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CyberPower Apollo GT review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £1170
inc VAT

This PC packs in gaming and processor power at the cost of a comprehensive specification

Specifications

4.5GHz Intel Core i5-3750K, 8GB RAM, N/A display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

With its gloss white case and liquid cooling pipes, the CyberPower Apollo GT looks like a serious gaming PC – a really high-tech fridge, if you’re feeling less generous. It’s certainly not inconspicuously designed, but we were pleased with its sturdy build quality and perfectly finished interior. It’s not silent when it runs, though, as there are plenty of fans to supplement the liquid-cooled CPU: two at the top of the case, one at the back and an exhaust fan on the side panel which emits a particularly noticeable whine. None of the air vent grilles are protected with mesh to keep fluff from getting in, either.

CyberPower Apollo GT

Inside, there’s a new Intel Core i5-3750K Ivy Bridge processor overclocked to 4.5GHz – hence the need for the impressive liquid cooler. This is mounted on an Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard, which has a surprisingly modest range of ports and features. It has three PCI slots, which seems rather unusual given the greater popularity of PCI-E x1 expansion cards. The backplane that lines up with the lowest PCI slot is occupied by power controls for the case’s internal white LED lighting. One of the motherboard’s two PCI-E x1 slots is also inaccessible, blocked by the dual-height graphics card. There’s also an extra PCI-E x16 slot, but it’s worth noting that it actually only runs at x4 speed.

The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 with 2GB RAM, two DVI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort, as well as support for connecting both 3D display hardware and up to four monitors. It’s a massively powerful card that’ll stand up to gaming at maximum quality for a long time to come, with average frame rates of 43.5fps in Crysis 2 and 106fps in Dirt 3. The PC’s raw processor power is every bit as impressive, producing an overall score of 145 in our benchmark tests.

CyberPower Apollo GT

The system is equipped with 8GB of 1,600MHz RAM in the form of two 4GB modules, leaving two free slots. That’s plenty of RAM for almost any task short of heavy duty video rendering, but the motherboard can take up to 32GB of RAM if you want to add more. There are also four SATA2 ports, all of them free, and two SATA3 ports. These are currently connected to the hard disk and optical disc drive. The PC is fitted with a Crucial SSD, which gives the system blistering boot times and disk access speeds. Unfortunately, with a capacity of just 128GB, the hard disk won’t keep you going for long if you want to install large games or store a lot of multimedia content on your PC. Windows 7 alone takes up over 50GB and additional space is occupied by a pre-installed partition containing an installer for Microsoft Office 2010 Starter.

Fortunately, if you want to add extra storage there are plenty of 3 1/2in drive bays available, but the two 5 1/2in bays above the DVD drive are occupied by part of the water cooling system. A 650W Corsair power supply means that there’s plenty of juice for the power-hungry graphics card as well as any components you may want to add.

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Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Processor Intel Core i5-3750K
Processor external bus 100MHz (DMI)
Processor multiplier x45
Processor clock speed 4.5GHz
Processor socket LGA1155
Memory 8
Memory type PC3-12800
Maximum memory 32GB
Motherboard Asus P8Z77-V LX
Motherboard chipset Intel Z77

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 4/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 4
Free memory slots 2
Free 3.5in drive bays 5

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Crucial CT128M4SSD2
Interface SATA3
Total storage capacity 128GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 670
Graphics/video ports 2x DVI , HDMI, DisplayPort

Sound

Sound Realtek ALC887
Sound outputs 5.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out, line out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards none
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Screen model none
Native resolution N/A
Screen inputs N/A

Other Hardware

Keyboard none
Mouse none

Software

Software included Microsoft Office 2010 Starter
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty three years RTB (one year parts, three years labour)
Price £1,170
Details www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk

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