Tuesday, May 22, 2007

CyberPower Gamer Ultra 7500SE



CyberPower Gamer Ultra 7500SEThis budget gaming system offers midrange performance and plenty of expansion room, but its mediocre design lessens its appeal.
Priced at $999 (as of November 6, 2006), the Gamer Ultra 7500SE is a budget system can handle most computing tasks, including many games.
The Gamer Ultra 7500SE parlayed its Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor and 1GB of RAM into a WorldBench 5 score of 98-above average for a cheap PC.
The 7500SE's gaming performance was even better. Sparked by an EVGA e-GeForce 7600GS graphics board with 256MB of RAM, it had a frame rate of 76 frames per second on our Doom 3 test, at 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution.
A number of blue LEDs illuminate the case's curved plastic front, which nevertheless looks and feels fragile and cheaply made. CyberPower sets aside plenty of bays for adding extra hard drives: Four internal 3.5-inch drive bays and two externally accessible 5.25-inch drive bays are open (a dual-layer DVD burner, a DVD-ROM drive, and a five-in-one media card reader fill the remaining externally accessible drive bays). The system runs Windows XP Media Center Edition, but CyberPower did not include a TV tuner or a remote control with our review unit, to keep the system's price under $1000 (you can buy a tuner and remote bundled as a $99 option).
The 19-inch ViewSonic Optiquest Q9B LCD monitor included with our test system rendered our test images, games, and DVDs in dark and dull colors. And the LCD provides only a VGA input, which yields fuzzier video than would a DVI connection (which the system's graphics card supports).
CyberPower backs this system with a three-year parts-and-labor warranty that includes 24-hour daily tech support; unfortunately, it scored poorly in our most recent reliability and service survey. The 7500SE is Vista-capable, according to its maker, and the company offers Vista upgrade information on its sit

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