TechPowerUp Reviews iBUYPOWER Gaming RDY L20IRG201

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Many PC builders and enthusiasts scoff and ridicule the idea of buying a pre-built rig. Who hasn’t read thru comments of a review to find many saying how they could do it cheaper or better? What about those first timers just wanting to get their foot in the door on their own? A pre-built rig can offer them options with, sometimes, minimal headache and, sometimes, at a price comparable to building themselves.

TechPowerUp reviewed one of iBUYPOWER’s latest offerings, the RDY L20IRG201. Yes, another model name most people won’t remember. The company, though, has been around since 1999 and has earned a reputation as a solid builder of systems over the years. You can find them in both physical stores and many, many, online retailers.

This latest model is a good contender to get someone going for a nice gaming experience at either 1440p 60 fps or 1080p 100+ fps. At $1799 it’s a little on the pricier side but does come with some nice off the shelf parts and upgradability options down the road.
Some specs:

• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Processor (12x 3.8GHZ/64MB L3 Cache)
• iBUYPOWER 240mm Addressable RGB Liquid Cooling System – Black
• 16GB [8GB x 2] DDR4-3200MHz ADATA XPG SPECTRIX D41 RGB – White
• 1TB Intel 660P M.2 NVMe SSD
• MSI VENTUS GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER – 8GB GDDR6
• 650 Watt – HIGH POWER 80 PLUS Gold
• ASUS TUF X570-PLUS GAMING Motherboard w/WiFi
• Thermaltake Level 20 MT ARGB Case

This package also enables you to take advantage of two game bundles currently. With the GPU you get Call of Duty:Modern Warfare and with the CPU you get Borderlands 3 and The Outer Worlds. Between the parts and the games this makes for a nice way to start a gaming rig. I recommend taking a trip over to TPU to read their very positive review. Mostly checked off in all the right boxes with only a few negatives.

 

[Grimlakin]

I have zero against this other than the fact that it will hurt local pc builders where they exist. And sadly some of those play to the customers lack of knowledge too much. This is a great rig and has the parts to support a better video solution. Honestly for 4k that video card is the biggest bottleneck. Errr and maybe the storage but that's really just loading times.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I have zero against this other than the fact that it will hurt local pc builders where they exist. And sadly some of those play to the customers lack of knowledge too much. This is a great rig and has the parts to support a better video solution. Honestly for 4k that video card is the biggest bottleneck. Errr and maybe the storage but that's really just loading times.

I mostly agree in regards to it can hurt local markets for local builders. There's a few pro's and con's to that. If you know someone good, and they're reliable, then those are the ones hurt the most. From small shops to individuals I've seen a spectrum from great to run away as fast as you can. Hopefully items like this can help everyone to be inspired to do their best. It's also nice to see these kinds of companies shifting away from bizarre parts and using true off the shelf ones.

In regards to the storage I was happy to see they gave a NVMe ssd. Should be pretty fast. Having two would've made it a bit sweeter but a user should be able to do that at a minimal cost and difficulty. I really feel that we should be getting away from the ssd/platter combo's that have been the mainstay for the last five, or so, years. At least for gaming anyways.

Completely agree about the GPU but moving in trying to make it a 4k rig a number of costs go up significantly when also factoring in the probable need to upgrade the PSU as well. Not to mention the price difference between a Super 2070 and a 2080TI. I admit that a Super 2080 would've been the cherry on top. According the TPU's review, this rig pretty much hit the mark for 1080p/1440p gaming though.

 

[David_Schroth]

the fact that it will hurt local pc builders where they exist

That ship sailed 15 years ago in my opinion. Bread and butter for local PC builders is in break/fix support and not new rig builds (as hardware margins are rubbish, compounded by a small shop's inability to do high volume sales).

 

[Grimlakin]

That ship sailed 15 years ago in my opinion. Bread and butter for local PC builders is in break/fix support and not new rig builds (as hardware margins are rubbish, compounded by a small shop's inability to do high volume sales).

Maybe it has already. But I think schools should teach kids that want to know how to build a PC and have it be a part of the class, where at the end of the class they leave with a PC they built. Problem being that most places wouldn't want to spend the real money that would cost in hardware and OS licensing alone.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

But I think schools should teach kids that want to know how to build a PC and have it be a part of the class, where at the end of the class they leave with a PC they built. Problem being that most places wouldn't want to spend the real money that would cost in hardware and OS licensing alone.

I think that's a great idea.

 

[Grimlakin]

I think that's a great idea.

I can even think of the cirriculum.

1. What is a CPU and what does it do, start with the performance and how the older CPU's worked and step forward to current generation. (Month?)
2. What is Ram and what does it do for a computer. How is it important and what takes advantage of it. Why is it better or worse than normal persistent storage?
3. What is a harddrive as opposed to an SSD drive as opposed to an NVME based SSD. How do they work what do they do?
4. What about USB drives how do they work and what is different about them?

And on and on. Culminating with the final month of going through and being given a budget and walked through speccing out a PC to that budge based on pre purchased/donated parts from vendors such as AMD/Intel/Corsair and so on.

I think it could be really cool and an amazing way for vendors to grow the community while fueling STEM projects.

Question is would they be willing to actually do it? I only have vendor contacts in the enterprise space and companies like Dell go def when you ask if they would be willing to do something like this.