Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Razer Edition Review

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By Derek Forrest
published

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Price Analysis & Conclusion

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Razer Edition appears to give gamers everything they could want in a powerful PC with an attractive and stylish chassis (adorned with RGB LED lighting), Razer-branded RGB peripherals, and the ability to overclock the powerful Core i7 CPU with the push of one button. However, our testing revealed a mixed bag of performance, with all signs pointing to a CPU and GPU that don’t have the proper power delivery to maintain their respective boosted frequencies, resulting in sub-par performance against even our stock-clocked Z170 reference rig in many of the gaming benchmarks.

The cause of this appears to be a combination of Lenovo’s Nerve Center overclocking software overhead (which consumed up to 5% of the CPU’s resources, even at idle) and the platform’s power phase design (CPU and GPU clock rates weren’t consistent). The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Razer Edition had occasional moments in the sun (see the Rise of the Tomb Raider and storage test results) where it seemed to be performing as intended, but its inconsistency left us disappointed.

The single 16GB module of DDR4-2133 memory has a lower peak memory bandwidth than a dual-channel kit, and we saw lower performance in memory-intensive workloads because of it. However, the 256GB Samsung PM951 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD actually performs above par for the device’s specifications, with impressive sequential read and 4K random read and write IOPs performance.

At its original price of $2,500, the Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Razer Edition wouldn’t even be a consideration for most enthusiasts, but at a reduced cost of $1,700, it wouldn’t be the worst starting point for those looking for a powerful and flashy gaming PC with Razer-branded peripherals included. The only downside is that we had to wait until Skylake processors were being cleared out for it to reach that price.


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Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Quaddro
    $1700 and bronze power supply..?
    Dude..

    But through the psu case, it's seems delta..
    Reply
  • doomtomb
    Let me get this straight. Gaming... Prebuilt... Desktop... GeForce GTX... Razer...
    2017: spinning hard drives. optical disk drives.
    Do we get why this is a mega fail??
    Reply
  • jkhoward
    6th gen? Wtf were they thinking?
    Reply
  • kewlguy239
    20030424 said:
    6th gen? Wtf were they thinking?

    This product has been out for a little while. We gave it a look because it's still available, the pricing dropped, and we had it in our lab for a bit. I recently disclosed the reason for these late Skylake system entries (I was traveling, other projects were assigned that took priority) in the comment thread of our Gigabyte Gaming GT review, but the Lenovo Y900RE is still a relevant purchasing option for regular consumers looking for a flashy gaming PC with a popular brand's peripherals included. We all know that Skylake CPUs and Kaby Lake CPUs are neck and neck with bottom-line performance, so why wouldn't a price-conscious consumer consider this with its reduced cost?

    Don't worry though, we have Kaby Lake reviews coming in hot!
    Reply
  • jchelios
    I get $1,557 for all of this (at current prices), including the operating system, keyboard, and mouse, as well as a (very nice) Fractal Design Define R5 case. Are you sure you didn't mean to put "Price" in the "Cons" category?

    https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GVDs3F
    Reply
  • The original Derfman
    It is now $1599.00 on Lenovo. Bonus.
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    Motherboard
    Custom Lenovo Z170 Chipset

    Memory
    16GB (1x16GB) DDR4-2133

    Power Supply
    650W 80 Plus Bronze Certified

    ^All custom/generic/unbranded. That would be a big concern for me. Also, that 16GB single stick of memory would be useless to pair up against another 16GB and need to be sold off (and good luck with that). And what's up with not at least having dual channel 2x8GB sticks? Senseless.
    Reply
  • ddferrari
    20030854 said:
    I get $1,557 for all of this (at current prices), including the operating system, keyboard, and mouse, as well as a (very nice) Fractal Design Define R5 case. Are you sure you didn't mean to put "Price" in the "Cons" category?

    https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GVDs3F
    Does your pcpartpicker system come fully built and ready to plug in?

    Yeah... apple and oranges.
    Reply
  • jchelios
    20039825 said:
    Does your pcpartpicker total include the labor cost to build it- or did you forget that small detail?Does your pcpartpicker system come fully built and ready to plug in?

    Yeah... apple and oranges.
    You're looking at it bass-acwards: If someone cares enough about PC gaming to build a $1500 computer, they're gonna wanna build it themselves. Therefore the value of the labor factor of production during the assembly stage is negative — you'd have to pay them in the form of a discount to accept that particular annoyance.
    Reply
  • daddywalter
    I like to build my own computers -- but I'm not a gamer, just someone who appreciates having the power to get work done quickly. Skylake may be long in the tooth, but it's still very viable for those who don't need the absolute latest-and-greatest/

    If you look at this machine as a high-end business computer, it makes a lot of sense. It could be a fine workstation (and the starting point for a much better system) for a professional photographer, a Youtuber, video editor, etc. It would also be great for CPAs, bookkeepers and others who just need to crunch numbers. Such users generally value their time too highly to build their own business computers, so at the current price it would be a bargain for them. As a bonus, after work it can entertain as a "good enough" game computer.
    Reply