Cyberpower Gamer Infinity Aquarius review

The chassis, a Cooler Master 310, continues the blue theme: cathode tubes along the base and side give every component an ethereal glow, and the front of the system is bordered by a distinctive cobalt-coloured surround.

The water-cooling tubes and cables mean it’s necessarily a busy interior, but Cyberpower has done a commendable job of keeping everything bunched together, with some cables hidden behind the Biostar P45 motherboard and others tidied out of sight. There’s a reasonable amount of upgrade potential, too, with a pair of DIMM slots, a PCI-Express 16x socket and four 3.5in bays catering for extra components where necessary.

The water cooling may not be particularly effective, but that quad-core processor still provides a strong balance of power and value. The Q8400 has a core clock speed of 2.66GHz and scythed through our 2D benchmarks to return a score of 1.92. That's not quite up there with the newer Phenom II X4s and Core i7s: Yoyotech's Water Dragon 3.6, for instance, scored 2.08, and Chillblast's Fusion Stinger managed a hefty 2.33 with its overclocked Core i7-920.

The Aquarius is a bold design, but its very selling point is what most disappoints

The rest of the specification is generous: the 1TB hard disk and Blu-ray reader should endear the Cyberpower to media fans, and the included 4GB of DDR2 RAM makes light work of intensive applications and multi-tasking.

Cyberpower’s choice of peripherals, though, does little to excite. The 22in DGM monitor comes with a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 but also displays notable backlight bleeding and a slight blue hue to lighter tones. The Logitech S220 speakers are an adequate 2.1 set. The Yoyotech and Chillblast systems didn’t come with any peripherals, but adding them wouldn’t push the cost far beyond the £869 that Cyberpower is asking for this system.

Its rivals also excel in other areas: those looking for water cooling would be better served by the Yoyotech, which kept its AMD processor 50% cooler than the Cyberpower, and those hungry for raw power would be better served by the Chillblast.

With its blue-tinged water-cooling and Core 2 Quad processor, there’s no doubt that the Gamer Infinity Aquarius is a bold design, but its very selling point is what most disappoints. The mediocre monitor adds little to a package that, with its solid performance, should be far more attractive than it is.

Author: Mike Jennings