CyberpowerPC Gamer SLC8260A3 Review

With the new range of gaming PCs like the CyberpowerPC Gamer SLC8260A3, it’s now possible to squeeze maximum video editing, software development, and data processing performance when not playing. Most also offer easy upgrades, blingy cases and fans kitted out with LED illumination, and sometimes overclockable processors.

The Gamer SLC8260A3 under review is the company’s latest gaming tower, sporting top-of-the-line components like AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card and an eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 3800X CPU. For a midrange gaming PC, this is a formidable spec-sheet, and the fact that it rocks a spacious, edgy design and easy expandability, the SLC8260A3 is easily our new favorite among value-oriented, prebuilt gaming towers.

Design

The CyberPowerPC Supreme Liquid Series isn’t an off-the-shelf desktop design, produced for the mass market. While the chassis and certain internal components are branded by CyberPowerPC, they’re all standard parts with aftermarket equivalents.

Lately, CyberPowerPC has become a common brand in the custom-gaming niche, so we’re not surprised that most parts used inside are aftermarket, and that includes the motherboard and graphics card. You’ll be able to locate most of the parts used here online. That’s part of the allure of getting a prebuilt desktop from a system builder with a notable presence in the market.

Back to the design, this Gamer Supreme is set on a mid-tower chassis, measuring 18.5 by 8.20 by 18.70 inches (HWD). It uses a larger AMD B550 Chipset that offers enough space to add components and is roomy enough for your hands to move around when making upgrades. The system’s internal components are accessible via a removable transparent side panel that’s held in place by thumbscrews, that essentially offer tool-less access.

Once you remove the tinted glass panel, you can now access the motherboard, solid-state drive, RAM, and graphics card. The power supply and hard drive are found behind a metal side panel on the opposite side. The tinted glass panel looks clean on the system when switched off, and the trio-of LED rings on the front panel look even better when the machine is running. All that is accented by excellent cable arrangement, that keeps things tidy and helps with airflow.

Ports

Port selection along the front edge includes separate headphone and microphone jacks, and a pair of USB Type-A 3.0 ports. On the same flank, you also have a power button, a reset button, and a drive activity light up. We’d prefer a flash-card reader in this spot, though. That’s about one of the few conveniences missing here. On the bottom, you have four raised feet with rubber pads to give the Gamer Xtreme some breathing room from the underside.

On the back of the tower, there are other ports including six USB ports, an 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.

Productivity Performance

The 3.9GHz AMD Ryzen 3800X is no slouch, not especially when it’s twinned with 16 GB of RAM, a 1TB PCIe-NVMe SSD. That makes the Supreme SLC8260A3 a heck of a workhorse when you’re not using it for gaming. Though CYBERPOWERPC bills the Supreme Liquid Cool SLC8260A3 as a gaming PC, it’s possible for small business owners and home users to adopt it for productivity given the machine’s high-end processors and graphics.

It will certainly complete intensive tasks such as video encoding, within a very short time – in some cases in just under 80 seconds, over the 124 seconds you get from the HP Omen Obelisk’s 8th-generation processor on the same task. Again, the Supreme SLC8260A3 ships with a speedy 1TB solid-state drive that will house all your larger files. The drive and RAM are upgradable should you find the need for more space to store your documents, photos, videos, and game files.

Gaming & Graphics

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT may have arrived at a time when AMD was dominating CPU sales with the Ryzen 7 3700x and the flagship Ryzen 9 3900X, but it came in the backdrop of Intel’s Nvidia Turing chips. Perhaps, that’s what makes the Radeon RX more impressive. In addition to the Radeon RX 5700, AMD has been taking the RDNA graphics architecture and making it a hit, taking a direct shot at Nvidia’s powerful contenders.

What the Radeon RX 5700 XT has to offers is a combination of solid gaming performance and a plethora of exciting features. When you play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on High Settings at 1080p, it runs at 71 frames per second (fps), without screen tearing.  The SLC8260A3 plays Metro Exodus (ultra-settings) at 73 fps in FHD, tying the Trace 9230 and beating the average. The frame rate dropped to 61 fps in 4K, just below the gaming desktop average and MSI’s machine.

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider (highest settings), the Gamer SLC8260A3 hits 117 fps in FHD and 53 fps in 4K, falling just above the gaming desktop averages (94 fps and 34 fps, respectively) but only below the Vengeance in terms of our comparison group.

The GamerSLC8260A3 earns a perfect score of 10 on the SteamVR performance test

Bottom Line

The CyberpowerPC Gamer Supreme is a revolution in pre-built gaming desktop design. Putting a powerful AMD GPU and CPU in a spacious chassis and adding serene liquid cooling is a clear win, and it makes a lot of sense when you put it to practice. This helps reduce the overall heat in the case while allowing for easy future upgrades.

On performance vs. price, it does get even better, as you’re getting a rig that’s outfitted and tuned to compete with more expensive systems. Sure, some of those come with a few extras like overclockable CPUs or minimal designs, but for many shoppers, performance for your dollars is the primary concern.

Some may prefer a simpler look, but for the pro-gamers, the Supreme SLC8260A3 fits in gaming settings, and some home offices better than others. It’s not a cheap PC, of course, but its high-end parts are effective for 1440p gaming and capable of 4K gaming.

Add in the support for VR (virtual reality) headsets like Oculus and HTC Vive, and it is easy to recommend the CyberpowerPC Gamer SLC8260A3 to performance hounds of all stripes.