CyberPowerPC's Gamer Xtreme 4000: Now with Sandy Bridge
by Dustin Sklavos on January 4, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- CyberPowerPC
- NVIDIA
Introducing the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme 4000
We last checked in with CyberPowerPC's gaming desktop division when we reviewed the Gamer Xtreme 8500, which packed a beefy Intel Core i7-875K overclocked to 3.8GHz alongside two NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450s in SLI. Our feelings were decidedly mixed: while it was certainly fast enough, the gulf between the quoted price tag and the actual price along with the hack overclocking job made us question the system's value. Now CyberPowerPC has sent us a gaming desktop with the reasonably new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 and a brand spanking new Intel Core i7-2600K that features the highest clock speed of any processor we've ever tested in a system.
Knowing the new Intel Core i7 based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture is one of the fastest processors you can buy, what happens when we take the best clock-for-clock performance on the market and crank it up to 4.4GHz?
| CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme 4000 Specifications | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4.4GHz (100MHz Bclk with x44 multiplier) (spec: 4x3.4GHz, 32nm, 8MB L3, 95W) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8P67 Motherboard with P67 chipset |
| Memory | 2x2GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz (expandable to 16GB) |
| Graphics |
eVGA SuperClocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 (480 CUDA Cores, 797/1594MHz Core/Shader, 3.9GHz RAM, 320-bit memory bus) |
| Hard Drive(s) | Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gbps |
| Optical Drive(s) | ASUS BD-ROM/DVD+/-RW Combo Drive |
| Networking |
Intel Gigabit Ethernet Bluetooth 2.1+EDR |
| Audio |
Realtek ALC892 HD Audio Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound Digital and optical out |
| Front Side |
Optical Drive 2x USB 2.0 Headphone and mic jacks USB 3.0 eSATA MMC/SD/CF/MS reader |
| Top | - |
| Back Side |
2x PS/2 Digital and optical out 2x eSATA 6x USB 2.0 6-pin FireWire 2x USB 3.0 Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Dimensions | 19.7" x 18.9" x 8.3" (WxDxH) |
| Weight | 15.7 lbs (case only) |
| Extras |
Corsair 650TX Power Supply Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling Thermaltake Armor A60 Case Flash reader (MMC/MS/CF/SD) Overclocked from warehouse |
| Warranty | 3-year limited warranty and lifetime phone support |
| Pricing | Quoted Price: $1,399 |
The elephant in the room is the overclocked Intel Core i7-2600K. Built on a 32nm fabrication process, it's Intel's new top of the line mainstream processor using the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture and features 8MB of L3 cache and a nominal turbo speed of 3.8GHz. Given the changes in how Sandy Bridge chips are overclocked, the unlocked multiplier is necessary to get the most out of these new processors. CyberPower has accordingly ramped the turbo multiplier to 44x, yielding a final turbo speed of a staggering 4.4GHz. The new i7 is cooled using CyberPower's standard Asetek 510LC liquid cooling which keeps idle temperatures extremely low.
Supporting the i7-2600K is Intel's new P67 chipset, which features both SATA 6Gbps and 3Gbps connectivity, the former of which is connected to the bog standard Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB drive. The chipset and processor only support dual channel memory, resulting in a board maximum of 16GB of DDR3; the 4GB of Kingston HyperX installed runs at a very healthy 1600MHz. The rest of the motherboard offers all of the modern connectivity you could ask for, including an interesting surprise in the form of integrated bluetooth.
Finally we also have the SuperClocked model of eVGA's NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570. In our review of the GTX 570 we found it to be about as fast as the former king of the hill GeForce GTX 480. Not too shabby, and now with eVGA's SuperClocked model we see a 60MHz bump in core clock (resulting in an effective 120MHz boost on the shader clock); memory speed is unchanged. Nonetheless, the 570 also sports a healthy 480 of NVIDIA's CUDA cores along with improved thermals and power consumption over the previous generation.
Rounding things out are a blu-ray reader/DVD writer combo drive and a respectable if unexciting Thermaltake Armor A60 case. A nice surprise comes in the form of the Corsair 650TX power supply, generally regarded as one of the best brands on the market.
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ABR - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
You mention the motherboard in this box "made the jump" to EFI. Does that mean the graphics card in it supports EFI? I.e. it can be used unmodified in a MacPro?Gothmoth - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
don´t know what a EFI bios has to do with the GFX card.i have an EFI board and can put in a 3 year old 8800 GT card.
your problem is more likely that the apple crappis build only to run with certain cards.
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Your board most likely has BIOS emulation going on to allow the old card to run. As the are extensive differences between EFI and BIOS/CMOS. Cards not supporting EFI will not function on a board with EFI only.Boards that are EFI only, without any BIOS emulation, require their video cards to fully support EFI. This is one of the reasons graphics cards for MacPro's are not standard cards. It is believed once PC's decide to finally ditch BIOS/CMOS, that graphics cards will become standardized between the two, allowing for (comparitively) cheap MacPro video cards.
Kaboose - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Not a bad build over all, however it seems most games were gpu limited. Stepping down to a 2500k and lowering the price (or keeping it the same to avoid a price hike) would be a good choice for most gamers.Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Right. I dont get why they used a 2600K at all since the 2500k is highly likely to overclock to the same 4.4GHz or perhaps even more due to disabled HT. $100 for 4 mostly unused threads and a 30% increase in cache seems like a waste next to a boot drive SSD. Especially if the IGP is disabled.Sihastru - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
2500K lacks HT and has 2MB of cache shaved off.Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
HT has limited use anyway. A hyper threaded core will not perform anywhere close to as well as a real physical core. And if gaming is the main purpose of the box, anything over 4 cores is a waste anyway. And the 2MB difference in cache most likely would not have much of an effect either for the majority of games.And since this box is designed for gaming, the 2500K would most likely perform identically to the 2600K.
Nentor - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Actually if you look at the gaming benches in the SB review on AT you'll see that the 2500K is FASTER than the 2600K when it comes to gaming, so yeah, this is a weird choice Cyberpower made.Must be a marketing thing.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Let's not get carried away, there. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg...i7-2600K comes out ahead in six of the ten games, and there are certainly titles that truly fail to leverage multithreading (hello StarCraft II!). The net difference across the ten tests Anand ran gives the 2600K a 2.3% advantage--negligible, I know, but that certainly doesn't make the 2500K FASTER as you suggest; nearly equal is more like it.
Besides, people do plenty of other things with their PC besides gaming. Video encoding (x264) was as much as 31% faster on the 2600K, and the compiler test took 31% less time. 7-Zip (MIPS) and POV-Ray also give the 2600K a >35% lead.
If all you want is a fast gaming system, 2500K is probably the best bang for the buck. If every little speed boost is important, though, and you regularly run some heavily threaded applications, 2600K can end up anywhere from 10% to 40% faster.
Nentor - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
No, I am right.The 2600K has a higher clock and that is the cause of the 2.3% advantage.
Either clock them the same and test or overclock them both as far as they go. I know which one I will put my money on, wanna bet?
This box is even called the "Gamer Xtreme", so it is obvious who it is buidl for.