iBuyPower Chimera XLC: Untapped Potential Keeps a Beast at Bay

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Raft of elbow room for upgrades
Excellent frame design

Cons

Timid overclocking limits its potential

Our Verdict

A great case and premium components make for an imposing machine, but its timid overclocking prevents the Chimera XLC from leading the Performance PC plurality.

The iBuyPower Chimera XLC is loud in all the right ways. Its aggressive looks include a slick black finish and fun, fiery decals. Its well-organized chassis is packed with premium powerful components that run mutely, despite the superfluity of monumental fans. And at $2700 (as of April 29, 2020), information technology stands out as one of the more than monetary value-competent entries on our Performance Desktop PC chart.

The Chimera comes housed in the Phantom NZXT, a stunning (albeit heavy) build that we inaugural encountered on iBuyPower's Gamer Paladin XLC. Tall and roomy, the case is encircled by large, virtually silent fans. Of special note are the five fan controls located connected the lid. You can toggle the devotee speeds at will–handy if you decide to overclock the entrails and you need a bit more airflow. iBuyPower also provides a pair of USB ports, an eSATA port, and the requisite headphone and mic jacks.

Inside, a simple liquid-cooling loop keeps the overclocked CPU's temperatures in check, caparison the heat and routing it to the dual-fan 120mm radiator strapped to the lead of the case. Tinkerers will appreciate the roominess of the interior. You'll see a pair off of PCI-e X8 slots, and one free PCI-e X16 slot (the former houses the massive graphics card).

There's room interior for a total of eight hard drives, plus foursome more 5.25-inch drives–the Blu-ray drive occupies one bay. The C. H. Best part: Almost everything is tool-free (the graphics batting order is held in target away thumbscrews).

Cables bum make or break a custom-build, and iBuyPower has through with a smashing job of holding this PC kempt. Cables are routed through rubber grommets and effectively hidden in a compartment happening the opposite side of the chassis. The optimized airflow keeps the Chimera XLC's innards happy. But woe unto those who seek to add new ironware. It's a tight fit–and if you want to preserve the neat introduction, you'll have your work cut of meat out for you.

The Chimera's rear end offers a fair assortment of connectivity options: eight USB ports, two USB 3.0 ports, deuce eSATA ports, optical and analog SPDIF audio frequency connectors, 7.1-channel audio connectors, and a gigabit ethernet jack. Sneak and keyboard purists will appreciate the PS/2 serial keyboard and mouse combination port. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 graphics card contains three DVI ports and a mini-HDMI production port. Unless you're especially involved to FireWire, at that place's something for everyone here. A multiformat card reader would've been nice, though.

Intel's Inwardness i7-2600k processor, overclocked to 4.3GHz, sits aboard 8GB of RAM and Nvidia's latest and greatest dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590. A 128GB solid-say drive gets you up and running quickly, spell the 2TB hard drive stores all of your stuff. All very stately–but it's not the strongest loadout we've seen.

On our WorldBench 6 mental test suite, the Chimera XLC attained a scotch of 188. The Origin Genesis ($6400), which packs twice as much RAM, a pair of 128GB SSDs in Foray 0 configuration, and a processor pushed to 5GHz, earned a 223–the highest grudge we've seen up to now. Bare mortals can opt for the V3 Convoy ($2500), which is also overclocked to 5GHz, and which earned a WorldBench 6 score of 204; IT offers a pair of 64GB SSDs in RAID 0, but only 4GB of RAM.

Number crunching is dandy, but most prospective buyers Don River't looking at those flame decals and think "spreadsheets!" The Chimaera's Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 is nothing to sneeze at, agitated out 200 frames per second on our Substitute Tournament 3 benchmark (at 2560 by 1600 resolution and highest settings). The Origin Genesis beats it, just barely (managing 212 FPS), but IT's stocked with with three Nvidia GeForce GTX 580s.

Ultimately, a number of machines on our Performance Desktop chart best the Chimera XLC, merely in that location's enough of potential lying torpid Hera. The V3 Convoy delivers more raw power for about $200 to a lesser extent, but if you aren't dainty about overclocking your PC (and potentially voiding your warranty), bumping the C.P.U.'s measly overclock dormie a few notches would do a good deal to close the spread. And such an expandable shell, you'll have space for upgrades aplenty once this fashionable rig starts to show its age.