iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 590 in a Small Shell
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2011 3:00 PM ESTConclusion: No Small Potatoes
While iBUYPOWER's LAN Warrior II still isn't what one would consider "small," it's certainly impressive given its relative size in comparison to other, more robust gaming towers. Carrying it isn't a joyous experience but it's not as back-breaking as moving my desktop tower around, and iBUYPOWER is able to pack an awful lot of power into this small case. They even offer the system with two GTX 590s in SLI, a veritable surfeit of performance, and I can believe they'll run safely--just remember to buy a large display (or three) to make use of all that performance potential. The massive 200mm intake fan on the side works miracles in keeping the internals very, very cool; in fact, it's practically a Christmas miracle that it runs as frosty as it does (disclaimer: review written in March).
Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns: while the overclock on the review unit was definitely rushed, given prior experience we have no reason to believe a retail system will be better tuned. On the one hand that can be time consuming work, but on the other hand...it's part of what we're paying the boutique for. It doesn't matter that Sandy Bridge processors are incredibly efficient even with auto voltages; thermal headroom and power savings are being left on the table when they don't need to be.
The case is also a mixed bag: while it produces excellent thermals and reasonable acoustics, and it comes with a handle, it still won't compare to higher end, higher class cases. We can get the system to start at just $533 and at that price, a $69 case doesn't seem like such a big deal. But when we start putting components we actually want inside it and the pricetag begins to swell, the value of the enclosure doesn't rise commensurate with that increased expense. It's not a bad case, but look...the Queen of England doesn't sleep in a suburban split-level either.
When all is said and done, though, the LAN Warrior II is the kind of system we do like to review here. The form factor at least makes it stand out, as does the excellent thermal design and the fact that you can cram it with an obscene amount of performance. It's the kind of machine that, like the Puget Serenity and AVADirect's Nano Gaming Cube, sets the boutique apart from their competition. The price from configuring on their website certainly isn't unreasonable, either: while it's roughly $50 north of the price we were quoted, that's not a massive difference in the grand scheme of things. Just building it yourself, we're looking at roughly $1,200 just for the video card, processor, and motherboard. Factor in the 128GB SSD, the Blu-ray writer, the 8GB of high-end DDR3, and the power supply, and the markup actually seems pretty reasonable.
iBUYPOWER's LAN Warrior II isn't a mind-blowing machine, but it's very respectable, and it's priced about right. If you're looking for a lot of power in a smaller form factor, you could do a lot worse than the LAN Warrior II.
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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.