Ultrabooks have been gaining popularity in
recent months, as the notebooks designed to meet Intel’s specifications combine
the features and performance you’ll find in a traditional notebook with the
slim, lightweight designs seen in netbooks and tablets. For example, Intel
requires that an Ultrabook be less than an inch thick and offer a battery life
of at least five hours. A couple of other cool features found in every
Ultrabook include the ability to wake up from sleep mode in less than seven
seconds, and Smart Response Technology, which allows for quicker loading of
your most commonly accessed applications. We got a chance to check out
CyberPowerPC’s Zeus-M2.
CyberPowerPC
Zeus-M2
CyberPower builds the Zeus-M2 around
Intel’s Core i5-3317U processor, which boasts a Turbo Boost speed of 2.6GHz and
the multitasking capabilities of a dual-core CPU with HyperThreading. The Core
i5-3317U also powers the Ultrabook’s graphics with Intel’s HD Graphics 4000.
You can add a monitor to the Zeus-M2 via an HDMI port on the left side of the
notebook. You can also pair the Zeus-M2 to an Intel WiDi receiver to wirelessly
deliver video and audio to a home theater or HDTV.
Our test build features 16GB of DDR3-1600,
which at press time was a free upgrade from the Zeus-M2’s default of 16GB
DDR3-1333. For storage, CyberPower installed a 120GB Intel 520 Series SSD that
promises sequential read speeds of 550MBps and writes of 520MBps. You’ll be
able to fill that SSD with files through the Zeus-M2’s variety of connectivity
options two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, and a 9-in-1 memory card reader.
For Internet connectivity, there’s a wired Ethernet port and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.
The Zeus-M2 also supports Bluetooth 3.0.
We ran our traditional bevy of bench-marks
on the Zeus-M2 to see how it would fair under load. As you might guess from the
specs, it shined in storage and memory tests. We saw a Sequential Read of
453.5MBps and Sequential Write of 189.8MBps in CrystalDiskMark, while
SiSoftware Sandra’s Memory Bandwidth test delivered marks of 19.81GBps and
19.9GBps. We were also impressed with the Core i5-3317U transcoding capability,
as it produced 5.19MBps (WMV>H264) and 5.45MBps (H264>H264) in SiSoftware
Sandra’s Media Transcode tests. Games scores were what we expected, but we’ll
note that the Intel HD Graphics 4000 worked great when playing League Of
Legends.
CyberPower allows you to make some hardware
changes to the Zeus-M2, such as the capacity and model of Intel SSD, so you can
tweak it to fit your needs. The build quality is solid, and CyberPower’s
options give you more flexibility with an Ultrabook than we’ve seen from other
manufacturers.
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Information
Price: $799
Website: www.cyberpowerpc.com
Specs: CPU: Intel Core i5-3317U @ 1.7GHz
(2.6GHz Turbo Boost); Chipset: Intel HM77; Display: 14.1-inch (1,366 x 768);
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000; Memory: 16GB DDR3-1600; Storage: 120GB Intel 520
SSD; OS: Windows 7 Home Premium; Dimensions: 0.75 x 13.5 x 9.25 inches
(HxWxD)
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