14 DAY TRIAL // The back to school season is rapidly approaching and to take advantage of this moment, iBuyPower has recently announced the availability of the sub $1000 Gamer Power BTS11 desktop built using Intel' second-generation Sandy Bridge processors.
The system is housed inside a gloss white NZXT Phantom case and the standard configuration listed by iBuyPower is powered by a quad-core Intel Core i5-2500K processor with a base clock frequency of 3.3GHz.
This is kept cool thanks to a 240mm dual radiator water-cooling system built by Asetek and is seconded by 8GB of DDR3 system memory with a clock speed of 1600MHz.
Storage is provided by a 750GB hard drive with a spindle speed of 7200RPM, while the graphics card of choice is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti with 1GB of video buffer.
The rest of the specifications list includes a 24x double layer DVD burner, a 600W power supply unit and the system also packs support for 7.1 channel sound thanks to the audio codec installed on the Gigabyte GA-P67A-D3-B3 motherboard.
"This time of year students and parents are scrambling to buy books and school supplies, and a new computer is often at the top of that list," said Darren Su, vice president of iBuyPower.
"We designed Gamer Power BTS11 to meet the dual needs of the student gamer, offering a solid value without sacrificing performance," concluded the company's president.
The Gamer Power BTS11 is available now through September 30 from the company's website as well as from Tiger Direct and its pricing is set at $999. Customers with more specific gaming needs can build a customized version of the system on iBuyPower's website.
All in all, the Gamer Power BTS11 looks like a well-balanced gaming machine, even though it could definitely benefit from the move to a GeForce GTX 560 Ti (a $100 upgrade).