MaximumPC 2005 10

66 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005

reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED

W

e’re acknowledged hardware snobs,

so we readily admit it takes something

special to make us take a step back and say,

“Wow.” We’ll also admit that Hypersonic’s lus-

cious Cyclone OCX Limited Edition made us

do just that.

Though Hyper-

sonic has always sent

impressive systems for

review, the company

has upped its game this

time around. Special

touches abound, from

the glossy leopard-print

paint job to the rubber-

coated door hinges (for

silent operation) to the

mirrored case interior,

everything about the Cyclone is elegant, fancy,

and dare we say, swank.

Looks aren’t everything, though; the

hardware is what really matters. Thankfully,

the Cyclone doesn’t fall short in this respect

either. Even though we saw most of these

parts debut last month in Monarch’s Nem-

esis—including the Athlon FX-57 CPU and

GeForce 7800s in SLI—it’s a payload that

churns through games like a Pentagon super-

computer running nuclear war simulations.

Adding a bit more bite to its bark is the fact

that Hypersonic “TurboClocked” this bad boy,

taking the CPU from 2.8GHz to 2.88GHz, the

graphics core clock

from 430MHz to

490MHz, and the

graphics memory

from 600MHz

to 649MHz. The

MSI motherboard

sports a quaint

gig of DDR400

memory (rated for

550MHz operation),

and storage duties

are handled by two 74GB Raptors and a

400GB Barracuda.

We expected the Cyclone to rock our

benchmarks, and rock them it did. Its score

of 233 in SYSmark 20004 is quite respect-

able and just six points shy of the score

achieved by El Jefe Supremo —Dream

Machine 10. That pitter-patter you hear

is the golf clap for Hypersonic’s PC. (The

record is still held by the insanely over-

clocked Falcon Northwest P4 box we

reviewed back in May, which scored 247.)

The Cyclone also scored well in our other

application tests, besting last month’s FX-

57-based Monarch in Premiere Pro. The

Cyclone did lose to the Monarch in Photo-

shop CS , however. Photoshop loves RAM

and the Monarch’s 2GB likely gives it the

edge over the Cyclone’s 1GB.

Thanks to a pair of oh-so-sweet

GeForce 7800 GTX cards (in SLI, of

course), we finally broke the 100fps barrier

in Doom 3 , with the Cyclone clocking an

average 102.1fps. That gives the Cyclone

the record in that benchmark. The Cyclone

also ripped apart the Game 3 benchmark in

3DMark05 , scoring 90 percent faster than

our 6800 Ultras-in-SLI zero-point rig.

Like the calm before a storm, Hypersonic’s

Cyclone is whisper-quiet despite all the power

raging under its hood. This can be attributed

to its HydroX liquid-cooling system, which is a

customized version of Cooler Master’s Aqua-

gate Mini 120. Hypersonic blinged-out the

Mini’s boring black tubing with silver sheathing

and added a custom shroud to the radiator for

improved performance.

Like a mean, green hot rod, the Cyclone

is certainly a force to be reckoned with. It’s a

take-no-prisoners system that’ll leave the faint

of heart (and wallet) blowing in the wind.

—CLAUDE McIVER

Hypersonic Cyclone

OCX Limited Edition

It blew away our benchmarks, and stole our hearts

$5,185, http://www.hypersonic-pc.com

HYPERSONIC CYCLONE OCX

LEOPARD

Fast as hell, top-of-the-line

components, and a sexy

paint job.

DEF LEPPARD

Only 1GB RAM, no DDR2,

and a hefty price tag.

This incredible hulk pairs pristine aesthetics with bleeding-

edge technology.

BENCHMARKS

SYS mark 2004 201

ZERO POINT SCORES

Premiere Pro 620 sec

Photoshop CS 286 sec

Divx Encode 1812 sec

3D Mark 05 29.3 fps

Doom 3 71.7 fps

0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Our zero-point reference systems uses a 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-55, 2GB of DDR400 Crucial Ballistix RAM, two nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra cards in SLI, a Maxtor 250GB

DiamondMax10, a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, a PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 510 Deluxe Express, and Windows XP Pro with SP2.

UNDER THE HOOD

CPU AMD Athlon 64 FX-57

MOBO MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI

RAM 1GB Mushkin DDR550

LAN Dual Gigabit

HARD DRIVES 400GB Seagate Barracuda

(7,200rpm SATA, 8MB cache),

two 74GB Western Digital

Raptor (10,000rpm, 8MB cache)

in Raid 0

OPTICAL Plextor 16X DVD±RW Dual Layer

VIDEOCARD Two GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB

SOUNDCARD Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

CASE Reflexxion Series Stratus Aluminum

Case in Python Green Metallic with

Enermax 600W PSU

BOOT: 32 sec. DOWN: 13 sec.

BRAINS

BEAUTY

233

568 sec

273 sec

1662 sec

56.47 fps

102.1 fps

9

MA XIMUM

PC

KICKASS