In a similar vein, no documentation came with the system. Make no mistake, the audio and input experiences are functional, but they also feel like missed opportunities for Cyberpower, where it could have created a more polished computer by adding even slightly better components. Neither the Microsoft Optical Wheel mouse nor the Logitech keyboard stand out, as well. At this price (north of $3,000), we expected better audio without having to add to the cost.
They get the job done, but if you're picky about audio, you might consider an upgrade to a Creative sound card, a $95 upgrade for the most basic Audigy 2. We're less jazzed about the 90-watt 7.1 Creative Inspire P7800 speakers and the motherboard's integrated sound chip.
The 19-inch ViewSonic VX900 LCD display bundled with our test system (Cyberpower gives you a choice among CRTs and LCDs when configuring the 9900 Pro) delivers reasonable picture quality that doesn't falter in letterbox sizing, a bonus for movie watchers. The 6-in-1 media-card reader rounds out the front panel, with enough variation in media types to accommodate most removable flash storage formats. Two additional USB 2.0 ports reside on the front, along with another FireWire input.
On the back, there are four USB 2.0 ports, a single FireWire jack, and the requisite array of 7.1-supporting audio jacks.
You also get two vacant PCI slots for card expansion, a respectable number.Įxternally, the Cyberpower Gamer Infinity 9900 Pro gives you a fair amount of add-on flexibility. Two open sockets wait next to the resident pair of 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM modules, but the radiator for the liquid-cooling system is mounted directly above them, essentially rendering the slots inaccessible, unless you undertake the cumbersome task of taking the radiator out. Expanding the memory is the only potential problem area. The roomy case also features five 5.25-inch bays, of which only two are occupied by a pair of Sony optical drives: a 16X DVD-ROM drive and an 8X double-layer DVD burner. (Unfortunately, you can configure the 9900 Pro with only two drives on Cyberpower's online configurator.) You have the room to add more hard drives yourself, however the extant drives occupy only two of the five internal 3.5-inch drive bays. The two 74GB, 10,000rpm Western Digital Raptor hard drives (in a RAID 0 configuration) give you a decent amount of fast access storage, although we'd recommend that digital media aficionados add a 160GB or larger tertiary drive for extra space.
As its name implies, if you buy this PC for gaming, you're set.Īiding our test system's performance is a pair of fast hard drives. Higher resolutions get challenging for this and all other PCs on Half-Life 2, but the good news is that on the 1,600x1,200 Half-Life 2 benchmark, Cyberpower beat even the ZT Group Pro Gaming X6647 and its ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, a 3D card that usually kicks Nvidia's butt (SLI rigs notwithstanding). Scores on our 1,024x768-resolution Half-Life 2 test were more than adequate and in line with where the system should be on the performance scale. Gaming performance was a little less dominant, although the 9900 Pro's 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card is certainly no slouch. The Cyberpower Gamer Infinity 9900 Pro achieved appropriately high scores on our benchmark tests, even slightly edging out the PC Club Enpower Edge and its higher-end 3.8GHz Pentium 4 570 CPU on our SysMark 2004 application test. This is not to say that you need to get involved with tweaking this system to get the most out of it. We just wish Cyberpower had added a little more polish, given the high-end price tag. With a high-end graphics card a 64-bit, liquid-cooled 3.6GHz Pentium 4 660 CPU and an easily overclocked motherboard, the 9900 Pro provides lots of gaming muscle with the potential to pump up its performance even further.
But this system has more than just a tough-guy visage. A blue internal light seeps out from behind the death's head fan grille and the acrylic side panel, complementing the image of a menacing hunk of technology. The pair of vicious red slashes on the front panel gives it a hint of evil, appropriate for a desktop that claims to be a wickedly fast gaming system.
It's almost a shame to tuck the $3,134 Cyberpower Gamer Infinity 9900 Pro under a desk.