Customer Ratings & Reviews

Long gone are the egg white or cream colored solid colored boring personal computer towers of the past. Now we have a manly and stylish black with glass and RGB accented lights throughout making our personal computers look more like something out of a Space ship control room in a Science Fiction movie than something that we'd have in our homes for personal use. With the lights down in the room and all of the glow from the tower, mouse, and keyboard, it immerses you into your gaming experience. The only thing I would count as a negative to this package is the lack of any type of cd or dvd drive. I have multiple very expensive photo editing software programs that you have to install from the cd or you're forced to buy the new version because the older is no longer supported. The only way to avoid paying hundreds of dollars for the software again is to buy an external cd/dvd drive. It comes with only 500gb of storage which is really small compared to the average nowadays for industry standards. It has 8gb of RAM which I would hope for a little more but because with the system I have now I use about 85-90% of the RAM supplied. But it is expandable to 128gb. It has Windows 11 which is the newest version. It is NOT Energy Star Certfied It has : Ethernet Ports : 1 HDMI Outputs (Total) : 1 USB Ports (Total) : 6 USB 2.0 Type A Ports : 2 USB 3.0 Type A Ports : 2 USB 3.2 Type A Ports : 1 Display Port Outputs (Total) : 1 It was really easy to setup out of the box. I was happy with the performance and would recommend it to others as an entry setup for gaming or streaming.

TL;DR - if you're looking for a low-end gaming rig with midrange power, the iBuyPower SlateHAKO MR fits the bill nicely. If you're looking for something you can upgrade down the line, the SlateHAKO uses commodity parts, unlike some major pre-built manufacturers, so you'll be able to drop in other motherboards and power supplies instead of needing to toss the whole system and start over when its upgrade time. If all you want to do is run Roblox or Minecraft, this system is actually complete overkill after a RAM upgrade. For some harder-to-run titles, you may hit settings you wouldn’t expect when you consider what that parts would cost individually. --------------------------------------------- And now onto the rest of the review... The iBuyPower SlateHAKO MR is an interesting beast to say the least. Out of the box, it does surprisingly well with some demanding gaming benchmarks when you consider the hardware - with Core i3 12100 4c/8t, 8GB single-channel RAM, and Intel Arc A380 6GB graphics. However, the real question is the cost for the performance you get and the included hardware. So let's get started... Unboxing and first impressions: First, the box this comes in is very large, and this is a good thing. When you get the box open, you'll notice that the computer itself is packed well with dense foam all around the corners. There isn't an internal foam fill inside the case, but with how light the video card is, it doesn't need one. You'll also find a box with the included keyboard, mouse, two SATA cables. and power cable. The included peripherials are a mixed bag. I do like the mouse as it's weighted nicely and has a long, braided cord. The mouse also has a button that controls both the DPI mode and the RGB lighting; as nice as it would be, there is no software for controlling this. For as well-constructed as it is, however, you do have to be careful as a drop can break the mouse buttons. The keyboard, on the other hand, isn't very good at all. It's a mechanical-looking membrane unit with RGB lighting that you have no obvious control over, either with settings buttons or with software. The light pattern is a very fast rainbow flash that annoyed me after 15 minutes. The build quality of the computer itself is a work of art, for the most part. I implore you to open the metal side panel on the rear side of the motherboard, as it is a masterclass of how to cable manage a non-modular power supply and all the RGB inside of the case. While off-brand, the claimed stats of that gold-rated power supply are terrific - 600 watts total power and all of it can come off the 12 volt rail, a very handy feature if you want to upgrade to a more power-hungry video card down the line. The real disappointment in here is a low-end aftermarket heat sink that makes all the noise when the computer is under load; for what this system costs, it should have at least came with a 120mm tower cooler. The case is honestly one of the best I've poked around in, and I've built at least 100 computers for friends and family. For upgraders, there is room for two 360mm radiators (one on top, one in front). For those who want lots of storage, there are plenty of spaces for SATA SSDs and 3.5 inch drives. This case comes with four of iBuyPower's aRGB fans installed - 3 in front, 1 in the rear. The lighting for these fans is hidden inside of the motor hubs of the fans. As they are aRGB, the colors are completely adjustable. The first thing that disappointed me, even before even powering the system, on was the single stick of memory installed. This was detrimental to performance; many games and benchmarks gained 4-10% in performance from upgrading this alone. The motherboard is a Gigabyte B660-DS3H AC DDR4. This means you can use the less expensive and more commonly available DDR4 memory. It also has tons of room for expansion, with 2 M.2 NVMe SSD slots, front and rear USB 3.2 type A ports, a rear-mounted USB-C port, and intenal headers for more USB ports and a serial port. It also comes with 5 (mechanically) PCIe x16 slots, 3 of which support x1 speeds, 1 of which supports x4 speeds, and the 5th one supporting x16 speeds and already used by the graphics card. The only negative here is the on-board WiFi only supports 802.11ac (WiFi5) at speeds up to 433 mbps (which translates to around 220 mbps throughput). Storage is nothing to write home about - it does use a Western Digital Blue 570 series PCIe 3.0 devices with read speeds around 3500 megabytes per second and write speeds I never saw break 2800 megabytes per second. While this is faster than many of the SSDs you'd get in major-brand prebuilts, a PCIe 4.0 device would have nearly doubled this performance. The graphics card is the main attraction to this computer and why I got one - more as a curiousity, really. The Intel Arc A380 is not without some flaws, but I was honestly surprised on how well it works - many modern games ran at 1080p with medium settings and no ray-tracing without dropping below 60 fps, and even a few games surprised me with how well they ran at higher resolutions (Street Fighter V with low textures and high quality shadows ran 4k60, and Mortal Kombat 11 ran with low/medium settings at 4k/60.) Older titles also ran very well on this card; there wasn't a single Source engine game I couldn't run at 4k/60 with high settings, and the Half-Life 2: Lost Coast stress test had 68 fps at 4k with all the settings maxed out. I also ran the Superposition benchmark and got 22 fps before and 23.5 fps after upgrading from the stock RAM to dual-channel RAM at 4k. (This version of the Arc A380 card was manufactured by ASRock.) Now here comes the value proposition for this system. You CAN build a very similar system with identical - or nearly identical in the case of the case and PSU - components for around $100 less. You do have to take into account the extra mile iBuyPower went with this in terms of assembly - with the exception of how they did the CPU cooler power cable, the cable management is amazing. It takes time to do presentation inside a computer case like this, I know - I've built several systems for friends over the years and what they thought would take half an hour would end up taking about 2 hours. You'll definitely be wanting to buy a second 8GB stick of DDR4-3200 memory and you may want to spring for a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive for more - and faster - performance. The one other thing to consider here is "What is my upgrade path?" While I think DDR4-based Intel systems are just fine for the majority of users, especially when you consider the current cost of DDR5 RAM modules versus DDR4 RAM modules (as of this review, DDR4 was about 40% less expensive than DDR5 for the same amount of memory), DDR5 is the future. Either way, you'll be buying a stick of memory to go with this computer so you can run in dual-channel memory mode for the performance benefits that come with it. Also, this is a system that you'll want to upgrade the storage on as 500GB isn't enough space for keeping larger titles downloaded, especially as games get larger. Considering there are two M.2 slots and space for 2 SATA SSDs and two 3.5 inch hard drives, you have plenty of upgrade options and iBuyPower included SATA cables and a NVMe screw for those upgrades. All in all, I can recommend the iBuyPower SlakeHAKO MR for those getting into gaming and are willing to upgrade later on and for those who don't want to mess with building their own computer.

iBUYPOWER is known for producing what are generally well performing gaming desktops and this is no exception. Coming in at the more "entry level" side of things (there are graphics cards alone that are well more than DOUBLE the price of this complete system), this SlateHAKO proves itself to be a good value that's made even better with one small addition. Out of the box performance is strong - don't let the Core i3 moniker scare you, these are the Core i3s of yesteryear. With the 12th Gen, today's Core i3 is STRONGER than the i5s and sometimes even i7s of the past. You get 4 performance cores and 8 threads of processing. The A380 Intel Arc GPU is interesting tech - it's not a high end gaming GPU, but it can certainly play many games at 1080p/FullHD at high/ultra settings with good frame rates. You can also dial back the detail if you want to and performance continues to improve as Intel releases new drivers. The RGB fans are a nice touch and the Windows install is very plain (no annoying bloatware!) except for a pre-saved link to the iBUYPOWER website (easily removed if you wish), the RGB control software and a decent custom background image. Storage is a fast NVMe SSD at 500GB - I clocked it at 3.5Gb per second with sequential reads - and memory is acceptable out of the box with a single channel 8GB stick of DDR4 running at 3000mhz. The case is very attractive with lots of glass to show off the RGB and the included RGB keyboard is nice for a pack in keyboard and highly usable. I'm not a fan of the "chrome" (shiny silver plastic) mouse, but it does work - that might be something to upgrade when you have the chance. In base form, I was able to get a 3dmark score of ~4500 in Time Spy which surpasses entry gaming laptops and is more than sufficient to ensure good performance at 1080p. I did make a quick - and not very expensive - addition by replacing the single stick of 8GB DDR4-3000 memory with 2 sticks of 8GB DDR4-3200 memory (the BIOS is unlocked/standard Gigabyte fair, unlike most PC builders, and so you can change the memory clocks if your memory supports it), giving me 16GB total. This didn't change my benchmark scores much (about a 150 point increase), but did make the PC more day to day usable and is a value upgrade I highly recommend - and it's easy to do as well. Since I do often build systems, I'm sometimes asked to compare what it would be like to build a comparable system to this - which you could do, though certainly it wouldn't come out identically given case differences. To get functionally the same internals - including the Windows license and a decent, though not as fancy, case it would be roughly the same cost as buying this complete PC, and that's not considering the time it would take you to build it OR that with this unit you get a warranty. And since iBUYPOWER uses largely brand-name components, you can actually upgrade this PC as you want/need, adding or replacing parts with standard pieces available from a variety of retailers. And at the end of the day, that's what makes this a good value play and a good choice for those looking to start out in the PC gaming world - you get solid internals, good build quality with an attractive case, parts you can actually work with if you want/need to and all for about the same price as if you'd built it yourself...but without having to! All in all, I can highly recommend this as an entry level, value priced gaming PC for those looking to start out in PC gaming (or perhaps for a gaming PC for a child/teen).

Sooooo I’m gonna do my best here to try and leave a realistic and objective review for this gaming desktop. Boxed nice and neatly comes the tower a keyboard and a mouse. Initial set up of the pc was pretty easy and no complaints on that front at all. Now for a gaming pc in all honesty I have to say this is the absolute bare minimum for specs that you can get away with. Some things will not play very well on this computer at all it just doesn’t have the power needed to run heavy loads. Hooked up the oculus quest to it and there was constant lag or tearing and just wasn’t an enjoyable experience. That being said at the price point of 799.00 you get what you pay for. So for an entry level pc this thing is absolutely fine and for the price they charge it is also fine. I guess it’s a way for you to dip your toe into the gaming pc world without breaking your bank and if your into it the you can always upgrade your cpu gpu and take it to the next level. So yes if you know what your getting for the price your paying you shouldn’t be disappointed but a seasoned gamer is not going to enjoy this pc without a ton of upgrades.

This is a nice gaming computer on a budget. The tower is beautiful with tempered glass, the "split" front design and rgb lighting. It's also very large and heavy. I very much like the round rubber feet on the bottom of the tower to lift it from the floor. Getting to the inside of the tower is as simple as twisting two screws and sliding the glass side out. The processor 12th generation i3 and can handle tasks easily. As for gaming, it has integrated graphics. For many games that is not a problem, however, there are some heavy graphic games that could struggle with it. 8GB RAM gets the gaming started. The SSD gives a fast start up and 500 gb storage. WIFI and Bluetooth work great. Included is very nice RGB tactile keyboard and mouse. All you need to get started is a display of your choice. This computer is easily upgradeable to 128 GB RAM and a M.2 SSD for faster speeds. Included in the box is an M.2 screw, it's very small so don't overlook it, best to put it on the motherboard in it's place so you'll know where it is. You'll need it if you decide to upgrade.

This isnt a bad workstation. It has decent specs with the latest Intel processor but the lowest model which is the i3. Only 8GB is a disappointment since all computers should come with a minimum of 8GB but more is preferable. The video card is fairly basic. It I was just reviewing a workstation it would be a 4 star. But since this is marketed as a gaming laptop, it severely lacks in the necessary horsepower. Now that's not to say it wont play games there are many games that will work with these specs but the quality of the video will be limited quite a bit. As mentioned before, the 8GB is very low for a gaming desktop with the recommended minimum to be 16GB. A bright spot is the workstation looks great. The keyboard and mouse are quality for gaming. The lighting on the case is pretty cool and there is enough ventilation to keep the computer cool. The footprint of the workstation is rather big but that is typical of gaming workstations since they typically need high cooling. Again, for a good workstation that can play many games at low video settings this a good option. If you are looking to play power hungry games at high resolution, this may not fit the bill.

This computer has everything you need to get started. Everything is upgradeable if you choose. Love the RGB lights and the case. Best purchase I’ve made in a long time!!

Great product, great price. Easy to setup. Good for any age.

It’s a good starter pc but I wouldn’t get it unless you are willing to upgrade the GPU, CPU, and RAM. Other then that it barely meets gaming criteria, most high end games you barely run 40-60 fps if you upgrade the gpu.