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While we agree the Cyberpower Hydro-X Ultra Gaming can offer inexperienced PC users an easy way into gaming PC ownership, we definitely have mixed feelings about it.
First off let’s go over the hardware spec. The Ryzen 9 3900X CPU provided excellent performance in all tasks and we loved the performance it offered. It was a pleasure to use the system in productivity tasks. In general day to day Windows tasks, the system had a very responsive and snappy feel to it.
This was also backed up by the excellent choice of SSD. With the system being based on the new AMD X570 platform, this brought performance gains in SSD speed due to the PCIe 4.0 specification. Cyberpower could have easily tried to cut costs in this area by installing a Gen3 PCIe SSD device.
Fortunately, they chose a PCIe 4.0 device in the shape of a Corsair MP600 1TB SSD, which made general windows tasks and game loading times super quick, which offered plenty of space for storage of games and application that you needed quick access too.A secondary 3.5” mechanical hard drive is installed in the system too, which offered an extra 2TB of storage space for less critical apps and files, which is great.
At lower resolutions when gaming, where CPU power is relied upon, we saw very pleasing frame rates, which again is a bonus. However, with higher resolutions such as 1440p or 2160p (4K) becoming more popular amongst gamers, the Cyberpower system really started to struggle in some titles. This is down to the MSI 5700 XT GPU.
Although, in its own right, the 5700XT is a great mid-range graphics card, from our point of view the 5700 XT feels a bit imbalanced when paired with Ryzen 9 CPU. We would typically expect to see a 5700 XT paired with a CPU such as the Ryzen 5 3600X or similar. In our opinion, the Ryzen 9 3900X would have been better paired with a GPU in the performance category of a Nvidia RTX 2080 Super or similar. It’s quite obvious to see that Cyberpower built this system around an AMD theme, which is fine. However, users may feel a little let down with gaming performance, especially at high resolution.
When we were informed by Cyberpower that the system would include a custom liquid cooling loop, this caught our attention. When the system arrived, we saw a Corsair Hydro-X liquid cooling loop installed. However, the loop only covers the CPU and not the GPU or any other parts of the system. For us, this is a little disappointing, especially when it's used for a CPU which is running at stock frequency speeds. The cooling loop did look great and seemed to have been installed well, with all tubing running straight and having even bends.
The area we felt most let down was with the overall system installation build quality. Upon opening the right-hand side panel, we found a thumbscrew on the floor which had either worked its way loose in transit or been dropped during installation which wasn’t a good start.
Another area of concern was the PCIe riser cable, which was used to mount the GPU vertically. On first boot up of the system, there was a terrible noise coming from near the GPU. We traced this to being caused by the PCIe riser cable trailing into a floor mounted fan. The issue was simple to fix by just moving the cable out of the way. However, due to the GPU not having sufficient support on the vertical mounting, with the slightest of GPU movement, the cable would slip back into the fan and catch again, which in turn made the noise come back.
The majority of games ran well with high FPS at 1080p resolutions. Throughout system testing, we never encountered any crashes or blue screen freezes, which showed the system was very stable. However, one issue we did encounter was when running Ghost Recon Wildlands for the first time, an error box popped up regarding sound – the game launched but the benchmark test ran at 6FPS with no in game sound at all.
After exiting the game and checking Windows control panel, we found all the audio devices were showing as un-plugged and none of them would respond. A system reboot cured the sound issue and it did not occur since, so maybe this was just a one-off issue that wouldn’t happen again.
To sum up the system is very difficult. On one hand we love the performance the system provides for productivity workloads and general Windows tasks, due to the excellent combination of the Ryzen 9 3900X CPU, X570 platform and the PCIe Gen4 SSD. We were left a little disappointed with the gaming performance, especially when the system comes with an ‘Ultra Gaming' label.
Overall, Cyberpower have done a good Job when taking price into consideration. We totted up what the system would cost to build ourselves which came to around £2350, when buying all the parts individually and including a copy of Windows 10 Home edition. However, with a few tweaks the system could have been even better – a simple AIO would do the job for the CPU, saving on cost. Then, the extra budget could be applied to a beefier GPU for increased frame rates at higher resolutions.
This approach may not be feasible, since the Cyberpower Hydro-X (hence the name) will have to be configured with custom cooling, otherwise it wouldn’t come under the Hydro-X line of systems from Cyberpower. Nonetheless, we can't help but feel those changes would make for a better all-round system.
The Cyberpower Hydro-X Ultra Gaming system is available to purchase direct from Cyberpower for £2595 HERE.
Pros:
- Excellent choice of CPU with great performance.
- Fast PCIe Gen4 SSD for storage.
- RGB lighting, and lots of it.
- Great productivity performance.
- All-round aesthetically pleasing system.
Cons:
- System installation a little untidy in areas.
- Slight lack of attention to detail with hardware installation.
- GPU not on par with CPU performance.
- Custom liquid cooling not necessary for a stock CPU.
- Power supply could be better.
KitGuru says: The Cyberpower Hydro-X Ultra Gaming offers users an aesthetically pleasing system, with some great performance coming from the CPU and SSD. However, a stronger GPU would make this a better all-round system.
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