iBuyPower Value Pro

The system lacks some of the polish you'd expect from bigger-name PCs, but iBuyPower's Value Pro has all the makings of an excellent jack-of-all-trades system, including a very attractive $1,299 price tag and a suite of strong midrange components. Your configuration options are wide ranging; our test system fell somewhere in the middle and included a speedy 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of 400MHz memory, and Nvidia's midrange GeForce FX 5600 graphics card. We suggest you spend a few extra dollars to increase the hard drive capacity from 80GB to 120GB and choose a ViewSonic LCD over the Aopen display that came bundled with our review unit. No matter which features you choose for the Value Pro, though, the end result is a PC with a price that's tough to beat.

	BAPCo SysMark 2002 rating			SysMark 2002 Internet-content-creation rating			SysMark 2002 office-productivity rating

Dell Dimension 4600C (2.8GHz Intel P4, 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz) 285  405  200

ABS Awesome 4500B (2.6GHz Intel P4, 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz) 275  388  195

iBuyPower Value Pro PC (2.8GHz Intel P4, 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz) 270  378  193

MPC ClientPro (2.8GHz Intel P4, 512MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz) 262  376  182

IBM ThinkCentre A50p (2.8GHz Intel P4, 256MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz) 249  365  170

To measure application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark 2002, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet-content-creation applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver).

3D graphics and gaming performance
Thanks to Nvidia's midrange GeForce FX 5600 graphics card with 256MB of graphics memory, the iBuyPower has the horsepower to handle many graphics tasks. Its graphics scores of 549 in Futuremark's 3DMark03 and its 95.3 frames per second in Unreal Tournament 2003 were in line with the 5600-based competition. Only serious gamers and digital-video hobbyists will need to upgrade to a more advanced graphics card.

3D gaming performance (in fps)  (Longer bars indicate better performance) Futuremark 3DMark03 1,600x1,200 4X antialiasing 4X anisotropic filtering

Dell Dimension 4600C (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) 1328  IBM ThinkCentre A50p (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) 639  iBuyPower Value Pro PC (GeForce FX 5600) 549  ABS Awesome 4500B (Nvidia GeForce FX 5600) 521  MPC ClientPro (ATI Mobility Radeon 9000) N/A

3D gaming performance (in fps)  (Longer bars indicate better performance) Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby-Antalus 1,024x768

Dell Dimension 4600C (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) 165.0  ABS Awesome 4500B (Nvidia GeForce FX 5600) 112.8  IBM ThinkCentre A50p (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) 104.5  iBuyPower Value Pro PC (GeForce FX 5600) 95.3  MPC ClientPro (ATI Mobility Radeon 9000) 62.5

To measure 3D gaming performance, CNET Labs uses Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 2003, which is widely used as an industry-standard benchmark. We use Unreal to measure a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8 (DX8) interface at a 32-bit color depth and at a resolution of 1,024x768. Antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are disabled. At this color depth and resolution, Unreal is much less demanding than 3DMark03, and is therefore an excellent means of comparing the performance of low-end to high-end graphics subsystems. We report the results of Unreal's Flyby-Antalus test in frames per second (fps).

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:

ABS Awesome 4500B
Windows XP Home; 2.6GHz Intel P4; Intel 865PE chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5600 128MB; WDC WD1200JB-00CRA1 1,200GB 7,200rpm

Dell Dimension 4600C
Windows XP Home, 2.8GHz Intel P4; Intel 865PE chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB; WDC WD800BB-75CAA0 80GB 7,200rpm

IBM ThinkCentre A50p
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel P4; Intel 865G chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB; Maxtor 6Y120L0 1200GB 7,200rpm

iBuyPower Value Pro
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel P4; Intel 865PE chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; Nvidia GeForce FX 5600 256MB; Maxtor 6Y080L0 80GB 7,200rpm

MPC ClientPro
Windows XP Professional; 2.8GHz Intel P4; SIS 645DX chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; Seagate ST3120023A 120GB 7,200rpm

iBuyPower backs the Value Pro with an above-average, one-year-parts and three-year-labor warranty, which now includes a year of onsite service. You can increase the duration of the onsite service for an added cost.

First-time PC owners may get a little lost upon setup, since the Value Pro comes with neither a system manual nor a setup guide. If you find yourself in need of assistance, you'll have to sift through the included motherboard manual, which is the closest thing to a user manual you get. iBuyPower offers toll-free telephone support Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT. Online support is limited to browsing a list of driver downloads and sending e-mail to iBuyPower tech support. By comparison, other companies are now offering live chat with a support technician and, at the very least, a troubleshooting FAQ page on their site that details common problems. Still, iBuyPower's prices make its products among the best deals you'll find, even if they come at the cost of a printed manual or more robust online-support options.

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