iBuyPower RDY SLIIBG213 gaming PC review: "Power and affordability in one sleek package"

Over the past few years, iBuyPower has demonstrated that quality most important to any PC manufacturer's longevity: the ability to learn from your mistakes. After some initial stumbles around component pairing and build quality, the builder has responded to criticism from consumers and press and, instead of turtling or deflecting, has evolved and adapted and are turning out some of the best gaming PCs on the market. 

The results are evident in its latest prebuilt lineup, including the RDY SLIIBG213, a mid-tier gaming rig that reflects an emphasis on performance and producing PCs at around or below DIY pricing.

iBuyPower RDY SLIIBG213 - Design

The most immediately striking aspect of the SLIIBG213's design is the lovely, understated gunmetal grey case, the Slate 2, accented by a pair of vivid slashes of customizable RGB lighting across the front panel. The left panel is a gorgeous pane of tempered glass which looks upon a brightly lit interior, aglow with the machine's RGB-ringed fans and performance parts. The colored lighting is offset by a broad PSU shroud that matches the case in gunmetal grey and sports the iBuyPower brand name and logo. 

It's a very attractive machine, not the seizure inducing light show so ubiquitous in gaming prebuilts, but the beauty here is more than skin deep. That understated front panel, for instance, is host to a pair of big exhaust vents that allow for air to pass horizontally through the case, and the beautiful pane of glass can be easily removed by just torquing out a set of thumb screws. The one slightly jarring element of the visual presentation is just how much bare real estate there is inside the case, which raises questions about whether the internals couldn't have perhaps been tucked into a smaller form factor.

iBuyPower RDY SLIIBG213 - Performance

The SLIIBG213 makes good use of its components, including an RTX 2060 with dedicated cores for ray tracing and DLSS, and the 9th Gen Intel Core i5-9400F (the F appended on the end simply indicates it doesn't include integrated graphics, which clearly isn't a concern in this build). As you can see in the benchmarks boxout it performs well at QHD ultra, even in the incredibly demanding Metro Exodus (with ray tracing enabled), and absolutely crushed 1080p in the three games we tested, well in excess of 100 FPS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and a steady 60+ in Metro. 

That 9th Gen chip performed admirably in CPU testing as well, so if your gaming rig doubles as your productivity machine, the SLIIBG213 is a solid hybrid. The one major issue with the component selection is the single, 500GB storage drive, a Western Digital SATA SSD, that's neither the fastest drive nor the most capacious. I would've vastly preferred either a faster NVMe SSD and/or a backup HDD with more ample storage. 500GB is pretty slender for a modern games library, and the speed bump moving from SATA HDD to SATA SSD isn't so massive as to justify the lack of space. Luckily, storage is pretty cheap these days, and there's plenty of space in the case and free SATA ports for upgrades, as well as a pair of M.2 slots.

iBuyPower RDY SLIIBG213 - Features

The SLIIBG213 feels like a gaming prebuilt designed to plug-and-play, and isn't necessarily bristling with features as a result. It's got a respectable number of USB ports, two at the front of the top panel and another five in the rear (including a single USB-C port), and certainly the toolless access is very welcome, but beyond that, the SLIIBG213 feels streamlined and not particularly future proofed. The 1151 socket in the Asus motherboard will accommodate any 8th gen or 9th gen chip, but that B360 chipset means CPU overclocking is impossible. There's also the 600W PSU, which is more than enough overhead for the included parts, but limits how many high-end/additional performance parts you can add.

That said, if you're looking for a prebuilt to plug in, attach some peripherals to, and start gaming on, the SLIIBG213 is an excellent choice. It boots quickly from the SSD and those front panel USB and audio ports obviate the need for excessive fumbling around behind the machine.  

Overall - should you buy it?

Easily the most impressive part of the SLIIBG213 is its price tag. Putting together a similar machine on PCPartPicker.com ran me in excess of $1,200, while the SLIIBG213 can currently be had for $1,099 on iBuyPower's website. Given how much of a premium you typically pay for the convenience of having a machine constructed for you and for warranty coverage (iBuyPower offers a three year standard warranty on the SLIIBG213), actually paying less for a prebuilt is pretty remarkable. 

This is a great rig to pair with a 140Hz QHD monitor or a 1080p screen from our best gaming monitor roundup, a machine you can plug into the wall and start playing with in seconds, and can even manage 4K if you're willing to knock down some of the  video settings and are comfortable with 30 FPS. For right around a grand, you're not likely to find a better specced or constructed machine.