Product Review - Quick Verdict
The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 desktop is a gaming machine that comes out with all guns blazing. With an Intel i9 chip, 16 gigs of RAM, an RTX 2070 GPU, and an included SSD, this one is not for people on a budget. The desktop performs very well when it comes to modern games. If you’re serious about your gaming, then this gaming desktop is a good option.
- Intel Core i9 processor is a beast
- Nvidia RTX 2070 is perfect for modern gaming
- Tons of connectivity options
- You'll have to get a monitor separately which will add to your total cost.
Author's Rating
iBUYPOWER is a company is that is known for its gaming machines. They offer more value through gaming desktops that are better than gaming machines from more mainstream manufacturers like Alienware, ASUS ROG, and so on. The new iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 is a high-end desktop that excels at gaming and comes at a price that won’t break your bank.
With the latest gen Intel processor and other superior hardware choices, the iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 is a gaming desktop that targets hardcore gamers. With a price tag of under $1800, the Trace 9240 model is a solid offering in this category. How good is this gaming PC, you ask? Let’s find out in our full review below.
Design
The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 comes in a standard-sized desktop tower. The design of this gaming PC is stylish and is different than the usual desktops. There are a couple of LED fins, on the front face, that offer a unique look to the desktop.
The power button is found on the top. There are two USB 3.0 ports, a mic, and a headphone jack to the left of the power button. Since this is a standard tower, you may have to find some space in your desk. If you have limited space, then you will have to cram this in.
The left side of this desktop is the most attractive side. It has a transparent tempered glass through which you can enjoy the inside view in all its colorful glory. The case comes with 16 RGB colors that can be controlled remotely. This gives you the flexibility to configure the lighting to suit for liking.
Like in every serious gaming machine, the iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 also comes with liquid cooling. With a powerful processor and a discrete graphics card in place, you need excellent cooling to keep things running smoothly. The cooling setup in this desktop achieves that.
The keyboard and the mouse you get with the desktop are standard ones. You can say some good things about the mouse as it is a gaming mouse and comes with 7 RGC colors. The keyboard, on the other hand, is decent. You have markings for direction keys and there are also some dedicated keys as well. Overall, the design language of this desktop is solid.
Performance
When we said that this desktop has a powerful processor, we weren’t joking. The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 is powered by an Intel Core i9 9900K processor. This processor is from Intel’s latest 9th gen and comes with 8 cores. Usually, you’d expect a gaming desktop’s processor to have 4 cores, but here we twice that amount.
The processor comes with a base clock speed of 3.60GHz which itself is powerful. But when you need more power, the silicon will turbo boost itself to a maximum of 5.0GHz. The processor gets a CPUMark benchmark score of 20184 which is just fantastic.
But benchmarks are everything, right? What about real-life performance? The Intel Core i9 processor will blow through all your everyday tasks with ease. Even if you are a heavy user who runs processor-intensive applications, this Intel chip will not break a sweat. For a light user, this processor is overkill so we’d would recommend a gaming desktop with something less powerful.
The 16GB DDR4 RAM in the memory department complements this processor is a beautiful way. With the multi-core performance of this laptop, you can multitask your heart out, thanks to the 16 gigs of RAM. We do agree that having 32GB would have made more sense. But you can upgrade that easily without any issues.
How would you make an already blazing fast machine faster? By including an SSD in it. The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 gaming desktop comes with 240 gigs of solid-state storage which makes the whole computing experience even better. The SSD makes things like booting the OS in a few seconds easier.
If you need more space, there is also a 1TB traditional mechanical hard drive in place. This combination of HDD and SSD gives you both the speed and the space you would need.
Gaming Performance
The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 desktop comes with one of the best graphics cards out there. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 comes with Turing architecture and also with 8 gigs of dedicated memory. From the performance point of view, the RTX 2070 is definitely an improved version, thanks to the new architecture in place.
With this new GPU, you should expect at least 50% more performance. The GPU also leverages technologies like real-time ray tracing and AI-powered computations in games. When it comes to running games, you shouldn’t have any problems. You can run pretty much any game on this device without compromising any settings. 1080p gaming on this machine is a breeze and works as advertised.
Games like Call of Duty Black Ops 4, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Forza Horizon, FIFA 19, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Monster Hunter World, Far Cry 5, and other recent titles run fine at high and ultra settings without any problem. If you are interested in eSports, the GPU works like a charm in those games as well.
Connectivity
The first thing you’ll notice is the lack of an optical drive. Desktops are expected to have an optical drive, but the iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 breaks the trend and chucks the optical drive. In our opinion, it doesn’t matter as pretty much all the games are available as downloads these days.
The desktop comes with both 802.11ac and Bluetooth connectivity. You can also find all kinds of ports as well. There are 4 USB 3.1 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a mic, and also a headphone jack. The graphics card also comes with an HDMI port, a DVI port, and a Display port as well. These ports should take care of your connectivity needs.
iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 Review – Our Verdict
The iBUYPOWER Trace 9240 gaming desktop is an excellent gaming machine. It comes with the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card which is a fantastic GPU for the price. Gaming is a dream on this desktop and you can game on for the foreseeable future.
With the processing power, GPU, SSD, and memory in place, it will be very hard even for a custom-made desktop to beat the performance of this gaming PC from iBUYPOWER. If you are a serious gamer looking for an upgrade, or if you are going to purchase a high-end gaming PC, this one is an excellent choice.