Cyberpower Fang Mini Pro review

The Cyberpower Fang Mini Pro is a particularly petite PC which packs a surprising amount of power. The system measures just 61x114x109mm, and its glossy case design is reminiscent of futuristic armour such as that worn by Prophet in Crysis 3.

The Fang Mini Pro uses a quad-core Intel Core i7-4770R processor. The Core i7-4770R has a stock clock speed of 3.2GHz, but it can Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz. The processor also supports Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, which means its four cores are split into eight logical cores to further enhance its multitasking performance. Indeed, the Fang Mini Pro performed particularly well in our PC benchmarks, scoring a respectable 98 overall and 110 in the multitasking segment. This makes the diminutive Fang Mini Pro more than capable of handling any computing task you might ask of it, whether that be image editing, video editing or another hobby-based activity.

Sadly, the Fang Mini Pro doesn’t have a dedicated graphics processor and instead relies on the integrated Iris Pro 5200 graphics processor of the Core i7-4770R. Even so, the Fang Mini Pro was also more than capable of handling Ultra HD video, and it played our test files without a hitch. It would serve as a media centre PC without too much effort.

The system is able to handle basic gaming, managing a perfectly playable average frame rate of 40.5fps in our Dirt Showdown benchmarks while running at 1,280×720 resolution, 4x anti-aliasing and High graphics quality. Increasing the resolution to 1,920×1,080 and graphics quality to Ultra reduced the average frame rate to just 13.2fps, which is just too jerky a frame rate to play the game. You won’t be able to play the latest blockbuster games at the highest graphics quality and resolutions, but you should be able to play older 3D titles at 1,280×720 and enjoy casual, 2D games.

As for connection ports, the Fang Mini Pro has a pair of USB3 ports and a 3.5mm audio output on the front. On the back are two additional USB3 ports, a gigabit Ethernet port and the aforementioned HDMI and mini DisplayPort graphic outputs.

The front right corner has an air intake vent with a rear exhaust fan taking care of excess heat. When the system was under load, such as during gaming, the fans became rather loud and the case was warm to the touch. The noise wasn’t excessive but if the system is placed on your desk the noise can become distracting.

Inside you’ll find a 1TB hard disk which should be able to hold most of your media and documents. When configuring your system there’s an option of a 1TB SSHD hybrid drive, which uses 8GB of NAND RAM as a cache, for £27 more. We think the 1TB SSHD is a worthwhile upgrade, SSHDs combine an increase in speed and responsiveness with the capacity of a traditional mechanical hard disk. The standard 1TB hard disk in our review system spins at a lowly 5,400rpm, and we’d much prefer to have a faster 7,200rpm hard disk in situ.

As is becoming popular with very small form-factor PCs, the Fang Mini Pro comes with a VESA mounting plate, which lets you mount the system behind a VESA-compatible PC monitor or television. If you do decide to hide the system away behind a screen, you’ll want to enable Wake-On USB by changing the relevant settings in BIOS and installing the Windows 8 drivers provided on a CD. This makes turning on the system much more convenient than having to reach behind your display. However, it was slightly frustrating that the drivers were provided on a CD rather than a USB flash drive as the system lacks an optical drive.

The Cyberpower Fang Mini Pro performed just as well in our application tests as the more expensive Chillblast Fusion Vacuum Mini 3 (around £1,105). No mean feat as this was one of the best performing mini-PCs we have tested. The Fang Mini Pro was actually the better performer in our Dirt Showdown tests, owing to its superior integrated graphics. However the Fusion Vacuum Mini 3 does have more connectivity options and includes an SSD.

The Fang mini Pro is much more powerful than the Scan 3XS NUC N16, which scored 48 overall in our benchmarks, but the 3XS NUC N16 is much cheaper and still a good choice if you want a very small PC but don’t need masses of power. Even so, the Cyberpower Fang Mini Pro is an impressive PC that combines desktop power with a very compact form factor, and a Best Buy.