$99 Complete Gaming System from CyberPower – Black Friday Sale
Posted on November 26, 2014
And that price-tag includes the operating system. CyberPower is selling its Fang Mini R9 SE complete gaming system for $99, a box partnered with Gigabyte that resembles the Brix. The Fang Mini (product page) ships equipped with an R9 M275X 2GB GPU, A8-5557M quad-core CPU, Windows 8.1, and a 120GB SSD. This small form factor gaming box normally retails at nearly $1000, but will be marked down to $250 with $150 of rebates, landing it at $99. The unit is being offered as a “door-buster” pre-Black Friday sale in limited quantity. 300 units will be available, starting at 6PM (1800) EST today, 11/26.
The unit is capable of driving medium graphics in larger AAA games, but needs a serious RAM upgrade. We'd recommend a minimum 4GB kit of SO-DIMM DDR3L RAM, like this Kingston 1x4GB DDR3L 1600MHz kit for $70.
CyberPower Fang Mini R9 SE System Specs
| OS | Windows 8.1 w/ Bing |
| CPU | AMD A8-5557M 4-core; 2.1-3.1GHz |
| GPU | AMD Radeon R9 M275X 2GB GDDR5 |
| Memory | 2GB SO-DIMM DDR3 1600MHz |
| Network | Gigabit LAN (Realtek RTL8111G) |
| WiFi | 802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4 - 5GHz BlueTooth 4.0, 2402-2483MHz |
| Storage | 120GB Kingston SSD |
| Audio | Realtek ALC269 |
| IO | 1 x HDMI Out 1x Mini-DP 4xUSB3.0 1xRJ45 1xAudio 1xKensington Lock |
| PSU | 135W wall power adapter w/ cord AC 100-240V |
| Dimensions | 59.6 x 115.4 x 128mm 1080g |
| Price | $99 |
You've only got 120GB of storage available – though it is solid-state – so that'll limit game installs to a handful (or 2, if playing massive AAA games). External hard drives or alternative SSDs are an option in the event more space is required, but we'd also suggest considering network drive sharing with a desktop or other NAS.
2GB of RAM won't get you far for modern games – Far Cry 4 consumes nearly 2GB of RAM alone – so an upgrade to the 4GB kit is something we consider “necessary” for any AAA gaming applications. Indie games, browsing, and static media consumption will perform fine on the stock system.
At the end of the day, this is primarily a home-theater PC that'll work well with media streaming from the likes of Amazon Prime or similar services. It's worth consideration at $100. Indie titles like Transistor will play well on the Fang Mini, other titles (like Titanfall) will run moderately on low to medium settings with a RAM upgrade.
$170 after a RAM upgrade for a system that'll play games at medium or better settings -- not bad. You can find the system here. Don't forget better SO-DIMM RAM.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.