iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 590 in a Small Shell

Build, Noise, Heat, and Power Consumption

As far as build quality goes, the iBUYPOWER LAN Warrior II's claim to fame is being a "portable" gaming machine. The MicroATX case actually comes with a handle (not included in our review unit), and iBUYPOWER's engineers have gone to great lengths to keeping this machine cool by custom sourcing a 92mm water-cooling kit for the processor. While the LAN Warrior II is certainly the lightest desktop I've tested short of AVADirect's diminutive Nano Gaming Cube, it's still heavy enough to be a pain to move. This isn't iBUYPOWER's fault so much as it's the nature of the beast: desktop PCs are heavy, period, and this much high-end hardware merely exacerbates the problem.

With that said, the assembly is excellent (especially given how fast the unit was sent to us), but I can't help but split hairs with the NZXT Vulcan case. At $69 retail it's not the cheapest case in the world but it's not exactly what you expect to find on a two-thousand dollar desktop machine either--this is a cut corner I've harped on CyberPowerPC for, too. It's not that the Vulcan is a bad case--cooling is actually very efficient and effective (as we'll see in a bit), the 200mm side intake fan does wonders for keeping the GTX 590 cool, and the integrated fan controls are much appreciated. At the same time, there are swankier cases being used by other manufacturers that could do the job and do it better; in house I have a machine built in an Antec Mini P180 that's been modified to include an intake fan in the side panel, and that system produces comparable performance with much lower noise. It also didn't require me to bring to bear the full strength of my robust 5'8", 130-pound frame to remove one of the side panels.

The LAN Warrior II's big victories do stem from the excellent thermal and acoustic qualities of the NZXT Vulcan, though. While it's not the quietest case in the world, turning the fans all the way down produces reasonably low noise levels while still keeping the internal components nice and frosty. That's good, because the rushed overclock shows with the telltale gripe I've had with most of these boutique systems: lack of fine tuning. The BCLK was raised to 105, and the voltages were all left at auto. At least the motherboard is defaulting to using an offset instead of just running at a constant high voltage the way the DigitalStorm BlackOps did, but a more efficient overclock can do away with even needing a water-cooling loop in the first place. And what about those temperatures, anyhow?

They're pretty good, actually. Of particular note is the GTX 590 that's cruising along at under 80C under load, which is downright impressive. Meanwhile the i7-2600K never breaks 60C under load, a testament to both the water-cooling loop and the fact that a loaded Sandy Bridge processor warms up a room about as much as a hot fart.

Acoustically the system does run quietly given what's inside, but the GTX 590 will not be beaten. While running the STALKER benchmark, I could actually sit on the other side of the room, watch "Video Dead," and know the benchmark was finished running by the sudden silence in the room. This still isn't comparable to the whine of a screaming Radeon HD 6990, but it does speak to both the noise required to cool 375 watts worth of GPU power alongside the relative lack of attention paid to the acoustics of the case.

Idle power is pretty reasonable considering the high performance on tap, and naturally the GTX 590 isn't going to do you many favors under load. Overall, the power draw is about what you'd expect for the components, so other than noting that you'll use substantially more power for the GTX 590 than you would for GTX 570, there's not much to say.