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Cyberpower Gamer Infinity GT
It's all well and good having a PC with a monstrous graphics card and quad-core processor, but the sheer amount of cooling required to make these parts functional often results in a loud PC. A huge CPU heatsink, inefficient GPU setup and various fans dotted around the chassis can all contribute to an uncomfortable whirr disrupting any gaming or movie sessions.
Cyberpower's latest, though, is one of the quietest performance PCs we've ever (barely) heard. This is due, in part, to the superb case: the NZXT Hush more than lives up to its name thanks to a host of noise-insulating features that result in barely a whisper being heard if you're near the chassis, let alone with it hidden under a desk.
Chief among these is the layer of insulation foam that is liberally scattered throughout the Hush. A large sheet is attached to each side of the case, and the top and bottom are covered, too. The hard disk and optical drives are also mounted with rubber washers, so vibrations are absorbed rather than left to rattle around.
The result is startling: the Gamer Infinity GT is barely audible as it pelts through our demanding benchmark and pushes its impressive specification to the limit. It's a far cry from the likes of the Chillblast Fusion Dominator, which produced an off-putting thrum of fan noise even at its lowest settings.
There's plenty of power here, too, which makes the cool and quiet operation of the Cyberpower all the more remarkable. An Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 CPU overclocked from 3.16GHz to 3.5GHz, alongside 4GB of RAM, produced a result of 1.82 in our suite of 2D benchmarks. It's quicker than the Mesh Elite Q9300 Pro, which scored 1.53, and not far behind the 1.88 of the A-Listed Chillblast Fusion Sidewinder.
The Gamer Infinity GT isn't left wanting for gaming potential, either. An ATI Radeon HD 4850 is a quick - yet inexpensive - card that stormed to an impressive 69fps in our medium-quality Crysis benchmark. It's one of the quicker PCs we've seen recently, with the Mesh Elite Q9300 Pro managing only 46fps.
The Gamer Infinity GT even managed to maintain a playable framerate - 33fps - in our demanding high-quality test, compared to a stuttering 21fps from the Mesh Elite. The Chillblast Fusion Sidewinder, with its Radeon HD 4870 card, was slightly quicker, though, hitting 40fps.
The rest of the specification is ample enough to cope with modern work and gaming, although no individual parts especially stand out. The motherboard, an MSI P35 Neo-F, uses the 15-month old P35 chipset - although we're promised it'll soon be upgraded to a P43 board - and 500GB of hard disk space is pretty average these days.
The DVD writer is also adequate, but high definition fans will be better off with the Mesh Elite Q9300 Pro, which comes with a Blu-ray reader. Everything else is present and correct, with plenty of ports sitting on the backplate, including an aging parallel socket, but no modern extras, such as eSATA or HDMI.
Cyberpower has also shown little imagination with its choice of peripherals. We recently saw the Hanns.G Hi221DP monitor with the Mesh Stylus and weren't particularly impressed - colours lacked depth at both ends of the scale, and images and video appeared dull and lifeless. This is a panel for working and surfing the web rather than gaming or image editing that requires accurate colour reproduction.
The speakers, Logitech's 2.1 S220s, often appear in packages for this sort of price and, while they're perfectly adequate, they won't set the world alight. The same can be said of the keyboard and mouse: a wired Logitech set that, while fine for everyday use, isn't as extravagant as the wireless or media-focussed sets that we see packaged alongside systems at similar prices.
This uninspiring choice of peripherals means the Gamer Infinity GT just falls short of greatness. There's a huge amount of power available from a stylish, quiet PC at a reasonable price - but the lack of quality from the rest of the package means that it doesn't manage an award this month.
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