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What makes the Cobra Venom special is that it's the first of a new line of gaming PCs jointly developed by CyberPower and Intel's Gaming development team. CyberPower's calling the new product line the "Fang" series, which we're told will eventually encompass several gaming systems down the road. Those carrying the 'Venom' tag will receive special treatment and ship "factory overclocked to the maximum stable speed," which means CyberPower's geek cred is on the line. The boutique OEM sounds up to the challenge, assuring us that any Venom system configured with Intel's Core i7 975 chip will come overclocked to at least 3.8GHz, and higher if the system can handle it. Our test unit slithers into our labs at a blistering 4.0GHz, or almost 700MHz above the 975's stock 3.33GHz clockspeed, but does it have the endurance to withstand our benchmarking gauntlet?
Specifications
| Model | Cobra Venom |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz OC'd to 4.0GHz) |
| RAM | 6GB (3x2GB) Kingston HyperX Tri-Channel DDR3-1600 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P |
| Hard Drive(s) | Seagate 1.5TB SATA II w/ 32MB Cache |
| Videocard(s) | EVGA GTX 295 |
| Optical Drive(s) | LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray Reader & HD-DVD Player |
| Power Supply | Thermaltake ToughPower 600W |
| Case | Azza Solano 1000 Full Tower |
| OS and Peripherals |
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Inside the Cobra
While the early pre-production unit we received sports the standard Gigabyte BIOS, CyberPower says it's working with several board manufacturers (Gigabyte, EVGA, and so forth) to implement a customized BIOS revision that will only be found on the Cobra. We asked if this meant certain options would be neutered -- a fairly common (and unfortunate) trait of bulk OEMs -- but not only is that not going to be the case, we're told the specially tailored BIOS firmware will include "improved overclocking features." Details are still being hammered out, but at a minimum, you can expect to see support for real-time readings of current CPU clockspeeds and more options for fine tuning the QPI signal to improve overall overclockability.
Typically we'd move on to 'Website & Ordering' next. However, our opinion remains the same as it did the last time we reviewed a CyberPower system, so rather than rehash what's already been written, you can recap our breakdown of the ordering experience right here.