CyberPower Design and Build Quality

The CyberPower unit came in a big, well padded box with a company logo and phone number. Upon unwrapping the PC and sitting it upright, we heard loud metal-to-metal contact. As we opened the side panel, the heatsink, only held by the 3 pin power connector, fell out. Considering all the padding in the box, we have our doubts that this happened during shipment. Heatsinks sit very tight and secure no matter what socket. Nonetheless, no hardware was damaged, and we just reapplied some thermal grease and mounted the heatsink. Cabling was done well, although it was still pretty visible all over, even with the case side closed. While this is partly due to the case design, some extra time spent on cabling could have improved this.

One more thing we noticed is that the RAM was not running in dual channel. Each channel is color-coded, one green and the other orange. The CPU-Z program confirmed this. We put both sticks in the green slots so it would run dual channel.


The Apevia case CyberPower used is very plain, but stylish and functional. It has a large side panel with three 120mm fans and another in the PSU, making airflow very efficient. The front of the case has a temperature display and the CPU fan can be controlled by the knob on the front. A DVD-RW drive and a card reader were both supplied.



The USB, audio, and FireWire ports were positioned on top of the case. This makes it very convenient for anyone who sits the case on the floor. The power button is still on the front bezel, which will be a reach. The back panel is very standard: 8 channel audio, Ethernet, 4 USB ports, PS/2 and serial legacy connectors.



Where the CyberPower system really stands out is its graphics subsystem. The CyberPower is the only machine to have a dual GPU setup. In this case, there are two ATI Radeon HD 3870 cards running in a Crossfire configuration. We applaud CyberPower for doing what the other two companies couldn’t in a sub $1000 PC. To top that off, CyberPower included a wireless LAN card.


The accessory bundle with the CyberPower PC is nothing special. There are a bunch of CDs, manuals, cables, 4 DVI adapters, and a mouse.