CyberPower: 4.0 GHz QX9770 and SLI GTX 280s
by Matt Campbell on August 22, 2008 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
CyberPower - Ordering Impressions
CyberPower's website comes up immediately from a web search, as we like to see. Their current Reseller Rating is 7.97 for the last six months and 7.43 lifetime. As has been mentioned before, many factors must be taken into consideration besides the raw score, but often the customer feedback is useful to read through. Many posters did comment that they bought based on price and selection, and CyberPower had responded to and resolved several of the complaints.
CyberPower's website is better organized than some, but still has a huge array of choices. There are a large number of base system configurations (32 Intel, 29 AMD!), many of which are only slightly different from one another, and a huge number of individual options for each one of those systems.
Oddly enough, their cheapest "base" Intel configuration is in the Midrange PC menu at $699 (Gamer Infinity 8000 Dream), or their "Mega Special III" at $635. In fact, they have High-Performance selections that are cheaper than their entry-level machines! Choice is great, but if you choose to segregate by performance, the line should be a little clearer. At the high end of the spectrum is the Gamer Extreme XI starting at $5079, which is the model under review today. Note that the Gamer Extreme XI comes with two PSUs, just to make sure you have enough power to run a small third-world country.
Common with many PC vendors, freebies such as T-shirts, USB drives, and games are available for many configurations, but some also come with higher priced items such as printers. As you scroll through the choices, a system summary follows you on the right hand side updating price and specs as you go, which is nice. The "Help me choose" options are somewhat helpful; they provide a short list of primary specifications, but don't provide simple comparisons in a way that lets the consumer made a tradeoff decision. We also found them to have some questionable hardware combinations since most upgrades are offered across the board - like a 128 GB SSD for a $600 PC. We won't ding them for this since they're giving choice to the consumer, but again a little more segregation among performance levels would declutter and simplify the ordering experience.
Their telephone support number was very easy to find ("Contact Us"), which we appreciate, and is listed as 24/7, in addition to the "Live Chat" feature available during business hours. Their shipping was very reasonable ($14 FedEx Ground cross-country for one entry-level system) and was very easy to use without requiring a login or personal information as some other websites do.
A brief list of Pros and Cons regarding the website layout and content is as follows:
Pros
Website easy to find
Huge array of choices
Generally competitive pricing
Prominent support information
Fair shipping rates and easy calculation
Cons
Huge array of choices can be confusing
"Help me Choose" could be better
Could remove extreme options from entry-level builds
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JarredWalton - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
Eh? My gaming PC right now is X38 with 3870 CrossFire. That list I just posted was a recommendation for a current setup that would use 4870X2 (or even Quad-CrossFire if you're daring). I think it's a reasonable recommendation for a high-end system right now. If you prefer NVIDIA SLI, go with a couple GTX 260 cards and a 790i motherboard.strikeback03 - Monday, August 25, 2008 - link
Page 8, the 3DMark Vantage Section"The CyberPower machine well and truly demolishes a respectable gaming machine (Q6600 @ 3.3GHz, SLI 3870s). " Wrong multi-GPU acronym used.
And speaking of those charts, is there a way to present the names so that the actual data bars are not only 1/4 or less of the total chart width?
JarredWalton - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
I'm still using the Q6600 at 3.30GHz... but it's a bit long in the tooth compared to 4850/4870. I'd like to upgrade GPUs, but divorce attorneys are expensive. :(7Enigma - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Count me in as well on being baffled by the choice of PSU and amount of ram. You could EASILY decrease the cost of this computer and increase potential performance by doubling the system ram and halving the power supply.And I have never understood case designs that have the PSU's on the bottom. IMO they should be installed near the top with either a back exhaust or better yet a blow-hole style outlet (you'd need the PSU manufacturer to put the outlet on the top though). Just seems pretty silly to have these monsters heating up the whole case when they should be helping to exhaust the hot air the rest of the system is producing (and the PSU's themselves). I'm wondering if this is a potential cause of the extremely high core temps...
Which brings me to the fact that I wouldn't touch this system even if I had the money to blow on it. Longevity concerns are real when operating at those levels, especially with the likelihood that buyers may not have the system in an area as cool as your testing room.
Can you guys comment on the water cooling system? Is the resevoir/design too small or poorly placed causing the high idle temperatures? Did you remove any of the mounts to see if there was something affecting heat transfer either at the cores or at the radiator?
But all in all, nice review!
MamiyaOtaru - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - link
I like having the PSU at the bottom. Using it to exhaust CPU heat fatigues it. I prefer having the PSU down at the floor, bringing in cool air, then dumping its exhaust out the back. In my box this lets it run very quietly. I've still got two 120mm fans exhausting heat from behind the CPU which isn't hot at all.This way I don't have CPU heat in the PSU, and I don't have a lot of PSU heat in the CPU (most goes out the back). But then I don't have two 1000W monsters.
Matt Campbell - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Here's a link to the cooler used in this system: http://www.northq.com/products/coolers/nq3580.html">http://www.northq.com/products/coolers/nq3580.htmlIt's small and compact, and the radiator mounts in front of a 120mm rear exhaust fan. There's no doubt in my mind that the amount of hardware in the case contributes to high idle temperatures, and that a large external water cooling system would decrease temperatures considerably (but wouldn't be such a slick in-case solution). NorthQ also offers a dual-radiator design (the 3590), but it wouldn't fit in the NZXT case, which is the only option for the Xtreme XI.
7Enigma - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Do you think something like the Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme (or whatever the current best air cooled solution) would actually offer better cooling that the nq3580?I know water can carry much more heat away than air, but I wonder if in this case that is actually hurting the temps as it's also being circulated back onto the cores at an elevated temperature.
Even better for this behemoth of a system would probably be to take a page from Dell or other large manufacturer that uses the shroud to pull "protected" air from outside the case, directly over the core, and out again. This would prevent the air from being warmed considerably by the other components.
7Enigma - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Forgot to add it looks like the PSU fan is partially blocked by the Cyberpower metal "thing". What the heck is the purpose of that piece, and why is it obstructing the fan?7Enigma - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Upon further looking at the pictures (for some reason the last picture in the internals is not coming up) it appears that the water cooling is only for the CPU correct? And that the small 90-120mm radiator where a normal external case fan would be is the sole way of dissapating heat? So there really is no water "block" of liquid and only the small amount of liquid in the lines is absorbing the heat?In a system with 2 280's, 2 1k PSU's, 4 HD's, and 2 optical drives, I could easily see how the cooling system would not be up to the task (due to all the heat soak prior to getting to the CPU cores). I would think an external block with radiator would be immensely more efficient, though you would of course lose the coolness factor of having it all in a single case....
JarredWalton - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
The cooling is sufficient I think, for everywhere except perhaps the CPU. I'd wager that an Ultra-120 eXtreme would beat it, but that's just a guess. As for the rest of the comments, while two PSUs is certainly overkill for this particular configuration, doubling the RAM will hardly have an impact on most things. I've got a 4GB system and a 2GB system (64-bit and 32-bit), with similar parts elsewhere. Unless I really open a LOT of applications (and 32-bit ones at that, since there are very few 64-bit apps), I couldn't tell them apart.