Gaming PCs in the $1,500 range have become a highly competitive market, especially as component prices have trended downward to near-normal levels over the past few months. There are plenty of people holding out for the best gaming PCs (opens in new tab), waiting for prices and availability to stabilize, and making big purchases without worry or guilt. iBuyPower Gaming RDY SLHB216 (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (tongue rolls) is an impressive build and falls into this hotly contested category of modest gaming PCs, but not without caveats for picky players.

The Gaming RDY SLHBG216 is not customizable. You cannot choose the processor, graphics card, RAM, or storage type. Once you add it to your cart, it will ship exactly as described on the website. iBuyPower, like many other PC manufacturers, has a wide range of products, including Elden Ring (open in new tab), Lost Ark, Fortnite, GTA 5, League of Legends, CS:GO, Call of Duty Warzone, and Valorant, as well as average frame rates for the latest games. It's a solid list for online multiplayer games, but may fall short for those who prefer single-player games.

Priced at $1,499, with a sale that has been going on since I received my review rig in late May for $1,269, it's a pretty standard build: Intel Core i5 12400F, Nvidia RTX 3060, 16GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM, 1TB of NVMe SSD storage. All of this is housed in a sleek black iBuyPower case with tempered glass panels and an RGB fan. The case design is neither flashy nor modern, with a jagged front panel and plastic top. This probably cut down on costs. It is an unimpressive case, but ultimately a useful one.

The PC is also fully air-cooled, which hurts overall performance in gaming, but keeps the price about $100 lower than the nearest competitor. five case fans keep the CPU and other components cool, but at the cost of a The PC is the most expensive PC I've run. The PC didn't get loud enough to seep into headphones or speakers at moderate volumes, even in the toughest benchmarks I ran, but if you're looking for a silent rig, this is clearly not it.

Compared to gaming PCs like the Redux "Good" Tier PC (opens in new tab), the Gaming RDY SLHBG216 wins in performance, albeit by a few frames. Considering the price, this is good news: in 1080p performance, the SLHBG216 outperformed the Redux PC by a few frames in Hitman 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metro Exodus; in F1 2020, it outperformed the Redux by about 24 FPS; in F2000, the SLHBG216 outperformed the Redux by about 24 FPS.

These numbers are fairly standard for the Nvidia RTX 3060, which excels greatly in 1080p games. But iBuyPowerRDY's 1440p test was also strong, matching the frame rates of similarly priced desktop PCs like the NZXT Streaming PC (open in new tab) and CLX Set Gaming PC (open in new tab). Its 4K FPS was surprisingly not much better, struggling to hit anywhere near 60 FPS in any of the tests, and the air cooling is just starting to buckle. This is a PC built to cut through 1080p games and handle 1440p games with some tweaking.

Notably, for some reason, I could not get the PC to run properly on the Horizon Zero Dawn 4K benchmark without the game going to black screen or crashing completely. it ran fine at 1080p and 1440p, but not at 4K. It did not. Nevertheless, these benchmarks will not change my opinion of 4K performance.

The SLHBG216 also sneaks in a 1TB NVMe SSD at this price. This SSD performed excellently in our FF14 load time test; other PCs with 500GB SSDs are an insult to those who play a few of the latest games and can't handle the huge install sizes these days. The SLHBG216 is a great choice for its overall build quality, as well as understanding what pure PC gamers on this budget want. It's not a flashy addition, but it's commendable.

The drawbacks of the SLHBG216 aren't huge, but they may hurt if you want to push this PC to its limits. The main drawback is inadequate cooling. In our tests, the CPU ran hot, rising to 100°C. While it probably won't be used this hard on a regular basis, it should be noted that other similar PCs did not get as hot. Dust buildup on the chassis is inevitable and could get worse, so if you take this one home, you may need to consider regular cleaning maintenance. The graphics card did not get high enough to be of much concern, but still ran a few degrees hotter than the rest of the rig.

The lack of a USB Type-C port on the top front panel is also disappointing for this PC, but there is one pocket on the back panel that also has a PS/2 port like in the early 2000's. If you need a lot of USB 3.0 ports, the Gaming RDY SLHBG216 will not be enough. This PC is built for a fairly low-key crowd that plays games and not much else. In an age when streaming and telecommuting are common, you'll want a few more ports for external hard drives, webcams, etc. [The Gaming RDY SLHBG216 is a gaming PC that does exactly what it says and not much else. iBuyPower has done enough to convince us to sacrifice bells and whistles for a modest PC in the $1,500 gaming rig race, They have created a slick competitor. Not being able to choose what's in it at all might lead you in the direction of a CLX gaming PC, but choices aren't always better, and SLHBG216 insists on keeping things simple and getting you playing the game right away. I can't say no to that.