iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F850 Performance Gaming Desktop

12/16/08 - The Gamer Paladin F850 may not be the least expensive Core i7 based system from iBuyPower, but it provides a better overall experience for those looking for a gaming platform. It is a step up from most gaming systems from the likes of Alienware, Dell, HP or Falcon thanks to its i7 940 processor, six gigabytes of memory and dual Radoen HD 4850 graphics cards. Add to this a three year warranty and it is a better overall value than its competitors. Those looking to customize their system should be aware that there are so many options that it can be very confusing.

12/16/08 - The Gamer Paladin F850 offers a high level of performance for a price that is about on par or even slightly less than what the big name companies have to offer in their gaming desktop systems. IBuyPower achieves this through the new mid-range Core i7 940 processor combined with 6GB of DDR3 memory compared to the i7 920 processor with 3GB of memory found in most in this price range. This gives it a distinct edge in both memory intensive and process intensive tasks.

The Gamer Paladin F850 also has a bit of an advantage with the graphics that are important for PC gaming. Rather than relying on a single graphics card, iBuyPower has put two ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards with 512MB in a CrossFire configuration. This allows the system to perform better with games at higher resolutions or with additional filtering effects. Of course, one can always elect to use different ATI or even NVIDIA based graphics cards thanks to the Intel X58 chipset that supports SLI as well.

Storage with the Gamer Paladin F850 is pretty much standard for the average desktop system. The 500GB hard drive is equivalent to what one will find even in the base budget desktop but at least iBuyPower doesn't go the smaller route to force users to upgrade. The dual layer DVD burner and DVD-ROM drives are also standard. A wide range of upgrade options is available.

Speaking of customization, iBuyPower provides a huge range of options for just about any part on the system. Users can select cases, drives, graphics cards and even the mouse and keyboard. This is extremely flexible to give the consumer exactly what they want, but if you aren't sure what you want it can end up confusing you during the order process.

Finally, iBuyPower backs the Gamer Paladin F850 with a three year warranty standard.

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