Note: This is an early review. Had the machine for a week now, running almost 24/7 testing it to make sure that there are no glitches or breakdowns while still in the return window.
This CyberPowerPc is definitely a beast of a machine compared to the other gaming PCs offered at Best Buy. In terms of the video card and CPU, it's top notch. But in the terms of a complete machine, it is fairly bare bones. Most of the money went into the video card and the processor. Now most savvy gamers would have built their own system. But after pricing out each component individually on this machine, I felt it was worth the trouble of spending a few hundred dollars more to have a pre-built warrantied machine (let's not fool ourselves, there's also the laziness factor involved, as well as the fact that it takes time to purchase individual parts from multiple vendors at the best price). This machine is actually not too outrageous of a price difference from a self-built PC, which is the reason I decided to purchase it. So let's talk about the positives first:
1) The case and the entire PC looks beautiful and modern. Clean simplicity is what I would call it. Much better than the other gaming machine choices that just looked gaudy or way too gamer nerd. This looks like a machine straight out of Tron. It wouldn't look out of place in your living room.
2) The guts of this beast is very organized and clean. There's no loose wires spilling out. It has a nice white glow from the LED lights on the inside, and the Titan X card itself has green LED letters on it (Geforce GTX).
3) It's fairly quiet for a gaming machine. I have it in an enclosure and don't really notice it much. Just a soft hum.
4) Speed. This machine has speed. Games run at the highest quality with ease. I specifically got this machine for VR gaming (HTC Vive), and running the Steam VR demo on it - it maxed out on the quality level. The Titan X is definitely a good card. My downloads and software processes are also super speedy.
5) It runs pretty cool. Looking at my CPU temps, I've rarely seen them go over 100 degrees. And if I put my hand over the fans, it doesn't feel hot at all. That's nice, since overheating is always a concern.
6) No bloat-ware. I hate having to go through all the programs deleted unnecessary software whenever I get a new computer. Most of the software usually has some kind of spyware embedded. Luckily this machine was pretty clean, other than the OS.
Ok, so now let's talk about the faults (not deal breakers, but definitely things to consider):
1) My computer came with the OS (Windows 10) installed on the wrong harddrive. It was put on the 2tb HDD instead of the much much faster 256gb SSD. This is a pretty big mistake in my opinion. Especially since this is supposed to be a gaming computer. I'm not one to send back a unit or go to Geek Squad, so I did an OS migration from the HDD to the SSD and changed the boot sequence in the motherboard BIOS. Normally I would have just done a clean install of Windows 10, but I had already spent a good amount of time installing my personal software and programs before I realized the OS was on the wrong drive. And also....
2) There's no optical disk drive on this machine. But the PC came with Windows 10 on a CD. There were actually 3 CDs included in this package. I find that hilarious, because even if I wanted to do a clean install of Windows 10 myself, I couldn't since I don't have an external drive. So most people would say that you don't need an optical drive anymore since everything is digital...well great, but at least include the software on a thumb drive instead of a CD. I knew this when I purchased the PC, and I was originally going to just install an old DVD drive I had laying around, but....
3) There's no real room or support inside the machine to actually bolt and place an optical drive (or any kind of drive). There is space to add another SSD if you want (and possibly more harddrives, but I didn't want to take apart the harddrive enclosure because it looked difficult to put back together again). I don't see much room for upgrading. I'm not even sure I would have the ability to run multiple video cards if I wanted to (I haven't checked the motherboard to see if it's SLI compatible - but I'm going to guess it's not).
4) Again, if you buy this machine, you know that you're sacrificing certain components for speed. But how much extra would it have to cost to include wifi? There's cards out there that are less than $15. It would have been nice to have that option.
5) The included keyboard and mouse are fairly ho-hum. And in terms of looks, this is where the gaudy went...
6) The motherboard start-up screen takes way too long. It goes through two modes where it just sits on the screen waiting for you to make a decision if you want to enter the BIOS setup. Why does it even have an SSD if it's going to sit on the start-up screen for so long? (but this is really just nitpicking at this point)
7) I really wish there were more USB ports on the front (only two). Really. Also I wish it had a TF card/SD card reader on it. Also, I wish it made ice cream for me to enjoy.
Ok, so by now you're probably thinking that I hate the machine, but quite the contrary - I'm actually having a blast fiddling with it and pushing the processing speeds. So far I've gotten a 14,700 score on Fire Strike (3DMark demo). It's a lower score than I expected with this kind of processing power - but then again most of the highest scores in 3DMark are from people with machines that are running 2 or more video cards in them. A single Titan X is still powerful enough to handle almost everything thrown at it (besides heavy 4k gaming).
So overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase - with some caveats that I will get over. My main reason for this machine was to play games and to handle VR, and this machine will do that easily. If I encounter any issues going forward as I continue testing, I will update my review. This gaming PC is definitely one of the best bang for your buck PCs on this site.