CyberPowerPC Zeus Thunder 2500 SE Gaming PC Review

Name: CyberPowerPC Zeus Thunder 2500 SE
Brand: CyberPowerPC

by Seth Colaner — Tuesday, June 05, 2012, 11:45 AM EDT

Power Consumption and Noise

Page 7: Power Consumption and Noise

Before bringing this article to a close, we'll take a look at power consumption of the CyberPowerPC Zeus Thunder 2500 SE versus the other systems we tested. We let each system boot and sit idle before measuring idle power and then loaded down each system with both an instance of Prime95 (to load down the CPU) and Furmark (to load the GPU) before taking our full load power consumption measurements. Our goal was to give you an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling on the desktop and while under a heavy workload. Keep in mind, this is total system power consumption being measured at the outlet.

It’s somewhat startling to see how much juice those monster systems drink, even compared to high performers like the iBuyPower rig and our featured CyberPowerPC system. The latter pulls a bit more power than the iBuyPower system both at idle and under load, but the two are right in the same ballpark with similarly specifications and features.

We didn’t label this page “Power Consumption and Noise” for nothing; sometimes there are compromises builders have to make for achieving great cooling and performance. In this case, the compromise is noise. The CyberPowerPC Zeus Thunder 2500 SE has seven fans, and although they keep it down to a reasonable hum at idle, they scream at full tilt.