The most interesting thing about the Cyberpower Liquid Gamer Infinity SLI, and its most distinguishing feature, is that it's cooled not using fans (like most PCs) but using water.

Although that might sound odd, it's a technique that's been around for years in high-end computers. The water system is sealed, using a radiator to remove heat, so it works a little like a home central heating system in reverse.

Normally we don't see the point of computer cases with see-through panels, but in this case it's justified, because the fluorescent glow of the green water pipes provides a light show in itself (if you're that way inclined you can even add more lights when buying the computer).

It uses an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, one of the fastest in the range, and comes with 4GB of memory, which is as much as you'll find in any modern home computer. Both those and the pair of Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 8 graphics cards inside (SLI is the name of the technology used to work with two graphics cards rather than one) helped it to some stunning results in our lab tests, running new games in high detail without breaking a sweat.

Computers this powerful – and this expensive – are tailored for games-playing (as you can tell from the side panel) and the Liquid Gamer certainly doesn't disappoint on that score. If you're not a gamer, then you don't need this much power – a much cheaper PC will suffice. But if you want to use the computer for things other than games as well, the Liquid Gamer won't disappoint – for video editing, another typically power-hungry application, it would be an excellent choice.

All this power comes at a cost – in addition to the up-front price – the computer has a 900W power supply, so at full tilt it will be quite a drain in electrical terms, something to worry about in an age of high fuel prices. And in addition to the purchase price you'll need to factor in the cost of a keyboard, mouse and monitor, none of which are included (though you can add a monitor at purchase time, for an extra charge). It's also a shame that it's slightly noisier than you'd expect from a water-cooled device (there are still two fans inside, one of which is for the hard disk).

Cyberpower hasn't skimped on non-gaming features, either: the PC comes with a one-terabyte hard disk, DVD writer, Creative Labs X-Fi sound card (which gives great-quality sound, and is something you don't often find bundled with computers), eight USB ports, two Firewire ports (handy for video editing), network port and optical and standard sound outputs.

The Liquid Gamer Infinity SLI is phenomenally powerful, and well-suited to gamers, but its electricity cost and noise shortcomings let it down slightly.

Vista compatible: Yes