iBUYPOWER Gamer Mage D230 Budget Desktop PC

Oct 27 2009 - While the iBUYPOWER Gamer Mage D230 implies that the system can be used for gaming, it lacks one critical piece of hardware, a dedicated video card. At least the system has the rest of the components including a 500W power supply that make it a good base platform to be a low cost gaming system. In fact, it has slightly above average performance thanks to its higher grade dual core processor. The above average warranty service terms are also a nice benefit as well.

Oct 27 2009 - Performance in the Gamer Mage D230 is above average for a desktop system priced below $500. It uses the AMD Athlon II X2 250 dual core processor that actually outperforms the Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 found in many Intel based systems. It still isn't going to be something that one wants to do tasks such as desktop video with as it will still take long times to render, but it is more than enough for basic productivity and internet applications.

iBUYPOWER implies that the Gamer Mage is a low cost system that would be used for PC gaming. The only problem with this is the ATI Radeon HD 3100 integrated graphics lack the real performance to handle such a task. At least the system has a full PCI-Express graphics slot and a 500W power supply that would allow the system to be upgraded with a card so that it could be used for gaming.

Storage is pretty much typical of the sub-$500 desktop systems. A 500GB hard drive and dual layer DVD burner are included in the bundle. The DVD burner is rated up to 22x speed but most uses will not notice the small time savings that it provides over a typical 16x rated drive.

If any of the components don't meet the needs of the customer, iBUYPOWER offers a wide range of customization options. Users can choose between a variety of cases, power supplies, memory, hard drives, videos cards and even motherboards. The problem is that there is so little room for adjustment to the configuration to keep the system under $500. You are essentially stuck with the base configuration.

One nice aspect of the Gamer Mage D230 is the warranty. Most systems come with a one year warranty for parts and labor. iBUYPOWER is offering one year for the parts but three years for the labor and lifetime phone support for the system. This will probably be advantageous to some users