Cyberpower Ultra Fusion Review

[section_title title=Conclusion”]Conclusion

After having the Ultra Fusion in my hands for the best part of a week, it’s time for my overall opinion on one of Cyberpowers gaming systems.  This was also my first experience with AMDs FX-9590 5GHz CPU so it was a nice comparison to how Intel systems perform in certain situations etc.  Is the inclusion of AMDs flagship FX CPU enough to make this system a powerhouse?

Starting with the performance, the Ultra Fusion is a mixed bag.  What I mean by this is that in gaming benchmarks, it performs pretty well and even beats a near £2K gaming system with an i7 4770k + AMD 7990 GPU.  This is impressive but what isn’t so impressive is it got beat by a laptop (Intel i7 mobile CPU) in some synthetics when you think about it, it really puts the AMD 8 core CPU to shame a bit.  It was nearly outscored in PCMark 7 by the MSI GE40 Gaming notebook which is either a real testament to MSI or a very poor showing by Cyberpower; I’m afraid it is hard to see it from both sides.  However in the gaming aspect, it more than packed a powerful punch which is a good thing to see as anyone with a R9 290x in their system, will want top quality gaming performance.

Touching more on the aesthetics, I think the Cyberpower Ultra Fusion not only looks good, but it remains subtle at the same time.  The Cooler Master Comos SE chassis is certainly a top quality case and although it is a little fickle in comparison to the Cosmos 2, the SE definitely ticks all the boxes in my opinion of punching above its weight.  If you are looking for a smaller system then the Ultra Fusion isn’t for you; the overall system is massive and when you take into account the parts being used, you can forgive it for its rather large stature.  The glow of the blue LED fans matches the lighting of the cases power button perfectly and it has a nice subtle but not overpowering glow to it; it really does look the business at night/in the dark.  Overall the Ultra Fusion is a very good looking system and certain looks as good as it costs.

In terms of design and overall spec, I feel it to be slightly unbalanced.  I don’t want to start a huge debate regarding Intel and AMD but I do feel being beaten by a laptop in any benchmark to be a flaw and I ran the benchmarks numerous times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke etc.  Would an Intel CPU have been a better choice to pair up with the R9 290x due to its better IPC performance?  Maybe but what we have here is still a potent rig despite some of the results; synthetic results are still synthetic at the end of the day.

The main thing I was disappointed with was the sheer volume of noise when the system is gaming.  While playing some Company of Heroes 2, the fans were going crazy and even on boot up, the system is clearly audible which in my opinion is contributed to by the power hungry AMD FX-9590 5GHz CPU.  With the CPU cooler working overtime from the get go, it is understandable but not a forgiveable thing in my opinion.  Combine that with the reference AMD R9 290x and what you have is a pretty loud system.  Overall that is the only truly negative point I have about the system and other than that, it has been a pleasure having it grace my desk for the past week.

One of the main features which could have been overlooked is the included Blu-Ray drive.  This makes it a viable option to watch all of your Blu-Ray films/discs without sacrificing any quality as we all know; anything over 1920×1080 is classed as full HD.  Not many companies take this into consideration and I have to give kudos to Cyberpower for not just thinking about the gamer, but the users who take watching their visual media seriously.

Taking the price into consideration, £1500 is a lot of money but when you factor in the SSD for a boot drive, 2TB of storage, the flagship AMD 5GHz CPU, the beastly R9 290x and the stunning Cosmos SE, the overall package does look very nice indeed and although some people will question the choice of components, the only real disappointment is the memory which could have been higher spec given the price you pay.  Other than that, the Cyberpower Ultra Fusion ticks all the boxes and is a sure thing for those gamers looking to play at high frame rates and not spend 2k to achieve it.  It is quite relative to other systems around the same kind of price which include Intel CPU’s although you would be looking more at an i5 rather than the expensive i7.  Overall, a well rounded system which isn’t overly expensive other than the use of a “special” 5GHz CPU which is the flagship of AMD desktop CPU’s.

I would like to thank Cyberpower for sending the Ultra Fusion in for review and I look forward to seeing more systems from them in the future.