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Cyberpower Fang III Black Mamba Review -the £4,000 system

The chassis itself is divided into two sections, with the bottom dedicated to the main system and the top reserved for the media server and a radiator.  The side panel for the bottom section is easily removed in the usual fashion as it's secured using two thumbscrews.

For shipping purposes, Cyberpower fill the inside of the system with protective foam and air bags to prevent damage.  This needs to be removed before powering the system on.  Once it's all removed you can see the sheer beauty of the system within.  Cyberpower have used a red and blue colour scheme throughout the interior of the case which gives it an impressive appearance.

At the heart of the system Cyberpower have chosen to use the very impressive Asus Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard which we reviewed over here.  This is our favourite X79 motherboard which won Kitguru's most prestigious ‘Must Have' award.

At the centre of this motherboard Cyberpower has chosen to use a Intel Core i7-3930K processor which is water-cooled and overclocked to 4.7 GHz.

You might be surprised not to see the top-of-the-range i7-3960X chip in this system considering the price tag but apart from the extra 3 mb of cache there isn't much of a performance difference. They both overclock to the same levels.

The vertically stacked power connectors on the two graphics cards are one of the visual only clues that Cyberpower are using nVidia's finest GTX 680 graphics cards in this system as they have been stripped of their stock coolers in favour of water-cooling blocks.

Cyberpower have chosen to use two water-cooling loops to cool the system, one for the two graphics cards and another for the CPU.  The graphics loop is hooked up to a 240mm radiator in the roof of the system and the CPU loop features a triple radiator which is mounted between the two sections of the system.  The two XSPC pump and reservoir units are located in the front of the system.

There are two Corsair RAM coolers installed in the system either side of the CPU socket.  As the RAM isn't overclocked we assume that these have been installed to improve airflow around the power regulation circuitry, facilitating the CPU overclock.

Cyberpower have selected Kingston HyperX low profile memory in this system, which runs at 1600 MHz.

They have chosen the Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W to power the system.  This is a modular unit and all of the cables are neatly routed behind the motherboard tray, so airflow isn't restricted.

In the front of the system there are six 3.5″ and four 2.5″ hot swap hard drive bays which are accessible by opening up door which houses the front two fans.

The system is only supplied with two OCZ Agility 3 SSDs but Cyberpower have also pre-wired the two remaining 2.5″ bays and two of the 3.5″ bays, should you want to add storage at a later date.

To open up the top section of the system the two catches on either side of the side panels have to be pushed inwards and then they simply fold down to reveal the insides.  Here we find the media server which consists of a Zotac Z68-ITX motherboard, an Intel Core i3-2120 CPU and 8 GB of RAM.

This is powered by a separate Micro ATX 300W FSP power supply and features a 2 TB hard drive for storage.

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5 comments

  1. I am impressed to be honest, as I know how difficult this build is. If they had opted for a larger SSD and the 3960X I would be more impressed.

    3930k in a 4k system? id want the extra cache im afraid, even if its not really noticed. so its a good system in some areas (build) and surprisingly novice in others (components).

    I like the case, but id swap out for bequiet fans, would solve the problem, at a little extra cost.

  2. as a talking point its interesting, but the build has a lot of flaws. I think the review needed to be more negative, although most of the problem areas were mentioned.

    my main gripe? it has two systems. cool concept.

    but.

    its a big but.

    why would you use a media center in this system with a blasting of fan noise in the room? do the fans all turn off when the media center is on? if so, thats cool, if not. useless.

  3. I have maybe missed this, how do you turn either system on? are there two power buttons? can both be turned on together?

  4. Not for me, ive heard this case and its almost the same as buying a helicopter and putting it in the garden.

    Im splitting hairs, but why dont Cyberpower replace the fans in the case with quality stealth units? there are quite a few so i doubt air flow would be an issue, especially with the huge physical dimensions.

  5. I like the case, its a talking point due to the size and two systems is a great idea, but I have an issue with cyberpower. my friend in london bought a system and it was troubled from day one. perhaps he got a bad system, but the motherboard failed in a week and it took some time to get it back.

    I still believe its best buying your own system.

    For this money I would get

    3960X with corsair H100
    32GB of 2400mhz ram
    asus rampage IV extreme
    corsair 1200i PSU
    silverstone case (same as henry said in conclusion).
    256GB SSD boot – vertex 4 or patriot wildfire
    2x2TB HDD for storage
    ASUS GTX680 (one is enough) and maybe add another later.

    I worked this out at close to 3k, not 4k.