iBuyPower Y60 review

The iBuyPower Y60 ($2,399 as reviewed) is a stately, beautiful gaming PC that's ideal for folks who like an untrammeled view of what's going on inside.

Our review unit packs some powerful components inside the Hyte Y60, a mid-tower case from iBuyPower's sibling brand that's nearly all tempered glass on two sides, making it look a bit like a giant fish tank. While it's a bit heavy and unwieldy to move around, once you have the case in place it's quite roomy and easy to work in—though our review unit kicks out quite a bit of heat once you start gaming with gusto.

But that's what this PC is for, and after a few weeks of hands-on time, I'm confident that the iBuyPower Y60 is one of the best gaming PCs on the market right now. Our review unit is one of iBuyPower's "Gaming RDY" pre-built ready-to-ship systems. It delivers good performance for the price, but if the specs leave you wanting more you can always pay iBuyPower to build you a custom PC with the parts you want. 

iBuyPower Y60 review: Price and availability 

• Expect to pay between $1,000-$4,000+
• Our review unit is a $2,399 pre-built "Gaming RDY" system

You can buy a variety of prebuilt gaming PCs from iBuypower or customize your own via the company’s website. Your options for configuring a prebuilt PC will vary depending on when you order and what the company has in stock, with prices ranging from $800-$4,000 or more.

Our review unit is one of the models iBuyPower sells as part of its Gaming RDY series of prebuilt gaming PCs. It packs a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-12700KF CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4-3600 RAM and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD into a Y60 mid-tower case from Hyte, iBuyPower's PC case brand. At time of review, you could buy the same PC directly from iBuyPower for $2,399.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Design 

• Y60 case looks great on a desk (and takes up a lot of space)
• Gets quite toasty when gaming for hours

The Y60 case our review unit arrived in resembles a fish tank more than anything else. Sold separately via Hyte's website for $199, the Y60 measures 18.2 x 17.95 x 11.2 inches and takes up a fair bit of space. But if you're the type of person who likes showing off your PC's innards you'll appreciate the spacious view afforded by the Y60, which has a unique trio of glass panels along the left and front that let you peer inside without any pesky corner pillar blocking your view.

You get inside by removing a side panel, each of which is secured via a single security screw on the back of the case. As I'll get into later in this review I found it slightly tricky to remove the tempered glass side panel, but once I figured out the trick of it I had no trouble repeating the feat.

Obviously, the amount of heat and noise generated depends greatly on what you put where inside the case, but I noticed that our review unit kicked out more heat than I expected during extended gaming session. However, it didn't get very loud, which I appreciate since I don't regularly use headphones.

To give you a rough sense of comparison, I placed it in the same location and used it in the same way as the Alienware Aurora R13 I reviewed not long ago, and the iBuyPower Y60 made the room much hotter yet stayed quieter than the Aurora R13 when playing the same games under roughly the same conditions. If that's a concern there are steps you can take to mitigate these issues, from installing additional cooling solutions to relocating the PC to a room with better heat dispersion.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Ports and upgradability

• Plenty of ports on front and back
• Case is roomy and easy to work in

The iBuyPower Y60 has a case that's nice and roomy, with plenty of ports for your needs. On the front of the case you get a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port and an audio/mic jack flanking the power button.

Around the back you'll find a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port (1 x USB Type-C), a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, a pair of USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a pair of USB-A 2.0 ports.

You also get a DisplayPort and HDMI out, no less than five types of audio jacks, a  2.5Gb Ethernet port, an Optical S/PDIF out port and a classic PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse combo port.

If you want to get inside and start upgrading or rewiring things yourself, the Y60 case makes it easy. Just remove the aforementioned safety screw on the rear to render one of the side panels removable, which requires pulling it out and away from the case.

The first few times I tried this with the tempered glass side panel, I had a hard time getting it free. I had to use more force than I expected, but despite my fears of cracking the glass and ruining our review unit, a forceful pull got the panel loose without incident. Once you get inside, you'll find the Y60 is nice and roomy, with easy access to the GPU and plenty of room to reach in and fiddle with things.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Gaming performance

• Gaming performance depends on what you put inside
• Our review config is outstanding at 1080p gaming, decent in 4K

Our iBuyPower Y60 review unit had no trouble playing Apex Legends, Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding and other games in 1080p at silky 60+ fps framerates. Playing games in 4K gave the Intel Core i7-12700KF CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and 16GB of RAM a bit more trouble, and most graphically demanding games I tested oscillated between 30-60 fps at the higher resolution. I tested it with the Acer Predator XB323QK, a 32-inch 4K display that's one of the best gaming monitors on the market right now.

If you do want to play the latest and greatest games in 4K at rock-solid 60 fps framerates, you can pay iBuyPower for a Y60 kitted out with better hardware than what came in our review unit. But as configured, our review unit struggles to deliver top-tier framerates in games at 4K.

To give you a sense of how our iBuyPower Y60 review unit stacks up against the competition, we ran it through benchmark tests for a number of popular games and compared the results against those earned by similar gaming PCs we've recently tested. This is more of a comment on the components in our review unit than the PC itself, since you can customize one with different guts that will perform much differently in the same tests.

For example, the Alienware Aurora R13 (Intel Core i7-12700KF, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB RAM) I reviewed last month outperformed the iBuyPower Y60 by a small but meaningful margin in every game, which makes sense given that it costs a bit more ($2,979 vs. $2,399) and sports a better GPU and double the RAM.

However the iBuyPower system speeds past a cheaper PC like the Acer Predator Orion 3000 ($1,949 as reviewed), which is great for 1080p gaming but can't deliver the same performance as what's in our Y60 review unit.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Overall performance

• More than enough power for day-to-day work tasks
• Speedy video encoding

The beefy components that help the iBuyPower Y60 churn through the latest games give it more than enough power to tackle most day-to-day work tasks.

During my weeks of hands-on testing with the Y60 I never noticed meaningful slowdown or performance issues, even when multi-tasking between Chrome with 30+ tabs open and Adobe Photoshop while watching a 4K video on a second display.

Our review unit's 12th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU tore through the Geekbench 5.4 multi-core CPU benchmark, earning a score of 13,918. That's quite good, beating the 12,366 earned by the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU in the iBuyPower Revolt 3 gaming PC we reviewed a few months ago. However, it's still not quite able to match the 15,329 earned by the Alienware Aurora R13, which is interesting since both the R13 and our Y60 review unit pack the same Intel Core i7-12700KF CPU.

Our review unit also distinguished itself in our video encoding test, which times how long it takes a system to transcode a 4K video file down to 1080p using Handbrake. The iBuyPower Y60 did the job in under four minutes, which beats out the lion's share of gaming PCs and even the MacBook Pro 2021, one of the best laptops for video editing you can buy right now.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Software

• Minimal bloatware, and that's fantastic

Our iBuyPower Y60 review unit arrived with a welcome lack of bloatware. Beyond the basic stuff that comes with Windows 11 (Disney+ and the like) the only pre-installed software of note is Aorus, which is Gigabyte's tool for controlling the RBG lighting on the included Nvidia GPU.

Aorus is simple and easy to use, with a good array of options for configuring the lighting on your Gigabyte GPU.

iBuyPower Y60 review: Keyboard and mouse

• Included iBuyPower keyboard and mouse are serviceable
• Knob on the keyboard is a great touch, moving the Start key not so much

Our iBuyPower Y60 review unit arrived with a set of iBuyPower's gaming keyboard and mouse included. These are serviceable peripherals with bright RBG lighting that aren't particularly good or bad. The keyboard feels sturdy, the keys have good travel, and I really like the inclusion of a knob (which controls volume by default) in the top-right corner of the keyboard.

What I don't like is that iBuyPower has relocated the Windows key to the lower right-hand side of the keyboard, and swapped in an iBuyPower graphic for the familiar Windows logo. I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind this, but it's a hassle when you've spent most of your life instinctively tapping the Windows key with your left hand.

The mouse is similarly sturdy and functional, without much in the way of standout features. I do appreciate that it has a nice array of inputs, as you get the standard two buttons under your first two fingers, a scroll wheel, another two small buttons behind the wheel, and then another pair along the left edge near the thumbrest. It's not gonna get you through your MMORPG rotations with ease, but it's more than good enough for most gaming.

If you are looking for something else, be sure to check out our guides for the best gaming keyboards and the best gaming mouse. 

iBuyPower Y60 review: Verdict

The iBuyPower Y60 is a great gaming PC if you want an eye-catching system that plays games well while showcasing what's inside to full effect. Admittedly, it's a bit unwieldy to move around, but once you get it set up on your desk it's comfy to work within and easy to configure thanks to its well-spaced ports and user-friendly design.

And if you put the right components inside, it can be a beastly gaming PC. The way our review unit is configured makes it a great gaming PC for folks who want standout performance but don't need the most demanding games to run at 60 fps in 4K. If you want something better, expect to pay more for the privilege, as achieving rock-solid 60 fps framerates in the best PC games at 4K resolution tends to be the realm of PCs that cost upwards of $4K.

That said, if you like the price and performance of the iBuyPower Y60 but want something a little more compact, the iBuyPower Revolt 3 offers similar power potential in a more portable case. However, you sacrifice a lot of the easy access and upgradability of the Y60. Plus, you wouldn't have the same window into what's going on inside your PC during marathon gaming sessions.