Lenovo has not traditionally been a PC manufacturer associated with gaming. When you think gaming, your thoughts stray to Razer, to Asus’ ROG line, to MSI, and even to home-grown brand Aftershock. Well, Lenovo wants you to think again. Presenting their attempt to snatch the performance king throne is the Y900, from Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Y series gaming desktops.
While it is outfitted differently in some regions, in Singapore it comes with Intel’s most powerful quad-core CPU, the i7-6700k, which has an unlocked multiplier for overclocking, and a reference Nvidia GTX 970 (reference, meaning without any OEM improvements such as improved cooling or higher clock speed).
The other key parts are a 120 GB Samsung SSD, with a 2 TB, 7200 RPM Seagate HDD, a nondescript Z170 motherboard, 16 GB of SK Hynix memory (RAM), and a 610W AcBel PSU.
Also provided with the package is a laser gaming mouse, and a Kailh Linear Red switch mechanical keyboard. The price, though? A whopping S$2699. Immediately this highlights the largest issue with pre-builts — a terribly overpriced package for its parts. Let’s have a look at how much we can assemble an equivalent system for from PC Themes. I have left the OS out of the list, as it can be purchased for as little as S$35 on Qoo10, or US$30 on Reddit’s /r/microsoftsoftwareswap.
PCPartPicker part list
Type
Item
Price (S$)
CPU
Intel Core i7-6700k
$542.00
Motherboard
ASRock Z170 Pro4
$212.00
Video Card
Asus GTX970 Turbo (4GB GDDR5)
$519.00
Wireless Adapter
Asus PCE-AC56 Wireless-1300
$99.00
PSU
Seasonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze
$105.00
SSD
Samsung 850 EVO 120GB SSD
$99.00
HDD
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM 3.5″
$109.00
Memory
G.Skill 16GB (4GB x 4) DDR4 2400MHz CL15
$120.00
CPU Cooler
CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 EVO
$45.00
Case
Corsair Carbide 300R
$119.00
Mouse
Logitech G402
$75.00
Keyboard
Tesoro Excalibur (Kailh Linear Red)
$129.00
TOTAL
$2173.00
In total, it costs approximately S$2200 for a self-built PC with specifications as good, if not better than, those offered by the S$2700 Y900. This S$2200 price also excludes the hefty 5 to 10% discounts local PC component stores also provide for purchasing all the components at one location — that brings the price down to S$2000.
With the self-built PC, you also get the freedom of individual part warranties that last for 3, 5, or even unlimited years. You also get the ease of upgrading parts as you see fit, with your older parts commanding a higher resale value.
Considering the ease with which you can assemble your own PC, and the nearly S$700 gulf in cost and actual value, the Y900 is not really a good deal. For the extra cost I could easily add another GTX 970 and run the cards in 2-way SLI for increased performance.
That being said, however, the PC itself is actually fantastic. It can handle pretty much every game at 1080p, and its ability to overclock will ensure a long life of high-settings gaming. So, let’s begin the review, shall we?
The case the Y900 uses is a fairly large mid-tower ATX case, though it is smaller than behemoths such as the Fractal Design Define R5. The design is something that will appeal to almost every gamer, though you may find yourself wanting for something more minimalist like the NZXT H440.
Its carbon-fibre like finishing gave me vibes of the Lamborghini Reventon, except with blood red LEDs. The red glow is provided from the rear case fan, the “Y” on the front and top panels of the tower as well as the two smaller panels on the front. While Lenovo claims that the LEDs are controllable via a program, that program never worked. It constantly gave a “Failed to get parameters” error, preventing me from switching the LEDs off, and there was nowhere on Lenovo’s support website to get a working version of the program.
It has angular lines that draw your eye, and vents that would honestly look right at home on a supercar. As is expected with a case of such size, together with components, it tips the scales at approximately 15 kg. Much of that heft is owed to its steel construction, although there are plastic panels on the case.
All components inside are blacked out to give it a uniform “cool factor”, except for the glowing “GeForce GTX” logo on the 970. There is also a side-window included, with a honeycomb pattern that I personally felt was rather unnecessary.
Thankfully, unlike many OEMs, Lenovo encourages you to upgrade the internals and provides you with a tool-free access to the inside of the case. Just flick a switch and press a panel, and you’re golden. The panel comes up and away, rather than sliding to the side, which makes it easier to work with in smaller spaces.
Inside you get a rather well managed bunch of cables. There is approximately 34L of working space with all components removed, so you can be assured that any upgraded parts will fit in there, even those like the GTX 1080.
Disappointingly, you only get three drive cages, two of which are already occupied by the 120GB SSD, and 2TB HDD. This does limit your options somewhat, especially if you were looking forward to running RAID arrays.
What was nice to see was the GPU getting its own extender bracket to prevent it from sliding around in shipping, and to also reduce “GPU sag” — the phenomenon where the connectors on your motherboard or GPU become bent after long periods of your GPU feeling gravity’s pull.
So, what components exactly does it feature? Let’s find out.
An Intel CPU that has a k appended to the end of its model number is one that has an unlocked multiplier. This means that you can overclock the CPU up to its point of minimum stability. However it was with much surprise I discovered that the Y900’s BIOS does not allow overclocking — you can only overclock the i7-6700k using the “OneKey Overclock” software included, and that too only to a fixed clock speed of 4.5 GHz with no other speeds available for selection in between.
Furthermore, while the motherboard is a Z170 model, its manufacturer is something that is a mystery. There is no discernible logo on the motherboard, and neither Piriform’s Speccy nor CPU-Z could shed light on this matter. It features 4 RAM slots, two which were occupied by DDR4 8 GB sticks in our variant. It also has four PCI Express x1 slots, with one used by the 970, and another blocked by its size.
At the rear, you get two USB 2.0 ports towards the top, adjacent to a PS/2 port as well if you feel like getting an IBM Model M. There are also four USB 3.0 ports below, albeit coloured red instead of the standard blue. The motherboard’s own HDMI, VGA and DVI-D ports have rubber stoppers over them to force you to use the 970’s ports instead, but if you want to bypass the 970 for troubleshooting purposes, you can remove them.
At the front you get four more USB 3.0 ports, a 7-in-1 card reader, and split headphone and mic jacks. The power button is located at the top of the case, and glows white instead of the expected red. Also included is a Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4 wireless adapter capable of 1Gbps broadband, but it had an annoying issue where it would randomly drop connection in the middle of usage, requiring you to run Windows troubleshooting to fix it. This problems seems to be symptomatic of Lenovo products, as it occurs regularly on my Ideapad Z400 laptop as well.
While we did want to test the performance of the Y900 with my own 970 added in SLI, the AcBel 610W PSU, albeit 80+ Bronze rated, gave us pause as the extra load could well cause permanent damage to the system.
In terms of the software, though, there was the typical bloatware that comes with a pre-built system. If you’re lazy, you could simply wipe the system by installing a fresh Windows 10 ISO burnt onto a disc or USB stick. McAfee Antivirus was the first to go, as were assorted, non-essential Lenovo, Microsoft, and Intel applications. Thankfully there was no sign of Superfish, and even if the other programs were bloatware, they weren’t excessive in number or size.
The keyboard included with the Y900 is a Lenovo branded one as well. It features the stylised Y on top at the centre, and has red backlit LEDs.
The switches are manufactured by Kailh, and are the Linear Red variant. While some knock on these for simply being “Cherry MX knockoffs”, we could not find any obvious differences between equivalent models. Typing on them is extremely easy, and is an absolute joy. Often I found myself just pressing the keys to hear them clack and feel the key-press. However, longevity is something we are obviously unable to comment on, having only had the Y900 for three weeks.
The keys all have a matte finish, except for the space bar which features a textured finish identical to the one found on the palmrest. Also included with the keyboard are six programmable macro keys on the left, which if left unprogrammed type out the corresponding numbers from 1 to 5 (G6 does not do anything). On the top you get three more macro keys, as well as buttons to control the backlighting separately for the WASD and arrow keys versus the rest of the keys.
Also on top is a button to disable the Start keys on the bottom of the keyboard when gaming, which is a feature hugely important. The actuation force required for the keys is just 50g, which makes it very easy to accidentally press random keys. To the right of these keys are the media control keys (stop, forward, backward, play/pause) as well as volume control keys (mute, volume up and down).
On the right-hand side of the keyboard you also get three immensely useful ports. One is a USB 2.0 port to connect your mouse to, allowing you to free up a port on the tower and reduce cable mess. You also get separate headphone and mic jacks, though included with the keyboard is a adapter that combines both into one.
Talking of the mouse, you get the Lenovo Y Gaming Precision Mouse together with the Y900. It allows for quick changes to the mouse sensitivity with 4 levels of sensitivity and even allows one to change the weight of the mouse with weight adjustments.
Other than the normal standard mouse buttons, it has 4 other buttons, 2 of which I found easily programmable and recognised in most games, greatly enhancing gameplay as some shortcuts become more accessible.
Now we come to the meat of the review — benchmark performances, starting with the synthetic benchmarks. Gaming benchmarks are available on the next page.
First, however, a quick word about the competitor specifications. The Predator G6 is a tower with the i7-6700k and a GTX 980, a more powerful card than the GTX 970. The IdeaCentre Y700 is a less powerful PC, with the i5-6400 and GTX 960 instead. Finally, the Envy Phoenix 860ST has the i7-6700k also found in the G6 and Y900, but also the more powerful GTX 980 Ti.
PCMark 8
First up we have PCMark 8, from the benchmark gurus Futuremark. This is a comprehensive testing suite that has several presets to simulate different real-world scenarios. We’re using the Work preset to see how well the Y900 does with word processing, web browsing, and video conferencing. The test generates a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
Here, the Y900 is the leader amongst its competitors, beating the Y700 and Phoenix easily, and edging out the G6.
Cinebench R15
Next up we have the Cinebench R15 test from Maxon, which tests the rendering capability of the PC, stress-testing the CPU by using all available processor cores and threads. Again, higher is better.
As was with PCMark, the Y900 aces this benchmark as well, finishing top of the pack. In close proximity were the G6 and Phoenix which had the same processors, but fell slightly behind. The weaker i5-6400 in the Y700 was no match for the other three PCs.
Handbrake 0.9.9
Next we have Handbrake 0.9.9, where we test the re-encoding capabilities of the PC. Highly CPU dependent, it involves noting the amount of time taken to convert a full HD video (in this case the short film, The Present) to the iPhone preset.
As has been the story until now, the Y900 is again the best performing PC, finishing a good 10 seconds ahead of the nearest competitor, the Phoenix.
3DMark 11
However, the tests until now have not really stressed the GPU, and that’s what we’re going to do now with the last three synthetic benchmarks. First up is 3DMark 11, from the same people who created PCMark. The Firestrike Extreme test is extremely demanding on the graphics card, and the results were predictable.
The results reflect the power of each graphics card present in the PCs, with the 980 Ti scoring the highest, followed by the 980, 970, and finally the 960. All in all, the Y900’s showing is as expected.
Heaven 4.0
Following that, we come to the similar demanding Heaven 4.0 benchmark, which is a DX11 gaming simulation from Unigine. The systems were tested at the Ultra quality setting, with all settings maxed out, and resolution forced to 1920 x 1080.
In the airborne steampunk village that evokes comparisons with Bioshock Infinite, the results were identical to the ones with 3DMark 11. The GTX 970 in the Y900 finished third, struggling to keep its average frame-rate at or above 60 FPS, with the 980 and 980 Ti facing no such issue.
Valley 1.0
Following that, we tested the Valley 1.0 benchmark, also from Unigine. Similar to Heaven 4.0, this depicts a stormy valley instead, full of lush greenery.
Here the Y900 does 1 FPS better, but its competitors see larger increases in performance, though the story does not change.
To conclude the synthetic benchmarks, it is clear that out of its competitors, the Y900 has superb non-graphical performance, but falls into the expected hierarchy when the GPU performance is called into question. Now though, let’s see how it benchmarks in the most popular and demanding games on the market currently.
Methodology
Before we begin, let’s explain our testing methodology. For high-end systems such as the Y900, we run each game at the following settings (or equivalent):
1080p resolution
All graphical and physics options set to Ultra (or equivalent)
AA set to the maximum available setting — this is a major frame-rate killer
V-Sync off
Ready to check out the benchmarks?
Battlefield 4
First up, we’ve got DICE’s popular shooter, Battlefield 4. Currently the second-newest game in the series, it runs on the gorgeous Frostbite 3 engine. It was no issue for the Y900, however, easily managing an average of 84.5 FPS.
Bioshock Infinite
A visually beautiful game, set in an airborne atmosphere, Bioshock Infinite is a game that hardly gives systems like the Y900 pause. It managed to hit a superb 108 FPS with all settings turned up — if you’ve got a 120Hz monitor, this can truly feel amazing with some settings turned down to get a consistent 120 FPS.
Crysis Warhead
An improvement to the original Crysis which brought systems to their knees long after it launched, Warhead runs on the better looking and better optimised CryEngine 2. For the Y900, though, it can maintain a solid 12.5 FPS above 60, with its 72.5 FPS average.
Crysis 3
Crysis 3, though released in 2013, still brings modern systems to their knees begging for mercy. Running on CryEngine 3, its performance demands come not from poor optimisation, but its superb graphics. Here, the Y900 is tested under rainy and dry conditions. When the sun is shining, the Y900 gets an average of 47 FPS with everything dialed up to 11, but in rainy conditions it drops to 35 FPS. That is to be expected, as this is just a GTX 970 after all.
Forza Motorsport 6: Apex (Beta)
Released just earlier this month, the Beta of Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is almost a direct port of the Xbox One title, but with less cars and tracks. It runs and looks beautiful. The Y900 didn’t have to break a sweat where in rain or shine.
Metro: Last Light Redux
In the stunning and demanding Metro: Last Light Redux, the Y900 performs the worst. It struggles to even putter along at 30 FPS, much less 60 FPS, at full settings. You’ll have to switch AA off completely to see an average of more than 60 FPS.
Project CARS
Project CARS, from Slightly Mad Studios, however is not as forgiving as Forza 6: Apex. In the dry it gives merely 42 FPS with everything turned up, but in the rain it begins to crawl nearly as badly as Metro: Last Light Redux at 26 FPS.
Thief
Thief is a title where the Y900 performs excellently again, although there were situations with the minimum FPS dipping to below 30. Thief isn’t the most demanding title, but it can tax systems at some points.
Total War: Rome II
Total War: Rome II at maximum settings is juuuust at the upper limits of what the Y900 can do, averaging 57 FPS in this title. There are times when it rises to 73, but it can also dip to 25 FPS.
So, that’s the gaming benchmarks done. The Y900, with its GTX 970, is pretty well placed. Even though some graphs show it struggling for frames, it is to be noted that the games were benchmarked with all settings turned up to the maximum, so tweaking the settings here and there should allow you a comfortable 60 FPS on average.
In conclusion, the Y900 is a pretty powerful PC. In most games it can hit over 60 FPS with ease, which indicates good long-term longevity — it will be at least a couple of years before you’ll have to start downgrading visuals to the point where you notice a significant difference.
It has a beefy CPU with overclocking capability up to 4.5 GHz, and a GTX 970 that, although will soon be superseded by the GTX 1070, still packs a mighty punch. The tower looks fantastic, supports upgrading of components, has great functionality with the ports on offer, and has top-notch peripherals. Power and features are not the areas where the Y900 is lacking in.
What Lenovo has done with the pricing of the Y900, though, is frankly unforgivable even if it is the norm for pre-built PCs such as this one. They have a minimum $500 overhead on the components, and offer just a paltry 1 year warranty.
In comparison, a custom built PC will have individual components with far longer warranty periods — the RAM has a lifetime warranty, 2 years for the HDD, 3 years for the SSD, and so on. This custom PC will also cost $2200 or less, even factoring in peripherals such as the mouse and keyboard, as well as the OS.
Also rankling was the fact that BIOS overclocking is not possible with the Y900, despite it having an unlocked i7-6700k, and a Z170 motherboard. The only way to do so is via the included OneKey Overclock software, which limits the clock to 4.5 GHz. Even though it does not over-volt the CPU like many other software-based overclocks, it is my opinion that the user should have free reign over his or her actions.
To conclude, the Y900, while powerful, is a far cry from ‘value for money’. There is practically zero benefit to not building the PC yourself — yes, troubleshooting might be a tad easier, but you pay through your nose and get far shorter warranty periods.
This PC is the prime example used in frivolous arguments that claim “PC gaming is too expensive” and I am pretty frustrated at Lenovo for continuing to perpetuate this myth. To make this PC worth its sticker price, I would expect two GTX 970s in 2-way SLI. However, that is not the case, and I’ll be sticking to my own i5-6600k overclocked to 4.4 GHz and non-reference GTX 970. Will you?
Specifications
Type
Item
CPU
Intel Core i7-6700k
Motherboard
Lenovo-branded Z170, full ATX
Video Card
Nvidia GTX970 (4GB GDDR5)
Wireless Adapter
Qualcomm Atheros 1 Gbps Wireless
PSU
AcBel 610W 80+ Bronze
SSD
Samsung 120GB SSD (custom made for Lenovo)
HDD
Seagate 2TB 7200RPM 3.5″ (custom made for Lenovo)
Memory
SK Hynix 16GB (8GB x 2) DDR4 2166MHz CL15
CPU Cooler
Yes, unknown brand
Case
Lenovo custom-made mid-tower
Mouse
Lenovo Y Gaming Precision Mouse
Keyboard
Lenovo Y Gaming Mechanical Keyboard (Kailh Linear Red)
PRICE (S$)
$2699.00