OT-CyberPower gaming PCs

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Termite2

Newegg sells cyberpower, reading their customer reviews can help, especially if it is a model you are looking at.

I've done an afternoon of reading and viewing YouTube videos on many brands and models. The more I read about CyberPower the more leery I'm getting. Those that like them seem to love them, but there are a fair number of horror stories about QA and unresolved customer service issues. Building a good engineering unit is only half the battle when you're selling direct to consumers. While Digital Storm has its detractors, they have fewer stories of customer service fails. In fact, many customers who did report initial problems were bowled over by the problem-solving attention and converted to fans. I have a lot more research to do though.

Interesting analysis on Tom's Hardware site too. They tried to build one of DS's big sellers and could only get to a $250 difference on home-built versus DS's box after accounting for shipping in both cases. Even the article writer admitted that a 3-year warranty and real-time support through several media was worth $250 to all but the most dedicated PC geek-boy.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Termite2

Newegg sells cyberpower, reading their customer reviews can help, especially if it is a model you are looking at.

All I can find there is peripherals like UPSes. My impression was CyberPower (PCs) sells only direct? Newegg would add an extra profit margin to the channel.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: stuman

This is a very interesting thread. It sounds like I am in the exact spot as you are Bullwinkle. I have a 6 year old Dell XPS that was pricey at the time, but has given great service.

Bessie was close to $5000 with a then-new flat screen, great speakers, sound card, extra RAM, ATI's best card (x850), a nice keyboard and mouse, and Office pre-loaded. That was a lot then, but it was a screaming game machine. Now it's a boat anchor.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: stuman

This is a very interesting thread. It sounds like I am in the exact spot as you are Bullwinkle. I have a 6 year old Dell XPS that was pricey at the time, but has given great service.

Bessie was close to $5000 with a then-new flat screen, great speakers, sound card, extra RAM, ATI's best card (x850), a nice keyboard and mouse, and Office pre-loaded. That was a lot then, but it was a screaming game machine. Now it's a boat anchor.

Yep, same here. My wife thought I was crazy, but we have gotten our money out of it I think.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Looking to upgrade very soon. Reading reviews of the Black Pearl model from CyberPower, and it seems like a lot of box for the money. Alienware, Falcon and the other bigs seem overpriced on a component-to-component basis. CyberPower doesn't have the marketing and overhead they do (yet.)

My concerns are manufacturing QA, whether they come with full disks for all software installed and not boot disks talking to .cab files on the HD (which are gone in a disk crash), and if the buying experience is smooth or one-horse.

I don't want to build my own; I'm looking just for info and opinions on this brand, either the Black Pearl or any of their other gaming-oriented models.

Anyone?

Dont have direct experience with CyberPower but if your leary of them, you might check out Alienware. I did own one of their "mobile desktops" back in the early part of last decade. (their term for a sup'd up laptop gaming system). Overall i was satisfied with the product and support level was good. Came with disks with all drivers and O/S along with utilities. Their support website is decently laid out.

You will pay through the nose for a top line system. Building your own can save you half the cost or more for a power system but if thats not an option and you don't have a local computer guy you trust.....Alienware is not a bad alternative to CyberPower.

[Nomad]

Nik, I think the problem now is that Alienware was bought by Dell. I have heard that Alienware is not as good as it was.

[Nikademus]

ah....didn't know that. You might be right. I build my own systems now so its not an issue for me. My last machine ended up costing half of the equivilent system being advertised by Alienware (they wanted 5 grand!)

[ChickenOfTheSea]

Even if you don't want to build from scratch, it is good to get a computer built from quality off-the-shelf components. That way you can update and upgrade components as you want with a fair amount of ease.

[Hanzberger]

I've been in the same boat as bullwinkle and have built many computers (online) thru cyberpowerpc. I like that it gives you a running total and you can pick the better parts yourself. I haven't bought a new computer in 10yrs and I hope this one can chuggg along a little longer. Everytime I build a computer it's like 5k, can't do that. I will have to follow this thread some more to see what bullwinkle decides. Things happen in shipping stuff, some ppl are just stupid and didn't order right and lots of other stuff so you gotta take reviews with a grain of salt.

The last time I was on there this is what I built. (did not buy only due to the lack of funds)

If someone knows something about this stuff let me know how I did~~!! lol

Configuration #: 1D0L6D

Configuration URL: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1D0L6D

Product Name: Cobra (NO MONITOR)

Price: $4,289.00

______________________________________________________________________

*BASE_PRICE:[+1989]

BLUETOOTH:None

CARE1:Ultra Enhanced Packaging Solution - Protect Your Dream System During Transit [+19]

CARE2:CoolerMaster Thermal Fusion 400 Extreme Performance CPU - Thermal Compound Optimized for Thermal Dissipation [+10]

CARE3:Professional Wiring for All WIRING Inside The System Chassis - Minimize Cable Exposure, Maximize Airflow in Your System [+19]

CAS:* Coolermaster HAF-X Gaming Full Tower Case w/ 1x230mm Red LED Fan, 1x200mm Fans, 2xFront USB 3.0 Port

CASUPGRADE:12in Meter Light - 8 speed [+15] (Green Color)

CD:Pioneer BDR-206BK 12X Blu-Ray Writer (Black Color) [+76]

CD2:* Asus BC-08B1LT 8X Blu-Ray Player & DVDRW Combo [+65] (BLACK COLOR)

CPU:Intel® Core™ i7-970 3.20 GHz 12M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366 [+326]

CS_FAN:Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+9]

FA_HDD:None

FAN:CyberPower Xtreme Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit 360MM w/ Triple Fan(CPU & GPU Liquid Cool Capable, Extreme Overclocking Performance + Extreme Silent at 18dBA) [+30]

FLASHMEDIA:INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)

FLOPPY:None

GLASSES:None

HDD:40 GB Intel X25-V 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk [+9] (40GB x 2 (40GB Capacity) Raid 1 High Performance with Data Security [+102])

HDD2:128GB Corsair Performance 3 Series SATA-III Gaming MLC Solid State Disk [+339] (Single Hard Drive)

IEEE_CARD:None

KEYBOARD:Xtreme Gear (Black Color) Multimedia/Internet USB Keyboard

MB_ADDON:None

MEMORY:6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module [-96] (Corsair Dominator [+36])

MONITOR:None

MONITOR2:None

MONITOR3:None

MOTHERBOARD:(3-Way SLI Support) Asus Rampage III Extreme Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX LGA1366 ATX Mainboard - Overclockable w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394a, USB3.0, Bluetooth, SATA-III, RAID, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 1 PCI [+204]

MOUSE:GigaByte GM-M6800 Dual Lens Optical Gaming Mouse [+13]

MULTIVIEW:Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor

NETWORK:Killer™ 2100 - Gigabit Maximum Network Performance Online Gaming Network Interface Card [+79]

NOISEREDUCE1:Sound Absorbing Foam on Side, Top And Bottom panels [+29]

NOISEREDUCE2:Power Supply Gasket [+5]

NOISEREDUCE3:Anti-Vibration Fan Mounts [+9]

OS:Microsoft® Windows® 7 Ultimate [+105] (64-bit Edition)

OVERCLOCK:Pro OC (Performance Overclock 10% or more)

POWERSUPPLY:* 1,200 Watts - Thermaltake W0133RU ToughPower Modular, 80 Plus Certified, Quad SLI Ready, CrossFireX Ready & Active PFC Power Supply [+191]

RUSH:5% Instant Rebate for Non-Rush Delivery Order over $999 - Ships within 3 Weeks - Must Enter Coupon Code "NORUSH" during checkout

SERVICE:STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

SOUND:HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

SPEAKERS:None

SURGE1:Ultra U12-40551 Smart 6 Outlet Surge Protector [+36]

TEMP:NZXT Sentry-2 Fan Touch Screen Fan Control & Temperature Display [+29]

TVRC:None

UPS1:OPTI-UPS TS2250B 2000VA/1200W Uninterruptible Power Supply [+209]

USB:PPA External 7-Port USB 2.0 Aluminum Hub [+15]

USBFLASH:None

USBHD:None

USBX:NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module + USB Bluetooth 2.X EDR Dongle with Led Light Thumb Size [+29]

VC_PHYSX:NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1GB DDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+93] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card [-155] (Palit Sonic Platinum 800MHz Core Powered by NVIDIA [+20])

VIDEO2:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+195] (Palit Sonic Platinum 800MHz Core Powered by NVIDIA [+20])

VIDEO3:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+195] (Palit Sonic Platinum 800MHz Core Powered by NVIDIA [+20])

WNC:None

_PRICE:(+4289)

[zace]

What the F guys.....

If you have never built a system just do it. I am sure several people here can talk you through it no problem at all.

The one I have now was build last april or so. basically top of the line or one step down on everything. Including the computer, case (ANTEC makes the best gaming cases ever and the ps on the bottom and vront to back flow channels mean great air flow), and 52" plasma monitor I came in about 2gs. The monitor (read Hidef TV) is a grand alone so the computer was only about 1k.

Are you totally against building one?

It really is much cheaper for gaming pcs (office pcs there are some low margin vendors but for the newer chipsets, CPUs, etc you do save by building your own).

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: zace

What the F guys.....

If you have never built a system just do it. I am sure several people here can talk you through it no problem at all.

The one I have now was build last april or so. basically top of the line or one step down on everything. Including the computer, case (ANTEC makes the best gaming cases ever and the ps on the bottom and vront to back flow channels mean great air flow), and 52" plasma monitor I came in about 2gs. The monitor (read Hidef TV) is a grand alone so the computer was only about 1k.

Are you totally against building one?

It really is much cheaper for gaming pcs (office pcs there are some low margin vendors but for the newer chipsets, CPUs, etc you do save by building your own).

Not calling BS, but can you point to anyplace where a case, mobo, 1000W PS, 4-6 gigs of gaming RAM, a 4-core AMD or Intel CPU, cooling, a 1TB HD, and a SOTA graphic card (even one) retails for $1000? That's before OS and associated trim.

Tom's Hardware site, which has been around for ages and is highly repsected, speced out a Digital Storm PC and built one with the exact same parts bought through mail-order. The exact same box. It was $250 lower than DS's price, before Tom's labor, with no warranty and no tech support.

I could build a business PC. I've done drives, replaced fans, added RAM, built partitions, etc. But a gaming box is a whole different animal. There's no way I'd try to install liquid cooling for example. Once upon a time gaming boxes WERE business computers, but not anymore. And before I risk leaivng $3000-4000 worth of components in a heap on the table I'll pay a company with real engineers to take the risk for me, and let me send it back for a refund if they screw up.

My dad built cat's whisker radios when he was a kid. Today, not so much. Times change, technology gets more complicated. Risks and costs of being wrong increase.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

[Not calling BS, but can you point to anyplace where a case, mobo, 1000W PS, 4-6 gigs of gaming RAM, a 4-core AMD or Intel CPU, cooling, a 1TB HD, and a SOTA graphic card (even one) retails for $1000? That's before OS and associated trim.

its doable, but if not building, your going to have to go big name brand selling out of a wholesale warehouse like Costco.

As a cost savings exercise, i rebuilt my X's dad's Celeron computer into a modern machine. Minimum requirement was: better than AMD Athlon64 as that was what his laptop used.

Total cost ended up being $318.00

Gigabyte MOB supporting up to 4GB DDR2 or 3 RAM, onboard ATI Radeon graphics and Intel 5.1 sound.

AMD Athlon 2 3.0GHz duo core.
4 GB DDR2 RAM
500GB SATA HD

salvaged parts:

basic ATX case
DVD drive
CD drive
NIC card 100mbs

had i had to buy a case....could have gotten no frills one for $29.99
basic DVD/CD-R....about $30
A quad core AMD would have added about 60-80$ to cost. AMD is not my personal choice but its far cheaper than Intel.

Windows "experience" rating was a respectible 5.1 It ran Doom3 on ultra quality no prob.

I put a copy of XP on the machine.

Windows7 "ultimate" is a waste of money.....only thing it adds is multi language support and Bitlocker encryption for the HDD. Get Professional instead.

I stay clear of liquid cooling options.

Do not recommend ASUS MOB's.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

[Not calling BS, but can you point to anyplace where a case, mobo, 1000W PS, 4-6 gigs of gaming RAM, a 4-core AMD or Intel CPU, cooling, a 1TB HD, and a SOTA graphic card (even one) retails for $1000? That's before OS and associated trim.

its doable, but if not buying your going big name brand selling out of a wholesale warehouse like Costco.

As a cost savings exercise, i rebuilt my X's dad's Celeron computer into a modern machine. Minimum requirement was: better than AMD Athlon64 as that was what his laptop used.

Total cost ended up being $318.00

Gigabyte MOB supporting up to 4GB DDR2 or 3 RAM, onboard ATI Radeon graphics and Intel 5.1 sound.

AMD Athlon 2 3.0GHz duo core.
4 GB DDR2 RAM
500GB SATA HD

salvaged parts:

basic ATX case
DVD drive
CD drive
NIC card 100mbs

had i had to buy a case....could have gotten no frills one for $29.99
basic DVD/CD-R....about $30
A quad core AMD would have added about 60-80$ to cost. AMD is not my personal choice but its far cheaper than Intel.

Windows "experience" rating was a respectible 5.1 It ran Doom3 on ultra quality no prob.

I put a copy of XP on the machine.

Windows7 "ultimate" is a waste of money.....only thing it adds is multi language support and Bitlocker encryption for the HDD. Get Professional instead.

I stay clear of liquid cooling options.

Do not recommend ASUS MOB's.

This is not a gaming computer. The graphics card alone . . . nope. Dual core . . . nope. The RAM is slow. The sound is not even SOTA for mobo sound (7.1), let alone what you can get with a sound card. Liquid cooled isn't standard, yet, but it's close, and it is probably needed if you go with more than one video card and/or overclock the CPU. (5+GHz is getting standard for overclocking these days.)

The box you describe will play AE fine. But it's not a gaming box.

This is the link to the Tom's article I cited. You can see that gaming-quality components are not cheap, and there's no magic place to get them at 50% off retail. You can get a PC that will run Office and let you surf the Web for $500 at BestBuy. But that's not the kind of machine I'm talking about. Not even close.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dig ... ,2376.html

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

The box you describe will play AE fine. But it's not a gaming box.

I didn't say it was. It won't satisfy the power gamer who plays 3D shooters but it will satisfy 90% of the rest of the community in terms of functionality including many games....like for example AE, and for a very low price.

The gaming rig i built several years ago came in at just over 2 grand using all top line parts. An equivilent Alienware rig priced at over 5 grand.

It is doable if you know exactly what you need to get the performance desired. For example there were a good number of items on Hanzberger's list that were superfluous to a good gaming rig and could be dispensed with.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

The box you describe will play AE fine. But it's not a gaming box.

I didn't say it was. It won't satisfy the power gamer who plays 3D shooters but it will satisfy 90% of the rest of the community in terms of functionality including many games....like for example AE.

The gaming rig i built several years ago came in at just over 2 grand using all top line parts. An equivilent Alienware rig priced at over 5 grand.

It is doable if you know exactly what you need to get the performance desired. For example there were a good number of items on Hanzberger's list that were superfluous to a good gaming rig and could be dispensed with.

I agree that his list had some bloat. I also would say that Alienware is a terrible comparison as it's gone off the tracks since it was bought by Dell. It makes fairly average gaming boxes with a huge brand markup, coasting on what it used to be. That won't last much longer.

I do play some shooters and graphic-intensive games, not just AE. I also only replace every 5-7 years, so buying backward, or even mid-now is a false economy . . . for me. For others who incrementlally replace components and tweak as they go it's not as important.

You can't build a leading-edge game machine in 2011 for $2000. You can build a pretty good machine, sans monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. But you certainly don't need to spend $5000 either. I'd urge you to take a look at the link I posted. That article is from 2009, so its prices aren't current, and DS stopped making that line of pre-made power machines in order to go full-custom as a business model, but in 2009 their machine was a beast for about $2500. Their direct build-your-own test with the same components was $250 less, not half as much. Components cost what they cost, and OEMs get volume discounts the home-buildier can't.

[Miller]

Im my (albeit) limited experience, you can buy or build a system that performs 80-90% as good as the best for half the price.

[Bullwinkle58]

I need sources for these components, because if that's true, I might chance it.

I don't think competitive markets with nearly seamless (Internet) information flows are that inefficient, but I'm from Missouri on it. I need sources and price lists. "Half" was the standard geek toss-off reply to the retail buyer ten years ago, when Fry's rode high and most PCs were bought brick&mortar, but I don't see that now. Prove me wrong. Please.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You can't build a leading-edge game machine in 2011 for $2000. You can build a pretty good machine, sans monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. But you certainly don't need to spend $5000 either.

<shrug>

If you say so. I guess too it depends on what one interprets as "leading edge" One certainly does *not* need to have the absolute fastest most expensive processor in order to have leading edge performance. The small statistical gain one sees on websites such as Tom's will barely show up in a real world situation, if at all from my experiences. Certainly it isn't worth the increase in cost.

[USSAmerica]

The box you describe will play AE fine. But it's not a gaming box.

Blasphmey!!! [:D]

AE is gaming and gaming IS AE! [&o][&o][&o]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You can't build a leading-edge game machine in 2011 for $2000. You can build a pretty good machine, sans monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. But you certainly don't need to spend $5000 either.

<shrug>

If you say so. I guess too it depends on what one interprets as "leading edge" One certainly does *not* need to have the absolute fastest most expensive processor in order to have leading edge performance. The small statistical gain one sees on websites such as Tom's will barely show up in a real world situation, if at all from my experiences. Certainly it isn't worth the increase in cost.

Processor speed hasn't been the bottleneck for at least five years. Coring has become somewhat an analog for what had been bragging rights based on clock-speeds in the Pentium-war era. Now you see hairy game machines without the max coring available on the market. Over-clocking is pretty standard, but now it's "safe" over-clocking with liquid cooling, not the geek-teen risky behavior of a decade ago.

Instead of processors the gaming game is all about graphics cards. Number, cooling, over-clocking of them as well, Crossfiring, SLI configs., bussing, and driver games. RAM is a distant third as I percieve it. RAM requirements have leveled off at 4-6 for games, with the real loads being carried by the graphics array. Unless you do other things than gaming, like video editing or something, I don't see OEMs pushing 8+ gigs of RAM very much. I'm not sure, but I think the home version of 64-bit Win 7 tops out at 12 gigs? Don't see gaming rig OEMs pushing Win 7 Professional or the other versions on their sites.

I've seen ads for gaming PCs at over $9000. It's all relative to your income. I know people who have that much in cash, in their house, every day. I've worked with people where that was their tipping budget for the month. I also agree that my 52-YO eyes and ears aren't going to see a 1% performance bump, and $500 is "a lot" for me right now.

I'm looking in the $2000-3000 window, with monitor. I think I can make myself very happy for that budget. The key, as you've said, is to cut the trim and put the money where it shows. I've learned enough in the past 72 hours to know that 72 hours ago I didn't know very much about the current state of things. [:)]