Rick
I've been very pleased with this gaming rig so far. Some detailed thoughts:
Pros:
1) The unit was well packaged and I didn't have any issues with parts not being connected or components coming loose during shipping. However, there was no foam insert in the unit I received.
2) Instructions were simple and easy to follow with all of the support options, etc. clearly laid out in the documentation.
3) I love the access to the back of the motherboard and the cables. Easy to get to and the cable ties were solid and well done. Made upgrading easy. Also, the ASUS motherboard is very good and has extremely intuitive and easy to use onboard controls for tweaking settings, etc.
4) Most of the components seem to be of good quality. The motherboard and GPU in particular were top notch.
5) The case is not only attractive but of very, very good quality. One of the best looking gaming PCs I've seen.
Upgrades:
1) Even though the 1660 GPU was of a good quality, I had a GeForce 2070 Super in my old rig so I did swap that out. I sold the 1660 included with this rig for some very good money, lowering the cost of this PC buy a good amount.
2) Because I swapped out the GPU I did have to replace the Power Supply as well. I wasn't very impressed with the 500Watt PSU included (low quality) but that swap was easy and didn't cost me anything as I had a 750W in my old build. I would recommend a 750Watt PSU as a bare minimum if you're going to upgrade anything on this PC.
3) I threw two sticks of RAM in to beef this unit up to 32GB. Easy and cheap (less than $60). Also, I love the fact that this motherboard is upgradable to 64GB of RAM, providing insurance for future upgrading.
4) There are plenty of options to add more peripherals in addition to the already abundant amount of ports, etc. I always appreciate having room to expand a PC so the life of the build can be extended. IBuypower has done a nice job here. It would have been even better to have had one or two more USB ports in the front of the unit, but that's a minor issue.
Cons:
1) As I stated the PSU was not the greatest. But that's an easy swap. I will say the way the PSU is installed (in the bottom of the rig with a molding over it) makes for a tight squeeze and not the easiest of removals.
2) The unit runs very hot in it's original configuration. The CPU cooler, although a step up from a stock unit, is not sufficient to run graphic intensive games at temps I'm used to. Again, this was not a tough fix as I had an upgraded cooler I simply dropped in from my old build. I also installed a fan above the CPU to get some better exhaust. It is good that the top of this PC is vented.
3) Fortunately I use an ethernet connection since I have a 1Gb internet connection. This is a plus since the wifi card (and antennas) provided are basically worthless. I ran the wifi just for fun and couldn't get my connection to more than 15mps. Even my 5 year old laptops wifi card gets me about 600mps on my home network. So I was surprised they would even bother to stock what is a really nice mid range gaming PC with a pierce of junk like this.
Final thoughts:
I know some reading this may criticize my positive review since I made so many modifications to this unit upon receipt. However, my former rig was 8 years old. Yes, I had made some upgrades which helped extend the life of that unit but this iBuypower build has a powerful 17-10700 CPU with a great motherboard, a very attractive case and the latest ports, etc. After selling the included GPU and upgrading some components (most of which I already owned), the net cost for me to upgrade to this PC was about $300 less than the purchase price.
And now I have a pretty impressive gaming PC which rated at the top of the ranks on the UserBenchmark site. Not inly a UFO rating, but numbers that were 120% of that and in the upper 20% of the rigs tested.
So with a few modifications I have a Gaming PC that should last for a very long time.
Overall, I'm very, very pleased with this unit. Well worth the money IMHO.
EDIT: I completely forgot to mention the two fantastic NVME slots on the motherboard. I purchased a 1TB Samsung EVO 750 SSD as well as a corresponding 500GB EVO, keeping the included 256GB SSD as a backup OS in case I ever have a crash (I probably won't use the 1TB HHD at all). The NVME drives are incredibly fast and run smooth as can be! The one slot near the CPU is a little tight so if you're changing out the CPU cooler like I did, be sure to install the NVME drive during that process (with the cooler removed) as it will free up some room on the board. Oh and adding some inexpensive RGB lighting helps as well. A great looking rig that is the fastest best performing PC I've ever owned. Very happy with this!
| Standing screen display size | 1 |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | 3.8 ryzen_5 |
| RAM | DDR5 |
| Hard Drive | 500 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | GeForce RTX 4060 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 8 GB |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
