iBUYPOWER Slate 8 MESH Gaming PC Desktop Computer (AMD Ryzen 7 9700X CPU, AMD Radeon RX 7800XT 16GB GPU, 32GB DDR5 Non-RGB 5200MHz RAM (16×2), 1TB NVMe SSD, WiFi Ready, Windows 11 Home) – SMA7R78XT02

Impressive for the price
While always skeptical about buying pre built PCs, this one caught my eye. The value per part and profession name made me go ahead and take the jump and risk. So far I have not regretted anything. Beautiful RGB, fast processor, great graphics card(for 1080p). So far, no overheating, quiet fans, and amazing connection speeds. I’m very happy to say that this is worth every penny.

Avoid iBuyerPower bad Tech Support, customer service, and BIOS has security flaws they won’t fix!!!
This review is based on the customer experience and a result of a horrible experience with the iBuyPower tech support and customer service teams. Lots of details but demonstrates iBuyPower does not take care of their customers. This is a case of a very unique replacement motherboard problem which took a while to properly identify the root cause being the replacement motherboard being defective. Even though iBuyPower was contacted for the first motherboard problem which resulted in a RMA and motherboard replacment. Then a WD hard drive failure which was initially diagnosed as a failed hard drive. There was a second hard drive failure of the SSD. After much time and several failures all symptoms point to the replacement motherboard having a defect (likely SATA controller). Even though iBuyPower has been involved with every problem, they fail to see how they are all related and most likely caused by a defective motherboard. iBuyPower also uses custom OEM motherboards which serious BIOS issues that Intel has published fixes for, but iBuyPower won’t request a BIOS update from the ASRock factory that provides the OEM boards.I purchased this computer for my, at the time high school son, with his summer job money for gaming. In the warranty period a problem required the motherboard to be replaced. The RMA had two options, send the whole computer to iBuyPower in California at our cost for repair with a minimum 6 week turn around time. The other option was to pay for a new motherboard, RMA the bad motherboard, and after iBuyPower receives bad board payment would be refunded. I have a MS in computer engineering with decades working with computer hardware, so we opted for the quick pay/return/refund option. That went smoothly, RAM, CPU, and graphics card were installed. The first motherboard returned, and refund received.Three months later the Western Digital 1TB SATA drive failed. A support ticket was opened with iBuyPower but they never responded. The ticket went unanswered. Obvious option was the HD had gone bad (rare but happens). WD RMA’d the drive and a couple months later things seem to be fine. Fastforward a year and the BIOS wouldn’t boot to the AData SSD drive. After the lack of support with the WD drive this time, I went direct to AData. AData tools reported a damaged drive and an RMA was issued, and the SSD drive was replaced.I was also concerned about several serious security flaws identified by Intel in 2020 and 2021. Intel provided fixes but these are delivered in a BIOS update. The BIOS for this system is version 1.0 dated from 2019. There is no newer BIOS in 2021. I contact iBuyPower about getting an updated firmware and was told that’s the manufacture’s job. So I contacted ASRock because their name is on the B365M IB-R motherboard. ASRock America cannot help because this is a custom OEM motherboard made for iBuyPower, by the factory in Tiawan. ASRock informed me only iBuyPower can request new BIOS from the Factory. ASRock said it’s easy to do, but iBuyPower needs to ask for update. iBuyPower refuses to contact factory to request an update. These security problems are serious CVE risk 9 of 10. I haven’t researched exactly which vulnerabilities affect this system but ASRock has confirmed there are several and the BIOS needs to be updated ASAP.When asking ASRock about BIOS updated I also asked for help understanding what could cause two SATA drives to fail. ASRock suggested the SATA controller may be bad and to request a replacement from iBuyPower. ASRock America is unable to help because iBuyPower ordered custom OEM motherboards direct from the ASRock factory. ASRock America has no resources for dealing with the OEM boards delivered to iBuyPower. ASRock tech support agrees the board appears to be defective and that I should ask iBuyPower to replace the board. If interested in the BIOS security issues google: Intel-SA CVE Escalation of PrivilegeIn December contacted iBuyPower about second hard drive failure and was told because it was no outside the warranty period there was nothing they could do. While I understand it’s out of warranty, time has shown the motherboard that was received as an in-warranty replacement is defective. There was evidence of a problem just after the replacement board was installed. After the second hard drive failure the cause appears to be a defective motherboard. Because the problem is not frequent the SSD failure took a while to surface. The root-cause wasn’t known until after the warranty had expired. Even though the first drive failed shortly after the RMA board replacement iBuyPower insists the system is out of warranty and there’s nothing they can do. They replaced the motherboard, shortly after a support ticket was opened for the first drive failure but they refuse to accept the board they sent in the original RMA was defective.iBuyPower tech support is extremely busy. Hold times to speak to a rep are in hours. After carefully explaining the timeline and asking for help the reps are unable to help, they stick with the system is out of warranty. They won’t discuss the timeline and fail to acknowledge first drive failure was a sign of a problem other than just a drive failure. The second drive failure supports the drive failures were not caused by the drives themselves.Do yourself a favor and find a builder who will take care of their customers. iBuyPower will not take care of you.

It’s Nice
The pc has a little bit of noise but the Performance is good I can play games like Call Of Duty, Warzone, Roblox, Fortnite, Madden, all at max graphics and I’m always above 100 fps and on lowest performance mode I average at least 500 fps the Lighting is customizable, Wifi there’s a little thing u gotta plug in which I didn’t know for a little bit 😬 but I average 300+ download speed and 10+ upload which is a big improvement. Value for money I would say this pc should cost more but it doesn’t and it should be more and I love it.

Was very easy to set up.
It was very easy to set not taking much time even with adding some stuff to the pc. I haven’t had it for very long but it has been very good for its price and work with all the games I have tried playing on it.