iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Desktop Trace 9220 Liquid Cooled Overclockable i7-8700K, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2070 8GB, Z370 Motherboard, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 240GB SSD, AC WiFi, Win 10 64-bit, RGB Case, VR Ready

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Short story: If youre not interested in reading this giant wall of text, for the sale price of $1350, the system specs are great. At $1550, the specs are what youd expect in that price range if you built it yourself. At $1800, youre wasting your money. But heres the catch: while the specs youre getting are excellent, the component quality is severely lacking. Again, specs arent everything if your PC is assembled with junk. Its like slapping a Ferrari hood ornament on a Ford Pinto; are you actually getting what you paid for? Well, yes, but it isnt what you wanted. After I began the return process, I ordered my own parts and reused an 850 watt PSU I had lying around. I paid roughly $1650 in total for everything, and those parts were all purchased AFTER Black Friday at full price for the most part. Better specs, significantly better quality, and my build benchmarks much, much higher than this pre-built PC did. Did my build cost a little extra? Sure. But most of that extra cost went in to buying some fancy lighting so I didnt feel left out! So, lets say you do decide to purchase this pre-built PC for yourself or a family member as a present this Christmas. What should you expect? Again, the short story version: The keyboard and mouse are garbage and may be DOA. Expect to upgrade those. If you think youre going to reach iBUYPOWERs customer support, youre kidding yourself. I still havent received an email from them that I sent three weeks ago. Theres two fans in the case and theyre both on the radiator. Take one off and stick it in the front of the case for intake. Better yet, throw them both away and buy something decent like a couple Corsair ML Pros. The AIO CPU cooler is off-brand and only a 120mm. Id highly recommend tossing that and buying a 240 or 360mm AIO (or a Noctua NH-D15, if you want to skip AIOs entirely). Toss the RAM and buy something you can actually trust, too. Lastly, get rid of the ThermalTake PSU and look for a higher watt unit--the 850 watt unit I have from EVGA is excellent. Just remember that a cheap PSU can wipe out your whole system if it fails. Do not cheap out on it. In total, after buying this PC, you should expect to pay an additional $450 or so to replace the junk components. In other words, dont buy this computer. If you really want a pre-built, head to a local PC store and ask them if they assemble computers. Youll be happy you did. Heres the system I built in this Trace 9220s stead. Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z Intel i7-8700k Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 8GB 3200MHz (x2) Cooler Master ML360R (plus an additional MF120R fan for rear exhaust) Corsair ML140 Pro (x2) ADATA SU800 SSD (256GB) WD Blue 1TB Corsair 460x case EVGA 850 B2 Windows 10 Pro OEM (varies in price, but around $25 from third party websites). Again, the total for all of this ran around $1650, and the Corsair 460x even comes with three RGB fans up front that you can flip for about $90 with the included controller. Build your own PC or buy the parts and take it to a PC shop near you and theyll put it together for you. I cannot stress this enough. Long story: Buyer beware: The first, second, and third photos are accurate. The other photos are not. The video is FAR from what youll be pulling out of the box. Whats inside? Weve got an ASRock motherboard, and it does match the description. The RTX 2070 is a Gigabyte, so thats solid as well. CPU is Intel, thermal paste was applied. The OS is installed on the SSD. And its downhill from there. The case fans? Theres one in the back in a push-pull configuration through the radiator which is connected to the heat sink on the CPU. Havent checked the brand on that fan, but the AIO cooler is off-brand. The other case fans? There arent any. Worth mentioning that the fan and AIO are not RGB as is shown in one of the photos; its a cheap looking white fan blowing through the radiator. Youre going to need a couple extra fans and a 3-pin splitter, so youre looking at an extra $30 minimum there. Worth mentioning that theres only one other fan header available on the board, so the splitter will be necessary if youre adding more than one fan (and you should). Yes, the PC will operate just fine with the AIO and fan in the back, but the less airflow you have, the quicker your PC is going to wear out. Get some case fans for intake and stick them in the front of the case! The RAM sticks are 2666 DDR4 by Apacer, and theyre also very, very cheap looking. I looked them up online and could only find a couple distributors selling them in bulk. I couldnt read anything on the websites as they were all in Russian. Expect to upgrade these, as they have the appearance of a bare-bones budget PC build. The PSU is a Thermaltake 80+ Smart Series 600w. Reviews on it look OK, but I replaced this immediately for an EVGA Bronze 850w that I had laying around. Im sure its a Cyber Monday sale, but theyre currently 50% off and are a way better value with much better reviews. At 50% off, its the exact same price as buying one of these Thermaltake 80+ PSUs new. The SSD is a WD Green 240GB. These are middle-of-the-road to be sure. Not great, not completely terrible either. The HDD in here is a WD Blue 1TB. Again, same story as above but I have more faith in the HDD than the SSD. If you plan to add another SSD or HDD, there are plenty of SATA connectors on the board. You can check that out by searching for the manual. Unfortunately, the case only includes one additional tray for a HDD and one other spot for an additional SSD. Cable management is non-existent, so do expect to clean up the mess once your PC arrives. This PC does come with a mechanical keyboard and a mouse. The keyboard I received was DOA, and I havent plugged in the mouse as, judging by the quality of the keyboard, my old Logitech G502 mouse will be miles better. It took a few days for the BF:V code to arrive via email from Amazon. Still no mention of the CoD:BO4 code, and Ive heard nothing from customer support yet. Now, I picked up this PC early morning on Black Friday for $1350. If you dont know how to build a PC, buying a pre-built is one option. Building PCs is daunting and tedious, but you will save money buying parts you can actually trust. Its not hard to build a PC either, but I thought Id save a bit of time and sanity by purchasing a pre-built. That was maybe a mistake. Of course, if youre buying a pre-built PC, you must expect the company building them to use a few cheap parts and cut corners, and the PSU is usually one of them, but I am surprised to see so many cheap components in this build. If youre considering buying this at the full retail price, dont. Id highly recommend shopping around or simply buying the parts online and assembling them yourself. Even if you have no experience in building a PC, while it may take a few hours, youll be getting a significantly better product than this. Cheaper, too. Tutorials exist all over YouTube. Hope that helps! UPDATE (11/28/18) Alright, so Ive finally had some time off work and got three inexpensive Corsair case fans installed (specifically the AF120s and an AF140 Quiet). The CoD: BO4 code did arrive in my email yesterday. Both BF:V and CoD have been redeemed and installed without issue. And yet again, were downhill from there. BF:V and CoD both recommended graphics settings on Ultra across the board. I loaded in to BF:V first, and I ensured MSI Afterburner was running so I could check the temperatures of both the CPU and GPU and see how theyd perform under load. BF:V loaded very, very quickly, and upon getting into a multiplayer match, my God, it was beautiful. Trouble is, the game crashed within five minutes. So, I started her back up. About three minutes in, yet another crash. Thats not good. I did hours of troubleshooting yesterday (somewhere in the range of six to eight hours on my day off), and tried the classic reinstall among a number of other things like memory paging and flipping DX12 on and off. Turned off the firewall, turned off background applications, reduced graphics settings, reduced the clock speeds of the GPU, etc. Point being, I know what Im doing when it comes to PCs. So, after many attempts and an evening wasted, BF:V was still crashing within five minutes of a match. Yes, I checked for a Windows update. Yes, the latest drivers are installed. Yes, they were clean installed. Nothing was showing as an error in Event Viewer. No, I wasnt overclocking. Next attempt. CoD: BO4. This one lasted a little longer--roughly ten minutes. And then came the crash. This wasnt just a crash back to the desktop, but one that locked up my PC and required me to force the PC to shut down by holding the power button on the case. Not good. Now, I was following my temperature through Afterburner the entire time. At no point while I was running any game maxed out on Ultra settings did this PCs GPU or CPU ever crack 60 degrees C. Just a reminder, however; Ive installed two front intake fans and a top rear 140mm exhaust (before installing these fans, everything was running 20 degrees hotter which is absolutely bad). So, no, the GPU and CPU were not triggering the crashes due to overheating. There are two possibilities here that I can safely surmise: The drivers for the RTX 2070 are awful (take a look for yourself at the reviews), or the garbage discount bulk RAM from Russia is malfunctioning. The one saving grace is iBUYPOWERs customer support. I sent them an email Friday morning and received a respo...ah wait, no, I didnt. Still havent received a response. Thats alright though, because at least they have a phone number. I must be in luck! Nope, just kidding, their customer service number lead me to a "try again later" sort of message during their regular business hours across multiple work days. Considering my experience, let me stress once more: Do NOT buy a prebuilt PC. Build your own. Again, it may be daunting, it may be tedious, it may really suck for a few hours, but its absolutely worth it. Build your own or at least buy a prebuilt from some other company besides this one. Docking an additional star from the review. Dont learn this lesson yourself, take it from me. Believe me, I didnt think Id be the idiot stuck with an expensive, malfunctioning "premium" prebuilt rig. UPDATE (12/4/18) Over the last few days, Ive noticed a faint whine thats getting progressively louder from the case. It seems there are a fair number of reviews on this particular model Gigabyte RTX 2070 that do complain about a whine. In the process of looking for reviews, I realized that this model (Gaming OC) are less than stellar. In fact, its one of the most poorly rated RTX 2070s available. At the moment, Im unable to determine if it is indeed the GPU thats whining or the AIO pump, but one of them is definitely getting noisy. Although this is turning into a novel, I should make another point about the bulk Russian RAM they stuck in this case. While both RAM sticks are still functional, Im getting significant spikes in memory usage while the PC is merely idling on the desktop. I did shut off everything I could, but Id still get intermittent spikes every minute or so from 30% (ish) usage to 100%. Could be Windows, could be the RAM. Either way, Im not taking any chances. Needless to say, the return process has begun.

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Specs of Purchased Unit: CPU- Intel i7 8700K GPU- ASUS GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus RAM- 16GB ADATA XPG (2 @ 8GB) Motherboard- MSI Z370 A Pro Water Cooling Unit- Corsair H60 SSD- Apacer 250GB HDD- Western Digital 1TB Power Supply- 500 watt non name brand (more on that below) Fans- One NZXT and one "ARC" fan (that has red LEDs) in a push/pull configuration on the radiator of the water cooling unit (both 120mm) USB Ports- 6 USB 3.1 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports Before purchasing this computer I had always been interested in building a PC. As the price of graphics cards and memory have gone up in the last year because of Bitcoin mining, I thought I would never be able to have a nice gaming PC. Then I started looking into this PC and what a good value it was and I thought it would be a great jumping off point for my PC hobby. I wanted something that would chew through graphically demanding games on ultra settings without issue. I also wanted a computer that would run general tasks quickly for many years in the future. I have dabbled in PC gaming in the past but the majority of my gaming had been done on consoles. I have not played anything too graphically demanding on it yet, but I have run Heaven benchmark on it and got a ~2500 score on 1080p with ultra settings and 8x AA (if you are reading this and dont understand what that means dont worry. Just know that the PC did very well in benchmark testing). Running games at 4K resolution isnt impossible, but it is nowhere near as smooth as running at 1080p. This is not a slight against this computer however, because only the newest graphics cards (1080 Ti) can handle 4K gaming and even those cards dont hit 60fps averages from what I have researched (remember, I am pretty new to all of this). I am coming from an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop that is 6 years old, so there are a lot of quality of life upgrades that come with this PC as well. Please note that the individual parts that IBuyPower PCs come with can vary from unit to unit, but most things are comparable (from what I have read in other reviews). Now that I have had the computer for a little bit, I wanted to share some thoughts about it. I dont work for any PC companies, and I didnt get this for free to write this review (although it would be awesome to get free stuff just to review it, I cant believe people get to do that) Pros: Startup is very fast because windows 10 loads from the SSD. If your computer still boots up from a standard HDD you have no idea what you are missing. Gaming is gorgeous and the computer is super quiet even when running stress tests and benchmark programs. (I have the PC hooked up to a new 55" TCL tv that has very little input lag). Upgrading- As a person just starting to get into the tinkering aspect of PCs, this computer does not disappoint. Lets start with the case itself. The case has the option to add 120mm fans to the top panel toward the rear of the case (above the rear panel vent that currently has the radiator and push/pull fans exhausting air out the back), on the bottom panel toward the front of the case, and the front panel of the case has 3 vents to add 120mm fans or (I think) 3 140mm fans. To add fans to the front of the case you have to pop off the front cover that has the red diagonal LED line. It pops on and off fairly easily (make sure you pull from the slot located at the bottom of the front cover and not from the vented opening on the sides of the front cover, and the red LED line is connected with a wire so hold on to the front cover when it comes off). The tempered glass side panels are easy to take off and put back on (thumb screws) and they are on both sides of the case, allowing easy access to the cables (it had great cable management for a pre-built) and the 1TB HDD. The case also has feet that keep the computer raised about an inch off of whatever surface it is on. The case dimensions are 18.5" tall (with the feet on), 8.25" wide, and 18.5" deep (the front cover protrudes out adding about 3/4 of an inch). Next we have the motherboard. The MSI z370 A Pro is great for adding components and for overclocking (which is a whole new level of tinkering). The BIOS is easy to navigate and allows for a ton of control over the components in your PC. It has 4 slots for DDR4 RAM (up to 64GB) and mine came with 2 8GB ADATA XPG sticks. The motherboard does not allow for SLI because the 2nd 16x PCIe slot is only rated at 4x. For the inexperienced reading this review (which I was a few weeks ago), SLI is being able to add a second video card to your PC and get added graphical processing power for games and what not, and this motherboard cant do that. This shouldnt matter to most people, cause if you want to run two graphics cards in SLI you are probably not going to buy a pre-built computer but instead build your own. The motherboard specs can be found on MSIs website if you are curious to know more. Lastly, the AIO (All in one) Corsair water cooler is nice as opposed to an air cooler. From what I have researched, AIO water coolers are very low maintenance compared to a custom water cooling setup. I am actually upgrading the AIO to a larger Corsair one in the next few days but there is nothing wrong with the one that came with the PC. Overclocking- The GPU (graphics card), CPU (Intel processor), and RAM (ADATA memory) can all be overclocked but I havent started that process yet. Just know that you can potentially increase the performance of the GPU, CPU, and RAM by about 15-20% by overclocking (but there are some drawbacks to the longevity of the parts). RGB LEDs- The LED lighting in the case is nice addition to the system that adds some wow factor at very little cost to IBuyPower (since LED strips are pretty cheap now). It isnt top of the line LED customization like you can get with companies like Corsair or NZXT but it gets the job done. The remote works decently, but often requires multiple presses of the button even when pointed directly at the small sensor located near the SSD. I also have found that my TV remote sometimes gets picked up by the LED sensor in the computer and it changes the color or display setting of the LED strip inadvertently. But it is easy to change it back and this is another thing I am currently in the process of upgrading with Corsair LED strips. Cons: Power Supply- I read online that pre-built PCs often come with a low quality power supply to help cut down on costs for the company putting it together. A lower quality power supply puts all of your precious and expensive PC components at risk if it were to have an issue. The one that came with my PC was 500 watts and the system worked fine with it. The research I did indicated that the power supply would be fine for the time being, but I should consider upgrading it sooner rather than later (especially if I wanted to add more components that required power). So I decided I didnt want to take the risk and I upgraded the power supply to a Corsair RM750x ($120 on Amazon). I promise I dont work for Corsair or anything like that, their products just look nice (packaging and the units themselves) and I have read that they have good customer service. TL:DR If you want a computer that just works fast and runs games at the highest settings you wont be disappointed. If you are new to the world of PC tinkering and upgrading, this is a great starting point. If you have an old computer that is starting to die on you and you want something that will last a long time, treat yourself to this behemoth. If you want to build your own PC, but the inflated prices on PC components have you waiting until Bitcoin mining becomes less popular or profitable, this PC is a reasonable value right now. If you can afford it, get the 1070 Ti version over the 1070 and the i7-8700K over the i7-7700K because the surrounding components will probably be a little nicer as well. (Also, sorry for all the parenthesis)

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Mine did not come with the 8th (8700K) gen intel chip set. It came with the 7700K 4.2GHZ. Have been unable to get Amazon to understand the problem. As of now I do not recommend buying from IBUYPOWER on Amazon. Will update it I am able to get the help I need.

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The components themselves are good, but as many others, I had problems logging in. I was presented with a login screen of a "defaultuser0" with an unknown password. For anyone that might encounter this problem, do the following: 1) Click in the bottom right corner on the shutdown options. Hold shift and click on restart. 2) You will be given three options. Choose the troubleshooting option and follow the instruction to enter in "Safe mode with Command Tool". 3) Wait very patiently (for me it was 15 minutes) for the computer to enter in safe mode (while claiming I should have waited "Just a moment..."). 4) In the command line, type "net user administrator /active:yes". 5) Reboot the computer. You can simply type "shutdown /r". 6) Follow the instructions and youll finally be able to access. I work in the field of Computer Science and it still took me one hour to find the problem and to fix it. This is unacceptable, given that the sole reason to buy a pre-built machine is laziness in the first place. The four stars are for this reason, coupled with the fact that the included wifi is worthless (I planned to use it until I bought an ethernet cable, but it was so bad that I was pretty much forced to go out and buy one immediately).

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The system performs exactly as intended. So glad I ignored the negative reviews! Ill address each of the issues noted by other reviewers one at a time: 1. BOOTING: The system booted into Windows 10 from the SSD. I takes a while to boot the first time you turn it on, so you will see the MSI Bios splash screen for up to 10 minutes while windows initializes, so be patient. After that, systems boots up in about 10 seconds or less from a complete shutdown. If for some reason computer does not boot, hold down delete key immediately after powering on to enter BIOS, then be sure that "Windows Boot Manager" is listed under SettingsFixed Boot Order PrioritiesBoot Option #1, and also under settingsUEFI Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities. That said, I have not had any trouble booting this computer. 2. TEMPERATURE AND NOISE: Quieter than my imac, even when gaming. Temperatures well within normal at 99% GPU utilization over extended usage periods, without any disruptive noise. 3. GPU: Verified NVIDIA GTX 1070 TI. Mine is a slightly customized card by MSI, but is still the genuine NVIDIA product underneath the hood. Ignore reviews stating that the graphics card was switched out because it says ASUS or MSI on the label--it is still the NVIDIA card slightly customized to work with the computer/motherboard it is being sold with. The GTX 1070 TI runs very cool and quiet. GPU fan is generally OFF unless gaming -- that is normal for this card and speaks to the low power usage compared to an equivalent AMD card. 4. PORTS-- This computer has ALL necessary ports. The GTX 1070 TI occupies space for TWO slots at the back of the computer. You will see the DVI port by itself prominently protruding from the second slot position. That is probably why some reviewers think the GTX 1070 TI only has DVI. In the slot above you will find 3 displayports and 1 HDMI port, all connected to the GTX 1070 TI, and sometimes covered with black plastic covers such that they are not very visible. Additionally, the motherboard has a DVI, Displayport, and VGA port. Use these motherboard ports ONLY if you are using the ONBOARD graphics adaptor (ie, you have disabled or removed your GTX 1070 TI). 5. CABLES: Computer comes with an HDMI cable which carries sound and video to your monitor (monitor purchased separately, of course). There is also a sound cable to connect the computer to the monitor to activate the microphone jack on the monitor. Note: if you plug in the microphone jack, then you will NOT get sound from the monitor speakers. All power cables are also provided. 6. MOUSE AND KEYBOARD: The mouse is surprisingly good for a budget computer, but did take a little getting used to. The keyboard is marginally functional. The "enter" key is spaced an extra key further than a standard keyboard so it does not work well for typical typing. The right shift key can get "stuck" going down unless pressed in center and can cause mistyped passwords. One of my children complains that this keyboard yields "ghosting" when gaming. Overall, I consider this keyboard adequate for gaming but not for typing. We eventually replaced with a Redragon mechanical keyboard (red backlit), which is a great visual match for this system and a huge improvement. No matter what keyboard the vendor provides, someone is going to complain, so may as well provide a budget keyboard. I have no issue with that. 7. USB AND WAKE FROM MOUSE -- Computer has 6 USB3 and 2 USB2 ports (8 USB total). The two USB3 on top of case are powered even when the computer is off. If you use a USB hard drive for backup, DO NOT plug it into either of the two top powered USB ports or the USB hard drive will remain on and spinning even when the computer is off. If you want to resume the computer from sleep using your mouse button, you will need to configure the BIOS under SettingsAdvancedWake-up Event SetupResume by USB Device and set to "Enabled". Plugging in the mouse into one of the top powered USB slots will keep the mouse lighted when the computer is off as a reminder that a click of the mouse will turn everything back on. 8. SOUND: Not sure what is meant by reviews stating there is no sound card. Whether or not there is an actual card, the computer provides good sound to the monitor (ours has speakers) and to our USB connected gaming headset (purchased separately), so for us this is a non-issue. 9. WIFI: Tested the wifi for this gaming desktop compared to my imac with an airport wifi adapter, and see similar performance, so no issues for us. Of note, our wifi router is in the same room as both computers. 10. CASE LIGHTING -- The remote for the case lighting works when the remote is held close to the case. The default lighting is very nice. I like that the lighted case has a nice refined appearance that will appeal to both adults and kids alike, and not gaudy like other gaming systems. My 15 year old son shrieked for joy the first time he saw it, so good enough for him. iBUYPOWER Gaming Desktop PC i7-8700K 6-Core 3.7 GHz, Geforce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB, Z370 Motherboard, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 240GB SSD, Liquid Cooled, 802.11AC WiFi, Win 10 Home 64-Bit, Slate 9210, RGB Case

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This is a fantastic computer... once you get the right one. Im giving this 3 stars because it took Amazon 4 attempts to get me the correct item. In the end it all worked out but no one should have to go through that many returns and replacements. I have the correct 8700K liquid cooled computer set up now but have 3 7700K computers boxed up in my living room ready to return. This is a great deal for a computer and you should consider buying prebuilt if you have the money. Just make sure when you get it, confirm the specs so you dont get screwed. And hopefully it doesnt take you 4 attempts to get the correct item.

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I wanted a fast computer and in all fairness, this seemed to fit the bill in the 3 days it was working. It loaded fast, sounded good and was great for gaming. On the other hand, even while it was working, I was really surprised that it had so few USB slots, no CD drive, no memory card slots and it couldnt handle a VGA monitor connection. Its sort of like advertising a fast car, you buy it and then its like, "Oh, but there are no wheels on it." For the price, I dont feel like you should have to work around the unadvertised lack of features that come standard with pretty much every other computer. For that reason alone, it was disappointment. However, the problems with this go much deeper. Two of the USB slots werent working. I realized that was because they werent plugged in on this inside. Sloppy, but I fixed it. I have not been able to fix the never ending blue screen of death that started yesterday or the broken remote that came with it. I wasnt very happy with it because of the lack of standard features BEFORE it locked up and became unworkable. At this point, I am just hoping to return it and get something else. Were 45 minutes plus and waiting for their tech support, so well see. Needless to say, I would not recommend this computer. Buy it at your own risk.

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At first I was really skeptical about buying a computer online and having it shipped. I was also really hesitant to buy a pre-built PC but because of the prices of parts, I found that this might be the best option. I used to be into wanting to see every component physically before dropping my money on something expensive. I did some research before buying this PC. I looked at countless computer builder/parts sites and got prices from $800 - $2500+. After seeing this option on Amazon, I decided to go with them. This PC has exceeded my expectations in every way and has given me newfound confidence to buying more big purchases online. iBUYPOWER really did well with their packaging when shipping my PC. Everything arrived on the expected shipping date and it was packaged very well. The inside of the PC had blown up plastic inside it to keep all the parts from falling out during shipping which kept everything secure. Once I un-packaged the contents and followed the instructions, I was extremely amazed at how easy it was to have it up and running. Here are the specs I got for my PC: Video card/Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Processor: Intel i7-8700K @3.7GHz (Hexcore) Ram: 16GB DDR4 2400MHz OS: Window 10 Home 64-bit Motherboard: Z370-A Pro LGA1151 WiFi Adapter: Generic Realtek adapter Storage: 240GB ADATA SU650 SSD (Boot drive) Storage: 1TB Western Digital 7200 RPM HDD Case: Slate Gaming Case (Dual Glass Side Panels) USB Ports: 4 USB 3.0 (2 in front) 4 USB 2.0 Free iBUYPOWER mouse and Keyboard were included as well. The case is really bold with the red strip down the front just like you see in the pictures. The glass panels are easily removable and have a semi-dark tint. The LED lights are very nice and a remote comes included to adjust various setting for it. It can also be turned off if thats not your thing. On start up, the SSD really gives a fast boot, averaging less than 20s. I was pleasantly surprised to find no bloatware on any kind aside from the usual Windows 10 apps. The multi-tasking is a beast and doesnt slow down at all. All apps and programs open insanely fast. This thing doesnt know what the word "slow" means. As far as gaming goes, I havent truly tested it yet with any AAA games. I only have League of Legends downloaded at the moment and it runs super smooth at 4K resolution. I will edit this review once I get a graphic intensive game and see how well it does. Overall, the PC is super quiet, has flawless performance and doesnt hiccup whatsoever. The only thing I can think of that would make this stand out as a true great for this price point is a built in media card reader (MicroSD or SD slots) and a CD or Blu-ray drive. Pros: - Super quiet - Amazingly fast - Free Keyboard and Mouse - Great price for the amount of performance built in - Mouse is nice and smooth with lighting on the side Cons: - No media card reader / CD or Blu-ray drive - Not much room for upgrading - Keyboard is lacking a bit and not backlit

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I purchased this for a client, largely due to the bitcoin-driven run-up in retail graphics card prices. I would typically have built a custom gaming rig, but buying this pre-built was actually cheaper with a few extra bells and whistles like the whiz-bang LED lighting. The Good: Fast...really fast. The 8th generation i7 6-core processor, 16GB of RAM, SSD and conventional hard drive, Asus GTX 1070 with 8GB DDR5 and factory installed liquid cooling check all the right boxes for some serious, out-of-the-box performance and over-clocking capabilities if so desired. The case is fairly sturdy with solid, thick tempered glass sides to show off the spiffy RGB LED lighting inside, and the red LED lit accent stripe on the front adds an extra bit of interest. Power switch, USB and audio ports are on the top and easily accessible. Then it gets a bit weird. Inside this massive case, there are surprisingly minimal upgrade capabilities. In the apparent minimalist goal to provide a squeaky clean view through the glass side panels, there are only mounting points for two SSDs in the main compartment, and two HDDs hidden behind the motherboard plane and accessible from the right side. Unfortunately, adding a second hard drive also requires an extension SATA power cable since the existing one does not have enough space between connectors to reach both drives with the vertical mounting scheme. You would have thought they would have discovered and corrected this oversight, but then this computer was never really designed for much expansion. In keeping with current gaming case design trends, there are no external drive bays, so adding an optical drive or other front panel accessories isnt an option. The not-so-good: After setting up the computer and adding the clients old data drive as a second HDD (and extension SATA power cable due to aforementioned issue), I found on delivery and in-home setup that no WiFi adapter was identified. Nothing showed up under the Network settings and nothing in Device Manager. I first contacted Amazon, whos only response was to start the return process. This wasnt really an option since they were then sold out, and I had just spent several hours configuring the computer with my clients personal information and apps, so I contacted iBuypower. Tech support (and I use the term loosely) never bothered to try to assist me with troubleshooting, and simply suggested that I send this monster back to them for evaluation, sending me an RMA. Again, that would mean spending more hours removing client data and hard drive, then repeating setup again when computer was returned. The concept that I didnt feel I should have to spend several hundred dollars of unbillable time for their mistake was apparently beyond the grasp of the "support" person. I asked if they could tell me where to look for the adapter inside the case and they couldnt. I even offered to send them a screen shot of Device Manager showing no WiFi adapter connected and photos of the interior, but they insisted the only way they could (or would) resolve the issue was to send the entire computer back to them. Since the client didnt need WiFi initially, I left things alone and attempted to find additional information, which was in scarce supply. The clients situation changed and they needed to move the computer to a room that required working WiFi. Another unbillable visit to loan him a USB WiFi adapter, and further investigate inside the computer to see if I could find anything I had previously missed. This time, I found the WiFi adapter hidden up near the top of the case, a Realtek micro USB attached to a cable that was supposed to have been connected to a USB port on the motherboard, operative word being "supposed to." The cable had never been connected in factory assembly, nor apparently had the computer gone through any kind of QC to confirm all components were installed and functioning correctly. I reconnected the USB cable and the adapter showed up. Unfortunately, the WiFi adapter included with this system seems fairly wimpy for a full-on gaming rig. Connection speed to their Netgear R6300v2 router on 5G yielded only about 345 MB, and Ookla Speedtest app showed only 88 Mbps downstream. For comparison I plugged in an external Netgear A2600 USB adapter and connection speed went up to 565 GB and Speedtest yielded 289 Mbps downstream. Maybe its the fact that the WiFi adapter is inside the metal case and thats shielding it, but performance is definitely wanting on this front. Conclusion: Lots of bang for the buck with some sexy RGB lighting bling thrown in for sex appeal. Minimal expansion capabilities, and no external front bays. Quality control is lacking and tech support could be improved. RGB lighting is cool, but need to have remote fairly close to change and was not compatible with MSI motherboard or Asus video card standards, so not able to incorporate those components in an overall lighting scheme. Wimpy included WiFi adpater will likely not be sufficient for any serious online gaming.

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I finally decided to take the plunge into buying a PC for gaming and photo/video editing and Im satisfied with my purchase. Initially, I purchased a previous model from iBuyPower which had some sound issues. I was in contact with their customer service and they were extremely helpful and friendly. My current PC has no issues and everything is running well thus far! There are some very nicely detailed reviews about these PCs, so I wont detail all of the technical specs. But since the GPU seems to be the part that varies most amongst these PCs, Ill state that the GPU that was installed in mine was the GIGABYTE RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8G ($549.99 current retail price). PRO: 1) This PC is powerful. I decided to go with an RTX 2070 because I couldnt afford a 2080 or 2080ti. Im happy to say that games run smoothly and Im getting well over 60fps at 4k at high settings or 1440p on ultra settings. Im currently playing a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (October 2018 release) at 1440p and high settings and consistently get 90-100+fps. Ive tried a number of other games and performance has been great on all of them. Theres plenty of power to go higher in terms of fps if you want to. Needless to say, photo and video editing is a breeze as well. 2) Ray tracing and DLSS - the RTX 2070 supports these. So theoretically, this should mean better looking games and/or higher frames for future games out of the same card. A nice perk for sure, even if its just wait and see at this point. 3) The case is nice. 1 side is tempered glass and the included remote allows to change the colors of the RGB lights. The remote is inexpensive and simple, but it is responsive. One great thing is that the trace case allows for the RGB lights to be turned OFF completely, which is very useful if youre using your PC in the dark and dont want any extra lights shining. So its possible to use your PC without any bright lights distracting you (like many gaming PCs have) or turn the lights on and customize as you please. You can also change the color on the front of this case, whereas you had no option other than red in older cases. 4) Includes a mouse and keyboard that are perfectly serviceable - but admittedly, I will upgrade soon. 5) Doesnt get hot, cooling seems to work well. I sometimes have played for a few hours at a time and the computer doesnt get hot, only very slightly warm. Thats very reassuring. CON: 1) Its a bit loud. Not distracting, but I can hear it lowly humming during quiet moments. I havent noticed it getting any louder thus far, even after intensive gaming sessions, so that it a great thing. More of a minor point, than a con. RECOMMENDED? YES. Its a quality, prebuilt PC. It has some good, quality parts installed and is a good buy for those who dont want to or dont have the time to build your own PC.

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