When it comes to the iBUYPOWER brand, the Gamer Fire 585 not only packs a lot of power behind the side panels, but at under $1,500, you are getting a great deal of value for the price tag.

The CrossFire motherboard is the key to this system, allowing the dual video cards to interact for the best high-definition gaming experience possible. Now, simply allowing dual graphics processors to interact is fine, but unless you have solid graphics cards, that means little. But the Gamer Fire comes with ATI Radeon 4870 cards. These cards support DX 10, are HDMI capable, feature enhanced DVD upscaling (which means it can take lower resolution DVDs and improve them to near HD quality; not quite HD, but still much better than some of the older films can show in standard viewing), and has advanced anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering to provide better texturing in higher-end games. In other words, the motherboard and video cards deliver a first rate gaming experience.

The desktop came without a monitor, so much of what you see will depend on the monitor you have hooked up to it. And, of course, it also depends on the games you are pumping through the system and what those graphics look like to begin with.

Several games were used to test the system, not only was there a beta of an upcoming MMO (the NDA prohibits saying which), but open beta for Chronicles of Spellborn, as well as other MMOs like Age of Conan, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings, City of Heroes, and other PC games like Wallace & Gromit’s Fright of the Bumblebees, Godfather II, and Call of Duty: World at War.

The graphics settings in EQ II took a bit of a framerate hit when running above the “very high quality” setting (not unusual), but generally the framerate for the online game was consistently in the upper 30 to mid-40s fps range. Playing the single-player campaign in Godfather II was flawless, as was the responsiveness, framerates and texture render in CoD.

Ok, though not a fan of the Vista OS, the Gamer Fire 585 does not come with a ton of peripheral garbage loaded onto the system, making the experience with Vista much smoother. Of course, having access to the DirectX 10 settings also a boon.

The size of the hard drive is also a big plus. With some games consuming up to 25 gigs for an install, having the 700-plus gigabyte drive creates lots of room for other programs and processes – like Photoshop CS5 or 3D rendering programs like DAZ.

The case itself is very sleek, with a temperature display in a LED screen on the front, as well as easy front access to disk drives and card reader. The machine has a stylized bit of artwork on one side panel (which is decent, but negligible in the long run), and clear plastic insets on the other side that allows a view of the inner workings. And the cooling fans are nice and quiet.

This is one heck of a machine, and a great value for the price. The machine was in constant use and performed each task given it superbly.

Details of iBUYPOWER Gamer Fire 585 Score Review
Pros:
Crossfire technology to drive a pair of very good video cards, huge hard drive, and 4 gigs of RAM all combine to create a very powerful system.

Overall: 9.75
This is a great PC, and at a great price. This machine came into the house at a very opportune moment – the video card in the main gaming rig had gone belly up, and with several PC titles needing to be reviewed, the Gamer Fire got a workout and handled it all seemingly effortlessly.

In the world of PC enclosures, black has become the new beige. It’s getting increasingly difficult to distinguish one somber desktop-PC box from another—unless, of course, you’re a company like iBuypower. It has packaged its Chimera AM3 gaming PC in a black NZXT Guardian 921 case, featuring slits and slots to allow blue light to seep out from the inside. Furthermore, it has redubbed the case "Guardian Inferno," after applying enough yellow and orange flames to make a 1950s hot rodder green with envy. And those flames, though perhaps a cliché, are no exaggeration. This is one hot gaming system.

The base model in the Chimera series starts life at $999; our test version (dubbed the "Chimera AM3 SE") tipped the scales at $400 more: $1,399. The added dollars brought us a 3.2GHz AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor with an Asetek liquid cooling system on a Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P motherboard. (That’s well above the base model's Phenom II X4 910 chip and its air-cooled heatsink.) Though 4GB of Corsair DDR3 memory comes standard-issue on both models, our test unit came with faster 1,600MHz memory, as opposed to the 1,333MHz variety in the base model. We also got a 50-watt bump up from the base 700-watt power supply, plus an upgrade from a 500GB hard drive to a 1TB drive. The real power upgrade, however, was the substitution of the standard 512MB video card (an ATI Radeon HD 4870) for a pair of 1GB Radeon HD 4890 cards configured in a CrossFireX dual-card arrangement. (For reference, you can read a review of a recent graphics card we tested based on the Radeon HD 4890 graphics processor, the Asus EAH4890.)

Sounds like a potent gaming platform? It sure is. While the Chimera’s 64-bit PCMark Vantage score (6,788) wasn’t quite up to the 7,200 mark set by the super-value Gateway FX6801-03 we recently tested, it's still among the top performers we've seen on that test, period. (The PCMark Vantage test measures general PC-application performance.) Another interesting set of results: On our 3DMark Vantage test, which measures 3D-graphics performance, the Chimera rang up an impressive score of 13,965 at 1,280x1,024 resolution, but the numbers that really amazed us were its scores running at 1,680x1,050 (10,885) and 1,920x1,200 (8,234). Those numbers are simply exceptional for a system in this price range.

In our real-world gaming tests, the Chimera proved itself more than able. In our testing with the game Company of Heroes, the Chimera consistently scored above 50 frames per second (fps), even at a sky-high screenhave to try pretty hard (with the help of a very big monitor) make the Chimera bre resolution of 2,560x1,600. That’s a rarity since the advent of DirectX 10. It also posted scores in excess of 50fps, under both DirectX 9 and 10 and at all tested resolutions, in our tests with the much more recent (and demanding) game Far Cry 2. Considering that we tested Far Cry 2 at resolutions all the way up to 2,560x1,600, you'll ak a sweat with most recent games.

Clearly, this Chimera has gaming well in hand for most mainstream gamers. It's also well-equipped for entertainment use. A 22x DVD burner comes in the base model, but iBuypower bumped our test unit's optical drive up to an LG GGC-H20L Super-Multi Blu-ray Drive that reads both Blu-ray and (now-obsolete) HD DVD discs, and writes to everything else. Officially, LG Electronics lists this particular drive as discontinued, but iBuypower assured us that it has a quantity on hand. Regardless, several Blu-ray-reader alternatives (as well as pricier Blu-ray burners) are available via iBuypower's Web-site configurator. None, however, is a Blu-ray/HD DVD combo unit like this one.

Naturally, the Blu-ray experience would be diminished without quality audio to back it up. To handle that, the motherboard supports eight-channel audio through both analog and the usual digital connections. (iBuypower can supply you with an HD-capable LCD monitor and a multichannel speaker set to complete the package, but neither came standard with our test unit.) The Chimera also has a 12-format card reader, so you can easily transfer your digital-camera photos onto the system (or do quick offline backups to flash cards, now that their prices have plummeted).

As tested (and even in its $999 base configuration, for that matter), the Chimera AM3 is a well-stocked system. If you think you'll need to augment the hardware down the line, though, you certainly can. You'll find room inside for three more front-facing drives (via two 5.25-inch bays and one 3.5-inch bay), as well as an additional internal hard drive. No internal card expansion is possible, though, due to the wide loads of the two Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards. Two memory sockets are open, and, in total, the motherboard supports up to 16GB of DDR3. Also, between what you’ll find on the side of the front panel and the rear of the case, you have 10 USB ports, three FireWire ports, and a pair of external Serial ATA (eSATA) ports for external expansion. That mix should cover most reasonable eventualities.

Details of iBUYPOWER Chimera AM3 SE Review
Pros:
Superb gaming performance for the price;
More-than-ample external expansion;
Three-year warranty

Overall: 8.2
The Chimera’s case may be sheer eye candy, but its gaming performance lives up to the flames. All but the most extreme gamers will find superior value in this PC.

Simply put, the iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC V2 did not disappoint. Housing the latest Core i7 CPU (and overclocked handsomely at that) and a couple of powerhouse graphics cards that can chew through games at 1920 resolution, the Paladin is no slouch and can run with the big dogs in the gaming field of play. The features here are plentiful, and the execution is very well done. The customer service has been top-notch as far as we've seen to date, and we came away suitably impressed with this system; it looks great, run fast, and runs cool and quiet.

The fact of the matter is this gaming system posts some excellent performance results, in a quiet setup, in a case that will get you some attention from your friends and strangers alike. It easily handled any game we threw at it with all the eye candy cranked up (ARMA 2 being the exception, although it's not surprising given the lack of optimization at this point). While there were a few issues with the build, notably the overspray on the paint job and the lackluster choice of power supply, they are certainly not deal-breakers by any means. The remainder of the system was top-notch, and the attention to detail was impressive.

The only thing that really concerned me was what all this potentially cost to consumers. When I inquired about the cost of the system, I was pleasantly surprised to find a $2,449 USD price tag; honestly, I was expecting higher. To compare the Paladin XLC V2's value, I visited Dell's website and specified an Alienware system for the exact same price to the dollar. The result was the Alienware system provided less capable graphics cards, a sub-par liquid cooling system, a regular optical drive instead of Blu-Ray, no SSD drive, and far less overall value for the same price tag. While you may be paying for the Alienware name, the bottom line is with the iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC V2, you sure get your money's worth in core components instead. And as any gamer will attest, having the name is nice, but what's under the hood is what counts.

The performance provided in this system offers surprisingly good value for your hard-earned dollar, particularly for gamers who may not know how to build a liquid-cooled, hardcore gaming rig. It appears that iBUYPOWER has managed to offer a customized build at a reasonable price, something of a rarity from what we've traditionally seen.

The iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC V2 gets our recommendation.