Typically, people think they need to spend at least a grand or two to get a gaming tower that can run modern titles, but the CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST comes with a surprisingly affordable price tag. Out of the box, it comes with almost everything you need (minus a monitor), and the easily upgradable GMA4000BST appears to be an ideal option for casual gamers or anyone who’s just getting started in the world of PC gaming. How does it perform? I tested the GMA4000BST for 50 hours to find out.
Design: Clearly a gaming PC
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST is colorful and flashy. It screams “Look at me!” with its included RGB LED fans visible through the tempered glass side panel. The glass side panel removes easily when you want to perform upgrades or maintenance, as four-hand screws keep the panel secured in place. The glass panel does show fingerprints, so you’ll want to wipe it often to keep it looking its best. On the front of the foot and a half tall tower, the CyberPowerPC logo lights up as well. Two buttons on the top change the fan, logo, and trim LED colors and color patterning. You can have the lights shine a solid color (green, red, blue, purple, etc.), turn them rainbow-colored, or add motion or a blinking pattern. The CyberPowerPC is large, very large, with a ton of open space surrounding the main components, likely because it needs this space for adequate air cooling. It has ventilation on top, and multiple fans throughout, including fans on each side and under the graphics card.
Setup: Multiple ports
The GMA4000BST includes dipole antennas to help promote a better signal. After you connect the antennas, connect the power cord, plug in your mouse and keyboard (you can connect them to the two USB ports on top of the tower), you just need to connect your monitor. Keep in mind that you’ll need to connect your monitor to the HDMI (or DVI) port that’s attached to the graphics card, and not the HDMI attached to the motherboard. You’ll also find a microphone jack and headphone jack located on top of the tower, as well as several USB ports on the back. The GMA4000BST has eight USB ports in total. Once you have everything connected, the main power switch sits on the back, and there’s an additional power button on top of the tower.
Display: AMD Radeon RX 570
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST has an AMD Radeon RX 570 graphics card driven by 4GB GDDR5 dedicated video memory. This is a mid-range card for gaming, so there are certainly better options available, but it’s a decent enough graphics card, with a core clock speed of roughly 1168 to 1284 MHz. It should absolutely be sufficient for 1080p gaming. It is FreeSync compatible, so it will work in tandem with a FreeSync monitor to synchronize refresh rates.
Performance: Not too shabby
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST performs well as a basic PC for gaming or graphic design. It scored well on PCMark 10, with an overall score of 5110, a score of 8238 in essentials, a 7729 in productivity, and a 5689 in digital content creation. I connected the GMA4000BST to a 144 htz FreeSync compatible gaming monitor, and performed a few different graphics benchmark tests as well. On GFXBench, it scored 168.3 FPS on Car Chase, and it scored 213.4 FPS on Manhattan 3.1. It performed better than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, but worse than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X. On 3DMark, it scored a 3696 in Time Spy. This result was on the lower end, only beating out 18 percent of all results. Since this is more of a base-model Gaming PC, it only has 8 gigs of RAM. Fortunately, you can expand the RAM, but the lower RAM out of the box is somewhat of a speed bump in terms of its ability to meet the recommended requirements for some games. Without any upgrades, the CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST scores a 73 percent on PCGameBenchmark. Can CyberPowerPC run today’s best PC games? I played quite a few different titles on the CyberPowerPC. I wanted to start with a demanding game, so I chose to download Mass Effect: Andromeda as my first title. The picture remained clear, and I didn’t see any glitching or major frame drops even on the higher graphics settings. I also played several other games, like Middle Earth: Shadows of War, GTA 5, and Gears 5. I didn’t have any issues on the recommended settings, but I couldn’t play Shadows of War on the highest settings without the screen periodically freezing during combat scenes. I later realized this may be more of an issue with the Microsoft Game Pass beta, rather than the CyberPowerPC, as I didn’t experience this with similar games on Steam or Origins.
Productivity: Keyboard and mouse included
The GMA4000BST’s CPU is the 3.5GHz AMD 2nd Generation Ryzen 3. The PC is designed for gaming, but you could also use it for other functions like web surfing, word processing, or photo editing. The computer has good ventilation, so I haven’t experienced any issues with overheating. It comes with a mouse and keyboard, which also light up and can coordinate with the tower. The mouse is actually decent—it feels ergonomic, with four button controls on the side and a scroll wheel. The keyboard highlights important in-game functions like arrow keys, the WASD keys, and volume keys.
Audio: Surround sound compatible
You have several audio options for your PC. There are integrated audio ports, and you can connect external speakers or even a 7.1 surround system. There’s also a headphone jack, a microphone jack, and USB ports for connecting a USB headset. You can use your monitor’s speakers, but you may need to go into sound settings and change the sound output to your monitor. The CyberPowerPC runs very quietly too. You can barely hear it, and it is not much louder than ambient noise in a home.
Network: Wi-Fi or hardwired
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST has an Ethernet port for hardwired internet. It can also run on Wi-Fi, and it even has the dipole antennas for better coverage. I was able to get decent internet speeds (comparable to a MacBook Pro), and the network adapter seems relatively fast and reliable. I haven’t experienced any drop-offs whatsoever.
Software: Windows 10
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST runs on Windows 10, which is ideal for both gaming and general use. You can use this PC for work, school, web browsing, and gaming with the Windows 10 platform. Aside from the basic Windows 10 offerings, the CyberPowerPC doesn’t come with too much excess bloatware.
Expansion: Swap parts, add RAM
The GMA4000BST lets you build as you go, and you can upgrade the pre-built tower pretty easily. You just remove the glass cover, and with a little Googling, you can add or upgrade parts. This gives you the opportunity to buy a cheap gaming PC, explore the PC gaming hobby, and build up your rig as you develop more interest. The 8GB of RAM is limited, but you can expand that RAM up to 32GB. Upgrading the RAM is an easy and cost-effective way to improve the CyberPowerPC’s performance. The GMA4000BST has two 2.5-inch bays, two 3.5-inch bays, one PCIe x 1 slot, and one PCIe x 16 slot. However, it may be a good idea to update the CPU and power supply before making any significant additional upgrades outside of the RAM.
Price: An excellent value
The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST usually sells for around $600, which is a phenomenal price. This is the type of computer you’d buy when you don’t want to put up too much upfront cash, as it has an affordable entry price.
CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST vs iBuyPower BB108A
The iBuyPower BB108A (view online) has some similarities to the CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST. It has a similar look at first glance, it has a mere 8 GB of RAM, and it’s similarly priced (the BB108A sells for around $500). However, the GMA4000BST is a superior computer for gaming, with a more well-thought-out design and a much better graphics card (the AMD Radeon RX 570 graphics card instead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 in the iBuyPower BB108A). The CyberPowerPC also uses a 250GB solid-state drive in addition to a 1TB hard drive, instead of just a 1TB hard drive like the iBuyPower. On the other hand, in some ways, the iBuyPower BB108A’s 3rd Generation Ryzen 3 processor outshines the CyberPowerPC’s 2nd Generation Ryzen 3 processor, especially for some lighter-load operations. The CyberPowerPC GMA4000BST is ideal for someone just entering the PC gaming hobby, someone who doesn’t want to overspend on a gaming rig because they only play a few select titles, or someone looking to buy a pre-built machine they can upgrade later on.
