20 Best Pre Built Gaming Pc For 1500 (2023 Updated)

HP’s OMEN 40L Desktop brings you top level performance all in a stunning mid-tower case which is perfect for all of your gaming needs. While there are some options of customization, the pre-built options seem to be fairly well balanced which means you’ll get a good overall value.

My OMEN arrived well packaged with just the right amount of support to ensure that it would survive the delivery. The interior cardboard support did a surprisingly good job of keeping the PC nice and snug.

After removing the PC from the box, I verified the internal hardware to ensure no cables came loose upon transport which passed in my book. The first thing I noticed was just how beautiful this case is and how thoughtfully it was engineered.

It features a glass side panel (which is fairly common) to display the internal components, and plenty of ventilation both along the front panel and the top of the case. It also was designed with easy access to internal components (toolless access) on the front glass, left glass, and right rear panel.

Other things that made quite an impression on me, the GPU bracket is no joke with this case; while it’s made of plastic, its large enough to accommodate even the largest GPUs on the market. It provides excellent stability for the RTX 3070, only peculiar thing is that it uses a proprietary adapter to connect to the 2x 6+2 pin power supply cables which isn’t a big deal.

The OMEN’s CPU AIO (all-in-one cooler) looks amazing as it looks bold against the contrast of the black case. I was also happy with other components utilized in the build, such as the HyperX 2×8 GB DDR 4 (heat sinks and setup with dual channel to provide optimal performance), a terabyte NVMe M.

2 Western Digital SDD for storage, and of course AMD Ryzen 7 5800x processor (not visible, however verified with cpu-z). Other notable components are the Cooler Master Power Supply along with Cooler Master fans, all excellent choice components which allows this PC to run flawlessly.

The default package does come preinstalled with Windows 11 Home (Professional would be a better), but works either way. Where, I found myself a bit disappointed was with the front panel IO. It’s great that it comes with 4 USB ports, but it did not have any USB-C ports which is fairly common with PCs at this level.

Additionally, while the OMEN AIO cooler looks fantastic, it tends to be louder than I would expect, especially when not underload, however it does a decent job of keeping the CPU cool when it is underload.

Gaming on the OMEN 40L has been fantastic, this PC is well optimized and it performs very well for its cost/value. I ran a quick synthetic benchmark test with UserBenchMark – and HP built a great PC: results indicating performance overall is 81st percental, meaning out of 100 PC’s built similarly, only 19 PC’s out performed this particular model.

I’m able game with this PC paired with a 34inch wide monitor (3440 x 1440 resolution) and still achieve an average frame rate of 165 – 280 FPS depending on the title. Performance would likely improve if just gaming at 1080P and I’m sure lower gaming in 4k, but stable and consistent.

This rig is perfect for gaming, and while it may not be using the very latest (most high-end components), it’s an excellent value as it performs well and the design of this PC affords you the ability to easily make upgrades in the future.

If you’re looking for a great gaming no fuss PC, then this would make a great addition or upgrade!.

I firstly want to state that this machine is really quite good overall. Aesthetics are quite nice, most components are up to “gamer” standards, and you really won’t be going wrong with this machine as a pre-built.

I’m impressed with the name brand RAM, installed in a dual-channel configuration which is important for a Ryzen processor. The 120mm AIO water cooler looks nice and performs reasonably well. The machine maintains good thermals and stays quiet while gaming.

One issue I had after receiving this machine was that the CPU got seemingly stuck at 0. 5GHz. Upgrading/reinstalling the BIOS fixed this issue. The BIOS definitely leaves a lot to be desired. Very few settings are configurable here, but some are exposed through the Omen software and Ryzen master.

The motherboard appears to be HP specific and there have only been a few BIOS updates. I worry that this machine will miss out on Ryzen firmware upgrades that fix instability/performance issues in the future.

I would prefer having a USB-C or two on the front panel instead of four USB-A ports (2 USB 3. 1 and 2 USB 2). The design of where the USB ports are makes installing and removing some devices difficult.

McAfee being pre-installed is annoying. The other software is HP related. The Omen software is alright and even enables pushing the RAM with an XMP profile. The included mouse and keyboard are awful.

In my opinion, if you are already spending on a machine you should also spend for a good mouse and keyboard and not rely on cheap included peripherals. I appreciate that this machine provides easy upgradeability with push buttons to pop off the side panels.

There is room for 2. 5″ drives behind the motherboard tray and the RTX 3070 can be easily swapped out for a new GPU in the future. The motherboard has one empty PCI express 8x slot that can be used for a faster NIC, USB controller, or other PCIe device in the future.

Really enjoying this machine so far. It performs great and should be useable/upgradeable long into the future.

I’ve been using this all AMD build for a couple of weeks and so far am very pleased. (6600 Ryzen, 5800x CPU). I recommend, I don’t think most will be displeased. Note: I haven’t overclocked it or run HyperX on the RAM.

No need and I’m not into stressing the build for a few FPS when I’m getting good enough FPS. Glad I didn’t go with water cooler, this fan is doing fine and isn’t loud. Interesting design with what appears to be wrapped heatpipes running to the exterior fan housing or some such thing.

Pros: – Quiet so far in every test. – Good performance, Passmark score of 93%. That is performs as well or better than 93% of computers currently on the market. Good enough for me. Much better than my previous Pavilion entry gaming rig with the 2400g and R580 graphics.

(Its test hit around the 50% mark. ) – Handles my Two 2k 165mhz monitors with ease. -Stress test Red Dead Redemption 2 – Mixed high and ultra barely works the fan, with radeon chill capped at 85fps (no need to cook the thing) and only using 3200 ram speed (no hyperx, again no need to cook it) I’m getting reasonable temps in the 60s to low 70s and up to 85 frames.

Very little more challenging than RDR2. – Fairly easy to setup, no problems or discouraging incidents. – Clean build, looks nice, lots of cooling features. Really seems well constructed and solid. I like the look.

I could do without the glass and blinky lights but nobody does that anymore. 🙁 If you want that, lots of pretty tunable lighting. Cons: – A few adds from McAffee and related that are annoying. I’ll tune them out.

– Big and heavy for a micro sized MB with little expansion , may help the cooling I suppose. – Windows 11 – just the pain of figuring out where everything is again in the new Windows, but so far I think I’ll like the OS in the end.

– Cheapest of cheap Keyboard and mouse. CMon HP, I know most will buy their own Corsair or Steelseries rig, but you could at least try to provide a decent initial setup for a $2k (with tax) purchase.

Doesn’t have to be tops, but scaling res mouse and some moderatly useful keys would be a reasonable nod, makes for a useful backup. At least your cheap end stuff isn’t annoyingly bad. Same stuff I got with one of your mini computers though.

– For this CPU a Ryzen 6700 option would be nice to pull up the ray tracing potential. 6600 is great frankly if you don’t do 4k or try to ultra everything out, but for a 2k presentation and the rest of the power curve, a 6700 or higther would have made more sense with this CPU.

I couldn’t build this config with that card on the site although all the pieces were floating around in various mixed rigs. For a 1920×1080 setup more than enough power for anything and everything but RT in my estimation.

Don’t expect RT, lowest RT support on market per reviews, but possible. Glad I didn’t want/need RT. – Packaging – really surprised and disappointed that the interior wasn’t protected with an inflatable travel cushion, a lot of the aftermarketers have learned to do that to protect the motherboard/connections from vibration damage.

HP could up this, but mine came in solid, well built, I didn’t detect any damage. The bracket on the viideo card may be seen as sufficient for this, it just seems that the inflatable padding is a sensible protection.

Comments: The CPU performs really well in Passmark. Wish the GPU were one series higher but I’m happy with its performance with my 2k monitors. GPU kills 2D stuff, knocks it out of the park but only hits about 83% or so on the 3D.

Your mileage might vary. It isn’t overheating and I’m driving them more than satisfactorily – that was my biggest worry coming in. CPU runs hotter than I want to see, but according to what I read it is by design by AMD.

Idle (varies by your use/setup) is running high 50’s C to Mid 60’s. GPU is hangin out in the mid 30’s C. (90 degrees is expected on full throttle by AMD. ) Most 3D games I tested against it don’t drive the GPU much over 50 degrees, RDR2 being an exception.

RDR on full Ultra with MSAA turned on does bottom it out though, downt to 5 to 6 FPS! Easy fix is to not use MSAA and things pop back up to 30fps pretty quick with everything else maxed. My high/ultra mix is very good averaging about 60fps, and of course I’m throttling it a bit as I noted.

Curiously, the OMEN desktop temps on CPU vary quite a bit from the Ryzen Master temps. I’m not tryint to OC anything, just being mindful of state, performance and temperature. I’ve been around electronics enough to know cool means longer life.

One bit of advice – all the blinky lights and monitoring stuff you turn on generally means that your system is being polled and may not drop to its most restful and cool state when idle. I haven’t figured it out on this box what that will look like as I turn stuff off, but it made a 5 degree difference to kill Corsair’s ICUE software and just go with default lights on my Pavilion.

Heat kills electronics over time, so for reliability, save the blinky lights for special occasions. Happy with the purchase, pretty good if moderately overpriced rig, but I think the quality was worth it, and when the video card market settles down I suspect price will drop a little.

Not a bad price considering in current GPU market and from what I could tell from my ressearch a far more solid build than the custom gaming shops in general. I’d give it 4. 5 if I could but 5 works as the annoyances are trivial and not subverting my goals and 4 isn’t fair, i’m really happy with it.

So far the best HP build I’ve encountered and I’m full on recommending. CPU is a beast.

We recently purchased two of these systems at work and I got the fun job of setting them up. I work with a lot of not good computers so getting to work with these was a treat. It was easy to unpack with plenty of packing material to make sure it stays safe in shipping.

The first set of accessories you pull out of the box has some very clear instructions with mostly pictures showing you how to take the shipping foam out and get you started. In addition to the printed instructions there is a sticker covering up most of the rear ports just leaving the GPU with the HDMI port open (the 3 other display ports have nice covers) just to make sure you plug into the GPU and not any motherboard display out ports.

Once we got plugged into one of the DisplayPorts and powered up the system started up with no issues at all. This system seems to have two large dust filters covering all of the intake fans a personal must have of mine.

I am not the biggest fan of RGB lighting but I must say the RGB here is done tastefully and I was impressed. At this price range the specs are fairly expensive you are probably paying a small premium for being prebuilt but in this case I would say any premium is probably justified for all of the small quality of life advances you get here.

They even got a proper PSU gold rated. The fans were nearly silent when just running updates and installing programs. The keyboard and mouse were even decent. I would say they both look impressive and mouse even feels fine but the keypresses on the keyboard do not feel good but not bad.

Very minimal / basically no boat was found just as good as a clean install of windows to me. The choice of a good i7 12th gen and a 30 series GPU means you can keep this system running for a long time.

This system includes a 500GB m. 2 ssd which I think should be the minimum for any serious PC and helps keep this system running better in the long tern even as is.

People usually buy prebuilds to either save themselves the hassle of assembling their own or because they lack the knowledge on how to do it and don’t want to ruin thousands of dollars worth of parts.

Therefor, professionals are paid to do it when ordering prebuilts. You would expect them to do an outstanding job but after having extreme problems with the CPU overheating under low load, I knew I had to do something.

The pc would often shut down mid game in League of Legends which is definitely one of the easier games to run out there. The temps would be around 99C throughout the whole match and the pc would run close to 70C under minimal load.

I ordered an AIO thinking the stock cooler that comes with the pc was the problem but after removing the old cooler, I found a piece of paper in the thermal paste creating a barrier between the CPU and cooler.

This is absolutely outrageous, almost seems like it was purposefully done. Their was thermal paste on both sides of the paper which means to me that someone had to apply thermal paste to both surfaces which is very unusual and suspicious.

I swapped out that cooler anyway because I had ordered the AIO and the temps went from 99/100C while playing league of legends to 35C. I do believe the stock cooler would have done a good job if it was not for the piece of paper isolating the CPU from the cooler but I will not be testing it.

I strongly recommend anyone stay away from these prebuilds, their are many stories of how these pc’s are cheaply assembled. I would have put in a picture of the piece of paper in question but I don’t think attaching images is possible.

The PC itself out the box was pretty good. The set up and installing was very easy anyone can really do it with no problems. Only problems I found in the PC was with the fans. I had to flip them for better air flow but the fans themselves felt pretty cheap.

So I would recommend buying fans to replace the original. With the cooling I would recommend upgrading the CPU cooler, it can get a little hot to fast sometimes. Also would recommend upgrading SSD but 500GB is alright but it would be better to have more.

As for Cable Management, when you open the back part of the PC case the cables seem very clustered. As if someone just didn’t want to put in the time to organize cables but it isn’t that hard to fix yourself to make things a little more organized.

But as for performance, with games like Warzone and open world games it runs pretty smooth. A little fps drops here and there but doesn’t happen to often but you can get pretty good gameplay out of any game you want to play.

I would recommend this PC but to those who are willing to pay a little extra for upgrades such as fans, coolers, etc. Overall this PC is actually pretty good for what it is and would recommend it, but again to those who are willing to pay extra for upgrades.

This pc let me just say is great but I just have to say a pc that’s so amazing has to have cons when I first began my search for a pc I looked high and low (really just scrolled through my phone lazily) I set my eyes on this beauty and realized it’s what I wanted I got a job and started my journey towards this beautiful piece I got the pc on a grand day the sun was shining the sky was blue I saw it sitting on my door step with quite a bit of package damage but no matter! I had my loot secured my bounty cherished! I would like to also make this clear I had no idea how pcs worked or even how I was supposed to start this thing of beauty I quickly learned a lot more than I thought I would… it all started power button and it ticked to life! But the led lights they wouldn’t turn on and myself being stubborn I decided to pull the case open and look inside they weren’t even plugged in.

Oh no matter! I fixed that quickly and the led lights worked! I’m not going to lie I was very proud of myself just for plugging in a cord 🙂 and I started it up set up a steam account, plugged in my headset, and… no sound… “hmm that is a little odd let me replug it in” no luck so once again I was confused and I decided to contact tech support which let me say they were some of the kindest people.

They first directed me to get a splitter after I bought it the problem pressed on! My brain grew in knowledge of pcs but my heart grew bare and my hears become noiseless with the lack of a working headset.

I recontacted tech support and they said “I needed to buy a headset with the trs cable” this was all news to me. I proceeded to purchase the required headset with the double striped cables. The problem once more reared it’s ugly head as I plugged in the headset! I started to get frustrated and watched many YouTube instruction videos about how audio works, what’s a trs vs a trrs, why doesn’t my mic and headset work? So on and so forth.

I prepared myself for the inevitable hours that it would take to fix the pc and possibilities of breaking it, but with a stubborn head set upon my shoulders I plunged into the dark depths of the pc and found… the hd audio cable was plugged in with half of the silver spikes poking into it.

I plugged the cord in correctly and put my headset on… and there it was the glorious music now I could listen to Shreksophone late at night without my parents knowing! TLDR. A good pc for an even better price but even great things come with negative side effects.

It’s a lovely PC, nice case and all, but I’m absolutely livid that the cable routing solution is just “stuff everything extra into the HDD bay and screw anyone installing a HDD,” which meant I spent a couple hours desperately trying to install my HDD and shuffle around the rat’s nest of cables and cords I unleashed.

I bought a prebuilt PC for multiple reasons but not having the headache of cable management was a big factor in my decision but joke’s on me, I still had to do it myself. There’s hardly any clearance behind the mobo’s panel, which wouldn’t be QUITE as bad of an issue if the outer PC panel bowed out slightly for some relief like a previous case I had does.

( Y’all got a panel that fits this case that does that? HMU. ) If you plan to supplement this PC with a HDD, maybe don’t. Pros tho: Runs so much quieter than my old PC. Inside of the case is very sleek with the mostly black parts.

Booting from an SSD is as nice as I dreamed it would be. Temps seems fine so far too. I do wish I had more control over the lights, like a dimmer of some kind instead of just turning them off entirely, but it’s also my first lighted case so it’s all very new.

Quality built computer with clean layout. Downsides include the HP factory BIOS with limited user settings. The factory shipping box is thin and inadequate for such an expensive machine. New box arrived torn up badly, but machine was OK.

No manuals are included with the computer and the online documents are vague and frustrating. The online motherboard spec sheet gives the wrong processor socket LGA1200 for the 17-1200K Intel Core. It should correctly say LGA1700 socket.

I contacted online service support about the error and they denied the error stating this was correct. Online support was a joke connecting to a boiler room with scripted responses. HP needs to copy Dell and have a complete comprehensive instruction manual with detailed photos, connections, and upgrade instructions.

The online links are next to useless. HP has a Youtube Omen 45L video showing removing and replacing parts but this does not meet the needs of a comprehensive manual. Vague blowout diagrams in multiple languages given in product links doesn’t cut it.

This is a well-built system with outstanding specs. The performance of the GeForce RTX 3070 is just as great as I’ve read and is the best GPU I’ve ever used. The 5800X is also incredible and I haven’t found anything that has been too much for this combo to handle.

There is only 16GB of RAM included so I’m probably going to top that off with two more 8GB for the open slots, but that is the only change I would make to this machine. The fans are usually quiet, but during gaming, the whole thing gets a little loud in general, which is to be expected.

It isn’t louder than any other PC I’ve used for gaming, and that is really the only time you hear anything from it. The included Nvme 1 TB drive is fast and has more space than I would ever need. There are plenty of USB ports on the front and some on the back, but no USC-C on the front which would be nice.

The lighting is a nice touch, as this build is actually very well done and nice to look at. Overall, this is without a doubt the best PC I’ve owned and I’m very happy with the Omen 40L.

Pros: • Great value when priced around $1,000 • Sturdy structural build • Very satisfactory performance from the RTX 2060 (Mobile edition). Performs well under these conditions: – Halo Infinite- 4k res (when the map didn’t require far-render distances), high settings • EVE Online- dual monitors, 2k res at 60 fps, max graphics settings (in the winter and in a small room you’ll stay warm with this setup).

• Diablo II Resurrected- 2k, 60 fps, max graphics settings but would lose a lot of fps when there’d be a lot of spells on-screen at one time. 1080p, 60 fps, high graphics setting was more reliable with fewer fps drops.

•.

I bought this desktop PC because my precious gaming laptop died. I was thinking that this would be loud and noisy, but at least it will have MUCH better specs compared to my old gaming laptop. When I finally received my PC, I was delighted that even when I ran games on ULTRA setting for at least half an hour, you can barely hear the fans! On top of that, it’s SUPER light in comparison to a “normal mATX” sized pc.

The fact that I can put in an additional NVME, and two extra SSD’s is amazing. The only downside of getting something so small is that trying to get to the innards if the PC is slightly difficult — for example, if you want to upgrade the RAM, good luck.

If you have big hands, you’ll have to dissemble the cpu fan before you can reach the ram slots. Other than that minor inconvenience, I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. A POWERFUL gaming pc, but nearly silent with a RTX 3070?! Forget about getting a gaming laptop that claims to have an RTX 3070 (they are usually underpowered Max-Q’s).

If you need to upgrade, don’t think. Just buy this. You won’t regret it!.

Great small form factor PC. Shipped in original box and included the MSI Keyboard and mouse which work really well. Seller saw this rig shipped in just 2 days and delivered by FedEx 2 days later. Came with a 1TB 7200 RPM spinner as the boot drive.

Used bootable Acronis USB to clone it to a replacement 500GB M. 2 and removed the 1TB 2. 5″ drive. Added a second 8GB memory module for a total of 16GB. The combination of these two updates made this rig nearly 15 times faster! Is a really nice gamer PC playing most all games on high graphics settings.

Overall, this was a great purchase and am glad I pushed the button!.

Full disclosure, I purchased this system to shuck the video card and run the basic system with just the Ryzen 5600g’s integrated graphics, which is perfectly capable in it’s own right as a stand-alone desktop.

I’ll review the graphics card first: The discrete ATI Radeon 6600xt graphics card (PC Partner OEM) that HP includes in this system is significantly better built than the single fan Geforce 3060 that is included in other HP systems.

It’s also faster in most games at 1080p resolution, which is where most people at this price point are going to play. The HP / PC Partner 6600xt actually ran slightly faster at stock speeds than a Gigabyte Eagle 6600xt which was a surprise.

It’s a more compact and efficient build, with 2 larger fans that move plenty of air to keep the video card running at 64 degrees C or less even under a full Furmark load for 30 minutes. It’s a nicer looking card than most budget 6600 series cards with a black fan shroud, full backplate and a minimalist red logo that glows red in the HP system, though I could not control the LED function in a custom built PC which is a bummer.

It looks just like the same basic cooler design as the mid level Powercolor and Sapphire retail cards. Unfortunately, my first card was defective out of the box and caused crashes and bizarre power supply squealing as soon as the ATI driver initialized the 3D core in a custom built PC.

This required swapping the entire system to get a fully working card, annoying but at least pain free thanks to Micro Center’s customer friendly return policy. The replacement card works perfectly. The desktop itself is a very minimalist but functionally adequate budget computer.

It has a highly integrated case + motherboard + power supply which will need to remain together as they are not usable in any other system. That said, it’s an easy machine to work on, though you’ll need a flathead screw driver to deal with HP’s proprietary screw heads HP uses.

One screw and the side panel pops off revealing the insides. Airflow actually is not bad, with one large side vent and one small vent at the top of the front panel providing an intake for the 92mm rear fan to draw air through.

The spec sheet covers most of the particulars, the standouts to note are that there are a total of 2 x 3. 5″/2. 5″ drive bays available, one of which is occupied by the 1 TB 3. 5″ hard disk and the other which is open if you want/need more storage in this.

The single stick of 16 gigs of RAM on one of two available slots is a miss on HP’s part, since it leaves the machine in single channel mode vs utilizing 2 x 8 gig modules which would significantly improve performance for the same price/cost.

Most people will either opt to replace the single 16 gig module with a pair of 8’s, particularly if using the memory speed sensitive 5600g’s Vega-8 graphics core in lieu of the included ATI Radeon card.

Separated from the graphics card, the basic desktop is effectively a budget $400 lightweight gaming desktop in a nice compact package. To custom build a machine of equal performance you’d have to spend at least $200 more on parts, so the lack of expandability and relatively budget focused case design is forgivable in my opinion.

This computer’s pricing is a reflection of the times we’re in, but for it’s relative price & performance either as a complete system or GPU + budget gaming desktop combo it’s a good value with decent minimalist aesthetics and build quality.

My first system had a major video card defect, the second was perfect so either I just got unlucky or there might be some QC issues in play. For that and the dumb single stick of RAM choice I knocked a star off of my rating.

I purchased from VIPOutlet’s eBay store, but I’ve also bought directly from them many times. I’ve had some out-of-the-box failures but they’ve always taken care of it. On one occasion, the unit (HP similar to this one) was under warranty and HP replaced it free of charge.

Everything Ive bought so far has had a manufacturers warranty on it and HP / Lenovo have all happily stepped up to solve any issues. Now to this system specifically. It’s important to know and understand what you are buying.

This is not a good “ready to go” gaming computer, but it’s close enough that with just a little effort, it can be a great starting gaming computer. First – RAM – you need to go to 16 and have two sticks.

Any 8GB 3200 1. 2v stick will pair with this and you’ll be all set. Or, you can go for a 1. 2v 3200 16, 32, or 64 gb set (whatever your needs) and be good to go. DON’T GET GENERIC 3200 THAT NEEDS 1. 35V the motherboard will not detect it properly and there’s no way to set XMP in the bios.

You need 1. 2v that runs 3200 as its base freq. Second – Hard Drive – The 256GB NVME is fine for a boot drive. but you’ll need more storage if you want to download and play games. Adding a 1TB SATA drive is cheap and will get you going for a while.

Or, if you want to swap the NVME you can get a 512gb or 1tb and use Acronis (or some other utility) to clone the drive. Or just install a fresh copy of Windows, but that’s a bit more technical. Regardless, more storage is a necessity.

A 2. 5″ SSD is also a great option. Last – Keyboard / Mouse – if you are wanting to game, then get some different peripherals. The bunded KB/MOUSE are terrible. (in my opinion)The rest of the system is great.

Front and Rear IO is way better than most. CPU, GPU match well and play most anything at 1080P high or medium settings at over 60 FPS. It’s quiet, small, and is a great little PC. I hope that helps folks understand what they are buying.

Have fun!.

You cannot beat the value for money here. Even outside of the current GPU market, you would not be able to get a pc with similar components for this cost except at maybe Black Friday type deals. I do wish that this pc shipped with dual channel ram.

I swapped in a pair of 2666mhz sticks I had in my old box and immediately saw a 5-10 fps increase in the game was playing. For 1080p gaming you can run pretty much any modern game at high or ultra settings at at least 60 frames per second.

Ray-tracing does introduce some issues, so do not recommend this card if that is your main draw. I have been playing Guardians of the Galaxy with ultra graphics and ray-tracing on the lowest level and a max fps setting of 60.

In certain areas with high ray traced reflections, the fps dips from 60 down to the low 20s, and the experience can be rather jarring. I was also initially worried about the 400w power-supply as well as that this case might run hot from reviews of other versions of these Pavillions I’ve seen around elsewhere.

However, the low power consumption of this gpu seems to alleviated any concerns on both fronts here. I usually cap my games at 60 or 75hz and with that in place I rarely draw more than 130w according to GPUz and the GPU temp stays in the low-mid 60’s under that load with a 55% fan-speed.

So lots of headroom there. I expect it to continue to perform well for the next several years as games becomes more demanding.

I bought this machine for my son to use for flight simulation for X-plane 11. He is training to be an airline pilot, so being able to practice instrument procedures and emergencies with high fidelity is important.

He had tried on his laptop, and while the screaming fan was a fairly accurate simulation of the propellor planes he did his training in, that wasn’t what we were looking for. Since I wanted the sim to use 4K, it seemed a big GPU and fast CPU were in order.

This machine did it super well. The computer also had to relatively compact to fit where he wanted it, and this machine is pretty small as gaming towers go. While the fans aren’t as absolutely silent as one of the really big cases are, being that this takes up half the space they are just fine (and since he “flies” using his fancy noise-cancelling headsets and the sim is pumping out engine sounds from the speakers/headset, you can’t hear it anyway) The only issue we had was the optional glass door (comes in the case) came shattered.

While I am sure it would look even cooler with the side made of dark tempered glass, given the use we had for the machine and the fact that both sides have a steel mesh in the middle that you can see the LEDs through it made no difference, so we chose to ignore it (also didn’t want to RMA the whole thing back which was what they said we’d have to do).

The amount of RAM while fine for basic stuff like MS-Office is totally inadequate for something like X-plane at 4K with all the add-ins for high-res scenery. etc, I upgraded to 32gb of ram with some nice gaming RAM.

However know that getting to the RAM slots (there are only 2?) or the M2 SSD is painful as after removing that metal side (same one with the glass door above) you have to unscrew and remove the CPU cooler (really unhappy to do that as you see all the thermal paste getting disrupted.

Having lived through thermal paste CPU failures in the past, was less excited for this. On the other hand if you are leaving everything stock this is irrelevant. Getting the cooler off was easy, and if you have big fingers (like me) getting to the RAM slots to unlock/seat the DIMMs was awkward, but it only took a couple of minutes for the upgrade.