CyberPower Core i7-920

Setup and Startup

As usual, we'll start with a look at the BIOS.

It's bumped up to 3.0 GHz


Ah, here's why…






QPI Voltage guidance

BLCK has been raised, resulting in a 3.0GHz overclocked speed. This is another area we'll point out as different from a standard consumer experience. Everything else is straightforward and not tweaked: this would be an easy point for a technical user to reach in five minutes. Still, as an out-of-box bonus the overclock is nice and shouldn't cause any stability issues. Do note that the overclock is not a standard feature - this was something CyberPower did just for our review sample, though anyone purchasing similar system should be able to do the same with the above BIOS shots.

So what are we greeted with at first boot?

Holy ginormous icons, Batman!

First off, the icons are huge! Holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse, we shrank them down to a smaller, "normal" size. Windows Update is turned on and set to automatic, which we don't like to see on a gaming machine (the "download but let me choose" gives the user a little control). We also set Visual Effects back to "Let Windows choose…", as this is the most common setting for most users and looks nicer.

Processes are at 46 at startup, which is just average, and there isn't any bloatware. The video card drivers were up-to-date at the time of shipping (8.11), and the system was tested at that revision throughout except for Far Cry 2, which was tested with the latest 9.2 drivers (as 8.11 had compatibility issues with FC2 that were patched in later revisions).