The biggest hurdle to this machine is the horrible cooling, which the reviewer pointed out. BUT the reviewer made some assumptions that that aren't completely accurate.
In order to install an aftermarket cooling solution, you will need to remove the motherboard. This part he was correct about.
However, once you have the board out, you will be greatly disapointed to find out that the backplate dell installed for the suboptimal heatsink, is not actually a backplate at all, it is a pseudo backplate / riser system, machined into the case!!
That's right folks! And because of this, any cooling solution that requires a backplate, is out of the question!
So low profile solutions like the Gemini are a no go. In fact, because of the machined in backplate / risers, you are forced to use a cooler which screws / mounts from the top, like a 212 EVO, but you guessed it, the case isn't big enough.
Factor in the weird shape of the motherboard and the possibility of dropping this board into another case is also not likely.
So you end up being stuck with a suboptimal PC with a super hot chip, that you can't do anything about, other than put the chip into a new board, new case AND them fix the cooling.
The i9 9700 will easily hit 80c in this setup playing League of Legends and if you try to render a video to out on YouTube, it will thermal throttle at 100c for sure.
We had one and it did.
Tom's Hardware use to be my trusted source for PC information but I have to wonder who let this review through.
Save your money and buy something else. This thing is a nightmare.
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