CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW: Performance at Any Cost
by Dustin Sklavos on June 1, 2011 1:05 PM ESTGaming Performance
Before we get into this testing, I do feel compelled to point out that Quad SLI is decidedly a niche product and you'll find the support is relatively commensurate with that. While NVIDIA's most recent drivers actually do a fantastic job of correcting the majority of surround testing quirks, I experienced some of the odd "red/blue" flickering during testing that people with Quad SLI have brought up on forums. This seems related to the SLI bridge being faulty or not high enough quality, and our rep at NVIDIA has suggested as much. The flickering doesn't impact performance, but it's pretty annoying. Thankfully it's easy enough to fix: replace the bridge.
Our "High" preset is liable to be a waste of horsepower, but for the sake of completeness, here it is:
And the CyberPower Gamer Xtreme FTW, with its pair of GeForce GTX 590s, puts in a rocking performance nearly every step of the way. In certain situations it's still processor limited (which is amusing given it's being driven by a 4.5GHz Intel Core i7-990X), but when we finally shift the majority of the workload to the graphics subsystem it'll really start to pull away.
Two side notes, though: first, I've included the Dell Precision T1600's NVIDIA Quadro 2000 performance results as a kind of baseline for the sort of gaming performance one might expect from a $100 or less video card, but try to keep in mind that it's a workstation card and not designed for this purpose. The T1600 will still run roughshod over even this machine in many workstation-based applications. Second, the STALKER: Call of Pripyat benchmark has a very unique bug that we were able to root out while testing: if DirectX isn't installed or updated properly, the benchmark won't render dynamic shadows. It'll run perfectly fine otherwise, but dynamic shadows and some post-processing lighting effects won't appear, and as a result the score will be twice to nearly quadruple what it ought to be. If anyone ever runs into this (and it was a new one on me and the NVIDIA guys alike), update your DirectX installation.
Now, on to the "Ultra" testing!
Once we shift the brunt of the workload to the graphics subsystem, CyberPower's desktop takes off like a shot, and you can expect this trend to further continue when we enter the "Surround" testing suite. StarCraft II continues to be the odd man out, but I've been griping to anyone who'll listen about how badly coded that game was since it came out. Released in 2010. It's a real-time strategy game that doesn't scale past two threads and still struggles with the now standard mainstream resolution of 1366x768, and there's no built-in anti-aliasing. What, were the designers too busy counting their money to produce a halfway modern engine? Come on, even World of Warcraft has DirectX 11 support and scales past two threads at this point.
But let's not dwell on badly engineered PC games when we can test a quad-GPU monster at the punishing surround resolution of 5670x1200.
Now that the pair of GeForce GTX 590s can stretch their legs, the CyberPower Gamer Xtreme FTW takes a comfortable lead in every game. While some show better scaling than others beyond the pair of GeForce GTX 580s in the DigitalStorm Enix, ultimately there's still a performance boost and room to grow in every test case. The major question I have, though, is whether or not it's enough of a jump to warrant the increased price over a pair of GeForce GTX 580s. The 590 SLI rig is faster, sure, but the pair of 580s are still more than adequate even at this resolution. But if you're thinking about buying a trio of 27" or 30" LCDs for gaming purposes, by all means, go for the Quad SLI setup....
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CyberHD - Friday, June 3, 2011 - link
Meshugge,To better assist us with getting your concerns addressed; please email cyberhd@cyberpowerpc.com with your Cyberpower PC customer id number and a direct return contact number. Once we have this; we will make every effort to contact you to your concerns address your concerns.
Regards
Cyberpower PC
Browngamer93 - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - link
Don't know too much about computers, but I wouldn't mind playing this impressive material with Crysis 2. Hope I'm the one to win if they have a giveaway.wolfman3k5 - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - link
This machine looks like it was put together with extreme superficiality, and with an obvious lack of passion. Custom built, boutique computer systems are supposed to be about mods and customizations. Just the cable management is horrendously impractical. If the tech at CyberPowerPC would spend 5 minutes at any Home Depot he could come up with a half way decent cable management solution. When it comes to custom built computer systems, and this price range, everything matters, every little detail. Specs don't matter as much as quality. And I'm addressing this to CyberPower: people don't buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini just for the specs, they also buy them for the status symbol that they get, for the quality and for the level of service. Otherwise everyone could buy a $20000 to $60000 sports car (like a Corvette) and be done with it. I'm not saying that a Corvette is a bad car, I'm just saying that it's not a Ferrari, just like a Alienware will never be a Falcon-NW.My point is that I will never spend this kind of money on a CyberPowerPC or any kind of half-assed-boutique computer system. For $5000 I can get a Mac Pro, an Apple monitor and have money left over for a Macbook. Or I can get a decent PC built by any number of manufacturers that will turn more heads and perform way better.
Bottom line: put some soul in your computers for Christ Sake do some real custom work on them, otherwise your computer systems are just expensive hunks of junks. Most people can twist cables and install boards these days.
EpsilonZero - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
For $5000 they really should have managed all of those cables.It looks like they just through the cables in and loosely zip tied them together.
A quality build would have cut and spliced those cables to exact lengths, added sleaves, and changed the plugs to a build enhancing color scheme.
Theres absolutely nothing custom about this build. Everything is stock parts that a customer could very easily purchase from Newegg and as Anand pointed out they could probably save $500 by doing so.
CyberPower you got a long way to go.
ironmb1 - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
I love how people on this site cry about how overpriced this rig is, how the hardware is so outdated.. yet they would take it in a heartbeat. All you budget gamers need not apply. Anyways, anyone with this much money willing to spend on a rig with this much hardware... should NEVER EVER buy from CyberpowerPC or Ibuypower. These two companies have HORRIBLE reviews, just go read their forums. There are way better boutique builders than cyberpowerpc, and ibuypower.I love how my password never works more than once. I'm sick of registering to post comments.
MilwaukeeMike - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
Anyone else think it was interesting that every hot new SSD is a 240 GB, yet they put 120's in this monster? If anyone could justify 240's it'd be this, right?Or maybe there really isn't anyone who thinks a big SSD is worth the $$$.
GullLars - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
Actually, it wouldn't matter much for performance, given the Marvel controller.You would get a lot more bang for buck for this rigg if you got a decent RAID card (like LSI 92xx or Areca 1680/1880) and put up 4-8x 64GB or 128GB SSDs in RAID-0. Your PCmark vantage scores would easily hit 30-35K, IOPS would pass 100K, and bandwidth around 1500-2000MB/s. If you got one of the Arecas with 4GB RAM, the read-ahead and intelligent cache would also make a visible dent in loading times and burst speed.
I would go for a decent RAID card with good SSDs over SLI 590 any day. If you're not going ultra details with 3 27/30" monitors you don't need it anyway.
Single 580 or SLI 560/570 sounds better. I'd also get a water block for the GPU(s) and add another 240/480 radiator (depending on 1 or 2 GPUs), outside the case if needed.
GullLars - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
The PCmark Vantage score is way below what you'd expect for a $5K system in Q2 2011.In 2008, Nizzen scored 24740 (just 700 points below this) on a system costing about the same, which was his main system on it's 24/7 clock. This time last year he was in the mid 30K's with a build refresh with 980x also at 24/7 clock.
I suspect the reason for the underperforming score is the Marvel RAID controller used on the motherboard for the SSD RAID, and intel 510 SSDs being used.
I would love to see full PCMark Vantage HDD suite scores to confirm or rule out this.
RAM clock also seems bad, unless running really tight timings.
Gonemad - Friday, June 3, 2011 - link
...for a i7-2600K, (changing all compatible parts accordingly) drop the 590s (quad-core, right?) and try something close to 3-slot SLI /CF models/setup, with unencumbered multipliers on the graphics cards and on the CPU, add more water cooling, drop more fans, and see what happens to bang-for-buck and idling power. Most oldish games still enjoy poor coding and like faster cores instead of MORE cores, like SC2.And really, for that dosh all the cabling should be custom-fit.
7Enigma - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
What the heck does this mean:"Now admittedly I was running the Gamer Xtreme FTW with the sliding glass door open when the outside weather was less than 60F, but we can probably all agree these are excellent thermals, especially when you take into account the reason why I tested this tower with that door open."
So you tested with the sliding glass open because your ambient temp was cool. How does that have any resemblance to normal operating conditions? All the dust, increased noise, not to mention very likely giving a VERY rosy picture to the thermals. It doesn't matter if the problem is the Thermaltake Level 10 GT as you allude to without giving specifics, Cyberpower CHOSE this case for this build. If they made the wrong case choice, that IS on them.
Dustin, I normally like your reviews and writing style, but this one smacks of bias or poor decision making.