CyberPower Gamer Ultra 950 review

Most of the award-winning PCs we've seen recently have been equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

This isn't surprising given their impressive performance and low prices. CyberPower's Gamer Ultra 950 is the first PC we've seen that is equipped with one of AMD's new quad-core Phenom processors.

The Phenom 9500 processor and 2GB of RAM performed well in our benchmarks, especially in our video-encoding test, which is designed to take advantage of a multicore processor. However, it fell behind the similarly priced Mesh G92 Pulse Pro and its E6850 Core 2 Duo processor in our other tests.

The Gamer Ultra is well equipped for gaming. It comes with one of ATI's latest graphics cards, the Radeon HD 3870. This sped through our demanding 3D tests, so it should have no trouble playing the latest games at moderate resolutions. CrossFire support means you can add a second ATI graphics card for a performance boost, although if you install a double-slot card such as another HD 3870, it will block off one of the two empty PCI slots. This could be inconvenient if you also want to add peripherals such as a wireless adaptor or TV tuner.

Unlike other PCs at this price, CyberPower's Gamer Ultra doesn't come with any speakers, but it does have a Creative X-Fi sound card, which is much more useful than the cheap speakers usually included with similarly priced computers. The X-Fi can produce more realistic audio effects in games that support its EAX processing.

The 22in widescreen LCD has only a VGA interface. This is an odd choice, since the graphics card has only DVI ports and you may have to tweak the monitor's settings to get the best-looking image. Image quality is acceptable for everyday use, though. Movies looked bright, and the non-glossy finish means it won't reflect light from fluorescent tubes or sunlight, so causing distracting glare.

We were impressed with the Gamer Ultra's low price, which is cheap for a quad-core PC. However, few games support quad-core processors. The money would have been better spent on a faster graphics card. Mesh's G92 Pulse Pro is even faster in games and was quicker in our multiple applications and image-editing tests, too. It doesn't have a dual-core processor so isn't as quick in video-encoding tasks and doesn't have a dedicated sound card, but the G92 is still the better buy.