editing later and update this review if there are any surprises, but so far so good.
ONE WEEK UPDATE: As a test I ran WarThunder with all settings cranked up to 11, including grass, trees and reflections and the game runs beautifully. So far this machine continues to be a winner.
I've had this computer for a few days and really like it, for the most part. I would love to give it a five star rating, but one big issue keeps me from doing so. The cheap USB wireless dongle that came with this PC is rubbish. Everything else about this setup feels premium, but the supplied wireless dongle is not good.
I would like to point out that I am writing this review on a cheap HP Pavilion laptop in the same room as the desktop that I am reviewing and getting download speeds above 20Mbps. With the USB dongle supplied by Cyber Power, I can hardly get a download speed above 3 Mbps. Lacking a fast and stable internet connection is the achilles heel of this - and any other - system.
OK, beyond the wireless issue, for the price, the specs are outstanding. This machine is very fast, particularly if you swap out the supplied hard drive for an M.2 SSD, which the MSI motherboard supplied does and which I did. I chose the ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 256GB Ultimate 3D NAND Solid State Drive (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M3Z46FQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It only cost $65 and is well worth the money. The computer boots up so much faster. I used the free version of EaseUS to clone the hard drive that comes with this system to the new M.2 SSD that I installed and it worked perfectly. I swapped the boot order in the BIOS, placing the new SSD as the primary boot disc and the original hard drive as the secondary. I saved the original hard drive - now the secondary drive - to use for media storage and for backups.
I would like to praise Cyber Power in one regard, beyond their generally excellent computer - I really am impressed with their tech support. When I received the M.2 SSD, that I purchase from Amazon, I could not get the new SSD to show up in the bios with the original hard drive. I needed both to show up to clone the original hard drive to the new SSD. It was a head scratcher. I poured over different message boards and tried a half dozen things, but I wasn't getting anywhere. So, I did something I almost never do. I called tech support. It was a ten minute wait and the guy who helped me - I wish I had his name - was awesome. He was knowledgeable and had good communication skills. I know, right?!
For those curious, as to the cause of my problem: basically, the original hard drive was plugged in to a SATA port (1) that the M.2 used, when plugged in. All I had to do was move the original hard drives SATA cable to SATA port-3 on the motherboard. It worked like a charm. Oh, AND I called at 6pm! I am very impressed with the customer service.
I do have one suggestion for Cyber Power. Other than provide a better Wireless solution (a PCI-E solution maybe), provide a better description of video out ports on the supplied RX580 video card. For anyone reading this, the card has one DVI port, one display port and a few HDMI ports. I have two monitors and one had a DVI connector and the other has a 15 pin VGA connector. I had to go to a local store and get gauged for $25 to get a VGA-to-display port adapter. Had I known the video card's port options I would have ordered a much cheaper option from Amazon to arrive on the same day as the computer.
Lastly, if you are looking for a great sounding set of computer speakers, I doubt that you will find a better set, for the money, than the Philips SPA8210/37 Multimedia Speakers 2.0 (Black). They are only $22 and sound fantastic. They are heavy and can get very loud with good mid-range and even some decent base without any major distortion.
Here are the speakers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IVI3JD8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The PC (Intel-I5-8400) I received came with MSI motherboard and graphics card (RX580) and Western Digital Blue HD (1TB). All high quality components. It came with their generic power supply which I have read bad things about so the first thing I did was buy an EVGA 600w and installed it. The computer is very quiet during routine tasks. During intense gaming the fans do cause a bit more noise but not distracting noise, well within tolerance. The case does restrict air flow a bit but I have not seen any dangerous temperature spikes. Just to be safe I do remove one of the screws (top rear) holding the side glass panel on and prop the panel open to allow more heat to escape. The computer runs all the latest games maxed out and runs them smoothly. Excellent computer for the price! 4 stars for the cheap power supply and restricted air flow. The brand of components you get varies from build to build so you never know exactly what you will get.
For its price, I could not find anything comparable that could handle modern gaming I highly recommend this PC.
The main game I play is World of Warcraft and even with the new updates to the game, it will run on max settings with over 100FPS. I have tried many of the FTP games on STEAM such as Planetside 2 with hundreds of people fighting at the same time and have had no lag with max settings.
The fans are silent so you don't need to worry about a lot of noise.
Keyboard and Mouse are pretty good, I actually prefer this mouse over the MMO mouse I bought.
There are only three bad things about this PC that I could find but none are a big deal.
1. The internet adapter that comes with it is bad, buy a new one or better yet connect it to your modem. On top of not working properly, it lagged my internet really badly. Could be because of the fact it was not updated for Win 10 but just buy a new one.
2. It get's really hot so watch out for that. I have no AC atm in the place I'm renting and it get's pretty hot during the afternoon so I opened up the side and have an extra small fan for it just to be safe.
3. No CD player, not a big deal considering how nearly everything is digital but something you should know before you buy it.
Can you stream on it? - Yes, very well actually.
How high can you run games? - So far I've been able to run it on high on /everything/ AND stream. League of Legends, CSGO, Fortnite, Overwatch, and numerous other games.
Only complaint is the computer is basically a small heat generator, it does make my room very hot. Good thing about that, winter is coming! Downside, Summer time is going to suck :'-)
But yes, for the price, I highly recommend this. I love this so much, it's my second Cyberpower PC I've bought x
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