iBuyEnergy RDY Scale B06 assessment

I’ve received to the purpose the place I grimace after I see an inventory for a gaming PC. The reminiscence disaster has so severely gutted pricing and availability that I’ve discovered my eyes glazing over PCs each time they’re on the display screen in entrance of me.

One look at our roundup of one of the best gaming PC offers reveals that even getting a rig beneath $1,000 with a discrete graphics card is a little bit of a wrestle, and you’re making vital compromises to get the worth that… low. Okay, sure, it does not really feel low, however that is the brand new regular. All reward our new AI overlords.

And iBuyEnergy routinely options among the many most funds rigs. That’s as a result of, be it good compromises, the power to purchase in bulk, or a prayer to some type of {hardware} god, its rigs are considerably cheap for prebuilds.

The RDY Scale B06 I’ve had throughout my desk shoves a funds Intel CPU and funds Nvidia GPU into its surprisingly massive case, alongside a fairly small SSD and single-channel reminiscence.

Features

RDY is iBuyEnergy’s preconfigured vary, which suggests they’re able to ship just about the second you hit ‘purchase’. As such, the RTX 5060 / Intel Core Ultra 5 225F mannequin I’ve received my palms on is the one model of the B06 you possibly can presently purchase.

For its comparatively budget-friendly value, it makes some compromises, the largest of which you can find in its reminiscence and storage.

The reminiscence is DDR5, however with a CAS latency of 40 and general pace of 5200 MT/s, it is not tremendous quick. There’s additionally just one stick, so you’re taking successful to efficiency over dual-channel reminiscence of the identical capability. How a lot depends upon the sport or workload, however there shall be successful.

Should you’ve got the funds and the persistence, you can technically observe down a second module matching this similar stick and bump your capability as much as 32 GB, however that is a tough promote, and was even earlier than the reminiscence disaster. Most of the time, you might be higher off promoting a single stick and shopping for two (at a loss) when you’re seeking to improve, as it may be robust to trace down the precise stick you want and even that does not assure compatibility.

There’s simply 1 TB of storage on this machine. That is just about the minimal I’d need in a gaming rig proper now, particularly when you think about the precise storage obtainable to you’ll doubtless be 50-100 GB decrease than 1 TB.

The 1 TB in my rig interprets to 952 GB. That does not embody browsers and some other Windows apps. Then, you may need Steam, Epic Games, doubtless the Nvidia app, plus any drivers, and some other media apps like Spotify. By solely downloading the video games I used for the benchmarks under, I used to be left with round 300 GB on the drive.

Now, we might have acquired twice the reminiscence capability for the worth if it weren’t for the reminiscence disaster, however you need to anticipate to pay extra for gaming PCs proper now, and people compromises make some sense from iBuyEnergy.

Performance

This rig is an indication of how unhealthy the reminiscence disaster has gotten. Late final yr, we checked out the Acer Predator Orion 3000, which was just $20 more, came with a full-fat RTX 5070, a better Intel chip for multithreaded workloads, and even came in a cute compact case.

Because of that higher-tier GPU, the Orion outpaces this iBuyPower rig in every gaming test I conducted. Some by just a few frames, and some more convincingly so. Acer did make compromises here with PCIe 3.0 storage speed and 16 GB DDR4 memory, but it’s still all in all a better rig, and a much more compact one. The caveat, though, is that while you can find RTX 5070 PCs at this price on occasion, they are becoming ever more rare, and this SKU of the Orion 3000 is nowhere to be seen these days.

The RTX 5060 is a solid 1080p card that becomes a decent 1440p one if you are willing to stomach a bit of frame generation or upscaling. Still, it’s one of the weakest offerings of the RTX Blackwell generation.

In our tests, I spotted similar scores to RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti rigs, and that’s partly because this same price point would have gotten you better CPUs a few years ago to throw alongside it, but also because the generational leap between the RTX 40- and RTX 50-series isn’t monumental.

The RTX 5060 / Intel Core Ultra 5 225 F combo is decidedly budget, as far as modern offerings are concerned, and you will spot that in our gaming tests. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora at Ultra on 1440p barely cracks 30 fps, and the same is true for Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong. Upscaling makes these games much more playable, and the older Metro Exodus can stay around 60 fps.

The AtomMan G1 Pro, with its low-profile RTX 5060 and AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX, outperforms it in Avatar, but the Scale B06 takes the win in everything else. The G1 Pro is kitted out with 32 GB of DDR5 5200 memory. That is double the capacity of the Scale B06, and dual-channel. That means it has not only twice the capacity but twice the available bandwidth, too. But the Intel chip helps the iBuyPower PC pull through for the win.

Notably, the 1% lows are almost the same for both rigs in Baldur’s Gate 3, despite the Scale B06 easily outpacing the G1 Pro in average fps. That’s likely down to the memory. Baldur’s Gate 3 is quite a CPU-heavy game, and the slower, lower-capacity RAM is hindering what should be a much faster chip in the Scale B06.

The Intel CPU in the Scale B06 has fewer physical cores and a lower boost clock than the 8645HX, but higher base clock speeds and a great L1 and L2 cache. In Cinebench, I saw a slightly higher single-core index for the Intel chip, but a significantly better multithread index for the AMD one. The Atomman G1 Pro has, however, gone up significantly in price even since our review in April.

The RTX 4060 Ti ABS Cyclone Aqua we reviewed last year seems to outpace or match this 5060 rig in most tests, only firmly losing in the Black Myth: Wukong upscaling benchmark. And with the RTX 5060, you pretty much need to get used to some level of upscaling if you want a smooth experience in modern games. Upscaling technology has gotten much better over time, and so has frame generation, but it’s still a pretty weak card as far as pure rasterisation is concerned.

Outside of gaming, the Team Group T-Force G50 SSD is decently performant and speedy, clocking in an overall index score of well over 2,000 in 3DMark’s storage test. Other creator tests don’t perform quite as well, with the CPU at this machine’s heart being fairly slow to handle a Handbrake video conversion, and sitting well behind the likes of the Aqua and G1 Pro in Time Spy Extreme and 7zip.

Though single-core Cinebench scores are solid, multithread scores are lacking. This all means that if you’re looking for a heavy-duty content creator machine, you’d best be looking elsewhere. In fairness, the single-channel memory should have already put you off, anyways.

Thermals

Perhaps owing to the large capacity of the case allowing smooth, unblocked airflow, or partly due to the large fan on the CPU, or maybe because both the CPU and GPU are fairly low wattage, this rig is positively frosty. Measuring temperatures during our range of creator applications, it is among the coolest we’ve tried in recent times, sitting well below the iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07. Admittedly, the latter iBuyPower machine is much more powerful, but its max CPU temps are significantly under the RTX 4060-equipped Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen 8), the RTX 4060 Ti ABS Cyclone Aqua, and the RTX 5060 AtomMan G1 Pro. In fairness, the AtomMan is a very compact build, so you would expect higher thermals.

Still, the point stands that this iBuyPower handles its heat in a particularly cool fashion. Unfortunately, my model’s motherboard doesn’t appear to have a VRM temp sensor, so I couldn’t grab those temperatures, but the CPU and SSD heats were very manageable in the creator suite.

For gaming, it’s much the same story, with the GPU only maxing out at 67 °C. This is particularly impressive because it averaged 65 °C. It’s a similar story with the CPU, with both average and max sitting in the 50s.

Aesthetics

The Scale B06 feels like an oddly large PC for what inside is a fairly compact build

The Scale B06 feels like an oddly large PC for what inside is a fairly compact build. You don’t have extra coolers hogging up space here, and the Asus RTX 5060 is a fairly small card, too. That means there is tons of empty space in the case. Its dimensions make it fairly similar to the Maingear MG-1 MK.II, but at least the Maingear with its overhead cooling and large RTX 5090 fits the space a bit better. Still, I suppose that means you can throw a few Hatsune Miku figures in the RDY Scale B06 and I’d be confident they won’t melt.

Other than the RGB fans and the iBuyPower logo slapped on the bottom of the front panel, the Scale B06 is fairly plain. It’s just a big black case with a clear side panel. Though the RGB in the fans do give it a bit of a gamer look. My model has pretty great wiring, all funnelling through the back of the rig tidily, so it’s super clean.

The first time I unboxed it, the Scale B06 was a bit of a task to get on the PC Gamer test bench table. It’s not only bulky, but quite heavy at 16 kg too. You are going to need quite a bit of space (and a few muscles) to fit it into your gaming den.

One thing that surprised me when taking the panels of this PC off is that they aren’t held in with screws. They are simply wedged into the side, but they require a bit of a yank to come out, which makes me feel comfortable that they won’t just pop off and spread broken tempered glass all over the floor when a breeze comes through the office.

Sound

As far as sound is concerned, the B06 offers a downright pleasant experience, only ever rising to a light hum at its most intensive. That translates to around 40 decibels, which is light enough that even a relatively quiet office will drown it out. In a totally silent environment, you will definitely hear the Scale B06, but you have to accept that with pretty much any bit of hardware, especially one with so many parts.

Even when I put my ear directly against the tempered glass while the rig was working its hardest, I could only make out a soft hum from the fans.

Software

My review rig showed up with a fresh Windows install, and the only other preinstalled software was Realtek audio drivers, Intel drivers, and the Nvidia app. iBuyPower doesn’t appear to load the Scale B06 with its own software, and that’s a boon given the size of modern PC games and the capacity left in the 1 TB drive that comes with it. It was easy to set up otherwise, and it took me mere minutes to get rid of Copilot and install Google Chrome.

Value

Though the iBuyPower RDY Scale B06 retails at $1,479, it is currently available for $1,379 (and it was $100 lower than that final week with a code). That places it a lot nearer to the rigs we are likely to see in our roundup of one of the best gaming PC offers each week. But even then, it’s outpaced by the iBuyPower Element SE, which is $80 much less and comes with a greater graphics card (RTX 5060 Ti) and a greater gaming CPU (AMD Ryzen 7 9700F).

Then, when you merely need an RTX 5060 rig, the ABS Cyclone Aqua gives that, plus 32 GB of DDR4 reminiscence (extra of it, however worse pace) and an Intel Core i5 14400F (one other 10-core chip however with much less cache) for $230 much less. There are some compromises with this ABS construct (as you’ll be making with just about any construct proper now), however its compromises are in good locations.

This is likely one of the hardest opinions I’ve ever written, as a result of the market is ever-changing (for the more severe)

As you may anticipate from iBuyEnergy, it has thrown a gaming keyboard and mouse into the field, and also you get a month of Xbox Game Pass with it too. I’d say the peripherals are decidedly meh, with the Chimera KM7 membrane keyboard feeling a bit too squishy and weak beneath the fingers, and the wired mouse being quite gradual. But for one thing free within the field, that is barely above what I used to be anticipating. And the keyboard even comes with a media dial, which is a slight plus. If I spent my complete funds on the PC, I’d be completely happy sufficient utilizing the mouse and keyboard till I received collectively the funds for one thing higher.

This is likely one of the hardest opinions I’ve ever written, as a result of the market is ever-changing (for the more severe), and this flux state means now we have to just accept much less for extra till at the least 2027, and certain longer.

So, to simplify issues, I assumed I’d ask myself, ‘Would you purchase this rig at this time when you completely needed to get one?’ and my reply could be ‘undoubtedly not for its full value’. However, I’ve seen this rig go as little as $1,280, and for that value, it does put up a combat among the many most funds rigs. In truth, it may even eke out the Element SE and its RTX 5060 Ti on the proper time.

The solely drawback is that iBuyEnergy solely appears to promote the RDY fashions by way of its personal web site, so you’ve got much less of an opportunity of choosing one up at an enormous low cost at Walmart or Best Buy. But giving extra choices for comparatively cheap costs is just a very good factor in my ebook, and if it provides a possible purchaser barely extra selection on the $1,000-$1,500 vary, it is a strong sufficient addition to the market. iBuyEnergy has made some first rate concessions for that value level; it is only a disgrace it has to do this within the first place