Verdict: A heavily overclocked gaming PC inside an awesome case.
As you can see from our review, the new 45nm Wolfdale core Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 is an impressive CPU. The main talking point is its performance when overclocked, so there's no surprise that CyberPower has chosen to use it here, and applied a massive 1GHz overclock. The 4GHz dual-core CPU has plenty of support from other fast components too.
CyberPower's choice of the 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card is good; it was the fastest PCI-E 2.0 card going when CyberPower was configuring, building and testing the machine. The PC arrived in the Labs two weeks before the GeForce 9800 GX2, which was released just as we were wrapping up the mag.
The 2GB of Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 RAM is also a good sign. This memory was a joint winner of the high-end DDR2 category in our last memory Labs test. The system's audio is left in the capable hands of a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer.
These components have been slotted into an Asus P5E motherboard, which is based around Intel's X38 chipset. The board is part of Asus' Lifestyle range, so it lacks the showier elements of the pricey Republic of Gamers series. However, many elements of Asus' showcase range of motherboards feature on this supposedly lesser board. The chunky Northbridge heatsink is surprisingly similar to those of the two ROG boards we review this issue.
The overclocked and overvolted Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU is cooled by an Asus Silent Knight II. This cooler looks lovely, and does a fair job of shifting heat, but we found it a little noisy when we reviewed it. CyberPower clearly has little faith in the retention mechanism, though, as the HSF was held in place by cable-tie.
A glowing red 120mm intake fan blows air directly over the two hard disks, a 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD and a 250GB Maxtor DiamondMax 21. The Raptor is set up as the system drive, and is clearly where CyberPower expects you to install games, while the Maxtor acts as a data disk. However, our tests show that the Maxtor disk is slow and cheap, while the £90 74GB Raptor is very poor value for money. CyberPower could have spent its storage budget better by using the 750GB Samsung SpinPoint F1, which is quiet and costs around £90, and offers fast performance and more than double the storage capacity of the configuration used here.
The entire system is housed in one of the best cases we've seen for a long time (expect a full review next month). Cooler Master has transformed the heavy steel Cosmos 1000 into the sleek aluminium Cosmos S. The styling has aspects of the classic original Cooler Master Stacker, with a touch of Alienware aggression.
The basic cooling arrangement of the Cosmos S is a simplified (and therefore better) model than that of the Cosmos 1000. Cold air is sucked in through the front and the underside of the case, and expelled via the back panel and roof vents and fans. This sensible airflow is augmented by the massive and quiet 230mm fan in the left-hand side panel. Unplugging this side fan caused the CPU temperature to increase by 8ûC, so it clearly works well. If you fancied pushing the Core 2 Duo E8400 to its limits, the sizable roof vent in the Cosmos S would accommodate a triple 120mm-fan radiator for a large water-cooling system.
The Hiper Type M 630W PSU is mounted on the floor of the case and has its own air vent. It obviously has enough power for this dual-core CPU, single graphics card, dual hard-disk system, but you might need a beefier model for a major upgrade. The PSU also has only one 6-pin PCI-E power connector and one 8-pin connector (not a 6+2-pin), which could make graphics card upgrades tricky. If your new card (or combination of two cards) needs two 6-pin power inputs, you'll have to use the two free Molex connections with a converter. CyberPower has done a good job of tidying the unused cables from the PSU though.
Performance
The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 is a formidable performer when overclocked, and the other components should help it to a fast overall score. We installed our Media Benchmarks 2007 and test games on the Raptor hard disk to determine the maximum performance on offer.
Our Gimp test requires lots of large image files to be quickly read from, and saved to, the hard disk - the Raptor should help to boost the score in this test. Indeed, the image editing score of 1,517 is great - 50 per cent faster than our reference 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 system. The video encoding test also returned a strong score of 1,542, but the multitasking test was a low 1,130. Supreme Commander returned its usual rubbish minimum, although the average is very high at 59fps.
The 4GHz overclock (from a 3GHz default) was achieved by raising the vcore from 1.15V to 1.475V and using an FSB of 444MHz. However, the Asus Silent Knight II and the Cosmos S fans kept the CPU running at a maximum of 66ûC, so we felt confident to push it further. We raised the vcore to 1.525V and the FSB to 466MHz, resulting in a CPU speed of 4.1GHz, a huge overclock from the 3GHz rating. This shows not only that the Asus P5E board can handle a beefy overclock, but also that CyberPower has been pretty adventurous with its overclock.
As the supplied overclock is so near the CPU's maximum, we probably wouldn't bother trying to overclock the PC further than CyberPower has. The tiny increase in the benchmark results don't justify voiding the three-year return-to-base warranty.
With that in mind, we returned the PC to its standard overclock for game testing. We ran our Call of Duty 4 benchmark at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4 x AA, and the frame rate never dropped below a smooth 27fps. In contrast, we only subjected the system to Crysis at 1,024 x 768 without any AA or AF. For the most part, the game was playable, but the frame rate occasionally dipped below 25fps. This tended to happen when grenades exploded, or when we repeatedly switched from looking down the sight of our gun to shooting from the hip - situations in which you need the frame rate to remain smooth.
Conclusion
The CyberPower Gamer Infinity XT Elite seems to tick all the right boxes: the performance is good, it looks great, it's well constructed and has good cooling. However, there's room for improvement. The PSU is disappointing; 630W isn't a massive amount of power and, with only one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E power connector, a major graphics upgrade might mean ditching the PSU even if it can supply enough power. Our principal gripe is the hard disk setup. The 320GB accounts for at least 10 per cent of the overall cost of the system, which is poor value. A 750GB Samsung SpinPoint F1 would have cost less and been faster than the 74GB Raptor.
However, overall, the system is more good than bad. It's the first system we've seen to combine a massively overclocked Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU with the might of the 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card, and both components make it pleasingly fast. The system is also relatively quiet and looks great, thanks to the Cooler Master Cosmos S case.
Ultimately, however, the storage and power supply niggles mean that the Gamer Infinity XT Elite fails to win our wholehearted recommendation.
