iBuyPower Level 10

magine filling Thermaltake's Level 10 case with today's highest-performing components, setting up RAID config­ urations, and adding all the connectivity features you can think of. The result is iBuyPower's Level 10 dream PC submis­sion. iBuyPower tells us that the Level 10' s cooling capabilities allowed them to produce a system built for long-term reli­ability, stability, and quality. The compartmental design of the Level 10 case makes it a very quiet system; iBuyPower further lowered noise levels by installing Enermax fans with high-perfor­mance magnetic bearings. The iBuyPower Level 10 was nearly silent, even during our intensive gaming benchmarks. There's not much glitz on the outside of the case, but inclusion of Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatall ty Champion Series sound controller and a 12-in-l memory card reader draw your attention to the top compartment. Since all the components are hidden in com­partments, there's no need for any fancy lighting. To make the interior clean, iBuyPower replaced the system's visible power cables with extensions made of individually wrapped wires. The all-black, mesh-sheathed cables add a touch of class to the inside of the case.

Inside the motherboard compartment, iBuyPower installed an Intel Core i7­980X. For graphics power, the Level 10 sent to us featured dual ATI Radeon HD 5970s in CrossFire. iBuyPower shipped the cards in a separate box to keep them safe during the shipping process. Power users will also appreciate the 12GB of Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 memory, and an OS drive that consists of two 128GB Kingston SSDNow! VSeries in RAID O. Your personal data can be stored on the two 2TB Seagate Barracudas that are set up in RAID 1 to provide redun­dancy. A 1,200-watt Thermaltake power supply and lOX BD-ROMIDVD burner combo drive round out the system.

 

The lack of a CPU overclock, due to iBuyPower's focus on reliability, and  the inclusion of Radeon HD5970s as opposed to GTX 480s in 3-way SLI, put the Level 10 benchmarks behind many of the Tier II dream PCs. That being said, the Level 10 comes in around $500 to $1,000 less than most of the competition. One test where the Level 10 excelled was 3DMark Vantage, where it delivered an overall score of 24736, a GPU score of 24348, and a CPU score of 35480. The Level 10 also produced an impressive speed of 333.12MBps in the Sandra 2010's Physical Disk test. We have no doubt that iBuyPower's Level lOis a well-designed build, but we'd have liked to see iBuyPower cus­tomize the exterior of the PC to match the quality parts hidden inside. Imagine how imposing the Level 10 would look with some artwork on the side panels or a clear panel that shows off its high-end components.

Nevertheless, the focus on reliability and stability is something that people wanting a well-rounded gaming machine should take into consideration