Cybertron CLX Ra System Review: A Luxury Dual GTX 1080 Killer Gaming Rig

We'll start off our benchmark gauntlet with some standard productivity and content creation metrics.

Cinebench R11.5 64-bit Content Creation Performance

Based on Maxon Cinema 4D software, this test uses a 3D scene and polygon and texture manipulation to assess GPU and CPU performance. We ran the Main Processor Performance (CPU) test, which builds a still scene containing about 2,000 objects, for a total polygon count above the 300,000 mark. Here we're focusing strictly on software rendering on the CPU and it's heavily taxing on this one aspect of system performance, both with multi-threaded and single-threaded rendering. 

Cinebench has a tendency to bring under-powered systems to their knees, though the CLX Ra refused to bow. Armed with a Intel Core i7-6950X, the CLX Ra hit back with 10 physical cores, 20 threads, and 25MB of cache. Its multi-threaded score of 24.31 is more than 25 percent faster than the next closest competitor, the Maingear Rush X99 wtih a previous generation 8-core/16-thread Intel Core i7-5960X.

In single-core throughput, the Core i7-6950X is a more modest chip, particularly at its stock clockspeed (3GHz to 3.5GHz). The strength of this chip lies in its ability to pummel tasks with several cores and threads.

Futuremark PCMark 8 Simulated Application Performance

PCMark 8 simulates the workloads computers face in several different settings, including home, office and content creation. The benchmark also has a test that simulates a creative professional’s usage, as well as battery and storage tests. We ran the tests with OpenCL acceleration enabled to leverage the power of the Cybertron CLX Ra's GPUs, CPU and storage subsystem combined.

The CLX Ra wasn't quite able to keep pace with the Maingear Rush in PCMark 8. They're similarly configured systems, with the Ra having a few more cores/threads to tap into and beefier GTX 1080 GPUs, but the with Rush employing higher frequency RAM. What you're looking at here is likely the difference between the Rush's Intel SSD 750 PCIe card and the Samsung 950 Pro SSD in the Ra, since this test is relatively IO sensitive. Regardless, though the Ra didn't take the top spot, its performance here is incredibly fast with more than enough horsepower underneath the hood to handle work and productivity chores.

Let's look at some game tests, next...