ibuypower lcd panel free sample

iBUYPOWER Snowblind - Tempered Glass LCD Side Panel Gaming PC!If there was ever a concern that PC gaming was stagnating, a recent spate of new system announcements and Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to Windows 10 gaming should put such concerns to rest. Not only are there the usual upgraded CPU and GPU cycles underway, but gaming system makers are tossing some real innovation into the mix.

One example is iBuyPower, which makes a complete line of gaming PCs spanning price points from low to high. They have apparently moved on from just offering the highest-end components, however, with new cases that incorporate a transparent LCD display in a side panel, PC Gamer reports.

According to iBuyPower, “Project Snowblind represents the next leap forward in gaming PC customization. Featuring a tailor-made clear LCD side panel, this PC will showcase your hardware like never before, while allowing you to have virtually any graphic display.”

You can customize a new Snowblind system by heading over to the iBuyPower site. The company hopes to ship systems by the end of February, meaning that you won’t have to wait too long for one of the more innovative case accessories we have seen in a while.

iBUYPOWER Project Snowblind - Custom Digital Side PanelFor those who like LCD panels, iBuyPower has put one in a PC’s side panel. The company did this with its new design, known as the Snowblind. The case for this new system combines a traditional clear window display — so you can see all of your no-doubt pricey components — with an LCD readout, letting you put any information you want right where everyone can see it.

The system is pretty eye-catching and was quite an attraction at the iBuyPower booth at this year’s Computex. Championing iBuyPower’s love of customization and providing their customers with options when they buy a full system, the Snowblind is designed to let them do just that.

“Project Snowblind represents the next leap forward in gaming PC customization,” iBuyPower said in a related statement. “Featuring a tailor-made clear LCD side panel, this PC will showcase your hardware like never before, while allowing you to have virtually any graphic display.”

Buyers of a Snowblind system can expect all of the usual standards that they get with an iBuyPower system, but with this particular PC, there is the addition of that fancy-looking LCD display. In the above imagery iBuyPower has had it displaying CPU usage, letting you know exactly what is sipping power from your processor, but the idea is that you could have anything display there.

Theoretically you could have a logo, or system specifications, or a chat window that gives you a heads-up when someone is trying to get in touch — the sky is the limit and iBuyPower is hoping that level of customization and user control will help Project Snowblind become a popular part of its range of systems.

The only downside is that right now getting hold of one of these systems isn’t easy. To do so you need to contact iBuyPower directly for a quote, which likely means it’s going to be a pricey build.

Plenty of gaming desktops have translucent glass panels, but not many of them double as interactive LCD screens. That"s what makes iBuyPower"s Snowblind PC so jaw-dropping. This one-of-a-kind desktop packs a translucent monitor right into its case, which can display cool color patterns, pertinent system information or whatever else you want to show off while you game.

Key Specs and FeaturesSnowblind"s see-through LCD side panel essentially operates as its own monitor, allowing you to play videos and display widgets right on the case itself. The demo unit I saw displayed some mesmerizing color effects, as well as rotating Intel and iBuyPower logos as well as widgets that displayed the time and the system"s CPU usage. Plenty of potential here, practical or otherwise.

Snowblind is set to launch in February. The model we saw would run you $1,800, largely due to the custom high-end parts inside, though iBuyPower is working to come up with more wallet-friendly configurations. We look forward to spending more time with Snowblind and putting as much crazy content as possible on its translucent display, so stay tuned for our full review.

iBuypower"s Snowblind sports one of the most unique aesthetic features we"ve ever seen in a custom shop gaming PC with its translucent side-panel LCD display. The company sent us its second-generation version of the chassis called the Element bearing a modified “Extreme” configuration - the most-premium component setup for the Snowblind. For those with the cash, the $2,542 price tag is worth the performance and one-of-a-kind side-panel display.

The iBuypower Snowblind Extreme can come in two different cases – the original N450 or the Element chassis. Both are two toned white and black, with the majority of the exposed surface area colored white. Our review sample came in the company’s 2nd generation Element case, with smooth edges and a tempered glass front and side panel.

The front glass exposes two 120mm white LED intake fans that take air from the bottom of the chamber. The right side is a solid white aluminum panel, but the hinged glass on the left side (that exposes the interior components) is the primary feature of the Snowblind series – a transparent LCD display (more on that below).

The top panel sports a vent with a black magnetic dust filter. Even though there isn’t a fan attached under it (in this particular configuration), it still provides an outlet for the waste heat and matches the two-toned theme. The PSU is mounted at the bottom of the chassis and sports a sliding dust filter over the power supply intake vent on the underside of the case. The rear panel also sports a vent, which acts as an exhaust for the attached 120mm radiator and fan.

The GPU sports the usual Nvidia Founder’s Edition outputs – three DisplayPort 1.4 ports and an HDMI 2.0 port. The controller card for the side-panel display has a DVI-D and VGA D-sub input, and iBuypower includes a DVI-D to DisplayPort cable so that you can connect it to the graphics card, which is requirement to use the featured translucent LCD screen.

The LCD panel itself has a resolution of 1280 x 1024 with a refresh rate of 60Hz, and it can be used to customize your rig at a level not previously seen in the mainstream market. The joint venture with Intel is a one-of-a-kind aesthetic feature, but the company doesn’t offer any proprietary software for the device.

However, iBuyPower recommends overlays and wallpaper programs such as Rainmeter and Wallpaper Engine to make the panel display function (we’ll get into the specifics of these programs later). The display is most visible with a white background and lighting (hence the chassis and motherboard), and the white LED fans and light strip (both included at base price) help make the image on the screen clearer. We did find some animations that looked cool, which we show below.

The interior chassis of the Snowblind Element Extreme matches the exterior, with an array of white and black components attached to the white backdrop of the case, with a plastic panel bearing the iBuypower logo to hide away the neatly-run cabling. Regardless of the components (you can customize the parts for almost any budget and performance needs), the appearance is sleek and classy.

To open the hinged side panel, simply press the two locks at the top and bottom of the plastic edge of the panel and pull the glass away from the chassis. The previously mentioned white LED light strip is integrated into the interior edges (top, side, and bottom) of the LCD side panel display.

The transparent side-panel LCD display’s controller card is mounted in a single PCIe slot while the Nvidia GTX 1080 card lives in the PCIe x16 slot. The silver color of the Nvidia card makes it stand out from the black and white aesthetic of the case, though if you configure with a different GPU, the look will vary.

The iBuypower Snowblind starts at $1,679 for its most-basic setup, which consists of a Core i5-8600K, 8GB DDR4-3000, a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, and a 1TB HDD. The Extreme model we tested had an Intel Core i7-7800X processor, a MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic motherboard and a Deepcool Captain EX120 120mm all-in-one (AIO) CPU liquid cooler. It had 16GB (4 x 4GB) of Adata DDR4-3000 RAM, with a strong CAS latency of 16-16-16-36,

The iBuypower Snowblind Element Extreme may have a unique side-panel display, but the company didn’t ship the PC with any software to control it preinstalled (the Windows 10 Home 64-bit installation was also devoid of bloatware). Instead, it provides all Snowblind buyers with a Steam key for Wallpaper Engine, a custom background utility with a vast collection of desktop themes and animations that can be displayed on the 1280 x 1024 60Hz transparent display, but the user still has to setup the display for themselves.

We already mentioned that users needed to connect the PCIe x1 controller card to the GPU with the provided cable, but you’ll also have to adjust the screen’s orientation through the Nvidia Control Panel, turning the image 90-degrees to the right in order to frame the desktop correctly (although the resolution is 1280 x 1024, it reads as a 1024 x 1280 when properly oriented).

After you get the side-panel display oriented correctly, you should redeem the Steam key and install Wallpaper Engine. Using the software, you can download user-created themes and animations and run them on the secondary panel screen. The company also recommended Rainmeter (free) for those that wanted to place custom meters on the display, but we didn’t have much time to play around with that.

But before we even opened that box, we pinged iBUYPOWER and placed a heavily rushed order. iBUYPOWER pulled one of their RDY systems off of the floor and shipped it to us. If you’re not familiar with it, RDY is a program where iBUYPOWER pre-builds certain SKUs to ship systems out within a day or so, ending up faster than custom builds. For this one, we asked for a system with a budget equal to the Walmart machine at roughly $2000. iBUYPOWER obliged, shipping an i7-9700K, RTX 2080, and delivering the right system to HQ.

When we first requested this machine, back around early December, the system would have cost about $2231. That included the RTX 2080, 9700K, all the other components, and the assembly and warranty. Identical or similar parts, where identical ones were unavailable, could be purchased for about $1986. Strictly like-for-like, comparing the cost of the same parts versus iBUYPOWER, this is a good deal. It’s about $200 of overhead to build the system, which we think is fair. You aren’t being over-charged for components. If you were to instead pick parts that run a bit cheaper but produce the same quality build, you could get the build done for about $1850. There was a $90 price difference in the GPU selection, a $20 difference in the cooler – using a Noctua NH-U14S instead of a Kraken M22 – a $30 price change in RAM, and similar. Note that we did not factor Windows 10 into this since it’s basically free now, though there is technically some value in the license granted by iBUYPOWER.

The difference is that iBUYPOWER gets a lot of its chosen parts for far cheaper than we ever could. One example would be the M22 cooler by NZXT: Although paying $80 retail is completely insane, that’s not really what you or iBUYPOWER are paying for it. NZXT is in the same building as iBUYPOWER. Moving inventory from one company to the other is logistically trivial and cuts a lot of shipping costs out of the equation, aiding in driving price down. Other companies, like Intel and NVIDIA, might sometimes give MDF to help in the sale of systems using certain parts.

Before getting to the testing, a few notes: This system was built before Linus’ series happened. Since then, in speaking with iBUYPOWER, the company has made significant internal changes to improve the quality assurance process. Several checks have been put in place to try and mitigate some of the issues we found, but the mistakes still happened, and they’re still sort of a big deal, so we’d advise you to keep an eye out.

Despite this, we couldn’t resist making a sanity check comparison between our previous 9700K CPU testing results and the iBUYPOWER system. In the process, we noticed something odd: the iBUYPOWER system was underperforming in a way that reached beyond the expected difference due to using a different GPU/motherboard/memory kit.

Entering BIOS revealed one obvious cause. All settings had been set to default values, so no XMP was enabled, and our “3200MHz” memory was running at 2666MHz. LTT noted the same mistake in their recent coverage of an iBUYPOWER system, but our problems extended further thanks to our old friend, Muti-Core Enhancement. The board used in our system was an ASUS Prime Z390-P with the oldest publicly available BIOS installed. In this BIOS version, setting MCE to Auto affects the CPU frequency. This in itself isn’t bad: we’re not trying to do a baseline CPU benchmark here, and if iBUYPOWER wants to soft-overclock their systems then that’s their prerogative. The problem is that, for whatever reason, this old version of MCE actually UNDERclocks the 9700K, locking it to 3.8GHz on all cores under sustained load rather than the 4.1-4.2GHz seen when MCE is manually disabled.

There were multiple ways for iBUYPOWER to avoid this problem. Selecting XMP II in the ASUS BIOS brings up a prompt that asks whether the user would like to enable or disable MCE, so the XMP and MCE problems could both be solved by toggling a single menu option. Also, updating the BIOS to the most recent version not only fixed MCE so that it behaved as expected (4.7GHz on all cores under sustained load), but it also disables MCE altogether if “Auto” is chosen. To be fair, a newer BIOS revision may not have been available when the system was assembled. It’s not iBUYPOWER’s fault that this BIOS version has a bug in it, but it is their fault for not tuning BIOS settings at all and potentially avoiding the bug.

For other results, as we showed earlier, it was pretty obvious when something was wrong. Far Cry 5 at 1080p gives clear insight to the problem: The 9700K review put the CPU at 149FPS AVG, with the out-of-box iBUYPOWER test landing us at 122FPS AVG. Enabling XMP and fixing the broken frequency setting got us back up to 147FPS AVG on iBUYPOWER, illustrating an out-of-box loss of 17%. We saw similar results with GTA V at 1080p, where the stock result was 170FPS with our 2080 Ti bench, the out-of-box iBUYPOWER result was 148FPS AVG, and the updated system did 163FPS AVG. That’s another 9% decay in performance from a bad configuration.

The thermal performance of iBUYPOWER’s system can’t be directly compared against any of our previous case reviews, since the components used are completely different. Even if they were similar, the blower cooler on the GPU and the CLC on the CPU are completely different from our standard case testing bench. For the Walmart prebuilt, we simply swapped in our normal components and treated it like a case review, but there was no point in doing that for iBUYPOWER, since the case is one that we’ve already thoroughly covered.

iBUYPOWER is working on its processes and has put more oversight in place between the customer and the assembly line. Many of the issues we encountered were also seen by Linus, and so the right moves have been made to try and correct this (in theory). We did encounter some unique and major issues, like MCE and the out-of-date BIOS, but iBUYPOWER was made aware of this as well.

The assembly quality and parts selection were both good to reasonable. iBUYPOWER certainly did better than Walmart, but iBUYPOWER is more competing with the likes of CyberPower, Xidax, and other SI companies. iBUYPOWER needs the most work on its configuration, which is a better place to be than needing work on parts selection and assembly quality. Once the company can correct its configuration, the builds will be reasonably good value. There isn’t much of an upcharge on these ($200 part-for-part, or ~$400 if selecting alternative parts), and the upcharge that does exist is reasonable to demand for the time required to assemble a system. As always, it’s just that the assembly has to be right and the configuration has to be perfect, since that’s the whole point of paying someone to do the work. iBUYPOWER failed on the configuration point, but is aware of the issues and hopefully correcting them.

Back in 2017 at CES iBUYPOWER teased a concept that they had been working with, a PC case with a monitor built into the side panel. Now that idea itself isn’t completely new, there have been modders who have done it. But what they did was just have the LCD panel and nothing else, leaving a transparent side panel that you can still see everything inside with everything on the display floating and showing up almost like magic. This is well and good for a concept, but producing and selling what is basically a very complicated case mod is a whole different story and frankly I didn’t think they would do it. When last year at CES 2018 they actually introduced their Snowblind series of builds which included this feature I was surprised and impressed and it had me considering trying to do the same thing myself with a build. Buying a full build from them for the feature didn’t really make sense given my experience with PCs. Well at the start of this month they made that a lot easier with the introduction of their first individually sold case, the Snowblind. Well today I finally get to check it out in person. I’ve been collecting white components to go inside the build and today I’m going to check out iBUYPOWERs first case and check out its side panel window LCD as well!

So iBuypower is normally a boutique PC builder but over the last 5/6 years, one of the trends for boutique builders was to work with case manufactures and make your own variation. Alienware did this long before as did VoodooPC back before they were picked up by HP just like Alienware with Dell. Unique cases help create a brand image and also help set normal boutique builders apart from what the smaller builders can do as well as what DIY builders can do at home. As I already mentioned the Snowblind Element case started this was as well. The reason I bring all of that history up is because I wasn’t surprised at all when the case came inside of a big brown iBuypower box with the case box inside as well. Just like you would see if you bought a PC from them.

With that history in mind, I was also impressed with the packaging of the Snowblind Element. They could have gone really simple with a sticker on the iBuypower box and saved money and time but it has a full-color box. It is decked out in white, no surprise there. The front has both the model and iBuypower branding down at the bottom. Then they focus the picture of the case on the side which is, of course, its main feature. They have the side panel list up with a smoke in the background, gauges, and their logo, similar to how they have displayed the case at events. The back of the box is different from the front, with a different angle shot with more color on the side panel. This one also shows the front of the case with two LED fans lit up and a white logo. This also lists what can be found in the box but you have to assume that this was designed originally for when they sell the full build. There isn’t going to be a gaming keyboard, mouse, power cable, or software disc inside. They may actually want to put a simple white sticker over each of those, I’m sure someone will try to take advantage.

When you dig into the box, up on top you will find that the case is supported in the middle of the case with a combination of cardboard and foam. This gives the foam strength but also has the softness of the foam. When I pulled the case out (upside down opps) I also found that it was wrapped up in a plastic bag as well. The bag wasn’t really covering the entire case however, I’m guessing when they finished putting the LCD in the bag didn’t get put back on completely.

Inside, along with the case, you get a quick start guide. Which is a single paper folded up. This is focused exclusively on the LCD aspects like how to use the included cable, how to configure your monitor, what the button on the back does, and what software to use to get the look they get for the side panel. They even have their custom rainmeter gauges uploaded on their website for download.

I should also point out that in addition to plastic on the side panels and the front glass both glass panels came with a tempered glass sticker. I always hate these, but I get it. But most companies have been careful to use static cling or similar stickers, however these aren’t. They are paper-based and were a pain to take off with paper ripping and staying on not to mention the adhesive. You may notice in a few pictures later that I thought I had all of the adhesive off, but I later noticed I didn’t.

If the Snowblind name wasn’t any indication, the main housing for the Snowblind Element is bright white but this angle that shows the left side panel and the front doesn’t really show it that well. These are the two sides of the case that have tempered glass panels. Both of which are trimmed out in black. The left side panel is set up like a traditional case which is a pleasant change from other cases with a tempered side panel. What I mean by that is the case doesn’t use four thumbscrews to hold the glass panel on. In fact this side doesn’t use any thumb screws at all. There are two plastic clips towards the front of the case that have to be held at the same time to open the side panel up. Now the side panel window is the key feature in the Snowblind Element but when it isn’t powered up you would never know that. It has an LCD screen built into it which without the lighting turned on gives the side a tinted look. iBuypower also trimmed this panel out with the black to help cover up all of the areas you wouldn’t want to see when looking in. This is a don’t mind the man behind the curtain trick that you are starting to see on cases where the original tempered glass side panels on cases would show EVERYTHING. This included wiring and also even the edge of the inside of the case used for mounting. I’ll take this cleaner look every time.

Now the Snowblind Element with its glass front and side panels is clearly not a big airflow case. This was one of the downsides to the move to tempered glass, back in the “old days” acrylic side panels could get ventilation or even fan mounts. But you wouldn’t want to cut into that fancy LCD screen either. The look that the glass and the black and white theme gives is a simple and clean one. There is just the one white iBuypower logo on the front which is backlit and the two fans are visible as well. I actually think the case might look better with the front panel still slightly tinted, you get full view of the fans as well as the fan mouse and the magnetic mesh fan filter that sits in front of the fans. But I do like the simple look.

Around on the back of the case, we can finally see more of the white. The case is actually made out of SECC steel and that carries on around to the back. Back here we can see that it is a mid-tower case with its full ATX support. There are a total of 7 PCI slots but you will have to work around the LCD screen controller already using one of the slots as you can see with the DVI and VGA ports. I was surprised that our case came missing two slot covers, I mentioned earlier that the packaging looked disturbed so it could be that our sample had been used previously or it was tested before being shipped out. Both happen often, sadly this means you couldn’t consider our experience with the case as any sort of indication of reliability because if used or tested before the chances of there being an issue as much smaller.

Anyhow the back of the case has your normal rear I/O on the top left and a 120mm fan mount for the included exhaust fan just next to that. All of the PCI brackets are vented for a little extra airflow and the case also has holes above the brackets as well. Each slot comes with a black thumbscrew with a Philips head on top to give you the option to go it by hand or to use a tool. The brackets also have a slide up cover above them as well that will need to be moved or removed to install PCI/PCIe cards. Then down at the bottom is the bottom mounted PSU hole. The PSU is a bracket and is also held in with thumbscrews, which is similar to what I saw on the NZXT H400i. This isn’t a huge surprise, it is really clear that iBuypower worked with NZXT on this case and it is a variation of the NZXT S340 Elite with a few changes. One of the big changes is that the entire back panel is all white to match the rest of the case. Up at the top there is also a small black button that has been added. This is a manual shutoff for the LED lighting inside of the case.

The right side of the case is about as different as it could possible be from the left side. Where the other side is black with tempered glass and an LCD screen. This side is bright white and all steel. It also doesn’t mount like the other side does. The left side is mounted like a car door where this is old school two thumbscrews and all of the clips on the side panel. You slide it on and off which is helped by the handle at the back.

So up on top of the case, the front I/O is all the way as forward as you can go and it is also offset to the right as well. You get a white power button with an LED around it, then a hard drive status LED over on the other end. Between those, you have both microphone and headphone jacks and two USB 3.0 plugs. All of the jacks and the hard drive LED have legends under them in a light grey. The top of the case does give us some more clues to some of the ventilation of the case. For starter there is a top fan mount that is slotted for 120mm or 140mm use. Then at the front we can see that the front glass panel does offer some way for the two front fans to breath. There is an inch deep gap between the front and the fans that run up to the top here where they can pull in air from. Of course, there better be a matching vent on the bottom and even then it isn’t really enough surface area if you are running two 140mm fans, but maybe it is closer if you have two 120mm fans which by the way is what comes with the case.

Okay, the bottom view of the Snowblind Element does show that slot at the bottom of the front panel but it is smaller than the one up on top both in width of the slit and depth. While down here we can see the PSU ventilation slots and the slide in plastic fan filter as well. You can access that from the back of the case. Which by the way, the front filter is held in with magnets and can be accessed from the top without pulling the front off. I like the feet, the case is rectangle-shaped feet that hold the case up a little higher than normal, which I"m sure your PSU will thank you for that. They are almost two inches long as well and have rubber on them so they should grip decently.

Getting inside the Snowblind Element isn’t too difficult but I wouldn’t call it easy as well. The two clips that hold the side panel on are easy to use, but holding those two clips and trying to pull the panel open without growing a third hand was interesting. That said when opened up I couldn’t wait to take a look at the LCD side panel. I will say though, BE CAREFUL. For one, this is an LCD screen, hitting the inside of the panel could damage it. More importantly, the tempered glass side panel is heavy, add in everything for the screen and when you open the side panel up it can want to tip over. Especially after you take the steel back panel off. I would hate to see someone dump their brand new case over and bust the glass or worse. While it does have a hinged design that you can lift off, there are cables running from the side panel inside of the case so removing the side panel wouldn’t be recommended.

SO what makes it all tick? Well if you are getting old like I am, you might remember old school projectors at school. I don’t mean one that you hook up to a PC or TV. I mean the style that a teacher can write on plastic sheets and project on to the wall. When I was in school and we used those, there were LCD screens you could sit on top of the projector that would shine the light through the LCD. That is basically what is going on. The backlighting used in a normal monitor is gone and they have the LCD panel attached to the glass side panel. Then the inside of the case is all white and around the edge of the LCD are bright white LEDs to light everything up to get that backlight. I knew this is how it all worked, but I was impressed when I opened the case up to see all of the plastic casing used to hold the lighting around the window. This is the difference between going with what iBuypower has done and patching this same setup into your own case. This is a complete product.

Now, just like with a monitor there has to be a controller for the screen to translate the incoming signal and they have tucked that and the power inside. This is also covered up with a nice white plastic panel. There is no idea solution, unlike with a laptop or an all in one, with a traditional PC case the display connection that the LCD needs is going to be outside at the end of your video card. So they use a PCI slot and on the outside, this has a DVI or VGA connection that you can loop back into your GPU. They also include the cable for that as well.

So moving to the rest of the interior there are a few things to note going on. For starters, if you look really close you can spot the NZXT logo under the big CPU bracket cutout, which confirms what I was mentioned earlier. Of course, the wire runner that runs to the right of the motherboard is also a big clue, which is a signature NZXT feature used to hide wiring. It works really well for this case because you want the most white possible and this covers an opening or black grommets and black cables. iBuypower did slap their logo on it as well. The case has a PSU bottom mouse design and the PSU and wiring are all enclosed in its own bottom section which covers up more potential black with a big bright white box. Ironically though the front of the case then has a big black cover over top of the front fans, which combined with the rear fan that is black is really the only black you will find in the case. Other than the black standoffs and screws. Seriously though, for years silver screws were the norm. This would have been a great one to go back to them on.

So at the rear of the case, the Snowblind Element does come with a 120mm fan and it isn’t a fan I’ve seen before. It is branded as Arc and it is a simple black frame clear blade non-LED fan. Above that you get a peek at the LED power button that I mentioned on the back of the case. You can see how it is tucked away next to the rear I/O. This powers all of the LEDs for the LCD side panel to give you a manual option to turn them off while keeping your PC on.

Here is a closer look at the white wire cover that runs almost the full height of the case. The ibuypower logo looks really good here and it is in a spot that will most likely not get covered as well. Then you have the front fan housing which basically looks like someone messed up and put their mouse vent inside the case. This is actually how the two 120mm front fans are mounted. They attach to the plastic louver cover than the cover attached to the front of the case. If the front panel design which restricts airflow isn’t enough, let"s give even more resistance here inside. Not only that but it also airs most of the air that is coming in, up.

Moving around to the backside of the case. We can finally see inside of the magical PSU box down at the bottom. It runs the full length of the case which means you can fit huge power supplies if needed and you have all the room you could ever want for hiding wiring. The area behind the motherboard tray, on the other hand, is a little tighter, I would be very careful to keep all of your thick wires over there by the wire hider which has more room. The PSU area does have two 3.5 inch drive mounts and it also came with a few accessories. There was an NZXT branded box with three different types of screws including PSU screws and a few extra motherboard standoffs as well as an extra thumbscrew. There is also a nice sized bundle of zip ties as well. I mentioned it earlier but given the goal of going as bright white as possible, this is the one time that the silver screws that every case used to come with would be a better choice over black screws. You also get a magnetic fan filter that you can use on the top of the case if you mount a top fan as an intake. Then you have a relatively short DisplayPort to DVI cable for hooking up the LCD to your GPU.

I went ahead and also installed our RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition and that did give me a little trouble. The slide up panel above the PCI brackets was still too tight for me to angle the card in, so I had to remove one of the thumbscrews on the panel to give more space. After that, the card went in and with thumbscrews for everything I was able to quickly get it tightened up.

This case design is slightly dated and you can tell here at the back when you start wiring. I installed the power supply and ran all of those wires without any problem. But the mess of wires from the LCD, front panel, pump, and all of the fans can be a big mess. Especially with the Corsair fans adding RGB connections to them as well. Most of the wiring isn’t going to be a problem when tied up and cleaned up. But the 24 pin you want to keep in the deeper cable routing track as well as avoid putting any plugs between the motherboard tray and the door. There is room, but it has its limitations and it doesn’t have the wiring tracks like the H400i had.

Lastly, before hooking your PC up, you can also connect the LCD screen to your GPU. The cable included is more than long enough and isn’t exactly elegant. But there isn’t going to be anything elegant without right angle adapters or something.

Powered up and we have RGB lighting lit on the Corsair memory and kit and the bright white lights in the Snowblind Element are lit. I will point out that with the AIO kit that only one fan worked until I got the software installed, not sure why that was. But they look really good through the front window that iBuypower has on the front here. The iBuypower logo looks good lit up as well!

Now the Snowblind LCD panel isn’t designed to be used as a normal monitor, nor would you ever want to try to game at the weird resolution. But I did boot it up first with that as our monitor. You will have to follow the included instructions and set the screen to portrait mode and set the correct resolution. It"s funny booting into the BIOS as well.

Because frankly, the LCD on the Snowblind Element is the main feature of the case I spent most of my time playing around with it. I was really interested in seeing what ways you could use it. Frankly even just toying around with backgrounds was fun. I was really curious about the contrast when using say a black background. Could you block out all of the light and basically close down your side panel window. Yes and no, you can still see through it. Especially when I hadn’t had the chance to turn off the RGB lighting on the memory and pump lol. But it cuts out most of the view. Which makes dragging and getting a clear window really trippy. I can totally see this being used as a way to highlight components. I did a mockup, but time in photoshop would work better and could have labels. Maybe boxes that show each component, a black background, and lines going to each thing explaining what you have inside your build. While toying with this I made a short video showing the contrast between black and white.

I knew I wanted to show PC hardware info on the side panel and my wife of all people has had a lot of experience using Rainmeter so I knew I wanted to toy around with that. iBuypower also highly suggests it as well to the point where they also have their own skin available to download.

Anyhow after playing around for a while I finally got serious and finished reading iBuypower’s instructions and in addition to Rainmeter, they also recommend Wallpaper Engine which is a Steam program. Their documentation also mentions that they sometimes include it, but I assume that is with their full builds. I didn’t see a code or anything so I went ahead and picked it up. It is $3.99 on steam, not a big deal. I’ve used a lot of programs that allow for custom backgrounds specific to each monitor and that is kind of what I expected honestly. What I found was a lot better. Yes it does do backgrounds for each monitor. But they actually have a repository of uploaded backgrounds and a lot of them offer a lot of customization and sometimes integration with Corsair iCue as well to tie it in with case or peripheral lighting. Most of the backgrounds are moving and sometimes interactive. I snapped the picture below using one of the backgrounds I found someone made for Corsair and it had 6 different background themes that completely changed the look.

Performance in the typical aspects like noise and power weren’t that bad, but by swapping out the fans I tainted all of that testing right from the start. The one Arc fan left in the case wasn’t that bad for noise or airflow but the LL120’s were still much quieter. More importantly, but taking that large fan cover off on the front I opened up airflow, though it is still limited by the gaps in the front panel. Overall, I wouldn’t go in expecting this to be a HAF case. In fact, I would never attempt a dual GPU setup or a video card that needs lots of airflow because that area is where the case is going to suffer. But shipping the Snowblind Element with two front fans and a rear exhaust fan helps compensate for that.

The Snowblind Element case was just as exciting to get set up as it was seeing iBuypower show off their first builds at CES a few years ago. The side panel window/LCD is, of course, the main feature of the entire case and it makes this a completely unique case option when compared to the rest of the cases on the market. Of course you could try to mod your own LCD panel into another case, but it is going to be very hard to reach the level of detail reached here. All of the lighting, wiring, PCBs, and everything else is all tucked away and integrated into the case with the exception of the display connection which there isn’t another option buy to connect at the rear of the case. On top of all of that the case itself has a simple/clean look that I really dig.

Now don’t get me wrong, the LCD screen is a novelty, but frankly, there are a lot of things that we do for aesthetics and for the novelty. Side panel windows themselves could be considered the same, not to mention RGB lighting which is EVERYWHERE. The main thing here though is if your case is even in a position where this could be cool at all. Taking this build to a LAN is going to get all kinds of attention, for example, setting it up on your desk you can actually use some of the rainmeter readouts, but if you have it tucked away up under your desk I don’t see you getting the use out of it. Even at the simplest of configurations you can use the screen to change colors and do transitions and combinations of colors that aren’t possible with normal lighting. Live backgrounds have been cool as well. I bet someone much more creative than I could do some really cool stuff.

So what are the downsides? Well the case itself constricts the front fan airflow with its design. iBuypower does include two front fans and one exhaust which helps a lot. But I wouldn’t jam in an ultra hot GPU. When building in the case, I also ran into at least one situation where actual case instructions would have been nice. All the Snowblind Element ships with is a small but useful manual on setting up the LCD aspects. The other big deal is you really have to plan out your build ahead of time. This isn’t something that is going to work perfect with just whatever you have floating around. You really do need to have as many white components as you can. It will work without them, but you won’t be able to see anything in those areas. Thankfully there are white and silver motherboards and GPUs, awesome white memory from a few companies, and white AIO coolers as well as air coolers as well.

As for pricing? Well you are buying a monitor AND a case, right? On top of that all of the work to integrate it into the case. They are selling the Snowblind Element for $299 and that is about what I expected to be. Is that cheap? No not at all. Also if you aren’t buying the Snowblind Element for the LCD side panel then you are wasting a lot of money. This is otherwise a mid-level case once you take that out of the equation. In fact, if this price point isn’t in your range, iBuypower has a second Snowblind case at $199 right now as well. With all of that said, its less about this being a good deal and more about how cool it is to completely customize your side panel. If that interests you, then this is the case for you.

iBUYPOWER has been empowering budding PC builders and gamers since the beginning of this millennium. They’re known for their superb pre-built gaming PCs, awesome gaming cases, custom builds and desktop bundles.

If you’re a fan of their gear, firstly, I have to commend you on your taste. If you’re not, well it’s a good idea to become one, because as Black Friday video gaming deals approach, you can expect to see some of iBP’s best products go on sale. In this guide, we’ll show you a few ways you can take advantage of iBUYPOWER’s Black Friday deals.

If you’re looking for iBUYPOWER cases, computers and other gear, this section will show you where to find the best sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and beyond.

In terms of gaming, iBUYPOWER is one of Amazon’s biggest partners. On iBUYPOWER’s Amazon store page, shoppers have a tiered list where they can shop according to budget. I suggest that you bookmark this page and keep an eye out for early pre-Black Friday iBUYPOWER specials.

For shoppers who are distrustful of online shopping sites, Best Buy still has physical brick-and-mortar stores that you can visit in person. Alternatively, you can order your iBUYPOWER gaming rig from their website and grab one of the exciting Best Buy’s Black Friday deals. They also have a shop page exclusive to iBUYPOWER. They also offer accidental geek squad protection on every iBUYPOWER purchase.

If you want to, you can cut the middleman out completely and buy your rig directly from iBUYPOWER. This means you’ll get Black Friday deals on same-day ready systems, custom build cases, top-rated gaming laptops, and other iBP gear. Don’t be afraid of missing out on rebates or other incentives when you shop through iBP’s website.

iBUYPOWER Black Friday deals will also be available from Walmart and ABT.com. If you’re unfamiliar with ABT, they’re an independent consumer electronics store that’s been operating since the 1930s. You can expect both Walmart and ABT to have iBUYPOWER deals from the physical stores as well as their online stores.

Shoppers could have saved $183 if they bought this rig from iBUYPOWER’s web store last year. It packs an MSI GeForce GTX 1060 (3GB), a generation 8 i5 processor and liquid cooling. It was reduced to $899 from 1,083.91.

For pro-gamers with heavy pockets, you could get the RDY SBIBG202 for $1699, price slashed from $2099.  What makes this PC so special, besides its impressive hardware, is the snow-blind LCD side panel. Like many of iBUYPOWER’s ready-day gaming rigs, it also comes with an awesome keyboard and mouse combo.

iBUYPOWER is very active on social media. They have a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook account. If you want to keep up to date with their deals, make sure you like their pages, follow their accounts and turn on alerts.

Another way to keep up to date with iBUYPOWER’s deals is to subscribe to their official newsletter. Through the newsletter, you will receive information on new promotions, special content, competitions, and updates via email.

Online market places usually have a page or a section of their website dedicated to their partners or sellers. iBUYPOWER has store and subcategory pages on Newegg, Best Buy and Amazon. You can also initiate a search on the website with the keyword ‘iBUYPOWER’ and then bookmark the results.

This should go without saying but if you really want to conquer Black Friday, you have to do a bit of planning. You need to ensure that you know what you want. Draw up a spec list and budget. Go through iBUYPOWER’s catalog for any gear that you want and then list it down.

Also, if you have spare resources and your gaming display isn’t the best, you might want to consider pairing an iBUYPOWER gaming rig with a discounted Black Friday monitor.

If you follow the tips and information in this guide, it should help you maximize your savings from iBUYPOWER’s Black Friday deals. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through this guide. Thank you for reading and happy shopping.