CES 2014: CyberPowerPC Impressions
One appointment that came on at the last minute was with CyberPowerPC and boy am I glad I was able to get in with them. As one of the partners committed to making a Steam Machine, I was excited to see their implementation of the living room PC. But, they had plenty of other great things to show.
All offerings from CyberPowerPC come in both and AMD and an Intel flavor, with the AMD solution being a little less expensive.
The Zeus Mini is a good candidate for an HTPC. Inside, the Zeus has a clean look with nice cable management. To help keep it quiet, there’s a water cooling solution and a few places you can place the radiator inside the case. There is enough space inside to house a full length video card while keeping the overall size of the Mini “small”. One nice thing about the Zeus Mini is that it holds a normal sized power supply, which is easy to replace and less expensive than those SFF power supplies in other boxes. CyberPowerPC had the AMD and Intel setup in their suite complete with colored LEDs with the AMD one glowing red and the Intel one glowing green since it houses a NVIDIA card. As one who recently built an HTPC, I was really digging the Zeus Mini’s size and design.
CyberPowerPC also had a pretty sweet looking clear case, which I will update the article when I can get confirmation on the name. The large window on the side allowed for a nice clear view of the internals. I initially did not see a slot for an optical drive, but the folks there pointed out that it’s on the bottom in this open area that I missed seeing. The design makes the front and sides very clean with ports and the optical drive accessible and out of the way. It’s certainly an eye catching design for those that want something clean and nice to look at.
If you are a LAN gamer, the Fang Battle Box is for you. This case, which almost looks like a briefcase, features a very sturdy handle to let you carry your computer around. The Battle Box at the suite housed a GeForce GTX 780 Ti and liquid cooling. As with the Zeus Mini, the Battle Box lets you use a full sized power supply and there’s room for up to five storage options in there. Like a briefcase, it opens up when you undo a latch which lets you access the internals easily. CyberPowerPC is also making sure the case allows for good air flow out of the box. It’s easily one of the more unique designs I’ve seen and one that I really liked.
And finally, we come to CyberPowerPC’s vision of a Steam Machine. The white design (it will also come in black) looks like it will fit nicely inside a media center. The box we saw was a prototype so the internal design could change, but the outer shell is slick with a cool Steam logo on top. The AMD version will start with a A6-6400K and an AMD R9 270 while the Intel version has an i3-4330 and a GeForce GTX 760. With a SteamOS install, CyberPowerPC is looking at a $499 price tag for the AMD one and a $699 price tag for the Intel variant. It will ship with a Steam controller and SteamOS. It’s one of my favorite looking Steam Machine at the show with it’s small and visually appealing compact design.
My first meeting with CyberPowerPC really left a lasting impression on me and I’m really looking forward to all the products that had in their suite, especially their take on the Steam Machine.
