Cyberpower Ultra Scylla six-core AMD PC
Some kind of monster?
Review The Cyberpower Ultra Scylla derives its name from a mythical six-headed sea beastie, which is a tribute to the hexa-core nature of the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T processor that lies inside the PC.
The joy of six: Cyberpower's Ultra Scylla
The £899 version of the Ultra Scylla that I was sent includes a 21.5in BenQ G2222HDL display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, as well as a Logitech Wireless MK250 cordless desktop set. This is the default configuration for Ultra Scylla, but I spent a few minutes on Cyberpower’s website where I was faced with a bewildering array of configuration options.
The site offers no less than 33 cases, 10 CPUs, 10 motherboards and 22 graphics cards plus a host of other parts. Here, I managed to configure a basic PC with Athlon X2 CPU and HD 5450 graphics that came to £470. At the other extreme – with a funky case, overclocked hexa-core CPU, water cooling, 16GB of RAM, CrossFire Radeon HD 5970 and an SSD – the price for the tower passed £5000.
The Ultra Scylla model on review features a Thermaltake Element T black case, which is a mid-tower design with the PSU located at the bottom, rather than the top. It has a spare PCI Express graphics connector ready for future upgrades as well as a bunch of Molex and Sata connectors.
A BenQ 21.5in screen included along with wireless peripherals
The Ultra Scylla comes with a Sata DVD-RW and a 1TB Samsung SpinPoint hard drive, which leaves two spare optical drive bays and five spare hard drive bays available for use. Cyberpower has installed a Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 motherboard that uses an AMD 770 chipset to support an AM3 processor with DDR3 memory and a single graphics card. In addition to those core features the Gigabyte sports two spanking new USB 3.0 ports and six USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel with more USB 2.0 on the front of the case.
COMMENTS
Thanks for the advice.
But can you really see ducting working on PCs without removing or greatly reducing modularity and upgradability.
BTW this PC is not noisy, it has lots of fans at low speed for good balance of air-flow to noise.
I play with the lights down on such a system...
so I never notice the lights dim. It does a good job of supplementing the central heating in the winter.
We make gaming behemoths too but the bulk of the market buys at the mainstream
Fluid Dynamics 101
Lots of fans at low speed = better cooling vs noise than a duct and a high speed fan. In our many years experience as a system builder ducts tend to become resonating chambers amplifying the sound of the high speed fan to a deafening roar.
I like the shoe box PC idea, watch this space or follow my tweets...
hm...
I have to object on the graphics card part: The card itself is very well suited for gamers and if coupled with a second one it is okay even for hardcore gamers (tried Crysis on two 5770 on two full-hd lcds... very nice...)
Interesting
No, really.
Why not use a low noise, moderate throughput fan (such as those from Noctua, and other similar people) in the ducting? One at each end of the duct gives a reasonably constant air pressure and they don't generate enough noise to cause major resonance issues.
That said, I threw some Noctua fans at my Big Box upstairs, fully intending to duct it, but it was quiet enough that I never bothered - I might break up an old shoe box and get some gaffers tape and see if the sound gets any more noticable/better/worse in terms of it's signature etc.
Although that said, this is the whole reason I stopped building systems (for other people at least ) I still build my own workstations and servers) - too much hard work for not enough profit, especially if you are overclocking on top of that....
Steven R
