Custom PC - UK (2021-05)

VERDICT

Great CPU speed and solid component choices, but the

price is high and the GPU struggles with 4K ray tracing.

OVERALL SCORE

83 %%

PERFORMANCE

22 / 25

DESIGN

21 / 25

HARDWARE

22 / 25

VALUE

18 / 25

REFRACT

+^ Fantastic CPU

+^ Sturdy, subtle chassis

+^ Decent storage,

memory and PSU

RETRACT

-^ Nvidia GPUs faster at ray tracing
-^ Loud during CPU tests
-^ A little expensive

Performance
The CPU’s image editing score is around 7,000 points
faster than the Intel Core i9-10900K that’s often found in
equivalent systems, and in the Handbrake test, the AMD chip
scored 1,023,652 – over 250,000 points beyond those Intel
CPUs and not far behind the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X. The
CPU’s overall score of 378,724 is a superb result that’s well
beyond the performance of equivalent Intel CPUs.
This CPU can do it all, from multi-threaded content
creation to everyday single-threaded workloads. The
CyberPower’s productivity prospects are bolstered by
excellent SSD read and write speeds of 4,987MB/sec
and 2,543MB/sec.
The Radeon RX 6800 XT can’t match the impressive
CPU though. Happily, it did deliver superb frame rates in our
standard game tests at 2,560 x 1,440, and it will happily
play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Doom Eternal at 4K
too. However, it struggles with Cyberpunk 2077 at the latter
resolution, and the Radeon’s Metro Exodus performance
shows that Nvidia has the upper hand with ray tracing,
particularly if you enable DLSS. The RTX 2080 is more than
10fps faster in Cyberpunk and Metro Exodus at 4K with
DLSS enabled.
In most games you’ll be able to play games on this
machine at 4K smoothly without reducing many graphics
settings, though, and at lower resolutions you’ll easily have
the pace to handle high refresh-rate displays. There was
little to choose between the 6800 XT and the RTX 3080 at
2,560 x 1,440.
The CyberPower was also inconsistent in thermal tests.
It impressed when gaming, with low fan noise, but it was
louder when handling CPU-based workloads. The noise
levels aren’t ruinous, but they can be distracting. During
all-core CPU workloads, the chip ran at around 4.5GHz,

BENCHMARK RESULTS

GIMP IMAGE

EDITING

69,876

HANDBRAKE H.264

VIDEO ENCODING

1,023,652

HEAVY MULTI-

TASKING

386,271

SYSTEM

SCORE

378,724

99th Percentile Average

2,560 x 1,440, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settings

DOOM ETERNAL

0 100 200 300 400

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 223fps 361fps

3,840 x 2,160, Vulkan, Ultra Nightmare settings

0 100 200 300 400

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 119fps 195fps

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra High settings, High AA

ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 67fps 92fps

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra High settings, High AA

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 45fps 60fps

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra preset, no ray tracing

CYBERPUNK 2077

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 58fps 72fps

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra preset, no ray tracing

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 30fps 35fps

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RT

METRO EXODUS

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 47fps 69fps

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra, HairWorks off, Advanced PhysX off, High RT

0 30 60 90 120

CyberPower Ultra 9 XT 28fps 38fps

which is impressive – only 300MHz behind AMD’s quoted

single-core boost speed. Temperatures were just about fine

too: the CPU’s delta T of 61°C is solid, and the GPU hit 68°C.

Conclusion

CyberPower’s all-AMD rig is a solid machine that’s

undermined by a couple of missteps. The processor is

fantastic for any workload, and the CyberPower serves

up great memory and storage. The Radeon graphics card

can’t compete with the RTX 3080 with ray tracing enabled,

though, and the CyberPower is also a little expensive for

what you get. This is undoubtedly a good system for tough

workloads, but we’d recommend shopping around for an

RTX 3080 system at this price instead.

MIKE JENNINGS