iBuyPower Y40 Pro Review: Style first

iBuyPower casts a wide net with its desktop lineup, aiming to please everyone from frugal shoppers to hardcore enthusiasts. And while it often delivers, the Y40 Pro, reviewed here ($1,899.99 as tested, on sale for $2,099.99), raises a few eyebrows. Its aquarium-like glass shell and RGB-lit interior certainly make a statement, and the performance appears promising at first glance. But the focus on aesthetics brings compromises that may lead you to look elsewhere.

Design of the iBuyPower Y40 Pro

As the Y40 Pro’s name suggests, the system is built in Hyte’s Y40 chassis, a more compact, pared-down sibling to the Hyte Y60 found in the iBuyPower Y60 Pro. (Hyte is owned by iBuyPower.) Aesthetics take center stage here. The borderless glass panels on the front and sides evoke a fishtank-like display, offering an unobstructed view of the internals. Its dimensions of 18.58 x 17.28 x 9.44 inches (HDW) are standard mid-tower fare.

The tower is equipped with five 120 mm RGB fans: two side intakes, one rear exhaust, and two mounted on its own 240 mm liquid CPU cooler. RGB lighting extends to the cooler’s waterblock and the system’s RAM, creating a cohesive glow throughout the build.

To manage the lighting, I had to manually install MSI Center. Identifying which fans were mapped to which headers eluded me, but the “Select All” function allowed me to apply settings across all zones simultaneously. That’s slightly disappointing – being able to control individual zones would have allowed more personalization. The RGB DIMMs, however, can be independently controlled.

The case itself is sturdy, with generous use of rolled steel. Side panels are secured with metal ball pins that release with a firm pull, a simple and effective solution. That said, a few design choices feel counterintuitive. The right side panel’s dust filter is molded in, making it non-removable – cleaning it requires removing the entire door. The two bottom filters slide out in opposite directions, meaning you’ll likely need to shift the entire tower if it’s placed near a wall. There’s also a dust filter on the top panel, despite it serving as an exhaust rather than an intake.

The Y40 Pro’s fan noise proved distracting. Even at idle, the fans remain consistently audible, often rising above ambient household sounds. Thermal management appears poorly tuned, with fan curves reacting aggressively to brief CPU activity spikes. During gaming sessions, noise levels increased noticeably, prompting me to switch to closed-back headphones just to catch subtler in-game sounds. While advanced users can tweak the fan curves in the motherboard BIOS or using an app, this desktop should have come better-tuned out of the box.

iBuyPower Y40 Pro Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the iBuyPower Y40 Pro

The Y40 Pro delivers standard connectivity for a mid-tier gaming desktop – nothing unexpected, but nothing lacking either. Up front, you’ll find a 3.5 mm audio jack, two USB Type-A ports, and a USB Type-C port, with the power button centered between the group.

The MSI PRO B650BC motherboard backplane features seven USB-A ports (three rated at 10 Gbps, four at 5 Gbps), a 20 Gbps USB-C port, and six 3.5 mm audio jacks. HDMI and DisplayPort outputs are available if the CPU includes integrated graphics, as our Ryzen 9 7900X test unit does. That said, monitors should be connected to the GPU’s outputs: the RTX 5070 Ti provides one HDMI and three DisplayPort connectors.

For networking, the system includes a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port and a RealTek RZ616 wireless card supporting Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Note that the external antennas shown in the photos must be attached for reliable wireless performance.

This case’s priority on form over function limits expansion. The vertically mounted GPU obstructs the motherboard’s PCIe slots, ruling out the installation of any additional full-height cards. It’s just something to be aware of when you buy this desktop – most users are not installing additional PCIe cards. That said, you can install a half-height card in either of the remaining slots, one x1 and one x16.

Storage options are surprisingly limited for a case of this size. Aside from the two M.2 slots on the motherboard, the only additional drive support is behind the motherboard, where there’s room for either two 2.5-inch drives or a single 3.5-inch drive. Meanwhile, memory expansion is more forgiving – our test unit has two of the four UDIMM slots open, and the board supports 192GB of RAM.