Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 Windows 8 PC Review (FX 4170 / Radeon 7770)

1. Introduction2. Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502: Packaging and Bundle3. Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502: Exterior4. Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502: Internals5. Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502: BIOS Configuration6. Installed Software, Hardware Configuration and Test Methodology7. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra8. Synthetic: PCMark 79. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit10. Synthetic: Super Pi11. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark12. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage13. Synthetic: 3DMark 1114. Synthetic: Hard Drive Performance15. Real World: MKV 1080P Performance16. Real World: Flash HD Performance17. Real World: Media Encoding18. Gaming: Battlefield 319. Gaming: Crysis 220. Gaming: Dirt 321. Technical: Acoustics Performance22. Technical: Thermal Dynamics23. Technical: Power Consumption24. Closing Thoughts25. View All Pages

Cyberpower has always tended to the needs of every gamer with its pre-configured systems. Targeting mid-range gamers with a tighter budget, does the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 PC have what it takes to become a competitor in today's ever-growing system market?

Cyberpower has chosen the Gaming Battalion 502 PC's hardware to offer good gaming performance at a modest price. Coupling the 4.2GHz, quad core AMD FX 4170 CPU with an MSI Radeon HD 7770 1GB graphics card has allowed Cyberpower to create the foundations for a competitively-priced mid-range gaming system.

Add a 2TB HDD, Gigabyte USB 3.0 motherboard, 8GB of Kingston RAM and Cooler Master's Elite 310 into the mix and the Gaming Battalion 502 starts to look even more appealing to gamers on a budget.

Specifications:

• Processor: AMD FX 4170 4.2GHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
• Memory: 8GB Kingston DDR3 1333MHz
• Graphics Card: MSI Radeon HD 7770 1GB (R7770-PMD1GD5)
• Hard Disk Drive: 2TB Seagate 7200.14 ST2000DM001
• CPU Cooler: Reference AMD FX 4170 heatsink
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 310 w/ Side Panel Window
• Power Supply: Artic MPS550 550W
• Optical Drive: 24x Optiarc AD-7280S
• Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit

Cyberpower supplied the Gaming Battalion 502 PC in a very large external box which is filled with protective packaging. The system itself is housed inside the Cooler Master Elite 310 case's packaging which then lies inside the larger external box, for extra protection.

The Gaming Battalion 502 system received further impact and component-movement protection from extra air-bubbles inside the system itself. These obviously need removed before turning the system on.

Motherboard, case and CPU manuals combine with a driver and Windows 8 disk, UK power cord, IDE cable, AMD FX sticker, 3-pin to molex fan adapter, additional mounting screws and 5.25″ blanking plate to form the supplied bundle.

We like the fact that Cyberpower supplies its customers with a UK power cord rather than assume that they have one spare.

Cyberpower uses the windowed version of Cooler Master's Elite 310 chassis to house the Gaming Battalion 502 PC's components. The Elite 310's mid-tower form factor allows it to house large hardware without major problems, meaning that this system has future upgrade potential.

Some readers will love the Elite 310's side panel window while others will abhor it. The system builders at Cyberpower have done well to maintain a good view of the internal hardware through the window without the ugly power and data cables being shown.

A pair of USB 2.0 ports and 3.5mm jacks forms the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502's front panel connections. Located towards the bottom-edge of the chassis, the front IO panel is best suited for desk-users. Those of us that place the system on the floor will have to stretch to connect USB devices.

Recessed motherboard and PCI panels allow users to easily connect cables without worrying about them protruding and interfering with a wall or nearby obstacle. Cyberpower covers the PSU power input with a warning sticker that reminds the customer to remove any internal packaging before starting the system.

Motherboard rear IO:

• 1x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
• 1x D-Sub port
• 1x DVI-D port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 4 x USB 2.0 ports
• 2 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

Graphics card outputs:

• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x HDMI
• 1x Dual Link DVI-I

Cyberpower's system builders manage to create a clean and tidy build, although, their job is made easier by the somewhat minimalistic quantity and size of the Gaming Battalion 502's hardware.

The Cooler Master Elite 310's user-friendly internal dimensions leave plenty of room for component upgrades and additions. A 12″ blue cold cathode tube is neatly stuck to the case's floor area, underneath the side panel window's location.

The moderate size of MSI's dual-slot Radeon HD 7770 1GB graphics card minimises interference issues with the Gigabyte motherboard's upwards-facing SATA ports. Due to the Artic 550W PSU's lack of PCI-E connector, the Gaming Battalion 502 system's graphics card is fed by a dual-molex to 6-pin PCI-E converter.

Outputting 25A, or 300W, on its 12V rail, the 7770's modest power requirements shouldn't prove too much of a problem. Additional system limitations are enforced by the basic power supply due to its 4-pin-only CPU power connector that confines overclocking potential and upgrades.

Tucking away power and data leads as well as reversing the 2TB Seagate 7200.14 hard drive allows Cyberpower to maintain an organised drive area.

The omission of a front intake fan is disappointing – we have no doubt that it would help to offer a more balanced cooling configuration, as opposed to the single exhaust set-up.

Making very effective use of the Cooler Master Elite 310's limited cable management routing options, Cyberpower's system builders keep the case's rear area well-organised and tidy.

The builders' job is made easier by the fact that the Artic MPS 550 power supply only offers a single 4-pin CPU and FDD connector as well as 4x molex and 2x SATA outputs. This is a very basic array of connectors for a 550W unit.

The 12″ cold cathode tube gives off a light blue colour that creates a subtle atmosphere when a room's lights are dimmed. Users that aren't in favour of the Gaming Battalion 502 system's light show can simply disconnect the cold cathode from its rear-mounted power converter.

With an unlocked BIOS, users are free to tinker with CPU, memory and motherboard settings as they so desire. Relying on the basic stock CPU cooler, it is unlikely that a considerable jump in CPU frequency is achievable, although it is very good to see that Cyberpower leaves the option open.

General motherboard and boot settings can be edited to suit the user's individual preference. Gigabyte's GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard features effective in-built monitoring devices which relay accurate information to the specific BIOS display page.

By refraining from installing irritating blot-ware such as security suites and software trials, Cyberpower gives users an unprecedented amount of freedom to install exactly what they want.

A decent 5.9 Windows score is achieved by the Gaming Battalion 502 system with just the 2TB mechanical hard drive bringing the overall rating down to a respectable 5.9.

Combining a 4.2 GHz, quad core AMD FX 4170 CPU with 8 gigabytes of Kingston DDR3 1333MHz memory and a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard, the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 system looks to offer competitive performance from a well-priced component ‘backbone'.

The GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard's SB710 South Bridge lacks any type of SATA 6GB/s connectivity which could be a major problem for users wanting to upgrade the Gaming Battalion 502 system with a modern SSD.

Our validation can be found here.

When idling or rendering basic 2D images, the Radeon HD 7770's stock clock speeds of 1000MHz for the core and 1125MHz for the memory are slashed to 300MHz and 150MHz, respectively, to reduce power consumption and GPU temperature.

1.79TB of the 1.81TB total capacity remains free on the 2TB Seagate 7200.14 hard drive. Cyberpower opts for the single partition approach which can help to avoid user issues caused by multi-partition configurations.

System specifications:

• Processor: AMD FX 4170 4.2GHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
• Memory: 8GB Kingston DDR3 1333MHz
• Graphics Card: MSI Radeon HD 7770 1GB ((R7770-PMD1GD5)
• Hard Disk Drive: 2TB Seagate 7200.14 ST2000DM001
• CPU Cooler: Reference AMD FX 4170 heatsink
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 310 w/ Side Panel Window
• Power Supply: Artic MPS550 550W
• Optical Drive: 24x Optiarc AD-7280S
• Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit

Software Suite:

• 3DMark Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• PCMark 7
• SiSoft Sandra
• Super Pi
• Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark
• ATTO
• CrystalDiskMark
• VLC Media Player
• HandBrake 0.9.8
• Battlefield 3
• Metro 2033
• Crysis 2

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 (girl’s) 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.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Given the Gaming Battalion 502's AMD ‘backbone', good results are obtained from Sandra's set of real-world-mirroring benchmarks.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

A PCMark 7 score of 2730 is respectable for a system of this calibre and in this price range.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all – it’s completely free.

AMD's 4.2GHz FX 4170 quad core CPU can't match the Cinebench scores of some Intel models that are more than 2 years older. Given its sub-£100 price tag, the score of 3.35 that is likely to translate into acceptable real-world performance should make for a good value processor that can meet the demands of everyday scenarios.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU.

We used Super Pi's '32M' benchmark setting.

The Gaming Battalion 502's Super Pi performance is weak due to the FX 4170 processor's lack of single-threaded muscle. Taking almost 20 minutes to complete Super Pi's 32M benchmark is poor; slightly more expensive and older Intel processors can complete the task twice as fast.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing: off. Anisotrophy: 4, Tessellation: normal. Shaders: High. Stereo 3D: disabled. API: Direct X 11.

With tessellation levels set to normal, an average frame rate of 33.2 FPS is a strong score for mid-range gaming hardware such as the FX 4170 and 1GB HD 7770.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

The Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 system obtains a reputable 3DMark Vantage score of 12609, even with the fact that the CPU only registers a score of 10607.

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.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

3DMark 11 registers a score of P3388 for the Gaming Battalion 502. If this benchmark is anything to go by, good frame rates should be achievable with medium to high game settings.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use one of our favourite benchmark utilities – CrystalDiskMark X64 Edition – to rate performance from the on-board SATA controller.

Seagate's high-capacity 7200.14 hard drive is able to offer excellent sequential performance of around 200MB/s read and write. Unlike many of today's SSDs, the HDD's excellent performance doesn't drop when incompressible data is used.

While the high sequential transfer rates may be excellent for copying data back and forth, it's the 4K scores that indicate a system's general ‘snappiness' – an area where hard drives simply cannot compete with SSDs.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

ATTO backs-up the CrystalDiskMark results to show that the Seagate 7200.14's sequential performance is very competitive for a hard drive.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in VLC or Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed.

We played our 1080P MKV rip of The Dark Knight using the latest version of VLC Media Player.

The AMD FX 4170 CPU isn't best suited for media playback purposes, as proven by its 19% utilisation when playing our 1080P MKV movie. We would have liked to see this figure under 10%, but in all honesty, 19% CPU utilisation won't cause issues if media playback is part of a set of basic tasks that will be running on the system at any one time.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. Full hardware acceleration is enabled.

Flash HD playback proves slightly more demanding for the Gaming Battalion 502's FX 4170 CPU although some of the extra CPU usage is related to browser and connection resources.

HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.8 version.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Converting HD content shows that the AMD FX 4170 CPU cannot compete with the performance of Intel's similarly-priced models. Taking almost a quarter of the film's entire duration to convert it from MKV to MP4 format, regular media converters should look for a system with a different, more powerful processor.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

We used the game's demanding ‘Ultra' setting to push today's gaming hardware.

Battlefield 3's demanding Ultra setting is surprisingly playable with the combination of FX 4170 CPU and 1GB 7770 GPU. A few dips below 30 FPS may be the point that causes users to lower the settings, but Ultra image quality is still playable for a large proportion of the campaign mode.

Released in March 2011, Crysis 2 was the highly-anticipated sequel to Crytek's triumphant predecessor. The CryEngine 3 game engine is able to deliver stunning visuals of New York's urban scenery as well as the intense conflict. Those stunning visuals and intense battles demand powerful PC hardware.

We used the game's ‘Very High' setting to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility. We are also utilising the DX11 and High Res Textures pack as well as the latest patch – 1.9.

With the High Res Textures and DX11 updates, Crysis 2 is a graphically-demanding title. The mid-range 1GB HD 7770 isn't able to muster playable frame rates at the Very High pre-set, or at any other combination of settings with a 1920 x 1080 resolution.

We had to drop the resolution to 1680 x 1050 before we could start obtaining playable frame rates that didn't nose-dive when met by intense action.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.

We used the game's ‘High' setting to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

Another demanding title, Metro 2033 is able to push the 1GB HD 7770 to its 1080P limits. With the Gaming Battalion 502 pumping out a perfectly-playable average frame rate of 39.3 FPS at High settings, we'll let you decide whether you'd accept the occasional drop to as low as 7.4 FPS or if you'd prefer to reduce the image quality.

We measured the acoustic output of the entire system when idling and when under the intense load of Prime95's Small FFTs setting and FurMark. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the acoustic output while playing Battlefield 3.

We measure at a distance of 1 metre from the chassis with our digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation. We allowed the CPU cooler to operate at its default – PWM – settings.

Please refer to our KitGuru noise guide for a comparison between the noise levels of this system and everyday scenarios.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Idle noise levels of the Gaming Battalion 502 system are quiet enough to be deemed ‘ignorable'. When tasked with a heavy load, the CPU fan speed increases to levels that are very much audible. The well-designed MSI cooler keeps the graphics card relatively quiet, irrelevant of the GPU load.

The tests were performed in a controlled environment with the temperature maintained at a constant 19°C. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 15 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running FurMark and Prime95's Small FFTs setting together for 15 minutes. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the temperatures while playing Battlefield 3.

We allowed the CPU cooler to operate at its default – PWM – settings.

Lacking any type of intake fan, the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 system's component temperatures are surprisingly low, given the single exhaust fan and graphics card that flushes heat into the chassis.

MSI's effective cooler keeps the graphics core temperature at low levels, even when tasked with a demanding load. The stock AMD CPU cooler offers mediocre, yet perfectly acceptable performance. HDD temperatures are what suffer with the omission of a front intake fan, but a measured maximum of 33°C isn't a cause for concern.

We measured the power consumption of our entire test system at the wall while loading the CPU using Prime95's Small FFTs setting and GPU using FurMark.  We also measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 8 desktop. As this is a gaming system, we also decided to measure the power consumption while playing Battlefield 3.

Idle power consumption of 90W is what we would expect from a quad core system with discrete graphics card. A load power consumption of 285W shows that while this isn't the most energy-efficient system available, your electricity usage won't be ridiculously high.

The Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 is a good mid-range system that manages to offer playable 1080P frame rates for all but the most demanding of today's games.

Gaming performance of the Battalion 502 is what we would expect from the combination of 4.2GHz AMD FX 4170 CPU and 1GB Radeon HD 7770 GPU. Battlefield 3 was playable at the game's ‘Ultra' image quality pre-set, while Metro 2033's second most demanding – ‘High' – setting created an average frame rate of almost 40 FPS.

Crysis 2 proves a challenging title for low/mid-range hardware with its High Res textures and DX11 settings which are able to bring many medium-performance cards to their knees. The Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502's stock-clocked 1GB MSI HD 7770 graphics card and FX 4170 CPU weren't able to offer playable frame rates at a 1080P resolution – we had to use 1680 x 1050 to establish a stable gaming experience in Crysis 2.

Productivity and general usage performance is weakness for the AMD-based Gaming Battalion 502. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the quad core's notably high stock frequency of 4.2GHz translates into excellent real-world performance – it doesn't. The system's media conversion time was poor and CPU usage during MKV and Flash HD playback was higher than we would have liked.

Build quality and system aesthetics are worthy of making a gamer pleased to receive their system. Cyberpower's system builders managed to achieve very good cable management from a case which offers limited routing options. The large side panel window and floor-mounted blue cold cathode tube create an eye-catching gaming style that can be halted, if preferred.

Temperatures, noise output and power consumption are all average for a mid-range system such as the Gaming Battalion 502. When a heavy CPU load is applied for an extended period of time, the stock AMD cooler can begin to get irritatingly loud as its fan speed ramps up. A cheap after-market CPU cooler may be worth purchasing, especially if you plan to make use of the unlocked BIOS by giving overclocking an attempt.

Given the system's price range, squeezing a small SSD into the budget would have been very tricky. Unfortunately, users wanting to purchase an solid state drive separately will have to choose their drive wisely or be prepared to face a noticeable SATA 3GB/s-imposed performance drop; the Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard doesn't offer any SATA 6GB/s ports.

Further component upgrades are limited by the basic 550W power supply built by Artic (no, not Arctic). The unit lacks an 8-pin CPU connector and PCI-E connectivity, unless used with molex adapters. Even drive upgrades are limited with only a solitary SATA and single molex connector spare.

Priced at £499.99, and you can buy from ebuyer here, the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 may offer competitive gaming frame rates, given its sub-£500 price tag, but productivity and general usage performance are lacking in comparison. Performance-enhancing upgrades are also limited by the lack of SATA 6GB/s connectivity and very basic power supply.

As a mid-range gaming system, the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 is actually an acceptable purchase due to its ability to offer playable frame rates, in most games, with demanding settings and a 1080P resolution. Unfortunately, weak productivity and general usage performance as well as a very limited upgrade potential drag down the system's overall rating.

If you are confident at installing an OS, we would opt for a more balanced system such as Aria's Gladiator X6300-HD Piledriver Gaming PC which is around the same price. If you would prefer not to install your own OS, the Cyberpower Gaming Battalion 502 is a system that is worthy of consideration, but only just.

Pros:

• Good gaming performance, even at 1080P with demanding image quality settings.
• Plenty of storage.
• Unlocked motherboard BIOS allows for overclocking.
• Gaming style – side panel window and blue light scheme.

Cons:

• Limited SSD upgrade potential – no SATA 6GB/s ports.
• Very basic power supply will hamper upgrade opportunities.
• Weak productivity performance from the AMD FX 4170 CPU.

KitGuru says: A system that offers good execution for a gaming-only machine, but the weak productivity performance and very limited upgrade potential give it a hard task of competing with similarly-priced options, especially those with faster processors.

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