CyberPower Infinity Achilles XT review

The cyberpower infinity Achilles XT has a modest case. It’s small and light enough not to get in the way and is easy to move if necessary, but it still feels quite sturdy. Inside, there are eight 31/2in drive bays, one of which is external, plus three 51/4in bays.

The bays contain a DVD-RW, a 60GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. Although the use of an SSD as a system drive produces the fast boot speeds we expect from a high-end modern PC, its small capacity means that there’s barely any space left to install anything once Windows is on there. This means you’ll have to install most applications on the 1TB hard disk, thus losing out on the potential benefit of the SDD’s faster read-write speeds.
The Achilles has an MSI Z77A-G43 motherboard and a non-overclockable Intel Core i5-3470 processor. It’s still one of Intel’s new performance Ivy Bridge CPUs, though, and it scored 114 overall in our benchmark tests. That’s a fair bit more than our reference non-overclocked Sandy Bridge Core i5-2500K, and still powerful enough to handle all modern software with ease.

An Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 graphics card with 1GB of memory provides enough power to run Dirt 3 at a frame rate of 54fps, but it didn’t provide smoothly playable speeds when we ran Crysis 2 at Ultra quality, producing just 23fps. Dropping the quality still leaves you with good looking gaming graphics.
The PC has the standard 8GB of memory that you’d expect from any decent system on the market right now, and we’ve had good experiences with the stability of similar 1,333MHz Kingston ValueRAM modules in the past. There are two free memory slots, too, so upgrading’s easy. The motherboard can handle a maximum 32GB of RAM.


There are two PCI-E x1 slots, but one’s blocked by the graphics card, and we’d have preferred more. There are, however, three PCI slots, all of which are vacant, and a second PCI-E x16 slot (which actually runs at x4), that you can use for PCI-E x1 or x4 expansion cards. There’s plenty of room to add extras such as TV tuners and Wi-Fi cards. At the back of the motherboard there are eight USB ports, which is generous for a budget board. Only two of them are USB3, though. There are another two standard USB ports on the front panel, too. On top of that are the usual 7.1 analogue audio outputs, a PS/2 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port, but no eSATA port.

The supplied keyboard and mouse do their job well. The Logitech K120 keyboard rattles a little, but is accurate to type on and the B110 mouse is comfortable to use. Unfortunately, the Edge10 M2410XX monitor didn’t do much to impress us. It’s a matt 23.6in 1,920x1,080 monitor with DVI and VGA inputs, but it has a strong blue tint that’s noticeable on white backgrounds.
At £800, this PC comes close to matching the specification and performance of many systems that cost £200 more. Its non-overclocked processor is powerful enough to run modern and future software. At this price, we can even forgive the small SSD. It’s a great value system, but we strongly recommend buying it without the monitor.

Basic Specifications
Part Code	Infinity Achilles XT
Review Date	30 Aug 2012
Rating
Processor	Intel Core i5-3470
Processor external bus	100MHz (DMI)
Processor multiplier	x32
Processor clock speed	3.2GHz
Processor socket	LGA1155
Memory	8
Memory type	PC3-10666
Maximum memory	32GB
Motherboard	MSI Z77A-G43
Motherboard chipset	Intel Z77

Ports
USB2 ports (front/rear)	2/8
Firewire ports (front/rear)	0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear)	0/0
Wired network ports	1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support	none

Internal Expansion
Case	midi tower
PCI-E x1 slots (free)	2 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free)	2 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports	3
Free memory slots	2
Free 3.5in drive bays	5

Hard Disk
Hard disk model(s)	OCZ Agility 3 60GB + Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162
Interface	SATA3 + SATA2
Total storage capacity	1,060GB

Graphics
Graphics card(s)	1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
Graphics/video ports	HDMI, DVI, VGA

Sound
Sound	Realtek ALC892
Sound outputs	7.1 line out, stereo line out, mic in
Speakers	none

Removable Drives
Supported memory cards	none
Optical drive type(s)	DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display
Viewable size	23.6 in
Screen model	Edge10 M2410XX
Native resolution	1,920x1,080
Screen inputs	VGA, DVI

Other Hardware
Keyboard	Logitech K120
Mouse	Logitech B110

Software
Software included	none
Operating system	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option	Windows disc

Buying Information
Warranty	three years RTB (one year parts, three years labour)
Price	£800
Details	www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk