Cyberpower Zeus Mini-A 100 review

Cyberpower’s Zeus Mini-A 100 is a compact PC with a tiny footprint that aims to bring reasonable gaming performance to more modest setups at a low cost. The lack of a dedicated graphics card may seem like an odd choice, but thanks the AMD A10 APU, this machine can put in some impressive performances without a dedicated GPU.

The compact mini ITX case is a design unique to Cyberpower, but we were left a little underwhelmed in places. In particular, because of the compact nature of the case, there are plenty of wires on display, and while this can be put down to the limited working space, it’s still not pretty to look at once you take the side off.

It’s not all bad: the chevron-shaped grilles on the left and right side of the machine have an industrial feel to them and are available in both red and green, with a matching power button and front panel lights.

The PC is powered by a quad-core 3.7GHz AMD A10 7850K APU that, while not the most powerful processor, is great value and has decent 2D performance and impressive graphics capabilities thanks to its onboard AMD R7 graphics core.

Application performance in our benchmarks was good, with the PC managing an overall score of 53. The challenging 4K multitasking test was where things feel down for this PC, however, where it scored just 44. While it was able to smoothly play 4K video while converting videos and photos in the background, the process took an absolute age, which is why it scored so poorly. In other words, if you want to do something processor intensive, it’s best to leave the PC to get on with the one job.

The single-core image rendering test was a high point, with the Zeus Mini-A 100 scoring 70. Browsing the web is effortless and pages were quick to load while more complex tasks such as photo editing are within the reaches of this PC. It’s just the ultra-intensive tasks that may take a little longer.

Graphics performance is reasonable. We challenged it to Dirt Showdown first. At Full HD resolution and Ultra settings, it was able to manage 18.8fps, which isn’t playable. Metro: Last Light was even more of a struggle and 5.3fps was all we could manage running at Full HD. You’ll need to drop your settings to Medium and switch off graphical eye candy, such as anti-aliasing if you want to get decent performance out of modern 3D games or play them at lower resolutions.

The tiny case means expansion is extremely limited. There’s room for one extra hard disk alongside the slot-loading DVD-RW drive and 1TB hard disk, although gaining access to the enclosure is an exercise in damage limitation and is very fiddly. The MSI A88XI AC motherboard is suitably compact, but you’ll still find two spare SATA3 slots if you somehow squeeze an extra hard disk into the chassis. There’s also a PCI-E x16 slot for a dedicated graphics card, but if you choose to fit your own card it’ll have to be very compact as there’s very little room for it.

There’s a decent array of connectivity on the motherboard though, including an Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi adaptor, which makes this PC very versatile in terms of where you’ll be able to put it in your house. If you use it as a living room PC, for example, and your router is in another room, you won’t have to trail a long Ethernet cable into your PC just to watch a bit of Netflix. 

There are also three 3.5mm audio outputs, two USB3 ports and four more USB ports alongside VGA, HDMI and DVI ports and a gigabit Ethernet connector. There’s also an optical audio S/PDIF output meaning you’ll easily be able to connect to high-end sound systems. You’ll also find two USB ports on the right edge at the front of the case alongside two 3.5mm audio jacks.

We love the bundled Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse set although the blue backlighting of these rather clashes with the bright red LEDs in our review model. You also get a 22in AOC E2250SWDN monitor in the £600 package, but this is best avoided. While it has excellent colour coverage – we measured it covering 94% of the sRGB gamut – viewing angles are very narrow and contrast is just 379:1, which makes for disappointing image quality overall. There are better panels available for less money.

Cyberpower’s standard warranty is one of the best available, with two years of parts cover coming as standard and a further year of labour also included. After the first month, where Cyberpower will pay for a courier to collect and return a faulty PC, you’ll have to cover the shipping costs if you machine requires repair.

The Cyberpower Zeus Mini-A 100 is a decent small form-factor PC that’s plenty powerful enough for everyday desktop and multimedia tasks. Gaming isn’t beyond its reach, either, but the lack of a dedicated graphics card hurts. Its thin design means it’d be good as a living room PC, but if you have ambitions beyond watching movies on your new PC you should probably look at a larger system with a separate GPU, such as the Chillblast Fusion Cyborg. If you’re looking for something else entirely, our Best desktop PC guide is updated regularly.