iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 590 in a Small Shell
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2011 3:00 PM ESTIntroducing the iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II
The last time we checked in with iBUYPOWER we reviewed the behemoth that is the iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC, a massive hunk of machine that was generally a solid value but suffered from the same kind of shaky overclocking that afflicted so many boutique builds during the era. This time iBUYPOWER is packing a K-series Sandy Bridge processor (complete with easy overclocking) and one of the most powerful graphics cards on the planet: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590. The 590 may ultimately not have had the performance to beat AMD's Radeon HD 6990, but it's also a much quieter card. What's more, iBUYPOWER managed to fit it into a MicroATX case (along with a 92mm water-cooling rig for the processor). Does the beefy LAN Warrior II work, and does it work well?
Intel's P67/H67 chipset bug (and the recall that followed) nearly obliterated review hardware in the channel; now that it's been fixed ahead of schedule, hardware has rushed right back in. Near the top of our list and coinciding with the release proper of the GeForce GTX 590, iBUYPOWER was kind enough to furnish us with the LAN Warrior II complete with NVIDIA's latest and greatest. I had the chance to eyeball it back at CES and frankly it's the kind of machine that's particularly compelling for reviewer and reader alike because it feels like a true custom machine. iBUYPOWER has the LAN Warrior specially fitted with a 92mm water-cooler for the processor, and is confident that this relatively petite design can efficiently cool a beast like the GeForce GTX 590.
| iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II Specifications | |
| Chassis | NZXT Vulcan |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-2600K @ ~4GHz (38x105 BCLK) (spec: 4x3.4GHz, 32nm, 8MB L3, 95W) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8P67-M (Rev. 3.0) Motherboard with P67 chipset |
| Memory | 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 @ 1399MHz (expandable to 16GB) |
| Graphics |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 3GB GDDR5 (2x512 CUDA Cores, 607MHz Core, 1215MHz Shaders, 3.4GHz RAM, 384-bit memory bus) |
| Hard Drive(s) |
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SATA 6Gbps SSD Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD |
| Optical Drive(s) | LG 10x BD-RE Drive |
| Networking | Realtek PCIe Gigabit Ethernet |
| Audio |
Realtek ALC887 HD Audio Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound Optical out |
| Front Side |
Fan controllers Optical drive Card reader with USB 2.0 |
| Top |
Headphone and mic jacks 2x USB 2.0 eSATA |
| Back Side |
2x PS/2 2x USB 3.0 Optical out 6x USB 2.0 6-pin FireWire eSATA Ethernet Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Dimensions | 7" x 16" x 16.6" (WxDxH) |
| Weight | 12.79 lbs (case only) |
| Extras |
XFX PRO 850W Power Supply 12-in-1 Card Reader 92mm CPU Watercooling Case carrying handle (not included) |
| Warranty | 3-year limited warranty and lifetime phone support |
| Pricing |
Starts at $749 Review system quoted at $2,099 ($2,148 on website) |
From the get-go you're probably alarmed at the processor, Intel's Core i7-2600K, running with a bumped BCLK and no multiplier tweaks. The 2600K is a quad-core processor with four physical cores and eight logical cores through Hyper-Threading, built on a 32nm process and running at a 3.4GHz nominal clock speed (3.8GHz turbo) with a TDP of 95W. iBUYPOWER has bumped up the clock speed to 3990MHz by setting the multiplier to 38 and setting the base clock to 105MHz. This is one of two anomalies in this particular build.
The reason is a simple one that is fairly common on our side of the industry fence: hardware basically needing to be rushed together to be sent to reviewers. NVIDIA sent out the GeForce GTX 590 coards at the last minute, roughly the same time this system was volunteered to us. As a result you're going to see results from a couple of components that you wouldn't see in the retail model. From a conversation with our rep, it's my understanding this LAN Warrior was assembled extremely quickly to get a GTX 590-based system in our hands. That's not really a crime because as you'll see it's still very well put together, and all the important metrics are liable to carry over to the unit you purchase from them.
Speaking of the other shining star of the LAN Warrior II, iBUYPOWER not only offers the GeForce GTX 590 in this small build...they offer it in SLI. Ours only comes with a single card, but that single card is still pretty impressive: two fully functional GF110 chips complete with 1.5GB of GDDR5 apiece attached to a 384-bit memory bus, burdened somewhat by a 365W TDP and relatively anemic clocks of just 607MHz on the core, 1.2GHz on the shaders, and 3.4GHz on the GDDR5. For more you can check out our detailed review, but suffice to say it wasn't quite the Radeon HD 6990 killer we were hoping for (unless you count the much improved acoustics).
The remainder of the LAN Warrior II is fairly standard, though highlights include 8GB of Corsair DDR3-1600, a Blu-ray writer, and a Crucial RealSSD C300 solid state drive. This last one is important because it's the other fly in the LAN Warrior II review unit's ointment: retail systems will ship with A-DATA 6Gbps SSDs. The two drives should be fairly comparable (both use Marvell controllers), but if you're concerned, the test results you'll want to avoid will be the two PCMarks (and in fairness those tests skew unfairly towards SSDs anyhow).
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darckhart - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
everything seems pretty good here. of course, it's up to the buyer to determine value, but surely your gripe with the case is far overblown. it got the job done well. it's cheap (comparatively). i think they've done a decent job.one other thing your review concerned me with was the video part. surely you should have stepped up the res to 25x16 and started cranking AA before mentioning surround.
Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
You'll note when I listed my monitors, I don't have a 30"er capable of 2560x1600.leexgx - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
the issue with getting the monitors to work happens on my system as well and I only have 1 GTX480takes about 4-5 reboots before i can get both monitors to work and show an picture (some times it switch's between the screens on reboots when the cables are messed with unplug replug), not sure why but i know it only does it when i remove the video card and reinstall it (Dust bunny clean out)
Paedric - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
I'm not really into overclocking and all, but there was something I was wondering after seeing several articles mentioning the subject.Can't you change the factory overclock?
I mean, I know manufacturers should do better overclocks, since this is one of the reasons people are buying those kinds of machines, but if the one they do is rather poor, isn't it possible to improve it?
In a past review, I believe the voltage was constant, leading to a high idle draw, is it lock in the hardware, and plain impossible to change; more difficult than on custom-built rigs, or the same?
krumme - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
I agree.Dustin - overclock the 590! - What driver are you using.
Btw: please make a movie of it - we like action :)
ggathagan - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
I disagree.When reviewing a system component, like a CPU or motherboard, it makes sense to for the reviewer to spend some time trying to get the best overclock possible within the time they have.
When reviewing a system, however, the dynamic changes; especially when dealing with a boutique system from a company that markets itself in the fashion that iBuyPower does.
In that scenario, it's the *company's* job to get the most out of the system they sell you.
That is a good part of what you are paying for.
I can't speak for AT, but I certainly would have preferred that iBuyPower hold off on sending a review unit for a few days or a week and spend some time optimizing the system.
If the extra time wouldn't alter their approach to tweaking the system, that says something as well.
strikeback03 - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
Also, they have had a couple months of experience with SNB, why the lazy overclock there? If the reason for the rushed nature of the assembly was a late delivery of the video cards then I could see not tweaking the video card, but why was the processor not overclocked in a better fashion, given that turning the multiplier up should be easy?Jarp Habib - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
I'm not seeing any power consumption figures (idle, load) in the Build, Noise, Heat and Power Consumption page. I'd rather see those (even though these are desktop systems!) than wildly variable PCMark scores.sulu1977 - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
How reliable is this water cooling?How often do you need to replace the water?
Does it ever leak?
Does it ever cause rust?
Does it slowly evaporate and disappear?
Does the water pump ever need replacing or oiling?
B3an - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
How can you ask this common knowledge?How can you act as if water cooling is anything new?
How can you not use Google?
But seriously... in order to your questions:
Very, depending on the kit.
Once a year if that.
Not if done properly.
No.
Very slowly, once a year water top ups.
I've had mine for 5 years and it's fine.