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With Christmas fast approaching, you may well be considering treating yourself to a brand new gaming PC. However, Brexit has hit prices pretty hard when it comes to buying components – some GTX 1080s now cost almost £900, for example. So what if you want a fast yet cost effective PC that can still deliver the goods? Cyberpower think their £999 Infinity X55 VX system is up to the job.
Given the psychological effect of being priced under £1000, Cyberpower hopes their Infinity X55 VX will prove an enticing deal as we head towards Christmas. Packing a Core i5 and GTX 1060 6GB, it has the makings of a decent gaming PC. However, before coming to any conclusions we run the Infinity X55 VX through our intensive benchmarking suite, including some of the most demanding games you can play.
Specification:
- Cyberpower ARC 649 tempered Glass case
- Intel Core i5 6402P 2.8GHZ CPU
- MSI GTX 1060 6GB
- Intel 600P 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD
- 16GB Corsair LPX 3000MHZ RAM (with Red LED)
- 1TB WD Caviar Blue HDD
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED cooler
- 500W Cooler Master B500 PSU
- Windows 10 Home Edition
Price: £999
The Cyberpower Infinity X55 VX ships in a black case box, well protected by plenty of bubblewrap.
Alongside the system itself is the MSI Z170-A Pro motherboard box. In here are a few extra SATA cables, as well as the user manual and driver disc.
Here we get our first look at the PC itself. Cyberpower are using the ARC 649 case, which is apparently a Cyberpower exclusive.
The front panel has a distinctive angular design, while the red strip lights up once the system is turned on. Removing the front panel reveals a full-length magnetic dust filter underneath, though there are no intake fans installed.
While still at the front of the case, we can see the front I/O consists of 2x USB 3.0, headset jacks and a power/reset rocker button.
However, the ARC 649 is perhaps most interesting because of its tempered glass side panels. Both side panels are glass, secured in place with four thumbscrews each.
As you can see, the glass is very dark – at a glimpse, you would be forgiven for thinking the chassis was empty. Fortunately, Cyberpower have included some red LED strips (which you can see below) which illuminate the chassis well.
Popping off the side panels gives us our first look at the innards of the build.
While cable management is generally decent – the ARC 649 offers good options for routing cables – and the empty space gives a clean look to the build, the cables themselves are very ugly. The 6-pin power connector for the graphics card is completely unsleeved, showing off its ugly black-and-yellow colour scheme, while the motherboard 24-pin is only partially sleeved, which means the ketchup-and-mustard cabling is also exposed.
I can understand that the Infinity X55 VX is built to a price, but there is still little excuse for having these cables on display. A couple of cable extensions – red would work well here, for example – would not cost much at all, but they would vastly increase the aesthetic appeal of the build.
Moving on to the components used, then.
To start with the cooling solution employed, it is worth noting that Cyberpower only include one case fan with the Infinity X55 VX – it is positioned at the rear of the case, exhausting air. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED air cooler is another interesting choice – only just released, I am actually in the process of doing a review on this cooler. I will be looking out for its performance here as an early indicator of what we can expect from it.
The processor is always a key area in any build, and Cyberpower have strayed from the beaten track a little here. Their CPU of choice is the unusual Intel i5-6402P. It is essentially a modified version of the standard i5-6400, but it has an extra 100MHz added to its clock speed as its integrated graphics have been reduced in speed.
Lastly, the memory used here is Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz Red LED RAM.
Positioned just beneath the CPU cooler is the M.2 SSD. The Intel 600p is a very new product, and is actually a PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe drive – despite its low cost. The model used here is the 256GB variant.
A 256GB SSD, along with the 1TB hard drive (see below) is the best storage configuration available at this price point. The SSD has enough space for Windows and a few choice applications, while the mechanical drive offers mass storage for media files – giving the optimal balance between cost, speed and storage space.
What will gain you the most FPS in games, however, is the MSI GTX 1060 6GB graphics card. A small, single-fan card, it looks to be more suited to a Mini-ITX build than this ATX mid-tower. Nonetheless, we see how it performs later in this review.
Under the graphics card is a spare PCIe x16 slot – however, due to the MSI Z170-A Pro motherboard being more budget-oriented, it only runs in x4 mode. That being said, the GTX 1060 does not support SLI anyway so it is hardly an issue. It is just worth noting the only way to upgrade your graphics card down the line is to completely remove the GTX 1060 and install something else.
On the subject of the motherboard, the PCB is sadly a very ugly brown colour. It looks terrible alongside the exposed cables, although when the side panel is on and the LED strip is shining, you cannot really tell.
Here we get a closer look at the cabling – to be fair to Cyberpower they have tied the cables down and routed them sensibly. They are just quite an eyesore due to the lack of sleeving.
At the bottom of the case, a PSU shroud extends the length of the chassis. The hidden PSU is a Cooler Master B500 – a budget power supply, it is not even 80 Plus certified. However, we experienced no issues with it while testing the Infinity X55 VX, so it seems to do a decent job.
Switching sides to get a look at the space behind the motherboard tray, Cyberpower have done a good job at keeping the cables tucked away and tied down. You can see a lot of ketchup-and-mustard cabling though.
Also mounted on the side panel is a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue hard drive.
Finally, here is the system turned on. The red LED strips illuminate the chassis very well, while both the case fan, Hyper 212 fan and Corsair RAM have red LEDs integrated within them.
One downside is that the GPU power connector is still visible and clearly unsleeved.
Above we get an overview of the CPU and GPU, courtesy of CPU-Z and GPU-Z respectively.
The i5-6402P is a quad-core chip, but it does not support HyperThreading. Its base clock is 2.8GHz while it turbos to 3.4GHz.
The GTX 1060 used here is the 6GB variant, with the full 1280 CUDA cores. The VRAM is GDDR5, operating over a 192-Bit bus. With a certified boost clock of 1750MHz, thanks to GPU Boost 3.0 the actual boost clock is much higher.
Comparison systems
Today I will be comparing the Infinity X55 VX with the following systems:
- Intel Core i7-6700HQ
- Nvidia GTX 960M
- 16GB Dual-Channel 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
- 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD
- Intel Bay Trail-M Celeron N2808 SoC
- Intel HD Graphics
- 4GB DDR3L RAM
- 64GB eMMc storage
- Intel Braswell N3050 SoC
- Intel HD Graphics
- 2GB DDR3L RAM
- 32GB eMMC storage
- Intel Core i3 i3-5010U
- Intel HD Graphics 5500
- 8GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
- 240GB Kingston V300 SSD
- Intel Core™ m5-6Y57
- Intel HD Graphics 515
- 8GB LPDDR3 1866MHz Memory
- 256GB Solid State Drive M2 2280 PCIe
- Intel Core i5-6500
- Asus Turbo GTX 960
- 8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz DDR4 RAM
- 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
- Intel Core i7-6820HK
- Nvidia GTX 980 (desktop)
- 32GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM
- 2x 256GB Samsung SM951 PCIe SSDs in RAID0
- AMD FX-8320
- AMD RX-480
- 16GB DDR3 2133MHz RAM
- 240GB Adata Premier SP550
PCSpecialist Defiance III 17.3
- Intel i7-6700HQ
- Nvidia GTX 1060
- 16GB HyperX DDR4 2133MHz RAM
- 512GB SanDisk X400 M.2 SATA SSD
- Intel i7-6700HQ
- Nvidia GTX 950
- 16GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz RAM
- 512GB Samsung Pro M.2 SSD
- Intel i7-7500U
- Intel HD Graphics 620
- 16GB G.Skill DDR4 2133MHz RAM
- 256GB Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 SSD
- Intel i7-6700K
- Nvidia GTX 1070
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz RAM
- 500GB Samsung 750 EVO SSD
And lastly my personal desktop with a Core i3-4160, 8GB 1866MHz DDR3 and a GTX 960.
Test software
- SiSoft Sandra
- Cinebench R15
- Handbrake
- CrystalDiskMark
- ATTO Disk Benchmark
- 3DMark 11
- 3DMark
- VRMark
- Prime 95 (version 26.6)
- CPUID HWMonitor
- AIDA64 Engineer
- Fraps
Test games
- Grid Autosport
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Doom (2016)
Today we are testing the Infinity at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p (Ultra HD 4K). All tests were conducted using the latest Nvidia GeForce 375.95 driver.SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girls’) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
First impressions are mixed when testing with SiSoft Sandra.
The CPU does not perform especially well – but this is to be expected given its locked multiplier and the fact it does not support HyperThreading.
The fast, 3000MHz Corsair RAM performs very well, though, coming in a close second in the memory bandwidth chart.CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested. CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards.
In Cinebench R15, it is interesting that the i5-6402P actually edges the i5-6500, despite the latter having a slightly faster clock speed. Nonetheless, performance is definitely ‘middle-of-the-road.'HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.
The last of our CPU-specific tests, Handbrake confirms what we have already seen – performance from the i5-6402P is as expected given its relatively low clock speed and lack of HyperThreading. Still, it manages to tie with the i5-6500 here.
Here we test the Infinity's storage performance, using CrystalDiskMark 5.1.1 and ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.47
SSD Performance
Starting with the Intel 600p, this SSD does not perform as well as some other NVMe drives – such as the 960 Pro, for example. However, it is a budget PCIe drive and still offers read speeds of around 1500MB/s and write speed around the 600MB/s mark – faster than a SATA drive, that is for sure. For the price, a SSD like this is good to see in the Infinity.
HDD Performance
The 1TB WD Caviar Blue mechanical drive is perhaps the ‘go-to' drive when looking for mass storage. It offers nothing unexpected in terms of its speed, but remains a decent hard drive.To test the USB 3.0 ports on the Infinity X55 VX, I plugged in an OCZ Trion 150 SSD via a SATA-to-USB 3.0 5Gbps adapter, which uses the ASMedia ASM1053 controller. We reviewed the SSD HERE, finding it delivers good speed at a budget price.
Most importantly, it is capable of saturating the USB 3.0 bus, allowing us to test the speeds the USB 3.0 ports deliver. To test this, I ran both CrystalDiskMark and ATTO Disk Benchmark on the Trion 150 drive.
As you can see, the speeds are right at the limit of the 5Gbps USB interface. No problems here.3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.
After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
In 3DMark 11, the GTX 1060 is just behind the RX 480. However, the margin is not large and the score is still excellent.3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
In 3DMark Fire Strike, the GTX 1060 edges ahead of the RX 480, however. How it performs in games is another matter, though.VRMark is a benchmark designed specifically with virtual reality gaming in mind. Futuremark say ‘the performance requirements for VR games are much higher than for typical PC games. So if you're thinking about buying an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift, wouldn't it be good to know that your PC is ready for VR? VRMark includes two VR benchmark tests that run on your monitor, no headset required, or on a connected HMD. At the end of each test, you'll see whether your PC is VR ready, and if not, how far it falls short.'
A new addition to our benchmarking suite, VRMark looks like one of the few valid ways of testing the VR capabilites of a PC. Consisting of two ‘rooms', or benchmark tests, the Orange Room is the standard test, while the Blue Room is much more demanding.
In both tests, the GTX 1060 is behind the GTX 1070 – as expected. It is still a VR-ready card though, and the scores prove it is more than capable of running a VR headset.Grid Autosport is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia).
We test using the ‘ultra' preset with 4x MSAA.
Though it is now getting on in age, I still include Grid Autosport in my benchmark suite as it is a good indication of how well a system performs using a less demanding game engine.
Frame rates are very solid across the board – even at 4K. Not bad for the diminutive GTX 1060.The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concludes the story of the witcher Geralt of Rivia, whose story to date has been covered in the previous titles. Continuing from The Witcher 2, Geralt seeks to move on with his own life, embarking on a new and personal mission while the world order itself is coming to a change. (Wikipedia).
We test using the ‘high' preset. Given The Witcher 3 does not have its own in-built benchmark, I tested near the beginning of the game with Geralt riding through White Orchard on his horse, before dismounting and carrying on on-foot. I benchmarked 3 closely-matched runs and then took the average figures from those runs to present here.
As The Witcher 3 is a very demanding game, even the GTX 1060 struggles with it at 1440p – though a minimum of 37 FPS is arguably still playable. 4K is out of the question, however.Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game’s beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.
We maximise every setting, though MSAA is disabled.
GTA V is another demanding title, but here the game runs very well at 1080p and 1440p. The GTX 1060, however, is definitely not a 4K card as the game certainly struggles.DOOM is a science fiction horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is a reboot of the Doom series and is the first major instalment in the series since the release of Doom 3 in 2004 and the fourth title in the main series of games. The game is played entirely from a first-person perspective, with players’ taking the role of an unnamed marine, as he battles demonic forces from Hell that have been unleashed by the Union Aerospace Corporation on a future-set colonised planet Mars.
For a modern game, Doom is not overly demanding – as such, frame rates are excellent at 1080p and still very good at 1440p. 4K, though, is borderline-playable for me.Thermal dynamics
To measure idle temperatures, a reading was taken after having Windows open on the desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load was taken with AIDA64’s stress test running.
Despite there being just one case fan in the Infinity X55 VX, thermals are still very good. A peak of 55 degrees for the i5-6402P shows the benefit of using a processor with a lesser clock speed.
Acoustics performance
Due to the CPU's locked multiplier, and the fact that it only boosts to 3.4GHz, the Infinity X55 VX does not have to work very hard to keep the system cool. As such, even under load, the system is whisper quiet. I did not actually notice the fans ramp-up at all – they appear to run at a constant rpm, and a low rpm at that. The lack of noise is very impressive.For idle power draw, a reading was taken after having Windows open on the desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load was taken with AIDA64’s stress test running.
Even at full load, the system draws relatively little power. 235W is not even half of the B500's rated capacity, which should ensure good efficiency levels.For a system costing £999, the Cyberpower Infinity X55 VX is a solid and well-balanced rig.
For starters, the system is built in a lovely tempered glass case which is exclusive to Cyberpower. With the addition of red LEDs inside the case, the chassis is illuminated very well and looks great.
One downside on the visual side of things is the lack of cable sleeving. The GPU 6-pin is entirely unsleeved, which makes its ugly yellow-and-black cabling extremely visible. Add this to the unattractive brown motherboard PCB and the aesthetic side of the Infinity X55 VX is spoiled a bit. In fairness, with the side panel and LEDs on, it is not that bad, but it is still not ideal is you are going to be looking at it everyday.
The component choice is well thought-through, however. A GTX 1060 and an Intel Core i5-6402P (a slightly faster i5-6400) provide the necessary grunt for 1080p and 1440p gaming, though 4K is always going to be out of the question unless you only play eSports titles or similarly undemanding games. These core components also run very quiet and cool, justifying Cyberpower‘s decision to include just one case fan.
It is also good to see a NVMe drive at the price point, thanks to the Intel 600p. That 256GB drive, along with a 1TB mechanical hard drive, provide ample storage as well.
As such, it is easy to recommend the Cyberpower Infinity X55 VX. It has enough power for 1440p gaming, an NVMe drive and a tempered glass case, all while being affordable despite the increase of technology prices since the Brexit vote.
You can pick one up or configure the system HERE.
Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.
Pros
- GTX 1060 is a solid card for 1080p and 1440p gaming.
- Very quiet.
- Tempered glass chassis.
- NVMe SSD.
- Red LEDs look good.
Cons
- Unsleeved cabling is ugly.
- Brown motherboard PCB is also very unattractive.
KitGuru says: The Cyberpower Infinity X55 VX is a capable gaming machine costing less than a grand. If you can look past a couple of questionable aesthetic decisions, it is a solid machine at a good price.
