iBuypower Revolt 3 review

The iBuypower Revolt 3 ($3,199 as reviewed) seems tailor-made for LAN parties and college dorms. The eye-catching Revolt 3 case from iBuypower sister company Hyte is a tall, trim tower with a built-in handle, and now the company is offering prebuilt gaming PCs which pack it with plenty of gaming muscle.

Our iBuypower Revolt 3 review unit shows off what this trashcan-sized gaming PC can do with top-tier components from AMD and Nvidia, as it competed favorably in our gaming tests with a compact gaming rig that costs twice as much.

The unique case design brings with it some unique issues that you should know before buying, but if you like the look of it the iBuypower Revolt 3 is one of the best gaming PCs you can buy — especially if you plan to be lugging it back and forth between home, school, the office, and wherever else you need the power of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

Price and availability

• Custom iBuypower PC in Revolt 3 ITX case (also sold separately)
• Expect to pay between $2-$5k for prebuilt ($3,199 as reviewed)

You can buy a variety of prebuilt gaming PCs from iBuypower and third-party retailers like Newegg, 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 components the company has in stock.

Our review unit retails for $3,199, and packs an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, 16GB of DDR-3200 RAM and a 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Western Digital SSD inside a tall, trim Revolt 3 mini-ITX case with a 240mm liquid cooler.

Design 

• Revolt 3 case is compact, understated and easy to carry
• Built-in handle and headphone rests are a nice touch

The Revolt 3 case our review unit showed up in is a mini-ITX case from iBuypower sister brand Hyte that you can buy separately for $129 (via Hyte’s website), and it has a real love-it-or-hate-it design. Personally I think I love it, but you should get a sense of how you’ll feel about its compact design before you buy.

The Revolt 3 measures roughly 16.1 x 9.9 x 7 inches and looks a bit like a bigger Xbox Series X (11.8 x 5.9 x 5.9 inches) with glowing innards. However, unlike the Series X the Revolt 3 is available in either black or white, and it’s pretty easy to move around thanks to the pop-out aluminum handle built into the top of the case. A pair of aluminum pegs embedded on the top edge of either side can also be popped out to hold headphones, or whatever else you care to hang off them.

The Revolt 3’s rectangular steel sides sport a pattern of square cutouts overlaid with mesh, enhancing airflow and allowing the RGB LEDs inside the case to shine out from behind a cage of metal. Each side of the case can be popped on or off without tools once you get the hang of the mechanism, making it pretty easy to get inside the case when necessary. It’s tight in there, however, so don’t expect to have an easy time upgrading or swapping out components.

Along the bottom front lip of the case you’ll find the power button flanked by a port array that includes both USB-A and USB-C ports as well as a headphone jack. You’ll find the rest of the ports on the bottom of the Revolt 3, which is elevated off the floor by its four sides. This creates a little cavern underneath the PC accessed by a cutout at the bottom of the rear panel, with the idea being that you run your cables in through this hole in the back and plug them into the bottom of the PC.

Ports and upgradability

• Ports on the bottom are hard to reach, but help create streamlined look
• Upgrades will be tricky due to compact case 

Once you lift up the Revolt 3, you’ll see a useful array of ports nestled into the base of the PC. I like to call this the port cave, and if you switch inputs often you’ll quickly get used to routing cables through the rear cutout and up into the ceiling of said cave, where the ports are arrayed.

The ASRock B550 motherboard in our review unit sports four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, three jacks for HD audio (line in, front speaker, and mic) and two antenna ports. There’s also one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, but on our review unit this is routed via cable to the USB-C port on the front of the case, which is kind of a pain since it limits you to just the USB-C port on the front unless you’re willing to get inside the case and reroute some cables.

Read More: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ibuypower-revolt-3-review