Why did you pick this product vs others?:
So, my grandson showed an intense interest in severe weather phenomena and in how that
happens. In particular, he was fascinated with how Tornados occur and with a couple of
“storm-chaser” computer games that simulate how you determine where they will form
and enable you to chase them and gather data to help you understand that. He had already
found two games, “Tornados: Research and Rescue” and “Outbrk,” that he wanted for
that.
Being an engineer, I was excited about my grandson’s interest in this and wanted to help
him pursue it. His parents, however, had Apple computers and both games he had chosen
would only run under Microsoft Windows.
My first thought was to upgrade an old Dell Vostro I had and give it to him to run these
games, but I quickly determined that was NOT a viable path. It was clear that both games
he wanted needed a modern, powerful graphics card, a significantly faster CPU, much
more RAM, and a much faster hard drive than my old Dell could be modified to provide.
Further research led me to the CyberPowerPC Gamer Master series for what I needed. I
was impressed with the reviews I found for these machines, and independent reviews for
the component used in them. The quality of the overall machine and the components used
was primary in my decision, as I wanted to find something I was confident would work for
my grandson now and through Middle and High School. I also thought my grandson would
love the lighting that is characteristic of these machines and the fact that he could see all
the components through the case (which turned out to be correct).
I initially tried a CyberPowerPC with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500 3.6GHz 6-Core CPU, AMD B550
Chipset with 16GB DRR4 RAM, 500 GB 500GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and Radeon RX6400 4GB
Graphics card. This looked to be a very capable machine at a very attractive price.
However, it barely met the minimum specs for the Outbrk, the most stressing game my
grandson wanted. After receiving it and setting it up, I found that it would indeed run both
games, but it was like watching snails play leapfrog—a totally frustrating experience. I knew
my grandson would only be disappointed and I had to get something more powerful.
Fortunately, CyberPowerPC has a generous return policy, and I was able to return that
machine and order a more powerful system with an AMD Ryzen 7 8700F 4.1GHz, 8-Core
CPU, AMD B850 Chipset, 16GB DDR5 6000MHz RAM, 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and GeForce
RTX 5060 Ti 8GB Graphic card. This machine exceeds the recommended specs for Outbrk
and both games run beautifully on it. It also delivers, I believe, everything else I was looking
for.
I love the beautiful, rugged metal and plexiglass case that is used for this machine, and that
it has massive cooling capacity that is whisper quiet. The high-quality of the design and
construction is clearly evident and impressive. I am very happy with it—and so is my
grandson.