Problems
The iBUYPOWER Gamer Paladin F860-a had only a few minor problems during our testing period. The system was very stable and would complete hours of testing without issues. We upgraded the video drivers to 9.4 to avoid problems when testing Far Cry 2. In the noise section we mentioned the intermittent rattling that seemed to be coming from a zip tied cable routed behind the backplate, which was annoying when it occurred. These cables should be secured to avoid this. We also experienced a couple of issues with the LG DVD±RW. First, we had a read issue on one of our discs, where Autoplay would not work but instead would flag the following prompt:
Manually exploring the disc was very slow, and the drive got very noisy while doing so. However, it worked fine on other burned discs and with pressed media.
While the system was stable and ran games flawlessly, the above are big issues when it comes to customer perception of quality, and should be addressed. Also, just as we mentioned with CyberPower, iBUYPOWER offers so many choices in their configurations that the customer must take care to order a balanced solution. An uninformed buyer can order the Gamer Paladin F860-a with an ATI HD 3450 (crippling its performance), and the "Help me Choose" only lists specifications and gives no indication whatsoever of the kinds of performance sacrifices or gains of the various cards. Choice is great, but we'd like to see a few "Recommended" cards or a better explanation of how the video card choice will impact this "gaming" system. If it has Gamer in the name, it should be baselined to some minimum level of gaming performance.
Pricing
All of the components in this system price out for just about $1720 on Newegg.com. With a sticker price of $1975, iBUYPOWER has a margin of about 13% to cover a 3-year labor/1 year parts warranty, 30-day money back guarantee (not including shipping) and lifetime technical support. This margin is identical from the last time we looked at the pricing of one of their systems. This is a fairly reasonable markup for a preassembled system at this tier, but other companies are also cost competitive.
Final Thoughts
This is our second look at iBUYPOWER. For high-end systems, we recommended looking around at other suppliers, since they don't offer the "uniqueness" or handholding that buyers in that market enjoy. At the "upper midrange", we still find ourselves somewhat unimpressed. While the product is fairly solid with good component choices available, there's no single compelling factor that sells this system. The CyberPower Core i7-920 system outperformed this particular configuration in most areas for about $500 less. Both companies are very similar when it comes to warranty coverage limitations and customer service rankings (as well as product offerings, websites, etc. - they look like clones). We still feel iBUYPOWER is worth looking at for low- and mid-range systems, or higher end systems for more technical customers that want a prebuilt system at a low premium. However, if you're on the hunt for a low-margin prebuilt system, we continue to recommend competitively pricing out several suppliers prior to hitting that "Check Out" button. Choice is very good, so unless you're in a time crunch you may find a few extra hours of research can save you a lot of money.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
32 Comments
View All Comments
7Enigma - Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - link
I think these 2 things are a really poor decision. The DVD burner is a complete joke as I just built a system with a 22X SATA DVD burner...I think it was $25 shipped from NewEgg. And the stock cooler on a $2 grand system also seems like a poor decision. There are a large number of people that do not feel comfortable building their system, but do feel comfortable trying to overclock (moderately). Even a $25 less than fantastic cooler would have decreased the temps and given some headroom to OC, but more importantly would have brought that idle/load noise level down significantly as it's the diameter of the fan that really makes the biggest difference in noise levels.Maybe they'll get it next time, but I'm not sure. Overall seems like a low margin product that just has some critical flaws that make it not very attractive when compared to the 920 system you referenced in the article for....$500 less.
7Enigma - Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - link
Wanted to also add I think with this being a "gamer" system the 4870 seems a bit weak. You could definitely build a significantly better gaming system with the cheaper 920 and a better video card (or 2). With the 4890 now out, it would be a bit better, but you will still be GPU limited in most cases.Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
Do people really still spend 2 grand on computers without an SSD?Hxx - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
It comes with a free game, you cant beat that lol, people spend over $500 on watercooling, 2k seems pretty reasonable for an upper mid range box.vol7ron - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
I've configured a system from iBuyPower in the past and basically found it cheaper than some other sites, until it came to the shipping. Other sites might do $20-$40 on shipping, whereas iBuyPower seemed to knock it up to $80+Does the $1720 include shipping?
Matt Campbell - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
No it doesn't, but neither does the $1975. That system ships for about $85, which is a little steep, but this is a very large case and box. Others we've seen in this range cost about $60-65 to ship, so the margin isn't too large.jmekelb - Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - link
As far as shipping goes... If you start with one of their "Free Shipping" builds, you can build it however you like and it still ships for free. I built an i7 rig on IBuy and they actually came in about $40 less than my build on Newegg with the exact same parts. Coincidentally, that's almost exactly what the shipping charge was from Newegg.vol7ron - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
I haven't tested iBuyPower, but I was really looking at it for the low-end midrange gaming-like system as this seems to match pretty well with price points.I don't know if this has changed, as I haven't been to their site in a while, but I also noticed their SSDs were way overpriced compared to the market. If you want an SSD in your system it seems best to just buy off newegg.
Souka - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - link
"All of the components in this system price out for just about $1720 on Newegg.com. With a sticker price of $1975, iBUYPOWER has a margin of about 13% to cover a 3-year labor/1 year parts warranty, 30-day money back guarantee (not including shipping) and lifetime technical support"$255 isn't bad considering the system is already built, tested, and has a warranty behind it...
Yes I know many of you are enthusiasts and wouldn't consider this...ok fine...go buy the parts then build it yourself.
However...if you have a kid, or kid-relative, and need a gift...systems like this would make them quite happy...and keep you from having to build or perform tech support for the little brat! :)
My $.02
mariush - Monday, April 20, 2009 - link
if you don't have experience on building computers, then yes, it's a good investment.Otherwise, that 10-15% can be invested in better hardware or on other things. It's just not worth paying 250$ for the three hours of your time, required to build the computer and install the operating system.
The 3 year warranty you already get for parts, separately, 3-5 years for hard drive, 3 years for processors, 2 years for motherboards, 1-5 or even lifetime for video cards, lifetime for memory modules and so on.
Besides, you'll probably get replacement much faster from NewEgg on individual parts, instead of sending the whole computer to be repaired and waiting for it to come back.
In the extreme case when something breaks after warranty, you can prepare for that by setting aside 150$ out of those 250$ in a bank account. If you no longer have warranty on that specific item, you'll be simply able to buy a much better part straight from NewEgg.
I doubt their "lifetime technical support" means taking free calls from brats, it's probably some basic email support or forum.