iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07: A High-Performance Prebuilt That Knows Its Limits

It's not the cheapest time to be getting into PC gaming. Prices are going up. The iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07 in front of me for review isn't immune, either. The system, priced at $2,149. That's a tricky thing to navigate when determining value here, as nothing is as good value as it was five months ago, but I have generally little bad to say about the Element Pro. It's solid.

Starting with its choice of components, it comes with an Asus Prime RX 9070 XT 16 GB, which isn't far off the choice of graphics card I'd choose for a PC build of my own right now. It's capable at 4K and has 16 GB of VRAM. That alone is sure to make some gamers swoon. Though you don't get to switch on DLSS, FSR is a decent alternative. And the Prime card, including a triple-fan shroud, is pretty cool and quiet—reaching a mere 61 °C in my testing in Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition.

The CPU is the tremendous best CPU for gaming. That title has swapped hands to the one-generation newer

We're in a dire state with memory, in large part thanks to demand for AI. Thankfully, this PC does circumvent the need to think much more on that, including 32 GB of DDR5-6000. It's decent-looking stuff in here, two sticks of XPG Lancer Blade RGB (AX5U6000C48), but it's a fairly high latency kit. It's running at CL48. Before the great mempocalypse, that would've been seen as relatively sluggish. Now, I suppose, it's realistic—thanks, AI.

All of which is loaded into a fairly low-key and pretty basic motherboard: the Asus B650EM Max Gaming. Despite having 'Max' in the name, it's not totally loaded up with ports, slots and features. It has more USB 2.0 ports than USB 3.0 ports (5 vs 4) and only one of the latter is USB Type-C. Though that it has any Type-C is probably to be commended. There are also three (yes three!) M.2 slots on this motherboard: two on the front and one on the back. The top slot is rated to PCIe 5.0 bandwidth, which is great, though there's no heatsink included and likely requiring one at a later date, depending on the drive.

For now, only one of these is occupied. The top slot contains a 2 TB Kingston NV3 drive running at a modest speed of 6,000 MB/s seq. read and 5,000 MB/s seq. write over a PCIe 4.0 connection. That's a bit slower than some of the

One thing I like to check with any prebuilt PC is the power supply. Say that 10 times quickly. The one used here is the RDY Y40 Valorant, and I'm in the same mindset as I was then. It's not a very well known brand, but it is an OEM to some more well-known brands, such as Fractal. While it was for a different HP1 model, our pal Aris over at Cybenetics was happy to

As for what I can see from pulling apart the Element Pro, this is a non-modular unit but includes a pretty good selection of cables. Though it's not used here, the power supply comes with a 12VHPWR connection for a future upgrade if you decide to switch sides—or AMD switches connector for a forthcoming GPU generation. There's also a bunch of SATA connectors and no shortage of 8-pin cables. The cables are black, too, which is pretty common these days, but trust me, they could be a lot uglier.

iBuyPower is using a case of its own design here, the Element 9 Pro, and it's not a bad looking creation. It's what's known as a fish tank, with a windowed side panel and a windowed front panel, offering easy peeping inside. I regret that sentence already.

There's room to mount three fans to the right of the motherboard tray, into which iBuyPower has rather smartly placed reversed fans. That's a nice touch. Reverse fans are pretty much essential if you want to make a fish tank PC case actually look decent. They work the same as any normal fan except the exhaust-side all glammed up versus the intake. So, in this case (literally), you have three fans as intake rather than exhaust. These iBuyPower Gen 9 Deluxe Reverse fans run up to 1800 RPM, and while usually not my thing, I don't mind the lighting. There is, however, a slight but noticeable wobble to them at low speeds—accentuated by the infinity mirror hubs.

The cooler is another of iBuyPower's own creations—sorta, someone makes it for the company but I don't know who. It's the AW4, which sells separately for

The liquid cooler was a little sloshy during first boot. Perhaps on account of the international travel this PC took to reach here, which it survived in good part thanks to the top-notch packaging. Since then, the PC as a whole runs at fairly average noise levels. It's not always the quietest, but it doesn't ramp up too much on account of those slower spinning fans than most.

As for the aforementioned packaging, this is definitely a highlight. Seems a bit odd to focus on that, I know, but as someone that ships PCs in and out of PC Gamer towers every couple of weeks, I've come to appreciate a good box. I regret that sentence too. There's no styrofoam used here, thank God, as I hate that stuff. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Much more reliable foam inserts hold the Element Pro in place. Similarly, inside the PC is padded out with a specially molded foam insert that also holds the graphics card box in place.

The graphics card comes packaging separately with the Element Pro. You need to install it yourself upon arrival. There are idiot-proof instructions taped to the outside of the case to make sure you do so correctly (not calling you an idiot, but even if you were, you'd be okay). Also the HDMI port on the motherboard is covered by a large sticker telling to install your HDMI/DisplayPort cable into the graphics card itself—no guesses as to why that sticker is needed.