Best Pre-Built So Far: ABS Challenger ALI521 $1000 Gaming PC Review & Benchmarks

I bought a 1060 worst buy ever.
Then a 2080 super that was ok.
Now a 3080ti.
I'll upgrade to a 5080ti when it comes available.
Love those ti's

"Dude, you're gettin a Dell!"

THANKS STEVE

Back in the early days of the mechanical keyboard craze I had an ABS M1 keyboard. It was the loudest keyboard I think I've ever heard and I loved it.

When the logo plate on the front is mounted crooked, you know you're in trouble....

I'm disappointed the ABS computer didn't have a case made of 100% plastic.

I dont get how none of these seem to work when I can and have walked into best buy 3 times pay 900 dollars and have a fully functional gaming PC that can handle high graphics just fine..

Frametime needs to become the standard for video game analysis. It's far more telling than the FPS is.

Only order from Amazon. Forget other sellers...it seems they grab your cash and run. Even amazon kinda...sucks in that they hold your refund hostage for 30 days but they will at least refund you if you need to return or have any issues. They used to be much much better however i think too many scammy people have gamed system.

I got an ABS 5 years ago with a 2080 when it had just released, alongside an i7-8700K. The only issues it shares with this are the foam filtering up front and virtually identical Thermaltake CPU cooler I swapped out easily enough. It also came in a Fractal case and has been fantastic the entire time.

I dont understand Cyber Power. Decent hardware but a toaster oven. Why go scimpy on heat removal. The I-7's and gaming cards generate some serious heat. Doesnt build my confidence in this company. A great buy on the hardware side. Just rebuild the entire cooling system because they always ass that part on purpose.

Holy hell, connected cables, name brand GPU, two sticks of RAM in the correct slots, name brand motherboard properly assembled...

Are you sure you didn't have an intern build that for you?

ABS Challenger, Skytech Chronos, and Maingear are the only three that are acceptable which is a lot of praise, thank you.

The ABS logo on the grill is crooked, that's not a good start.

Your videos are for when I want a monotone, white noise to fall asleep too.. yawn

But I want something under 1k Or can't afford it...

The fact he's going into thermal paste patterns in a pre built shows how far we've come.

Surprised no mention of the crooked logo/badge on the front. Not sure if easily straightened or not but was annoying me the whole time watching this lol.

Better than dell and also wont lock up your brakes if you have to slam on it.

This video is a year old but thought it should be mentioned in case anyone is watching this to find out if ABS is a decent pre-built company - I picked up one of their Gladiator machines with a 3070 about a year and a half ago (was waaay cheaper than the price of a 30 series card on its own and I needed a full PC anyway) and while it has been more or less a great PC for the price - I only recently realized it had one of those Gigabyte P750GM PSUs. Ya know, one of the ones that blow up 50% of the time.

As far as I can tell this was after the whole controversy from Steve's video and the product page says nothing of the PSU that would be used. Luckily nothing happened with it, I only noticed when I was looking into changing out of the ugly Rosewill case (that's on me, should have checked) and I immediately went and got a proper PSU to replace it, but the point is if you're looking at them for a 30 series pre-built or have already bought one - check the power supply. Like check it TODAY. I'm almost certain that it was a case of "we can't sell these because of the controversy/bad reviews, let's have our in-house pre-built company dump them on people".

My house is over 100 years old, and the wiring is probably about 40 years old. I also live in an area that experiences multiple power outages due to bad weather every year. So while I use a good quality surge protector and try to be mindful about upcoming weather events, I was basically dancing with the devil about 3-5 times a year for two winters. Now I'm not saying ABS is necessarily a bad company, as the rest of the components (everything you can see through the glass panel anyway) have been quality name brands, but to pull this kind of crap is negligent at best and malicious at worst.

Newegg support definitely will not offer help without squeezing it out of them. They sold me a PC that they knew was out of stock, and trying to get them to send me another comparable PC for what I already paid (the most obvious fair solution) was like pulling teeth.

The lock picking lawyer of pre built PCs

Are you buying these systems from Newegg or the manufacturer? If from Newegg, then there's a reason they are junk. They are mostly sold by third party and constructed of the cheapest parts. EX: My buddy bought a Skytech rig from newegg and it was messed up royally. Sent it back for a refund, went directly to Skytech and bought the same machine with zero problems.

I built a much better one with my brother in law for about 800 with a 6650xt ryzen 5 5600g and 32gigs of ddr4 4000mhz ram, rm 750psu, and a 980 pro m.2 and a regular ssd

I have the perfect 1000 pre built for you. It’s an HP Envy from Costco for $999. The specs are as follows:
I7-12700, RTX 3060 Ti, 32 GB DDR4 3200, 512 GB NVMe M.2 SSD, 1TB SATA HDD.

On paper it looks like a pretty good PC, and considering current pricing I’d even call it a pretty great value for a pre built PC. I’m sure it’s loaded with proprietary shit, but 12700 and a RTX 3060ti w/ 512 gb m.2 SSD and 32 GB of DDR4... it seems like a great deal. I’d really love to see you do a tear down on it, I considered buying it myself just as a spare, I’m sure I could do some little upgrades like the cpu cooler and it would be a decent little machine. I’d love to hear what you think, cheers!

Have you reviewed a customized xoticpc ?

I bought ABS.. Bios had never been updated causing many issues. took me 2 or 3 days to figure out why everything was so clunky and slow and crashy. Also the Ram they put in and advertised at 3000mhz couldn't run at that speed. The board didn't support that speed. Its been a good computer once I worked out the bugs, But I bought a prebuild so I wouldn't have to work out bugs. Its all good now, but Don't expect a ready to go system out of the box from ABS. Also the power button has to be pressed 2 or 3 time to work from day 1.

what is the best prebuilt brand? i want to buy one gaming pc already with warranty

The best support is a chargeback with your bank :)

Why wasn't the ABS logo even...

Nzxt starter pro is probably the best bet at the time I'm writing this comment since I boughtr one I never had an issue and use a really good mother board and a psu that cann handle it all you can over clock too!

I have the X20 PC from Build Pro PC. It was only about $750 after shipping and it has a Ryzen 5 and a GTX 1650. For under $800 it is amazing.

Leave it to Gamers Nexus to find out the PS/2 port on a 1,000 dollar, modern gaming PC doesn't work and to make a point of it XD Not saying that's a negative thing, just thought it was funny.

Does anybody think this could run GTA V and stream at the same time?

I love that you call out all these garbage companies, keep up the good work

ABS Mage M Ryzen 5 3600 Radeon RX 5700 XT 16GB DDR4 3000MHz 512GB SSD Gaming Desktop PC...REVIEW THIS. someone will donate it too you i bet

That cooler isn’t an upgrade from the stock intel cooler and it’s even uglier. And costs more. K

I bought an ABS computer roughly 4 years ago, had a 1080 and a I7 8700 for like $1300.(I did price out the parts at the time and it was like a $50 difference) I did have to replace the regular HDD as it failed, but other than that it's been great. Running basic test show everything running well. After building my first two rigs this really boosted my confidence in pure build machines.

got a $600 version of this with a 1650 and 10th gen quad i3s a year and a half ago. It runs me really well but when I first opened it up it had that same problem of "one single 8gb stick of ram for ALL memory" so I fixed that and most recently swapped out the 1650 for a 3050. money's an issue so I can't consistently save funds for building my own- the upgradeability of this one is a pleasant surprise, you don't usually see manufacturers encouraging that sorta thing for prebuilts

Steve uses F**k so sparingly, that when he does it just feels so necessary and well placed. Dude is a master of his craft

I dont understand how you could sell something so complex, expensive and common and not have customer support

Is there anyway of getting this in the UK?

I love the honest review, thank you Steve 😁
Ive bought my first gaming pc 7 or 8 years ago from ABS/ Newegg have never dissapointed me, and fully gave me exactly everything i needed with no Issues hardware/software. 2022 I've leaned on ABS again on the ABS Gladiator with my newest prebuilt, since I've been unable to buy parts for build because of the shortage and busy schedule. So far so good again, ABS support and contact info was also clearly a 100% respectful and also quick to respond and actually Cared for my satisfaction and notified me if anything needed as well. But Thanks Steve and ABS/Newegg.

SOme feedback on ABS customer service.

I purchased an open box ABS Legends pc earlier this year. The system was advertised with a 2 terabyte SSD, It only came with a 1 Terabyte SSD. It took me 2 weeks of calling and leaving messages with their customer service... well leaving messages when I could that is. Sometimes their voice mailbox was full and I couldn't leave any message and other times the automated system just hung up on me.
Eventually I did get a hold of someone from customer service who told me to take photos of the barcode stickers on the back of the machine as well as a screenshot of the hard drive diagnostics and email them to her. I was instructed to attention it to her specifically in the Subject line of the email because emails just essentially go into a communal inbox.
I did all of those things and never heard a word back from anyone. It's been over 4 months now. It was a toss up between a skytech pre built and this. I can't help but think I made the wrong choice.

Anwars is a corps boi :) gig them?

My ABS came came broken...sent it back...came back broken....time to build my own PC just like in my 20s again LOL.

I’m so glad that a year later, $1000 can get you a prebuilt with a better gpu than a 1660 super

Steve: "This is the best pre-built computer I've seen."
Also Steve: "Unfortunately, that's the only good thing I can say about it."

I know this video has been posted a while ago, but I just watched it and let me just say : "Steve, you're comments are hilarious". I really enjoyed this video ! :)