iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 Review

If you’re on the lookout for a high-end gaming desktop, then you’re sure to be confused by the range of options you have on the market. What you need is a desktop that plays all the games without costing a lot and without any major compromises. The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 is the latest gaming desktop that fits these conditions. In this iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 review, we are going to dissect this new high-end gaming desktop. It comes with really impressive specs that scream premium. Some might feel like the desktop is a bit expensive, but trust us we’ve seen inferior machines that have cost a lot more. So how good is the performance of the iBUYPOWER Trace 9230? Can it fulfill your gaming dreams? Let’s find that out.

Design

The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 comes in a stylish case that screams gaming. Gaming desktops come with the sportiest designs and this one is no different. To be honest, this one here is a bit of minimalist in the list. The front of the cabinet has a nice curve to it with a couple of LED strips that can be customized to a color of your choice. The tempered glass panel on the side gives a gorgeous view of what’s going on the inside. With a ton of lighting that can be changed to suit your mood and need, this one’s definitely a showoff. The glass is a lot stronger than the ones you usually get and dropping it once or twice won’t cause much of a damage. Being a gaming machine, the desktop comes with liquid cooling which is nice. You can see the pipes through the glass window. In addition to the liquid cooling, there are slits for hot air to escape on the front face of the case. There are similar hot air outlets on the top and on the back as well. The magnetic dust remover is a nice touch and is very easy to clean. The keyboard and the mouse we get here are pretty neat for gaming. The keyboard is nice to type on and comes with good key travel. The WASD and the arrow keys are colored along with a few other keys as well. There are also some keys that can be customized for gaming as well. A nice touch here is that they’ve included the number pad as well. The gaming mouse is pretty good to use too.

iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 Specs

The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 comes with an Intel Core i7 9700K processor at its helm. This is an octa-core processor and comes with a base clocking frequency of 3.6GHz. With the help of turbo boost, the processor can be clocked to a maximum of 4.9GHz. The processor comes with a cache memory of 12MB which should be very useful in everyday activities. The processor does well in terms of benchmarks. It scores a 17206 in the CPUMark benchmark which puts this processor in the high-end category. When it comes to real-life performance, the desktop does really well. It can run through your everyday stuff like browsing the web, streaming videos, social media and other stuff like a breeze. The desktop does not stop there. If you’re a heavy user, the desktop will offer you excellent support. You can run pretty much any application on this machine as the processor has the legs to handle them all. The memory department comes flush with 16GB of DDR4 type RAM. For a heavy gaming unit, it is normal to expect 32 gigs, but this is enough for most gamers. You can also do a lot of multitasking if that’s your thing. Being a desktop, you can upgrade the memory easily if you need more in the future. For storage, the desktop comes with a combination of a hard drive (1TB) and a solid-state drive (240GB). This is an excellent combination as it benefits the user in more ways than one. You get all the space you want while also keeping the performance top-notch. If you have the budget, you can change the storage completely into SSD for the best performance ever.

Gaming on the iBUYPOWER Trace 9230

How good is gaming on the iBUYPOWER Trace 9230? That’s the most important question and here’s our answer. The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card. This is the second fastest graphics card there is for gaming machines and to have it makes this a premium gaming desktop. The GPU comes with all the bells and whistles allowing you to play pretty much any game you want. The dedicated video memory of 8GB only makes things better. The following are some of the games and their frame rates when played with high settings.

• Anno 1800 – 77 FPS
• F1 2019 – 151 FPS
• Far Cry New Dawn – 92 FPS
• Anthem – 85 FPS
• Metro Exodus – 65 FPS
• Apex Legends – 131 FPS
• Battlefield V – 106 FPS
• FIFA 2019 – 289 FPS
• Fortnite – 145 FPS

The above table shows us the performance of the desktop w.r.t. some games when played in high settings. You can also play these games and similar ones even with ultra settings as well. The GPU is powerful making it a good one for the near future. So you can play the best games in the industry for a couple of years to come.

Connectivity

The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 comes with a decent set of ports for connectivity purposes. The desktop has five USB 3.0 gen ports that are useful for data transfer and connectivity. However, you don’t find any USB type C ports which is a minor disappointment. There is a DVI port, an HDMI port, and also a Display port for connecting this desktop to a gaming monitor for your choice. There is also an Ethernet port for you to enjoy high-speed internet. If you want to avoid the clutter of wires, the desktop comes with built-in WiFi. The desktop also supports the Bluetooth standard as well. Overall, the iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 comes with a lot of connectivity options that’ll satisfy the gamer in you.

Bottomline

The iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 is a high-end gaming desktop that comes with a good price tag. The specs inside the desktop are premium and made for the best in the business. If you’re a heavy user, the desktop will serve you extremely well. When it comes to gaming, there are not many desktops that’ll outplay this one here. You can play pretty much anything you want. The desktop also gives you a ton of connectivity options as well. If you’re interested in a high-end gaming machine, then the iBUYPOWER Trace 9230 is a solid choice.