CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 Review

Let’s be honest here, most consumers can’t afford to build the best gaming PC on the market right now, and that’s what makes the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 so attractive, especially for folks just starting out with PC gaming. At a sub-$1000 price, this entry level gaming desktop features an Intel Core i3-12100F processor, 8GB RAM, 500GB storage and AMD RX 6500 XT graphics card.

This hardware may not deliver the absolute powerful performance for AAA-titles. For example, the budget-friendly AMD RX 6500 XT included doesn’t match gaming extras such as ray tracing or DLSS on Intel’s RTX 3060 cards or above. The 500GB SSD storage is pretty low at a time where game sizes are increasing as well. However, for the money, it’s more than capable for today’s biggest esports games like Fortnite, Rocket League and League of Legends. Plus, upgrading the Gamer Xtreme isn’t difficult when the time eventually comes.

If bought on a sale, the Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 is a great buy, otherwise competing machines like the Asus ROG Strix G15 cost slightly more, but will deliver more bang for the buck than most gaming machines around. Though you’ll pay slightly more for the ROG Strix G15, its performance on modern AAA titles is unmatched.

Having a full 1TB of HDD space is a reasonable way to compensate for the smaller 500GB SSD on the Gamer Xtreme. If you have a little more extra cash on hand, you can bump RAM up to 16GB, upgrade to 1TB, upgrade to 2TB HDD or get the more powerful RTX 3060 on the ROG Strix G15.

CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 Specs

• Desktop Class: Gaming & Entertainment
• CPU: Intel Core i3-12100F
• Graphics: AMD RX 6500 XT
• RAM: 8GB DDR4
• Storage: 500 GB SSD
• Connectivity: 2.5G Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Weight: 29.7 pounds
• Size (W x D x H): 24 x 22.7 x 12.4 inches

Design & Features

Out of the box, the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 provides an attractive but familiar raven-black tower chassis. The bold front-facing CyberpowerPC logo and RGB-lit circles behind it look beautiful. Those looking to showcase the desktop’s innards will appreciate the transparent side panel. Front and rear ventilation keeps the Xtreme GXi8800A6 cool, with multiple locations to maximize cooling.

Those inclined to over-the-top gamer aesthetics will find the Gamer Xtreme’s look quite appealing. Well, it isn’t screaming with a Sci-Fi-inspired design, but it gets its share of RGBs on the front panel, some illuminating from the tempered side glass window and around the rear cooling fan. The façade has its upper and lower sections squared, and a CyberpowerPC logo at the bottom reminds you this is a gaming system.

Beyond that, however, the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme doesn’t have any exceptional design frills, which we honestly like. We also like the black chassis theme, though we’ve seen white chassis designs on machines like the Skytech Shiva that look equally appealing. The side panel pops open effortlessly, all you need to do is unscrew a few thumbscrews on the side glass panel. This gives you easy access to the neat interior, especially if you’d like to upgrade or customize.

The port selection is good, but it lacks USB Type-C that’s becoming pretty standard even among gaming towers. In total, you have four USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, and an Ethernet port. Should you need to hook the system to more than one display, there are DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI ports on the RTX 2060 graphics card. These ports are handy when connecting your PC to a VR headset since the CyberpowerPC Gamer GXiVR8060A12 is VR Ready out of the box. Wireless connectivity comes via 802.11AC Wi-Fi.

Also bundled into the package are a gaming mouse and keyboard, not the best, but we appreciate the fact that you have something to get you going before you can purchase a serious gaming combo. The monitor is solid separately, something like the AOC C24G1A is an easy choice to reccomend.

Gaming and Graphics Performance

The Cyberpowerpc Gamer Xtreme offers solid 1080p on high-to-mid range settings. Modern AAA games with greater visual fidelity like Gears 5, Resident Evil village, and Doom Eternal perform adequately well and have high resolution and settings. The good performance is due to the AMD RX 6500 XT (4GB) graphics card that performs fairly better that previous generation GPUs.

As ever, high frame rates take precedent over visual fidelity in competitive, meaning, gamers looking for more esports performance standards can rest easy that the GXi8800A6 can handle Fortnite, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Rocket League without breaking a sweat at high settings, whether played through the SSD or HDD.

In real-world gaming, the AMD RX 6500 XT makes a strong showing compared to gaming machines running RTX 2060, but well below those running RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla runs pretty fine at 1080p, delivering 56 fps on average using the high-quality settings, which is the second-highest quality preset in the game. The RX 6500 XT is however slower at 1440p unless you want to reduce the resolution quality.

Elsewhere, Shadow of the Tomb Raider played at high settings (1080p resolution), the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme averages 78 fps but drops to 58 fps in 1440p resolution. At the same settings. Given the Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6’s base RX 6500 XT graphics card, this kind of performance is quite impressive, but we have machines like the Skytech Archangel 3.0 within the same price range but come with performant RTX 3060 GPUs.

As mentioned above, cards like the RTX 3060 benefit greatly from both ray tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technologies. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the ROG Strix G15 performs especially well at 1080p, but 1440p might not be that fluent, and not all games are going to utilize all that 8GB RAM, after all.

Productivity Performance

When not gaming, the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 is a great productivity machine that you can use for most day-to-day tasks. The 12th Gen Intel Core i3-12100F processor paired with 8GB DDR4 RAM and 500GB is capable enough to handle most of your computing needs – everything, from processing spreadsheets, typing away projects, and media creation.

We only wish it had bigger storage, something like an additional hard drive on the side would have been better. The 500GB SSD, apart from being fast, will most likely fill up with gaming files in no time, but you have the option to expand the storage on this machine.

Overall, the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme represents immense value, especially for a machine that costs just over one grand. It stacks pretty well when compared to gaming machines like the HP Omen 25L that cost hundred dollars more, but pack outdated hardware, in this case, an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 processor and an RTX 3050 Super graphics card.

All said, if you’re shopping on a tight budget of ~$1000, there are gaming PCs that will get you through medium settings beautifully with either RTX 3050 or RTX 3060 GPUs. And since the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GXi8800A6 is designed to be very upgradeable, we believe it’s well worth the money you’ll spend, and you can throw in powerful components later on when you can afford to.