CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW: Performance at Any Cost

Conclusion: Fastest Ever, But at a High Price

The performance conclusion is really a simple one: the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW is among the fastest consumer desktops you can buy. If that's all you're really concerned about, then godspeed. I'll be trying to get a system with dual Radeon HD 6990s in for review as a comparison point, but until then the GX FTW holds the crown. But there are some real concerns here.

My first experience with the Thermaltake Level 10 GT used for this build was somewhat fraught, but I'm going to hesitate to pass any kind of judgment until I've actually tested the case myself on its own terms. Credit where credit is due: it kept temperatures very low, and noise levels were kept in check as well. CyberPowerPC was also very smart in their choice of components for this review unit, especially the motherboard. Being able to separate the GTX 590s as well as they could undoubtedly contributed to the excellent thermal performance.

The overclock is a thorn in my side, though. Even ignoring for the moment the ridiculous power consumption and corresponding heat output that will come with running four high-end GPUs to begin with, the voltage on the i7-990X is unnervingly high, and worse, it never idles down. Accounting for Vdroop, sensors in Windows still read 1.42V going into that core. It's water-cooled, but in keeping with our review of the DigitalStorm Enix I again have to wonder what kind of long term effect this much voltage will have on the processor. It's true that Gulftown isn't the overclocker Sandy Bridge is and so more work is going to be involved in getting it to hit these speeds, but there's just no way of knowing if constantly running this thing at full bore will cause trouble down the line (e.g. electromigration), even with the high performance water-cooling solution.

Where I get really agitated is the fact that the voltage is another "set it and forget it" overclock. On a $5,000 desktop, that's inexcusable. This thing is as premium as it gets, but tuned with absolutely no regard for the kind of power it's going to pull out of the wall, and it's going to add up over time. Worse than that, it's just wasteful, dumping buckets of heat into the room even when it's not doing anything. It's really kind of a shame Intel priced Gulftown out of so many peoples' reach, because the chip is an impressive piece of engineering that's remarkably efficient given the six cores. But the fixed voltage in the BIOS along with the disabled Turbo Boost and SpeedStep result in a chip that can't really idle and power savings that aren't going to be realized.

Finally, let's talk pricing for a minute. $5000 is a lot of money for a gaming system, but there's usually an added cost to buying a pre-built system. CyberPowerPC is actually quite competitive on their pricing, however, even with that hefty sticker price. I did some shopping online to configure the same system, using the best prices from a variety of online vendors. The total cost for all of the hardware--never mind the time required to assemble and test the system--comes out to just over $4500. CyberPower also provides a 3-year warranty and factory overclocking, so an extra $500 (10%) is very reasonable. We still wouldn't recommend such a system--you can easily shave off $1000 with a few judicious changes--but if you want everything you see here, five grand is what you should expect to pay, whether you buy pre-built or go the DIY route.

CyberPowerPC very nearly had a great flagship boutique build going here, with smart component choices and a screaming fast graphics subsystem. The overclock on the processor is a costly fumble. I know they can do better than this, and I really want to see them try. And maybe we can get them to do just than when Sandy Bridge-E launches later this year. That's perhaps the biggest reason to pass on the current Gulftown CPUs: if you didn't jump on the hex-core bandwagon when Gulftown first showed up a year ago, at this point you should just wait for the LGA-2011 refresh before taking the plunge.