The days of building own PCs with custom parts may soon be behind us. The 2019 edition of the CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 takes a simple premise and adds a few upgrades: a gaming desktop from an OEM with standard parts, but now with a new chips, graphics and reasonable price. To prove it, our unit is created on an already excellent CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A7 – Our Editors’ Choice for midrange gaming desktops, but is now maxxed with a 240GB SSD and 1TB of storage.
With standard parts and tower, you won’t have issues upgrading this unit, but CYBERPOWERPC’s decision to add a transparent glass side panel means that major upgrades will be easy as one would hope.
More: Top 10 Gaming Desktop PCs 2019
Design
The Gamer GXiVR8060A8 measures 18.5 x 7.9 x 17.9 inches, which is about the same size you find on custom built-gaming PCs, the likes of iBuyPower Trace 9220, mainstream manufacturer HP’s Omen Obelisk, and Dell’s Alienware Aurora R7. Compared to the Neuron’s option of a mini ITX board, the larger Intel B360 Chipset on the Gamer not only provides more space to add components, but is roomy enough for your hands to move around when making upgrades.
The Gamer Xtreme’s internal components are accessible through a removable side panel, that’s screwed by thumbscrews, top provide a tool-less way to access the insides. Once you remove the tinted glass panel, you have access to the motherboard, solid-state drive, RAM, and graphics card. The power supply and hard drive are housed behind the metal side panel on the opposite side.
With a tinted glass panel on the left side, the Gamer looks clean when powered off. When turned on, there’s a lot in the unit to keep you excited, ranging from the RGB backlighting throughout the case, to the liquid-cooed processor. Cable work is excellent, and that keeps things tidy and helps with airflow.
Ports & Upgradeability
To keep up with its gaming pedigree, the CYBERPOWERPC GXiVR8060A8 ships with plenty of ports to hook all your favorite peripherals. The front ports, accessible on the top of the case, include two USB-A 3.0 ports, audio and headphone jacks, and a power button. Around the back, there’s an even more robust array of ports, including six USB ports, ethernet jack, two legacy PS/2 ports to accommodate your older mouse and keyboard connections, audio and headphone jacks, and video output ports, including DisplayPort and HDMI connections.
Since the Gamer tops with a GTX 1660 graphics instead of an upgraded RTX 2080 card, you won’t be finding a USB-C port here, making it less future-proof, but still an okay configuration for the price. Though the GTX 1660 delivers enough power to drive virtual reality headsets, its latest sibling the RTX 2080 includes a USB-C port, meaning it can take advantage of the single VirtualLink connecter. For now, you’ll have to do with multiple cables to drive your headset.
Productivity Performance
CyberPowerPC bills the Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 as a gaming PC, it’s easy to envision small business owners and home users snagging it for productivity tasks given the machine’s options for high-end processors and graphics. Our upgraded configuration ships with a 9th-Gen processor, but to keep the price more affordable, this gaming PC tops out with an Intel Core i5-9400F rather than the high-end Core i9-9900K on the flagship iBUYPOWER Pro Trace 9240 unit.
For daily computing tasks, using the Gamer Xtreme for web browsing, moderate photo-editing, and heavy productivity tasks, most consumers will appreciate the performance boost with the Gamer’s Core i5 processor. More intensive task, such as video encoding may require more time to complete, but its within the upper-range for budget desktop PCs.
Our unit features a speedy 240GB NVMe solid-state drive coupled with a larger 1TB hard drive to house larger files. That’s double the 120GB SSD you find on its predecessor, but surprisingly the memory has been doubled without reviewing the price of the unit upwards. The solid state drive is a worth inclusion as it delivers fast 1,249 MB/sec read and 1,012 MB/s write speeds. Both drives and the 8GB RAM are easily upgradable should you find yourself requiring more space for your game files and other documents.
Gaming & Virtual Reality
In addition to the Gamer’s strong processing performance, the unit’s entry-level GTX 1660 graphics keeps the unit firmly in the consideration of enthusiast gamers, who don’t need newer features like features like real-time ray tracing and deep learning super sampling (DLSS). Giving up these technologies to hit a lower price sounds like a winning strategy for Nvidia.
In fact, the TU116 GPU raises the question of just how low Nvidia is willing to go with its newest Turing architecture. The 1660 trims things further even opting for readily available GDDR5 instead of the newer GDDR6, along with fewer CUDA cores and few other elements, the result is exactly what you’d guess: a slightly slower but more affordable GPU for mainstream PCs.
Getting more performance at a lower price and support for VR headsets is great. It benefits from some architectural enhancements, higher clock speeds, and more shade cores, than last year’s GTX 1060 (6GB) GPU. The GPU at the heart of the GTX 1660 is the same as TU116 found in the 1660 Ti, only that two SMs have been disabled, in turn disabling 128 CUDA cores and 8 texture units.
On real-world gaming, it delivers impressive frame rates per second (fps) than its closest rivals, especially when played at 1080p. For instance, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey played at 1080 (Very High Quality) yields 64fps, which is better than the Radeon RX Vega 56’s 62 fps, while the GTX 1060 maxes at 57 fps.
The same is replicated in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (57 fps, 54 fps, 48 fps) and Warframe (170 fps, 151 fps, 152 fps), respectively. Given that the GTX 1660 can render most modern games with modest graphics, like Civilization VI and Fortnite, at frame rates above 60 frames per second (fps), some gamers will indeed appreciate the smooth game play.
Bottom Line
The Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 is a sleek gaming desktop for enthusiasts who need a true powerhouse that will last you years without spending too much. CYBERPOWERPC describes the desktop as being upgradeable, and it should be respected for using exclusively standardised parts, meaning you can easily buy upgrade parts. If you won’t be making an upgrade that requires routing, this can last you a long time, with simple RAM and storage upgrades.
Still, the system is functional out-of-the-box and will let you play modern title in Full HD even without upgrading. The new model builds on an already excellent Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A7, but doubles the SSD storage for the same price as the older model. So, if you’re looking for a gaming desktop to buy, the Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 is good value and a strong performer.
Is there a better alternative?
As configured, the Gamer Xtreme is a competitively priced entry-level gaming PC. For a few hundred dollars more, you can grab the iBUYPOWER Trace 9220 that offers an overclockable Intel Core i7-8700K processor, a true Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB) Turing graphics card, 16GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD + 1TB hard drive storage.
That’s if you’re willing to deepen your dive into your pockets. If not, both units – the Gamer Xtreme and Trace 9220 are more affordable in their respective categories (entry-level and mid-range), and offer the best value for both gamers and professional creatives.
Should you buy it?
Yes. Without the unnecessary need to build your own rig from scratch (you might end up spending more), you can ultimately depend on the choices that CyberPowerPC made. With the CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 you’re getting a handsomely designed, VR-ready system that packs ample performance to get you started.
Recommended Configuration
CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme VR Gaming PC, Intel Core i5-9400F 2.9GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB, 8GB DDR4, 240GB SSD, 1TB HDD, WiFi Ready & Win 10 Home (GXiVR8060A8, Black)
3 used from $899.90
The Review
CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8
The CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme GXiVR8060A8 is a sleek gaming desktop for enthusiasts who need a true powerhouse for modern AAA gaming
Review Breakdown
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EDITORS RATING
